"Out, out, brief candle!"—Macbeth.

Something whispers us that we should here commence moralising, that we should first expatiate on the nothingness of worldly gaud and greatness—enlarge on the changefulness of human prospects, and discover to our readers' view the myriads of blanks with which that fraudulent jade Fortune dilutes the few prizes she dispenses from her wheel. But then again, another something whispers us, we had far better get on with our subject, and we think we had.

Be it known then, that ever since a certain morning, (Anno Domini something,) when our nursery-maid walked us through Bartholomew Fair, and showed us all the pretty things, and treated our little palate to one or two of the nice ones, we have felt a remarkable passion for fairs—Bartholomew fair in particular. We will adventure to measure our love for it against that of its tutelar saint—but alas! we forget—it has no tutelar saint now; he has long since turned his back upon it. Yes, when prosperity went hand in hand with it, when joy, mirth, and splendour, were its friends, then could that faithless guardian—but, we must commence again, this is too moral—too moral by half. Once more then.

It was the last day of Bartholomew Fair, and from some unaccountable cause, we had not been near the spot. But it was not yet too late. We bustled up at the thought, hastily pinned our handkerchief inside our hat, emptied all our pockets—save one, divested our person of watch and jewelry, (for we hold it heinous to encourage picking and stealing,) and then hurried out in the direction of Smithfield, resolving in the plenitude of our joy to visit every show, have a ride in every swing, take a chance at every penny turn, roll the marble down every tower of Babel, and pink with every winning needle, for the sake of lang syne. Five years had we been away from England—five years had we been absent from our own dear Fair; and yet, how well we remembered our last walk over the same ground, about the same hour, and on the same errand. What pleasure it was now to see that so little change had taken place in the streets! There, stood the old oyster-rooms exactly the same as ever; yonder, was the public-house beside the gateway, just as dirty, just the same people at the doors, just the same noise within as when we last passed by. There was even the same crooked old post at the corner. Recollection seemed as it were to shake hands with these objects as old familiar friends, and we pushed on with even yet more joy in our bosom, and ardent expectation in our heart, to the great—the Prince of Fairs.

Our heart leaped for joy as we shot past a little shop, displaying drums, dolls, kettles, portable tea-services, singing cuckoos, bow-wow poodles, and armies of soldiers barracked in flat deal boxes, with a background of whips, scratchers, trumpets, squeakers, diminutive culinary apparatus, and Waterloo-crackers: we say, our heart leaped for very joy at the sight; but it leaped no more that night, for, from that moment disappointment marked us for her own. There now insensibly crept upon us strange forebodings and presentiments that all was not right, for although close upon the fair, we felt no wonted squeeze, heard no confusion of tongues, saw no confluence of people all driving and pouring up the road to one point. No announcements of hot green peas, fried sausages, cooked eels, or other Bartholomew delicacies, came wafted on the breeze;—no ginger-beer stands, corn-plaster venders, brass-sovereign sellers, or spiced-elder-wine compounders, lined the street: the throng was even less than we had seen upon an ordinary cattle-day. We grew frightened; and rushing forward, peeped into the fair itself. In that peep, the thermometer of our joy fell full five hundred degrees below zero. Why, where are the shows? where are the swings? where are the turn-abouts—the round-abouts? where are the people? where, where is the Fair? But down, struggling feelings, down, and let me write calmly. In 1841 there were but TWO SHOWS in the Great Bartholomew Fair! We now walked up the gingerbread walk—the only gingerbread walk. Time had been, when our first act was to store a pocket with the best spiced nuts, for until we had eaten a few of those little cakes, we never felt ourself in the fair; but now, we hadn't the heart to taste one. Nor nuts nor any gauds had charms for us. We gazed with a pitying eye on all. We saw black ruin hovering over and already darkening Smithfield's grandeur—we beheld destruction suspended only by the last weak thread of custom, which Time with his scythe, or pocket-scissors, was about to sever, to the extinction, the total annihilation, of our own—our beloved fair. In consequence of the prohibitory price asked for the lawful groundage, two shows had been forced to take unfurnished lodgings in Hosier-lane. This, was indeed a blow! To see two, old, aboriginal exhibitions—one miscellaneous, the other mechanical, with waxen kings, clock-work queens, and spring-wire princes, barbarously driven from their native fair—unhappy refugees, and sojourners in narrow-streets and Hosier-lanes! Rumours there were too, that one other miserable exile had sought an asylum in a neighbouring farrier's shop; that there, in the front of certain festoons of dirty red cloth which veiled an ugly forge, the pincers, hammers, anvils, and other appurtenances of farriery, wizards were manufacturing puddings in the company's hats, causing real beer to stream from any given part of any little boy, and pulverising watches in mortars, as choice ingredients for soup; but we lacked curiosity to go and test the truth of such reports—these shows were not in the fair, therefore over us possessed no magic influence. With a heavy heart we next sauntered by the groups of stalls, whereon were spread various fruits and seductive viands—articles of savour for such as were edaciously disposed; but nobody seemed hungry; people passed and repassed, and scarcely glanced at the temptations. True, oysters appeared somewhat in demand, as did certain vinegary relishes in tiny white saucers, but as to the more substantial boiled tripe, fried fish, pigs' feet, pickled salmon, &c., none but the smallest boys approached the stalls, and they, not to buy—only to enjoy a look. The very cries of the doll and toy women, as they recommended this article or that to the dreamy by-standers, seemed muffled with sadness; and the gipsy gambler who was casting dice upon an old tea-tray, and relieving one or two dirty-faced urchins of their farthings, seemed to be realising scarcely sufficient to pay for the flaring candle which lighted his dishonesty.

We now stood opposite Wombwell's menagerie. This was the star, the Hyperion of the fair—it stood out bright and undaunted as in happier times—it was the last gallant upholder of poor Smithfield's dying splendour. We admit that there was a crowd before this show, but it was not a Bartholomew-fair crowd. There was wanting—that pulling, that pushing, that hallooing, that hooting, that screaming of women, that shrieking of children, that treading on toes, that losing of shoes, that knocking in of hats, that demolishing of bonnets, that crying for help, that squeezing of ribs, that contest between "stream up" and "stream down," which there always was in days of yore. Such, do we remember as the features of a legitimate Bartholomew crowd; whilst from the surrounding shows, there thundered the clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, the springing of rattles, the bellowing of speaking trumpets, the ringing of bells, the crashing of horns, with fiddles, bag pipes, cymbals, organs, drums, and the hoarse voices of the showmen, all uniting and confusing into one loud, discordant, ceaseless roar—Oh! happy, thrice happy days! To the left of the mighty Wombwell, like some tributary satellite, was a smaller—very much smaller show—a sort of domestic multum in parvo—a wee locomotive ark, as it were—into which, on some curious principle of condensation, the ingenious proprietor had compressed a dwarf, an Abyssinian princess with vermilion eyes and snow-white hair, a living skeleton, a remarkably accomplished pig, and several other monstrosities—exclusive of drum, barrel organ, household furniture, and his family. Over the doorway of this accommodative cabin swung an iron dish, in which flared some grease and oakum, that threw a dull flickering light upon the portraiture above the van, which represented, among other things, the ruby-eyed princess combing her silver locks in the presence of company, the dwarf poised in a giant's hand, and the Crichton of pigs engaged in a game of cards. On the steps of this exhibition, dressed in a green velveteen shooting-coat with large moon buttons, and a red shawl wound about his neck, stood the proprietor himself. From top to toe he looked the showman; but the care upon his brow—the spiritless voice in which he reminded the scant mob about him of its being the last night of the fair, and exhorted them not to neglect the golden opportunity of witnessing his pig, dwarf, &c., told us that he, like ourself, was the victim of chagrin and disappointment. There had been a time when his hoarse voice rehearsing his catalogue of prodigies would have been drowned in the clamouring din around him, but now every word, every sentence he uttered, was pitiably distinct.

"Now, walk for'ard, walk for'ard!" he exclaimed, his wife accompanying his voice on the watchman's rattle ad libitum. "Only a penny remember! one penny there! the last night—one penny!" But nobody moved, nobody walked forward—the whole crowd seemed penniless.

"Don't stand fingrin' the suv'rins in yer pocket, young men, till yer vares 'em as thin as vafers and nobody vont take 'em," he continued. "Don't stand a-thinkin' yerselves inter consumptions, but treat yer sveethearts to the vunder o' the fair—come and vitness the most larn'd and eloquentest pig as wos iver born or created—a pig wot's a human bein' in everything but his tail and wices!" He paused, looked wistfully round, whilst his spouse performed a furious interlude upon the watchman's rattle: he then resumed. "Here, here, here, ladies, is the pritty cretur wot'll tell you the 'zact name o' the young man as is dyin' for yer—vether he's dark or light—fat or thin, and vare his country-'ouse is. The livin' skel'ton too, wot eats no other wittles but light and vind! Vun penny; no more, remember! Jist agoin' to begin—vun penny!" He paused again, but his oratory induced only two persons to ascend the steps. "The African princess too," he continued, tapping the illustrious portrait with a cane, "vith silver hair eight foot long, every hair on her head vorth a goulden guinea! Yoye—yoye—yoye, there, walk for'ard and don't be afear'd—Little children is as velcome as big men—Nobody's shut out but dogs and blind people. Yoye—yoye, the dwarf—the dwarf—the dwarf, here—so short, he can't vash his own face vithout he stands on a high stool. Now my little boys, put yer four fard'ns together and see vot you'll niver see agin if yer lives as long as the most oldest donkey—come and see the vunderful pig Toby as'll tell yer how old yer are—vare the key of yer master's till's kept, and vether you're to pick up the five-pun-note a valking home to-night, or next veek!"

But to little end is this budget of professional eloquence and strained humour reiterated in the ears of his gaping listeners; very few are so overcome by it as to "walk forward;" such as are, being kept in bondage till their open mutiny and rebellious language compel the proprietor to close the door; the exhibition then commences, and then concludes; and then again comes the Sisyphian labour of refilling the van.

Apprehensive lest our distress of feeling should be observed in our countenance, we turned our back upon the wretched spectacle, and gazed into the gloomy field before us, till our heart verily ached again. We had known a time when "Richardson's" in giant letters met our view—when wreaths and stars of variegated lamps, brilliant as the rainbow, depended and glittered from red festoons—when, side by side, the insidious conspirator, the valiant disinherited, and beauteous betrothed, paced the platform in mysterious communion—when funny clowns sang funny songs to a sea of delighted faces—when ladies in Scotch costume danced Highland flings—when countless people who had paid, stood conjecturing and anxiously waiting outside for the conclusion of the tragedy and pantomime then being executed inside, and feeling sensations of awe creep over them as the spangled knights, the frowning desperadoes, and Indian chiefs with bracelets on their arms and rings through their ears and noses, stalked past them in their dignified parade. Oh! torturing memory! Once more in thy dimless mirror do we behold "Pavilion Theatre"—see the equestrian "Clarke's"—hear too their cry of "The riders, the riders"—see again the savage combat between the two fierce bandits, who perform north-east south-west, robbers' cut, and guard, with frantic bravery—again we see Master Clarke and Miss Clarke waltzing round and round in the innocence of childhood—again the din of Bartholomew rings in our ears—again is Smithfield thronged with its roystering thousands—again are we surrounded by booths, shows, dwarfs, giants, pigs link-eaters, fat boys, swings, round-abouts, conjurers, and steam glass-works. We should, past doubt, have swooned away at the vision we had raised, had we not turned opportunely to the little show behind us, which made us conscious of the chilling truth of the reality. Despairing and broken-spirited, the proprietor had forsaken his post, and whilst his consort screamed forth invitations to the inanimate crowd to walk forward, he leaned his back dejectedly against the wheel of his yellow habitation. As he stood, he was accosted by a man in knee corduroys, half-boots, and white stockings, who, removing the short pipe from his mouth and looking hard in the showman's face, exclaimed—

"Vot Bill!—vy I ardly know'd yer! Vot a precious long phiz you have got! Vot has give you the blues?"

"Blues!" echoed the showman, for an instant raising his eyes; "Ain't it enough to make a heart of stone bleed to see this here Fair? Ain't it enough to—" but here his eyes again fell upon the ground, and superintended a little hole which he was digging with his iron heel.

"Vell, but man," rejoined the corduroys, encouragingly, as he glanced about him, "there arn't a wery great squeege to-night, to be sure, but yer vosn't so thin yisterday, and the day afore, vos yer?"

"Wasn't we though," sighed the proprietor, with a significant nod, "in that ere precious pourer yisterday—we wasn't thin, eh?—oh, not at all!"—

"Vell, don't founder, old boy. Come, go up, go up, and then the people'll follow you!"

"Not they," returned the dejected man; "They hasn't the sperit, Jim. They sneeks avay to the gin-shops and destroys their morals—gets drunk, and goes home and whacks their innercent wives—here's a precious state o' things for a civilised country!"

"Vell, niver mind. See, your good woman's a-calling of yer; go up to her, for down here yer looks as miserable as a fish out o' water. Ve all regrets it, but if yer perfession is ruined, vy, try your hand in some other line, that's all."

"Niver! niver, Jim!" cried the indomitable showman; "I wos born in a wan—I wos edicated in a wan—I've lived in a wan, and—I'll die in a wan!" Saying which, he rushed frantically up the steps, vented the first burst of his feelings in a terrific flourish upon the trumpet, and ultimately calmed down at the barrel organ. Very soon after, St Paul's sonorous voice spoke his dismal fiat, and as he tolled out the eleventh hour, seemed to ring the knell of our dear departed Bartholomew Fair. Alpha.