But Notwithstanding This, The People, Especially Those
That Are Used To It, Live Unconcerned, And As Healthy As Other
Folks, Except Now And Then An Ague, Which They Make Light Of, And
There Are Great Numbers Of Very Ancient People Among Them.
I now draw near to Cambridge, to which I fancy I look as if I was
afraid to come,
Having made so many circumlocutions beforehand; but
I must yet make another digression before I enter the town (for in
my way, and as I came in from Newmarket, about the beginning of
September), I cannot omit, that I came necessarily through
Stourbridge Fair, which was then in its height.
If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the
gaiety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to
the trading part of the world, to say something of this fair, which
is not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in the world;
nor, if I may believe those who have seen the mall, is the fair at
Leipzig in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort-on-the-Main, or the fairs
at Nuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to this fair at
Stourbridge.
It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from
the side of the river Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile
square.
If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off
before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it
under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all
the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to
balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their
business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another
certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with
plough and cart, and overthrow all, and trample into the dirt; and
as for the filth, dung, straw, etc. necessarily left by the fair-
keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers'
fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and
carting upon, and hardening the ground.
It is impossible to describe all the parts and circumstances of
this fair exactly; the shops are placed in rows like streets,
whereof one is called Cheapside; and here, as in several other
streets, are all sorts of trades, who sell by retail, and who come
principally from London with their goods; scarce any trades are
omitted--goldsmiths, toyshops, brasiers, turners, milliners,
haberdashers, hatters, mercers, drapers, pewterers, china-
warehouses, and in a word all trades that can be named in London;
with coffee-houses, taverns, brandy-shops, and eating-houses,
innumerable, and all in tents, and booths, as above.
This great street reaches from the road, which as I said goes from
Cambridge to Newmarket, turning short out of it to the right
towards the river, and holds in a line near half a mile quite down
to the river-side:
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