Clough_, and such other old romances or historical rhymes, made purposely for the recreation of the common people.' A bold fellow, who is full of queer stories and cant phrases, strikes a few notes upon his gittern, and the lads and lasses are around him ready to dance their country measures.... "The Fair is over; the booths are taken down; the woolen statute-caps, which the commonest people refuse to wear because there is a penalty for not wearing them, are packed up again; the prohibited felt hats are all sold; the millinery has found a ready market among the sturdy yeomen, who are careful to propitiate their home-staying wives after the fashion of the Wife of Bath's husbands.... The juggler has packed up his cup and balls; the last cudgel-play has been fought out:-- "'Near the dying of the day There will be a cudgel-play, Where a coxcomb will be broke Ere a good word can be spoke: But the anger ends all here, Drench'd in ale, or drown'd in beer.' Morning comes, and Stratford hears only the quiet steps of its native population." There are many allusions, literal and figurative, to these fairs in Shakespeare's plays, a few of which may be cited here as specimens. In _Love's Labour's Lost_, besides the one quoted above (page 199), we find the following simile in Biron's eulogy of Rosaline (iv. 3. 235):-- "Of all complexions the cull'd soverignty Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek." In the same play (v. 2. 2), the Princess says to her ladies, referring to the presents they have received:-- "Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart If fairings come thus plentifully in." It was so common a practice to buy presents at fairs that the word _fairing_, which originally meant presents thus bought, came to be used in a more general sense, as in this passage and many others that might be quoted. In _The Winters Tale_ (iv. 3. 109) the Clown says of the merry peddler Autolycus that "he haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings." Later (iv. 4) we meet the rogue at the sheep-shearing, where he finds a good market for ribbons, gloves, and other "fairings," which the swains buy for their sweethearts; and when the festival is over he says: "I have sold all my trumpery; not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack from fasting; they throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer." In _2 Henry IV._ (iii. 2. 43) Shallow asks his cousin Silence, "How a good yoke of bullocks now at Stamford fair?" and Silence replies, "By my troth, I was not there." Later (v. 1. 26) Davy asks Shallow: "Sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley fair?" In _Henry VIII._ (v. 4. 73) the Chamberlain, seeing the crowd gathered to get a sight of the royal procession, exclaims:--