after lingering awhile near Paul's,' reposed also, the Stationers' Company raised up new candidates for the emoluments and honours of their trade of using subtil craft to deceive and impose on his Majesty's subjects.' the beginning of the reign of George III., Andrews, and Parker, and Pearce, and Partridge, and Moore, were still At Francis Moore, 1657. From an anonymous Print, flourishing, of the old set; but the more glorious names were gone to enjoy the celestial converse of Albumazar and Raymond Lully. Their places were filled (how ignoble!) by Saunders and Season, and Tycho Wing. Even these are gone. Moore alone remains upon this wicked earth, where common-sense walks abroad and laughs at him as the forlorn mummer of a bygone generation. He now belongs to 'ONCE UPON A TIME.' MAY-FAIR. THIS region of fashion was, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, a large field, extending from Park Lane almost to Devonshire House, in the West; and comprising the space to the North where the famous Lord Chesterfield, in the middle of that century, built his magnificent mansion, and looked with pride upon his spacious garden from the windows of his noble library. The brook of Tyburn ran through this district, so that the place was also called Brook Field, which name is still preserved in Brook Street. In this Brook Field was held an Annual Fair, commencing on the 1st of May, which, without going back into more remote antiquity, had been not only a market for all commodities, but a place of fashionable resort, in the early years of the Restoration. Mr. Pepys was a visitor there in 1660. The general character of May-Fair may be gathered from an advertisement of the 27th of April, 1700:-‘In Brook Field Market-place, at the East Corner of Hyde Park, is a Fair to be kept for the space of sixteen days, beginning with the 1st of May: the first three days for live cattle and leather; with the same entertainments as at Bartholomew Fair: where there are shops to be let, ready built, for all manner of tradesmen that annually keep fairs; and so to continue yearly at the same place.' 6 The surprise that we may feel in thus learning that the business of buying and selling cattle and leather' was to continue for three days, at the extreme West of our Metropolis, may be diminished by considering that the district was essentially a suburb, very thinly peopled; that to the North there were no streets; that where Apsley House now stands was a low inn, called the 'Hercules 6 Pillars; and a little farther West a roadside wateringplace, known as the Triumphant Chariot;' that the villagers of Kensington and Chelsea seldom penetrated into London proper; that the Fair of Brook Field was, there Old Watering-house, Knightsbridge, as it appeared in 1841. fore, a matter of as much convenience as the great Fair of Bury, or any other of the country marts to which dealers brought their commodities. That it was something more than a market for cattle and leather, and a collection of stalls for the sale of gingerbread and beer, we learn from the announcement that there are shops ready built for all manner of tradesmen.' The observance of May was one of those ancient peculiarities of our national character which required an essential change of manners to eradicate. Enactments could not put down May-poles and morris-dancers. A Parliamentary Ordinance, in 1644, directed all and singular Maypoles, that are or shall be erected, to be taken down and removed by the constables of the parishes. The May-pole in the Strand bowed its head to this ruthless command. There, in 1634, had the first stand of hackney-coaches been established-four coaches with men in livery, with fares arranged according to distances. But the May-pole did not fall unhonoured. There was a lament for the Maypole, 'which no city, town, nor street can parallel;' and the Cavalier-poet sighs over the 'happy age,' and the 'harmless days,' when every village did a May-pole raise times and men are changed,' he says. It was true. The May-pole in the Strand, and the hackney-coaches, were somewhat incongruous companions. After twenty years of strife and blood came the Restoration; and the Cavaliers believed that times and men' were not changed. A new May-pole was to be raised, in 1661-a 'stately cedar' of enormous height, which landsmen were unable to raise; and so the Duke of York commanded seamen 'to officiate the business;' and the May-pole was hoisted up, in four hours, to the sound of drum and trumpet; and a morris-dance was danced, to pipe and tabor, as blithely as in the days of Elizabeth; and 'little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap their hands, saying, "Golden days begin to appear." In 1672 the mighty May-pole the most prodigious one for height that perhaps was ever seen,' says old Aubrey-was broken by a high wind. The Revolution came, and then the contests of faction, and a foreign war, gave the people graver subjects to think of than Whitsun ales and May games The broken May-pole of the Strand gradually decayed and became a nuisance; but it had a higher destiny-typical Q of the changes of times and men.' In 1717 it was carted away to Wanstead, under the direction of Newton, and there set up to support the largest telescope in the world, which had been presented to the Royal Society by a French Member, M. Huyon. The age of morris-dancers was about to be superseded by the age of Science; and in due time would come the age of the Mechanical Arts. A century ago Hume said, 'We cannot reasonably expect that a piece of woollen cloth will be brought to perfection in a nation that is ignorant of astronomy.' The power-loom is the natural descendant of the telescope in Wanstead Park. ། On May morning, in 1701, it is not unlikely that a few of the busy London population were dancing round the broken May-pole in the Strand. The chimney-sweepers had not yet taken exclusive possession of this festival; but the milk-maids, with their garlands, might be there as the representatives of rural innocence. The great bulk of the holiday-inakers would abandon the May-pole for the keener excitement of May-Fair. For there (according to the evidence of a letter from Mr. Brian Fairfax, of 1701) would be attraction for all classes. I wish you had been at MayFair, where the rope-dancing would have recompensed your labour.' There, according to the Tatler,' was Mr. Penkethman, with his tame elephant; and there were wont to be many other curiosities of nature.' There were theatres with 'gentlemen and ladies, who were the ornaments of the town, and used to shine in plumes and diamonds.' There, was Mrs. Saraband, so famous for her ingenious puppet-show,'-the proprietress of that rakehell, Punch, whose lewd life and conversation had given so much scandal.' There, was the conjuror, and the mountebank, and the fire-eater. But, more attractive than all, there, was 'Lady Mary,' the dancing lassvery jewel, according to Brian Fairfax. in town were there. Pray ask my Lord who, though not the only lord by twenty, was every night an admirer of her, while the fair lasted.' But there were -a All the nobility |