the evidence adduced before a petty session at Union-hall, on the subject of putting down the fair on the 4th of July, 1823, it is said that "Domesday Book" speaks of the custom of holding it. I cannot find that this statement rests on good grounds, but something like it seems to have obtained as early as 1279, for in that year Gilbert de Clare was summoned before John of Ryegate and his fellow justices at Guildford, to show by what right he claimed the privilege of holding the assize of ale and bread in "his Vill. of Cam'well."* Mention is made in the following reign of "eme'das in Stoke et Pecham." Camberwell fair was held opposite the Cock public-house" till the Green was broken in upon.

"

Peckham is said to be only a continuation of Camberwell, and not a district fair, though there is a tradition that king John hunting there killed a stag, and was so well pleased with his day's sport, that he granted the inhabitants a charter for it. It may be inferred from the "right merrie" humour of this monarch at the close of his sport, that it was somewhat in different style to that of Henry the Fifth for he," in his beginning thought it meere scofferie to pursue anie fallow deere with hounds or greihounds, but supposed himselfe always to have done a sufficient act when he had tired them by his own travell on foot."+

LECTOR.

ness.

ton, near Bury, in Suffolk, where he received instruction in reading and writing at a common school, and became a " Farmer's boy;" which occupation he has related with simplicity and beauty in a poem under that title. He wrote that production when a journeyman shoemaker: under the auspices of the late Mr. Capel Llofft it was ushered into the world; and Bloomfield, unhappily for himself, subsequently experienced the insufficient and withering patronage of ostentatious greatHis first poem was succeeded by "Rural Tales," "Good Tidings, or News from the Farm," "Wild Flowers," "Banks of the Wye," and " May-Day with the Muses." In his retirement at Shefford, he was afflicted with the melancholy consequent upon want of object, and died a victim to hypochondria, with his mind in ruins, leaving his widow and orphans destitute. His few books, poor fellow, instead of being sent to London, where they would have produced their full value, were dissipated by an auctioneer unacquainted with their worth, by order of his creditors, and the family must have perished if a good Samaritan had not interposed to their temporary relief. Joseph Weston published the "Remains of Robert Bloomfield," for their benefit, and set on foot a subscription, with the hope of securing something to Mrs. Bloomfield for the exclusive and permanent advantage of herself and her fatherless children. It has been inadequately contributed to, and is not yet closed.

Mr.

ON THE DEATH OF BLOOMFIELD. Thou shouldst not to the grave descend Unmourned, unhonoured, or unsung ;Could harp of mine record thy end,

For thee that rude harp should be strung; And plaintive sounds as ever rung

Should all its simple notes employ, Lamenting unto old and young The Bard who sang THE FARMER'S BOY. Could Eastern Anglia boast a lyre

Like that which gave thee modest fame, How justly might its every wire

Thy minstrel honours loud proclaim : And many a stream of humble name,

And village-green, and common wild,
Should witness tears that knew not shame,
By Nature won for Nature's child.
It is not quaint and local terms

Besprinkled o'er thy rustic lay,
Though well such dialect confirms
Its power unlettered minds to sway;

The restless thought and wayward will,
And discontent, attend him still,

Nor quit him while he lives;
At sea, care follows in the wind;
At land, it mounts the pad behind,
Or with the postboy drives.

In allusion to his own situation, he

He who would happy live to-day,
Must laugh the present ills away,

Nor think of woes to come;
For come they will, or soon or late,
Since mixed at best is man's estate,

By heaven's eternal doom.

ANOTHER LIVING SKELETON.

The "Dramatist" of the present day, stop him who can," ever on the alert for novelty, has seized on the "Living Skeleton." Poor Seurat is "as well as can be expected;" but it appears, from a "Notice" handed about the streets, that he has a rival in a British "Living Skeleton." This "Notice," printed by W. Glindon, Newport-street, Haymarket, and signed "Thomas Feelwell, 104, High Holborn," states, that a "humane individual, in justice to his own feelings and those of a sensitive public," considers it necessary to "expose the resources" by which the proprietors of the "Coburg Theatre" have produced "a rival to the Pall-Mall object." One part of his undertaking, the "resources," honest" Thomas Feelwell" leaves untouched, but he tells the following curious story :

"A young man of extraordinary leanness, was, for some days, observed shuffling about the Waterloo-road, reclining against the posts and walls, apparently from excessive weakness, and earnestly gazing through the windows of the eating houses in the neighbourhood, for hours together. One of the managers of the Coburg theatre, accidentally meeting him, and being struck with his attenuated appearance, instantly seized him by the bone of his arm, and, leading him into the saloon of the theatre, made proposals that he should be produced on the stage as a source of attraction and delight for a British audience; at the same time stipulating that he should contrive to exist

upon but half a meal a day-that he should be constantly attended by a constable, to prevent his purchasing any other sustenance, and be allowed no pocketmoney, till the expiration of his engage ment-that he should be nightly buried between a dozen heavy blankets, to prevent his growing lusty, and to reduce him to the lightness of a gossamer, in order that the gasping breath of the astonished audience might so agitate his frame, that he might be tremblingly alive to their admiration."

If this narrative be true, the situation of the " young man of extraordinary leanness" is to be pitied. The new living skeleton may have acceded to the manager's terms of "half a meal" a day on the truth of the old saying, that "half a loaf is better than no bread," and it is clearly the manager's interest to keep him alive as long as he will "run;" yet, if the "poor creature" is nightly buried between a dozen heavy blankets "to reduce him to the lightness of a gossamer," he may outdo the manager's hopes, and "run" out of the world. Seriously, if this be so, it ought not so to be. The "dozen heavy blankets to prevent his growing lusty" might have been spared; for a man with "half a meal a day" can hardly he expected to arrive at that obesity which destroyed a performer formerly, who played the starved apothecary in Romeo and Juliet till he got fat, and was only reduced to the wonted "extraordinary leanness" which qualified him for the character, by being struck off the paylist.

The condition of the poor man should be an object of public inquiry as well as public curiosity.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Herb Timothy. Phleum pratense. Dedicated to St. Timothy.

August 23.

St. Philip Beniti, A. D. 1285. Sts. Claudius, Asterius, Neon, Domnina, and Theonilla, A. D. 285. St. Apollinaris Sidonius, Bp. of Clermont, A. D. 482. St. Theonas, Abp. of Alexandria, A. D. 300. St. Eugenius, Bp. in Ireland, A. D. 618. St. Justinian, Hermit, a. D.

529.

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Tanzey. Tanacetum vulgare.
Dedicated to St. Philip Beniti.

August 24.

St. Bartholomew, Apostle. of Utica, A. D. 258. Audoen, Abp. a. D. 683. or Erthad, Bp.

The Martyrs St. Ouen, or St. Irchard,

St. Bartholomew the Apostle. Mr.Audley says, "There is no scriptural account of his birth, labour, or death. It is commonly said, he preached in the Indies, and was flayed alive by order of Astyages, brother to Palemon, king of Armenia. I have heard this day called black Bartholomew. The reason, I suppose, for this appellation is, on account of the two thousand ministers who were ejected on this day, by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662. As it respects France, there is a shocking propriety in the epithet, for the horrid Massacre of the Protestants commenced on this day, in the reign of Charles IX. In Paris only, ten thousand were butchered in a fortnight, and ninety thousand in the provinces, making, together, one hundred thousand. This, at least, is the calculation of Perefixe, tutor to Louis XIV. and archbishop of Paris: others reduce the

number much lower."*

The "Perennial Calendar" quotes, that "In that savage scene, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, planned with all the coolness of deliberation, five hundred gentlemen, protestants, and ten thousand persons of inferior rank were massacred in one night at Paris alone, and great numbers in the provinces. The Roman pontiff, on hearing of it, expressed great joy, announcing that the cardinals should return thanks to the Almighty for so signal an advantage obtained for the holy see, and that a jubilee should be observed all over Christendom." Dr. Forster adds, that "nothing like this scene occurred till the bloody and terrible times of the French Revolution. It is shocking to reflect that

Companion to the Almanac.

persons professing a religion which says, Love your enemies, do good to them that despitefully use you,' should persecute and slay those whose only offence is difference of opinion. The Quakers and Christian sects of any note and character Moravians seem to be almost the only whose annals are unstained by the blood of their fellow-creatures, and who have not resorted to persecution in defence and promulgation of their particular doctrines. Must we, therefore, not judge a good tree from this distinguished good fruit?" "

It was an ancient custom at Croyland Abbey, until the time of Edward IV. to give little knives to all comers on St. Bartholomew's day, in allusion to the knife wherewith Bartholomew was flead. Many of these knives of various sizes have been found in the ruins of the abbey, and the river. A coat borne by the religious fraternity of the abbey, quarters three of them, with three whips of St. Guthlac, a scourge celebrated for the virtue of its flagellations. These are engraved by Mr. Gough in his history of Croyland Abbey, from drawings in the minute books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers, he says, one was preserved, and these form a device in a town piece called the "Poore's Halfepeny of Croyland, 1670."

St. Ouen.

PRINTERS.

An exact old writert says of printers at this season of the year, that "It is customary for all journeymen to inake every year, new paper windows about Bartholomew-tide, at which time the master printer makes them a feast called a waygoose, to which is invited the corrector, founder, smith, ink-maker, &c. who all open their purses and give to the workmen to spend in the tavern or ale-house after the feast. From which time they begin to work by candle light."

Paper windows are no more: a well regulated printing-office is as well glazed and as light as a dwelling-house. It is curious however to note, that it appears the windows of an office were formerly papered; probably in the same way that we

European Magazine, 1798. † Randle Holme, 1688.

see them in some carpenters' workshops with oiled paper. The way-goose, however, is still maintained, and these feasts of London printing-houses are usually held at some tavern in the environs.

In "The Doome warning all men to the Judgment, by Stephen Batman,1581," a black letter quarto volume, it is set down among "the straunge prodigies hapned in the worlde, with divers figures of revelations tending to mannes stayed conversion towardes God," whereof the work is composed, that in 1450, "The noble science of printing was aboute thys time founde in Germany at Magunce, (a famous citie in Germanie called Ments,) by Cuthembergers, a knight, or rather John Faustus, as sayeth doctor Cooper, in his Chronicle; one Conradus, an Almaine broughte it into Rome, William Caxton of London, mercer, broughte it into England, about 1471; in Henrie the sixth, the seaven and thirtith of his raign, in Westminster was the first printing." John Guttemberg, sen. is affirmed to have produced the first printed book, in 1442, although John Guttemberg, jun. is the commonly reputed inventor of the art. John Faust, or Fust, was its promoter, and Peter Schoeffer its improver. It started to perfection almost with its invention; yet, although the labours of the old printer have never been outrivalled, their presses have; for the information and amusement of some readers, a sketch is subjoined of one from a wood-cut in Batman's book.