I counted two-and-seventy stenches;
All well-defined and genuine stinks!
Ye nymphs, that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash the City of Cologne;
But, tell me, nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the River Rhine?"
The smell of the Fleet river was notorious; so much so, that Farquhar, in his Sir Harry Wildair, act ii., says, "Dicky! Oh! I was just dead of a Consumption, till the sweet smoke of Cheapside, and the dear perfume of Fleet Ditch made me a man again!" In Queen Anne's time, too, it bore an evil reputation: vide The Tatler (No. 238, October 17, 1710) by Steele and Swift.[9]
"Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go: