"The allusion to the king's visit to the fair," said Herbert, "reminds me of what Warton says of the royal booth at the fair of St. Botolph, at Boston, in Lincolnshire, from which stall or booth the king drew revenue."

"Before roads were general and passable, and the communication between town and town was frequent, the concourse of people at the various fairs must have been very great," said Thompson.

"As great as even now in many parts of the east, where the fairs are still regarded as the great emporia of merchandise, the universal mart of extensive districts, dependent on such meetings for their chief supplies."

"Warton," said Herbert, "gives a curious account of St. Giles' fair at Winchester, which dated back to the Conquest, was held for three days, and, by later grants, extended to sixteen; and was given by William the Conqueror to the bishops of Winchester as a source of revenue."

"Doubtless no mean revenue was derived from it?" said Lathom.

"For those days, very great: the jurisdiction of the fair extended for seven miles round, including the port of Southampton; and every merchant who sold wares within that circuit, except at the fair, or refused to pay the bishop's toll, had his goods forfeited to the bishop. In the middle of St. Giles' Down stood the bishop's pavilion, where sat his court, supreme, so long as the fair lasted, within the seven miles' jurisdiction."

"What over other existing jurisdictions, the lords of the neighbourhood, or the corporation of Winchester?" asked Thompson.

"Yes, supreme for the time. Even the city was for the time under the bishop's rule; on St. Giles' eve the keys were delivered to him, and during the fair, toll was exacted in his name on all goods that went through the city gate. No baron within the circuit could hold his manor-court without a licence from the bishop's pavilion. The bishop appointed a mayor, bailiff, and coroner of his own during the fair."

"Being so near the coast, foreigners must have often resorted to the great Winchester fair, I presume?"

"Yes," rejoined Herbert. "So numerous and powerful that they had their separate street in the fair, as the drapers, and spice-dealers, and potters had theirs; and the toll to the bishop from the foreign merchants formed no mean portion of the revenue he derived from the fair."

66 It was an old custom for merchants to meet from all countries at the different fairs," said Lathom. "I remember to have read that in 1314, Philip of France remonstrated with our second Edward on the great loss his subjects had received from the merchants of England desisting from frequenting the fairs in France."

"Yes," remarked Frederick Thompson; "in the days of the Edwards and Henrys a fair was as great a panacea for evils, as public meetings in this century. If a village was sacked or destroyed by fire or flood, the grant of a fair was an established means of restoring it to its pristine vigour."

"We must look abroad for the old fairs, such as they were in the middle ages," said Herbert. "Frankfort and Leipzig still remind us of such fairs as that at

Winchester; thirty to forty thousand buyers and sellers are not uncommonly seen at Leipzig, the last great fair of central Europe."

"And yet," said Lathom, "both these are but children to the great fair of Nischnei Novgorod, where merchants from the banks of the Baltic and the Caspian interchange goods with Khivans, Chinese, the mountaineers of central Asia, and the merchants of western Europe."

"It is, indeed, almost difficult to believe Kohl's account of the meeting at Nischnei Novgorod," said Herbert.

"Wonderful, but of admitted truth. How curious must be the scenes; a town of vast emporia, mingled with nearly three thousand shops, almost without an inhabitant, save a few government officials, until the flag is raised on the 29th of June; then the town is alive like an ant-hill. Every magazine and booth is filled with merchandise, the produce of the most diverse countries; thousands of boats are landing goods, or taking them to other vessels; piles of merchandise stand on all sides, even in the open country; and amidst all this treasury of wealth, three hundred thousand of nearly all nations under heaven are trafficking."

"The value of goods exposed at such fairs must be startling, if capable of being calculated," said Herbert.

"The system of fair tolls makes this an easy matter.

In 1839, the value

of goods exposed at twenty-two of the fairs of Russia, reached fifteen millions and a half, of which Novgorod contributed nearly one half."

"Roubles," suggested Thompson.

66

No, sterling pounds." With this digressive conversation, the evening closed.

CHAPTER VIII.

Southey's Thalaba-THE SUGGESTIONS OF THE EVIL ONE-COTONOLAPES, THE MAGICIAN-The Garden of Aloaddin-The Old Man of the Mountain-The Assassins-Their Rise and Fall-Gay's Conjurer-SIR GUIDO, THE CRUSADER-Guy, Earl of Warwick.

"ARE you going to give us a specimen of the late Laureate's conversions," said Thompson, "that you borrowed my Southey?"

"Even so-to claim for the magic garden of Aloaddin, the gem of the sixth book of Thalaba, at least a Latin form, if it must not be regarded as a striking instance of my Eastern theory."

"Southey did not come to your book for his idea; he was content with the apparently historical account of Purchas in his Pilgrims, or the more elaborate description of the notorious Mandeville," rejoined Thompson.

"I am very much at a loss to appreciate your account," said Herbert, as Southey, Purchas, and Mandeville, are nearly all equally unknown to me." "The best means of showing the progress of the story and its conversion by the poet," said Lathom, "will be to commence with the old monk's very short version; let that be followed by Mandeville, and that veritable author by Southey's description. The monk's tale is,

THE SUGGESTIONS OF THE EVIL ONE.

THERE was a celebrated magician, who had a vast castle, surrounded by a very beautiful garden, in which grew flowers of the most fragrant smell, and fruits not only fair to look upon, but most delicious to the taste. In short, it was a garden of Paradise; no one was allowed to see its glories, or taste its pleasures, but fools or personal enemies of the magician. When the gate was opened to any one, great was his wonder and delight; and few who once entered ever wished to return. Nay, the pleasures they there enjoyed so affected their minds, that they yielded forthwith to the will of the magician, and were ready to resign to him everything that they had.

To the fools, this garden appeared to be Paradise itself: its flowers and its fruits they looked upon as of immortal growth, and regarded themselves as chosen from among the inhabitants of the world as the happy possessors of the land. Beyond this they gave not one thought. Day and night they revelled in pleasure, and surrendered their minds and their bodies to lawless gratifications.

At last the day of reckoning came, and the magician prepared to reap the fruits of his scheme. Their inheritances once placed in his power, he waited but for some moment when his victim was steeped in sensual intoxication, and then fell upon him and slew him. Thus, by his fictitious Paradise, he acquired great wealth and power.

"I admire the moderation of your old monk," said Thompson, " in not assigning a particular locality to his magician's paradise. Purchas and Mandeville are not so moderate; the former puts Aloaddin's abode in the northeast parts of Persia, and Mandeville locates him in the island of Milsterak, a portion of the kingdom of Prester John."

"No bad illustration," said Herbert, " of the difference between a writer who tells a fiction as a fiction, and one who records it with the intention of making his readers believe it to be true."

"Great particularity as to time, place, and persons, is the sure mark of a mendacious traveller," remarked Lathom; "both Purchas and Mandeville have altered the object of the magician's plot; making it his means of destroying his enemies, by persuading his victims that death in his service was only a step to a more beautiful paradise. I will read Mandeville's tale of—

COTONOLAPES, THE MAGICIAN.

In the Isle of Pentexoire, that is in the land of Prester John, is a great isle, long and broad, and men call that isle Milsterak. There was a man there that was called Cotonolapes, he was full rich, and had a fair castle on a hill, and strong, and he made a wall all about the hill right strong and fair; within he had a fair garden, wherein were many trees bearing all manner of fruits that he might find, and he had planted therein all manner of herbs of good smell, and that bare flowers, and there were many

fair wells, and by them were made many halls and chambers well dight with gold and azure, and he had made there divers stories of beasts and birds, that sung and turned by engine and orbage as they had been quick; and he had in his garden all things that might be to man solace and comfort; he had also in that garden maidens within the age of fifteen years, the fairest that he might find, and men children of the same age, and they were clothed with cloth of gold, and he said that they were angels; and he caused to be made certain hills, and inclosed them about with precious stones of jasper and crystal, and set in gold and pearls, and other manner of stones; and he had made a conduit under the earth, so that when he would, the walls ran sometimes with milk, sometimes with wine, sometimes with honey, and this place is called Paradise; and when any young bachelor of the country, knight or esquire, cometh to him for solace and disport, he leadeth them into his paradise, and showeth them these things, as the songs of birds, and his damsels and wells; and he did strike divers instruments of music, in a high tower that might be heard, and said they were angels of God, and that place was Paradise, that God hath granted to those that believed, when he said thus: Dabo vobis terram fluentem lacte et melle; that is to say, I shall give you land flowing with milk and honey. And then this rich man made these men drink a manner of drink, of which they were drunken; and he said to them, if they would die for his sake, when they were dead, they should come to his paradise, and they should be of the age of those maidens, and should dwell always with them, and he should put them in a fairer paradise where they should see God in joy, and in his majesty and then they granted to do that he would, and he bade them go and slay such a lord, or a man of the country that he was wroth with, and that they should have dread of no man. And if they were slain themselves for his sake, he should put them in his paradise when they were dead. And so went these bachelors to slay great lords of the country, and were slain themselves in hope to have that paradise; and thus he was avenged of his enemies through his desert and when rich men of the country perceived this cautel and malice, and the will of this Cotonolapes, they gathered them jogether and assailed the castle, and slew him, and destroyed all