Then was Osier Lane (the Smithfield end of which is immortalised in _Bartholomew Fair_ annals) a long narrow slip of greensward, watered on both sides by a tributary streamlet from the river Fleet, on the margin of which grew a line of _osiers_, that hung gracefully over its banks. Smithfield, once “a place for honourable justs and triumphs,” became, in after times, a rendezvous for bravoes, and obtained the title of “_Ruffians' Hall_” Centuries have brought no improvement to it. The modern jockeys and chaunters are not a whit less rogues than the ancient “horse-coursers,” and the many odd traits of character that marked its former heroes, the swash-bucklers, * are deplorably wanting in the present race of irregulars, who are monotonous bullies, without one redeeming dash of eccentricity or humour. The stream of time, that is continually washing away the impurities of other murky neighbourhoods, passes, without irrigating, Smithfield's blind alleys and the squalid faces of their inhabitants. * In ancient times a serving-man carried a buckler, or shield, at his back, which hung by the hilt or pommel of his sword hanging before him. A “swash-buckler” was so called from the noise he made with his sword and buckler to frighten an antagonist. Yet was it _Merryland_ in the olden time,--and, forgetting the days, when an unpaved and miry slough, the scene of _autos da fê_ for both Catholics and Protestants, as the fury of the dominant party rode religiously rampant, as _such_ let us consider it. Pleasant is the remembrance of the sports that are past, which To all are delightful, except to the spiteful! To none offensive, except to the pensive; yet if the pensiveness be allied to, “a most humorous sadness,” the offence will be but small. At the “Old Elephant Ground over against Osier Lane, in Smithfield, during the time of the fair,” in 1682, were to be seen “the Famous Indian Water-works, with masquerades, songs, and dances,”--and at the Plough-Musick Booth (a red flag being hung out as a sign) the fair folks were entertained with antic-dances, jigs, and sarabands; an Indian dance by four blacks; a quarter-staff dance; the merry shoemakers; a chair-dance; a dance by three milkmaids, with the comical capers of _Kit the Cowherd_; the Irish trot; the humours of _Jack Tars_ and _Scaramouches_; together with good wine, cider, mead, music, and mum. Cross we over from “Osier Lane-end” (the modern H is an interpolation,) to the King's Head and Mitre Music Booth, “over against Long Lane-end.” Beshrew me, Michael Root, thou hast an enticing bill of fare--a dish of all sorts--and how gravely looketh that apathetic Magnifico William, by any grace, but his own, “Sovereign Lord” at the head and front of thy Scaramouches and Tumblers! To thy merry memory, honest Michael! and may St. Bartlemy, root and branch, flourish for ever!