The canalization of the Fleet after 1666 was a useful work, as it enabled barges to go up to Holborn Bridge; and that it was availed of, we can judge by the frontispiece, which was painted in the middle of the eighteenth century; but it was not much used, if we can trust Ned Ward, whose sharp eyes looked everywhere, and whose pen recorded his scrutiny [71] : "From thence we took a turn down by the Ditch side, I desiring my Friend to inform me what great Advantages this costly Brook contributed to the Town, to Countervail the Expence of Seventy four Thousand Pounds, which I read in a very Credible Author, was the Charge of its making: He told me he was wholly unacquainted with any, unless it was now and then to bring up a few Chaldron of Coles to two or three Pedling Fewel-Marchants, who sell them never the Cheaper to the Poor for such a Conveniency: and, as for those Cellars you see on each side design'd for Ware-Houses, they are render'd by their dampness so unfit for that purpose that they are wholly useless, except ... or to harbour Frogs, Toads, and other Vermin. The greatest good that ever I heard it did was to the Undertaker, who is bound to acknowledge he has found better Fishing in that muddy Stream, than ever he did in clear Water."
END OF HOLBORN BRIDGE, TAKEN FROM THE SOUTH, AND PART OF HOLBORN HILL. JUNE 2, 1840.
Gay, too, in his "Trivia," more than once mentions the foulness of the Fleet in book ii.
"Or who that rugged street[72] would traverse o'er,
That stretches, O Fleet-Ditch, from thy black shore
To the Tour's moated walls?"
And again:
"If where Fleet-Ditch with muddy current flows."