FAIRS.

SOMETHING of the gaiety of nations is lost now that the heyday of the fair is over. The great fairs are gone, but little fairs still exist and are frankly reminiscent of them. Oddly enough, it is the frivolous side of the fair which alone survives. Methods of merchandise change, but primitive human nature is still charmed by crowds and noise and lights. More than a quarter of a century ago Mr. Cornelius Walford published a charming book entitled " Fairs, Past and Present." So vivid are his descriptions of London and of Cambridge fairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that we seem to see the people " dancing and rejoicing in a concourse at the fair," and " shows in

full blast" assail our imagination. The words of eye-

witnesses call up the scene before Occasionally even we go behind the scenes and hear from the " merry-andrews " themselves the secret of their success, and how they must " strut and dance and sing and trumpet and roar," and then

do it " over again."

St. Bartholomew's Fair and the fair held yearly at Sturbridge, near Cambridge, boasted themselves for centuries to be the largest in the world; they certainly were the largest in England, perhaps even in Western Europe. In Cambridge the fun at fair time would seem to have waxed rather too furious, and the University annals tell of many attempts to moderate the gay doings. In the seventeenth century it was complained that there is great danger of " withdrawing the younger sort " from their books. By sports and idle games they are constantly

"provoked to vain expense, loss of time, or corruption of manners." A great deal of thought was taken to remedy the evil. Considerable efforts were made from time to time by the Church to do spiritual good to the assembled crowds. The view of life summed up in the rhyme which a writer of the time puts into the mouth of a strolling clown— "Mind neither good nor bad nor right nor wrong, But eat your pudding and hold your tongue," was constantly combatted at fair times by the authorities. We hear of the "Fair Sermons" which were preached in Cambridge, and, writing in the year 1700, a spectator tells us that in the middle of the fair "there stands an old weather-beaten pulpit where on Sunday a sermon is delivered for the edification of the strolling sinners."

Now and then the attractions of the fair proved too much for "the younger sort," and took them away not only from their

books, but from their sphere altogether. We hear of a clown "full of eccentric wit and grimace," a young man of good family who had "abandoned himself " to this way of life. During the Commonwealth acting at fairs was prohibited, but the State saw no occasion "to engage in controversy with the puppets." So the dramatic instincts of the fair-goers were not altogether thwarted. A little later "it had become the custom to represent all the great sieges in which England had

been concerned at the shows in the fair "—a praiseworthy effort to promote patriotism. The difficulty of representation must have been great, but martial enthusiasm doubtless made

up for theatrical defects. Dramatic realism, however, was aimed at by the strolling players. An ancient stage-direction dating from before the Dissolution of the Monasteries orders that during a play in which the Creation was represented (!) the strange beasts of a menagerie were to be let loose among the audience. In the late sixteen hundreds a Frenchman gives us an entertaining account of the great London Fair.

"I was at Bartholomew Fair. It consists of most toy shops, also fiance [? faience], and picture, ribbon shops, no books ; many shops of confectioners, whore any woman may commodiously be treated. Knavery is here in perfection, dexterous cut-purses and pick- pockets. I went to see the dancing on the ropes, which was

admirable. Coming out, I met a man that would have took off my hat, but I secured it, and was going to draw my sword, crying out

• Begar ! darnn'd rogue ! morblen,' &c., when on a sudden I heard a hundred people about me, crying, Here, monsieur, see " Jephthah's Rash Vow." "Here, monsieur, see "The Tall Dutchwoman."' ' See " The Tiger,"' says another. See " The Horse and no Horse," whose tail stands where his head should do.' See the

" German Artist," monsieur.' See the " Siege of Namur," monsieur' ; so that betwixt rudeness and civility I was forced to get into a fiacre, and with an air of haste and a full trot, got home to my lodgings."

A fair is now a far more innocent and a far less interesting entertainment than it was. As a rule, it is just an occasion for an ebullition of rural high spirts—an occasion for jollity

accompanied by noise and lights. To the sophisticated eye and ear the fascination of noise and lights is best embodied

in fireworks, but fireworks cannot be properly seen or heard at an exhibition ; to be properly enjoyed they should be gazed at in a garden. They must come into absurd and flashy contrast with the calm night-lights of Nature, and be heard as an interlude in the great dark silence. A village fair watched from a distance has some of the fascination of fire- works. A few weeks ago the present writer watched a fair from the garden of an old house just outside an English village. The garden abuts upon a field which has from time immemorial been the scene of the annual fair. The only other house in sight is a small Elizabethan inn. The land lies very low, in close proximity to the river, and is hemmed in by trees. The field is admirably selected to form a green theatre, and the upper rooms of the house and the inn perfectly command the scene. A charming scene bursts upon the eyes

at "lighting-up time," but it is by no means unexpected. At least two days of daylight preparation are gone through before it is set in order. Loose horses and caravans arrive first, and take up their positions in a corner, or rather the

caravans take up a position, the horses do as they like. Out of the caravans come swarms of dirty children, small, dirty, morose-looking men, and buxom, cheerful women, also very dirty. The children run up and down the steps into the earavans and take no interest in the village children who come to stare, and none in the setting-out of booths. What a strange life they must lead, these children of the fair, brought up upon the very bosom of Nature, yet within sound of a steam organ and in close proximity to a merry-go-round !

Plainly they are bored by the shows among which they live. Not even the arrival of the traction engine, which comes groaning and crunching through the lanes and dragging after it a shapeless mass veiled in tarpaulin, which the village children suspect to be the merry-go-round, withdraws their attention from their games.

As soon as the organ is unpacked it begins to tune. Loud hoarse sounds issue from it, as though a giant were learning to sing. Presently the tuning ends, and the sun sets and lights are lighted, and the audience arrives, and the giant begins to give forth ragtime music—and he knows at least six different pieces. But even the giant does not make noise enough to please the village. The village band has offered its services, and they perform together, or rather simultaneously. The band knows nothing about ragtime. It plays what it knows best. Its voices soon become com- pletely entangled with the voice of the giant, and the respective intention of each can only be deciphered by hard listening. The music mingles with the voices of children riding on the merry-go-rounds and the shrieks of those who sit in the swings. The din is deafening. Meanwhile the scene is gay in the extreme.

In the centre the hobby horses move round with a double motion suggestive of galloping. An intense light illuminates even the faces and ribbons of the gaily dressed little riders.

Round them surges a black mass of grown-up people, relieved here and there by the flaring light of a booth. When one has watched for a while, the noise and the movement and the light all seem to mingle and become one. Together they form

a harmless outlet for vague and lawless emotions, and, judging by appearances, they produce in the majority of people a sense of pleasure. It has always been so. We think of fairs held in the same field two hundred years ago, and we think of "the shows in fall blast." "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." At last, at last, comes " God Save the King," played many times over by both instruments in complete agreement. After that ceases the silence is broken only by human voices and footsteps, and after half an hour it is

unbroken by anything, and silence will reign till the cocks begin.