“When the rain ceased, the fair-going gentry crept from their canvas coverings, and made for the spot where the clown’s gibes and jeers were wont to set his auditors in a roar. But the rain had made the ground so wet and sloppy, that a melancholy seemed to have come over all, the clown included. As for the poor boats on the Serpentine, they clung to the shore, as if they had taken a dislike to an aquatic life, and few were there disposed to navigate them. The gipsy tribe, of which there were hundreds in the fair, crept to their blanket hovels, to bewail the loss of the silver crossings of which the previous day had furnished an abundant supply. Into one of these miserable cabins upwards of thirty were seen to go in the space of an hour, whose appearance and manners would denote that they should know better than to put faith in the trash of the walnut-dyed impostors.”
The day afterwards turned out fine, and the fair was crowded. On the third day a booth caught fire, but no great damage was done. On the fourth and last day, the Queen drove as close to it as she well could do, and all the booths were cleared away that night.
Shirley Hibberd, writing in _Notes and Queries_ (7s. vi. 105), says: “The many interesting papers that have of late appeared recalling scenes and incidents of the Queen’s Coronation, are (so far as I have seen) defective in making no mention of the morris-dancers in Hyde Park. My recollections of the event have been delightfully revived by recent readings, and once more the joyous celebration is before me. I see the park a dusty field, with not a blade of grass upon it, and I hear my father say, in accordance with the belief prevailing, that the grass would grow all the better for being thus destroyed. And, amongst the things that then surprised me, were the morris-dancers, that I had read of, and had never, till then, seen. There could be no mistake, I should now say, about their genuineness, for they were clad as peasants, and all their ways consorted with their new and nicely trimmed smocks, and their well tanned faces. The dancers had, at least, two distinct styles, which I now conjecture were representative of two far-removed provinces, for the two styles were accompanied with distinctive habiliments. In each case the music consisted of pipe and tabor. One set struck short staves at a certain turn in the dance, when the dancers stood in two ranks face to face. The other set struck white handkerchiefs, which were thrown out by a trick of the hand so as to acquire momentary rigidity.”