the Fair in olden times, was the Quintain, a game of contest, memorable in the annals of the city, as having on one occasion, in the reign of Edward I., been made the opportunity of commencing hostilities of a far more formidable nature and protracted extent than the occasion itself could warrant, or be presumed to cause.
The Quintain was a post fixed strongly in the ground, with a piece of wood, about six feet long, laid across it on the top, placed so as to turn round; on one end of this cross-piece was hung a bag, containing a hundred-weight of sand, which was called the Quintal; at the other end was fixed a board about a foot square, at which the player, who was mounted on horseback, with a truncheon, pole, or sort of tilting-spear, ran direct with force; if he was skilful, the board gave way, and he passed on before the bag reached him, in which feat lay success; but if he hit the board, but was not expert enough to escape, the bag swung round, and striking him, often dismounted him; to miss the board altogether was, however, the greatest disgrace. The quarrel alluded to, arose ostensibly about the truncheons, but it was supposed really to have been at the instigation of other persons, both on the part of the monastery and city.
Tombland Fair stands not quite alone as a memorial of ancient festivals held in honour of patron saints—one other day in the year stands forth in the
calendar of juvenile and mature enjoyments, unrivalled in its claim upon our notice and our love. St. Valentine, that “man of most admirable parts, so famous for his love and charity that the custom of choosing valentines upon his festival took its rise from thence,” as Wheatley tells us,—is yet, even to this hour, held in high honour, and most gloriously commemorated in this good old city, and in so unique a fashion, that a few words may not suffice to give a true delineation of it. The approach of the happy day is heralded, in these days of steam-presses and local journals, by monster-typed advertisements, gigantically headed “Valentines,” or huge labels, bearing the same mystic letters, carefully arranged in the midst of gorgeously-decked windows, towards which young eyes turn in glistening hope and admiration; and at sight of which little hearts beat high with eager expectation. Not of Cupids, and hearts, and darts, and such like merry conceits on fairy-mottoed note paper, doth the offerings of St. Valentine consist in this good old mart of commerce;—far more real and substantial are the samples of taste, ornament, and use, that rank themselves in the category of his gifts. The jeweller’s front, radiant with gold and precious gems, and frosted silver, and ruby-eyed oxydized owls, Russian malachite fashioned into every conceivable fantasy of invention, brooches, bracelets, crosses, studs masculine and feminine, chatelaines
ditto, and not a few of epicene characteristics, betokening the signs of the times,—all claim to rank under the title. The Drapers—especially the “French depots,” with their large assortments on shew, in remote bazaars appropriated exclusively to the business of the festive season, where labyrinths of dressing-cases, desks, work-boxes, inkstands, and portfeuilles, usurp the place of lawful mercery, and haberdashery for the time being yields place to stationery, perfumery, bijouterie, and cutlery, proclaim the triumphs of his reign in their midst. But supreme above all, are the glories that the toy-shops display, from the gay balcony-fronted repository for all the choicest inventions science, skill, or wit can devise, at once to please the fancy, help the brain, tax the ingenuity of childhood, or dazzle the eye of babyhood, downwards through the less recherché, but scarcely less thronged marts, a grade below in price and quality, to the very huckster’s stall or apple booth, that shall for the time being add its quota of penny whips, tin trumpets, and long-legged, brittle-jointed, high-combed Dutch ladies, whose proportions exhibit any thing but the contour usually described as a “Dutch build.” Nor these alone—the shoemaker’s, with its newly-acquired treasures of gutta percha knick-knacks, flower-pots, card-trays, inkstands, picture-frames, boxes, caddies, medallions, and what-not that is useful and ornamental, in addition to shoe-soles
with a propensity to adhere to hot iron, and betray by deeply indented gutters the impress of any new bright-topped fender on which they have chanced to trespass—all, all, are offerings at the shrine of good St. Valentine; how, when, and where, we have yet to see.
One peep behind these plate-glassed drop scenes—one visit to the toy-shop—it is an event—a circumstance to be chronicled—even the quiet, mild, and self-possessed proprietress of all the wealth of fun and fashion, use and ornament, and zoology, from the rocking-horse down to the Chinese spider, and Noah’s ark to lady-birds, for once looks heated and tired; and one feels impelled to cheer the kind-hearted, gentle matron, by reminding her, that her toil will be repaid tenfold, by pleasant thoughts of the myriad shouts of welcome and heartfelt glee that, ere long, will have been hymned forth in praise of the perfection of her taste.
Her labours and toils would seem scarcely to surpass those of her purchasers. The perplexity and labyrinth of doubt and difficulty they find themselves in is truly pitiable; the annual return of a festival when every body, from grandpapa and grandmamma to baby bo, is expected to receive and give some offering commemorative of the season, causes, in time, a considerable difficulty in the choice of gifts, and added to the mystifications of memory as to who has
what? and what hasn’t who? produces a perfect bewilderment. The fluctuations between dominoes, bats and traps, dolls, la gràce, draughts, chess, rocks of Scilly, German tactics, fox and geese, printing machines, panoramas, puzzles, farmy-ards, battledores, doll’s houses, compasses, knitting cases, and a myriad others, seem interminable—but an end must come, and the purchaser and seller find rest.
But all this toil is but the prelude to the grand act of the drama; Valentine’s eve arrived, the play begins in earnest. The streets swarm with carriers, and baskets laden with treasures—bang, bang, bang go the knockers, and away rushes the banger, depositing first upon the door-step some package from the basket of stores—again and again at intervals, at every door to which a missive is addressed, is the same repeated till the baskets are empty. Anonymously St. Valentine presents his gifts, labelled only with “St. Valentine’s” love, and “Good morrow, Valentine.”