LONDON DURING THE LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
"In the latter half of the century few public buildings were erected,
yet among them were two of the noblest which the city even now
possesses, namely, the Excise Office and Newgate. The end of the last
century was, however, marked by the erection of the East India House,
more decidedly Grecian than anything else which preceded it. Compared
with what it has since been, architecture then was rather at a low ebb,
for although one or two of the buildings above mentioned are noble
works, they must be taken as exceptions to the meagre, insipid, and
monotonous style which stamps this period, and which such erections as
the Adelphi and Portland-place rather confirm than contradict. With
the exception of St. Peter-le-poor, 1791, and St. Martin Outwich, 1796,
not one church was built from the commencement of the reign of George
III., till the regency."--_Penny Cyclopaedia, art. London_. This remark
applies to the city. Paddington church was built during that period,
and opened in 1791. The chief public buildings of the period, besides
those noticed, are the Mansion House, finished in 1753; Middlesex
Hospital, built 1756; Magdalen Hospital, 1769; Freemasons' Hall, 1775;
Somerset House, in its present state, 1775; and Trinity House, 1793.
Westminster bridge was finished in 1750, and Blackfriars begun ten
years afterwards; these, with London bridge, were the only roadways
over the Thames during the eighteenth century.
The extremities of London continued to extend. Grosvenor-place, Hyde
Park Corner, was reared 1767; Marylebone-garden was leased out to
builders 1778; Somers-town was commenced 1786. "Though London
increases every day," observes Horace Walpole in 1791, "and Mr.
Herschel has just discovered a new square or circus, somewhere by the
New-road, in the _via lactea_, where the cows used to feed; I believe
you will think the town cannot hold all its inhabitants, so
prodigiously the population is augmented." "There will be one street
from London to Brentford, ay, and from London to every village ten
miles round; lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish-town for
building 1,400 houses; nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much
fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop
my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there
was a mob; not at all, it was only passengers."
The Westminster Paving Act, passed in 1762, was the commencement of a
new system of improvement in the great thoroughfares. The old signs,
posts, water-spouts, and similar nuisances and obstructions, were
removed, and a pavement laid down for foot passengers.
But until the introduction of gas, in the present century, the streets
continued to be dimly lighted, and the services of the link boy at
night to be in general requisition. In 1760, names began to be placed
on people's doors, and four years subsequently, the plan of numbering
houses originated. Burlington-street was the first place in which this
convenient arrangement was made. In Lincoln's-inn-fields it was next
followed.
The history of London, during the latter half of the eighteenth
century, was emphatically that of an age of public excitements, some of
them specially pertaining to the city, while in others the whole
country shared. The removal of Mr. Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham,
from the high ministerial position he had occupied--an event which
occurred in 1757--produced very strong ebullitions of feeling in the
hearts of his numerous admirers. London largely participated in the
popular admiration of that extraordinary man, and expressed a sense of
his services by voting him the freedom of the city, which was presented
to him in an elegant gold box. The success of the British arms during
the next year, in the taking of Louisbourg, led to great rejoicings,
illuminations, and the presentation to the king of loyal congratulatory
addresses. In the year following, the wants of the army being found
very urgent, and men being unwilling to enlist, a subscription was
opened at Guildhall to meet the exigency by raising a fund, out of
which the amount of premium on enlistment might be augmented. The
taking of Quebec, in 1759, again awakened enthusiastic joy; and the
record of bonfires, ringing of bells, and kindred demonstrations, are
conspicuous in the civic annals for that year. The accession of George
III., in 1760, was marked by the full payment to the young sovereign of
all those loyal dues, which are tendered by the metropolitan
authorities and community when such an important event occurs as the
transfer of the sceptre into new hands. But the public excitement in
his favor was soon exchanged for feelings equally intense of an
opposite character. John Wilkes appeared on the stage of public life
in 1754--a man utterly destitute of virtue and principle, but possessed
of certain qualities likely to render him popular, especially an
abundance of humor, and a wonderful degree of assurance. By attacking
Lord Bute, the favorite of the king, but no favorite with the people,
he gained applause, and was set down as a patriot. In No. 45 of the
"North Briton," a newspaper which he edited, a violent attack on his
majesty appeared; indeed, it went so far as to charge him with the
utterance of a falsehood in his speech from the throne. The house of
Wilkes was searched, and his person seized for this political offence;
but sheltering himself under his parliamentary privileges, he obtained
his dismissal from custody. Upon an information being filed against
him by the attorney-general, he declined to appear, when the House of
Commons took the matter in hand, and declared Wilkes's paper to be a
false, seditious, and scandalous libel, and ordered it to be burned by
the common hangman. The sympathies of many in London being with
Wilkes, a riot ensued upon the attempt which the sheriffs made to
execute the parliamentary sentence. Wilkes's disgrace was turned into
a triumph, and the metropolis rang with the applause of this worthless
individual. Unhappily, the proceedings against him had involved
unconstitutional acts, which are sure to produce the indignation of a
free people, and to transform into a martyr a man who is really
criminal. He was next convicted of publishing an indecent poem; but
again the improper means adopted to secure his conviction placed him
before the people as a ministerial victim, and diverted attention from
his flagrant vices. But the reign of this demagogue in London,
properly speaking, did not begin till 1768, when he returned to
England, after a considerable absence, and offered himself as a
candidate for the city. Though exceedingly popular, he failed to
obtain his election, but afterwards, with full success, he appealed to
the Middlesex constituency. Then came the tug of war between the
electors and the House of Commons. The latter invalidated the return,
in which the former persisted. Riots were the consequence. One
dreadful outbreak took place in St. George's-fields, when the military
were ordered to fire, and some were killed or wounded. Three times
Wilkes was returned by the people to parliament, and three times the
parliament returned him to the people. This violation of popular
rights was deeply resented in London, and throughout the country. It
also made Wilkes's fortune; L20,000 were raised for him; all kinds of
presents were showered on the favorite; and his portrait, in every form
of art, was in universal request. In the Common Pleas, he afterwards
obtained a verdict against Lord Halifax for false imprisonment and the
illegal seizure of papers. He was subsequently elected sheriff,
alderman, and mayor of London; and finally, in 1779, sank down into
neglect much more comfortably than he deserved, as chamberlain of the
city. His history singularly illustrates how illegal proceedings
defeat their object, though it be right; and how a rash eagerness in
pursuing the ends of justice overturns them.
In connection with the Wilkes affair, there is a remarkable episode in
the municipal history of the metropolis. A most serious
misunderstanding took place between the monarch and the corporation.
The proceedings of ministers in reference to the Middlesex election,
led the civic authorities to present to the king a very strong
remonstrance, begging him to dissolve the parliament, and dismiss the
ministry. The monarch took time to consider what reply he should make
to so formidable an application, and at length informed the corporation
that he was always ready to receive the requests and listen to the
complaints of his subjects, but it gave him concern to find that any
should have been so far misled as to offer a remonstrance, the contents
of which he considered disrespectful to himself, injurious to
parliament, and irreconcilable with the principles of the constitution.
Among the aldermen, there were some who disapproved of the
remonstrance, and now strongly protested against it; but Beckford, who
then, for the second time, filled the office of lord mayor, and
strongly felt with the common council, livery, and popular party,
earnestly resisted such opposition, and encouraged the citizens to
maintain their stand against what was considered an exercise of
arbitrary power on the part of government. The mayor summoned the
livery, and delivered a speech just adapted to the assembly. Another
remonstrance was drawn up, to be presented to his majesty by the lord
mayor and sheriffs. To this the king replied, that he should have been
wanting to the public and himself, if he had not expressed his
dissatisfaction at their address. Beckford, who must have been a bold
and eloquent man, breaking through all the rules of court etiquette,
delivered an extempore speech to the sovereign, which he concluded by
saying, "Permit me, sire, to observe, that whoever has already dared,
or shall hereafter endeavor, by false insinuations and suggestions, to
alienate your majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general,
and from the city of London in particular, and to withdraw your
confidence in, and regard for, your people, is an enemy to your
majesty's person and family, a violator of public peace, and a betrayer
of our happy constitution, as it was established at the glorious and
necessary revolution." Of course, no reply was given to this impromptu
address, but it seemed to have excited no little wonder among the
courtiers present on the occasion. On the birth of the princess
Elizabeth, a short and loyal address of congratulation, avoiding all
controversial topics, was presented by the same chief magistrate; to
which his majesty answered, that so long as the citizens of London
addressed him with such professions, they might be sure of his
protection. The stormy agitation was of brief continuance. The
ripples on the stream soon subsided. With this interview the good
understanding between the king and the city appears to have been
restored, though the bold remonstrance the latter had presented
produced no practical effect. The popular lord mayor, who signalized
himself especially by his speech in the royal closet, was removed by
Divine Providence out of this life before the term of his mayoralty
expired. After his decease, the citizens, to mark their esteem for his
character, erected a monument to him in Guildhall, and engraved on it
the speech which had given him so much celebrity.
The great dispute between the mother country and America, which began
as early as 1765, could not fail to excite a deep interest in the
capital of the empire. "The sound of that mighty tempest," as it was
termed by Burke, was heard with deep concern at first by the London
merchants, as threatening to injure their commercial interests; and
when the Stamp Act, so odious from its influence in that respect, was
repealed soon after it was passed, the whole city beamed with gladness
and satisfaction. When, however, America asserted her independence,
many in London, as well as in other parts of the country, felt their
national pride so much wounded, that they encouraged the war, till
finding the conflict with so distant and powerful a colony all in vain,
they were willing to hear of peace, though at the expense of losing the
chief part of the British territory in the western hemisphere. But in
the feelings that the protracted struggle awakened, the metropolis only
shared in connection with the provinces; they must, therefore, be
passed over with this cursory notice, that we may attend to what
particularly constitutes the history of the city.
This plunges us at once amidst scenes of excitement, much more serious
and shocking than any others that have lately come under review. In
1779, the Protestant Association was formed, in consequence of some of
the Roman Catholic disabilities being removed. The society met at
Coachmakers' Hall, Noble-street, Foster-lane, under the presidency of
lord George Gordon, whose general eccentricity bordered upon madness,
and whose professed abhorrence of Popery sank into fanaticism. The
association, in May, 1780, determined to petition for a repeal of the
Act just passed, and it was resolved that the whole body should attend
in St. George's-fields, on the second of June, to accompany lord George
with the petition to the House of Commons. His lordship enforced this
motion with vehement earnestness, and said that if less than 20,000 of
his fellow-citizens attended him, he would not present the document.
At the time and place appointed, an immense multitude assembled,
computed at 50,000 or 60,000, wearing blue ribbons in their hats,
marshaled under standards displaying the words "No Popery." In three
divisions they marched six abreast, over Londonbridge, towards
Westminster, being reinforced at Charing Cross by great numbers on
horseback and in carriages. The then narrow avenues to the houses of
parliament were thronged by these crowds, and such members of the
legislature as they disliked were treated with insult, as they made
their way through the dense concourse. The petition was presented; but
when that business was finished for which the populace had been invited
by the foolish nobleman, he found it impossible to disperse them.
Harangues, so potent in convening the host, were utterly powerless when
employed for their separation. Nor did the magistracy attempt a timely
interference; but the mob was left to its own wild will, and like a
swollen torrent, which bursts its banks, it poured over the city with
destructive havoc. The chapels of the Bavarian and Sardinian embassy
were pulled down that night. On the next day, Saturday, they committed
no violence; but on Sunday they assailed a popish chapel and some
houses in Moorfields, within sight of the military, who stood by unable
to do anything, because they had no commands from the chief magistrate,
who alone could authorize them to act. All that was done was to take a
few of the rioters into custody, while the rest were left without any
attempt at their dispersion. Utterly unnerved, the lord mayor
virtually surrendered the city at this momentous crisis into the hands
of the mob. Encouraged by the impunity with which they were left to
pursue their own course, they attacked on the next day the house of Sir
George Sackville, in Leicester-square, because he had moved the
Catholic Relief Bill. On Tuesday, waxing bolder than ever, they
besieged the old prison of Newgate, where a few of their associates
were confined. Breaking the roof, and tearing away the rafters, they
descended into the building by ladders, and rescued the prisoners. Two
eye-witnesses, the poet Crabbe and Dr. Johnson, have left their
impressions of this extraordinary scene: "I stood and saw," says the
former of these writers, "about twelve women and eight men ascend from
their confinement to the open air, and conducted through the streets in
their chains. Three of them were to be hanged on Friday. You have no
conception of the frenzy of the multitude. Newgate was at this time
open to all; anyone might get in, and what was never the case before,
anyone might get out."
"On Wednesday," says Dr. Johnson, "I walked with Dr. Scott, (lord
Stowell,) to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet
glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the
sessions-house at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a
hundred, but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without
sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day."
Besides Newgate, lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury-square was pulled
down, and his valuable library burned. The Fleet, King's Bench, the
Marshalsea, Wood-street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, were all
opened, and such a jail delivery effected as the citizens had never
witnessed before. A stop was put to business on the Wednesday; shops
were closed; pieces of blue, the symbol of Protestant truth and zeal,
were required to be hung out of the windows, and "No Popery" chalked on
the doors. Before night, even the Bank was assailed, but not without a
dreadful and destructive repulse from the military who garrisoned it,
and were ordered to act. It is stated that the king, alarmed at the
danger of his capital, and indignant at the inaction of the
magistrates, took upon himself to command the services of the military
for putting down the riot. While thirty fires were blazing in the
streets, and the inhabitants passed a sleepless night, full of anguish,
a large body of soldiers was engaged in the terrible, though necessary
work of suppressing the riot by force. This was accomplished at the
expense of not less than five hundred lives. By Friday, quietude was
restored. Lord George Gordon was apprehended, but was acquitted upon
trial, his conduct not coming within the limits of the statute of
treason. Sixty of the deluded creatures, who at first were excited by
his mischievous agitation however, had to pay the extreme penalty of
the law. A happy contrast to this brutal kind of excitement has been
recently (1850-51) displayed in the calm, deep, and, for the most part,
intelligent resistance made to a far different measure--the papal
aggression, in the creation of territorial bishoprics; one really
calculated to excite far greater opposition. The years 1780 and 1850,
stand out at the extremes of a period which has witnessed, in London
and elsewhere, a change in public thought and habit of the most
gratifying kind; and to what can this be so fairly ascribed, under the
providence and blessing of God, as to the increase of instruction,
especially religious instruction, through the medium of Sabbath and
other schools, together with the distribution of the Bible and tracts,
as well as other meliorating agencies operating on society?
Eight years after the anti-popery riots, another excitement, of a
different kind, rolled its waves over the public mind in London; not,
indeed, confined to the metropolis, but concentrating its force there,
as the scene of the occurrence which produced it. This was the trial
of Warren Hastings, for his alleged mal-administration of Indian
affairs. But the great length to which it was extended wearied out the
public patience, and ere the forensic business came to its close the
court was forsaken, and the numerous London circles, at first thrown
into a storm of feeling by the occurrence, resumed their former
quietude, and almost forgot the whole matter.
The same year that Hastings' trial commenced, the public sympathy and
sorrow were aroused in London, and throughout the nation, by the
melancholy mental illness of George III., but the next year his sudden
recovery created universal joy, which was demonstrated in the
metropolis, after the usual fashion.
Then loyalty, with all his lamps
New trimmed, a gallant show,
Chasing the darkness and the damps,
Set London in a glow.
It was a scene, in every part,
Like those in fable feigned,
And seemed by some magician's hand
Created and sustained.
On the 23d of April, a general thanksgiving was held for the king's
recovery, and on that account his majesty, accompanied by the royal
family, went in procession to attend public worship in St. Paul's
Cathedral; thus reminding us of the words of the Babylonish monarch,
"Mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and
I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an
everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation."
At the close of the eighteenth century, the proceedings of
revolutionary France sent a fresh stream of excitement through the
public mind of England. On one side or the other, in sympathy with or
in aversion to the measures adopted on the opposite side of the
channel, most politicians, high and low, eagerly ranged themselves.
The efforts of Mr. Pitt to prevent anything like the enactment here of
what our neighbours were doing, were condemned or applauded by the two
parties according to the principles they espoused. "The trials of
Hardy, Tooke, Thelwall, and others," says a minister, then a student
near the metropolis, "which took place not long after my entrance on
college life, agitated London to an extent which I have never seen
equaled, though my life has fallen on times and events of the most
prodigious and portentous character."--_Autobiography of the Rev. W.
Walford_. Clubs were formed of a more than questionable description,
of which we remember to have received an illustrative anecdote from a
citizen of London, now gray-headed, but then in the flower of his
youth. Invited by a person of about his own age to attend a meeting,
held in some obscure street, he was surprised on entrance to find a
number of men, ranged on either side a room, sitting beside long
tables, with one at the upper end, where sat the president for the
evening. Several foaming tankards were brought in, when the president
calling on the company to rise, took up one of the vessels, and
striking off with his hand the foam that crested the porter, gave as a
toast, "So let all ---- perish." The blank was left to be filled up as
each drinker pleased. The avowed dislike to kings, entertained by the
boon companions there assembled, suggested to the visitor the word
intended for insertion, and he gladly left the place, not a little
alarmed lest he should be suspected of sympathy in treasonable designs.
Following political excitement came a monetary crisis, which struck a
panic through the body of London merchants; for, in 1797, the Bank of
England suspended its cash payments. But after all these storms, which
severely tested its strength, the vessel of the state, under the
blessing of the Almighty, righted itself, and scenes of political calm
again smiled, and tides of commercial prosperity flowed upon old London.
In passing on to notice the general state of society in the metropolis
during the last half of the eighteenth century, it is painful to notice
the continuance of some of the revolting features which mark an earlier
age. The old-fashioned burglaries, with the robberies and rogueries of
the highway, were still perpetrated. A walk out of London after dark
was by no means safe; and therefore, at the end of a bill of
entertainment at Bellsize House, in the Hampstead-road, St.
John's-wood, there was this postscript--"For the security of the
guests, there are twelve stout fellows, completely armed, to patrol
between London and Bellsize, to prevent the insults of highwaymen and
footpads who infest the road." To cross Hounslow-heath or
Finchley-common after sunset was a daring enterprise; nor did travelers
venture on it without being armed, and even ball-proof carriages were
used by some. At Kensington and other places in the vicinity of
London, it was customary on Sunday evenings to ring a bell at
intervals, to summon those who were returning to town to form
themselves into a band, affording mutual protection, as they wended
their way homewards. Town itself did not afford security; for George
IV. and the Duke of York, when very young men, were stopped one night
in a hackney-coach and robbed on Hay-hill, Berkeley-square. The state
of the police, as these facts indicate, was most inefficient; but when
the law seized on its transgressors, it was merciless in the penalty
inflicted. Long trains of prisoners, chained together, might be seen
marching through the streets on the way to jail, where the treatment
they received was cruel in the extreme, and much more calculated to
harden than to correct. The number of executions almost exceeds
belief; and every approach to town exhibited a gibbet, with some
miserable creature hanging in chains. These public spectacles missed
their professed object, and the frequent executions did anything but
check the commission of crime. The lowest classes constantly assembled
to witness such spectacles, regarded them generally as mere matters of
amusement, or as affording opportunities for the indulgence of their
vices.
Some startling revelations of the state of things among London
tradesmen, as well as the lowest orders, were made before a select
committee of the House of Commons in 1835, relative to the period fifty
years earlier. "The conduct of tradesmen," said one of the witnesses,
"was exceedingly gross as compared with that of the same class at the
present time. Decency was a very different thing from what it is now;
their manners were such as scarcely to be credited. I made inquiries a
few years ago, and found that between Temple-bar and Fleet-market,
there were many houses in each of which there were more books than all
the tradesmen's houses in the streets contained when I was a youth."
He mentions, also, the open departure of thieves from certain
public-houses, wishing one another success--"In Gray's-inn-lane," he
remarks, "was the Blue Lion, commonly called the Blue Cat. I have seen
the landlord of this place come into the room with a large lump of
silver in his hand, which he had melted for the thieves, and pay them
for it. There was no disguise about it. It was done openly." "At the
time I am speaking of, there were scarcely any houses on the eastern
side of Tottenham-court-road; there, and in the long fields, were
several large ponds; the amusement here was duck-hunting and
badger-baiting; they would throw a cat into the water, and set dogs at
her; great cruelty was constantly practised, and the most abominable
scenes used to take place. It is almost impossible for any person to
believe the atrocities of low life at that time, which were not, as
now, confined to the worst paid and most ignorant of the populace."
Turning to look for a moment at the opposite extreme of society, it is
delightful to mark the improvement which had there taken place. While
drawing-rooms and levees were held as before, though less frequent, the
former being confined to once a week; while equipages of similar
fashion as formerly continued to roll through the parks, Piccadilly,
and the Mall; while the costumes and habits of courtiers exhibited no
great variation; while theatres, and other places of amusement, were
frequented by the fashionables; while gossiping calls in the morning,
and gay parties at night, were the common and every-day incidents of
West-end life--a very obvious improvement arose in the morals and
general tone of feeling of people about court, in consequence of the
exemplary and virtuous character of George III. and Queen Caroline.
Fond of quiet and domestic repose, retiring into the bosom of their
family, surrounded by a few favorite dependents, encouraging a taste
for reading and music, and ever frowning upon vice in all its forms,
they exerted a powerful influence upon those around them, and turned
the palace into a completely different abode from what it had been in
the time of the earlier Georges. Religion, too, if not in its earnest
spirituality, yet in its decorous observances and its moral bearings,
was maintained and promoted, both by royal precept and example. The
monarch and his family were accustomed to attend regularly upon the
services in the chapel attached to St. James's Palace.
The revival of religion in London, to which we adverted in a former
chapter, produced permanent results. During the last half of the
century, Christian godliness continued to advance. Whitefield's
labors, as often as he visited the metropolis, produced a deep
impression on the multitudes who, in chapels or the open air, were
eager to hear him. Whitefield died in America, but a monument is
erected to his memory in Tottenham-court Chapel, the walls of which
often echoed with his fervid oratory. Wesley's exertions were
prolonged till the year 1792. After a life of most energetic effort in
the cause of Christ, this remarkable man expired at his house in
London, 1791, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
The countess of Huntingdon, Whitefield's early friend, exerted in
London a powerful religious influence, "scattering the odors of the
Saviour's name among mitres and coronets, and bearing a faithful
testimony to her Divine Master in the presence of royalty itself." She
has left behind her in the metropolis two remarkable proofs of her
religious liberality and zeal, in Zion and Spafields Chapels, both of
which she was the means of transforming out of places of amusement into
houses for the service and praise of God.
The labors of Mr. Romaine, the minister of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe
and St. Anne, Blackfriars, claim special notice. Previous to his
induction to those parishes, he had preached at St. Dunstan's and St.
George's, Hanover-square, exciting great attention, and, by the
benediction of God, enjoying great success. The parishioners in the
latter church were sometimes incommoded by the vast concourse who came
to hear this evangelical clergyman. On one occasion, the Earl of
Northampton rebuked them for complaining of the inconvenience,
observing that they bore with patience the crowded ball-room or
play-house. "If," he said, "the power to attract be imputed as matter
of admiration to Garrick, why should it be urged as a crime against
Romaine? Shall excellence be considered exceptionable only in Divine
things?" Mr. Romaine was strongly opposed by some who disapproved of
his sentiments, and was soon turned out of St. George's Church; after
which the countess of Huntingdon made him her chaplain for awhile, in
which office he preached in her drawing-room to the nobility, in her
kitchen to the poor. Her house, where these services were performed,
was in Park-street. Settled, at length, as the rector of the two
churches above-named, this eminent servant of Christ--of whom it has
been said that he was a diamond, rough often, but very pointed, and the
more he was broken by years the more he appeared to shine--pursued
uninterruptedly his holy and edifying ministrations till the time of
his death in 1795. He was interred in St. Andrew's Church, where a
monument, not devoid of artistic beauty, and executed by the elder
Bacon, a well-known sculptor of that day, distinguishes the place of
his remains. In 1780, there came to minister in the parish of St. Mary
Woolnoth another individual, whose praise is in all the churches. This
was John Newton, the friend of the poet Cowper. He lies buried in the
edifice where he loved to proclaim the glorious Gospel of the blessed
God; and on the tablet raised as a memorial of his worth is inscribed
the following succinct account of his eventful life and of his
character, so illustrative of Divine grace, in words written by
himself: "John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant
of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour,
Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach
the faith he had long labored to destroy."
Rowland Hill, originally a clergyman of the establishment, and never
fully sympathizing with any dissenting denomination, though confessing
to many clerical irregularities, occupies a distinguished place among
the men who devoted themselves to the faithful preaching of the Gospel
in the metropolis. Surrey Chapel, which has proved a school in which
many spirits have been trained for the celestial world, was erected by
him in Blackfriars-road, 1782, and there till his death he continued to
preach.
Two very celebrated prelates filled the see of London during this
eventful period in the history of religion: Dr. Lowth, the elegant
scholar and able commentator, who was translated to London in 1777; and
Dr. Porteus, who succeeded him on his death in 1786, and though
inferior in talents and learning, earned for himself a considerable
literary reputation as a Christian divine, and distinguished his
episcopate, which lasted till 1808, by his pious diligence and catholic
charity.
Science, literature, and art, were promoted in London during the period
before us, by the establishment of several well-known institutions.
The British Museum was formed in 1753, in consequence of the will of
Sir Hans Sloane, who bequeathed his large collection of curiosities to
government for L20,000, which was L30,000 less than they cost him. An
act of parliament was passed for their purchase, and Montague House,
Bloomsbury, was taken and fitted up for the reception of Sloane's
treasures, and other collections, scientific and literary, upon which
great sums of money were expended. The Royal Academy, for the
encouragement and improvement of British artists and sculptors, was
constituted in 1768, and the first public exhibition was made at
Somerset House in 1780. The Royal Institution in Albemarle-street was
opened in 1799. The College of Surgeons was incorporated in 1800.
Other institutions, sacred to humanity and benevolence, and fraught
with great benefit to multitudes of our suffering race, were originated
within the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. In 1755,
Middlesex Hospital was founded, the generous exertions which led to it
having begun some years earlier. Three years later, the Magdalen
Hospital, for the reformation and relief of penitent females, was
opened in Prescott-street, Goodman-fields, and afterwards transferred
to an appropriate building, erected for the purpose in St.
George's-fields, in 1709. The foundation-stone of the Lying-in
Hospital, on the Surrey side of Westminster-bridge, was laid in 1765;
and a similar institution was begun in the City-road in 1770. The
Royal Humane Society, for the recovery of persons from drowning,
commenced in 1774. The Royal Literary Fund, for the relief of poor
authors, was instituted in 1790.
The religious societies of London, whose character adorns the English
capital, eclipsing its artistic and commercial splendour, chiefly
belong to the present century. The London Missionary Society, however,
for preaching the Gospel of Christ among the heathen, began as early as
1795. The declaration of the Society was signed at the Castle and
Falcon, Aldersgate-street. In the year 1709 was formed, also, the
institution by which the present volume is issued--the Religious Tract
Society. Commencing with small beginnings, it has, through the
prospering hand of God upon its labors, been privileged to proclaim the
unsearchable riches of Christ in one hundred and ten languages and
dialects; and, in the course of half a century, to circulate its varied
messengers of mercy to the vast amount of five hundred millions of
copies.
Since the conclusion of the eighteenth century, London has undergone an
unprecedented change, upon which the limits of this volume will not
allow us to touch. The city, which is still swelling every year, in a
degree which, if Horace, Walpole were living, would fill him with
greater surprise than ever, is really new London. Few of the principal
streets exhibit the appearance they did fifty years ago, and the
architectural alteration is but a type of the social one. The superior
sanitary arrangements, the more efficient police, the better education
of most classes of society, the augmented provision for religious
instruction and worship, the more decidedly evangelical tone of
preaching in the metropolitan pulpits, and the increase of real piety
amongst the population, must strike everyone, on even a superficial
comparison of the past and present; and when we consider the great
change wrought in half a century, it inspires encouragement in relation
to the future. The impulse which things have received of late has been
so mighty, that there is no calculating the acceleration of their
future progress. Thus the remembrance of the past yields advantage,
and we pluck hopes, "like beautiful wild flowers from the ruined tombs
that border the highways of antiquity, to make a garland for the living
forehead."--_Coleridge_. On taking a longer reach of comparison, an
amount of wonder is inspired not to be adequately expressed. Had some
sage in the Roman senate, two thousand years ago, proclaimed that the
day would come, when an obscure town, situated on the Thames, a river
scarcely known then to the Latin geographer, would vie with the city in
which they were assembled on the Tiber, nay, eclipse it, and wax in
glory while the other waned, that prediction would have strangely
crossed their pride, and would have been indignantly pronounced
incredible. Yet that day has come. The British town, then a mere
inclosure, containing a few huts, has swelled into a city teeming with
a population of above two millions, crowded with public buildings and
costly habitations, filled with commerce, wealth, and luxury, the
mirror of modern civilization, the metropolis of a mighty empire, and
the wonder of the world--while the Roman city, then the mightiest and
most splendid on the face of the earth, and the mistress of the globe,
so far as its regions were discovered, retains no traces of her glory,
and is chiefly interesting on account of her ancient name and
associations.
Happily the genius of civilization in the two cities is completely
diverse. In the early days of the Roman kingdom and republic, the
people fought in self-defence; in later times, from a pure thirst for
glory and dominion. In the best periods of its history, the virtues of
the citizens were of the martial cast, and found a fostering influence
in all the institutions of the state. To Rome, which then cradled a
warlike people, London presents a contrast on which we look with
satisfaction. London is the type of commercial civilization. The
merchant, not the soldier, is most prominent and influential. The
inhabitants of the English metropolis and country, it may be safely
asserted, are looking not to armies as sources of greatness, and
objects for gratulation, but to the busy thousands who are deepening
and spreading the resources of national wealth by their commercial and
manufacturing industry. The spirit of mercantile enterprise is as
strongly stamped upon the English character, in their metropolis of the
nineteenth century, as the spirit of war was stamped upon the character
of the Romans in their metropolis before the Christian era. Rome had
her trade as well as her army--her Ostia, whither her vessels brought
for her use the luxuries of the East; but it was not there, but to the
Campus Martius, where their legions performed their evolutions, that
the stranger would have been taken to see the greatness of the
republic. So the metropolis of the British empire is the rendezvous of
a great military establishment, as well as an emporium of merchandise;
but it is to the scenes on the borders of the Thames, to her spacious
docks, her crowded shipping, her stores and warehouses, with all the
accompaniments of busy commerce, presenting a spectacle which perfectly
overpowers the mind with wonder--it is to those scenes that we should
take the stranger, to impress him with an idea of the greatness of our
chief city. The Hyde Park review, with cuirasses and swords glittering
in the sun, and martial music floating through the air, affords a
brilliant holiday entertainment, but all must feel that the English
spirit of the nineteenth century is not there expressed. It is very
true that the love of war has not lost its hold entirely on the public
mind; that there are many who still pant for the conflict, and for the
honors and prizes which successful warfare brings; but, we repeat it,
the spirit of the nineteenth century is not there expressed, but it
finds its exponent in the earnest activity which is ever witnessed
round the neighborhood of London-bridge and the Exchange. The time is
coming--is already come, when, as most intelligent men turn over the
pages of the world's history, they award the palm of the noblest
civilization to London, a city full of merchants and artisans, rather
than to Rome, a city full of soldiers, flushed with the pride of
victory, and drunk with the blood of the slain.
In all that relates to the state of society, the genius of the people,
public opinion, general intelligence, taste, feeling, character--the
comparison is decidedly in favor of the English capital. This is to be
ascribed to many causes--to the intermingling of races, an insular
position, political revolutions, enlarged experience, providential
discoveries, and the creation of sentiments and opinions during
centuries of mental activity; but, above all, it is to be ascribed to
Christianity, which has long had a strong hold upon the hearts of
multitudes, and which has indirectly exercised a most beneficial reflex
influence upon the character of others, who have little regard for its
doctrinal principles. The richest forms of modern civilization in
London are founded on our religion. The elevation of woman to her
proper rank, the improved character of the judicial code, the
extinction of domestic slavery, the elevation of serfs of the soil to
freemen having an estate in their own labor, the value set on life, the
philanthropic institutions which abound--are all the results of
evangelical light and principle. Let any one walk through the streets
of London, and compare the aspect of things with what was exhibited to
the man who walked through the streets of ancient Rome--and with all
the vice and misery which exist in the former, there are found elements
of social welfare, the acknowledged creation of Christian morals, at
work, unknown in the latter. Indications of intelligence, peace,
freedom, and charity, are found here, which were wanting there. The
power and permanence of London must depend upon her morality and
religion.
We look with intense interest to the young men of London. With pain,
such as we cannot describe, we regard the gay, the dissolute, the
intemperate--those who drown the higher faculties of the soul in
sensual indulgence, who degrade their mental, moral, and spiritual
nature, and, forgetting their relationship to angels, sink to the level
of the brutes that perish. With pleasure, however, equally
indescribable, we turn to the steady, the sober, the virtuous, the
enlightened--those who labor after mental improvement, and especially
those who seek spiritual excellence, who ask and practically answer the
question, "While I am attending to the intellectual culture of the
mind, ought I not to prepare for that eternity to which I am hastening,
where moral and spiritual character will be all in all?" and who,
repairing to the word of God, the source of all religious wisdom, have
become the subjects of a discipline, which adorns the intellect with
the beauties of sanctity, and prepares the soul for the vision and
worship of heaven. Of such, London may well say with the mother of the
Gracchi, but in a far more important sense, "These are my jewels."
Let it be the endeavor, as it is the duty of London citizens, to aid
all wise schemes for its physical and intellectual amelioration, but
especially such as relate to morals and religion. With a clear eye, a
loving heart, a steady hand, and a determined will, each must apply
himself to pulling down the evil, and building up the good. The moral
health of a city should be the care of all its members. The most
precious object amidst the multitude of precious things in the chief
city of England is the citizen himself. Man, out of whose intellect,
energy, and power, all the rest has grown--man, in whose capacities are
found the germs of a greatness, the cultivation of which will a
thousand times repay the toil it involves. The noblest of enterprises,
be it remembered, is to be found, not in commercial speculation, or
political reform, or even literary and scientific knowledge, but in the
promotion of Christ's holy and saving religion, and in the recovery and
purification of the soul, through faith in him, and its preparation for
other realms of being in the infinite Hereafter. The enduring
magnificence of such labor and its results exceeds all the doings of
earthly ambition, even as the mighty Alps and Andes surpass the houses
of ice and snow which children in their sports build up, and which are
melting away before that sun in whose rays they glitter.
THE END.
BOOKS FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
200 Mulberry-street, New York.
LONDON IN MODERN TIMES;
Or, Sketches of the English Metropolis during the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries. 18mo., pp. 222.
THE RODEN FAMILY;
Or, the Sad End of Bad Ways. Reminiscences of the West India Islands.
Second Series, No. II. Three Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 159.
LEARNING TO FEEL.
Illustrated. Two volumes, 18mo., pp. 298.
LEARNING TO ACT.
Three Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 144.
ROSA, THE WORK GIRL.
By the Author of "The Irish Dove." Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 138.
THE FIERY FURNACE;
Or, the Story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. By a Sunday-School
Teacher. Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 64.
ELIZABETH BALES:
A Pattern for Sunday-School Teachers and Tract Distributers. By J. A.
JAMES. 18mo., pp. 84.
SOCIAL PROGRESS;
Or, Business and Pleasure. By the Author of "Nature's Wonders,"
"Village Science," etc. Sixteen Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 269.
MINES AND MINING.
18mo., pp. 212.
BLOOMING HOPES AND WITHERED JOYS.
By Rev. J. T. BARR, Author of "Recollections of a Minister,"
"Merchant's Daughter," etc. Five Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 286.
NINEVEH AND THE RIVER TIGRIS.
Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 210.
MOUNTAINS OF THE PENTATEUCH.
Conversations on the Mountains of the Pentateuch, and the Scenes and
Circumstances connected with them in Holy Writ. 18mo., pp. 202.
MEMOIR OF ELIZA M. BARKER.
By A. C. ROSE. Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 108.
IDLE DICK AND THE POOR WATCHMAKER.
Originally written in French, by Rev. CESAR MALAN, of Geneva. With
Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 82.
MY GRANDFATHER GREGORY.
With Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 118.
LITTLE WATER-CRESS SELLERS.
18mo., pp. 80.
SUNDAY AMONG THE PURITANS;
Or, the First Twenty Sabbaths of the Pilgrims of New England. By DR.
W. A. ALCOTT. 18mo., pp. 95.
IRISH STORIES FOR THOUGHTFUL READERS.
Five Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 285.
UNCLE WILLIAM AND HIS NEPHEWS.
Nine Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 64.