Milk was produced from cows kept in London, and was carried round by women, or milkmaids, as they were called.
On Doors the sallow Milkmaid chalks her Gains;
Ah! how unlike the Milkmaid of the Plains!
And the milch-asses went their daily rounds. Asses' milk was in great request, and many were the advertisements of milch-asses for sale. Its price was 3s. 6d. per quart.
Before proud Gates attending Asses bray,
Or arrogate with solemn pace the Way;
These grave Physicians with their milky Chear,
The Love sick Maid, and dwindling Beau repair.
Butter was got from the surrounding villages, but already there was a trade in this article with Ireland, for on August 14, 1705, was sold at the Marine Coffee House thirty-eight casks of Irish butter and forty-nine casks of Irish beef.
There were several markets in London, each with its specialty.
Shall the large Mutton smoke upon your Boards?
Such Newgate's copious Market best affords;
Would'st thou with mighty Beef augment thy Meal?
Seek Leaden hall; Saint James's sends thee Veal.
Thames street gives Cheeses; Covent garden Fruits;
Moor fields old Books; and Monmouth Street old Suits.
Vegetables were principally supplied from the Lambeth market gardens, which are thus mentioned by Steele[266]: 'When we first put off from Shore, we soon fell in with a Fleet of Gardeners bound for the several Market Ports of London; and it was the most pleasing Scene imaginable to see the Chearfulness with which those industrious People ply'd their Way to a certain Sale of their Goods. The Banks on each Side are as well peopled, and beautified with as agreeable Plantations, as any Spot on the Earth; but the Thames itself, loaded with the Product of each Shore, added very much to the Landskip. It was very easie to observe by their Sailing, and the Countenances of the ruddy Virgins who were Supercargoes, the Parts of the Town to which they were bound. There was an air in the Purveyors for Covent Garden, who frequently converse with Morning Rakes, very unlike the seemly Sobriety of those bound for Stocks Market.'
Neither Ward nor Brown viewed the Lambeth gardeners in such a couleur-de-rose aspect; and haply they described the scene more accurately. The former says: 'A scoundrel crew of Lambeth Gardeners attacked us with such a Volley of saucy Nonsence, that it made my Eyes stare, my Head ake, my Tongue run, and my Ears tingle.' Brown tells us that 'the next diverting Scene that the River afforded us, was a very warm Engagement between a Western Barge, and a Boat full of Lambeth Gardeners, by whom Billingsgate was much outdone in stupendious Obscenity, tonitrous Verbosity, and malicious Scurrility, as if one side had been Daniel D—f—'s[267] Party, and the other the Observator's.' And they both give examples of this bargee slang, which, it is needless to say, are utterly unfit for reproduction.
From these market gardens came the 'Asparagrass' and 'Sallary,'[268] the 'Apricocks' and those melons which the Spectator noted were consigned by Mr. Cuffe of Nine Elms to Sarah Sewell and Company, at their stall in Covent Garden.