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HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



1 820. The founder of this fair was a Mr. Daniel Day, com- 

 monly called, the Good Day, who was born in the parish 

 of St. Mary Overy, in 1682; his father was an opulent 

 brewer, but Mr. Day followed the business of a block 

 and pump-maker in Wapping, and possessing a small 

 tstate in Essex, at no great distance from this remark- 

 able tree, he used, on the first Friday in July, annually, 

 to. repair thither, having given his accustomed invita- 

 tion to a party of his neighbours to accompany him, for 

 the purpose of dining under the shade of its branches 

 and leaves, on beans and bacon. This benevolent as well 

 as humorous man never failed to pay his annual visit to 

 the public bean feast, and as regularly provided several 

 sacks of beans, with a proportionate quantity of bacon, 

 which he distributed from the trunk of the tree to the 

 persons there assembled. For several years before his 

 death, the pump and block-makers of Wapping, to the 

 number of thirty or forty, went annually to the fair in a 

 boat made of one entire piece of fir. This amphibious 

 vehicle was covered with an awning, mounted on a coach 

 carriage, and drawn by six horses ; the whole adorned 

 with ribbands, flags and streamers, and furnished with a 

 band of musicians ; it has thus been noticed in verse : 



" O'er land our vessel bent its course, 

 Guarded by troops of foot and horse ; 

 Our anchors they were all a-peak, 

 Our crew were baling from each leak, 

 On Stratford bridge it made me quiver, 

 Lest they should spill us in the river." 



A few years before the decease of Mr. Day, (which 

 happened on the 19th of October, 1767, being then 

 eighty-four years of age) his favourite oak lost a large 

 limb, out of which he procured a coffin to be made for 

 his own interment. 



We have been informed that the following circumstance 



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