"As for that sudden swelling water or bourne, which the common people reports to breake foorth heere out of the ground, presaging, I wote not how, either dearth of corne or the pestilence, may seeme not worthy once the naming, and yet the euentes sometime ensuing hath procured it credit."
I have heard it stated, without reference to the above, that the aforesaid stream had risen during the last few months, and, if such be the case, the fever that has been so prevalent in the town seems to bear out the above statement.
Can any of your correspondents inform me whether the above fact is mentioned in any other account of the place, and if so, where?
R. W. H.
[It appears that our early ballad writers do not give a very favourable account of the locality of Croydon. Listen to Patrick Hannay, Gent., in 1662:—
"It seems of starved Sterilitie the seat,
Where barren downs do it environ round;
Whose parched tops in summer are not wet,
And only are with snow in winter crown'd,
Only with bareness they do still abound;