ing, then of another ordinary cumer. Some of your Cutpurses are in fee with cheating Costermongers, who have a Trick, now and then, to throw downe a Basket of refuge peares, which prove Choake-peares to those that shall loose their Hats or Cloaks in striving who shall gather fastest.

"Now farewell to the Faire: you who are wise,

Preserve your Purses, whilst you please your eyes."

The " zealous brother," as described in Whimzies (1631), accounted no season of the year so depraved as that of Bartholomew fair; the drums, hobby-horses, rattles, babies, Jew-trumps, nay, pigs and ale, being "wholly Judaicall." Poor Robin's Almanac for 1677 also adverts to the roast pigs which seemingly were a greasy feature of this fair; and the issue of the same publication for 1695 contains a passage about farmers being instructed as to "what manner of wife they shall choose; not one trickt up with ribbons and knots like a Bartholomew baby, for such an one will prove a holyday wip, all play and no work

'And he who with such kind of wife is sped
Better to have one made of gingerbread."'

So in Nabbes' Totenham Court (1638) we find: "I have_packed her up in't like a Bartholomew babie in a boxe;" and in Gayton's Longevity (1659)—

"As if there were not pigg enough,

Old Bartholomew with Purgatory fire

Destroys the babe of many a doubtful sire."

Plums, too, were plentifully consumed thereat, according to Gayton— "If eaten, as we use at Bartholomew tide,

Hand over head, that's without care or guide,

There is a patient sure."

Southwark fair is commemorated by Gay in his Fable of the Two Monkeys

"The tumbler whirls the flip-flap round,
With summersets he shakes the ground;
The cord beneath the dancer springs;
Aloft in air the vaulter swings,
Distorted now, now prone depends,
Now through his twisted arms ascends.
The crowd, in wonder and delight,

With clapping hands applaud the sight."

A fair was holden annually at St James', within the liberty of the City of Westminster, on or about the 25th day of July. A printed Parliamentary Resolution, dated 17th July 1651, survives to shew that it was "forborne" that year, and therein it is further directed that "no fair be kept or held there by any person or persons whatsoever until the Parliament shall take further order." There is also a scarce tract, of the date of 1709, entitled “Reasons for suppressing the yearly fair On Brookfield, Westminster, commonly called May-fair, recommended o the consideration of all persons of honour and virtue;" in which

it is complained that most of the booths erected there were not for trade and merchandise, “but for musick, showes, drinking, gaming, raffling, lotteries, stage-plays, and drolls." The writer esteems it to be a most unhappy circumstance that the fair began "with the prime beauty of the year; in which many innocent persons incline to walk into the fields and out-parts of the city to divert themselves, as they very lawfully may.”

Shaw's History of Staffordshire refers to a procession that took place annually at Wolverhampton on the 9th of July (the eve of the great local fair) of men habited in antique armour, preceded by musicians playing the "Fair-tune," and followed by the steward of the Deanry Manor, the peace-officers, and many of the leading inhabitants. The origin of the ceremony was attributed by tradition to a remote period in the history of the place when Wolverhampton was a great emporium of wool, and was visited by merchants of the staple from all parts of the kingdom; and this commemoration, called "Walking the Fair," typified the armed force that was necessary for the maintenance of peace and order during the fair, which is said to have lasted fourteen days, though the charter imposed the limit of eight. About 1789 it first fell into desuetude.

Articles bought at these annual markets for presentation were called fairings. The practice may be traced up to the time of Chaucer, whose Wife of Bath boasts of having managed her several husbands so well

"I governed hem so well after my lawe

That eche of hem full blisful was, and fawe
To bringen me gay thinges fro the feyre,
They were ful glade."

"To come a day after the fair," and "Men speak of the fair as things went with them there," are two old English proverbs relating to this subject.

Under the head of "Country Wakes" we have already noticed one or two sports usually associated with fairs. Here we may add that Grose mentions a cruel and brutal one called "Mumble a Sparrow." A cock-sparrow, whose wings were clipped, was put into the crown of a hat, and a man, whose arms were tied behind him, essayed to bite off the poor bird's head. It is satisfactory to learn that he was generally obliged to desist by reason of the numerous pecks he got from the enraged bird. "Whipping the Cock" was another sport that obtained in Leicestershire. A cock being tied or fastened into a hat or basket, half a dozen carters, blindfolded and provided with cart-whips, were placed around it. Next they were turned about thrice, when they began to whip the cock, which became the property of him who succeeded in striking the bird so as to make it cry out. The joke was that, instead of whipping the cock, they flogged each other most vigorously.

St Luke's day, according to Drake, was known in York by the name of "Whip-dog-day" from the singular schoolboy custom of whipping all the dogs seen in the street on that day. The tradition was that in olden time a priest celebrating Mass upon this saint's day unfortun

ately dropped the "pax" after consecration; and it was suddenly snapped up and swallowed by a dog that lay beneath the altar table. This profanation of the high mystery necessitated the destruction of the animal; and the persecution of the whole canine race in the city on that festival followed therefrom. Drake also tells of a fair kept up in Mickle Gate in the same city for the sale of small ware of all kinds, which was commonly called "Dish fair" from the vast quantity of wooden dishes, ladles, and other implements brought thereto. By way of satire upon the paltry character of the institution as conferring small profit to those who worked at it, it was an old custom to have a wooden ladle carried by four sturdy labourers in a sling on two stangs; and, to give greater point to the ridiculous ceremony, each of these four labourers used to be supported by another. This fair was held under a charter granted in the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry VII.

In the Broadgate at Lincoln a cattle fair was annually held on the 14th of September, to which was assigned the appellation of "Fool's fair" from the circumstances attending its institution. In the course of their tour through the kingdom King William and his Queen having arrived at Lincoln, and offered to serve the citizens in such manner as to them might seem best, the privilege of a fair was besought even though the season was that of harvest, and the town had neither trade nor manufacture. Their petition was granted, the King observing with a smile that the petition was "a very humble one indeed."

The Statistical Account of Scotland (1793) notes the continuance in the parish of Dundonald, Ayrshire, of the ancient practice of kindling a large fire (or tawnle as it was usually termed) upon some eminence and making merry around it, on the eve of the Wednesday of Marymass fair in Irvine, which begins on the third Monday of August and continues the whole week. While some trace its origin to Druidic times, others (says the writer) connect it with Catholicism, most fair; days in Scotland having formerly been Popish holidays, of which the eves were usually spent partly in religious ceremonies and partly in diversions.

Of the parish of Kenethmont, in the county of Aberdeen, we read in the same work (1794) of the fair kept at Christ's Kirk in the month of May, which obtained the popular designation of "Sleepy-market" from its taking place at night. The proprietor, it is represented, altered it from night to the daytime, but such was the attachment of the people to the old custom that, rather than comply with the alteration, they abandoned it altogether.

Ón the outside of the church in the parish of Marykirk, Kincardineshire, were (1796) the “Joggs" strongly attached to the wall. These were utilised at the weekly markets and annual fairs for the confinement and punition of those who had broken the peace or had made too free with the property of others. The stocks confined the feet while the joggs embraced the necks of the offenders, whose liberty was thus restrained, at least, during the period of the fair. The etymology of the term "joggs" obviously refers to the Latin "jugum," a yoke.

Our article on fairs may well be concluded with Gay's pleasant description of their life and stir

THE

"How Pedlars' Stalls with glittering Toys are laid,
The various Fairings of the Country Maid,
Long silken Laces hang upon the twine,

And rows of Pins and amber Bracelets shine.

Here the tight Lass, Knives, Combs and Scissors spies,
And looks on Thimbles with desiring eyes.

The Mountebank now treads the Stage, and sells
His Pills, his Balsams, and his Ague-Spells;
Now o'er and o'er the nimble Tumbler springs,
And on the rope the vent'rous Maiden swings;
Jack Pudding in his party-colour'd jacket
Tosses the Glove, and jokes at every Packet;
Here Raree-Shows are seen, and Punch's feats,
And Pockets pick'd in Crouds and various Cheats."

OF THE MEANING OF THE OLD SAW,

"Five score of men, money, and pins:

Six score of all other things."

HE people of Norway and Iceland, according to the Thesaurus of Hickes, had a method of computation special to themselves, which consisted in the addition of the words tolfrædr, tolfræd, or tolfræt (whence our "twelve"), which made ten signify twelve, a hundred equivalent to a hundred and twenty, a thousand represent a thousand and two hundred, and so on in proportion. This arose from the circumstance of these two nations having two decads or tens; a lesser, common to other nations, consisting of ten units, and a greater, comprising twelve (tolf) units. Thus the addition of the word tolfrædr or tolfræd converted the hundred into, not ten times ten but, ten times twelve; that is, a hundred and twenty. This tolfrædic mode of reckoning by the greater decads, maintains Hickes, is still retained by us in reckoning certain articles by the number twelve, which the Swedes call dusin, the French, douzaine, and ourselves, a dozen; and in mercantile circles, he adds, as to the number, weight, and measure of several things, our hundred represents that greater tolfrædic hundred which is composed of ten times twelve. Thence, doubtless, was derived the current mode of reckoning by six score to the hundred. Statute 25, Henry VIII. c. 13, enacts that no person shall have above two thousand sheep on his land; and the twelfth section, after reciting that the hundred varies in every county, some reckoning by the major hundred or six score, and others by the minor hundred or five score, declares that the number two thousand shall be accounted ten hundred for every thousand after the number of the former, so that every thousand shall contain twelve hundred after the less number of the hundred.

Percy, in relation to the Northumberland Household Book, notes the retention therein of the ancient forms of computation. With the single exception of money, of which the hundred consisted of five score, every other item was determined by the old Teutonic hundred of six

score.

In the Statistical Account of Scotland (1791), the minister of Parton narrates an anecdote of a man dying a few years before that date over ninety years of age who, within eight months of his death, got a complete set of new teeth which he employed to excellent effect till near his last breath. He was four times married, and had children by all his wives; and at the baptism of his last child, which took place about a year before he quitted this sublunary scene, he most complacently expressed his gratitude to his Maker for having at last sent him "the cled score," i.e., twenty-one.

FAIRY MYTHOLOGY.

"Of airy elves by moonlight shadows seen,
The silver token and the circled green."

-POPE.

BOURNE inclines to account for this superstition as a tradition

from the Lamiæ who had the reputation of being so mischievous as to carry off young children and slay them. With the Fauns, gods of woods, they seemed to have formed, he says, the notion of fairies. Others deduce them from the Lares and Larvæ of the Romans. Percy was assured by a learned friend of his in Wales that fairies are referred to by the most ancient British bards, who commonly gave them the appellation of Spirits of the Mountains. Others again have conjectured that the introduction of these little aërial people into Europe was effected by the Crusaders. This view is founded upon their similarity in some respects to the Genii of the East; to whom indeed Arabs and Persians, whose religion and history teem with references to them, have assigned a special country for their abode, which they have designated Fairy Land. These whimsical opinions, writes Percy in his Ancient Ballads, will entertain a contemplative mind in tracing them up to their original source. Observing how early, extensively, and uniformly they have prevailed among us, he refuses to assent to the hypothesis of their importation from the East at the time of the Crusades. Our Saxon ancestors, long prior to their departure from their German forests, believed in the existence of a race of diminutive demons, a species intermediate between men and spirits, whom they called duergar (or dwarfs), and whom they credited with the execution of feats far beyond the compass of human art.

This in fact was an article in the popular creed regarding fairies, that they were a kind of beings occupying a place of existence between men and spirits, and partaking of the nature of both; that they had material bodies, and yet had the faculties of invisibility and of penetration through matter. They were, moreover, held to be of remarkably diminutive stature, and to have fair complexions; from which last circumstance came their English name. "My grandmother," says the author of Round about our Coal-fire (1730), "has often told me of fairies dancing upon our green, and that they were little creatures clothed in green;" and "the moment any one saw