of the three bridges, close by which the common sewers discharge
themselves, and blacken the water round about. There is a strong echo
under this bridge. On the Southwark side are the ruins of a large
building called the Albion Mills, which was erected for the purpose of
securing to the metropolis a certain supply of flour. A great capital
was vested in this useful undertaking; but perhaps in no country are
clamours so easily raised by the interested, and so greedily believed by
the ignorant, as in England. The very axioms of commercial policy are
not understood by people, and it required all the firmness and all
the influence of Mr Pitt, during the scarcity, to save the country from
the inevitable miseries which a maximum would have occasioned. The
millers themselves, best aware of what roguery might be practised in
their own trade, spread abroad reports that the flour was adulterated
with all sorts of base mixtures. The Albion Mills took fire; whether by
accident or not is doubtful: but the mob, who on all such occasions
bestir themselves to extinguish a fire with that ready and disinterested
activity which characterizes the English, stood by now as willing
spectators of the conflagration; and before the engines had ceased to
play upon the smoking ruins, ballads of rejoicing were printed and sung
upon the spot. The fire broke out during the night, a strong breeze was
blowing from the east, and the parched corn fell in a black shower above
a league distant: even fragments of wood still burning, fell above
Westminster-bridge. There is a floating mill upon the river thus
constructed: a gun-boat is moored head and stern, with a house built on
it, and a wheel on each side which works with the tide.
The passage of the third bridge is considered as an achievement of some
little risque: our boat shot through it like an arrow. Close to the
bridge are the great water-works by which the city is supplied. When it
is considered that all the filth of this prodigious metropolis is
emptied into the river, it is perfectly astonishing that any people
should consent to drink it. One week's expenses of the late war would
have built an aqueduct from the Surry hills, and an hundred fountains to
have distributed its stores. The Thames water ferments and purifies
itself: in its state of fermentation it is inflammable. St Paul's and
the Monument are the main objects in this reach. Below the bridges is
the Tower of London, and a forest of shipping: here indeed we saw how
truly this city may be called the modern Tyre. Wharfs and warehouses
extend in this direction, far beyond any part of the eastern city which
I had explored. New docks upon a great scale are nearly completed in a
marsh, called the Isle of Dogs, so named, it is said, because the body
of a man who had been murdered, and buried there, was discovered by the
fidelity of a dog.[19]
At length we came in sight of green fields and trees. The marshes of
Essex, from whence London is so often covered with fogs, were on one
side; the Kentish hills, not far distant, on the other; the famous
observatory of Greenwich, from whence the English calculate their
longitude; and the hospital, a truly noble building, worthy of the
nation which has erected it, and of the purpose to which it is
consecrated. The palace of the Tudors stood here.—Charles II. began to
rebuild it, and William appropriated it to its present use. About 2000
disabled seamen are supported here, and boys are educated for the navy.
We saw the refectory and the church: but, as in a Relicario, the place
excited too much feeling to obtain much attention: we were in the asylum
of those sailors, whose skill and courage are unrivalled, a race of men
without fear, and as generous as they are brave. What volumes might be
compiled from the tales which these old chroniclers could tell! There is
not a shore in the habitable world but has been visited by some or other
of these men, nor a hardship incident to human nature which some of them
have not sustained.
We walked into the Park, and up the hill, where the rabble of London
assemble on Easter Monday, and roll down its green side, men and women
promiscuously. From hence we had a noble prospect of the river, the
distant shipping, and the pestilential marshes of the opposite coast. A
story is told of an old native of these marshes, who carried on a
thriving trade in wives. He chose them from the hill-country, and within
a few years married and buried eight, all of whom he brought home upon
one horse.
[18] A certain number of watermen are permitted to ply on Sundays; they
pay an annual acknowledgment on that account to the Watermen's Company!
Religion and profit are thus combined!—TR.
[19] The king's hounds were kept there when there was a royal palace at
Greenwich.—TR.
LETTER LXVII.
_Spanish Gravity the Jest of the English.—Sunday Evening
described.—Society for the Suppression of Vice.—Want of
Holidays.—Bull-Baiting.—Boxing._
One of the great philosophers here has advanced a theory that the
nervous and electric fluids are the same, both being condensed light. If
this be true, sunshine is the food of the brain; and it is thus
explained why the southern nations are so much more spiritual than the
English, and why they in their turn rank higher in the scale of
intellect than their northern neighbours.
Spanish gravity is the jest of this people. Whenever they introduce a
Spaniard upon the stage, it is to ridicule him for his pride, his
jealousy, and his mustachios. According to their notions, all our women
who are not locked up in convents, are locked up at home; guarded by
duennas as vigilant as dragons, and husbands, every one of whom is as
fierce as the Grand Turk. They believe, also, that a Spaniard thinks it
beneath his dignity ever to laugh, except when he is reading Don
Quixote; then, indeed, his muscles are permitted to relax.
I am writing upon Sunday evening, at the hour when in our cities the
people are at the theatre or the bull-fight; when in every street and
village the young are dancing with their castanets, and at every door
you hear the viola. What is the scene in England at this time? All
public amusements are prohibited by the dæmon of Calvinism; and for
private ones,—half the people seriously believe that were they to touch
a card on a Sunday, they should immediately find the devil under the
table, who is said to have actually appeared upon such an occasion to an
old lady at Bath. The Savoyard, who goes about with his barrel-organ,
dares not grind even a psalm-tune upon the sabbath. The old woman who
sells apples at the corner of the street has been sent to prison for
profanation of the Lord's day, by the Society for the Suppression of
Vice; the pastry-cook, indeed, is permitted to keep his shop-window half
open, because some of the society themselves are fond of iced creams.
Yonder goes a crowd to the Tabernacle, as dismally as if they were going
to a funeral; the greater number are women;—enquire for their husbands
at the alehouse, and you will find them besotting themselves there,
because all amusements are prohibited as well as all labour, and they
cannot lie down like dogs, and sleep. Ascend a step higher in
society,—the children are yawning, and the parents agree that the clock
must be too slow, that they may accelerate supper and bed-time. In the
highest ranks, indeed, there is little or no distinction of days, except
that there is neither theatre nor opera for them, and some among them
scruple at cards. Attempts have even been made to shut up the public
ovens on this day, and convert the sabbath into a fast for the poor. And
these are the people who ridicule Spanish gravity, and think they have
reformed religion, because they have divested it of all that is
cheerful, all that is beautiful, and all that is inviting.
Our peasantry have a never-failing source of amusement in the dance and
the viola. Here the poor never dance; indeed, illegal dancing is a
punishable crime, and if they do not dance illegally they cannot dance
at all. This requires some explanation. Partly from custom, still more
from the nature of the climate, there is no dancing here in the open
air; the houses of the poor are too small for this diversion; they must
therefore meet at some public house where there is a room large enough.
The rich do this also; but dancing at a peso-duro a-head, and dancing at
two reales, are very different things—the one is called a ball, the
other a sixpenny hop. The rich may take care of their own morals—the
police must look after the poor. These public dancing-rooms are
excellent preparatory schools for the brothel, and the magistrates very
properly endeavour to suppress them,—or should endeavour,—for the recent
institution of a society for the suppression of vice, seems to imply
that the laws are not executed without such assistance. Here I must
remark, that if there be one thing by which the English are peculiarly
distinguished from all other people in the world, it is by their passion
for exercising authority and enacting laws. When half a score or a dozen
men combine for any common purpose, whether to establish an
insurance-office, to cut a canal, or even to set spies upon apple-women
on a Sunday, they embody themselves into a company, choose out a
representative committee and a president, and issue their resolutions
with all the forms of a legislative body. It will be well if the slate
does not one day feel the inconvenience of this taste for legislation.
Music is as little the amusement of the people as dancing. Never was a
nation so unmusical. Perhaps the want of leisure may be the cause. They
reproach the Catholic religion with the number of its holidays, never
considering how the want of holidays breaks down and brutalizes the
labouring class, and that where they occur seldom they are uniformly
abused. Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, the only seasons of festival
in England, are always devoted by the artificers and the peasantry to
riot and intoxication.
You may well conceive of what character the popular amusements needs
must be, in a country where there is nothing to soften the manners or
ameliorate the condition of the poor. The practice of bull-baiting is
not merely permitted, it is even enjoined by the municipal law in some
places. Attempts have twice been made in the legislature to suppress
this barbarous custom: they were baffled and ridiculed, and some of the
most distinguished members were absurd enough, and hard-hearted enough,
to assert, that if such sports were abolished, there would be an end of
the national courage. Would to Heaven that this were true! that English
courage had no better foundation than brutal ferocious cruelty! We
should no longer be insulted in our ports, and our ships might defy
their buccaneering cruisers. Do not suppose that this bull-baiting has
any the smallest resemblance to our bull-feasts.—Even these I should
agree with the Conde de Norana, and with the Church, in condemning as
wicked and inhuman; but there is a splendour in the costume, a gaiety in
the spectacle, a skill and a courage displayed in the action, which
afford some apology for our countrymen, whereas this English sport is
even more cowardly than the bull-fights of the Portugueze.[20] The men
are exposed to no danger whatever; they fasten the animal to a ring, and
the amusement is to see him toss the dogs, and the dogs lacerate his
nostrils, till they are weary of torturing him, and then he is led to
the slaughter-house to be butchered after their clumsy and cruel method.
The bear and the badger are baited with the same barbarity; and if the
rabble can get nothing else, they will divert themselves by worrying
cats to death.
But the great delight of the English is in boxing, or pugilism, as it is
more scientifically denominated. This practice might easily be
suppressed; it is against the laws; the magistrates may interfere if
they please; and its frequency therefore, under such circumstances, is
an irrefragable proof of national barbarity. Cudgel-playing,
quarter-staff, broad-sword, all of which, brutal as such gladiatorial
exhibitions are, might have given to the soldiers a serviceable
dexterity, have yielded to this more brutal sport, if that may be called
sport which sometimes proves fatal. When a match is made between two
prize-fighters, the tidings are immediately communicated to the public
in the newspapers; and paragraphs occasionally appear, saying the rival
are in training, what exercise they take, and what diet, for some of
them feed upon raw beef as a preparative.—Meantime, the amateurs and the
gamblers choose their party, and the state of the betts appears also in
the public newspapers from time to time: not unfrequently the whole is a
concerted scheme, that a few rogues may cheat a great many fools.—When
the combat at length takes place, as regular a report is prepared for
the newspapers as if it were a national victory—the particulars are
recorded with a minuteness at once ridiculous and disgraceful; for every
movement has its technical or slang name, and the unprecedented science
of the successful combatant becomes the theme of general admiration.
Yet, notwithstanding all the attention which these people bestow upon
this savage art, for which they have public schools, they are outdone by
savages. When one of the English squadrons of discovery was at
Tongataboo, several of the natives boxed with the sailors for love, as
the phrase is, and in every instance the savage was victorious.
[20] The horns of the bull are tipt in Portugal, to preserve the horse.
In Spain, where no such precaution is taken, it is not unusual to see
the horse's entrails trailing along the ground.—TR.
LETTER LXVIII.
_The Abbé Barruel.—Journey of two Englishmen to Avignon to join a
Society of Prophets.—Extracts from their prophetical Books._
I had prepared for you an account of a pseudo-prophet who excited much
attention in London here at the beginning of the last war, when, almost
by accident, I was made acquainted with some singular circumstances
which are in some manner connected with him, and which therefore should
previously be told. These circumstances are as authentic as they are
extraordinary, and supply a curious fact for the history of the French
Revolution.
We were talking one evening of the Abbé Barruel's proofs of a conspiracy
against the governments, religion, and morality of Christendom. A friend
of J.'s said, there was about as much truth in it as in one of Madame
Scudery's romances; the characters introduced were real persons, to whom
false motives and manners were imputed; a little of what was ascribed to
them had really occurred, but the whole plot, colouring, and costume of
the book, were fictitious. It was a work, said he, written to serve the
purposes of a party, with the same spirit and the same intent as those
which in old times led to such absurd and monstrous calumnies against
the Jews; and, had its intent succeeded, there would have been a
political St Bartholomew's day in England. True it was that a society
had existed, whose object was to change or to influence the governments
of Europe; it was well organized and widely extended, but enthusiasm,
not infidelity, was the means which they employed.
In proof of this, he stated the sum of what I shall relate more at
length from the book to which he referred as his authority, and which I
obtained from him the next morning. Its title is this,—_A revealed
Knowledge of some Things that will speedily be fulfilled in the World,
communicated to a Number of Christians brought together at Avignon, by
the Power of the Spirit of God from all Nations; now published by his
Divine Command, for the Good of all Men, by John Wright his Servant, and
one of the Brethren. London, printed in the Year of Christ 1794_. It is
one of those innumerable pamphlets, which, being published by inferior
booksellers, and circulating among sectarians and fanatics, never rise
into the hands of those who are called the public, and escape the notice
of all the literary journals. They who peruse them do it with a zeal
which may truly be called consuming; they are worn out like a
schoolboy's grammar; the form in which they are sent abroad, without
covers to protect them, hastens their destruction, and in a few years
they disappear for ever.
John Wright, the author of this narrative, was a working carpenter of
Leeds, in Yorkshire; a man of strong devotional feelings, who seems,
like the first Quakers, to have hungered and thirsted after religious
truth in a land where there was none to impart it. Some travelling
Swedenborgian preachers having heated his imagination, he was desirous
of removing to London, to find out the New Jerusalem Church. It was no
easy thing for a labouring man with a large family to remove to such a
distance: however, by working over hours, he saved money enough to
effect it. The New Jerusalem Church did not satisfy him; every thing was
too definite and formal, too bodily and gross for a mind of his
complexion. But it so happened that at this place of worship he entered
into talk with a converted Jew, who, when he learnt his state of mind,
and that he expected the restoration of the Jews would shortly be
accomplished, said to him, I will tell you of a man who is just like
yourself;—his name is William Bryan, and he lives in such a place.
Bryan was a journeyman copper-plate-printer. J.'s friend saw him once at
the house of one of the Brotherists; he says that before he saw him he
had heard of his resemblance to the pictures of our Lord, but that it
was so striking as truly to astonish him. These features, his full clear
and gentle eye, the beauty of his complexion, which would have been
remarkable even in a girl, and the voice, in which words flowed from him
with such unaffected and natural eloquence, as to remind the hearer of
the old metaphorical descriptions of oratory, united to produce such an
effect upon his believers as you may conceive, considering that they
were credulous, and he himself undoubtedly sincere. Wright had now found
a man after his own heart. They were both Quietists, whom, for want of a
guide, their own good feelings led astray, and their experiences, he
says, operated with each other, as face answers face in a glass.
Bryan told him of a society of prophets at Avignon, assembled there from
all parts of the world. This was in the autumn of 1788. In the January
of the ensuing year, Wright mistook strong inclination for inspiration,
and thought the Spirit directed him to join them. The same spirit very
naturally sent him to communicate this to Bryan, whom he found possessed
with the same impression. Neither of them had money to leave with their
families, or to support themselves upon the journey, and neither of them
understood a word of French. Both were determined to go—Bryan that
night, Wright the following morning—such being their implicit obedience
to the impulse within them, that the one would not wait, nor the other
hasten. Before his departure Bryan called upon a friend, who said to
him, "William, I have had it in my mind to ask if thou wert not
sometimes in want of money?" He acknowledged that it was this want which
now brought him there; and the friend gave him four guineas. If this
same friend was the person who first told him of the society at Avignon,
as may reasonably be suspected, the whole collusion will be clear. One
guinea he left with his wife, who was at that time in child-bed, gave
half-a-guinea to Wright to carry him to Dover, and set off.
Bryan's wife, not being in a state of belief, was greatly offended with
Wright, thinking that if it had not been for him her husband would not
have left her. His own wife was in a happier temper of mind, and
encouraged him to go. She had a son by a former husband who was some
little support to her, and who acquiesced in the necessity of this
journey. He seems indeed to have communicated something of his own
fervour to all about him. A young man with whom he was intimate, bought
him several things for his journey, and gave him a guinea; this same
person befriended his family during his absence. At three in the morning
he rose to depart: his son-in-law prepared breakfast, and they made the
watchman who had called him partake of it, for it was severely cold. "I
then," says Wright, "turned to my children, who were all fast asleep,
and kissed them, and interceded with the great and merciful God,
relating to him their situation, in which, for his sake, they were going
to be left without any outward dependence;—and at that time some of them
were lying on a bed of shavings that I used to bring from my shop; at
the same time imploring him that he would be pleased to bless them, and
if one friend failed, another might be raised up, as I did not know
whether I ever should see them any more; for, although our first journey
was to Avignon, we did not know it would end there."
He then went to Bryan's wife, whom his own was nursing in child-bed. The
poor woman's resentment had now given way, the quiet self-devotion of
her husband and his friend had almost persuaded her to believe also; she
burst into tears when she saw him, and saluted him, as he says, in the
fear and love of God, in which she bade him remember her to her husband.
Wright then went to the coach. Soon after they left London it began to
rain and snow, and he was on the outside. He was of a sickly habit,
always liable to take cold, and had at this time a bad cough. A doubt
came upon him, that if the Lord had sent him he would certainly have
caused it to be fine weather. Besides this, he began to fear that Bryan
would already have crost the channel, in which case, when he got to
Dover, he should have no money to pay his passage. Was it not better
therefore to turn back? But the testimony of God's power in his heart,
he says, was greater than all these thoughts.
The wind had been contrary, and detained Bryan. They crossed over to
Calais, took some food at an inn there, and got their money changed,
enquired the names of bread, wine, and sleeping, in the language of the
country, and which way they were to go, and then set off on their
journey. They travelled on foot to Paris. Wright's feet were sorely
blistered; but there was no stopping, for his "mind was bound in the
spirit to travel on." They carried their burthen by turns when both were
able, but it generally fell upon Bryan as the stronger man. Change of
climate, however, aided probably by the faith which was in him, removed
Wright's cough. Their funds just lasted to Paris; here Bryan had an
acquaintance, to whose house they went. This man had received a letter
to say who were coming, and that they were bad men, Wright in
particular, whom it advised him to send back. As you may suppose, he was
soon fully satisfied with them—he entertained them three days, and then
dismissed them, giving them five _louis d'ors_ to bear them on. The
whole journal of their way is interesting: it relates instances of that
subsiding of overwrought feelings which bodily exhaustion produces, and
which enthusiasts call desertion; of natural thoughts and fears
recurring, remembrances of home, and depression which sometimes
occasioned self-suspicion and half-repentance:—with these symptoms the
church is well acquainted, as common to the deluded, and to those who
are in truth under the influence of divine inspiration, and they prove
the sincerity of this narrative.
At length they came in sight of Avignon. They washed some linen in the
river, sat down under the bushes till it was dry, then put it on; and,
having thus made their appearance as decent as they could, proceeded to
the house of the prophets, to which, as it appears, they had brought
with them a sufficient direction. The door was opened by one of the
brethren, and by a person who could speak English, and who had arrived
there a day or two before from another part of the world. After they had
washed and shaved, they were taken across the street to another house,
and shown into a large room, where there was a table spread, nearly the
whole length; they were told that table was provided by the Lord, and
when they wanted any thing to eat or to drink they were to go there, and
they would find a servant ready to wait upon them. The brethren also
provided them with clothes and whatever else they needed, and with money
to give to the poor, saying they had orders from the Lord to do so. In a
short time their Paris friend arrived, and was admitted a member of the
society before them, that he might be their interpreter. I wish the form
of initiation had been given. They met every evening to commemorate the
death of our Lord by eating bread and drinking wine. Very often, says
Wright, when we have been sitting together, the furniture in the room
has been shaken as though it were all coming to pieces; and upon
enquiring what was the cause, we were told that it announced the
presence of angels; and when these were not heard, the brethren were
always afraid that something was amiss, and so enquired at the Word of
the Lord.
You will easily suppose that they had orders to keep the society secret
till the appointed time. I much wish that the book had stated how their
answers from the Lord were received, but on this it is silent. The drift
and charter of the society are, however, sufficiently manifested by the
Extracts which Wright has published from their Journals, and of which I
here subjoin enough to satisfy you: