One could hardly see this from the hills and not pity the many
thousands of families that were bound to or confined in those fogs,
and had no other breath to draw than what must be mixed with those
vapours, and that steam which so universally overspreads the
country. But notwithstanding this, the people, especially those
that are used to it, live unconcerned, and as healthy as other
folks, except now and then an ague, which they make light of, and
there are great numbers of very ancient people among them.
I now draw near to Cambridge, to which I fancy I look as if I was
afraid to come, having made so many circumlocutions beforehand; but
I must yet make another digression before I enter the town (for in
my way, and as I came in from Newmarket, about the beginning of
September), I cannot omit, that I came necessarily through
Stourbridge Fair, which was then in its height.
If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the
gaiety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to
the trading part of the world, to say something of this fair, which
is not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in the world;
nor, if I may believe those who have seen the mall, is the fair at
Leipzig in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort-on-the-Main, or the fairs
at Nuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to this fair at
Stourbridge.
It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from
the side of the river Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile
square.
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