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THE EXHIBITION AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN IN THE DAYS OF YORE.
BY A DISCIPLE OF RETROGRESS.

STRaNGE dayes be these, my masters; ‘tis a maci world, hy my fay!
I doe not lyke these bad new times at all, the sooth to saye;
Your pace ytt is too faste for me: I wolde not goe ahedd;
Noc, I had liefer travaille hack, an yff I mote, instsdd.
The World ytts Fair may be a sight full well ynoughe to see,
Of goodes, and warcs, and marchandise, in store and grete plentye;
But only thinke, good gentlefolke, how moche more brave a shewe
We mote have hadd, in merry Hyde Park, four hundred yeer agoc!
Men wolde have hadd a stout building in those old dayès gone,
And not a Pailas of Crystàil, devised by PAXTON.
Gramercy, naye, ye wolde have seen, I wis, a goodly halle,
Sos made that ye mote hang up shields and banners on the walls.
Tnstedd of goodes and handiwork, sent here from foreign partcs,
Thereat wolde have bsen bowes, and bills, and pikes, and speares, and
darts;
And diverse welthe, no doubte, as well, fetched hither from afar;
But, marryc! all the spoylo of foes that we had slayne in war.
There wolde have been, for ateam-engèns, that run upon the rayle,
Good effigies of gallant steedes, and worthy knightes in mayl;
For carved ymages and soche, the work of cunning hands,
Some sondry holmes and coreelets, cleft and brast with axe or brands.
Inetcdd of wycked clod-crushers the erth to wryng and tare,
Ye would have hadd a comely shows of thumscrewcs and of rackes,
Of pillouries for rogues and theevce that plonder their neighbduree,
And stakes and chaines and chopping-blocks for witches and traitdures,
Of BATTYE hys Circus hard by, I warrant, in the lieu,
There wolde have been a Tournament with reall decdcs of dooe;
A true ladyC as Beauty’s Queen for Miss I know not whome,
And some stout Erle indcdc for Lords in place of WennaycostEE.
And then when rival lordcs were mett, there must have been a fyghte,
And a cryibge “To the Rescue, and SEnT GaonnE defend the ryghté!”
And worthy knyglithes and men-at-anne bad manfullye hens slayne:
Alacke that wee boo never more to ace eocbe times agayne!
There mote have been some traytour knave to haug and eke to drawc,
By ways of good ensample, and in honour of the lawe;
Alsi, perchance, a horotyke in Smythfceld for to breon,
As was the use in itorry Ynglond when Yngliahmon were men.
The crowds, too, beiog grote and foulc, bclike there had been brewed A good old Ynglieh pestilence among the multitude;
So wolde the popp1c have been thinn’d, which mote he no bad thiog,
And thus tho,Exbibicyon wolde have hadd a good cndiog.
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