FAIR. Anciently, before any flourishing towns were established, and the necessaries or ornaments of life, from the convenience of communication and the increase of provincial towns, could be procured in various places, goods and commodities of every kind were chiefly sold at fairs; to which, as to one uni versal mart, the people resorted periodically, and supplied most of their wants for the en suing year. Wharton, in his 'History of English Poetry,' has given us a curious account of that of St. Giles's hill or down, near Winchester. It was instituted by Wil liam the Conqueror, at first for three days, which were afterwards extended to sixteen. Its jurisdiction extended seven miles round, and comprehended even Southampton, then a capital trading town; and all merchants who sold that circuit, unless at the fair, forfeited them to the bishop. As late as 1512, as we learn from the Northumberland House hold-book, fairs still continued to be the prin cipal marts for purchasing necessaries in large quantities, which are now supplied by the nu merous trading towns.
The fairs of Frankfort-on-the-Main and Leipzig are still pre-eminent in Europe. A very large part of the hook-trade of Germany is centered in the Easter fair at Leipzig.
The fair at Nischnei Novgorod, in Russia, between the river Oka and the river Volga, is the largest at the present day : 200,000 visitors are said to attend it, and commodities to the amount of 4,000,0001. sterling to be disposed of. There is also a singular fair held at Ber bera, on the coast of Add, in Eastern Africa. Throughout nearly the whole of the year the place is abandoned to the hyena and the jackall, and the huts are left open ; but as the period of the fair approaches, caravans of camels, horses, mules, asses, and troops of warriors continue to arrive, and in a short time the desert is animated by the presence of many thousands of persons, who, having transacted their business, disperse, and the place resumes its desolate solitude. The great commercial fair at Beancaire in France has been already described. [BEAucarnE.]