1828.] Travelling Particularities. 13 



heels) to roll down the artificial mount in the gardens of St. Cloud as 

 scores of the lads and lasses do down the natural one in the park at 

 Greenwich would be taken to the Hopital des Fous immediately they 

 reached the bottom. 



The summer fair of Calais begins the third week in July,, and the winter 

 one in February. It is held in the Grand Place, and consists of two 

 double rows of booths, running the whole length of the open space, and 

 numerous other detached ones, which are confined to one corner, in order 

 to leave the rest of the Place open for the Saturday and Wednesday's 

 market. The four regular lines of booths are devoted entirely to the 

 sale of fancy articles of various kinds including all the infinite number 

 of little nothings in which French taste and industry are so prolific. The 

 taste and style in which some of these booths or shops are fitted up, and 

 the splendour and expense of the articles offered for sale in them, will 

 astonish the traveller whose experience in fairs has been confined to those 

 of England. He will see, at one booth, a display of Parisian clocks 

 (those useful elegancies, in which the French stand altogether unrivalled), 

 which the joint stocks of half a dozen of the best shops in London could 

 not parallel. In another, a shew of jewellery that would not disgrace the 

 Palais Royal. In a third, a choice of porcelaine from Sevres and Limoges, 

 that no prudent English husband would trust his wife within sight of; 

 for though I can believe that, if any where, it is among our own fair 

 countrywomen that Pope's beau-ideal of female temper may be found 

 realized (I mean when he imagines one who is " mistress of herself 

 when china falls" ) ; yet I can not believe that there is one who is mistress 

 of her purse and her prudence in the presence of a boundless choice of 

 Sevres porcelain especially at the prices at which it will be offered to 

 her here. 



But, by far the most amusing places in this department of the Calais 

 fair are the vingt-cinq sous shops inventions peculiarly French ; where 

 numberless articles, of every kind that the most fertile fancy can suggest, 

 whether appertaining to the useful, the ornamental, or both, or neither 

 are offered for sale, all at the same price, of twenty-five sous, or one shil- 

 ling. He must be a very poor, or a very parsimonious lover, indeed, who 

 is not happy to have an opportunity of giving his mistress her choice, 

 among a whole magazine of pretty knick-knacks, for a price like the above. 

 Accordingly, all the little cadeaux that are interchanged in the course of 

 the year, are reserved till these periods ; 



" And those give now, who never gave before ; 

 And those who always gave, now give the more." 



Among the booths for dramatic and other entertainments, are of course 

 to be found the usual variety including the proper assortment of belles 

 sauvages, white black-a-moors, giants, dwarfs, mermaids, and such-like 

 pleasing monstrosities. A most edifying example of the state of religious 

 feeling prevalent in France at this time, presented itself at the Calais fair 

 of this year, just concluded. Among other exhibitions, to be seen for the 

 price of two sous, was one, professing to represent the " Vie, Passion, Mort, 

 and Resurrection de Notre Seigneur J. C" ! And, moreover, the outward 

 and gratis attraction that was used to collect an audience, and set forth, 

 (as by a figure), the superior merits and attractions of ' ' that within," was 

 a puppet-show of the liveliest and wittiest class, which is saying a great 

 deal, here in France, where liveliness and obscenity are convertible terms. 



