I was aroused from my reverie by a person touching my elbow, and inquiring if I wanted lodgings. He was a keeper of a boarding-house; and thinking I might as well be imposed upon by him as by any other of the fraternity, I accepted his offer to show me to his house. I went home with him, and agreed to pay him a guinea per week for such board and accommodations as might be had for half that price by any one but a stranger. I ate more fresh salmon during the short time I tarried with him, than I ever did before or since. I infer from this that it must have been very cheap, as his object was more to make money than to accommodate. I was in London about three weeks, and during that time made the best use of my poor means to learn all I could of a place I had longed but never hoped to see. As I traversed Tower Hill, my mind wandered back for centuries, and dwelt upon the strange events in history which had been enacted there; of the soil where I stood, that had been moistened by the blood of monarchs, soldiers and statesmen. As I gazed upon the massive gray walls of the Tower, the magic scenes of Shakspeare arose, and passed in review before me. I thought of Gloucester, Clarence, Hastings, Henry VI., his two murdered nephews: then came forth the unhappy Jane Shore, pale, exhausted, and starving; no one daring to offer a mouthful of food to save the poor wretch from death. But the scene changes. It is night; and I see Falstaff and his companions at the rising of the moon, 'by whose light they steal.' They go forth and are lost sight of in the misty shadows of those dark, time-worn buildings; and anon we hear him waging battle with the 'ten men in buckram suits.' Bartholomew Fair came on while I was in London. This I was desirous of witnessing; to see how far it would accord with the descriptions by 'rare Ben Jonson,' some centuries before. The weather proved remarkably fine, and I set out with my curiosity on tip-toe to see the sport. I had some distance to go; and as I turned up one street and down another, the throng of people increased, until my arrival at Smithfield, where the fair was held, and where the crowd became so dense as to be hardly passable. The spectators consisted of both sexes, of all ages and degrees. But how shall I describe the scene that presented itself? A large field of several acres was filled with tents, stages and booths, with Punch and Judys, quack doctors, mountebanks and monkeys, and cages containing wild animals of various kinds. The shouting of people, the cry of beasts, the beating of drums, the discord of the abortive attempts at music, producing such a triumph of discord as beggars description. 'Verily,' thought I, 'time cannot have diminished the glories of Bartholomew Fair.'