London in Modern Times Part 3

The unconst.i.tutional proceedings of the king and court, of which the circ.u.mstances just related are a specimen, aroused some patriotic spirits in the country; but the power which inspired their indignation crushed their energies. Two ill.u.s.trious men, who fell victims to that power, were connected with the city of London as the place of their abode, and the scene where they sealed their principles by death.

Russell and Sydney both perished there in 1683. They were accused of partic.i.p.ation in the notorious Rye House plot, and upon evidence, such as would convince no jury in the present day, were found guilty of treason. Lord Russell was conveyed from Newgate on the 21st of July, 1683, to be beheaded in Lincoln's-inn-fields. The duke of York, who intensely hated the patriot, wished him to be executed in Southampton-square, before his own residence; but the king, says Burnet, "rejected that as indecent." Lord Russell's behavior on the scaffold was in keeping with his previous piety and fort.i.tude. "His whole behavior looked like a triumph over death." He said, the day before he died, that the sins of his youth lay heavy on his mind, but he hoped G.o.d had forgiven them, for he was sure he had forsaken them, and for many years had walked before G.o.d with a sincere heart. The faithful lady Rachel, who had so n.o.bly acted as his secretary on his trial, and had used her utmost efforts to save his life, attended him in prison, and sought to strengthen his mind with the hopes and consolations of the gospel of Christ. Late the last night he spent on earth their final separation in this world took place; when, after tenderly embracing her several times, both magnanimously suppressing their indescribable emotions, he exclaimed, as she left the cell, "The bitterness of death is past." Winding up his watch the next morning, he observed, "I have done with time, and am going to eternity." He earnestly pressed upon Lord Cavendish the importance of religion, and declared how much comfort and support he derived from it in his extremity. Some among the crowds that filled the streets wept, while others insulted; he was touched by the tenderness of the one party, without being provoked by the heartlessness of the other. Turning into Little Queen-street, he said, "I have often turned to the other hand with great comfort, but now I turn to this with greater." "A tear or two" fell from his eyes as he uttered the words. He sang psalms a great part of the way, and said he hoped to sing better soon. On being asked what he was singing, he said, the beginning of the 119th Psalm.

On entering Lincoln's-inn-fields, the sins of his youth were brought to his remembrance, as he had there indulged in those vices which characterized the court of Charles II. "This has been to me a place of sinning, and G.o.d now makes it the place of my punishment." As he observed the great crowds a.s.sembled to witness his end, he remarked, "I hope I shall quickly see a better a.s.sembly." He walked round the scaffold several times, and then delivered to the sheriffs a paper, which had been carefully prepared, declaring his innocence of the charge of treason, and his strong attachment to the Protestant faith.

After this, he prayed by himself, and then Dr. Tillotson prayed with him. Another private prayer, and the patriot, having calmly unrobed himself, as if about to lie down on his couch to sleep, placed his head upon the block, and with two strokes of the axe was hastened into the eternal world. The faith, hope, patience, and love of his ill.u.s.trious lady surpa.s.sed even his own, and her letters breathe a spirit redolent of heaven rather than earth. After a severe illness, she wrote, in October, 1680: "I hope this has been a sorrow I shall profit by; I shall, if G.o.d will strengthen my faith, resolve to return him a constant praise, and make this the season to chase all secret murmurs from grieving my soul for what is past, letting it rejoice in what it should rejoice--His favor to me, in the blessings I have left, which many of my betters want, and yet have lost their chiefest friend also.

But, O! the manner of my deprivation is yet astonis.h.i.+ng." Five years afterwards she says, "My friends.h.i.+ps have made all the joys and troubles of my life, and yet who would live and not love? Those who have tried the insipidness of it would, I believe, never choose it.

Mr. Waller says--

'What know we of the bless'd above.

But that they sing, and that they love!'

And 'tis enough; for if there is so charming a delight in the love, and suitableness in humors, to creatures, what must it be to the clarified spirits to love in the presence of G.o.d!"

Algernon Sydney was a man of very powerful mind and of great eloquence, in these respects utterly eclipsing his n.o.ble compatriot; but in his last days it is painful to miss that Christian faith, tenderness of heart, and beautiful religious hope, which shone with such serene brightness amidst the sorrows of his friend. Sydney was a staunch republican, and his patriotism was cast in the hard and severe mould of ancient Rome. He was another Brutus. This distinguished man was executed on Tower-hill, December the 7th, 1683, and faced death with the utmost indifference, not seeking any aid from the ministers of religion in his last moments, nor addressing the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, but only remarking to those who stood by that he had made his peace with G.o.d, and had nothing to say to man.

Another sufferer in the same cause, less known to history, but more closely connected with London, was alderman Cornish. From his great zeal in the cause of Protestantism, he had become peculiarly odious to the reigning powers. He was suddenly accused of treason, and hurried to Newgate on the 13th of October. On the following Sat.u.r.day he received notice of his indictment, and the next Monday was arraigned at the bar. Having been denied time to prepare his defence, he was completely in the hands of his persecutors, who wreaked on him their vengeance with merciless intensity and haste. On the 23d of the same month, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, in front of his own house, at the end of King-street, Cheapside. After his death his innocency was established, and it is said that James, who now occupied the throne, lamented the injustice he had done. The duke of Monmouth, the king's nephew, perished on Tower-hill, July, 1685, for his rebellion in the western counties. The awful tragedy of an execution, with which the citizens had become so familiar, was in this instance rendered additionally horrid by the circ.u.mstance that the headsman, after several ineffectual attempts to decapitate his victim, who, with the gashes in his neck, reproached him for his tardiness, flung down the axe, declaring he could not go on; forced by the sheriffs, the man at length fulfilled his b.l.o.o.d.y task.

The arbitrary and cruel government of the country for many years was now on the point of working out its remedy. The trial and acquittal of the seven bishops at Westminster hastened on a crisis, and nothing could exceed the joy which the city evinced on that occasion. On their way to the Tower by water, the most enthusiastic demonstrations of sympathy were evinced by the mult.i.tudes who lined the banks of the Thames, and on reaching the fortress itself, the garrison knelt and begged their blessing. Their subsequent discharge on bail, and especially their final acquittal, excited boundless joy throughout the city, and were celebrated by bonfires and illuminations. The king, observing the tide of popular feeling set in so decidedly against him, endeavored to reconcile the city of London by restoring to it the charter, which, in his brother's reign, had been so unjustly taken away. But though this brought votes of thanks in return, it established no confidence towards the sovereign on the part of the people. The prince of Orange, invited over by several distinguished persons, wearied by the long continuance of tyranny, landed at Torbay, when James, having committed the care of the metropolis to the lord mayor, marched forth to meet his formidable rival. The result belongs to the history of England. The lords spiritual and temporal held one of their important meetings, during the interregnum, at Guildhall, and summoned to it the chief magistrate and aldermen. Judge Jeffreys, of infamous memory, was brought before the lord mayor, and committed to the Tower, where he died through excessive drinking. Disturbances broke out in the city, and the populace plundered the houses of the papists. The mayor, aldermen, and a deputation from the common council, were summoned to attend the convention parliament, which raised the prince of Orange to the throne. These are the princ.i.p.al incidents in the history of London, as connected with the glorious revolution of 1688.

William and Mary were soon welcomed by the citizens to a very splendid entertainment, the usual token of loyalty offered by them to new sovereigns; and no time was lost by their majesties in reversing the _quo warranto_, and fully restoring to the city its ancient charter.

When a conspiracy against William was discovered, in 1692, the city train bands displayed their loyalty, and marched to Hyde Park to be reviewed by the queen; and again, when an a.s.sa.s.sination plot was detected, an a.s.sociation was formed among the citizens to defend his person. These occurrences, with sundry rejoicings and entertainments upon the king's return to this country, after the Irish and foreign campaigns in which he engaged, are the princ.i.p.al civic events connected with the reign of William III.

On turning from the political history of London to look at the manners and morals of society during the latter part of the seventeenth century, our attention is immediately arrested by the scenes at Whitehall during the reign of Charles II. There the monarch fixed his court, gathering around him some of the most profligate persons of the age, and freely indulging in the most criminal pleasures. The palace was adorned with the greatest splendor, the ceilings and walls being decorated, and the furniture and other ornaments being fas.h.i.+oned according to the French taste, as it then prevailed under Louis XIV.

Courtiers and idlers here flocked together from day to day, to lounge in the galleries, to talk over public news and private scandal, and to listen to the tales and jests of the king, whose presence was very accessible, and whose wit and familiarity with his courtiers made him a great favorite. Banquets, b.a.l.l.s, and gambling, formed the amus.e.m.e.nts of the evening, often disgraced by open licentiousness. "I can never forget," says Evelyn, "the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total forgetfulness of G.o.d, (it being Sunday evening,) which this day se'nnight I was witness of."

This was at the close of the sovereign's wretched career. "Six days after," adds the writer, "was all in the dust!" This pa.s.sage cannot but call up in the Christian mind, awful thoughts of the eternal condition of such as spend their days in the pleasures of sin, and then drop into that invisible world, on the brink of which they were all along "sporting themselves with their own deceivings." Sinful practices, such as stained the court of Charles II., are too often attempted to be disguised under palliative terms; but the solemn warning of Scripture remains, "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of G.o.d on the children of disobedience." It is pleasing here to remember, that among those whom their dignified station, or their duties towards the sovereign and royal family, brought more or less into contact with the court, there were persons of a very different character from the gay circle around them, and whose thoughts, amidst the most brilliant spectacles, were lifted up to objects that are beyond earthly vision. "In the morning,"

says lady Warwick, in her diary, April 23, 1667, "as soon as dressed, in a short prayer I committed my soul to G.o.d, then went to Whitehall, and dined at my lord chamberlain's, then went to see the celebration of St. George's feast, which was a very glorious sight. Whilst I was in the Banqueting House, hearing the trumpets sounding, in the midst of all that great show G.o.d was pleased to put very mortifying thoughts into my mind, and to make me consider, what if the trump of G.o.d should now sound?--which thought did strike me with some seriousness, and made me consider in what glory I had in that very place seen the late king, and yet out of that very place he was brought to have his head cut off.

And I had also many thoughts how soon all that glory might be laid in the dust, and I did in the midst of it consider how much greater glory was provided for a poor sincere child of G.o.d. I found, blessed be G.o.d!

that my heart was not at all taken with anything I saw, but esteemed it not worth the being taken with."--_Lady Warwick's Memoirs_. Lady G.o.dolphin was another beautiful instance of purity and piety amidst scenes of courtly splendor, and manifold temptations to worldliness and vice; and the more remarkable in this respect, that her duties required her frequent attendance at Whitehall, and brought her into close contact with the perils of the place.

The parks were favorite places of resort. "Hyde Park," observes a cotemporary writer, "every one knows is the promenade of London; nothing was so much in fas.h.i.+on during the fine weather as that promenade, which was the rendezvous of magnificence and beauty; every one, therefore, who had a splendid equipage, constantly repaired thither, and the king seemed pleased with the place. Coaches with gla.s.ses were then a late invention; the ladies were afraid of being shut up in them." Charles was fond of walking in the parks, which he did with such rapidity, and for such a length of time as to wear out his courtiers. He once said to prince George of Denmark, who was corpulent, "Walk with me, and hunt with my brother, and you will not long be distressed with growing fat." Playing with dogs, feeding ducks, and chatting with people, were occupations the king was much addicted to, and were thought by his subjects to be so condescending, familiar, and kind, that they tended much to promote his personal popularity with the London citizens and others. Along St. James's Park, at the back of what are now Carlton Gardens, there ran a wall, which formed the boundary of the king's garden. On the north side of it was an avenue, with rows of elms on one side, and limes on the other, the one sheltering a carriage road, the other a foot-path.

Between lay an open s.p.a.ce, called Pall Mall, which designation was derived from a game played there, consisting of striking a ball through an iron hoop suspended on a lofty pole. This was a favorite sport in the days of Charles, and many a gay young cavalier exercised himself, and displayed his dexterity among those green shades, where now piles of houses line the busy street, still retaining the name it bore nearly two centuries ago.

The pleasures of the parks and Whitehall, with all the licentious accompaniments of the latter, were not always enough to meet the vitiated appet.i.te for amus.e.m.e.nt which then prevailed among the courtiers. Lord Rochester--whose end formed such a striking contrast to his life; whose sorrow for his sins was so intense, and his desire for forgiveness and spiritual renewal so earnest--was prominent in these extravagances, and set himself up in Tower-street as an Italian mountebank, professing to effect extraordinary cures. Sometimes, also, he went about in the attire of a porter or beggar. This taste was cherished and indulged by the highest personages. "At this time,"

(1668,) says Burnet, "the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading; both the king and queen and all the court went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there with a great deal of wild frolic. In all this people were so disguised, that without being in the secret none could distinguish them. They were carried about in hackney chairs. Once the queen's chairman, not knowing who she was, went from her. So she was alone, and was much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach; some say a cart."

Scenes of dissipation at Whitehall, with occasional excesses of the kind just noticed, make up the history of the court at London during the reign of Charles II. The palace, under his brother James, who, with all his popish zeal, was far from a pure and virtuous man, though cleansed from some of its pollution, was still the witness of lax morals. The habits of William III. and his queen Mary, greatly changed the aspect of things at Whitehall, till its destruction by fire, (the Banqueting House excepted,) in the year 1691. Afterwards the royal residence was either at Kensington or Hampton Court.

The riotous pleasures of Charles II. and his favorites, naturally encouraged imitation among the citizens of London, and during the whole reign of Charles it was full of scenes of revelry. The excesses which had been restrained during the commonwealth, and the abandoned characters who, to escape the churchwardens and other censors of public morals, sought refuge in retired haunts of villany, now appeared in open day. The restoration had introduced a sort of saturnalia; and no wonder, then, that the event was annually celebrated by the lovers of frivolous pleasure in London, with the gayest rejoicings, in which the garland and the dance bore a conspicuous part. While habits of dissipation were too common among the inhabitants generally, vice and crime were encouraged among the abandoned cla.s.ses, by the existence of privileged places, such as Whitefriars, the Savoy, Fuller's Rents, and the Minories, where men who had lost all character and credit took refuge, and carried on with impunity their nefarious practices. Other persons, also, who ranked with decent London tradesmen, would sometimes avail themselves of these spots; and we are informed that even late in the seventeenth century, men in full credit used to buy all the goods they could lay their hands on, and carry them directly to Whitefriars, and then sending for their creditors, insult them with the exhibition of their property, and the offer of some miserable composition in return. If they refused the compromise, they were set at defiance.

The flood of licentiousness which rolled through the city in the time of Charles II. happily proved insufficient to break down the religious character of a large number of persons, who had been trained under the faithful evangelical ministry of earlier times, or had been impressed by the teaching of earnest-minded preachers and pastors who still remained. The fire, as well as the plague, in connection with the fidelity of some of G.o.d's servants, was, no doubt, instrumental, under the blessing of his Holy Spirit, in turning the hearts of many from darkness to light. The black cloud, as Janeway calls it, which no wind could blow over, till it fell in such scalding drops, also folded up in its skirts treasures of mercy for some, whose souls had been unimpressed by milder means.

By the Act of Uniformity many devoted ministers had been silenced in London--Richard Baxter, among the rest, whose sermons had attracted, as they well might, the most crowded auditories;[1] but in private they continued to do the work of their heavenly Master; and when s.p.a.ces of toleration occurred in the persecuting reigns of Charles and James II., they opened places of wors.h.i.+p, and discharged their holy functions with happy effects on their numerous auditories. After the fire, they were for a little time in the enjoyment of this privilege; but, in 1670, an act was pa.s.sed for the suppression of conventicles, and the buildings were forthwith converted into tabernacles, for the use of the establishment while the parish churches were rebuilding. Eight places of this description are mentioned, of which may be noticed the meeting-house of the excellent Mr. Vincent, in Hand-alley, Bishopsgate-street, a large room, with three galleries, thirty large pews, and many benches and forms; and also Mr. Doolittle's meeting-house, built of brick, with three galleries, full of large pews below. Dr. Manton, a celebrated Presbyterian divine, was apprehended on a Sunday afternoon, at the close of his sermon, and committed a prisoner to the Gate-house. His meeting-house in White-yard was broken up, and a fine of 40 imposed on the people, and 20 on the minister.

It is related of James Janeway, that as he was walking by the wall at Rotherhithe, a bullet was fired at him; and that a mob of soldiers once broke into his meeting house in Jamaica-row, and leaped upon the benches. Amidst the confusion, some of his friends threw over him a colored coat, and placed a white hat on his head, to facilitate his escape. Once, while preaching in a gardener's house, he was surprised by a band of troopers, when, throwing himself on the ground, some persons covered him with cabbage leaves, and so preserved him from his enemies. (Spiritual Heroes, p. 313.) In secresy the good people often met to wors.h.i.+p, according to the dictates of their consciences; and until lately there remained in the ruins of the old priory of Bartholomew, in Smithfield, doors in the crypt, which tradition reported to have been used for admission into the gloomy subterranean recesses, where the persecuted ones, like the primitive Christians in the catacombs of Rome, wors.h.i.+ped the Father through Jesus Christ. The Friends, or Quakers, as they were termed, at this time manifested great intrepidity, and continued their wors.h.i.+p as before, not stirring at the approach of the officers who came to arrest them, but meekly going all together to prison, where they stayed till they were dismissed, for they would not pay the penalties imposed on them, nor even the jail fees. On being discharged, they went to their meeting-houses as before, and finding them closed, crowded in the street around the door, saying "they would not be ashamed nor afraid to disown their meeting together in a peaceable manner to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, but in imitation of the prophet Daniel, they would do it more publicly because they were forbid." _Neale's Puritans_, vol. iv, p. 433. William Penn and William Mead, two distinguished members of the Society of Friends, were tried at the Old Bailey in 1670, and were cruelly insulted by the court. The jury, not bringing in such a harsh verdict as was desired, were threatened with being locked up without "meat, drink, fire, or tobacco." "We are a peaceable people, and cannot offer violence to any man," said Penn; adding, as he turned to the jury, "You are Englishmen, mind your privileges, give not away your rights." They responded to the n.o.ble appeal, and acquitted the innocent prisoners.

When, in the next year, Charles exercised a dispensing power, and set aside the persecuting acts, wis.h.i.+ng to give freedom to the papists, most of the London nonconformist ministers took out licences, and great numbers attended their meetings. In 1672, the famous Merchants'

Lecture was set up in Pinner's Hall, and the most learned and popular of the dissenting divines were appointed to deliver it. Alderman Love, member for the city, in the name of such as agreed with him, stood up in the House of Commons, refusing to take the benefit of the dispensing power as unconst.i.tutional. He said, "he had rather go without his own desired liberty than have it in a way so destructive of the liberties of his country and the Protestant interest, and that this was the sense of the main body of dissenters." The indulgence was withdrawn.

Toleration bills failed in the House of Commons. The Test Act was brought in; fruitless attempts were made for a comprehension; and London was once more a scene of persecution. Informers went abroad, seeking out places where nonconformists were a.s.sembled, following them to their homes, taking down their names, ascertaining suspected parties, listening to private conversation, prying into domestic scenes, and then delivering over their prey into the hands of miscalled officers of justice, who exacted fines, and rifled their goods, or carried them off to prison. Such proceedings occurred at several periods in the reigns of Charles and James II., after which the revolution of 1688 brought peace and freedom of wors.h.i.+p to the long-oppressed nonconformists in London and throughout the country.

Popery lifted up its head in London on the restoration of Charles II.

Many professors of it accompanied the king on his accession to the throne, and crowded round the court, being treated with conspicuous favor. The queen-mother came from France, and took up her abode at Somerset House, where she gathered round her a number of Roman Catholic priests. The foreign amba.s.sadors' chapels were used by English papists, who thus obtained liberty of wors.h.i.+p, while the London Protestant nonconformists were shamefully persecuted. Jesuit schools and seminaries were established, under royal patronage, and popish bishops were consecrated in the royal chapel of St. James's. At Whitehall, the ecclesiastics appeared in their canonical habits, and were encouraged in their attempts to proselyte the people to the unreformed faith. A diarist of the times, under date January 23, 1667, records a visit he paid to the popish establishment in St. James's Palace, composed of the chaplains and priests connected with Catharine of Braganza, Charles II.'s queen: "I saw the dormitory and the cells of the priests, and we went into one--a very pretty little room, very clean, hung with pictures, and set with books. The priest was in his cell, with his hair-clothes to his skin, barelegged, with a sandal only on, and his little bed without sheets, and no feather bed, but yet I thought soft enough, his cord about his middle; but in so good company, living with ease, I thought it a very good life. A pretty library they have: and I was in the refectory where every man had his napkin, knife, cup of earth, and basin of the same; and a place for one to sit and read while the rest are at meals. And into the kitchen I went, where a good neck of mutton at the fire, and other victuals boiling--I do not think they fared very hard. Their windows all looking into a fine garden and the park, and mighty pretty rooms all. I wished myself one of the Capuchins."

But it does not appear that the London commonalty were infected with the love of the Papal Church, whatever might be done at court to foster it. On the contrary, a strong feeling was cherished by mult.i.tudes in opposition to all the popish proceedings of their superiors.

Ebullitions of popular sentiment on the question frequently appeared, especially in the annual burning of the pope's effigy, on the 17th of November, at Temple Bar. This was to celebrate the accession of Queen Elizabeth; and after the discovery of the so-called Meal Tub plot, in the reign of Charles II., it was performed with increased parade and ceremony. The morning was ushered in with the ringing of bells, and in the evening a procession took place, by the light of flambeaux, to the number of some thousands. The balconies, and windows, and tops of houses, were crowded with eager faces, reflecting the light that blazed up from the moving crowds along the streets. Mock friars, bishops, and cardinals, with the pope, headed by a man on horseback, personating the dead body of Sir Edmondbury G.o.dfery, composed the spectacle. It started from Bishopsgate, and pa.s.sing along Cheapside and Fleet-street terminated at Temple Bar, where the pope was cast into a bonfire, and the whole concluded with a display of fireworks. While anti-popish proceedings of this description might be leavened with much of the ignorance and intolerance which mark the odious system thus a.s.sailed, and can, therefore, be regarded with little satisfaction, it must be remembered that there was abundant cause at that time for those who prized the liberties of their country, as well as those who valued the truths of religion, to regard with alarm and to resist with vigor the incursions of a political Church, which sought to crush those liberties, and to darken those truths. The evils of Popery, inherent and unchangeable, obtruded themselves most offensively, and with a threatening aspect, at a period when they were defended and maintained in high places; and it was notorious that the successor to the English crown was plotting for the revival of Popish ascendency. During the reign of James II., the grounds of excitement became stronger than before. Everything dear to Englishmen as well as Protestants was at stake. The destinies of Church and state, of religion and civil policy, were trembling in the balance. Men's hearts might well fail them for fear, and only confidence in the power of truth, and the G.o.d of truth, with earnest prayer for his gracious succor and protection, could still and soothe their agitated bosoms. Weapons of the right kind were employed. The best divines of the Church of England manfully contended in argument against the baneful errors of Romanism.

Dissenting divines, especially Baxter, threw their energies into the same conflict. Political measures were also adopted vigorously and with decision--their nature we can neither criticise nor describe--and through the good providence of G.o.d our fathers were delivered from an impending curse, which we pray may neither in our times, nor in future ages, light on our beloved land.

In approaching the termination of this chapter, it is desirable to insert some account of the extent and state of buildings in London at the close of the seventeenth century, and a few notices of other matters relating to that period, which have not yet come under our consideration. Chamberlayne, in his _Angliae Not.i.tia_, 1692, dwells with warm delight upon the description of the London squares, "those magnificent piazzas," as he terms them; and then enumerates Lincoln's-inn-fields, Convent Garden, St. James's-square, Leicester-fields, Southampton-square, Red Lion-square, Golden-square, Spitalfields-square, and "that excellent new structure, called the King's-square," now Soho. These were all extramural, and beyond the liberties of the munic.i.p.ality, and they show how the metropolis was extending, especially in the western direction. As early as 1662, an act was pa.s.sed for paving Pall Mall, the Haymarket, and St.

James's-street. Clarendon, in 1604, built his splendid mansion in Piccadilly, called in reproach Dunkirk House by the common people, who "were of opinion that he had a good bribe for the selling of that town." Others, says Burnet, called it Holland House, because he was believed to be no friend to the war. It was much praised for its magnificence, and for the beautiful country prospect it commanded.

Evelyn's record of an interview with the builder of the proud palace, is an affecting ill.u.s.tration of the vanity of this world's grandeur, and of the disappointments and mortifications that follow ambition.

Clarendon had lost the favor of his sovereign, and the confidence of the public. "I found him in his garden," says Evelyn, "at his new-built palace, sitting in his gout wheel-chair, and seeing the gates set up towards the north and the fields. He looked and spake very disconsolately. After some while, deploring his condition to me, I took my leave. Next morning, I heard he was gone." The house was afterwards pulled down. In 1668, Burlington House was finished, placed where it is because it was at the time of its erection thought certain that no one would build beyond it. "In London," says Sir William Chambers, "many of our n.o.blemen's palaces towards the streets look like convents; nothing appears but a high wall, with one or two large gates, in which there is a hole for those who are privileged to go in and out.

If a coach arrives, the whole gate is open indeed, but this is an operation that requires time, and the porter is very careful to shut it up again immediately, for reasons to him very weighty. Few in this vast city suspect, I believe, that behind an old brick wall in Piccadilly there is one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe." All to the west and north of Burlington House was park and country, where huntsmen followed the chase, or fowlers plied their toils with gun and net, or anglers wielded rod and line on the margin of fair ponds of water. "We should greatly err," observes Mr.

Macaulay, "if we were to suppose that any of the streets and squares then wore the same appearance as at present. The great majority of the houses, indeed, have since that time been wholly or in part rebuilt.

If the most fas.h.i.+onable parts of the capital could be placed before us, such as they then were, we should be disgusted with their squalid appearance, and poisoned by their noisome atmosphere. In Convent Garden a filthy and noisy market was held, close to the dwellings of the great. Fruit women screamed, carters fought, cabbage stalks and rotten apples acc.u.mulated in heaps, at the thresholds of the countess of Berks.h.i.+re and of the bishop of Durham." Shops in those days did not present the bravery of plate gla.s.s and bold inscriptions, with all sorts of devices, but exhibited small windows, with huge frames which concealed rather than displayed the wares within; while all manner of signs, including Saracens' heads, blue bears, golden lambs, and terrific griffins, with other wonders, swung on projecting irons across the street, an humble resemblance of the row of banners lining the chapels of the Garter and the Bath, at Windsor and Westminster. Though a general paving and cleansing act for the streets of London was pa.s.sed in 1671, they continued long afterwards in a deplorably filthy condition, the inconvenience occasioned by day being greatly increased at night by the dense darkness, at best but miserably alleviated by the few candles set up in compliance with the watchman's appeal, "Hang out your lights." Gla.s.s lamps, known by the name of convex lights, were introduced into use in 1694, and continued to be employed for twenty-one years, after which there was a relapse into the old system.

It was dangerous to go abroad after dark without a lantern, and the streets, with a few wayfarers, guided by this humble illumination, must have presented a spectacle not unlike some gloomy country path, with here and there a traveler.

Inns, of course, which still wore the appearance of the old hotels, and have left a relic for example in the yard of the Spread Eagle, and a more notable one in that of the Talbot, Southwark, had their conspicuous signs, including animals known and unknown, and heads without end. From their huge and hospitable gateways all the public conveyances of London took their departure; and in an alphabetical list of these, in 1684, the daily outgoings average forty-one, but the numbers in one day are very unequal to those in another, seventy-one departing on a Thursday, and only nine on a Tuesday. As there was only one conveyance at a time to the same place, we have a remarkable ill.u.s.tration in this record of the public provision for traveling, as well as the stay-at-home habits of our good forefathers of the middle cla.s.s, about a century and a half ago. The gentry and n.o.bility were the chief travelers, and they performed their expeditions on horseback, or in their own coaches. As to the number of the inhabitants in London, at the close of the century, only an approximation to the fact can be made, for no census of the population was taken. According to the number of deaths, it is computed there were about half a million of souls--a population seventeen times larger than that of the second town in the kingdom, three times greater than that of Amsterdam, and more than those of Paris and Rome, or Paris and Rouen put together. Though the amount of trade was small compared with what it is now, yet the sum of more than thirty thousand a year, in the shape of customs, (it is more than eleven millions now,) filled our ancestors with astonishment.

Writers of that day speak of the masts of the s.h.i.+ps in the river as resembling a forest, and of the wealth of the merchants, according to the notions of the day, as princelike. More men, wrote Sir Josiah Child in 1688, were to be found upon the Exchange of London, worth ten thousand pounds than thirty years before there were worth one thousand.

He adds, there were one hundred coaches kept now for one formerly; and remarks, that a serge gown, once worn by a gentlewoman, was now discarded by a chambermaid. The manufactures of the country were greatly increased and wonderfully improved by the arrival of mult.i.tudes of French artisans in 1685, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes.

"An entire suburb of London," says Voltaire, in his _Siecle de Louis XIV._, "was peopled with French manufacturers of silk; others carried thither the art of making crystal in perfection, which has been since this epoch lost in France." Spitalfields is the suburb alluded to; thousands besides were located in Soho and St. Giles's. "London,"

observes Chamberlayne, in 1692, "is a large magazine of men, money, s.h.i.+ps, horses, and ammunition; of all sorts of commodities, necessary or expedient for the use or pleasure of mankind. It is the mighty rendezvous of n.o.bility, gentry, courtiers, divines, lawyers, physicians, merchants, seamen, and all kinds of excellent artificers of the most refined arts, and most excellent beauties; for it is observed, that in most families of England, if there be any son or daughter that excels the rest in beauty or wit, or perhaps courage or industry, or any other rare quality, London is their north star, and they are never at rest till they point directly thither."

[1] He mentions his preaching once at St. Dunstan's church, when an accident occurred, which alarmed the vast concourse, and was likely to have occasioned much mischief. He relates the odd circ.u.mstance of an old woman, squeezed in the crowd, asking forgiveness of G.o.d at the church door, and promising, if he would deliver her that time she would never come to the place again.

CHAPTER VI.

LONDON DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

From Maitland, who published his History of London in 1739, we learn that there were at that time, within the bills of mortality, 5,099 streets, 95,968 houses, 207 inns, 447 taverns, and 551 coffee-houses.

In 1681, the bills included 132 parishes; 147 are found in those for the year 1744. Judging from the bills of mortality, which however cannot be trusted as accurate, population considerably increased in that portion of the century included in Maitland's history. During the seventeen years from 1703 to 1721, the total number of burials was 393,034. During the next seventeen years, to 1738, they amounted to 457,779. The extension of London was still towards the west. In the Weekly Journal of 1717 it is stated, the new buildings between Bond-street and Marylebone go on with all possible diligence, and the houses even let and sell before they are built. In 1723, the duke of Grafton and the earl of Grantham purchased the waste ground at the upper end of Albemarle and Dover-streets for gardens, and turned a road leading into May Fair another way. (London, vol. i, p. 310.) Devons.h.i.+re House remained for some time the boundary of the buildings in Piccadilly, though farther on, by the Hyde Park Corner, there were several habitations. Lanesborough House stood there by the top of Const.i.tution-hill, and was, in 1773, converted into an infirmary, since rebuilt, and now known as St. George's Hospital. It may be added, that Westminster Hospital, the first inst.i.tution of the kind supported by voluntary contributions, was founded in 1719. Several churches were erected in the early part of the eighteenth century. In the year 1711, an act was pa.s.sed for the erection of no less than fifty, but only ten had been built on new foundations when Maitland published his work.

These ecclesiastical edifices exhibit the architectural taste of the age. The finest specimen of the period is the church of St.

Martin-in-the-fields, built by Gibbs. It was commenced in 1721, and finished in 1726, at a cost of nearly 37,000. In spite of the drawback in the ill-placed steeple over the portico, without any bas.e.m.e.nt tower, the building strikes the beholder with an emotion of delight. St. George's, Hanover-square, and St. George's, Bloomsbury, (the latter exhibiting a remarkable campanile,) were also built about the same time, the one in 1724, the other in 1731. Almost all the churches built after the fire are in the modern style, imported from Italy. In its colonnades, porticoes, architraves, and columns, this style presents elements of the Greek school of design, but differently arranged, more complicated in composition, more florid and ambitious in detail. Taste must a.s.sign the palm of superiority to the Grecian temple, with its severe beauty and chastened sublimity. The one style indicates the era of original genius, and exhibits the fruits of masterminds in that line of invention, while the other marks an epoch of mere imitation, supplying only the degenerate produce of transplanted taste.

Feeble attempts were made to improve the state of the streets, but they remained pretty much in their former condition till the Paving Act of 1762. Stalls, sheds, and sign-posts obstructed the path, and the pavement was left to the inhabitants, to be made "in such a manner, and with such materials, as pride, poverty, or caprice might suggest. Curb stones were unknown, and the footway was exposed to the carriage-way, except in some of the princ.i.p.al streets, where a line of posts and chains, or wooden paling, afforded occasional protection. It was a matter of moment to go near the wall; and Gay, in his Trivia, supplies directions to whom to yield it, and to whom to refuse it."--_Handbook_, by Cunninghame, x.x.xi. "In the last age," says Johnson, "when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people--those who gave the wall and those who took it, the peaceable and the quarrelsome. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; and if one is taking the wall another yields it, and it is never a dispute." The lighting, drainage, and police, were all in a wretched condition.

To attempt to give anything like a detailed chronological account of events in London during the first half of the eighteenth century, is neither possible nor desirable in a work like this. Indeed, the far greater part of the incidents recorded in the city chronicles relates to royal visits, city feasts, celebration of victories, local tumults, and remarkable storms and frosts. All that can be done, or expected, in this small volume, is to fix upon a few leading and important scenes and events, ill.u.s.trative of the times.

In the reign of queen Anne, the chief matter of interest in connection with London was the political excitement which prevailed. It turned upon questions relating to the Church and the toleration of dissenters.

Dean Swift, in a letter dated London, December, 1703, tells a friend, that the occasional Conformity Bill, intended to nullify the Toleration Act, was then the subject of everybody's conversation. "It was so universal," observes the witty dean, "that I observed the dogs in the street much more contumelious and quarrelsome than usual; and the very night before the bill went up, a committee of Whig and Tory cats had a very warm debate upon the roof of our house." Defoe, the well-known author of Robinson Crusoe, and a London citizen, rendered himself very conspicuous by his advocacy of the rights of conscience; and in consequence of writing an ironical work, which then created great excitement, ent.i.tled, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters," he was doomed to stand three successive days in the pillory, at the Royal Exchange by the Cheapside Conduit, and near Temple Bar. Immense crowds gathered to gaze on the sufferer; but "the people, who were expected to treat him ill, on the contrary pitied him, and wished those who set him there were placed in his room, and expressed their affections by loud shouts and acclamations when he was taken down."--_Life of Defoe_, by Chalmers, p. 28.

The political excitement of London reached its height during the trial of Dr. Sacheverell. He had preached two sermons, one of which was delivered in St. Paul's Cathedral, on the 5th of November, 1709, in which he inculcated the doctrine of pa.s.sive obedience and non-resistance, and inveighed with great bitterness against all nonconformists. The drift of his sermon was to undermine the principles of the Revolution, though he professed to approve of that event, pretending to consider it as by no means a case of resistance to the supreme power. The ministry, considering that his doctrine struck a fatal blow at the const.i.tution, as established in 1688, prosecuted him accordingly. With Sacheverell numbers of the clergy sympathized, especially Atterbury, the leader of his party. It was supposed that the queen was not unfriendly to the arraigned divine. He was escorted to Westminster Hall, the place of his trial, by immense crowds of people, who rent the air with their huzzas. The queen herself attended at the proceedings, and was hailed with deafening shouts, as she stepped from her carriage, "G.o.d bless your majesty; we hope your majesty is for Dr. Sacheverell." The s.p.a.cious building in which he was tried, the scene of so many state trials, was fitted up for the occasion, benches and galleries being provided for peers and commoners, peeresses and gentlewomen, who crowded every seat; the lower cla.s.ses squeezing themselves to suffocation into the part of the old building allotted to their use. The London rabble were so much excited by what took place, or were so completely swayed by more influential malcontents, that on the evening of the second day of the trial they attacked a meeting-house in New-Court, tearing away doors and cas.e.m.e.nts, pews and pulpit, and proceeding with the spoil to Lincoln's-inn-fields. In the open s.p.a.ce--where was then no fair garden inclosed with palisades, it being a rendezvous for mountebanks, dancing bears, and baited bulls--the populace kindled a bonfire, and consumed the ruins of the conventicle. They went forth in quest of the minister, Mr. Burgess, in order to burn him and his pulpit together.

Happily disappointed of their victim, they wreaked their vengeance upon six other dissenting places of wors.h.i.+p. An episcopal church in Clerkenwell shared the same fate, being mistaken for one of the hated structures through want of a steeple; for steeple and no steeple probably const.i.tuted the only difference in religion appreciable by these infatuated mortals. The advocates of toleration, even though they might be good Churchmen, as Bishop Burnet for example, were also in danger. Indeed, the tumult became of such grave importance, that queen and magistrates, court and city, felt it a duty to combine in order to quell the disgraceful outbreak. A few sword cuts, and the capture of several prisoners, put down the insurrection; but ecclesiastical politics still ran high in London, and whigs and dissenters were in low estimation in many quarters, till the Hanoverian succession brightened the prospects of the liberal party. While Queen Anne lay ill, deep anxiety pervaded the political circles in London.

It is not generally known, but it is stated on the authority of tradition, that the first place in which the decease of Anne was publicly announced, and the accession of George I. proclaimed, was the very meeting-house in New Court which had been formerly attacked by the mob. The day on which the queen died was a Sunday; and as Bishop Burnet was riding in his coach through Smithfield, he met Mr. Bradbury, then the minister of the chapel, and told him that immediately upon the royal demise, then momentarily expected, he would send a messenger to give tidings of the event. Before the morning service was over a man appeared in the gallery, and dropped a handkerchief, being the preconcerted signal; whereupon the preacher, in his last prayer, alluded to the removal of her majesty, and implored a blessing on King George and the house of Hanover.

The most striking feature in the history of London in the reign of George I., was the extraordinary spirit of speculation which then existed. The moderate gains of trade and commerce did not satisfy the cupidity of the human breast, which then, as it has done since, burst out into a fever, that consumed all reason, prudence, and principle.

Men made haste to be rich, and consequently fell into temptation and a snare. In 1717, an unprecedented excitement pervaded the money market.

Every one familiar with the city knows the plain-looking edifice of brick and stone which stands in Threadneedle-street, not far from the Flower-pot, and which is so well described by one whose youth was pa.s.sed within it, as "deserted or thinly peopled, with few or no traces of comers-in or goers-out, like what Ossian describes, when he says, I pa.s.sed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were desolate." That grave-looking edifice, now like some respectable citizen retired from business, was at one time the busiest place in the world. A scheme was planned and formed for making fortunes by the South Sea trade. A company was incorporated by government for the purpose, and the house in Threadneedle-street was the scene of business. Stock rapidly doubled in value, and went on till it reached a premium of nine hundred per cent. People of all ranks flocked to Change-alley, and crowded the courts in riotous eagerness to purchase shares. The n.o.bleman drove from the West-end, the squire came up from the country, ladies of fas.h.i.+on, and people of no fas.h.i.+on, swarmed round the new El Dorado, to dig up the sparkling treasure. Swift compares these crowds of human beings to the waters of the South Sea Gulf, from which their imagination was drawing such abundant draughts of wealth.

"Subscribers here by thousands float, And jostle one another down, Each paddling in her leaky boat, And here they fish for gold, and drown.