TRADE AND MARKETS. 1 55 



Wiltshire dairies. Nothing passes away so rapidly from 

 memory as the form in which trade has been carried on, 

 after the form is superseded. Elderly people only remember 

 the times in which currency was so scarce in Lancashire, that 

 business transactions were constantly liquidated by acceptances 

 put into circulation by a firm which had one establishment 

 in Manchester, and another in London, and which supplied 

 the want, to its own enormous profit, by the simple means 

 of a banker's bill, drawn by one establishment, and endorsed 

 by the other. There are perhaps few persons now alive 

 who can remember how important a part the country fair 

 played in the economy of society, and in the distribution of 

 produce. 



In the latter part of the period before me, the fair of the 

 North hundred of Oxford, held at the beginning of September, 

 though it never approached the dimensions of Stourbridge, 

 was a famous place for the sale of books. New works were 

 virtually published at fairs, and it is in this way, I think, that 

 we can account for the publication and distribution of that 

 mass of literature which, issued after the period comprised in 

 these volumes, is so remarkably copious. By what means, 

 for instance, could the exceedingly numerous works of Prynne 

 have been distributed? In what manner did the publisher or 

 printer reach his customers? Advertisements were unknown, 

 patrons and a subscription list were equally matters of the 

 future. But books were got at, and probably through these 

 fairs, which were exceedingly numerous in the autumn months, 

 and where, even though the book were unlicensed and con- 

 sidered dangerous, the dealer and the purchaser found means 

 to know each other. I have more than once found entries of 

 purchases for College libraries, with a statement that the book 

 was bought at St. Giles' fair. 



Unfortunately, as that which is familiar to one generation 

 is being lost to another, no note is taken of the change, as 

 no note is made of the circumstances when the fact is 

 customary. But few enquiries would be more curious and 



