✓ B NARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY BEQUEST OF Goe, tell the poets that their pedling rimes Breton's Pasquil's Nightcap.-1600. "Come, pretty maydens, what is't you buy? If you can find a toy to your mind, Be so kind view the pedlar's pack. Pedlar's Song from "Catch who catch can."—1652. то JAMES MAIDMENT, ESQUIRE, IN THE HAPPY REMEMBRANCE OF A FRIENDSHIP WHICH HAS ENDURED UNINTERRUPTEDLY FOR A LONG SERIES OF YEARS, This Volume IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. PREFACE. A TASTE for the stupendous and extensive, combined with an assumption of wisdom and knowledge which our more sage ancestors never dreamt of, has led to an entire revolution in the manners and customs of the peasantry of this country. With a spurious desire to avoid what might be deemed "vulgar," the present generation have repudiated many things which formerly used to be regarded as institutions. Compare, for instance, a Country or Statute Fair of our time with the fairs of even twenty years ago, and mark well the difference. No stir, no bustle, no fun. Such a want of heart about everything; such a listlessness; and, notwithstanding the increased population, such a comparatively poor attendance. Learned Pigs, Spotted Indian Youths, Whitehaired Ladies, Fat Boys, the Speaking Fish, and other wonders of that kind, which were once reckoned great attractions to the common people, seem for ever banished. Dwarfs and Giants, also, which were only to be seen in itinerant shows on high days and holidays, have set about throwing off all connection with meanness and vulgarity, and now aim at raising their social position by assuming a style of grandeur and magnificence, and by putting a greater value, if that were possible, upon themselves. Their keeper, too, instead of being that honest-looking Yorkshireman in highlows, or that glib-tongued Irishman, who had just, by dint of a praiseworthy persevering spirit, emancipated himself from the thraldom of an agricultural "artist plying his sickle-y trade," now appears in the person of a fine gentleman with mustachios, a soft poetic voice, and |