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

1238 THE PRESS, DECEMBER 18, 1858
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• t e
to Henry I. He was named }layer or Rahere, the cognate expression, " Dustifnte "fr
Ilitraturt. and seems to have been a sharp fellow who made Scotch Borough Law, with its definition, %fig-
- to himself plenty of friends of the mammon of factorily proves to have been derived from
«pied
unrighteousness in his carnal and jocund days. poudreux, ' and to have signified simply that 't
of Bartholomew Fair. By Henry But at last he 11.-:came converted, and, during an was established for the benefit of strangers,
way.l
With Facsimile Drawings. London : illness, which o..curred during his pilgrimage to farers, and merchants, who had no residence'
in
and Hall.therefore
Rome, vowed that if he recovered he would build the spot where they traded, and who
a hospital for poor men. He did recover, and required a special and temporary court to decide
emery fortunate thing for the public St. Bartholomew appeared to him in a vision and all questions that might arise among themselves
eople who are not only competent commanded him to found a church in Smithfield during their sojourn.
v old folios and decipher half- (i.e., Smooth-field), then a marsh, chiefly notable Having thus seen the beginning and growth of
'1 a full appreciation of their
as the spot where executions took place, but also the fair, we must pass over with but cursory
ngical importance, but also
with average human sym-
as being a great Friday cattle-market between notice the various remarkable points in its history
country and town. The King granted him pos- which Mr. Morley has investigated with most
of their
-rimy skill, to enable them session of the desired plot of ground in 1123, and praiseworthy diligence, and illustrated with a
researches into
'orate form. That all Bayer, to bring it into a habitable state, feigned great variety of well-selected documentary
idiocy, and—as the old monkish biographer seems matter.—ln 1305, on St. Bartholomew's Eve, the
Alusts, is a fact for to imply—induced the idlers to help him in first of the three fair days, the frequenters of the
laneous personage, bringing stones and other materials to form the festival were gratified with the spectacle of a
ik his stars most first foundations. By some means or other, the grand execution. Wallace had arrived in London
,Iliave in our eye
,perhaps, have church and priory were built, and, by methods the day before, was tried and condemned at
which Bayer's juggling skill or worldly cunning Westminster the next day, and sent on to Smith-
friends across had taught him, abundant miracles were wrought field for instant execution. Dragged thither in
ing enough, at the saint's shrine. The founder also took chains at the tails of horses, he was half-hanged,
-men
t they
good care to secure the tolls of the perspective then disembowelled, then quartered.—lt was in
utation
excep- fair; and in the twelfth year of his prelacy, 1133, the same century, too, if ever, that the custom
,
curate
by pretending to have discovered a plot to assas- which according to some French writers still
e all
senate him, induced the King to grant his house continues, of selling women in Smithfield, was in
not a charter of the most ample kind, and the usual existence.—lt was also on the same spot where
le privileges to the frequenters of the fair. It is the livelier portion of the fair was held that
clear that he prospered greatly, and that, as the martyrs were generally burnt in the fourteenth
old chronicler expresses it, " the skin of his taber- and fifteenth centuries.—Of the performance of
" nacle dilated." Ile died in 1143, and his tomb miracle-plays at an early period at Bartholomew
nay still be seen, having upon it what there is Fair, Mr. Morley does not seem to have been
nd reason to suppose is a portrait statue, which able to obtain direct evidence, but there can, of
Morley copies for us, and which certainly, course, be little doubt that its founder would take
s expression of shrewdness and jolly good care to include these among its attractions.
r, appears to tally in every respect with the The tolls of the fair were probably always
rwe have received of the thunder. His very valuable, and though it is uncertain at what
nits to have been faithfully observed time any right to them by others than the Priory
ath, and Mr. Morley fills several pages authorities was asserted, it seems that by the year
neration of the miracles which St. 1445 the City of London had established a right
worked for the benefit of his priory. to those which arose from the assemblage outside
re sufficiently quaint or amusing the Priory Gate. From that date to nearly a
Il have a uniform tendency to hundred years later, our historian's research does
‘1 of the establishment, without not seem to have discovered any material fact
• shown as to whether the respecting the fortunes of the fair; but at the
onest hands or the reverse. dissolution of the monasteries in 1.539, the other
las receiving the oblations class of tolls—those levied on the traders inside
outing for custom, much the Priory—passed into new hands. The Priory
saints do at Naples at and Hospital were then separated; the City took
charge of the latter, and the former, with its
in West Smithfield privileges, was sold to Sir Richard Rich (after-
' from a MS. in the wards Lord Chancellor), and became his town
text of Gregory's mansion. He made the most of his powers.—
illustrated by a The first description extant of the fair is from
with all sorts the pen of Paul Heutzner, the German tutor,
'red and pro- who travelled in England in 1598—the same man,
ded. There by the way, from whom we derive our only
' (as the precise account of the celebrated Nonesuch
-another House,—and who takes particular notice of the
If most English (!) custom of profuse tobacco-smoking.
'cting lie tells us of the sumptuously-attired mayor
car- and aldermen who onen the fair,—of the wrest-
we ling, and the scramble for live rabbits, and does
'I, not omit the pickpocket, who seems to have been
in all ages about the most permanent part of the
whole concern.
The comic aspect of the fair, and the scope it
-hrded for broad humour, was taken advantage
,y Ben Jonson, of whose comedy, "I3artho-
v Fair," Mr. Morley gives us a necessarily
'rized edition,—showing clearly, however,
may be called its fundamental element
atire against Puritanism, represented
`he-Laud Busy, the Tartutfe of the
more serious description, contained
-xtant tract on the subject, pub-
+he year of Strafford's execution,
in appears, buying a wooden
`he religious pictures exposed
hurch cloisters. The pick-
, nor the jugglers,
mounte-
nd the Pig, who turns up
s here also in great force.
\tire found the fair an
'ous expression of its
a"v Fairing
forth
11's se
,ies IL's forces.
ig the Puritan
ration issued
"—fiveorth
11's expedition to
el
or similar
had there.
t adver-
IA the