'They heard him with patience till he had made an end of his lying, and then they asked him whether yea or nay he saw these things he spake of, he presently swore all the oaths of God that he saw these things with his own natural eyes, which he had reported, and he would maintaine it, though he spent his dearest blood in the doeing of it; well, they heard his protestations, and made a full account that they would prove his constancie whether he would be a Martyr yea or nay, in the meane time they horsed him, and this was the manner of it. 'There was a great high thing raised to the height of twelve or fourteen yards, made of Iron, whereon he was seated, with two great weights on his toes, and the like on his hands where he sate in great paine, if he should chance to ease himselfe upwards, there were sharp nailes over his head which would prick him, thus he sate and thus he suffered, till they had sufficiently made a laughing stock of him; well, when he had suffered enough they let him downe.' There is a woodcut representing the lying traveller on his 'horse,' and the tract winds up thus:-- 'Gentle Reader, I have heere related under the name of lies nothing but true tales, for if a man doth now speake truth he shall be sure to smart for it now-a-daies, either here or in other places: read gentlie and buy willingly.' When the Plague visited London in 1641 the theatres were closed and the players were thrown out of employment. This state of things is discussed in a dialogue between 'Cane of the Fortune and Reed of the Friars,' in a tract illustrated with a woodcut which was frequently used afterwards in broadsides. Bartholomew Fair, which was proclaimed for the last time in 1855, was in all its glory in the days of Charles I. A contemporary tract gives a graphic description of the fair, and is illustrated with a woodcut representing a man swallowing a serpent. This probably represented a picture hung outside one of the shows. The title of the tract is, '_Bartholomew Faire, or Variety of Fancies, where you may find a faire of wares and all to please your mind; with the several enormities and misdemeanours which are there seen and acted_.' The fair is described as beginning 'on the twenty-fourth day of August, and is then of so vast an extent that it is contained in no lesse than four several parishes, namely, Christ Church, Great and Little Saint Bartholomew's, and Saint Sepulchre's. Hither resort people of all sorts, High and Low, Rich and Poore, from cities, townes, and countreys; of all sects, Papists, Atheists, Anabaptists, and Brownists, and of all conditions, good and bad, virtuous and vitious.' It is said to be 'full of gold and silver-drawers; just as Lent is to the Fishmonger so is Bartholomew Faire to the Pickpocket; it is his high harvest, which is never bad but when his cart goes up Holborn. [Illustration: A BARTHOLOMEW FAIR WONDER, 1641.]