192 EXPRESSION IN MUSIC. 



present day has no connection ; all that combines the past with the 

 present is in our fancy. There are no civic commotions, no political 

 brawls^ no nightly revels, in Market Mowbray : from January to Ja- 

 nuary, silence and sobriety fill the streets. Not but there are periods 

 of enjoyment ; there are " fairs holden" twice a year : but how dif- 

 ferent are the fairs of Market Mow bra v to the riotings and de- 

 baucheries of such named assembliw in other places, where they de- 

 generate either into a mere lifeless, miserable film of an ancient cus- 

 tom, or a monstrous idol of mammon, where even pleasure is deformed 

 into pain ! Not so the fairs holden in this primitive borough ; there 

 is the long line of white canvas stalls — a wilderness of sweets — the 

 swains and buxom maidens, undisturbed by the impertinence of tra- 

 velled beaux, give themselves up to all the innocent enjoyments and 

 festivities of the time. Fairs should be consecrated to such old 

 towns as Market Mowbray, sacred as the mysteries of Greece ; the 

 profane company of fashionable puppies should be forbidden to in- 

 terrupt the ha})py meeting of the simple-hearted country folks, who 

 have worked and wearied from Michaelmas to Lady-day, with no 

 other hope to cheer them. 



Market Mowbray will never alter — it was never intended to alter : 

 there are no gay suburban villas, no gay new-town to make an invi- 

 dious comparison with the brick-and-wood houses of the old town ; 

 there are no Bond-street shops to distinguish particular streets — the 

 good tradespeople are satisfied to combine three, four, or five voca- 

 tions in one, and expose hats, hosiery, fresh butter, and dried fish 

 on the same shelf. But the good people are not less unique and 

 admirable than the town itself. Barring some new comers and 

 occasional visitors, they are a dull, dark, sober, " days-gone- 

 by"-looking people, all native to the soil, and, like the ancient 

 sybil, seem as if they could die only upon their own earth. All 

 may be said to be in easy circumstances, inasmuch as their wants 

 are seldom multiplied by novelty. As they do not conceive that 

 the mind was ever intended for any other purpose than to adminis- 

 ter to the bodily appetites, they escape the multiform monster, ner- 

 vousness ; living and living by a species of regeneration, until they 

 die, not of disease, but rather by a necessity. It has been said that 

 the Serpent, in the form of a doctor, did once creep into the Eden 

 of Maiket Mowbray ; one victim only paid the penalty of his 

 credulity, and that was the parish fool. 



But there is one evil which prevails even in Market Mow- 

 bray, — what place or person can be infallible ! — one evil prevails ; 

 and that is an almost insatiable curiosity. Busied so little in their 



