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 seamento 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

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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-makers would abandon the May-pole for the keener excitement of May-Fair. For there (according to the evi dence 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 orna ments 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. All the nobility in town were there. Pray ask my Lord Fairfax after her, who, though not the only lord by twenty, was every night an admirer of her, while the fair lasted.' But there were

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great rarities of Art to be seen-specimens of ingenuity that might rival 1851. There was the city of Amster dam, well worth your seeing; every street, every individual house, was carved in wood, in exact proportion, one to another; the Stadthouse was as big as your hand.' The city of Amsterdam might attract discreet observers, who kept out of the way of the bull-bait and the ducking-pond -polite sports to which Young England, in the last century, was somewhat addicted. Last of all, there was the sober business of the fair-the real work transacted in the 'shops' that were 'let, ready built, for all manner of tradesmen.'

Of the commodities exposed for sale in these temporary shops would, first of all, be clothing. Of woollen fabrics there would be abundance. The great work of legislation. was to keep all the wool at home, and to make the people wear nothing but woollen garments. A writer of 1698 says:-Men are very careful to preserve their rents; but, above all, gentlemen are in the greatest disquiet for their wool. Both the living and the dead must be wrapt in wool; nor is any law wanting to complete the business, but only one, that our perukes should be made of wool.' The great problem of legislation was how to encourage the growth of wool, and the manufacture of wool; and a perpetual controversy was going on between the manufacturers and the agriculturists. The agriculturists were then the free-traders,-they wanted a foreign market for their wool: the manufacturers would have kept it all at home. But they both agreed that nothing which interfered with wool should be worn in England. Silk buttons were an article of dress: the silk was bought in foreign parts in exchange for our woollen manufacture; but the making of silk buttons, says the Act of 1698, was discouraged by making buttons out of the shreds of cloth,and thousands of men, women, and children, who made silk buttons with the needle, were impoverished; and so a penalty of forty shillings was to be paid by any unhappy tailor who used his shreds to make buttons. But this

microscopic legislation was always working in the dark. In 1697 the importation of foreign lace and needlework was absolutely prohibited, because the importation was `to the great discouragement of the manufactures in this kingdom.' In 1699 the Act of 1697 was repealed, on account of the decay of the woollen manufactures, because the prohibition of foreign lace and needlework 'has been one great cause thereof, by being the occasion that our woollen manufactures are prohibited to be imported into Flanders.' At May-Fair, in 1701, there must have been a keen competition amongst the fashionable ladies for the last chance of a purchase in the fair of Indian silks and calicoes; for after the 29th of September the wearing of all wrought silks of the manufacture of Persia, China, or India, and all coloured calicoes, was absolutely prohibited. The whole principle of our commercial legislation was protection, to have no real exchange with other countries, and no free industry in our own commodities. The inte rest of the consumer was never regarded. The perpetual cry was the duty of employing the poor,-in regulating which employment the poor were starved. There was but one man of those days who had discovered the broad truths of commerce, which he promulgated in these words: 6 The whole world, as to trade, is but one nation or people, and therein nations are as persons, * There can be no trade unprofitable to the people, for if any prove so, men leave it off. can set prices on trade. All favour to one or interest is an abuse, and cuts off so much profit from the public.' It is a hundred and sixty years ago since the great merchant, Sir Dudley North, proclaimed these principles, the highest application of which belongs to our day.

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No laws trade

But, with all the defects of the class-legislation that prevailed in the first year of the eighteenth century, England was advancing in commercial prosperity. In five years after the peace of Ryswick the exports were more than doubled, and the mercantile marine more than quad