BLANKET-FAIR, OR THE History of Temple Street. Being a Relation of the merry Pranks played on the River Thames during the great Frost.  
To the Tune of Packington's Pound.  

1.  
COme listen a while (though the Wether be cold)  
In your Pockets & Plackets your Hands you may hold.  
I'll tell you a Story as true as 'tis rare,  
Of a River turned into a Bartholomew Fair.  
Since old Christmas last  
There has been such a Frost,  
That the Thimes has by half the whole Nation been crossed.  
O Scullers I pity your fate of Extremes,  
Each Land-nan is now become free of the Thames.   

2.  
'Tis some Lapand Acquaintance of Conjurer Oates,  
That has tied up your Hands & imprisoned your Boats.  
You know he was ever a friend to the Crew  
Of all that to Admiral james has been true.  
Where Sculls once did Row  
Men walk to and fro,  
But ere four months are ended 'twill hardly be so.  
Should your hopes of a thaw by this weather be crossed,  
Your Fortunes vould soon be as hard as the Frost.   

3.  
In Roast Beef and Brandy much money is spent  
In Booths made of Blankets that pay no Ground-rent,  
With old fashioned Chimneys the Rooms are secured,  
And the Housed from danger of Fire insured.  
The chief place you meet  
Is called Temple Street,  
If you do not believe me, than you may go see't.  
From the Tempe the Students do thither resort,  
Tho were always great Patrons of Revels and sport.   

4.  
The Citizen comes with his Daughter or Wife,  
And swears he ne●re saw such a sight in his life:  
●e Prentices starved at home for want of Coals  
catch them a heat do flock thither in shoals;  
While the Country Squire  
Does stand and admire  
The wondrous conjunction of Water and Fire.  
it comes an arch Wag, a young Son of a Whore,  
●ays the Squire's head where his hee●s were before.   

5.  
The Rotterdam Dutchman with fleet cutting Scates,  
To pleasure the crowd shows his tricks and his feats,  
Who like a Rope-dancer (for all his sharp Steels)  
His Brains and activity lie in his Heels.  
Here all things like fate  
Are in slippery state,  
From the Sole of the Foot to the Crown of the Pate.  
While the Rabble in Sledges run giddily round,  
And nought but a circle of folly is found.   

6.  
Here Damsels are handed like Nymphs in the Bath,  
By Gentlemen-Ushers with Legs like a Lath;  
They slide to a Tune, and cry give me your Hand,  
When the tottering Fops are scarce able to stand.  
Then with fear and with care  
They arrive at the Fair,  
Where Wenches fell Glasses and cracked Earthen ware;  
To show that the World, and the pleasures it brings,  
Are made up of brittle and slippery things.   

7.  
A Spark of the Bar with his Cane and his Muff,  
One day went to treat his new rigged Kitchinstuff,  
Let slip from her Gallant, the gay Damsel tried  
(As oft she had done in the Country) to slide,  
In the way lay a stump,  
That with a dam'd thump,  
She broke both her Shoestrings and crippled her Rump.  
The heat of her Buttocks made such a great thaw,  
She had like to have drowned the man of the Law.   

8.  
All you that are warm both in Body and Purse,  
I give you this warning for better or worse,  
Be not there in the Moonshine, pray take my advice,  
For slippery things have been done on the Ice  
Maids there have been said  
To lose Maidenhead,  
And Sparks from full Pockets gone empty to Bed▪  
If their Brains and their Bodies had not been too warm,  
'Tis forty to one they had come to less harm.    

Printed for Charles Corbet, at the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane. 1684.