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1 In this, and in the next chapter, I have very seldom thought
it necessary to cite authorities: for, in these chapters, I have
not detailed events minutely, or used recondite materials; and
the facts which I mention are for the most part such that a
person tolerably well read in English history, if not already
apprised of them, will at least know where to look for evidence
of them. In the subsequent chapters I shall carefully indicate
the sources of my information.
2 This is excellently put by Mr. Hallam in the first chapter
of his Constitutional History.
3 See a very curious paper which Strype believed to be in
Gardiner's handwriting. Ecclesiastical Memorials, Book 1., Chap.
xvii.
4 These are Cranmer's own words. See the Appendix to Burnet's
History of the Reformation, Part 1. Book III. No. 21. Question 9.
5 The Puritan historian, Neal, after censuring the cruelty
with which she treated the sect to which he belonged, concludes
thus: "However, notwithstanding all these blemishes, Queen
Elizabeth stands upon record as a wise and politic princess, for
delivering her kingdom from the difficulties in which it was
involved at her accession,. for preserving the Protestant
reformation against the potent attempts of the Pope, the Emperor,
and King of Spain abroad, and the Queen of Scots and her Popish
subjects at home.... She was the glory of the age in which she
lived, and will be the admiration of posterity."--History of the
Puritans, Part I. Chap. viii.
6 On this subject, Bishop Cooper's language is remarkably
clear and strong. He maintains, in his Answer to Martin
Marprelate, printed in 1589, that no form of church government is
divinely ordained; that Protestant communities, in establishing
different forms, have only made a legitimate use of their
Christian liberty; and that episcopacy is peculiarly suited to
England, because the English constitution is monarchical." All
those Churches," says the Bishop, "in which the Gospell, in these
daies, after great darknesse, was first renewed, and the learned
men whom God sent to instruct them, I doubt not but have been
directed by the Spirite of God to retaine this liberty, that, in
external government and other outward orders; they might choose
such as they thought in wisedome and godlinesse to be most
convenient for the state of their countrey and disposition of
their people. Why then should this liberty that other countreys
have used under anie colour be wrested from us? I think it
therefore great presumption and boldnesse that some of our
nation, and those, whatever they may think of themselves, not of
the greatest wisedome and skill, should take upon them to
controlle the whole realme, and to binde both prince and people
in respect of conscience to alter the present state, and tie
themselves to a certain platforme devised by some of our
neighbours. which, in the judgment of many wise and godly
persons, is most unfit for the state of a Kingdome."
7 Strype's Life of Grindal, Appendix to Book II. No. xvii.
8 Canon 55, of 1603.
9 Joseph Hall, then dean of Worcester, and afterwards bishop
of Norwich, was one of the commissioners. In his life of himself,
he says: "My unworthiness was named for one of the assistants of
that honourable, grave, and reverend meeting." To high churchmen
this humility will seem not a little out of place.
10 It was by the Act of Uniformity, passed after the
Restoration, that persons not episcopally ordained were, for the
first time, made incapable of holding benefices. No man was more
zealous for this law than Clarendon. Yet he says: "This was new;
for there had been many, and at present there were some, who
possessed benefices with cure of souls and other ecclesiastical
promotions, who had never received orders but in France or
Holland; and these men must now receive new ordination, which had
been always held unlawful in the Church, or by this act of
parliament must be deprived of their livelihood which they
enjoyed in the most flourishing and peaceable time of the
Church."
11 Peckard's Life of Ferrar; The Arminian Nunnery, or a Brief
Description of the late erected monastical Place called the
Arminian Nunnery, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, 1641.
12 The correspondence of Wentworth seems to me fully to bear
out what I have said in the text. To transcribe all the passages
which have led me to the conclusion at which I have arrived,
would be impossible, nor would it be easy to make a better
selection than has already been made by Mr. Hallam. I may,
however direct the attention of the reader particularly to the
very able paper which Wentworth drew up respecting the affairs of
the Palatinate. The date is March 31, 1637.
13 These are Wentworth's own words. See his letter to Laud,
dated Dec. 16, 1634.
14 See his report to Charles for the year 1639.
15 See his letter to the Earl of Northumberland, dated July 30,
1638.
16 How little compassion for the bear had to do with the matter
is sufficiently proved by the following extract from a paper
entitled A perfect Diurnal of some Passages of Parliament, and
from other Parts of the Kingdom, from Monday July 24th, to Monday
July 31st, 1643. "Upon the Queen's coming from Holland, she
brought with her, besides a company of savage-like ruffians, a
company of savage bears, to what purpose you may judge by the
sequel. Those bears were left about Newark, and were brought into
country towns constantly on the Lord's day to be baited, such is
the religion those here related would settle amongst us; and, if
any went about to hinder or but speak against their damnable
profanations, they were presently noted as Roundheads and
Puritans, and sure to be plundered for it. But some of Colonel
Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Uppingham town, in
Rutland, on the Lord's day, found these bears playing there in
the usual manner, and, in the height of their sport, caused them
to be seized upon, tied to a tree and shot." This was by no means
a solitary instance. Colonel Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey,
ordered the beasts in the bear garden of Southwark to be killed.
He is represented by a loyal satirist as defending the act thus:
"The first thing that is upon my spirits is the killing of the
bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the names in
the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear? Did not the Lord
Deputy Ireton kill a bear? Did not another lord of ours kill five
bears?"-Last Speech and Dying Words of Thomas pride.
17 See Penn's New Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and
Muggleton's works, passim.
18 I am happy to say, that, since this passage was written, the
territories both of the Rajah of Nagpore and of the King of Oude
have been added to the British dominions. (1857.)
19 The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on
this subject, came from Sir William Coventry: "Our ancestors
never did draw a line to circumscribe prerogative and liberty."
20 Halifax was undoubtedly the real author of the Character of
a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman,
Sir William Coventry.
21 North's Examen, 231, 574.
22 A peer who was present has described the effect of Halifax's
oratory in words which I will quote, because, though they have
been long in print, they are probably known to few even of the
most curious and diligent readers of history.
"Of powerful eloquence and great parts were the Duke's enemies
who did assert the Bill; but a noble Lord appeared against it
who, that day, in all the force of speech, in reason, in
arguments of what could concern the public or the private
interests of men, in honour, in conscience, in estate, did outdo
himself and every other man; and in fine his conduct and his
parts were both victorious, and by him all the wit and malice of
that party was overthrown."
This passage is taken from a memoir of Henry Earl of
Peterborough, in a volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by
Robert Halstead," fol. 1685. The name of Halstead is fictitious.
The real authors were the Earl of Peterborough himself and his
chaplain. The book is extremely rare. Only twenty-four copies
were printed, two of which are now in the British Museum. Of
these two one belonged to George the Fourth, and the other to Mr.
Grenville.
23 This is mentioned in the curious work entitled "Ragguaglio
della solenne Comparsa fatta in Roma gli otto di Gennaio, 1687,
dall' illustrissimo et eccellentissimo signor Conte di
Castlemaine."
24 North's Examen, 69.
25 Lord Preston, who was envoy at Paris, wrote thence to
Halifax as follows: "I find that your Lordship lies still under
the same misfortune of being no favourite to this court; and
Monsieur Barillon dare not do you the honor to shine upon you,
since his master frowneth. They know very well your lordship's
qualifications which make them fear and consequently hate you;
and be assured, my lord, if all their strength can send you to
Rufford, it shall be employed for that end. Two things, I hear,
they particularly object against you, your secrecy, and your
being incapable of being corrupted. Against these two things I
know they have declared." The date of the letter is October 5, N.
S. 1683
26 During the interval which has elapsed since this chapter was
written, England has continued to advance rapidly in material
prosperity, I have left my text nearly as it originally stood;
but I have added a few notes which may enable the reader to form
some notion of the progress which has been made during the last
nine years; and, in general, I would desire him to remember that
there is scarcely a district which is not more populous, or a
source of wealth which is not more productive, at present than in
1848. (1857.)
27 Observations on the Bills of Mortality, by Captain John
Graunt (Sir William Petty), chap. xi.
28 "She doth comprehend
Full fifteen hundred thousand which do spend
Their days within.''
Great Britain's Beauty, 1671.
29 Isaac Vossius, De Magnitudine Urbium Sinarum, 1685. Vossius,
as we learn from Saint Evremond, talked on this subject oftener
and longer than fashionable circles cared to listen.
30 King's Natural and Political Observations, 1696 This
valuable treatise, which ought to be read as the author wrote it,
and not as garbled by Davenant, will be found in some editions of
Chalmers's Estimate.
31 Dalrymple's Appendix to Part II. Book I, The practice of
reckoning the population by sects was long fashionable. Gulliver
says of the King of Brobdignag; "He laughed at my odd arithmetic,
as he was pleased to call it, in reckoning the numbers of our
people by a computation drawn from the several sects among us in
religion and politics."
32 Preface to the Population Returns of 1831.
33 Statutes 14 Car. II. c. 22.; 18 & 19 Car. II. c. 3., 29 & 30
Car. II. c. 2.
34 Nicholson and Bourne, Discourse on the Ancient State of the
Border, 1777.
35 Gray's Journal of a Tour in the Lakes, Oct. 3, 1769.
36 North's Life of Guildford; Hutchinson's History of
Cumberland, Parish of Brampton.
37 See Sir Walter Scott's Journal, Oct. 7, 1827, in his Life by
Mr. Lockhart.
38 Dalrymple, Appendix to Part II. Book I. The returns of the
hearth money lead to nearly the same conclusion. The hearths in
the province of York were not a sixth of the hearths of England.
39 I do not, of course, pretend to strict accuracy here; but I
believe that whoever will take the trouble to compare the last
returns of hearth money in the reign of William the Third with
the census of 1841, will come to a conclusion not very different
from mine.
40 There are in the Pepysian Library some ballads of that age
on the chimney money. I will give a specimen or two:
I take this opportunity the first which occurs, of acknowledging
most grateful the kind and liberal manner in which the Master and
Vicemaster of Magdalei College, Cambridge, gave me access to the
valuable collections of Pepys.
41 My chief authorities for this financial statement will be
found in the Commons' Journal, March 1, and March 20, 1688-9.
42 See, for example, the picture of the mound at Marlborough,
in Stukeley's Dinerarium Curiosum.
43 Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.
44 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 3; 15 Car. II. c. 4. Chamberlayne's
State of England, 1684.
45 Dryden, in his Cymon and Iphigenia, expressed, with his
usual keenness and energy, the sentiments which had been
fashionable among the sycophants of James the Second:-
46 Most of the materials which I have used for this account of
the regular army will be found in the Historical Records of
Regiments, published by command of King William the Fourth, and
under the direction of the Adjutant General. See also
Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684; Abridgment of the English
Military Discipline, printed by especial command, 1688; Exercise
of Foot, by their Majesties' command, 1690.
47 I refer to a despatch of Bonrepaux to Seignelay, dated Feb.
8/18.1686. It was transcribed for Mr. Fox from the French
archives, during the peace of Amiens, and, with the other
materials brought together by that great man, was entrusted to me
by the kindness of the late Lady Holland, and of the present Lord
Holland. I ought to add that, even in the midst of the troubles
which have lately agitated Paris, I found no difficulty in
obtaining, from the liberality of the functionaries there,
extracts supplying some chasms in Mr. Fox's collection. (1848.)
48 My information respecting the condition of the navy, at this
time, is chiefly derived from Pepys. His report, presented to
Charles the Second in May, 1684, has never, I believe, been
printed. The manuscript is at Magdalene College Cambridge. At
Magdalene College is also a valuable manuscript containing a
detailed account of the maritime establishments of the country in
December 1684. Pepys's "Memoirs relating to the State of the
Royal Navy for Ten Years determined December, 1688," and his
diary and correspondence during his mission to Tangier, are in
print. I have made large use of them. See also Sheffield's
Memoirs, Teonge's Diary, Aubrey's Life of Monk, the Life of Sir
Cloudesley Shovel, 1708, Commons' Journals, March 1 and March 20.
1688-9.
49 Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684; Commons' Journals,
March 1, and March 20, 1688-9. In 1833, it was determined, after
full enquiry, that a hundred and seventy thousand barrels of
gunpowder should constantly be kept in store.
50 It appears from the records of the Admiralty, that Flag
officers were allowed half pay in 1668, Captains of first and
second rates not till 1674.
51 Warrant in the War Office Records; dated March 26, 1678.
52 Evelyn's Diary. Jan. 27, 1682. I have seen a privy seal,
dated May 17. 1683, which confirms Evelyn's testimony.
53 James the Second sent Envoys to Spain, Sweden, and Denmark;
yet in his reign the diplomatic expenditure was little more than
30,000£. a year. See the Commons' Journals, March 20, 1688-9.
Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.
54 Carte's Life of Ormond.
55 Pepys's Diary, Feb. 14, 1668-9.
56 See the Report of the Bath and Montague case, which was
decided by Lord Keeper Somers, in December, 1693.
57 During three quarters of a year, beginning from Christmas,
1689, the revenues of the see of Canterbury were received by an
officer appointed by the crown. That officer's accounts are now
in the British Museum. (Lansdowne MSS. 885.) The gross revenue
for the three quarters was not quite four thousand pounds; and
the difference between the gross and the net revenue was
evidently something considerable.
58 King's Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the
Balance of Trade. Sir W. Temple says, "The revenues of a House of
Commons have seldom exceeded four hundred thousand pounds."
Memoirs, Third Part.
59 Langton's Conversations with Chief Justice Hale, 1672.
60 Commons' Journals, April 27,1689; Chamberlayne's State of
England, 1684.
61 See the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo.
62 King's Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the
Balance of Trade.
63 See the Itinerarium Angliae, 1675, by John Ogilby,
Cosmographer Royal. He describes great part of the land as wood,
fen, heath on both sides, marsh on both sides. In some of his
maps the roads through enclosed country are marked by lines, and
the roads through unenclosed country by dots. The proportion of
unenclosed country, which, if cultivated, must have been
wretchedly cultivated, seems to have been very great. From
Abingdon to Gloucester, for example, a distance of forty or fifty
miles, there was not a single enclosure, and scarcely one
enclosure between Biggleswade and Lincoln.
64 Large copies of these highly interesting drawings are in the
noble collection bequeathed by Mr. Grenville to the British
Museum. See particularly the drawings of Exeter and Northampton.
65 Evelyn's Diary, June 2, 1675.
66 See White's Selborne; Bell's History of British Quadrupeds,
Gentleman's Recreation, 1686; Aubrey's Natural History of
Wiltshire, 1685; Morton's History of Northamptonshire, 1712;
Willoughby's Ornithology, by Ray, 1678; Latham's General Synopsis
of Birds; and Sir Thomas Browne's Account of Birds found in
Norfolk.
67 King's Natural and Political Conclusions. Davenant on the
Balance of Trade.
68 See the Almanacks of 1684 and 1685.
69 See Mr. M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British
Empire, Part III. chap. i. sec. 6.
70 King and Davenant as before The Duke of Newcastle on
Horsemanship; Gentleman's Recreation, 1686. The "dappled Flanders
mares" were marks of greatness in the time of Pope, and even
later.
The vulgar proverb, that the grey mare is the better horse,
originated, I suspect, in the preference generally given to the
grey mares of Flanders over the finest coach horses of England.
71 See a curious note by Tonkin, in Lord De Dunstanville's
edition of Carew's Survey of Cornwall.
72 Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall, 1758. The quantity of
copper now produced, I have taken from parliamentary returns.
Davenant, in 1700, estimated the annual produce of all the mines
of England at between seven and eight hundred thousand pounds
73 Philosophical Transactions, No. 53. Nov. 1669, No. 66. Dec.
1670, No. 103. May 1674, No 156. Feb. 1683-4
74 Yarranton, England's Improvement by Sea and Land, 1677;
Porter's Progress of the Nation. See also a remarkably
perspicnous history, in small compass of the English iron works,
in Mr. M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire.
75 See Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684, 1687, Angliae,
Metropolis, 1691; M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British
Empire Part III. chap. ii. (edition of 1847). In 1845 the
quantity of coal brought into London appeared, by the
Parliamentary returns, to be 3,460,000 tons. (1848.) In 1854 the
quantity of coal brought into London amounted to 4,378,000 tons.
(1857.)
76 My notion of the country gentleman of the seventeenth
century has been derived from sources too numerous to be
recapitulated. I must leave my description to the judgment of
those who have studied the history and the lighter literature of
that age.
77 In the eighteenth century the great increase in the value of
benefices produced a change. The younger sons of the nobility
were allured back to the clerical profession. Warburton in a
letter to Hurd, dated the 6th of July, 1762, mentions this
change. which was then recent. "Our grandees have at last found
their way back into the Church. I only wonder they have been so
long about it. But be assured that nothing but a new religious
revolution, to sweep away the fragments that Henry the Eighth
left after banqueting his courtiers, will drive them out again."
78 See Heylin's Cyprianus Anglicus.
79 Eachard, Causes of the Contempt of the Clergy; Oldham,
Satire addressed to a Friend about to leave the University;
Tatler, 255, 258. That the English clergy were a lowborn class,
is remarked in the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo, Appendix A.
80 "A causidico, medicastro, ipsaque artificum farragine,
ecclesiae rector aut vicarius contemnitur et fit ludibrio.
Gentis et familiae nitor sacris ordinibus pollutus censetur:
foeminisque natalitio insignibus unicum inculcatur saepius
praeceptum, ne modestiae naufragium faciant, aut, (quod idem
auribus tam delicatulis sonat,) ne clerico se nuptas dari
patiantur."--Angliae Notitia, by T. Wood, of New College Oxford
1686.
81 Clarendon's Life, ii. 21.
82 See the injunctions of 1559, In Bishop Sparrow's Collection.
Jeremy Collier, in his Essay on Pride, speaks of this injunction
with a bitterness which proves that his own pride had not been
effectually tamed.
83 Roger and Abigail in Fletcher's Scornful Lady, Bull and the
Nurse in Vanbrugh's Relapse, Smirk and Susan in Shadwell's
Lancashire Witches, are instances.
84 Swift's Directions to Servants. In Swift's Remarks on the
Clerical Residence Bill, he describes the family of an English
vicar thus: "His wife is little better than a Goody, in her
birth, education, or dress. . . . . His daughters shall go to
service, or be sent apprentice to the sempstress of the next
town."
85 Even in Tom Jones, published two generations later. Mrs.
Seagrim, the wife of a gamekeeper, and Mrs. Honour, a
waitingwoman, boast of their descent from clergymen, "It is to be
hoped," says Fielding, "such instances will in future ages, when
some provision is made for the families of the inferior clergy,
appear stranger than they can be thought at present.
86 This distinction between country clergy and town clergy is
strongly marked by Eachard, and cannot but be observed by every
person who has studied the ecclesiastical history of that age.
87 Nelson's Life of Bull. As to the extreme difficulty which
the country clergy found in procuring books, see the Life of
Thomas Bray, the founder of the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel.
88 "I have frequently heard him (Dryden) own with pleasure,
that if he had any talent for English prose it was owing to his
having often read the writings of the great Archbishop
Tillotson."--Congreve's Dedication of Dryden's Plays.
89 I have taken Davenant's estimate, which is a little lower
than King's.
90 Evelvn's Diary, June 27. 1654; Pepys's Diary, June 13. 1668;
Roger North's Lives of Lord Keeper Guildford, and of Sir Dudley
North; Petty's Political Arithmetic. I have taken Petty's facts,
but, in drawing inferences from them, I have been guided by King
and Davenant, who, though not abler men than he, had the
advantage of coming after him. As to the kidnapping for which
Bristol was infamous, see North's Life of Guildford, 121, 216,
and the harangue of Jeffreys on the subject, in the Impartial
History of his Life and Death, printed with the Bloody Assizes.
His style was, as usual, coarse, but I cannot reckon the
reprimand which he gave to the magistrates of Bristol among his
crimes.
91 Fuller's Worthies; Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 17,1671; Journal of
T. Browne, son of Sir Thomas Browne, Jan. 1663-4; Blomefield's
History of Norfolk; History of the City and County of Norwich, 2
vols. 1768.
92 The population of York appears, from the return of baptisms
and burials in Drake's History, to have been about 13,000 in
1730. Exeter had only 17,000 inhabitants in 1801. The population
of Worcester was numbered just before the siege in 1646. See
Nash's History of Worcestershire. I have made allowance for the
increase which must be supposed to have taken place in forty
years. In 1740, the population of Nottingham was found, by
enumeration, to be just 10,000. See Dering's History. The
population of Gloucester may readily be inferred from the number
of houses which King found in the returns of hearth money, and
from the number of births and burials which is given in Atkyns's
History. The population of Derby was 4,000 in 1712. See Wolley's
MS. History, quoted in Lyson's Magna Britannia. The population of
Shrewsbury was ascertained, in 1695, by actual enumeration. As to
the gaieties of Shrewsbury, see Farquhar's Recruiting Officer.
Farquhar's description is borne out by a ballad in the Pepysian
Library, of which the burden is "Shrewsbury for me."
93 Blome's Britannia, 1673; Aikin's Country round Manchester;
Manchester Directory, 1845: Baines, History of the Cotton
Manufacture. The best information which I have been able to find,
touching the population of Manchester in the seventeenth century
is contained in a paper drawn up by the Reverend R. Parkinson,
and published in the Journal of the Statistical Society for
October 1842.
94 Thoresby's Ducatus Leodensis; Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete;
Wardell's Municipal History of the Borough of Leeds. (1848.) In
1851 Leeds had 172,000 Inhabitants. (1857.)
95 Hunter's History of Hallamshire. (1848.) In 1851 the
population of Sheffield had increased to 135,000. (1857.)
96 Blome's Britannia, 1673; Dugdale's Warwickshire, North's
Examen, 321; Preface to Absalom and Achitophel; Hutton's History
of Birmingham; Boswell's Life of Johnson. In 1690 the burials at
Birmingham were 150, the baptisms 125. I think it probable that
the annual mortality was little less than one in twenty-five. In
London it was considerably greater. A historian of Nottingham,
half a century later, boasted of the extraordinary salubrity of
his town, where the annual mortality was one in thirty. See
Doring's History of Nottingham. (1848.) In 1851 the population of
Birmingham had increased to 222,000. (1857.)
97 Blome's Britannia; Gregson's Antiquities of the County
Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster, Part II.; Petition from
Liverpool in the Privy Council Book, May 10, 1686. In 1690 the
burials at Liverpool were 151, the baptisms 120. In 1844 the net
receipt of the customs at Liverpool was 4,366,526£. 1s. 8d.
(1848.) In 1851 Liverpool contained 375,000 inhabitants, (1857.)
98 Atkyne's Gloucestershire.
99 Magna Britannia; Grose's Antiquities; New Brighthelmstone
Directory.
100 Tour in Derbyshire, by Thomas Browne, son of Sir Thomas.
101 Memoires de Grammont; Hasted's History of Kent; Tunbridge
Wells, a Comedy, 1678; Causton's Tunbridgialia, 1688; Metellus, a
poem on Tunbridge Wells, 1693.
102 See Wood's History of Bath, 1719; Evelyn's Diary, June
27,1654; Pepys's Diary, June 12, 1668; Stukeley's Itinerarium
Curiosum; Collinson's Somersetshire; Dr. Peirce's History and
Memoirs of the Bath, 1713, Book I. chap. viii. obs. 2, 1684. I
have consulted several old maps and pictures of Bath,
particularly one curious map which is surrounded by views of the
principal buildings. It Dears the date of 1717.
103 According to King 530,000. (1848.) In 1851 the population of
London exceeded, 2,300,000. (1857.)
104 Macpherson's History of Commerce; Chalmers's Estimate;
Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684. The tonnage of the
steamers belonging to the port of London was, at the end of 1847,
about 60,000 tons. The customs of the port, from 1842 to 1845,
very nearly averaged 11,000,000£. (1848.) In 1854 the tonnage of
the steamers of the port of London amounted to 138,000 tons,
without reckoning vessels of less than fifty tons. (1857.)
105 Lyson's Environs of London. The baptisms at Chelsea, between
1680 and 1690, were only 42 a year.
106 Cowley, Discourse of Solitude.
107 The fullest and most trustworthy information about the state
of the buildings of London at this time is to be derived from the
maps and drawings in the British Museum and in the Pepysian
Library. The badness of the bricks in the old buildings of London
is particularly mentioned in the Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo.
There is an account of the works at Saint Paul's in Ward's London
Spy. I am almost ashamed to quote such nauseous balderdash; but I
have been forced to descend even lower, if possible, in search of
materials.
108 Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 20. 1672.
109 Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North.
110 North's Examen. This amusing writer has preserved a specimen
of the sublime raptures in which the Pindar of the City indulged:
111 Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684; Anglie Metropolis,
1690; Seymour's London, 1734.
112 North's Examen, 116; Wood, Ath. Ox. Shaftesbury; The Duke of
B.'s Litany.
113 Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo.
114 Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684; Pennant's London;
Smith's Life of Nollekens.
115 Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 10, 1683, Jan. 19, 1685-6.
116 Stat. 1 Jac. II. c. 22; Evelyn's Diary, Dec, 7, 1684.
117 Old General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, used to boast that
he had shot birds here in Anne's reign. See Pennant's London, and
the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1785.
118 The pest field will be seen in maps of London as late as the
end of George the First's reign.
119 See a very curious plan of Covent Garden made about 1690,
and engraved for Smith's History of Westminster. See also
Hogarth's Morning, painted while some of the houses in the Piazza
were still occupied by people of fashion.
120 London Spy, Tom Brown's comical View of London and
Westminster; Turner's Propositions for the employing of the Poor,
1678; Daily Courant and Daily Journal of June 7, 1733; Case of
Michael v. Allestree, in 1676, 2 Levinz, p. 172. Michael had been
run over by two horses which Allestree was breaking in Lincoln's
Inn Fields. The declaration set forth that the defendant "porta
deux chivals ungovernable en un coach, et improvide, incante, et
absque debita consideratione ineptitudinis loci la eux drive pur
eux faire tractable et apt pur an coach, quels chivals, pur ceo
que, per leur ferocite, ne poientestre rule, curre sur le
plaintiff et le noie."
121 Stat. 12 Geo. I. c. 25; Commons' Journals, Feb. 25, March 2,
1725-6; London Gardener, 1712; Evening Post, March, 23, 1731. I
have not been able to find this number of the Evening Post; I
therefore quote it on the faith of Mr. Malcolm, who mentions it
in his History of London.
122 Lettres sur les Anglois, written early in the reign of
William the Third; Swift's City Shower; Gay's Trivia. Johnson
used to relate a curious conversation which ho had with his
mother about giving and taking the wall.
123 Oldham's Imitation of the 3d Satire of Juvenal, 1682;
Shadwell's Scourers, 1690. Many other authorities will readily
occur to all who are acquainted with the popular literature of
that and the succeeding generation. It may be suspected that some
of the Tityre Tus, like good Cavaliers, broke Milton's windows
shortly after the Restoration. I am confident that he was
thinking of those pests of London when he dictated the noble
lines:
124 Seymour's London.
125 Angliae Metropolis, 1690, Sect. 17, entitled, "Of the new
lights"; Seymour's London.
"The good old dames whenever they the chimney man espied,
Unto their nooks they haste away, their pots and pipkins hide.
There is not one old dame in ten, and search the nation through,
But, if you talk of chimney men, will spare a curse or two."
Again:
"Like plundering soldiers they'd enter the door,
And make a distress on the goods of the poor.
While frighted poor children distractedly cried;
This nothing abated their insolent pride."
In the British Museum there are doggrel verses composed on the
same subject and in the same spirit:
"Or, if through poverty it be not paid
For cruelty to tear away the single bed,
On which the poor man rests his weary head,
At once deprives him of his rest and bread."
"The country rings around with loud alarms,
And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;
Mouths without hands, maintained at vast expense,
Stout once a month they march, a blustering band,
And ever, but in time of need at hand.
This was the morn when, issuing on the guard,
Drawn up in rank and file, they stood prepared
Of seeming arms to make a short essay.
Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day."
"The worshipful sir John Moor!
After age that name adore!
"And in luxurious cities, when the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury and outrage, and when night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown With innocence and wine."