Billingsgate Market
“Bilingsgate, or, to adapt the spelling to the conjectures of antiquaries...Belins's-gate, or the gate of Belinus, king of Britain, fellow-adventurer with Brennus, king of the Gauls, at the sacking of Rome, three hundred and sixty years before the Christian aera: I submit to the etymology, but must confess there does not appear any record of a gate at this place. His son Lud was more fortunate, for Ludgate preserves his memory to every citizen who knows the just value of antiquity.
Gate here signifies only a place where there was a concourse of people, a common quay or wharf, where there is a free going in and out of the same. This was a small port for the reception of shipping, and for a considerable time the most important place for the landing of almost every article of commerce. It was not till the reign of William III. that it became celebrated as a fish-market; he, in 1699, by act of Parliament, made it a free port for fish. This toll also settled the tolls and duties to be taken, appoints a fine of 20l. to be levied on any fishmonger convicted of engrossing, and permits the sale of mackarel on Sundays.
....But the fishmongers bought up the cargoes of the fishermen, and sold them again in the same market, which considerably enhanced the price to the consumer: it was therefore ordered, that no fishmonger, or other person, should sell, or expose to sale, any fish at Bilingsgate market; only fishermen, their wives, apprentices, or servants, were to be permitted to sell in the market by retail, that the citizens might have the fish at first hand, according to the true meaning of the law.
....The accompanying print represents, with great humour and animation, a scene in this renowned school of British oratory, an academy from which many illustrious orators, both of the bar and the senate, have derived that energetic and forcible manner, which, in honor of the original seminary, is so emphatically termed Bilingsgate. The power of their eloquence has raised such a tempest and whirlwind of passion in the gentle bosoms of two fair disputants, that, forgetting or laying aside the native softness and delicacy of their sex, they have engaged in furious combat.
One of them is just overthrown by her more fortunate adversary, but though fallen, her spirit seems to rise above her fate, and she yet dares the conflict and hopes for victory. Their sister Naïads on either side encourage and foment the immortal strife: one of them has fallen with inconceivable fury on a wretch, who is possibly a Frenchman and a fiddler, and has probably raised this storm by either undervaluing the fair one's fish, or having made some mal-à-propos observation on its degree of freshness; be this as it may, he seems to be nearly in as bad a situation of Orpheus,
“When, by the rout that made the hideous roar,It appears highly probable that the ladies who used poor Orpheus so cruelly, were Grecian Bilingsgates; and as they were votaries of Bacchus, and acted under his divine impulse, it seems to strengthen the opinion: certain it is, that the English poissards are as jealous devotees of the jolly god, as the Grecian Maenades could be for their lives, and quite as apt to be quarrelsome in their cups: but this point may be left to the learned to settle.
His goary visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore.”
In the foreground of this print, one of the ladies is so overcome that she is quite insensible to the kindness of a fisherman, who is entreating her to drink another cup of comfort; she is equally insensible to the robbery a dog is committing on her basket of fish. The old citizen buying a turbot, and the various groups of market people, are delineated with great spirit and fidelity. The buildings are extremely accurate, the perspective easy and natural, and the tout-ensemble interesting and animated.”