It was the last day of Bartholomew Fair, and from some unaccountable cause, we had not been near the spot. But it was not yet too late. We bustled up at the thought, hastily pinned our handkerchief inside our hat, emptied all our pockets--save one, divested our person of watch and jewelry, (for we hold it heinous to encourage picking and stealing,) and then hurried out in the direction of Smithfield, resolving in the plenitude of our joy to visit every show, have a ride in every swing, take a chance at every penny turn, roll the marble down every tower of Babel, and pink with every winning needle, for the sake of lang syne. Five years had we been away from England--five years had we been absent from our own dear Fair; and yet, how well we remembered our last walk over the same ground, about the same hour, and on the same errand. What pleasure it was now to see that so little change had taken place in the streets! There, stood the old oyster-rooms exactly the same as ever; yonder, was the public-house beside the gateway, just as dirty, just the same people at the doors, just the same noise within as when we last passed by. There was even the same crooked old post at the corner. Recollection seemed as it were to shake hands with these objects as old familiar friends, and we pushed on with even yet more joy in our bosom, and ardent expectation in our heart, to the great--the Prince of Fairs. Our heart leaped for joy as we shot past a little shop, displaying drums, dolls, kettles, portable tea-services, singing cuckoos, bow-wow poodles, and armies of soldiers barracked in flat deal boxes, with a background of whips, scratchers, trumpets, squeakers, diminutive culinary apparatus, and Waterloo-crackers: we say, our heart leaped for very joy at the sight; but it leaped no more that night, for, from that moment disappointment marked us for her own. There now insensibly crept upon us strange forebodings and presentiments that all was not right, for although close upon the fair, we felt no wonted squeeze, heard no confusion of tongues, saw no confluence of people all driving and pouring up the road to one point. No announcements of hot green peas, fried sausages, cooked eels, or other Bartholomew delicacies, came wafted on the breeze;--no ginger-beer stands, corn-plaster venders, brass-sovereign sellers, or spiced-elder-wine compounders, lined the street: the throng was even less than we had seen upon an ordinary cattle-day. We grew frightened; and rushing forward, peeped into the fair itself. In that peep, the thermometer of our joy fell full five hundred degrees below zero. Why, where are the shows? where are the swings? where are the turn-abouts--the round-abouts? where are the people? where, _where_ is the Fair? But down, struggling feelings, down, and let me write calmly. In 1841 there were but TWO SHOWS in the Great Bartholomew Fair! We now walked up the gingerbread walk--the _only_ gingerbread walk. Time had