* In “A Pacquet from Wills, 1701,” an actress of “the Playhouse,” writing to “a Stroller in the Country,” says, “My dear Harlequin, I hoped, according to custom, at the grand revels of St. Bartholomew to have solaced ourselves with roast pig and a bottle. But the master of that great bee-hive, the city, to please the canting, zealous horn- heads, has buzzed about an order there shall be no fair! The chief cause, say the reformers, is the profane drolls ( Whittington to wit) that ridicule the city's majesty, by hiring a paunch-bellied porter at half-a-crown a day, to represent an Alderman in a scarlet gown! when a lean-ribbed scoundrel in a blue jacket, for mimicking a fool, shall have forty shillings!” In 1743, 1750, 1760, 1798, 1825, and 1840, further attempts were made to put down the fair. In 1760 one Birch, (for whom St. Bartholomew had a rod in pickle! ) bearing the grandiloquent title of Deputy City Marshal (!! ) lost his life in a fray that broke out between the suppressing authorities and the fair folk. The amendment of Bardolph's face (nose!) per se, was not a crying case of necessity; a burning shame to be extinguished with a zeal hot as the “fire o' juniper.” It only became so in conjunction with the reformation of Falstaff's morals! * * If every man attended to his own affairs, he would find little time to pry into those of others. An idle head is the devil's garret. Your intermeddler is one who has either nothing to do, or having it to do, leaves it undone. It is good to reform others; 'tis better to begin with ourselves. He who censures most severely the faults of his neighbour is generally very merciful to his own. “One day judgeth another,” says old Stow, “and the last judgeth all.” We laugh at the hypocrite when caught in his own snare--when guilty of the suppressio veri, he is openly detected in the suggestio falsi, and made to pay the penalty of his duplicity. An ancient beau, bounding with all the vigour and alacrity that age, gout, and rheumatism usually inspire, cuts not a more ridiculous figure! Hermes, or Mercury, was a thief, and the god of thieves; Venus, a gay lady; Bacchus, a wine-bibber; and Juno, a scold. And what apology offers sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, for his infirmities! He lets judgment go by default! “Dost thou hear, Hal? thou knowest, in the state of innocency, Adam fell; and what should poor Jack Falstaff do, in these days of villany?” This is truth as deep as the centre. Whoever shall cast a pebble at old Jack after this, must have his conscience Macadamised! Be your grace * short, and your meals long. Abate not one slice of venison, one spoonful of turtle. Be the fat, white and green, all your own! ** But war not with _Punch_--