Fairs, past and present

by Cornelius Walford

And here’s the little Girl just going on the Rope!

Here’s Dives and Lazarus and the World’s Creation,

Here’s the Tall Dutch Woman, the like’s not in the nation.

Here is the Booths where the high Dutch maid is,

Here are the Bears that dance like any Ladies;

Tat, tat, tat, tat, says little penny Trumpet;

Here’s Jacob Hall, that does so jump it, jump it;

Sound Trumpet, sound, for silver spoon and fork,

Come, here’s your dainty Pig and Pork.”

It had in fact come to this—as Sir Robert Southwell truly said in a letter to his son in 1685: “The main importance of this fair is not so much for merchandise, and the supplying what people really want; but as a sort of Bacchanalia, to gratify the multitude in their wandering and irregular thoughts.”