At Martinmas, was feasting and conviviality; and then was laid in salt fish, and other salted provisions for the winter. On new year's day, inferiors presented little gifts of remembrance to their patrons; this was continued from the lowest subordinate of society up to the king. An Earl's purse, was of the value of twenty pounds, this was in money; but it also often contained some fresh imported jewel, especially if any part of the Earl's family had travelled, or held a situation in some foreign possession. WAKES. The origin of village wakes was a festival on the dedication, or finish, of the churches, and was originally a religious festival, of course, soon crept in festivity; but as long as it was observed with sobriety and decorum, no harm would arise. When the various schisms of religion came in, order and decorum would no longer be observed. The whole parish would not assemble in the morning at the church, and hear a sermon, advising them, and preparing the mind to properly observe the day. Therefore, they soon became "exclusively convivial and sinful." FAIRS. The fairs have various origins, almost as various as they are in number. They were, for the most part, places and times of extensive purchases, some lasting many days; and people going on business to them, from fifty to one hundred miles.* From about the middle of the seventeenth century, when several cities and incorporated towns had been gradually losing their exclusive privileges; the number of persons living by trade and industry had greatly increased; during this period, complaints were made of petty shopkeepers living in country villages, one writer states, "that in every country village where is, it may be, not ten houses, there is a shopkeeper, and one that never served an apprenticeship to a shopkeeping trade whatsoever," they are described as "not dealers in pins only, but as carrying on a good trade ;" this could not have been the case, if the people had not been well of. The fairs, therefore, began to be less mercantile, there being a supply of these articles nearer each person's home. Bartholomew fair, which it may be proper to inform the reader, is annually held on that saints day, in the very heart of "that monstrous wen," the city of London, had its origin in the leign of Edward I., and was allowed, by the charter, to be held In the old monastic times, the monks of Maxtoke, in Warwickshire, attended Sturbitch fair, near Cambridge, to lay in their yearly necessaries, although an hundred miles distance. for three days only: but when the allotted time expired, the multitude did not disperse, until hunger or satiety sent them back to their occupations. At last, the popular appetite for the amusements of this carnival, had become so rampant, that, in the reign of Queen Anne, a plan was set on foot, to extend the period to fourteen days; this project very much alarmed the sober part of society, so that whole tempests of projects and petitions were discharged against the proposition.* All was then a preparation for merriment, uproar, and license, and every parish in the metropolis discharged its population into Smithfield, as into a vast reservoir. Thither went the man of ton from the west-end, hoping to exchange his more fashionable, but not much better, diversion, for some vulgar intrigue; thither went the anxious citizen, and his more anxious dame, and his half delighted, half terrified stripplings, to drown the cares of a whole year, amid the uproar and confusion of a day on one side was seen the sleek country grazier, or blue aproned butcher, elbowing their way through the crowd, to settle a bargain in hay, sheep, or bullocks; and on the other, the ambulatory vintner, with his wheelbarrow of geneva. Here too came the thimble rigger with his table, and the bearward with his monkey and dancing bear; the robber, the thief, the bully, and the pickpocket; in the "sure and certain hope, that were so much business, and so much folly were mingled together, they would reap a plentiful harvest. Everything that would allure the fancy, or the palate, might be purchased for a trivial sum, amid avenues of show booths, and lanes of stalls; while the roaring of rival showmen, the braying of trumpets, the rattling of drums, the hammering of gongs and cymbals, was enough to make every brain reel, that was not well fortified by nature against such numberless, portentous concussions. "Thus bad begins, but worse remains behind." Not only the idleness and tumult, but also the immorality and excesses, of this long fair, had often been considered a civic pestilence, and which the authorities endeavoured to banish ; for, in 1702, a proclamation was issued by the Lord Mayor, for, the suppression of the great profaneness, vice, and debauchery, too frequently practised there, requiring all persons concerned not to let, set, hire, or use any booth, shed, stall, or other erection whatsoever, to be used or employed, contrary to law, for interludes, stage plays, comedies, gambling places, music meetings, or opportunities for enticing, assembling, or congregating idle, loose, and vicious people together, under colour and pretence of innocent diversions and recreations." Another proclamation was issued in 1707, wherein “the de"Reasons for the punctual limiting of Bartholomew fair to three days, 1711." 1 plorable increase of profaneness and debaucheries," are emphatically pointed out, and all erections belonging to this fair, are required to be constructed for the purposes of traffic only. In order to lessen the immense crowd, the gates and thoroughfares of Christ's and Bartholomew's hospitals were ordered to be shut at ten o'clock, and no persons, who were not inhabitants of those places, were to stay out beyond that late hour. Such will give some idea of this wonderful pandemonium of strange sights and stranger sounds, and which, notwithstanding these precautions, still kept increasing as the metropolis became extended. It was opened with much pomp and splendour, by the lord mayor and other civic officers proceeding to read the necessary proclamations, his lordship going in the gaudy and massive city state coach, drawn by six horses, accompanied by the sword and mace, and other regalia. But very few of these vices attended the country fairs and wakes; as a proof of which, the writer has never read or heard of any proclamation being required at any of them. Indeed, the following account of a trial, but a few years past, to suppress the usual sports and pastimes (which although the account may be considered a digression) failed. Serjeant Best defended the practice and the parties on the day of trial, when he made the following memorable defence: "We ought to take care to preserve our national habits, manners, and customs. From the union of these, has arisen our national spirit, our love of justice, of independence, and of our country. The true and only source of all our greatness, and all our happiness. Wakes, and their ammusements, are amongst the customs, are the fruits of our liberty; he who would destroy them would make a change in our manners and habits, the extent of which we cannot see, and for the consequence of which, no good man would choose to answer. Bal Justice Heath, in his charge, pertinently observed: "That no man will say that a fair is an illegal assemblage, and such diversions any breach of the peace. The jury brought in a verdict of "not guilty ;" and a righteous verdict it was. zac says: "If those severe censors, who condemn all innocent recreations, had a control over the world, they would strike out the spring and abolish youth; the former from the calendar, the latter from human life." The abolishing of the old Catholic festivals has been a source of great mischief. I do not know the precise number of those days which have been abolished, probably (reckoning the Sabbath day with them) it was one third of the year. The usury and taxing system has drawn this labour and its value into its all-absorbing, but never satisfied, vortex; and this is one reason why England produces their manufactured articles somewhat lower (notwithstanding their fifty millions of annual taxes) than other countries; which they, in their own defence, endeavour to counteract by excessive tariffs. Yet all the while the labourers are the worse, both bodily and mentally: the writer has watched their condition for nearly half a century, he can recollect when the country cottages, and mechanic's houses were decently furnished with durable and useful articles, such as a clock, a plate-rack with pewter plates and dishes, strong stools, chairs, and tables, a rack suspended from the ceiling, on which was one or two sides of bacon, good beds, and strong warm clothing; these have been gradually going, piece by piece, as the taxing as progressively increased, which, with the fluctuation of the paper money, which has depressed their wages, until they now nearly resemble the miserable log cabins of poor, illfated Ireland. The fairs, with the village wakes, furnished the chief domestic amusements of the rural gentry, which the progress of fashion has as yet left. But, unfortunately, they are fast declining. The wealthy gentry and wealthy townsmen kept a sort of open house while they lasted. Here would be assembled the far off residing country cousins, old school fellows, and early though distant friends; here, there would be the card, the dancing, and the music parties;* and also country and subscription balls, where, of course, the strictest etiquette would have to be observed, "For nothing in the world's like etiquette, ETIQUETTE.-I am compelled here to make another digres Now would be sung the enlivening madrigal, of which the following is one proper for the occasion: A MADRIGAL. "How sweet is every shepherd's song! His soul with every sigh expires, This ev'ry day we seem to see; When spiders, for the harmless fly, At Martinmas, was feasting and conviviality; and then was laid in salt fish, and other salted provisions for the winter. On new year's day, inferiors presented little gifts of remembrance to their patrons; this was continued from the lowest subordinate of society up to the king. An Earl's purse, was of the value of twenty pounds, this was in money; but it also often contained some fresh imported jewel, especially if any part of the Earl's family had travelled, or held a situation in some foreign possession. WAKES.-The origin of village wakes was a festival on the dedication, or finish, of the churches, and was originally a religious festival, of course, soon crept in festivity; but as long as it was observed with sobriety and decorum, no harm would arise. When the various schisms of religion came in, order and decorum would no longer be observed. The whole parish would not assemble in the morning at the church, and hear a sermon, advising them, and preparing the mind to properly observe the day. Therefore, they soon became "exclusively convivial and sinful." FAIRS. The fairs have various origins, almost as various as they are in number. They were, for the most part, places and times of extensive purchases, some lasting many days; and people going on business to them, from fifty to one hundred miles.* From about the middle of the seventeenth century, when several cities and incorporated towns had been gradually losing their exclusive privileges; the number of persons living by trade and industry had greatly increased; during this period, complaints were made of petty shopkeepers living in country villages, one writer states, "that in every country village where is, it may be, not ten houses, there is a shopkeeper, and one that never served an apprenticeship to a shopkeeping trade whatsoever," they are described as "not dealers in pins only, but as carrying on a good trade ;" this could not have been the case, if the people had not been well of. The fairs, therefore, began to be less mercantile, there being a supply of these articles nearer each person's home. Bartholomew fair, which it may be proper to inform the reader, is annually held on that saints day, in the very heart of "that monstrous wen," the city of London, had its origin in the 1eign of Edward I., and was allowed, by the charter, to be held *In the old monastic times, the monks of Maxtoke, in Warwickshire, attended Sturbitch fair, near Cambridge, to lay in their yearly necessaries, although an hundred miles distance. |