Esoteric London

Laburnum Street, London, E2. Photo © Roger Dean 2012

Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and its Places, Volume III – Edward Walford, 1878:

In 1701 there appeared at a place of entertainment in Islington, called “Miles’s Music House,” afterwards known as “Sadler’s Wells Theatre,” “a strange sort of monster that does everything like a monkey, mimics man like a jackanapes, but is not a jackanapes; jumps upon tables and into windows on all fours like a cat, but is not a cat; does all things like a beast, but is not a beast; does nothing like a man, but is a man!