DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70303#0291
WONDERS ON THE DEEP, 265
that had not their Majesties bounty relieved in a liberal
manner the distresses of the people, many must un-
avoidably have perished of hunger and cold. Their Royal
Highnesses Princess Anne, and George of Denmark, with
many of the nobility and gentry, followed the Royal ex-
ample, and rendered many distressed families as happy as
food and fuel could make them; notwithstanding which,
many of a sickly constitution began to despair of living
through the winter ; but it so pleased God, that the wind
suddenly and beyond expectation, turned to South by
West, on the 28th of February; when the thaw began, and
it so happened that the next day, the ice, which most peo-
ple imagined would be the ruin of London Bridge,
sunk entirely to the bottom, and large fragments drove to
sea out of all the ports ; so that the river in a week’s time
was open for trade, which few expected it wrould be pos-
sible for a month at least: yet divers vessels, and a great
many men were lost, in hastily endeavouring to put in at
Staines, and many other bridges; abundance of fowl
and fish were found dead, and the dismal effects of the
hard weather was in every part to be seen:
Three singular poems were made at the time, on this ever
to be remembered Trost, which as they convey a picture
of the times, we have given at large, without Abridge-
ment. The first is under the plate we took our view from.
I.
THE various sports behold herein this piece,
Which for six weeks were seen upon the ice ;
Upon the Thames the great variety
Of plays and booths is here brought to your eye.
Here coaches, as in Cheapside, run on wheels,
Here men (out tiplingpf the fishes) reels :
Instead of waves that us’d to beat the shoar,
Here bulls they bait, till loudly they do roar ;
H i-1 Here
that had not their Majesties bounty relieved in a liberal
manner the distresses of the people, many must un-
avoidably have perished of hunger and cold. Their Royal
Highnesses Princess Anne, and George of Denmark, with
many of the nobility and gentry, followed the Royal ex-
ample, and rendered many distressed families as happy as
food and fuel could make them; notwithstanding which,
many of a sickly constitution began to despair of living
through the winter ; but it so pleased God, that the wind
suddenly and beyond expectation, turned to South by
West, on the 28th of February; when the thaw began, and
it so happened that the next day, the ice, which most peo-
ple imagined would be the ruin of London Bridge,
sunk entirely to the bottom, and large fragments drove to
sea out of all the ports ; so that the river in a week’s time
was open for trade, which few expected it wrould be pos-
sible for a month at least: yet divers vessels, and a great
many men were lost, in hastily endeavouring to put in at
Staines, and many other bridges; abundance of fowl
and fish were found dead, and the dismal effects of the
hard weather was in every part to be seen:
Three singular poems were made at the time, on this ever
to be remembered Trost, which as they convey a picture
of the times, we have given at large, without Abridge-
ment. The first is under the plate we took our view from.
I.
THE various sports behold herein this piece,
Which for six weeks were seen upon the ice ;
Upon the Thames the great variety
Of plays and booths is here brought to your eye.
Here coaches, as in Cheapside, run on wheels,
Here men (out tiplingpf the fishes) reels :
Instead of waves that us’d to beat the shoar,
Here bulls they bait, till loudly they do roar ;
H i-1 Here