popular places of resort.—wakes, statutes, and fairs.

besides the remains of the ancient festivals, the country people find a great source of amusement in these gatherings. the wake is the parochial feast of the dedication of the church. it has now dwindled into a village holiday, shorn by the reformation of all its ecclesiastical and sacred character. but it furnishes a certain point in every year, in every individual parish, to which the rural people can look forward as a point of rest and mutual rejoicing. it is a time which leads them to clean up their houses, to look forward and prepare for a renewal of their wardrobe; and which cheers the spirit of many an otherwise solitary and labouring person with the prospect of a short season of relaxation, a short pause in the otherwise ever-going machinery of servitude. the old people—parents, and grand-parents, say—when telling of their children out at service, in some distant place, or married and settled far off: “well, well, we shall see them at the wake. they’ll all be here, thank god, well and hearty, i hope.” the children, as they groan at times under the tedium of perpetual labour, suddenly cheer up, and say,—“well, but we shall go home at the wake;”—a thing which is regularly stipulated for at hiring; and the vision of that joyful time, though but a moment in itself, puts out all the twilight of their weary waiting. the time comes. the merry[494] bells of the church are ringing on the anniversary of that church’s completion, perhaps five or seven hundred years ago. merrily they ring; and simple and glad creatures, young maidens, and youths, and comely pairs with a troop of children round them, hear them, as they come over hill and dale, approaching from all quarters the place of their nativity, and the place of their ancestors: the one place, however small and however obscure, tinged all over with the memories of childhood, and filled with the stories and legends that were interwoven with the very grain of their minds by their parents’ recitals in early life—the one place, therefore, which seems the most important in the universe. they, like the chinese, always place in the maps of their simple thoughts their native village in the centre of the earth. over hill and dale they are coming, all in their holiday array; and in many a bright little cottage, basking in the sunshine of morning, are eager hearts looking out for them; wondering how grace and thomas will look; whether they are much altered; and whether the children of the married ones will be much grown. the beauty of these village feasts is, that they do not occur all at one time, so that the friends and acquaintance of the inhabitants of one place, come pouring in to see them, and are ready in their turn to receive them at their feast.

they are times of pleasant exchange of hospitalities and renewals of simple friendships. out of doors there are stalls of toys and sweetmeats, and whirligigs for the children; within, there is, for once, plum-pudding and roast beef, and an infinity of such talk as best pleases their tastes. old notes of by-gone years are compared. many are recalled to remembrance who have not been thought of for a long time. the hearts of the old are warmed by retracing their early exploits, and early acquaintance, with all the pleasant exaggerations of memory; and the young listen, and think with wonder on those good old times.

in some old-fashioned places, these feasts are named from and mingled with the remains of other old church rites. at ilkeston in derbyshire, it is called the cross-dressing, and the cross in the village is dressed up with oaken boughs, with their leaves gilt and spangled. at tissington, near dovedale, the well-dressing or well-flowering, when they dress up a beautiful spring with[495] flowers, and have dances and processions and much merriment, is their great feast, though it may not happen to fall exactly on the day of the dedication of the church. at blidworth, in the old demesnes of sherwood, it is their rocking; i suppose from its happening to fall on the day after twelfth-day, or st. distaff’s-day, the custom of which is described by herrick:—

partly work, and partly play,

ye must on st. distaff’s-day:

from the plough soone free your teame,

then come home and fother them.

if the maides a spinning goe,

burn the flax and fire the tow.

bring in pails of water then,

let the maides bewash the men:

give st. distaff all the right,

then bid christmas sport good night.

and next morrow every one,

to his owne vocation.

in different villages, different customs have allied themselves to the great annual feast, the season of meeting of friends and relatives. long may these meetings remain bound up with, at least, one bright day in the year. i trust, however knowledge and refinement may extend themselves, they will never refine these rural holidays away. let them root out cruelty and rudeness, and drunkenness, as they have done already in a great degree—for where now are bull-baitings, bear-baitings, dog-fights, and cock-fights, which twenty years ago were the invariable accompaniments and great attraction of these wakes? let christian knowledge root out these things, and thus perfect this one white season of the cottager’s year—making it entirely an occasion for cultivating the best affections, and knitting together family ties.

statutes.

these, which are called provincially statitz, or statice, are meetings for hiring of farm and household servants, “according to statutes made and provided,” and are held in certain central and convenient places. they are attended merely by farmers, and people who happen to want men or maid-servants, and by the[496] servants themselves. by the latter they are looked forward to with much interest. they furnish occasion for a holiday. they are for the time their own masters, having left, or being about to leave their places, and either to re-engage themselves, or to seek new ones. they here meet their old acquaintances, and compare notes of the past year, of the character of the different places they have had; of what extraordinary has befallen them; and are full of new schemes and speculations as to where they shall go; what advance of wages they shall obtain; in what capacity they shall hire themselves. in many parts of the country he who offers himself as a shepherd appears with a lock of wool in his hat, placed under the band; the wagoner has a bit of whipcord stuck there; the groom a bit of sponge; the milkmaid in her bonnet a tuft of cow-hair; and the general run of farm-servants are conspicuous enough as to what they are, by their carters’-frocks, or slops, hob-nailed ankle boots, and out-of-door, half-waggish, half-sheepish looks.

it is a true country scene, to see all these rude sons of the soil collected together from their farm-yards and solitary fields, where, far from towns, they have gone whistling after the plough, sowing, or gathering in harvest; and the girls that have been scrubbing, churning, and milking, and occasionally helping in the hay or corn fields, here dressed out in their rustic finery, and shewing such robust forms and rosy faces as might astonish our over-delicate citizens. to see the farmers going amongst them, inquiring after their accomplishments and qualities, and cheapening them much as they would cheapen a horse; and their no less wary wives negotiating with the buxom damsels of the mop and pail. these matters all satisfactorily disposed of, and the earnest, or money given on account of future services, or as it is otherwise called, the fastening-penny, from its formerly being a penny, though now a shilling, being given, away go the farmers and farmeresses, and leave the lads and lasses to a day of jollity and fun. the swains lose no time in selecting each his chere-amie for the day; and the afternoon is spent in eating, flirting, drinking, and dancing, and then all separate their several ways, for at least another year.

some of these statutes in agricultural districts bring together a vast concourse of people. in warwickshire, oxfordshire,[497] and many other parts of the country, these statutes are held about old michaelmas-day, when all the servants, men and women, are at liberty from their servitude, and have a week’s holiday to attend the different neighbouring statutes, mops, or bull-roastings, as they are called. all work is at an end. day-labourers are the only men who can be got to do out-of-doors offices; charwomen take the place of housemaids within; and good housewives are often at their wits’ end what to do. as you enter towns you find them swarming with the country lads and lasses, and oxen roasting in the streets; booths, shows, eating, treating, and dancing the order of the day. as you go along the highways you meet the young country people streaming along in their rustic finery to or from the towns; and when you arrive at a country inn, probably the door is barred and bolted, if it be towards evening,—the servants being all gone to be hired, the master to hire, and the mistress left alone, and no little afraid of the loose strolling fellows who are abroad at this unsettled time. i once went, when a boy, with my schoolmaster to polesworth statute, in warwickshire, and well remember that such was the crowd, that although i saw a penny on the ground, and made many attempts to stoop down and pick it up, i found it impossible to do it. in northumberland, durham, and the south of scotland, similar meetings are held, where the hinds hire their bondagers.

fairs.

statutes are places where the working class of the rural districts amuse themselves, but fairs are great sources of pleasure to all classes of country people. the farmers, and their wives and daughters; the villagers of all descriptions; the cottagers from the most secluded retreats; the squire and his family from the hall—all flock to the fair of their county town, and find some business to be transacted, and a world of pleasure to be enjoyed. there are cheese, cattle, horses, poultry, geese, and a hundred other things, to be sold; and multitudes of household articles, clothing, and trinkets to be bought; and, besides all this, a vast of seeing and being seen to be done. i will describe the great october fair of nottingham, called goose-fair, as a good specimen of a country fair on a large scale.

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in the country, for many miles round, this fair is looked forward to by young and old with views of business and recreation for months; and what was done, and said, and seen at goose-fair; who was met there, and what matches were made, serve for conversation for months afterwards. the buyers and sellers of cheese, apples, onions, and a variety of other articles, are making their preparations to be there; some of them from distant counties; horse-jockeys are getting ready their strings of horses; young people are putting their wardrobes in order, and expecting all that such young people do expect on such occasions. in the town, two or three days before, the signs of the approaching fair increase. huge caravans incessantly arrive, with their wild beasts, theatricals, dwarfs, giants, and other prodigies and wonders. then come trotting in those light, neat covered wagons, containing the contents of sundry bazaars that are speedily to spring up. as you go out of the town at any end, you meet caravan after caravan, cart after cart, long troops of horses tied head and tail, and groups of those wild and peculiar-looking people, that are as necessary to a fair as flowers are to may;—all kinds of strollers, beggars, gipsies, singers, dancers, players on harps, indian jugglers, punch and judy exhibitors, and similar wandering artists and professors.

for some days before the general fair commences, the horse-fair is going on. you recognise all the knowing-ones in horse-flesh from all the country round; country gentlemen and smart young farmers, and cunning jockeys with their long drab great coats, short old boots, and their jockey whips stuck carelessly under their arm. horses of all kinds, light and heavy, full blood, half blood, and no blood at all, are ridden and driven to shew their action, along the pavement in all directions, as if the aim of the riders was to run over everybody they could, and break their own necks into the bargain.

then on the authentic day of the fair, forth comes the procession of the corporation to proclaim the fair, and march up the market-place and down again in their scarlet robes, mayor and aldermen, the mace borne and the trumpet blown before them, and the beadles with their staves behind. having made this procession to the wonder of all children, and sight-loving adults, they ascend into the town-hall, there, oddly enough, called the[499] exchange, and the crier proclaims the fair from the charter, at the prompting of the town-clerk. the fair is proclaimed, and is already in existence. there is the market-place, an area of six acres, jammed full of stalls, shows, bazaars, and people. from the earliest hour of the morning, wagons loaded with cheese have been arriving, which are now seen on one side of the market-place, pitched down in piles, and in quantities enough, one would think, to serve all england for a twelvemonth. there are the farmers, and their wives and daughters, well wrapped up in good market coats, with numerous capes, surveying with pride the workmanship of their hands, and the product of their summer’s dairy; and there are the dealers busy amongst it with their cheese-tasters, tasting and chaffering, and buying, and sending off their purchases by wagons to the wharfs. it is incredible in what a little time those great heaps of cheese vanish from the stones, and nuts and onions in abundance.

the whole market-place is now one mass of moving people, and unintermitted din. wombwell’s menagerie displays all its gigantic animals on its scenes; holloway’s “travelling company of comedians” are dancing with harlequin and clown in front of their locomotive theatre; wonderful women, and children, and animals; wonderful machinery, panoramas, and prodigies are displayed on all sides in pictorial enormity, and the united sounds of wombwell’s fine band of musicians in their beef-eater costume, the band of holloway, the smaller ones of other shows, and the bawlings, and invitings, and oratorical declamation of a dozen different showmen, with bellowing of gongs and clashing of cymbals, make up a sound enough to drive to distraction more swine than ran into the sea of gennesaret, but which seems, notwithstanding, wonderfully delightful to ears grown weary of country quiet. it is curious to see the numbers pouring in and out of these places; to see the dense crowd of upturned faces collected before every show where there are antics playing, and clowns and fools talking nonsense for their entertainment. to hear the hearty laughs which follow their standing jokes, is to feel how cheaply pleasure can be furnished to hungry spirits.

but the crowd of fair-goers walking round and round this annual babel! during the morning, business is the chief engrossment;[500] but from noon till eleven or twelve o’clock at night, pleasure is the pursuit. the farmers’ daughters, who stood in their caped coats before their piles of cheese, are now metamorphosed into most extraordinary belles, and have found beaus as dashing as themselves. at all the stalls, purchases of gingerbread, sweetmeats, nuts and oranges, are going on; and through the bazaars—those modern additions to fairs, goes a perpetual stream of gay people, admiring the endless variety of things that are there displayed on either hand. tea-caddies, workboxes of rosewood and pearl, china, cut-glass, drums and trumpets, and all kinds of toys; bracelets and necklaces, and all species of female trinkets; fans, and parlour bellows, figures in porcelain and painted wood; purses, musical boxes, and, in short, all the thousand contents of a bazaar.

this afternoon portion of the fair is called the gig-fair, because people come driving in their gigs to it; i. e. it is the pleasure-fair, where smart people from all quarters come to see, and to be seen. the second day of the fair, i believe, is the earliest on which very genteel people make their appearance, and then you may often see numbers of country families of good standing mingling in the moving mass of vanity fair. it is amusing enough to sit at a window, and look over all the stirring and motley scene. to see the eternal stream of smart dresses and fair faces go by. round and round they move, in one dense throng, every one apparently driven forward by the weight of the coming crowd; and, taking into consideration the press, the noise, the weariness of such thronged and continued walking, one is apt to wonder how any human beings can find pleasure in it. but that they do find pleasure, and an intense pleasure, their eager and multitudinous flocking thither sufficiently denote. they come out of a quietness that presents a little noise and dissipation as an agreeable contrast. they come to attractions adapted to their taste. the greater part of them are full of youth and expectation. there is no occasion on which so many country flames are struck up as at a fair. and in truth, you see numbers of fine healthy forms of both sexes in this crowd, and beautiful faces in numbers sufficient to make you feel with the poet:

[501]

the ancient spirit is not dead;

old times, thought i, are breathing there;

proud was i that my country bred

such strength, a dignity so fair.

it is a time, in fact, of universal country jollity, pleasure-taking, love-making, present-making, treating, and youthful entertainment, enjoyed to an extent that people of different tastes can form no conception of. many an important connexion is dated from the fair; many a freak, a pleasure, a piece of wit and fun, are thence registered, and talked of at country firesides to the latest period of life; and these are all so much part and parcel of our common nature, that there must be a stony place in the heart which does not strongly sympathise with the actors and partakers of them. joy, therefore, to all fair-goers! and with the growth of greater intelligence and taste, long may the healthy capacity of being lightly pleased retain its hold on the robust forms and sweet faces of english rural life.

i have often thought that we have artists who go all over the world in quest of novelties of scene, costume, character, and grouping, many of whom, if they came to an english fair, with minds capable of entering into what they saw, might give us scenes and figures of more real interest than they often bring back after years of absence. the dancing-scene before holloway’s; the figures and coquetting of country belles and their lovers; and the picturesque simplicity of the old men gazing like children on some wonder-promising showman, and now full of consternation and amaze at some of them finding their purses clean vanished from their pockets, would form good subjects for the pencil.