332
NOTES' AND QUERIES. p* s. vm. OCT. 10, iwi.
had been among those who had fought in
our cause. For a time he was a prisoner,
after the overthrow of that movement, in
the casemates of Kastatt. Like all of us, he
no doubt appreciated the spirit of the
- Marseillaise.
More than this. M. Franz Hamma at Metz sends me a copy of a 'Credo' by Holtzmann, which had long lain neglected in a loft of his house among old papers, and this text has the most striking passages identical with parts of the ' Marseillaise.' I have had it submitted to musical friends, among them to one who is a professional musician and a composer, and they were all struck by the extraordinary similarity. How- ever, on this subject I may have to say more elsewhere, as my recent inquiries have brought me several important communica- tions. So I now confine myself writing from Hindhead, Hampshire to these con- cluding lines in 'N. & Q.' KARL BLIND.
TRAGEDY BY WORDSWORTH (9 th S. viii. 284). The lines quoted (not quite correctly) by Hazlitt from an unpublished tragedy by Wordsworth will be found in Act III. of k The Borderers,' which was composed in 1795-6, but was not published until 1842 :
Oswald : Action is transitory a step, a blow, The motion of a muscle this way or that 'Tis done, and in the after vacancy We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed ; Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark, And shares the nature of infinity.
J. A. J. HOUSDEN. Canon bury, N.
[Similar replies from C. L. F. and E. H. C. are acknowledged.]
LITTLE GIDDING : STOURBRIDGE FAIR (9 th S. viii. 204, 227). Lysons (not Roy sen) says that John gave the profits of the fair to the hospital of St. Mary Magdalen, its chapel, now desecrated, being used as a victualling house during the fair time. Henry VIII. , he says, made over all the rights of the fair to the mayor and corporation for the sum of 1,000 marks in 1539, this charter being con- firmed by Elizabeth in 1588 ; but I find that in 1589 the University had the right to appoint a clerk of the market, to punish all rogues, to proclaim the fair alternate years ; but the rnavor and corporation to have the inspection and searching of leather and such like goods paying to the University 3.s. 4d yearly. There was also a court of justice held on the ground for the punishment of regrators and cut- purses, as well as to keep order between students and strangers. A charter of Henry III. fixed the jurisdiction of the
University at five miles ; Elizabeth's at one.
In Lysons's time the fair extended over half
a mile : at present it has diminished con-
siderably ; but before the year 1753 it had
begun to decline. The fair is now proclaimed
by the mayor and some of the corporation on
4 September, but there are only four days
of it now. In Edward I.'s time it lasted for
two days. Fuller relates that the origin was
attributable to the fact of a clothier from
Kendal happening to dip his wares in the
Stur and exposing them for sale ; he reaped
a good harvest, and returned again the
next year. He gives this under date 1417
(5 Hen. V.), where he also says there was
at that time a dispute between the City of
London and the University about weights and
measures, but he never heard how the matter
was settled, and that in Mary's last year the
gownsmen, being short of money, would
have sold to the town all their rights, but
were dissuaded from doing so. At one time
this was the greatest fair, for every sort of
tradesman pitched his booth here for three
weeks. Indeed, the Dutch in the time of
William III. brought here toys, cheese, and
pipes. If there ever was a fair in Athelstan's
time, no record seems to remain, and it is a
doubtful case. W. H. BROWN.
Chesterton, Cambs.
MR. H. J. MOULE says that Stourbridge Fair was extinct in the forties, and that an eyewitness has told him that there used to be " an acre of earthenware there." MR. PORTER, on the other hand, says that the fair is still held. In vol. ii. of ' Our Own Country ' (Cassell), near the close of the article on Cam- bridge, I find the following :
"Yet further to the east [of Jesus College] are some remains of Barn well Abbey, a monastery of importance in its day, though now only the chapel
and a few fragments of buildings remain In its
precincts a fair of great fame was held every mid- summer, called, from the quantity of earthenware brought thither, Pot-fair ; and yet further east, and near the curious little Norman chapel at Sturbridge, was held a yet greater fair, in its day one of the most famous in England, called, from the locality, Sturbridge Fair."
The latter is certainly still held. Were there, then, two fairs ; and is it not possible that MR. H. J. MOULE and his informant are confusing them ? W. A. A.
This fair, one of the most noted in England in former times, was held at Stourbridge, a village one and a half miles from Cambridge, and was opened with great solemnities (see Lewis's 'Topographical Dictionary,' vol. iv., s.v.). Gunning, in his 'Reminiscences of Cambridge,' vol. i. p. 148 et seq. t has a most
