“Officers patrolled the square, whose business it was to keep the peace, to collect the dues imposed on the various kinds of merchandise, to see that no false measures or fraud of any kind were used, and to bring offenders at once to justice. A court of twelve judges sat in one part of the tianguez clothed with those ample and summary powers which, in despotic countries, are often delegated even to petty tribunals. The extreme severity with which they exercised those powers, in more than one instance, proves that they were not a dead letter.”

But notwithstanding the great antiquity of fairs, their charters are comparatively modern—the oldest known being that of St Denys, Paris, which Dagobert, king of the Franks, granted (642 a.d.) to the monks of the place “for the glory of God, and the honour of St Denys at his festival.” The first recorded grant in England appears to be that of William the Conqueror to the bishop of Winchester, for leave to hold an annual “free fair” at St Giles’s hill. The monk who had been the king’s jester received his charter of Bartholomew fair, Smithfield, in the year 1133. And in 1248 Henry III. granted a like privilege to the abbot of Westminster, in honour of the “translation” of Edward the Confessor. Sometimes fairs were granted to towns as a means for enabling them to recover from the effects of war and other disasters. Thus, Edward III. granted a “free fair” to the town of Burnley in Rutland, just as, in subsequent times, Charles VII. favoured Bordeaux, after the English wars, and Louis XIV. gave fair charters to the towns of Dieppe and Toulon. The importance attached to these old fairs may be understood from the inducements which, in the 14th century, Charles IV. held out to traders visiting the great fair of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. The charter declared that both during the continuance of the fair, and for eighteen days before and after it, merchants would be exempt from imperial taxation, from arrest for debt, or civil process of any sort, except such as might arise from the transactions of the market itself and within its precincts. Philip of Valois’s regulations for the fairs of Troyes in Champagne might not only be accepted as a fair type of all subsequent fair-legislation of the kingdom, but even of the English and German laws on the subject. The fair had its staff of notaries for the attestation of bargains, its court of justice, its police officers, its sergeants for the execution of the market judges’ decrees, and its visitors— of whom we may mention the prud' hommes,— whose duty it was to examine the quality of goods exposed for sale, and to confiscate those found unfit for consumption. The confiscation required the consent of five or six representatives of the merchant community at the fair. The effect of these great “free fairs” of England and the Continent on the development of society was indeed great. They helped to familiarize the western and northern countries with the banking and financial systems of the Lombards and Florentines, who resorted to them under the protection of the sovereign’s “firm peace,” and the ghostly terrors of the pope. They usually became the seat of foreign agencies. In the names of her streets Provins preserved the memory of her 12th century intercourse with the agents and merchants of Germany and the Low Countries, and long before that time the Syrian traders at St Denys had established their powerful association in Paris. Like the church on the religious side, the free fairs on the commercial side evoked and cherished the international spirit. And during long ages, when commercial “protection” was regarded as indispensable to a nation’s wealth, and the merchant was compelled to “fight his way through a wilderness of taxes,” they were the sole and, so far as they went, the complete substitute for our modern free trade.

Their privileges, however, were, from their very nature, destined to grow more oppressive and intolerable the more the towns were multiplied and the means of communication increased. The people of London were compelled to close their shops during the days when the abbot of Westminster’s fair was open. But a more curious and complete instance of such an ecclesiastical monopoly was that of the St Giles’s fair, at first granted for the customary three days, which were increased by Henry III. to sixteen. The-bishop of Winchester was, as we have seen, the lord of this fair. On the eve of St Giles’s feast the magistrates of Winchester surrendered the keys of the city gates to the bishop, who then appointed his own mayor, bailiff, and coroner, to hold office until the close of the fair. During the same period, Winchester and Southampton also—though it was then a thriving trading town—were forbidden to transact their ordinary commercial business, except within the bishop’s fair, or with his special permission. The bishop’s officers were posted along the highways, with power to forfeit to his lordship all goods bought and sold within seven miles of the fair—in whose centre stood “the pavilion,” or bishop’s court. It is clear, from the curious record of the Establishment and Expenses of the Household of Percy, fifth earl of Northumberland, that fairs were the chief centres of country traffic even as late as the 16th century. They began to decline rapidly after 1759, when good roads had been constructed and canal communication established between Liverpool and the towns of Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire. In the great towns their extinction was hastened in consequence of their evil effects on public morals. All the London fairs were abolished as public nuisances before 1855,—the last year of the ever famous fair of St Bartholomew; and the fairs of Paris were swept away in the storm of the Revolution.

English Fairs and Markets.— For the general reasons apparent from the preceding sketch, fairs in England, as in France and Germany, have very largely given way to markets for specialities. Even the live-stock market of the metropolis is being superseded by the dead-meat market, a change which has been encouraged by recent legislation on cattle disease, the movements of home stock, and the importation of foreign animals. Agricultural markets are also disappearing before the “agencies” and the corn exchanges in the principal towns. Still there are some considerable fairs yet remaining. Of the English fairs for live stock, those of Weyhill in Hampshire (October 10), St Faith’s, near Norwich (October 17), as also several held at Devizes, Wiltshire, are among the largest in the kingdom. The first named stands next to none for its display of sheep; whilst the second is the principal resort of the Scotch drovers and cattle-dealeis, and supplies a large proportion of the fat stock required for the London market. Horncastle, Lincolnshire, is the largest horse fair in the kingdom, and is regularly visited by American and Continental dealers. The other leading horse fairs in England areHowden in Yorkshire (well known for its hunters), and Woolbridge (on Lady Day) for Suffolk horses. Exeter December fair has a large display of cattle, horses, and most kinds of commodities. Large numbers of Scotch cattle are also brought to the fairs of Market Harborough, Carlisle, and Ormskirk. Ipswich has a fair for lambs on 1st of August, and for butter and cheese on 1st of September. Gloucester fair is also famous for the last-named commodity. The guild or jubilee held at Preston, Lancashire, every twentieth year, occurred last in 1862. Falkirk fair, or tryst, for cattle and sheep, is one of the largest in Scotland; and Ballinasloe, Galway, holds a like position among Irish fairs. The Ballinasloe cattle are usually fed for a year in Leinster before they are considered fit for the Dublin or Liverpool markets. In 1790 there were 61,931 sheep and 8632 horned cattle exhibited at the fair, and for 1867 the returns, in the foregoing order, were 73,364 and 23,734.

French Fairs.— The most important is that of Beaucaire, once among the first in Europe. Its position on the Rhone (14 miles east of Nismes), and its connexion with the canals, still enable it to maintain a high rank among the Continental markets. It lasts from the 22d to the 28th July, and is visited by about 60,000 persons, from all parts of the Continent between Spain and the Levant; articles of all descriptions are sold at it. It is a rule that all bills due at this fair must be presented on the 27th and protested, if necessary, on the 28th.

German Fairs.— First, though no longer of world-wide importance, are those of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and Leipsic. Those of Frankfort-on-the-Maine begin on Easter Tuesday and on the nearest Monday to September 8 respectively, and their legal duration is three weeks, though the limit is regularly extended. The fairs of the second-named city are Reminiscere, February or March; St Margaret, July; St Martin, November. Ordinarily they last fifteen days, which is double the legal term. The greatest of the German fairs are those of Leipsic, whose display of books is famous all over the world. Its three fairs are dated January 1, Easter, Michaelmas. The Easter one is the book fair, which is attended by all the principal booksellers of Germany, and by many more from the adjoiuing countries. Most German publishers have agents at Leipsic. As many as 5000 new publications have been entered in a single Leipsic catalogue. As in the other instances given, the Leipsic fairs last for three weeks, or nearly thrice their allotted duration. Here no days of grace are allowed, and the holder of a bill must demand payment when due, and protest, if necessary, on the same day, otherwise he cannot proceed against either drawer or endorser. 1 Russian Fairs.— These are very numerous, the chief being those of Nijni Novgorod, of Irbit in Perm, Kharkoff (January and August), Poltava (August and February), Koreunais in Koursk, Ourloupinsknia in the Don Cossack country, Krolevetz in Tchernigoff, and a third fair held at Poltava on the feast of the Ascension. It is calculated that in 1851 the aggregate value of goods sold at the above named fairs amounted to nearly 120,000,000 silver roubles. The chief fair of Novgorod is attended by 100,000 to 130,000 persons from all parts of Asia and of eastern Europe. Thirty years ago the fair of Kiatcha, on the Russo-Chinese frontier, yielded one million sterling in revenue; but in 1867, according to Mr Lumley, secretary to the English embassy at St Petersburg, the sum had fallen by one half This was in consequence of the opening of new communications, and the abolition of the Kiatcha monopoly.

Turkish Fairs.— Of these there are a very considerable number, and the vast bulk of the internal commerce of the country is transacted at them. Among the most noteworthy are the fairs of Usundji, in Roumelia, on a tributary of the Maritza, 40 miles from Adrianople; Janina in Albania; Strouga, on the lake of Orida; Novi-Bazaar in Upper Moesia; Islioni in Thrace; Nicopoli and Pielip in Macedonia; Eski-djouma in Bulgaria; and Zeitoun and Pharsalia in Thessaly. There is a large show of western manufactures at the Usundji fair.

Indian Fairs.— The largest of these, and perhaps the largest in Asia, is that of Hurd war, on the upper course of the Ganges. The visitors to this holy fair number from 200,000 to 300,000; but every twelfth year there occurs a special pilgrimage to the sacred river, when the numbers may amount to a million -or upwards. Those who go solely for purposes of trade are Nepaulese, Mongolians, Thibetans, Central Asi itics, and Mahometan pedlars from the Punjab, Scinde, and the border states. Persian shawls and carpets, Indian silks, Cashmere shawls, cottons (Indiau and English), preserved fruits, spices, drugs, Arc., together with immense numbers of cattle, horses, sheep, and camels, are brought to this famous fair.

Awierzeim Fairs.— The word fair, as now used in the United States, appears to have completely lost its Old World meaning It seems to be exclusively applied to industrial exhibitions, and to what we in England would call fancy bazaars. Thus, during the civil war, large sums were collected at the “sanitary fairs,” for the benefit of the sick and wounded. To the first-named class belong the State and county fairs, as they are called. Among the first and best known of these was the “New York World’s Fair,” opened in 1853 by a company formed in 1851. Since 1829 the “American Institute” held annual “fairs’’for the encouragement of the agricultural and manufacturing arts. The chief centres of these “fairs,” or exhibitions, appear to be Cincinnati, Baltimore, Boston, San Francisco, and Buffalo.

Lav: of Fairs.— As no market or fair can he held in England without a royal charter, or right of prescription, so any person establishing a fair without such sanction is liable to be sued, under a writ of Quo warranto, by any one to whose property the said market maybe injurious. Nor can a fair or market lm legally held beyond the time specified in the grant; and by 5 Edward HI. c. 5 a merchant selling goods after the legal expiry of the fair forfeited double their value. To be valid, a sale must take place in “market-overt” (open market); “it will not be binding if it carries with it a presumption of fraudulence.’’ These regulations satisfied, the sale “transfers a complete property in the thing sold to the vendee; so that however injurious or illegal the title of the vendor may be, yet the vendee's is good against all men except the king.” (In Scotch law, the claims of the real owner would still lemain valid.) However, by 21 Henry VIII. c. 2 it was enacted that, “if any felon rob or take away money, goods, or chattels, and be indicted and found guilty, or otherwise attainted upon evidence given by the owner or party robbed, or by any other by their procurement, the owner or party lobbed shall be restored to his money, goods, or chattels," but only those goods were restored which were specified in the indictment, nor could the owner recover from a bona fide purchaser in market-overt, who had sold the goods before conviction. For obvious leasons the rules of market overt were made particularly stringent in the case of horses. Thus, by 2 Philip and Mary c. 7 and 31 Eliz. c. 12, no sale of a horse was legal which had not satisfied the following conditions Public exposure of the animal for at least an hour between sunrise and sunset; identification of the vendor by the market officer, or guarantee for his honesty by “one sufficient and credible person;” entry of these particulars, together with a description of the animal, and a statement of the price paid for it, in the market officer’s book. Even if his rights should have been violated in spite of all these precautions, the lawftd owner could recover, if he claimed within six months, produced witnesses, and tendered the price paid to the vendor. Tolls were not a “necessary incident” of a fair— i.e., they were illegal unless specially granted in the patent. or lecognized by custom. As a rule, they were paid only by the vendee, and to the market clerk, whose record of the payment was an attestation to the genuineness of the purchase. By 2 and 3 Philip and Mary c. 7 every lord of a fair entitled to exact tolls was bound to appoint a clerk to collect and enter them. It was also this functionary’s business to test measures and weights. Tolls, again, are sometimes held to include “stallage” and “picage, which mean respectively the price for permission to erect stalls and to dig holes for posts in the market grounds. But toll proper belongs to the lord of the market, whereas the other two are usually regarded as the property of the lord of the soil. The law also provided that stallage might l>e levied on any house situated in the vicinity of a market, and kept open for business during the legal term of the said market. Among recent statutes, one of the chief is the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act (10 Vict. c. 14), the chief purpose of whieh is to consolidate previous measures. By the Act no proprietors of a new market are permitted to let stallages, take tolls, or in any way open their grounds for business, until two justices of the peace have certified to the completion of the fair or market. After the opening of the place for public use, no person other than a licensed hawker shall sell anywhere within the borough, his own house or shop excepted, any articles in respect of which tolls are legally exigible in the, market. A breach of this provision entails a penalty of forty shillings. Vendors of unwholesome meat are liable to a penalty of £5 for each offence; and the “inspectors of provisions” have full liberty to seize the goods and institute proceedings against the owners. They may also enter “at all t imes of the day, with or without assistance,” the slaughter-house whieh the undertaker of the market may, by the special Act, have been empowered to construct. For general sanitary reasons, persons are...

For some years subsequent to the expiry of his term of apprenticeship, Fairbairn, who, with all his forethought and persevering diligence, had still in his composition a strong love of adventure and a spice of recklessness, lived a somewhat roving life, seldom remaining long in one place and often reduced to very hard straits before he got a job. But soon after his marriage he began seriously to set himself to the attainment of the object he had long contemplated, his emancipation from daily labour; and in November 1817 he entered into partnership with a shopmate of the name of Lillie, with whose aid he hired an old shed in High Street, Manchester, where he set up a lathe, and began business. His first order was to renew the shaftwork of an extensive cotton mill, which with great diligence he accomplished within the specified time, and not only satisfactorily, but with the substitution of improvements which virtually amounted to a revolution of the whole system of mill construction. Such a successful performance of their first contract immediately secured to the new firm a great reputation, and orders pressed in much faster than they were able with their limited capital to execute them. Their fame soon extended beyond Manchester, and in 1824 Fairbairn was engaged to plan and execute a new arrangement of the water-power of Catrine cotton works, Ayrshire, where, and at Deanston, Perthshire, he introduced a system of water-wheel construction whose hydraulic power has never been surpassed. In the summer of 1824 he also effected similar improvements in a mill at Zurich, Switzerland. In 1832 Fairbairn dissolved partnership with Lillie, retaining the works in Canal Street to which they had previously removed. In 1830 he had been employed by the Forth and Clyde Canal Company to make experiments with the view of determining whether it were possible to construct steamers capable of traversing the canal at a speed which would enable the canal interest to compete successfully with that of the railway; and the results of his investigation were published by him in 1831, under the title liemarhs on Canal Navigation. His plan of using iron boats proved inadequate to overcome the difficulties of his problem, but it first suggested the construction of iron vessels; and in the development of the use of this material both in the case of merchant vessels and men-of-war the chief merit must be assigned to Fairbairn. In this way also he was led to pursue those ex periments in regard to the strength of iron, according to its combination with other substances, and to various methods of preparation and construction, which have given him a place in this branch of mechanical engineering altogether pre-eminent. In 1835 Fairbairn established, in connexion with his Manchester business, a ship-building yard at Millwall, London, where he constructed several hundred vessels, including many for the royal navy; but he ultimately found it impossible with his other engagements to superintend the work in such a satisfactory manner as to make it pay, and at the end of 14 years he disposed of the concern at a great loss. In 1837 he was employed by the sultan of Turkey with the view of assisting in the introduction of the mechanical arts into that country, and after his return home his services were rewarded by a decoration. For Eeveral years Fairbairn was engaged, in conjunction with Eaton Hodgkinson, in making experiments on the strength and other properties of iron, and in 1845 he was consulted by Robert Stephenson in reference to the best method of constructing the tubular bridge which the latter designed for carrying the railway across the Conway and Menai Straits. Although the share Fairbairn had in the undertaking has been the subject of some dispute, there can be no doubt that he was guided in his experiments chiefly by his own independent judgment, and that he was the inventor of the rectangular self-supporting tube which was the essential feature of the construction. For this invention he, with the concurrence of Stephenson, took out a patent, and he afterwards constructed more thana thousand bridges on the same principle. In reference to his connexion with the invention, he published a volume entitled An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tabular Bridges, Sze., 1849. In 1849 he was invited by the king of Prussia to submit designs for the construction of a bridge across the Rhine, but after various negotiations, another design, by a Prussian engineer, which was a modification of Fairbairn’s, was adopted. Auother matter which engaged much of Fairbairn’s attention was steam boilers, in the construction of which he effected many improvements. He is also the inventor of the tubular crane, and took out several patents for the construction and arrangement of steam machines. In 1851 he greatly aided, by his fertility and readiness of invention, in an investigation carried on at his works by Mr Joule and Sir William Thomson in reference to the properties of the materials of the earth’s surface; and from 1861 to 1865 he was employed to guide the experiments of the Government committee appointed to inquire into the “application of iron to defensive purposes.” The results of his experiments were published in the proceedings of the committee. Fairbairn was a member of many learned societies, both British and foreign. In 1860 he received the degree of LL.D, from the university of Edinburgh, and in 1862 that of D.C.L. from the university of Cambridge. He declined the honour of knighthood in 1861, but accepted a baronetcy in 1869. He died at Moor Park, Surrey, August 18, 1874. Perhaps no one ever made more use than Fairbairn of the time at his disposal, for amid all the cares of business he not only found leisure for varied scientific investigation, but managed to obtain a wide acquaintance with general literature, to conduct an extensive correspondence on a great variety of subjects, and also to participate largely in the delights of social intercourse. In private his unassuming but dignified simplicity, his thorough honour, and his geniality and kindness secured him general esteem. The results he achieved in mechanical science were due chiefly to minute, patient, and sagacious observation and experiment. It was his habit to aid himself in his investigations by committing his ideas to writing, and, when his opinions on any subject were matured, to communicate them to the world either in a published volume, or by a paper read before some learned institution. By his extensive acquaintance with English authors, and his early and patient practice of composition, he acquired the possession of a clear, simple, and nervous style, and his writings are in this respect worthy to be regarded as models in their own species of literature.

Among his principal writings, besides those already mentioned, may be named On the Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building Purposes, 1856; Iron, its History, Properties, and Processes of Manufacture (reprinted from the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica), 1861; Treatises on Mills and Millwork, part i., 1861, partii., 1863; Treatise on Iron Shipbuilding, 1865; and An Experimental Enquiry into the Strength, Elasticity, Ductility, and other Properties of Steel, 1869. These have all passed through several editions. His papers read before learned societies are too numerous to be mentioned. The Life of Sir William Fairbairn, partly written by himself, and edited and completed by William Pole, F. R.S., was published in 1877, and a popular edition of this work appeared in 1878.

“How have I sat, when piped the pensive wind, To hear his harp by British Fairfax strung! Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believed the magic wonders which he sung!”

In more recent times we find Campbell pronouncing Fairfax’s work one of the glories of the reign of Elizabeth, to whom it was dedicated. Hallam, more critical, said the translation did not represent the grace of its original, and deviated too much from its sense, yet was by no means deficient in-spirit or vigour. The poetical spirit of the work is indeed its life blood and preservation. Hoole and Hunt may give a more literal version, but Fairfax alone seizes upon the poetical and chivalrous character of the poem. As Denham says of Fanshawe’s rendering of the Pastor Fido:—

‘ They but preserve the ashes, he the flame True to its sense, but truer to its fame.”

And in this way he carries along with him the interest and admiration of the reader. The sweetness and melody of many passages are scarcely excelled even by Spenser. Fairfax made no other appeal to the public. He wrote however, a series of eclogues, ten in number, one of which, the fourth, was published by permission of the family, in Mrs Cooper’s Mused Library (1737). He wrote also a Discourse on Witchcraft, as it was acted in the Family of Mr Edward Fairfax of Fuystone in the county of York in 1621, which was edited from the original copy by Mr Monckton Milnes (now Lord Houghton) in the Miscellanies of the Philobiblon Society, 1858-9. Fairfax was a firm believer in witchcraft. He fancied that some of his children had been bewitched, and he had the poor wretches whom he accused brought to trial, but without obtaining a conviction. Such “follies of the wise” are painful to contemplate. Fairfax, however, only shared in the common superstition of the age, and it is at once a memorable and melancholy fact that Sir Matthew Hale, the most upright and able of lawyers, condemned two women to the stake on a charge of witchcraft. Fairfax described himself as “neither a fantastic Puritan nor superstitious Papist; but so settled in conscience as to have the sure ground of God’s word to warrant all he believed, and the commendable ordinances of the English Church to approve all he practised.” And he adds, “I live a faithful Christian and an obedient subject, and so teach my family.” His descendants have not deemed it necessary to publish his writings on theological subjects and the keen controversies of the times. His fame is secure, grafted on the stem of Tasso, and flourishing in perennial beauty and vigour. Fairfax was living in 1631, and is supposed to have died soon afterwards, about 1632. (r. ca.)

FAIRFAX, Thomas, third Lord, better known as Sir Thomas Fairfax, the eminent Parliamentary general and commander-in-chief during the civil wars, was the eldest son of Sir Ferdinando (afterwards Lord) Fairfax by Mary, daughter of Lord Sheffield, president of the North, and was born at Denton, on the banks of the Wharfe, near Otley, Yorkshire, on the 17th of January 1611-12. He studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, about four years (1626-30), and then proceeded to Holland to serve as a volunteer with the English army in the Low Countries under Lord Vere of Tilbury. This connexion led to one still closer; in the summer of 1637 Fairfax married Anne, daughter of Lord Vere, a lady of spirit, whom Mr Carlyle characterizes as “a Vere of the fighting Veres and given to Presbyterianism.” The Fairfaxes, though serving at first under Charles I., were opposed to the arbitrary prerogative of the crown, and Sir Thomas (he had been knighted by Charles in 1640) declared that “his judgment was for the parliament as the king and kingdom’s great and safest council.” When Charles endeavoured to raise a guard for his own person at York, intending it, as the event afterwards proved, to form the nucleus of an army, Fairfax was employed to present a petition to his sovereign, entreating him to hearken to the voice of his parliament, and to discontinue the raising of troops. This was at a great meeting of the freeholders and farmers of Yorkshire convened by the king on Heyworth Moor near York. Charles evaded receiving the petition, pressing his horse forward, but Fairfax followed him and placed the petition on the pommel of the king’s saddle. The incident is typical of the times and of the actors in the scene. War broke out, Lord Fairfax was appointed general of the Parliamentary forces in the north, and his son Sir Thomas, was made general of the horse under him. Both father and son distinguished themselves in the campaigns in Yorkshire. At first the Parliamentary troops were not successful. The Cavalier spirit of honour and iigh-bred loyalty was too much, as Cromwell said, for poor tapsters and town-apprentice people. There was little hope of success until men of strong religious feelings could be brought into the field against them, and this was effected by Oliver and his Ironsides, his invulnerable troop of disciplined horsemen. In the beginning of 1644 the Scottish army under the command of the earl of Laven joined the Parliamentary forces, and after some minor engagements, commenced the siege of York, then invested by the marquis of Newcastle. York was considered the second town of England, and upon its preservation Charles believed that the safety of his crown mainly depended. There were several assaults and sallies, but news having arrived that Prince Rupert was marching to raise the siege with 20,000 men, the besieging generals, Leven, Fairfax, and Manchester, resolved to draw off their troops, and encamp on the moor seven miles west of York. On the 2nd of July 1644, was fought the important battle of Marston Moor, which virtually decided the fate of the war. The gallantry of the troopers led by the old earl of Leven, Manchester, and Fairfax was conspicuous. Fairfax was severely wounded, and he lost a brother in the action. The victory was so decisive that the marquis of Newcastle fled the kingdom, and the Royalists abandoned all hopeof retrieving their affairs. The city of York was taken, and nearly the whole north submitted to the parliament.

In the south and west of England, however, the Royalist cause was still active. The war had lasted two years, and the nation began to complain of the contributions that were exacted and the excesses that were committed by the mili tary. Dissatisfaction was expressed with the military commanders, Essex and Manchester, and as a preliminary step to reform, the self-denying ordinance was passed. This Act took from all members of parliament their commands in the army or their civil employments. The earl of Essex was removed from the supreme command, and Sir Thomas Fairfax appointed his successor. Cromwell, as a member of the House of Commons, was excluded by the ordinance, but he was too important to be dispensed with; he was made lieutenant-general under Fairfax. The army was new modelled, incompetent officers were dismissed, and the regiments completed by more select levies. The hostile armies met on the 14th of June 1645, at Naseby in Northamptonshire, and a decisive battle took place, which ended in the total discomfiture of the Royalists. The king himself was in the field. “At Naseby,” says Carlyle, “Charles fought his last battle—dashed fiercely against the new model army which he had despised till then—and saw himself shivered utterly to ruin”—partly through the fiery rashness of Prince Rupert, but mainly through the able generalship of Fairfax and Cromwell. The king fled to Wales. Fairfax besieged Leicester, and was successful at Taunton, Bridge water, and Bristol. The whole west was soon reduced to obedience. The king had returned from Wales and established himself at Oxford, where there was a strong garrison, but danger was too apparent; the vacillating monarch withdrew secretly, and proceeded to Newark to throw himself into the arms of the Scots. Oxford capitulated; and by the end of September Charles had neither army nor garrison in England.

Fairfax arrived in London on the 12th of November 1645. In his progress towards the capital he was accompanied by applauding crowds Complimentary speeches and thanks were presented to him by both houses of parliament, along with a jewel of great value set with diamonds, and a sum of money. Charles was delivered up to the commissioners of parliament by the Scots in January 1646. He had voluntarily surrendered himself to the Scots army, and they negotiated with the parliamentary leaders in his favour. There was a debt of .£600,000, arrears of pay, owing to the Scots, but they agreed to take £400,000, one half of which was to be paid before the army left England. The bargain was concluded some months before there was any stipulation to deliver up the king, but probably, as Hallam remarks, the parliament would never have actually paid the money on any other consideration than the delivering of the king’s person. The transaction was naturally seized upon by the Royalists and the Cavalier wits, and poets, as a subject of obloquy and reproach to the Scots commissioners, and, by implication, to the whole Scottish nation. It is not yet forgotten. Such political libels are not of that class which the poet says are “born to die.” They become the shibboleths of a party, and descend from generation to generation.

Charles was delivered up to the commissioners of parliament on the 30th January 1646-7. Fairfax, who preceded the king, having met him beyond Nottingham, dismounted from his horse, kissed the royal hand, and having resumed his seat, discoursed with the unfortunate prince during the journey to Holdenby. “The general,” said Charles, “is a man of honour, and keeps hi3 word which he had pledged to me.” His chivalrous courtesy is of a piece*with Lis whole character.

The agitation in the army now became formidable, and threatened anarchy. The Independents were too powerful for both parliament and Presbyterians. Fairfax resolved to resign his commission as commander-in-chief, but he was persuaded to retain it, and was passive, if not co-operating, in all the proceedings of the army which had for their object to destroy the power of parliament. Lord Ferdinando Fairfax died in the spring of 1647, and Sir Thomas succeeded to his title and to his office as governor of Hull. A second civil war broke out in the summer of 1648; a Scots army of 40,000 was raised to deliver the king from the “sectariesthere were tumults in England and in Wales. Fairfax displayed the greatest activity in putting down these insurrections, and took Colchester, whither the royalist army had betaken themselves. It was at this time, when the commander-in-chief was besieging Colchester, that Mil ton addressed to him the sonnet:—

“Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe lings, Filling each mouth with envy or with praise.”

The poet eulogizes the brave soldier for “firm unshaken virtue,” but he hesitated to go along with the army and Independents in the trial of the king. He was placed at the head of the judges before whom Charles was arraigned, but he refused to act. In calling over the court, when the crier pronounced the name of Fairfax, a lady in the gallery called out “that the Lord Fairfax was not there in person, that he would never sit among them, and that they did him wrong to name him as a commissioner.” This was Lady Fairfax, who could not forbear, as Whitelock says, to exclaim aloud against the proceedings of the High Court of Justice. The decision of the court was a grievous error. “When living, Charles was a baffled tyrant,” as Lord John Russell has remarked; “when dead he became a royal martyr.” In June 1650, after the Scots had declared for Charles II., the council of state resolved to send an army to Scotland in order to prevent an invasion of England. Fairfax declined to act against the Presbyterian Scots, and resigned his commission. Cromwell was appointed his successor, “captaingeneral and commander-in-chief of all the forces raised or to be raised by authority of parliament within the commonwealth of England.” Fairfax received a pension of £5000 a year, and is no more heard of till after the death of the triumphant Protector.

When Monk invited him to assist in the operations about to be undertaken against Lambert’s army he promptly obeyed the call, and in December 1659 appeared at the head of a body of Yorkshire gentlemen; and such was the influence of Fairfax’s name and reputation that the Irish brigade, consisting of 1200 horse, quitted Lambert’s colours find joined him. This was speedily followed by the breaking up of all Lambert’s forces, and that day secured the restoration of the monarchy. A “free” parliament was called; Fairfax was elected member for Yorkshire, and was put at the head of the commission appointed by the House of Commons to wait upon Charles II. at the Hague and urge his speedy return. Of course the “merry monarch, scandalous and poor,” was glad to obey the summons, and Fairfax provided the horse on which Charles rode at his coronation. The remaining eleven years of the life of Lord Fairfax were spent iu retirement at his seat in Yorkshire. He must, like Milton, have been sorely grieved and shocked by the scenes that followed—the brutal indignities offered to the remains of his companions in arms, Cromwell and Ireton, the sacrifice of Sir Harry Vane, the neglect or desecration of all that was great, noble, or graceful in England, and the flood of immorality which, flowing from Whitehall, sapped the foundations of the national strength and honour. Lord Fairfax died at Nunappleton on the 12th of November 1671. The integrity of Fairfax has never been doubted. No one has ever attempted to charge meanness or corruption on the Parliamentary general. But he was great only in the field, and had apparently none of the qualities of a statesman. He is placed at great disadvantage, however, by being both in war and in peace overshadowed by his associate Cromwell:

“And under him His genius was rebuked, as, it is said, Mark Antony’s was by Caesar.”

Lord Fairfax had a taste for literature. He translated some of the Psalms, and wrote poems on solitude, the Christian warfare, the shortness of life, &c., none of which are above mediocrity. During the last year or two of his life he wrote two Memorials which have been published— one on the northern actions in which he was engaged iu 1642-44, and the other on some points during his command in the army. At York and at Oxford he endeavoured to save the libraries from pillage, and he enriched the Bodleian with some valuable MSS. His correspondence was published in 1848-9 in four volumes, and a life of him by Clements R. Markham in 1870. (r. ca.)

“Sena being situate in the British sea against the country of the Osismyes is renowned with the oracle of the god of the Galles, whose vowesses in number nine, are hallowed to continual virginitie. They call them Gallicens, and are of opinion that, through the singular wisdom wherewith they are indued, they raise the seas and winds with their charms, and transform themselves into what beastes they will, and heale such diseases as to others are incurable, and knowe things to come and prophesy of them, but not unto any other than such as sayle thither for the nonce, and come of set purpose to demaund counsell of them. ’’—Golding’s translation, p. 78.

The similarity of these beings to the fays that play so important a part in mediaeval romances is remarkable. A passage in the romance of Lancelot du Lac is so directly descriptive that it may be quoted:—

“En cellui temps estoient appellees fees toutes celles qui sentermet-toient den-chantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principallement en la Grande Bretagne, et scavoient la force et la vertue des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoy elles estoient tenue en jeunesse et en beaulte et en grandes richesses comment elles divisoient. Et ce fut estably au temps de Merlin le prophete.— Ed. 1533, p. v.

These fays preside at the birth and influence the destiny of men, taking individuals under their special protection. They take lovers from among men, and are often described as of delicate, unearthly, ravishing beauty. The enjoyment of their charms is, however, generally qualified by some restriction or compact, the breaking of which is the cause of calamity to the lover and all his race, as in the notable tale of Melusine. This fay by enchantment built the castle of Lusignan for her husband. It was her nature to take, every week, the form of a serpent from the waist below. The hebdomadal transformation being once, contrary to compact, witnessed by her husband, she left him with much wailing, and was said to return and give warning by her appearance and great shrieks whenever one of the race of Lusignan was about to die. At the birth of Ogier le Dannois six fairies attend, five of whom give good gifts, which the sixth overrides with a restriction. Gervaise of Tilbury, writing early in the 13th century, has, in his Otia Imperialia, a chapter De lamiis et noctumis larvis, where he gives it out, as proved by individuals beyond all exception, that men have been lovers of beings of this kind whom they call Fadas, and who did, in case of infidelity or infringement of secrecy, inflict terrible punishment—the loss of goods and even of life. There seems little in the characteristics of these fairies of romance to distinguish them from human beings, except their supernatural knowledge and power. They are not often represented as diminutive in stature, and seem to be subject to such human passions as love, jealousy, envy, and revenge. To this class belong the fairies of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Spenser,

The etymology traced at the beginning of this article is that generally given, but it is by no means universally accepted. Some fanciful theories that prevailed at the beginning of the century, as, for instance, that adopted by Sir W. Scott in his Essay on the Fairy Superstition, which connects the word fairy with the Persian peri, are now generally rejected. M. Walckenaer believed the word to be purely Celtic (see his Letters sur les Contes des Fees, Paris, 1836). Apart, however, from the question of the origin and varying intention of the term, the kind of beings first signified by it can be fairly connected with creatures of the Greek and Roman mythology.

The Gauls had no doubt a populous pantheon. The peasants seeLh to have offered worship to, and peopled the old hills, trees, rocks, streams, and springs with, beings similar to the nymphs and fauns of antiquity. And each little locality seems to have had its protecting deities, female, and generally three in number. The coming of Christianity only changed slightly the way of regarding these creatures—did not by any means overcome the superstition. It is most likely to the similarity in character and function of these local deities to the Parcae or Fates of antiquity that we owe the name generally given to all the different beings, a great part of whose functions it was to preside at the birth and rule the destiny of man. It seems probable that among the people generation after generation of nurses changed these topical divinities into those fairies, the tales of which Perrault and his successors made so popular. The fairy tales in the Piacevoli Notte of Straparola (1550-54) and the Pentamerone of Basile (1672) are also, no doubt, the results of genuine tradition. By this time, however, the influence of Eastern stories had been brought by travellers and crusaders to bear upon the traditions of the West, as well as that of the superstition next to be mentioned. To the elves and duergar of the northern mythology we must go for the origin of those little creatures that dance in the woods and meadows. The elves are divided into two classes, the light and the dark. It is related in the prose Edda that the gods reflected how the duergar animated the clay below the earth like maggots in flesh; and certainly, under different names, as brownie, cluricaune, kobbold, nisse, lutin, hobgoblin, beings of this kind, whether of the hill or wood, of the rock or stream, or of the household, have played a great part in the life of the peasantry of many countries. They are represented as of very various characteristics and propensities. Their appearance and power are sometimes propitious, at other times baleful. “He that looks on them shall die,” says Falstaff, and hides his face accordingly. Perhaps the leading features of their character with relation to man is a desire for fair human children, which, substituting abortive creatures, they practise many tricks to obtain. They are often represented as animated by a spirit of malicious mockery towards men, which is not, however, altogether malignant. In connexion with their fabled abode underground, it is to be noted that Chaucer makes Pluto and Proserpina king and queen-of faery.

Besides scattered allusions, we owe to this superstition many fair products of our poetry. Works of Drayton, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Randolph, and Herrick will at once suggest themselves. Its influence 13 of course very marked in the youthful works of Milton. Of the Midsummer Night's Dream, that perfect rose among all these flowers of fancy, it is unnecessary to speak, even were it possible to do so adequately.

For an elaborate account of fairies in general, see Keightley’s Fairy Mythology, where the legends of different countries are collected.