Page:An English Garner Ingatherings from Our History and Literature (Volume 1 1877).pdf/91

 have been believed—for a white head ought not to hold a black tongue—and so my sons and daughters, taking a father's word, might peradventure forty years hence have been called clowns for justifying a lie so monstrous and incredible.

Cit. Bar all these rumours hereafter out of your ears; for they are false and deceitful, and fly up and down like lapwings; their in times being there it is, when it is not.

Coun. You, Sir, are a man, that by your head and beard, as well as myself, should be one of TIME'S sons, and should therefore love his daughter, TRUTH. Make me so much beholding to you, as to receive from you the right picture of all these your waterworks; how they began, how they have grown, and in what fashion have continued.

Cit. Most gladly will I satisfy your request. You shall understand that the Thames began to put on his "freeze-coat," which he yet wears, about the week before Christmas; and hath kept it on till now this latter end of January [1608]: how long time soever besides to come none but GOD knows.

Coun. Did it never thaw in these many weeks?

Cit. Only three days, or four at the most; and that but weakly, to dissolve so great a hardness. The cakes of ice, great in quantity and in great numbers, were made and baked cold in the mouth of winter, at the least a fortnight or three weeks before they were crusted and cemented together; but after they once joined their strengths into one, their backs held out and could not be broken.

Coun. We may make this good use, even out of this watery and transformed element; that London upholdeth a State: and again, that violent factions and combinations, albeit of the basest persons, in a commonwealth are not easily dissolved; if once they be suffered to grow up to a head. On, Sir, I pray.

Cit. This cold breakfast being given to the city, and the Thames growing more and more hard-hearted; wild youths and boys were the first merchant-venturers that set out to discover these cold islands of ice upon the river. And the first path that was beaten to pass to the Bank Side, without going over [London] Bridge or by boat, was about Cold Harbour and in those places near the Bridge: for the tides still piling up the flakes