DONNYBROOK FAIR. 66 "So you have never been at Donnybrook fair!" said my cousin Tom; "I assure you 'tis worth looking at: I'm going there to day, and as you're a stranger, I'll be your guide." Thank you," said I, "but I've nothing to buy or sell."-" That's not material there," said Tom; "we're not such matter of fact people at our fairs, as you Englishmen take us to be. This one, in particular, presents "A vast scene of delights, where there's little transacting, But dancing and drumming,-fighting and acting;" and offers to our citizens throughout a whole week, (if the Lord Mayor be in a good humour,) a never failing source of merriment.” "And what business-like excuse exists for all this boisterous excitement ?" "Oh! an Irishman needs very little excuse for seeking amusement. The only serious business of the fair is the sale of some scores of horses, which all the carters and coal porters of Dublin, that wish for good-luck in horse-flesh the ensuing year, go there to buy. 'Tis not two miles off; and you'd return to England in disgrace, if you could'nt speak of having been presented at Donnybrook." I resigned myself to my cousin's guidance, who led me through Stephen's Green into Leeson Street, where we took our seats, with four others, on an outside jaunting car; hundreds of which were plying to and from the fair, with all the alacrity that emulation and whip-cord could impart to man and horse. The crazy vehicles rattled along at a reckless rate; their drivers vying with each other in "the race to the Brook," and illustrating most powerfully in their unsparing use of the whip," that a spur in the head is worth two in the heel." But lest one spur, the love of gain, (for this is the carman's harvest-week,) should not suffice, Paddy had imbibed another, compounded of divers glasses of whiskey; and under the influence of both, he made his poor beast smoke along the road. The way seemed alive with walkers and riders, the drivers and the driven. The good citizens had come to enjoy themselves, and they did so must uproriously. They laughed, sang, and shouted, in the joy of their hearts, especially when a tipsified acquaintance was detected on his return from the fair. They halloed forth his christian name, sir-name, and nick name; all which he repaid to the best of his ability, and sometimes with interest, when he was not too far gone. We had scarcely cleared the city, when our driver showed evident symptoms of an intention to distance all competitors, and win every honour for his company, at the risk of their necks. In accomplishing this, he was obliged to circumnavigate rivals and opponents by most dangerous evolutions, which he performed to my amazement, and to the admiration of my fellow travellers, who enjoyed the scene highly; cheering him in his "hair-breadth 'scapes," as if our lives were not worth so many figs. Even my cousin Tom was inspired with the social love of danger, for at times I could hear his "huzza!" at the other side of the * An article under this name lately appeared in the Monthly Magazine, but the view here taken of this scene of Irish humour is so truly original and graphic, that we consider the present will be found an agreeable novelty. car, high above the others. A car passed us, with a load of drunken fellows, homeward bound. A pair of legs, (which appeared to be female, from the want of inexpressibles,) wagged out over the back of the vehicle, whilst the body of their owner reposed in the well in a state of preterpluperfect ebriety. We all turned suddenly round, to gaze at this picture of spiritual helplessness. Our hasty motion generated a shock, which was too much for the tenuity of our poor beast's belly-band: back fell the car, and back rolled six of us on the road! Shouts of laughter rose on the wind from all who passed us! "Never mind!" said Paddy, gathering himself from among the patient animal's hind legs and traces; my garter will make all fast again. We'll not be the last in the race. Get up Gents!" Up we got, and away drove Paddy as wild as before; assuring us that the belly-band was better than ever. 66 66 Pray, my fine fellow," said I, " do the people of Dublin always get mad during the week of the fair?" 66 Always, please your honour!" replied Paddy, " during the memory of man and beast. Glory be to the whiskey!" "I'll give you double fare, if you'll drive quietly at your own side of the road." "Please your honour, it's a mortal impossibility; for you see the other five gentlemen have promised me glasses a-piece to drive fast; and I can't go quick and slow at once! Hold fast, my hearties!" The warning came too late. At that moment Paddy brought his car in contact with another outside one returning from the fair, and crash went both footboards! Off flew three elderly young ladies from the opposite one into our arms, with fearful cries: the horses fell on their respective knees and noses. I gave myself up for lost: how our legs escaped I know not. Paddy endured a storm of reproaches, for his awkwardness, without losing his gaiety. "This comes of the whiskey!" said I. "An't please your honour!" said he, "where would be the virtue of it, if it didn't make some alteration in a man?" I resolved to trust my life no more in a Donnybrook jaunting car, and even my cousin Tom was shocked into caution. As we walked on, we heard an exclamation from two coal-porters before us, who recognized a comrade returning from the fair, on horseback, and, as usual, disdaining the luxury of a saddle and bridle. Being in no way particular, a coal-bag and a halter served his purpose. "Here comes Terry! he couldn't dispose of Fiery-eye at any price. So I guessed! Who'd buy the tinderbox? The two devils must kick and lash each other for twelve months more I suppose. Terry has been looking at somebody drinking this morning, to keep up his spirits." 66 "Good morrow boys!" said the rider. "How do you like my bargain? I sold Fiery-eye yesterday,-danced and drank all last night, and bought this clean, clever, quiet beast to-day, for only 31. more than I got for that plague of my life." Here his acquaintances burst into a loud laugh: "O Terry!" said one, 'by the powers you're done! you're bit! The jockey has docked her tail and mane,-blackened both her white fetlocks and the star on her forehead, and diddled you out of your money. I'd swear to her sky-rocket eye amongst a thousand! Touch her in the flank Jem, that Terry may know his own.' Jem had scarcely pointed his whip at the seat of honour, when Fieryeye responded to the insult by an indignant "fling out" that almost unseated Terry, and, at the same time, evidently unsettled his opinion of his skill in horseflesh. Fiery-eye seemed resolved to leave no doubt of her identity, and reared, plunged, and flourished most convincingly. Terry kept his seat like a man, cursing and flogging his old mare; very much affronted at her ill-timed familiarity, which was fast attracting a crowd. "Ah, Terry!" said his friends on foot, "it won't do! There is only the one way of cowing her, for it is Fiery-eye. Give her a handful of darkness!"-The baffled horseman seemed to have no longer a doubt of the lamentable truth, for he suddenly dropped the halter, and throwing himself on the mare's neck, clapt his hands over her eyes. The animal seemed instantly deprived of all confidence by the manoeuvre, and relinquished all further offensive operations,-so completely did a minutes blindness abate her devilry. Terry, quite sobered by the contest, quietly alighted, and, shaking his head, led Fiery-eye to his comrades, and asked, very wisely, "What's to be done, boys?" We left them to discuss this ticklish point at their leisure, and went our way to the fair. Here we saw above a hundred booths and tents arranged at the edge of an irregular common field, or "fair green," as it is called by courtesy; but scarcely a blade of grass remained within the area to justify the epithet. The horses "trotted out" for sale on the previous days, had, with the help of the rain, trodden the sod of the central space to the tender consistency of dough; and though some fellows were hardy enough to attempt to cross the prolonged puddle, scarcely one emerged in safety. "Bad luck to the Lord Mayor," said a floundering pilot from Ringsend, "that doesn't employ a drudge-boat here! He ought to publish a chart of the soundings, that people may know where to fish for their shoes when the fair's over!" "Don't abuse the Lord Mayor :" said his comrade: "he's the only lubber that had the sense to leave good sea-room between the tents (instead of narrow lanes) where every one may see from his birth what fights are going on, and put in his oar if he pleases; and where the ground is as soft as a feather-bed for those that are capsized." A prodigious noise of drums and trumpets issued from the showmen's booths, at the left of the green, as we entered; and admiring crowds of all classes, rich and poor, old and young, thronged the space beneath. We wished to join them, but, alas! the quagmire interposed, and we were obliged to follow the two pilots, and circumnavigate along the line of tents, distinguished from each other by popular portraits, signs, and mottoes, from the time of "Scrom-scrous, crowned at Donnybrook, A. D. 34," to Daniel O'Connell, of living renown, whose coronation tickets are not yet issued. The painter of Dan's portrait was evidently no admirer of the style of the ancient master, who wrote beneath his picture, This is a lion; for, despising the aid of explanatory inscription, our artist wrote on the sign, as if in defiance, John Bunbury, of Roundtown; the name and residence of the patriot tent keeper. The inside was full to the very door. Right opposite was one nearly empty, although adorned with the commanding portrait of George the Fourth. "The king rules every where else," said Tom,-" Donnybrook is the palace of the people, and its fair is their saturnalia. Who comes here for the love of religion or loyalty? No body that I know of! Every one is in search of fun! Is it to be found under the same roof with Majesty? The words are astonished to find themselves together in the same sentence! If you force them to wed, they'll poison one another, or divide the house in Irish fashion. Exempli gratia. See there! Majesty claims the inside, and fun takes the outside of the tent! 'There's a time for every thing,' said old king Solomon, 'The wisest man the world e'er saw, He knew what human nature was, and I'm sure would not have advised any friend of his amongst the fourteen hundred " strange women in Jerusalem (though he was hand and glove with half of them) to set him up as a sign of civil entertainment to his loving subjects, 'As our rarer monsters are, Painted upon a pole." In fact, as a man of known loyalty, I would'nt encourage the bad turnpenny taste of the tapster, who thus makes a kingly countenance dogcheap,-by lending him my countenance." We found crowds in the "Anglesey, the "Tom and Jerry,"—"Doyle from Rathmines," whose motto was "Pass if you can!"-and "The Old Grinding Young,"—the unique signboard of which gave a faithful representation of the march of ideality and allegory at Donnybrook. It displayed a large hopper, surmounting an old fashioned pair of quern-stones, into which, by the help of a step-ladder," the lame, the blind, and the halt," hobble and tumble. A "dusty, fusty miller," named John Barleycorn, turns the magical winch; and lo! at the hopper's tail, out spring continually the youthful, the lovely, the gay, all alive, and jumping with joy at their transformation!" There!" said Tom, "behold a type of the happy predominance of mind over matter, and spirit over body, at times when a body has a mind to try the old recipe "To keep its spirits up, by pouring spirits down," till the said body, in the joy of its inspiration, feels its youthful pulse return again; and, as John Barleycorn winds up the charm, does not once mind what is the matter with it, but, in the spirit of independence, is ready to maintain that it is no matter whether there are any such things as either mind or matter!" Further on we penetrated a great crowd, to buy a ballad, which two women were singing in alternate lines, at the top of " their most sweet voices," to the air of "Lilliburlero, bullen a la!" Tom obtained a printed copy for a halfpenny, and undertook to keep it safe for me; but, unfortunately, in lighting a segar in the evening, he burnt away the exordium, to the amount of four stanzas and a half. The following is a literal transcript of the unconsumed portion. The style of the poetry is so new and so strange to me, that I cannot attempt the restoration of a line. So I give it as I find it. Oh isn't it we that ought to be free? No nation alive bears hampering worse; Long life to the Forties! They've kilt you, my hearties, O jewel you were! sweet mimber for Clare! Their votes, and shillelaghs, have won you the day; We'll dance round about you a Donnybrook jig, The ballads sold briskly, the singers got hoarse, and took the liberty of occasionally prescribing for each other internal emollient applications of whiskey; and, before we left them, they were clipping the king's English into very base Irish phraseology. 66 "Now you've heard a Donnybrook song," said Tom, "walk into this tent till I show you how we dance here." "I'm no dancer," said I," and no judge of dancing." "Then I'll only ask you to be a witness," said he. We squeezed our way through the crowded tent till we arrived at the central point of attraction, where a fiddler and piper were playing Astley's Hornpipe," with spirited emphasis; while a young man, and two women, were dancing a reel of three, on a spring board inserted in the ground, about six feet long and four broad. The man wore his hat and surtout, and occasionally ejaculated a tasty puff of smoke from a short pipe in his mouth, as an accompaniment to his flourishes and pirouettes. But his skill seemed chiefly to lie in the art of beating time with his brogues. He would commence forte, and all the tent re-echoed to their demisemiquavers; then he would slide into a piano step, as the strain varied, and the brogues could scarcely be heard, as he "cut over the buckle." There was a major stamp, and a minor shuffle, in his style of dancing, that lent each other all the grace of antithesis. The audience was highly edified. An old man, who sat opposite the dancers, with a child in his arms, exclaimed, "There's a sight on the board for you all; the mother, with her daughter and son-in-law! I've a dozen more of them at home, and I'm the best man among them! Here's all their healths!" Just at this moment, by an energetic spring, the son-inlaw burst through the plank that had borne him so well; and there he stood as if caught in a man-trap. "There's a hole in the ballet," said Tom. "Ah you must pay for your footing," shouted the laughing host of the tent. "I am paying for it," said the son-in-law, "and smarting for it too! I feel a dozen splinters through my stocking. 'Twould pain a priest!" ""Tis not every body," said the father-in-law; "that can dance with one foot in the grave." "Never mind," said the landlord, "Ill find a floor and music for you, while there's timber and catgut in Donnybrook. Jem! pull the stillion-plank out of the end of the tent, and we'll fill up the gap in the dance." Away ran Jem, with hammer in hand, and soon returned with a board which he had knocked out of a partition at the extremity of the tent, which |