"Though the Corporation of Cambridge has the tolls of this Fair, and the government as aforesaid, yet the body of the University has the oversight of the weights and measures thereof (as well as at Midsummer and Reach Fairs) and the licensing of all show-booths, live creatures, etc.; and the Proctors of the University keep a Court there also to hear complaints about weights and measures, seek out and punish lewd women, and see that their Gownsmen commit no disorders." Fuller (in the seventeenth century) gives us the tradition that the fair originated with some Westmorland cloth dealers, who were here overtaken by a storm on their way to Norwich, and found so ready a market for the goods which they spread out to dry on the grass of the common that they went no further but returned hither the next year, and again. Thus the special prominence given to the "Duddery" here is accounted for. The tradition does not seem improbable, for Kendal has, from time immemorial, been renowned for its cloth--the famous "Kendal green" worn, in old ballads, by the English archers. To this day the shield of that town bears cloth-making implements, with the motto "_Pannus mihi panis_" ("Flock is my food"). And Norwich was (throughout the Middle Ages) the great commercial centre of the cloth trade. That there was some marked connection between Cambridgeshire and Westmorland is proved by the constant occurrence here of family names derived from Kendal place-names (Sizergh, Docwray, Strickland, Sedgwick, etc.) which have been current amongst the peasantry of Cambridgeshire since the fourteenth century at least. Since Carter wrote, the great development of communication has made fairs a mere survival, and Stourbridge Fair has fallen from its high estate. It is now a very commonplace affair of a few days' duration, mainly for the horse trade. But it still is declared open by the Mayor of Cambridge or his delegate, and a dish of the white herrings which Carter speaks of still forms part of the opening ceremony. And it has an abiding interest for English readers, as the prototype of "Vanity Fair" in the "Pilgrim's Progress." Bunyan, as a Bedford man, would be familiar with the bustling scene, and, if we compare his pages with those which we have transcribed from Carter's History, we see how vividly he has allegorised it: "At this Fair are all such Merchandize sold as Houses, Lands, Trades, Places, Honours, Preferments, Titles, Countreys, Kingdoms, Lusts, Pleasures, and Delights of all sorts, as Whores, Bauds, Wives, Husbands, Children, Masters, Servants, Lives, Blood, Bodies, Souls, Silver, Gold, Pearls, Precious Stones, and what not. "And moreover at this Fair there is at all times to be seen Juglings, Cheats, Games, Plays, Fools, Apes, Knaves, and Rogues, and that of every kind.