NOTES.

NOTE I.

Let's gow to Rosley fair.] These fairs are holder on an extensive tract of common, called Rosley-hill. They commence on Whit-Monday, and continue once a fortnight till Michaelmas. It is impossible to convey an adequate idea of them by description.— One part of the hill is covered with horses and black cattle, with dealers, drovers, and jockies; who, if the day be windy and sultry, are involved in a hurricane of dust, almost as violent in its duration as that which sweeps the arid deserts of Africa: another part is overspread with the booths of mercers, milliners, hardwaremen, and bread-bakers. Here you see the mountebank, hawker, and auctioneer, addressing the gaping crowd from a wooden platform; and there you hear the discordant strains of the ballad-singer, the music of the bagpipe and the violin, of the fife, and "the spirit-stirring drum.”

Tents of innkeepers, crowded with bottles and barrels, are interspersed in every part of the festal ground, but particularly in the vicinity of the horsefair, where the heat and dust of the day occasion a more than usual thirst; and, much to the honour of these knights of the cork and spiggot, the malt and spirituous liquors which they retail to their thirsty

customers, are so judiciously diluted with water, that they operate with all the innocence of simple diuretics; so that it is not uncommon to see a company of hale farmers, after having exhausted all the casks and bottles in these moving cellars, returning to their own houses with all the sobriety and gravity in which they left them in the morning.

Of these fairs, which are prolonged till they dwindle into insignificance, the second is particularly noted for a fine assemblage of Cumbrian lasses, who, in different parties, parade the hill, in all the artless simplicity of rural beauty, till some rustic admirer displays his gallantry and his love, by escorting a select number of them to some neighbouring tent, and treating them with cake and punch, and the music of the bagpipe and fiddle.-When these acknowledgments have been paid to their beauty, they return to the field to attack and to conquer; for to a girl, who has received from Nature her share of beauty, the whole day is distinguished by a succession of triumphs. The cakes, ribbons, and handkerchiefs, (the tributes of rural gallantry) are, on their return home, carefully deposited, as so many illustrious trophies of their vic

tories.

At these fairs are sold a species of cheese called Whyllymer, or, as some whimsically style it, Rosley Cheshire. It is as remarkable for its poverty as that of Stilton is for its richness; and its surface is so hard, that it frequently bids defiance to the keenest edge

of a Cumbrian gully, and its interior substance so very tough, that it affords rather occupation to the teeth of a rustic than nourishment to his body, making his hour of repast (to use the expression of an ingenious friend) the severest part of his day's labour.

About noon the boundaries of the fair are perambulated, or, as it is provincially called, " ridden,”— which exhibits a spectacle "sufficient" (to use the words of Dr. Johnson)" to awaken the most torpid risibility." A number of lairds, farmers, tradesmen and mechanics, mount their horses, and, in a slow aud solemn pace, wind round the circuit of the hill, accompanied by a train of venerable fiddlers, many of whom have been the tormentors of cat-gut for almost half a century.-These minstrels, who, during the rest of the year, travel on foot from village to village, giving music in return for oats or barley, are on these occasions, by the favour of their friends, mounted on horseback, and provided with better clothes.,

NOTE II.

I went my ways down to Carel fair.] Carlisle fair, or, as it is called by the country people, Carel fair, is holden on the 26th of August, and is so noted for the number and variety of its amusements and choice of commodities, that there is hardly a villager within the circuit of ten miles who does not attend it, except perhaps two or three unhappy swains and nymphs, whom the authority of a morose parent, or a churlish master or mistress, confines at home.

A Cumberland lad, when he meets his sweetheart at a fair, whether by appointment or accident, throws his arms round her waist in all the raptures of love, conducts her to a dancing room, places her beside him on a bench, and treats her liberally with cake and punch. When a vacancy happens on the floor, he leads her out to dance a jig or a reel. If her choice be a reel, another partner being necessary, he makes a how to some other girl in the company, and at the end of the dance he salutes each of his fair partners with a cordial kiss, if its cordiality can be ascertained by the loudness of its sound; for a plain, honest rustic, impresses his kisses with so much vehemence on the roseate lips of his fair one, that they have been compared by BURNS to the crack of a waggoner's whip; and, with equal happiness, by the author of the preceding Ballads, to the sound of a gate's latch.

At the close of the day, a Cumbrian rustic would think himself deficient in common gallantry, if he omitted to escort his sweetheart to her own house,—a favour that she always repays by a more than usual portion of smiles on his next visit.

NOTE IH.

When aw t' auld fwok were liggin asleep.] A Cumbrian peasant pays his addresses to his sweetheart during the silence and solemnity of midnight, when every bosom is at rest, except that of love and sorrow. Anticipating her kindness, he will travel tea or

twelve miles, over hills, boggs, moors and mosses, undiscouraged by the length of the road, the darkness of the night, or the intemperature of the weather.On reaching her habitation, he gives a gentle tap at the window of her chamber, at which signal she immediately rises, dresses herself, and proceeds with all possible silence to the door, which she gently opens, lest a creeking hinge, or a barking dog, should awaken the family.

On his entrance into the kitchen, the luxuries of a Cumbrian cottage-cream and sugared curds-are placed before him by the fair hand of his DULCINEA. Next the courtship commences, previously to which the fire is darkened or extinguished, lest its light should guide to the window some idle or licentious eye. In this dark and uncomfortable situation, (at least uncomfortable to all but lovers) they remain till the advance of day, depositing in each other's bosoms the secrets of love, and making vows of unalterable affection.

Though I am so far partial to my fair countrywomen, that in some instances I respect their very prejudices, I cannot conclude this note without representing to them the danger and impropriety of admitting the visits of their lovers during those hours of the night, which virtue and innocence have appropriated to repose. Nothing more encourages unbecoming familiarities, nothing more promotes dissoJute manners, nothing more endangers female chas