above, and no likelihood of stopping it. Met with the King and Duke of York in their barge, and with them to Queenhithe, and then called Sir Richard Brown* to them. Their order was only to pull down houses apace, and so below the bridge at the water-side; but little was or could be done, the fire coming up on them so fast. Good hopes there was of stopping it at the Three Cranes above, and at Bottolph's Wharf below bridge, if care be used; but the wind carries it into the City, so as we know not, by the water-side, what is to do there. River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water; and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in it, but there was a pair of Virginals in it.

Having seen as much as I could now, I away to Whitehall by appointment, and then walked to St. James's Park, and then upon the water again, and to the fire up and down, it still encreasing, and the wind great. So near the fire as we could for smoke, and all over the Thames, with one's faces in the wind, you were almost burned with a shower of fire drops. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little ale-house on the Bankside, over against the three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost, and saw the fire grow; and, as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between Churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. We staid till it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long, it made me weep to see it. The Churches, houses, and all

*Father-in-law to John Evelyn.

on fire, and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made, and the crackling of houses at their ruine. So home with a sad heart."

In November of the same year, Hollar, the celebrated engraver, was sworn in the King's Servant, and received his commands to go on with his great map of the City, which he was engaged upon before it was burned. This map or plan of the City etched by him, was taken from the Tower of St. Saviour's Church.

In 1684, occurred the great frost. Evelyn begins his diary on that year, 1st January. "The weather continuing intolerably severe, streetes of booths were set upon the Thames, the aire was so very cold and thick, as of many years there had not been the like. 6. "The river quite frozen." 9. "I went cross the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to beare not only streets of booths in which they roasted meate, and had divers shops of wares quite across as in a towne, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over." 16. "The Thames was filled with people and tents, selling all sorts of wares as in the City." Nevertheless the distress was fearful, and hundreds died from cold and fog. I have met with no special details of the frost as connected with the Borough, except that the waterway being stopped necessitated an enormous amount of traffic through our streets, all goods having to come up by road. But these three sore judgments of plague and fire and frost seem to have had little or no lasting effect on King or people.

CHAPTER XIV.

SOUTHWARK FAIR.

TRADESMEN'S TOKENS.

ND now let me endeavour to reproduce some of the departed glories of one of the great amusements of the Southwark folk in olden times-their Fair.

The original grant for it was contained in the Charter given to the Borough by Edward IV. in 1462, when it was appointed to be held on the 7th, 8th, and 9th days of September, the Eve, the Feast, and the morrow of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, whence it was frequently called the Lady Fair. This fair, then, was no exception to the general custom of the middle ages, for it was held on the Feast Day of the adjoining Priory Church of St. Mary Overies, and indeed, on examination it will be found that almost all fair days coincide with the dedication feast of the principal monastic church in the neighbourhood. In later times, however, we find from Evelyn's Diary, that it had the name of St. Margaret's Fair, of course from St. Margaret's Church, on St. Margaret's Hill, which has now disappeared.

The Charter given by Edward IV. was confirmed by Edward VI., and a Court of Pye Powders was attached to the fair, with the "power of assisting and carrying away all felons to Newgate." Lest any of my readers should be as ignorant as I was myself as to the meaning

of this strangely named Court, I append the following explanation.

Blackstone in his commentaries, says: "The lowest, and at the same time the most expeditious, Court of Justice known to the law of England is the Court of Pie Powder, curia pedis pulverizati, so called from the dusty feet of the suitors, or according to Sir Edward Coke, because justice is there done as speedily as dust can fall from the foot, upon the same principle that Justice was administered among the Jews at the gate of the city. Another derivation, according to a modern writer, is from a pied puldreaux (a pedlar in old French), and therefore signifying the court of such petty Chapmen as resort to fairs or markets. The Court hath the cognizance of all matters of contract that can possibly arise within the precincts of that fair or market, only the injury must be done, complained of, heard, and determined, within the compass of one day.”

This fair, however, seems to have been of little value in a commercial point of view, being, as Strype observes, "noted chiefly for shows, as dolls, puppet shows, rope dancing, music booths, and, alas! tippling houses." The time of its duration was extended by custom to a fortnight, but on September 10th, 1743, it was again limited to three days, and public notice given that any persons offering any interludes should be given up as vagrants. Previous to this it had been usual for many years for the keepers of booths and shows to make a collection for the debtors in the Marshalsea, but in consequence of this regulation, they declared themselves unable to contribute, which was so much resented by the prisoners that they threw stones on to the bowling green over the prison wall, when several persons were wounded, and a child killed.

The Fair was then removed to the Mint and Suffolk Street, and though on June 17th, 1762, the Common Council of London came to a resolution that the Lady Fair in the Borough should be neither proclaimed nor held for the future, yet it was not until 1763 that it was finally suppressed. On September in that year, however, the High Constable and upwards of an hundred inferior officers by order of the Borough Magistrates, went to Suffolk Place, and caused the persons who had begun to erect booths, etc., to take them down again, which proceeding entirely abolished the Fair in Southwark. Evelyn's notice of the Fair occurs on 13th September, 1660, he says "I saw in Southwark, at St. Margaret's Fair, monkies and apes dance, and do other feates of activity on the high rope, they were gallantly clad à la mode, went upright, saluted the company, bowing and pulling off their hats, they saluted one another with as good a grace as if instructed by a dancing master; they turned heels over head with a basket having eggs in it, without breaking any; also with lighted candles in their hands and on their heads without extinguishing them, and with vessels of water without spilling a drop. I also saw an Italian wench daunce and perform all the tricks on the high rope to admiration; all the court went to see her. Likewise here was a man who tooke up a piece of iron cannon of about 400 lb. weight with the haire of his heade only."

The best memorial we have of this celebrated Fair is Hogarth's picture. Dr. Tussler in his quaint book called. "Hogarth Moralized," enriched and enlarged with valuable notes by John Major, says, there is an extremely rare print from this picture, in the Hogarth collection in the print room at the British Museum, and to it is appended the following description in nine columns. This descrip