The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-18 00:00:00

f ittr at ur t.

Menu-ars of Bartholomew Fair. By Henry
Morley. With Facsimile Drawings. London :
Chapman and Hall.
IT is really a very fortunate thing for the public
that there are people who are not only competent
to turn over dusty old folios and decipher half-
illegible MS., with a full appreciation of their
historical or genealogical importance, but also
sufficiently endowed with average human sym-
pathies and pleasant literary skill, to enable them
to put the lighter results of their researches into
a popular as well as accurate form. That all
antiquarians are not Dryasdusts, is a fact for
which that vague and miscellaneous personage,
the general reader, may thank his stars most
devoutly. The kind of book we have in our eye
is one, the best specimens of which, perhaps, have
been produced in England. Our friends across
the Channel are popular and amusing enough,
and in elegance of method and arrangement they
are generally our superiors, but, with the excep-
tion of a few names of European reputation,
they have the character of being less accurate
and less deeply read. In the latter qualities we all
bow down to Germany, but the Germans are not
yet free from the old reproach of insufferable
heaviness of style and bad selection of materials.
But in England there arc many men who can
amuse without misleading us, and whom, on
emerging into the daylight of common life with
the more portable spoils of libraries, we greet
with a welcome insensibly influenced by the
difficulty of their labours, as well as by the posi-
tive results which they have gained for us in the
way of liveliness or instruction. This is the kind
of reputation which we think Mr. Morley enjoys.
Not that he is a born antiquarian with an
abnormal turn for general literature, and conde-
scending on the strength of it occasionally to
come out of his den and lecture us in an easy
way on the wonders he has found inside; he is
rather a litterateur with a turn for antiquarianism
—a man of the nineteenth century, with a strong
sympathy for whatever is quaint and character-
istic in bygone ages.
This, we are inclined to think, is, on the whole,
the best book he has written. It does not read
with the freshness and vivacity of " Palissy the
Potter ' —for we are now pretty well used to Mr.
Morley's style, and know what to expect from
him ' • nor is it so full of odd, out-of-the-way lore
as the Lives of Cardan and Cornelius Agrippa;
but, on the other hand, the subject is, for Eng-
lish readers, more happily chosen than either of
the three former works. It is, if not thoroughly
national, at least thoroughly metropolitan ; it is
half historical and half social ; it is just remote
enough to excite the recollections of the genera-
tion that is passing away, and the curiosity of
those who only know it by report ; and, finally,
the materials are abundant, and both skilfully and
interestingly treated.
Probably few persons not belonging to what
may be called the " Notes-and-Queries Order"
of mankind are aware at how very early a date
Bartholomew Fair took its origin. It was, in
fact, at its decease in 1855 (requieseat in pace !),
upwards of seven hundred years old—less than
a century younger than the Conquest. Like
many other fairs in Europe,—Magdeburg, Munich,
St. Denis, Beaucaire,—it took its rise from the
gathering of worshippers and pilgrims about a
religious house on the festival day of its patron
saint. The throngs that assembled at these
yearly feasts of dedication formed an excellent
opportunity for trade, and were also the source
of vast profit to the Church by the tolls levied
for permission to conduct business, a privilege
eagerly sought, since it was the only way in
which merchandize could be disposed of with-
out undergoing the innumerable imposts and
restrictions to which it was subjected in early
times. Trade was attracted to fairs by various
immunities, such as freedom from arrest and
safe conduct to and fro, and in some cases all
local business was suspended during the time of
its continuance, to lessen competition. The tolls
of the fair were usually granted by the King to
the monastery where the fair was held, and
amusements were provided to attract the rich
and powerful.
Bartholomew Fair was founded, appropriately
nougb, by a monk who had formerly been jester