Alas for poor John Taylor, and the occupation of his associates, who longed and sighed for the good old times and customs of the fathers, and deplored these new-fangled notions! The winter of 1684-5 was very severe; and Sir John Evelyn, in his celebrated Diary, records an unusual spectacle on the famous river. His statement is as follows:-- Jan. 9th I went crosse the Thames on the ice, now become so thick as to beare not onely streetes and booths, in which they roasted meate, and had divers shops of wares, quite acrosse as in toune, but coaches, carts, and horses passed over. So I went from Westminster Stayres to Lambeth and dined with the Archbishop.... 16th. The Thames was filled with people and tents, selling all sorts of wares as in the city.... 24th. The frost continuing, more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with booths in formal streetes, all sorts of trades and shops furnished and full of commodities, even to a printing presse, where the people and ladys tooke a fancey to have their names printed and the day and yeare set down when printed on the Thames; this humour took so universally, that t'was estimated the printer gained £5 a day, for printing a line onely, at six pence a name, besides what he got by ballads, &c. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other stayres to and fro, as in the streets, sleds, sliding with skeets, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, cooks, tippling, and other lewed places. So it seemed to be a backanalian triumph, or carnival on the water, whilst it was a severe judgement on the land, the trees not only splitting as if by lightening struck, but men and cattle perishing in divers places, and the very seas lock'd up with ice that no vessels could stir out or come in.... Feb. 5th. It began to thaw but froze again. My coach crossed from Lambeth to the Horse ferry at Milbank, Westminster. The booths were almost all taken downe, but there was first a map or Landskip cut in copper, representing all the manner of the camp and the several actions and pastimes thereon, in memory of so signal frost.... Jan. 10th. After eight weekes missing the foraine posts, there came abundance of intelligence from abroad. We now take our leave of the Thames. Often shall we sail over it during our stay. It is a highway of nations like the ocean itself. Ideal is the Rhine; matter of fact is the Thames; but it is greater than the Amazon in the best kind of greatness.