“Here’s that will challenge all the fair, Come buy my nuts and damsons and Burgamy pears! Here’s the Woman of Babylon, the Devil and the Pope, And here’s the little Girl just going on the Rope! Here’s _Dives and Lazarus_ and the _World’s Creation_, Here’s the _Tall Dutch Woman_, the like’s not in the nation. Here is the Booths where the high Dutch maid is, Here are the Bears that dance like any Ladies; Tat, tat, tat, tat, says little penny Trumpet; Here’s Jacob Hall, that does so jump it, jump it; Sound Trumpet, sound, for silver spoon and fork, Come, here’s your dainty Pig and Pork.” It had in fact come to this—as Sir Robert Southwell truly said in a letter to his son in 1685: “The main importance of this fair is not so much for merchandise, and the supplying what people really want; but as a sort of Bacchanalia, to gratify the multitude in their wandering and irregular thoughts.” 1688. It had become a custom for the Lord Mayor after proclaiming the fair to call upon the keeper of Newgate, whose services were usually involved during the fair, and partake of “a cool tankard of wine, nutmeg, and sugar.” This year Sir John Shorter—natural grandfather of Horace Walpole, and of his cousins the Conway Seymours—followed the usual course, but let the lid of the tankard flop down with so much force that his horse started; he was thrown to the ground, and died the next day. The practice was discontinued during the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood. In “The Lady’s New Year’s Gift; or, Advice to a Daughter,” published this year, it is observed: “Some women are for merry-meetings, as Bessus was for Duels; they are ingaged in a Circle of Idleness, where they run round for the whole year, without the interruption of a serious hour; they know all the Players names & are Intimately acquainted with all the Booths in Bartholomew Fair.” 1690. Literature still continued to be associated with the fair. Thus there was published this year: “The City Revels, or the Humours of Bartholomew Fair,” by J. G. Gent. Sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall, and by most Booksellers. Price stitcht 6_d._—not a single copy of which is now known to exist. There was also published about this date “Roger in Amaze: Or the Countrymans Ramble through Bartholomew Fair. To the tune of: The Dutch Womans Jigg. Printed by and for A. M. and sold by J. Walter,” &c. A sheet containing eight six-line stanzas. (Library of H. Huth, Esq.) 1691. There was a strong feeling setting in at this period against the fair. The Corporation ordered a return to the original term of three days, not only as a check to vice, but in order that the pleasures of the fair might not choke up the avenues of traffic. It is clear that this was not effective, for the order was repeated three years later. See 1711.