Buxton. Tun bridge Wells. among those who frequented the wells for building a church, which the Tories, who then domineered everywhere, insisted on dedicating to Saint Charles the Martyr.* Bath. ing places. The gentry of Derbyshire and of the neighbouring counties repaired to Buxton, where they were lodged in low rooms under bare rafters, and regaled with oatcake, and with a viand which the hosts called But at the head of the English mutton, but which the guests suspected watering places, without a rival, to be dog. A single good house stood was Bath. The springs of that near the spring.* Tunbridge city had been renowned from the days Wells, lying within a day's of the Romans. It had been, during journey of the capital, and in many centuries, the seat of a Bishop. one of the richest and most highly civi- The sick repaired thither from every lised parts of the kingdom, had much part of the realm. The King sometimes greater attractions. At present we see held his court there. Nevertheless, there a town which would, a hundred Bath was then a maze of only four or and sixty years ago, have ranked in five hundred houses, crowded within an population fourth or fifth among the old wall in the vicinity of the Avon towns of England. The brilliancy of Pictures of what were considered as the the shops and the luxury of the private finest of those houses are still extant, dwellings far surpasses anything that and greatly resemble the lowest rag England could then show. When the shops and pothouses of Ratcliffe Highcourt, soon after the Restoration, visited way. Travellers indeed complained Tunbridge Wells, there was no town: loudly of the narrowness and meanness but within a mile of the spring, rustic of the streets. That beautiful city cottages, somewhat cleaner and neater which charms even eyes familiar with than the ordinary cottages of that time, the masterpieces of Bramante and Palwere scattered over the heath. Some ladio, and which the genius of Anstey of these cabins were movable, and and of Smollett, of Frances Burney and were carried on sledges from one part of Jane Austen, has made classic ground, of the common to another. To these had not begun to exist. Milsom Street huts men of fashion, wearied with the itself was an open field lying far beyond din and smoke of London, sometimes the walls; and hedgerows intersected came in the summer to breathe fresh the space which is now covered by the air, and to catch a glimpse of rural life. Crescent and the Circus. The poor During the season a kind of fair was patients to whom the waters had been daily held near the fountain. The wives recommended lay on straw in a place and daughters of the Kentish farmers which, to use the language of a contemcame from the neighbouring villages porary physician, was a covert rather with cream, cherries, wheatears, and than a lodging. As to the comforts and quails. To chaffer with them, to flirt luxuries which were to be found in the with them, to praise their straw hats interior of the houses of Bath by the and tight heels, was a refreshing pas- fashionable visitors who resorted thither time to voluptuaries sick of the airs of in search of health or amusement, we actresses and maids of honour. Mil-possess information more complete and liners, toymen, and jewellers came down from London, and opened a bazaar under the trees. In one booth the politician might find his coffee and the London Gazette; in another were gamblers playing deep at basset; and, on fine evenings, the fiddles were in attendance, and there were morris dances on the elastic turf of the bowling green. In 1685 a subscription had just been raised Tour in Derbyshire, by Thomas Browne, son of Sir Thomas. minute than can generally be obtained on such subjects. A writer who published an account of that city about sixty years after the Revolution has accurately described the changes which had taken place within his own recollection. He assures us that, in his younger days, the gentlemen who visited *Mémoires de Grammont: Hasted's History of Kent: Tunbridge Wells, a Comedy, 1678; Causton's Tunbridgialia, 1688; Metellus, a poem on Tunbridge Wells, 1693. the springs slept in rooms hardly as good as the garrets which he lived to see occupied by footmen. The floors of the dining-rooms were uncarpeted, and were coloured brown with a wash made of soot and small beer, in order to hide the dirt. Not a wainscot was painted. Not a hearth or a chimneypiece was of marble. A slab of common freestone and fire irons which had cost from three to four shillings were thought sufficient for any fireplace. The best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, and were furnished with rushbottomed chairs. Readers who take an interest in the progress of civilisation and of the useful arts will be grateful to the humble topographer who has recorded these facts, and will perhaps wish that historians of far higher pretensions had sometimes spared a few pages from military evolutions and political intrigues, for the purpose of letting us know how the parlours and bedchambers of our ancestors looked.* London. The position of London, relatively to the other towns of the empire, was, in the time of Charles the Second, far higher than at present. For at present the population of London is little more than six times the population of Manchester or of Liverpool. In the days of Charles the Second the population of London was more than seventeen times the population of Bristol or of Norwich. It may be doubted whether any other instance can be mentioned of a great kingdom in which the first city was more than seventeen times as large as the second. There is reason to believe that, in 1685, London had been, during about half a century, the most populous capital in Europe. The inhabitants, who are now at least nineteen hundred thousand, were then probably little more than half a million. London had in the world only one commercial rival, now long ago outstripped, the mighty and opulent Amsterdam. English writers boasted of the forest of masts and yardarms which covered the river from the Bridge to the Tower, and of the stupendous sums which were collected at the Custom House in Thames Street. There is, indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis then bore a far greater proportion than at present to the whole trade of the country; yet to our generation the honest vaunting of our ancestors must appear almost ludicrous. The shipping which they thought incredibly great appears not to have exceeded seventy thousand tons. This was, indeed, then more than a third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom, but is now less than a fourth of the tonnage of Newcastle, and is nearly equalled by the tonnage of the steam vessels of the Thames. The customs of London amounted, in 1685, to about three hundred and thirty thousand pounds a year. In our time the net duty paid annually, at the same place, exceeds ten millions.* Whoever examines the maps of London which were published towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second will see that only the nucleus of the present capital then existed. The town did not, as now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and laburnums, extended from the great centre of wealth and civilisation almost to the boundaries of Middlesex and far into the heart of Kent and Surrey. In the east, no part of the immense line of warehouses and artificial lakes which now stretches from the Tower to Blackwall had even been projected. On the west, scarcely one of those stately piles of building which are inhabited by the 1851 the population of London exceeded 2,300,000. (1857.) * See Wood's History of Bath, 1749; Evelyn's Diary, June 27. 1654; Pepys's Diary, *Macpherson's History of Commerce; ChalJune 12. 1668; Stukeley's Itinerarium Curio-mers's Estimate; Chamberlayne's State of sum; 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 bears the date of 1717. † According to King, 530,000. (1848.) In 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 11,000,0007. (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.) noble and wealthy was in existence; | residence of wealthy persons in an age and Chelsea, which is now peopled by when a coach and six was a fashionable more than forty thousand human beings, luxury. The style of building was, was a quiet country village with about however, far superior to that of the a thousand inhabitants.* On the north, City which had perished. The ordinary cattle fed, and sportsmen wandered material was brick, of much better with dogs and guns, over the site of quality than had formerly been used. the borough of Marylebone, and over On the sites of the ancient parish far the greater part of the space now churches had arisen a multitude of covered by the boroughs of Finsbury new domes, towers, and spires which and of the Tower Hamlets. Islington bore the mark of the fertile genius of was almost a solitude; and poets loved Wren. In every place save one the to contrast its silence and repose with traces of the great devastation had the din and turmoil of the monster been completely effaced. But the London. On the south the capital is crowds of workmen, the scaffolds, and now connected with its suburb by seve- the masses of hewn stone were still to ral bridges, not inferior in magnificence be seen where the noblest of Protestant and solidity to the noblest works of the temples was slowly rising on the ruins Cæsars. In 1685, a single line of irre- of the old Cathedral of St. Paul.* gular arches, overhung by piles of mean and crazy houses, and garnished, after a fashion worthy of the naked barbarians of Dahomy, with scores of mouldering heads, impeded the navigation of the river. The City. The whole character of the City has, since that time, undergone a complete change. At present the bankers, the merchants, and the chief shopkeepers repair thither on six mornings of every week for the transaction of business: but they reside in other quarters of the metropolis, or at suburban country seats surrounded by shrubberies and flower gardens. This revolution in private habits has produced a political revolution of no small importance. The City is no longer regarded by the wealthiest traders with that attachment which every man naturally feels for his home. It is no longer associated in their minds with domestic affections and endearments. The fireside, the nursery, the social table, the quiet bed are not Lombard Street and Thread Of the metropolis, the City, properly so called, was the most important division. At the time of the Restoration it had been built, for the most part, of wood and plaster; the few bricks that were used were ill baked; the booths where goods were exposed to sale projected far into the streets, and were overhung by the upper stories. A few specimens of this architecture may still be seen in those districts which were not reached by the great fire. That fire had, in a few days, covered a space of little less than a there. square mile with the ruins of eighty-needle Street are merely places where nine churches and of thirteen thousand men toil and accumulate. houses. But the City had risen again with a celerity which had excited the admiration of neighbouring countries. Unfortunately, the old lines of the streets had been to a great extent preserved; and those lines, originally traced in an age when even princesses performed their journeys on horseback, were often too narrow to allow wheeled carriages to pass each other with ease, and were therefore ill adapted for the Lysons's Environs of London. The baptisms at Chelsea, between 1680 and 1690, were only forty-two a year. + Cowley, Discourse of Solitude. They go elsewhere to enjoy and to expend. On a Sunday, or in an evening after the hours of business, some courts and alleys, which a few hours before had *The fullest and most trustworthy infor mation about the state of the buildings of 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 London at this time is to be derived from the Grand Duke Cosmo. There is an account of the works at St. 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. been alive with hurrying feet and was, to the Londoner, what Athens was anxious faces, are as silent as the glades to the Athenian of the age of Pericles, of a forest. The chiefs of the mercan-what Florence was to the Florentine of tile interest are no longer citizens. the fifteenth century. The citizen was They avoid, they almost contemn, proud of the grandeur of his city, puncmunicipal honours and duties. Those tilious about her claims to respect, amhonours and duties are abandoned to bitious of her offices, and zealous for men who, though useful and highly her franchises. respectable, seldom belong to the princely commercial houses of which the names are renowned throughout the world. At the close of the reign of Charles the Second the pride of the Londoners was smarting from a cruel mortification. The old charter had been taken away; and the magistracy had been remodelled. All the civic functionaries were Tories; and the Whigs, though in numbers and found themselves excluded from every local dignity. Nevertheless, the external splendour of the municipal government was not diminished, nay, was rather increased by this change. For, In the seventeenth century the City was the merchant's residence. Those mansions of the great old burghers which still exist have been turned into count-in wealth superior to their opponents, ing houses and warehouses: but it is evident that they were originally not inferior in magnificence to the dwellings which were then inhabited by the nobility. They sometimes stand in retired and gloomy courts, and are ac-under the administration of some Pucessible only by inconvenient passages: ritans who had lately borne rule, the but their dimensions are ample, and ancient fame of the City for good cheer their aspect stately. The entrances are had declined: but under the new madecorated with richly carved pillars and gistrates, who belonged to a more fescanopies. The staircases and landing tive party, and at whose boards guests places are not wanting in grandeur. of rank and fashion from beyond TemThe floors are sometimes of wood, tes-ple Bar were often seen, the Guildhall sellated after the fashion of France. and the halls of the great companies The palace of Sir Robert Clayton, in were enlivened by many sumptuous the Old Jewry, contained a superb ban- banquets. During these repasts, odes, queting room wainscoted with cedar, composed by the poet laureate of the and adorned with battles of gods and corporation, in praise of the King, the giants in fresco.* Sir Dudley North | Duke, and the Mayor, were sung to expended four thousand pounds, a sum music. The drinking was deep, the which would then have been important shouting loud. An observant Tory, who to a Duke, on the rich furniture of his had often shared in these revels, has reception rooms in Basinghall Street.† remarked that the practice of huzzaing In such abodes, under the last Stuarts, after drinking healths dates from this the heads of the great firms lived splen- joyous period.* didly and hospitably. To their dwelling place they were bound by the strongest ties of interest and affection. There they had passed their youth, had made their friendships, had courted their wives, had seen their children grow up, had laid the remains of their parents in the earth, and expected that their own remains would be laid. That intense patriotism which is peculiar to the members of societies congregated within a narrow space was, in such circumstances,strongly developed. London *Evelyn's Diary, Sept. 20. 1672. † Roger North's Life of Sir Dudley North. The magnificence displayed by the first civic magistrate was almost regal. The gilded coach, indeed, which is now annually admired by the crowd, was not yet a part of his state. On great occasions he appeared on horseback, attended by a long cavalcade inferior in magnificence only to that which, before a coronation, escorted the sovereign from the Tower to Westminster. * North's Examen. This amusing writer has preserved a specimen of the sublime "The worshipful Sir John Moor! The Lord Mayor was never seen in | downfall of Richard Cromwell, the Lonpublic without his rich robe, his hood don trainbands had borne a signal part. of black velvet, his gold chain, his jewel, and a great attendance of harbingers and guards. Nor did the world find anything ludicrous in the pomp which constantly surrounded him. For it was not more than became the place which, as wielding the strength and represent- These considerations may serve to ing the dignity of the City of London, explain why, in spite of that attraction he was entitled to occupy in the state. which had, during a long course of years, That City, being then not only without gradually drawn the aristocracy westequal in the country, but without se- ward, a few men of high rank had concond, had, during five and forty years, tinued, till a very recent period, to dwell exercised almost as great an influence in the vicinity of the Exchange and of on the politics of England as Paris has, the Guildhall. Shaftesbury and Buckin our own time, exercised on the poli-ingham, while engaged in bitter and tics of France. In intelligence London unscrupulous opposition to the governwas greatly in advance of every other ment, had thought that they could nopart of the kingdom. A government, where carry on their intrigues so consupported and trusted by London, could veniently or so securely as under the in a day obtain such pecuniary means protection of the City magistrates and as it would have taken months to col- the City militia. Shaftesbury had therelect from the rest of the island. Nor fore lived in Aldersgate Street, at a house were the military resources of the capi- which may still be easily known by pital to be despised. The power which lasters and wreaths, the graceful work the Lord Lieutenants exercised in other of Inigo. Buckingham had ordered his parts of the kingdom was in London mansion near Charing Cross, once the entrusted to a Commission of eminent abode of the Archbishops of York, to citizens. Under the orders of this Com- be pulled down; and, while streets and mission were twelve regiments of foot alleys which are still named after him and two regiments of horse. An army were rising on that site, chose to reside of drapers' apprentices and journeymen in Dowgate.* tailors, with common councilmen for captains and aldermen for colonels, might not indeed have been able to stand its ground against regular troops; but there were then very few regular troops in the kingdom. A town, therefore, which could send forth, at an hour's notice, thousands of men, abounding in natural courage, provided with tolerable weapons, and not altogether untinctured with martial discipline, could not but be a valuable ally and a formidable enemy. It was not forgotten that Hampden and Pym had been protected from lawless tyranny by the London trainbands; that, in the great crisis of the civil war, the London trainbands had marched to raise the siege of Gloucester; or that, in the movement against the military tyrants which followed the In truth, it is no exaggeration to say that, but for the hostility of the City, Charles the First would never have been vanquished, and that, without the help of the City, Charles the Second could scarcely have been restored. able part These, however, were rare exceptions. Almost all the noble families Fashionof England had long migrated of the beyond the walls. The district capital. where most of their town houses stood lies between the City and the regions which are now considered as fashionable. A few great men still retained their hereditary hotels in the Strand. The stately dwellings on the south and west of Lincoln's Inn Fields, the Piazza of Covent Garden, Southampton Square, which is now called Bloomsbury Square, and King's Square in Soho Fields, which is now called Soho Square, were among the favourite spots. Foreign princes were carried to see Bloomsbury Square as one of the wonders of England.+ Soho Square, which had just been built, was to our ancestors a subject of pride * North's Examen, 116; Wood, Ath. Ox. Shaftesbury; The Duke of B.'s Litany. †Travels of the Grand Duke Cosmo. |