But that which possessed the most decided merit was the church music

of this period. It was not that which one would have expected in the

reign of Charles II., but we must do him the justice to say that he

seems to have encouraged greatly the musical services of the Church.

He united all the distinguished composers and performers, to assist in

restoring this service to its former glory; and, amongst the survivors

of his father's reign, reappeared Dr. Child, Dr. Christopher Gibbons,

Dr. Rogers, Dr. Wilson, Henry Lawes, Milton's friend, Byrne, Lowe, and

Cook, commonly called Captain Cook, from his having borne a commission

in the Royalist army. Cook was made Master of the Children of the

Choir, in the Royal Chapel; Child, Gibbons, and Lowe, Organists; Lawes,

Clerk of the Cheque; Rogers, Organist at Eton; Byrne, Organist at St.

Paul's; and Wilson was attached to the service in Westminster Abbey.

By these means the church musical service was soon raised to a high

pitch of excellence; a spirit was diffused through the whole kingdom

from the king's chapel, and the cathedral services became as fine

as ever. Captain Cook trained his boy-choristers to admiration, and

out of them arose some of the best composers of sacred music that

England possesses. Amongst them are Pelham Humphrey, Michael Wise,

John Blow, and, superior to them all, Henry Purcell. Some of these

produced anthems whilst mere striplings, which still remain in use.

Amongst these Pelham Humphrey greatly distinguished himself; and was,

therefore, sent by Charles to Paris, to study under the famous Lulli,

and then made gentleman of his chapel. At the death of Cook, his

master, he succeeded to his office. Michael Wise became for a time,

Organist of Salisbury Cathedral, but returned to the Royal Chapel as

one of the gentlemen. His anthems are still greatly admired. Blow

succeeded Humphrey as Master of the Children, and was Organist of

Westminster Abbey. He published various compositions, both sacred and

secular, some of which are yet in much esteem, while others have fallen

into neglect.

But the musical master of the age was Henry Purcell (_b._ 1658; _d._

1695), organist of Westminster Abbey, and afterwards of the king's

chapel. His sacred music, especially his "Te Deum" and "Jubilate,"

has never been surpassed. Dr. Burney declared him superior to all

the foreign composers of the day--Carissimi, Stradella, Scarlatti,

Keiser, Lulli, and Rameau; but others do not except any composers of

any previous age. In his secular music he again surpassed himself. His

music of the drama is voluminous. He set the songs in Nahum Tate's

"Dido;" the music for Lee's "Theodosius;" that for the "Tempest,"

as altered by Dryden, which is still heard with delight; that for

the "Prophetess," altered by Dryden and Betterton, from Beaumont

and Fletcher; the songs of Dryden's "King Arthur," in which are the

lovely air "Fairest Isle," the charming duet "Two Daughters of this

Aged Stream are We," and the inimitable frost-scene. He furnished the

music for Howard's and Dryden's "Indian Queen." In Dryden's altered

"Boadicea," the duet and chorus "To Arms," and the air "Britons, strike

home," are still heard with acclamations on all occasions of patriotic

excitement. Besides these he wrote airs, overtures, and set tunes

for numerous other dramas, as Dryden's and Lee's "Timon of Athens,"

"Œdipus," "The Fairy Queen," altered from the "Midsummer Night's

Dream," and Dryden's "Tyrannic Love." He wrote many odes, glees,

catches, rounds, many single songs and duets, twelve sonatas for two

violins and a bass, etc. The air of "Lillibullero" is attributed to

him. His widow published many of these after his death, in two folio

volumes called "Orpheus Britannicus." The music of Purcell is national

property, and, in spite of more recent genius, will long continue to be

heard with rapture.

Notwithstanding Charles II.'s restoration of church music, he

endeavoured to degrade it by the introduction of French customs, and

at one time introduced a band of twenty-four fiddlers into his chapel,

in imitation of Louis XIV. Tom D'Urfey ridiculed it in the song,

"Four-and-twenty Fiddlers all in a Row;" and Evelyn describes his

disgust at witnessing this strange sight, "more fit for a tavern or

playhouse than a church." The public feeling, indeed, soon caused the

king to withdraw the Gallic innovation.

Amongst the musical productions of this time we may note Blow's

"Amphion Anglicus," Roger North's "Memoir of Music," still in

manuscript; Sir Francis North's "Philosophical Essay on Music," Lord

Brouncker's translation of Descartes' "Musicæ Compendium." Marsh,

Archbishop of Armagh, was the first to treat acoustics methodically,

in a paper in the "Philosophical Transactions." Dr. Wallis, one of the

founders of the Royal Society, and an eminent mathematician, wrote much

in the "Philosophical Transactions" on musical subjects, and published

an edition of "Ptolemy's Harmonies." Thomas Mace, John Birchensha,

Christopher Simpson, and John Playford are musical authors of that age.

The furniture of this period had the general characteristics of the

last age. Cane backs and seats began to be used in chairs, and the

beautiful marqueterie work adorned tables, cabinets, clock-cases,

wardrobes, and other rich pieces of furniture. The Louis Quatorze

style, with its rich sweeps and abundance of carving and gilding,

began to appear in England, but did not attain to general use till a

later period. The floors began to be covered with gay-coloured mats

and carpets, but the richest pieces of Turkey carpet were still more

frequently used for table-covers. Oil-cloth was now introduced from

Germany, and manufactured in London. The Gobelins tapestry manufactory

was established in France in 1677, and towards the end of this period

the walls of the great mansions of England were covered with the

products of its looms.

The costume of gentlemen underwent rapid and various metamorphoses in

Charles II.'s time. From the rich and elegant costume of Charles I. it

degenerated first into one with an exceedingly short doublet, without

any under waistcoat, loose petticoat breeches, with long drooping lace

ruffles at the knee. This costume, however, still retained much of the

Vandyke style. It had the high-crowned hat and plume of feathers, the

falling lace collar, and the natural hair. But soon came the monstrous

peruke, or periwig, as the word was corrupted to in England, copied

from the fashion of the Court of Louis XIV., which superseded the

natural hair in both men and women, the women appearing to have adopted

it first. Then followed the square, long coat, and huge jack-boots,

and cocked hat, which became the general dress of the next century.

False hair had been worn by both sexes in the times of Elizabeth and

James I., but never to the same preposterous extent as now. Charles

II., though adopting the periwig fashion himself, and thus confirming

it, yet refused to allow the clergy to use it. He wrote a letter to the

University of Cambridge, ordering the clergy neither to wear periwigs,

nor smoke tobacco, nor read their sermons; and, on a fellow of Clare

Hall venturing to preach before him in a wig and holland sleeves, he

ordered the statutes concerning decency of apparel to be put in force

against him and similar offenders.

The high-crowned hat or broad-leaved sombrero of Spain not harmonising

well with the periwig, the crown was suddenly lowered, the brim turned

up, and a drooping feather thrown backwards over it. The petticoat

breeches came in as early as 1658; and, in the following year, Randal

Holmes thus describes a gentleman's dress:--"A short-waisted doublet

and petticoat breeches, the lining being lower than the breeches, is

tied above the knees; the breeches are ornamented with ribands up to

the pocket, and half their breadth upon the thigh. The waistband is

set round with ribands, and the shirt hanging out over them." These

petticoat breeches soon grew into actual skirts, and the doublet or

jacket, which at the beginning of the reign scarcely came below the

breast, towards the end of it was so elongated that it was an actual

coat, and had buttons and buttonholes all down the front.

Along with a particular costume described by Evelyn, which Charles

adopted in 1666, consisting of a long close vest of black cloth or

velvet pinked with white satin; a loose surcoat over it of an Oriental

character, and instead of shoes and stockings, buskins or brodequins;

he also wore small buckles instead of shoestrings. Charles was so proud

of this dress that he vowed he would never wear any other; but it did

not last long, and buckles did not become the general fashion till the

reign of Queen Anne.

Long and short kersey stockings were an article of export in this

period, as well as stockings of leather, silk, or woollen, and worsted

for men and children. Socks also occur under the name of "the lower end

of stockings." Amongst the imports were hose of crewel, called Mantua

hose, and stockings of wadmal. Neckcloths or cravats of Brussels and

Flanders lace were worn towards the end of the "Merry Monarch's" reign,

and tied in a knot under the chin, the ends hanging down square.

The costume of Knights of the Garter assumed its present shape, the cap

of estate, with its ostrich and heron plume, and the broad blue ribbon

worn over the left shoulder and brought under the right arm, where

the jewel or lesser George hangs, being introduced just before the

publication of Ashmole's "History of the Order." The baron's coronet

dates from this reign.

The costume of James II.'s reign varied little from that of Charles.

The hats indeed assumed various cocks, according to the fancy of some

leader or party. One cock was called the Monmouth cock.

The ladies in the voluptuous reign of Charles II. abandoned the

straight-laced dresses with the straight-laced manners of their Puritan

predecessors. Bare bosoms and bare arms to the elbows were displayed,

and the hair, confined only by a single bandeau of pearls, or adorned

by a single rose, fell in graceful profusion upon their snowy necks.

The rounded arm reclined on the rich satin petticoat; whilst the gown

of the same rich material extended its voluminous train behind. Lely's

portraits are not to be regarded as representing the strict costume of

the age, but they give us its spirit--a studied negligence, an elegant

_déshabillé_. The starched ruff, the steeple-crowned hat, the rigid

stomacher, and the stately farthingale were, however, long retained by

less fashionable dames of the country; and when the ruff was discarded,

a rich lace tippet veiled the breast. The women of ordinary rank also

still retained much of this costume, with the hood and tippet.

In their riding habits the ladies imitated the costume of the men as

nearly as they could. Evelyn says that he saw the queen in September,

1666, going to take the air "in her cavalier riding-habit, hat, and

feathers, and horseman's coat." This seems to be a very rational dress

for the occasion, yet the sight did not please Mr. Pepys, for he

remarks about the same time--"Walking in the galleries at Whitehall,

I find the ladies of honour dressed in their riding garbs, with coats

and doublets, with deep skirts--just for all the world like men, and

buttoned in their doublets up to the breast, with periwigs and with

hats. So that only for a long petticoat dragging under their men's

coats, nobody could take them for women in any point whatever, which

was an odd sight, and a sight that did not please me."

Yet Mrs. Stuart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, _did_ please

him:--"But, above all, Mrs. Stuart, in her dress, with her hat cocked

and a rich plume, with her sweet eye, and little Roman nose, and

excellent taille, is now the greatest beauty I ever saw, I think, in my

life."

The military costume of the period remained much the same as during

the civil wars and Commonwealth; but vambraces were abandoned by the

arquebusiers, and defensive armour was gradually falling into disuse.

The helmet and corset, or cuirass, or the gorget alone, worn over a

buff coat, formed all the defence of steel worn by the officers at this

period. "The arms, offensive and defensive," says the statute of the

13th and 14th of Charles II., "are to be as follows:--The defensive

armour of the Cavalry to consist of a back, breast, and pot, and the

breast and pot to be pistol-proof. The offensive arms a sword, and case

of pistols, the barrels whereof are not to be under fourteen inches

in length. For the Foot, a musketeer is ordered to have a musket, the

barrel not under three feet in length; a collar of bandeliers, with a

sword. Pikemen to be armed with a pike of ash, sixteen feet long, with

a back, breast, head-piece, and sword."

[Illustration: COSTUMES OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.]

The familiar names of several of the regiments of the British army

commence from Charles II.'s reign. The Life Guards were raised in

1661--composed and treated, however, like the Gardes du Corps of the

French,--being principally gentlemen of families of distinction, who

themselves, or their fathers, had fought in the Civil War. In the same

year the Blues were embodied, and called the Oxford Blues, from their

first commander, Aubrey, Earl of Oxford. The Coldstream Guards date

their formation from 1660, and two regiments were added to the one

raised about ten years previously by General Monk at Coldstream, on the

borders of Scotland. To these were added the 1st Royal Scots, brought

over from France at the Restoration; the 2nd, or Queen's, raised in

1661; the 3rd, or Old Buffs, so named from their accoutrements being

composed of buffalo leather, embodied in 1665; the Scottish Fusiliers,

afterwards the 21st, raised in 1678, and so called from their carrying

the fusil, invented in France in 1630--being a firelock lighter than

the musket, but about the same length; and the 4th, or King's Own,

raised in 1680.

During this reign the bayonet--so called from Bayonne, where it was

invented--was sometimes three-edged, sometimes flat, with a wooden hilt

like a dagger, and was screwed or merely stuck into the muzzle of the

gun. The bayonet superseded the rapier attached to the musket-rest in

James's reign. Even then the bayonet was a far inferior weapon to what

it subsequently became, as it had to be removed to fire and charge

again. The Grenadiers were introduced in 1678, and were so called

from being practised to fling hand grenades, each man having a pouch

full. To these James added, in 1685, the 1st, or King's regiment of

Dragoon Guards, the 2nd, or Queen's Dragoon Guards, and the 5th and 7th

regiments, called the Royal Fusiliers; and in 1688, the year of the

Revolution, the 23rd, or Welsh Fusiliers, were raised.

We need not repeat what has been so frequently stated in these pages

about the profligacy of the Court and aristocracy in Charles II.'s

reign, which soon polluted the spirit of the greater part of the

country. However harsh and repulsive were the manners and social maxims

of the Puritans, they were infinitely preferable to the licentiousness

and blasphemy of the Cavaliers, who mistook vulgarity and obscenity

for gentility. Notwithstanding the traditionary feeling left by the

Royalist writers of these times, and too faithfully taken up by such

writers as Sir Walter Scott, it is now beginning to be perceived

that the Cavaliers were, in reality, the vulgar of the age. If to

swear, gamble, bully, murder, and use the most indecent language, and

lead the most indecent lives, be marks of vulgarity, these were the

distinctive marks of too many of the Cavaliers. The Puritans, with

all their acerbity and intolerance, had a reverence for sound and

Christian principles at the core of their system. Virtue and moral

piety were their admiration, however rudely they demonstrated it.

But the Cavaliers gloried in every opposite vice the more, because

the Puritans, whom they despised, denounced them. We have seen the

spirit of private assassination which animated them, and led them to

the murder of Dorislaus, the Commonwealth ambassador in Holland; of

Ascam, its minister at Madrid; of Colonel Lisle, at Lausanne; and

their repeated attempts on the life of Cromwell, in pursuance of their

avowed doctrine of assassination shown in the tract called "Killing no

Murder." This does anything but justify their high claim to the title

of men of honour, and finds no parallel in the principles or practices

of the Puritans of England, though the Scottish Covenanters stooped to

this base practice in the murder of Archbishop Sharp.

Then as to profane swearing, their conversation, larded with oaths,

would have disgraced the most uncouth trooper of to-day. "The new band

of wits and fine gentlemen," says Macaulay, "never opened their mouths

without uttering a ribaldry of which a porter would now be ashamed,

and without calling on their Maker to curse them, sink them, confound

them, blast them, and damn them." "No man," says Lord Somers, "was

accounted a gentleman, or person of any honour, that had not in two

hours' sitting invented some new modish oath, or found out the late

intrigue between the Lord B. and the Lady P., laughed at the fopperies

of priests, and made lampoons and drollery on the sacred Scriptures

themselves." As to drinking and gambling, these vices were beyond

conception; and the plunder of the people by the Cavalier troopers was

carried on as if they had been in an enemy's country.

We have only to refer to the abandoned character of the women of

Charles's Court, and amongst the aristocracy, who imitated the monarch

in selecting mistresses and even wives from the stage, to remind the

reader of the immoral character of the age. As we have already said,

any one who would convince himself of the sink of infamy and obscenity

which society was then, has only to look at the plays which were acted;

at their language, declaimed by women without a blush or any evidence

of disgust; plays written even by such men as Dryden. "Whatever our

dramatists touched," says Macaulay, "they tainted. In their imitations

the houses of Calderon's stately and high-spirited Castilian gentlemen

became sties of vice, Shakespeare's 'Viola' a procuress, Molière's

'Misanthrope' a ravisher, Molière's 'Agnes' an adulteress. Nothing

could be so pure or so heroic, but that it became foul and ignoble by

transfusion through those foul and ignoble minds." The same writer,

making a few exceptions--and a noble one in the case of Milton--says

of the poets of that age that "from Dryden to D'Urfey the common

characteristic was hard-hearted, shameless, swaggering licentiousness,

at once inelegant and inhuman."

Whilst such was the condition of the Court, the aristocracy, the

theatre, and the literature of the country, we may imagine what was

the condition of the lower orders. The state of London was little, if

anything, improved in civilisation--by no means improved in its moral

tone--since the days of James I. The city was rising in a more healthy

and substantial form from the fire, with wider streets, and better

drainage; but it was still badly lighted, and disgraced by filthy

kennels.

At the close of Charles II.'s reign London was lighted, by contract,

by one Herring, who engaged to place a lamp at every tenth door,

when there was no moon, from six to twelve o'clock at night, from

Michaelmas to Lady-Day; and this was thought to be a wonderful advance.

To us it would appear just darkness visible; and vast tracts of

population were destitute of even this feeble glimmer. Whitefriars

still continued the haunt of thieves, bullies, desperate debtors,

and abandoned women, who rushed out and defended themselves from any

visitations of duns or constables. The neighbourhood of Whitehall

itself was little better, from the resort of the bully-mob of those

who called themselves gentlemen. These young men, often belonging to

good families, or the sons of wealthy citizens, assembled for noise and

mischief in theatres and in the streets. They had been successively

known as the "Darr Hearts," "the Heroics," "the Muns," "Tityre Tu's,"

"the Hectors," "the Roaring Boys," and "Bonaventors," so continually

figuring in the comedies of the time. They now bore the name of

"the Scourers," and frequented the theatres to damn plays, and the

coffee-houses to pick up the last sayings of the wits, which were

commonly not very cleanly, when such men as Rochester, Sedley, Dryden,

and Wycherley were the stars there. They then sallied into the streets

in bands, breaking windows, tearing off knockers, defacing signs,

upsetting stalls, fish- or fruit-sellers, storming taverns, beating

quiet passengers, and rudely insulting respectable women. Frequently

they came to a regular fight with some other mob of "Scourers," and

then rushed headlong, knocking down all whom they met. The watchmen

carefully kept out of their way, and the military had to disperse them

when they became particularly riotous. One great delight of these

genteel ruffians was to hustle passengers into the kennel, or into

Fleet Ditch and its tributaries, which ran then in open Styx-like

blackness along the streets. To add to these dangers of walking the

City in the evening thieves and pickpockets assaulted the passers by

from dark entries below; and it was the common practice to empty all

sorts of filth out of chamber windows. The City apprentices still

kept up their riotous character. On one occasion, having attacked and

beaten their masters, they were some of them put into the pillory;

whereupon they tore down the pillory, and when set up again they again

pulled it down. There were feuds and street encounters everywhere. The

weavers and butchers, the frequenters of bear-gardens and theatres, or

sword-players, were continually falling into parties and ending the

dispute by a general _mêlée_.

The aristocracy had evacuated the City-especially since the fire--and

had located themselves along the Strand, Lincoln's Inn Fields,

Bloomsbury, Soho, and all quarters tending towards Whitehall; others

located themselves in Covent Garden; and in the fields now covered

by the piles of Bedford Square and the British Museum stood the

magnificent mansions of Bedford House and Montague House. But most of

the sites of the splendid squares and streets of our now West End were

open country, or the rubbish-heaps of the neighbourhood. Club-life

was just beginning. There were numbers of political clubs, the most

famous of which was the King's Head, or Green Ribbon Club, from the

members wearing a green ribbon in their hats, to distinguish them from

their opponents. There was the club of Shaftesbury and the Whig party,

which was engaged in the design of excluding the Duke of York from the

succession, and which raised all the Titus Oates plots to accomplish

their object. It met at the King's Head Tavern opposite to the Temple

Gate. But coffee-houses, now become general, were in reality clubs;

and every class and party had its coffee-house, where its members met.

There was the literary coffee-house, called Will's, situate between

Covent Garden and Bow Street, where Dryden was the great man, and

where literary lords, literary lawyers, dramatists, players, and wits

of all sorts met to settle the merits of literature and the stage.

There were lawyers' coffee-houses, citizens' coffee-houses, doctors'

coffee-houses, the chief of them Garraway's; Jesuits' coffee-houses,

Puritans' coffee-houses, and Popish coffee-houses, where every man

found his fellows, and partisans met and learned the news; and in these

haunts the spirit of party and of religious antagonism was carried to

its fiercest height. The chief place of public lounging was the New

Exchange in the City, and Spring Gardens, Hyde Park, and the Mulberry

Garden, which were continually occurring in the comedies of the day as

the places of assignation, as well as the fashionable masquerades.

But whilst such were the most marked features of life in London at

that day, we are not to suppose that there was not a large number of

the population who retained a love of virtue, purity, and domestic

life. The religious were a numerous class; and the stern morality of

the Nonconformists beheld with pity and indignation the dissipated

flutterings of the corrupt world around them. Besides these there was

a numerous population of sober citizens, who, though they did not go

with the Puritans in religion, were disgusted with the French manners,

maxims, houses, and cookery, and stood by their native modes and ideas

with sturdy John Bullism. The musical taste of the age tended to draw

them together to more rational enjoyments than debauchery and the

tainted stage, and the increasing use of coffee and tea gave to musical

and social parties a more homelike and refined character.

[Illustration: CHELSEA HOSPITAL.]

The popular sports and amusements still, however, were of the usual

description. All the old cruel sports of bear-baiting, bull-baiting,

and cock-fights, which the Puritans had suppressed, came back with

royalty. Horse-racing was in vogue; and gambling was such a fever

amongst the wealthy, that many great estates were squandered at cards;

and the Duke of St. Albans, when more than eighty years of age, and

quite blind, used to sit at the gaming-table from day to day, with a

man beside him to tell him the cards. Billiards, chess, backgammon,

and cribbage were in great request; and bowls, ninepins, boat-racing,

yacht-racing, running at the ring, were sports both with the people and

the gentry. Ladies joined in playing at bowls; skating was introduced

by the courtiers, who had spent much time in Holland. Swimming and

foot-races were fashionable. Colonel Blood planned to shoot Charles

once when he went to swim in the Thames near Chelsea, and the Duke of

Monmouth, as we have seen, in his popular tour ran races against all

comers, first without boots, and then beat them running in his boots

whilst the others ran without.

Charles prided himself on his pedestrian feats. The common people

were as much delighted as their ancestors with all the exhibitions

of Bartholomew Fair and Smithfield, of fire-eaters, jugglers,

rope-dancers, dancing dogs and monkeys, Punch, feats of strength, and

travelling theatres, where some Scripture story was represented, as is

yet the case on the Continent.

In the country, life continued to move on at its usual rate. Land had

not approached to anything like its present value, and education was an

immense way farther behind, so that a large number of the aristocracy,

including nearly the whole of the squirearchy, continued to live on

their estates, and rarely made a visit to London. The ravages which the

Civil War had made in all parts of the country had left traces on many

a rental which were yet far from being obliterated; and the contempt

into which the clerical office had fallen since the Reformation,

and absorption of the Church lands, left one outlet for the sons of

the squirearchy at this time little available. The landed gentry,

therefore, for the most part continued to occupy a position of much

local importance, but, with few exceptions, did not mingle with the

great world of London, or aspire to lead in social or political rivalry

on the national arena. The squire was on the bench and at the quarter

sessions; he was often colonel of the militia, and knew his importance

in the country; but beyond that he was little heard of except when

civil strife called him out to defend the altar and the throne. But

within his own little world he was all in all, proud of his power,

and prouder of his pedigree; but if the Squire Westerns of Fielding's

time are faithfully portrayed, how much more rustic, Toryfied, and

confined in the range of their ideas and experience must they have

been nearly two hundred years before. Few of them had the ambition to

distinguish themselves by literary attainments--such accomplishments

they left to the Drydens and Danbys of the metropolis. Many heirs of

estates, therefore, at this era never went to a university, or, if

they did, made but a brief abode there, and returned little better for

the sojourn, depending on their property to give them all the _éclat_

they aspired to. To enjoy the sports of the field, attend the county

race meeting and county ball, to live surrounded by huntsmen and

gamekeepers, to keep a coarse but exuberant table, and to terminate the

day's sport by a drunken carouse, included the pursuits and habits of

three-fourths of this class.

As these gentry went little to town, their manners were proportionally

rustic, and their circle of ideas confined, but from their confinement

the more sturdy. Toryism of the extremest type was rampant amongst

them. Church and State, and the most hearty contempt of everything

like Dissent and of foreigners, were regarded as the only maxims for

Englishmen; and the most absolute submission of the peasantry to the

despotic squirearchy was exacted. In a justice-room if a man was poor

it was taken for granted that he was wrong. Justice Shallows and

Dogberrys were not the originals of the pages of Shakespeare, but of

the country bench of magistrates and its constabulary. Ideas travelled

slowly, for books were few. A Bible, a Common Prayer-book, and a

"Guillim's Heraldry" were the extent of many a gentleman's library.

Newspapers were suppressed by the restrictions on the press during the

latter part of Charles's reign; and the news-letters which supplied the

country contained a very meagre amount of facts, but no discussion.

There were few coaches, except in the districts immediately round

London, or to the distance of twenty or thirty miles, and the roads

were in general impassable in winter. On all but the main lines of

highway, pack-horses carried the necessary merchandise from place to

place through deep narrow tracks, some of which remain to our time. It

took four or five days to reach London by coach from Chester, York,

or Bristol, and this was attended by perils and discomforts that made

travellers loth to encounter such a journey, and often to make their

wills before starting. Macaulay has summed up the terrors of the road,

as given by our Diarists, in the following passage:--"On the best lines

of communication the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the

ways often such that it was hardly possible to distinguish them in the

dusk from the unenclosed heath and fen on both sides. Ralph Thoresby,

the antiquary, was in danger of losing his way on the Great North Road

between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost his way between

Doncaster and York; Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach,

lost their way between Newbury and Reading. In the course of the same

tour they lost their way near Salisbury, and were in danger of having

to pass the night on the plain. It was only in fine weather that the

whole breadth of the road was available for wheeled vehicles. Often the

mud lay deep on the right and the left, and only a narrow track of firm

ground rose above the quagmire. At such times obstructions and quarrels

were common, and the pass was frequently blocked up during a long time

by carriers neither of whom would give way. It happened almost every

day that coaches stuck fast, until a team of cattle could be procured

from some neighbouring farm to tug them out of the slough. But in bad

seasons the travellers had to encounter inconveniences still more

serious. Thoresby, who was in the habit of travelling between Leeds

and the capital, has recorded in his Diary such a series of perils and

disasters as might suffice for a journey to the Frozen Ocean, or to the

desert of Sahara. On one occasion he learned that the floods were out

between Ware and London, that passengers had to swim for their lives,

and that a higgler had perished in the attempt to cross. In consequence

of these tidings he turned out of the high road, and was conducted

across some meadows, when it was necessary for him to ride to the

skirts in water. In the course of another journey he narrowly escaped

being swept away by an inundation of the Trent. He was afterwards

detained at Stamford four days, on account of the state of the roads,

and then ventured to proceed only because fourteen members of the House

of Commons, who were going up in a body to Parliament, with guides

and numerous attendants, took him into their company. On the roads of

Derbyshire travellers were in constant fear for their necks, and were

frequently compelled to alight and lead their beasts. The great route

through Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 1685, a viceroy,

going to Ireland, was five hours travelling fourteen miles--from St.

Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was forced to walk a

great part of the way, and his lady was carried in a litter. His coach

was, with much difficulty, and by the help of many hands, brought after

him entire. In general, carriages were taken to pieces at Conway and

borne on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants to the Menai Straits.

In some parts of Kent and Sussex none but the strongest horses could,

in winter, get through the bog, in which at every step they sank deep.

The markets were often inaccessible during several months. It is said

the fruits of the earth were sometimes suffered to rot in one place,

while in another place, distant only a few miles, the supply fell short

of the demand. The wheeled carriages in this district were generally

pulled by oxen. When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately

mansion of Petworth in wet weather he was six hours going nine miles;

and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on each side

of his coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages which conveyed his

retinue several were upset and injured. A letter from one of the party

has been preserved, in which the unfortunate courtier complains that,

during fourteen hours, he never once alighted, except when his coach

was overturned or stuck fast in the mud."

To avoid the nuisance of carriages on such roads the habit prevailed

of travelling on horseback; but then it was necessary to go well

armed, and, if possible, in company, for the country was infested with

highwaymen. The adventures of horsemen were commonly as numerous and

exciting as those of the folk who used carriages, though mails and

carriages were also frequently stopped by the highwaymen of the day.

To abate the difficulties of the road, on the Restoration the turnpike

system was adopted--a new era in road-making--and what were called

flying coaches were put on the amended ways, which conveyed passengers

at a better rate.

During the Commonwealth, travellers met equally provoking impediments

in passing through towns, if they dared to travel on Sundays. There

was a fine for such a breach of the Sabbath; and Elwood describes his

ludicrous dilemma when riding to a Friends' Meeting on Sunday, on a

borrowed horse, with a borrowed hat and great-coat; for his father

had locked up his own horse, hat, and coat to keep him from the

conventicle. Being stopped and brought before a magistrate, he was

ordered to pay the fine; but he replied that he had no money. "You have

a good horse, however," observed the magistrate. "That is borrowed,"

said Elwood. "Well, you have a good great-coat." "That is borrowed,

too," added Elwood. "Nay, then, we must have your hat, it is a good

one." "That also is borrowed," continued the young Quaker. At which the

magistrate, declaring that he never saw such a traveller in his life,

who had nothing but what was borrowed, ordered him to be detained till

the morrow, and then sent back again.

In the times we are now reviewing the tables were turned, and the

Royalist churchmen and squirearchy were employing their country

leisure in breaking up the conventicles of all sorts of Dissenters,

pulling down the meeting-houses of the obstinate Quakers, and sending

them to prison by shoals. Sir Christopher Wren, by order of the king,

tried his hand at pulling down Quakers' meeting-houses, before he

built St. Paul's. The spirit of political and ecclesiastical party

violence raged through the country, and formed a strange contrast, in

the cruelties and oppression practised on the truly religious portion

of the community, to the profligacy of the gentry and, above all, of

the Court. What rendered this condition of things more gloomy was the

low position which the country clergy then occupied. The property

of the Church having fallen into the hands of the aristocracy, the

generality of country livings were poor, and depended chiefly on

the small tithes and a miserable glebe of a few acres. Whilst some

few men of distinguished abilities, like Burnet, Tillotson, Barrow,

and Stillingfleet, rose to distinction and occupied the few wealthy

dignities and livings, the parish clergymen were too commonly men of

low origin and little education. Men of family disdained the office,

and the chaplain of a great house was looked on as little better than

a servant; he married the cook or the housekeeper, and became the

hanger-on of some country hall, joining in the rude riot and the ruder

jests of his patron. Even so late as Fielding's time, the relative

position of the squire and the parson were those of Western and parson

Adams.

Perhaps the most pleasing feature of country life was that of the

position of the yeoman, or man of small independent property. This

class had been increased by the various distributions of great estates;

and it is calculated that at this time one-seventh at least of the

population consisted of men with their families who lived on their own

little demesnes producing from fifty to a hundred pounds a year. The

number of men who farmed the lands of the aristocracy at that time is

affirmed to have been much fewer than those who farmed their own. This

independence of condition gave them independence of mind, and it was

amongst this class that the strongest resistance to the dominance and

intolerance of the squirearchy was found. Many of them during the Civil

War and the Commonwealth adopted the Puritan faith, and continued to

maintain it in defiance of Five-Mile Acts, Conventicle Acts, and Acts

of Uniformity. From them descended the sturdy spirit which, uniting

with a kindred spirit in towns, continued to vindicate the liberties

and manly bearing of the British population.

Nor amid the corruptions and bitternesses of the times had all the

ancient poetical customs of the people disappeared. Neither the

asceticism of the Puritan nor the profligacy of the Cavalier had been

able to utterly extinguish such customs as had a touch of nature in

them. The Londoners made their swarming excursions to Greenwich, and

Richmond, and Epping Forest, where they gave way to all their pent-up

fun and frolic, and enlivened the banks of the Thames with their songs

as they rowed to and fro. The old holidays of the departed church still

survived. Valentine's Day was still a day of love missives, and of

presents of gloves, jewellery, silk stockings, and ornamental garters

from gentlemen to their valentines. Mayday reassumed its jollity;

may-poles, put down by the Commonwealth, again lifted their heads; and

Herrick's beautiful verses resumed their reality:--

"There's not a budding boy or girl this day

But is got up and gone to bring in May;

A deal of youth ere this is come

Back, and with whitethorn laden, home."

The Puritans beheld the return of the custom with horror. In 1660,

the year that Charles II. and may-poles came back again, a Puritan,

writing from Newcastle, says:--"Sir,--The country as well as the town

abounds with vanities, now the reins of liberty and licentiousness are

let loose. Maypoles, and players, and jugglers, and all things else

now pass current. Sin now appears with a brazen face." Just as Charles

and James were landing in the merry month of May, at Dover, Thomas

Hall published his "Funebria Floræ, the Downfall of May Games"--a most

inopportune moment. With equal horror, the Puritans beheld the old

sports at village wakes and Whitsuntide, the jollity of harvest homes,

and the mirthful uproar of Christmas, come back. New Year's Day, with

its gifts--a Roman custom as old as Romulus--not only reappeared as a

means of expressing affection amongst friends, but as a source of great

profit to the king and nobility. For as Numa ordered gifts to be given

to the gods on that day, so gifts were now presented by the nobility to

the king, and long after his time by the dependents of the nobility,

and those who sought favour from them, to the nobles. Pepys says that

the whole fortunes of some courtiers consisted in these gifts. But

Christmas boxes, which originated in New Year's gifts, and have become

confounded with them in England, have survived the New Year's gifts of

the time we are reviewing.

The great evidences of the growth of a nation are the increase of

its trade, its population, and its governmental revenue. When these

three things continue to augment, _pari passu_, there can be no

question of the substantial progress of a nation. All these had been

steadily on the increase during this period, and the advocates of

royalty point to these circumstances to prove the mischiefs of the

Civil War and the Commonwealth. It would be enough in reply, even

did we admit the reality of the alleged facts, to observe that the

mischief, whatever it was, was necessitated by the crimes and tyrannies

of royalty. But we have only to look carefully at the whole case to

see that the prosperity following the Restoration had its source in

the Commonwealth. In spite of the violent changes and dislocations

of society during the period of the conflict with Charles I., these

upheavings and tempests threw down and swept away a host of things

which cramped and smothered the free action of commerce and internal

industry. The lava which burst in fiery streams from the volcano of

revolution, though it might for a time destroy life and property,

only required a little more time to moulder and fertilise the earth.

A host of mischievous monopolies were annihilated in this convulsion.

The foreign commerce was carefully extended. Not only at home were

Englishmen relieved from the incubus of Government absolutism, and

interference with private speculation, but the haughty fleets of Dutch,

and French, and Spaniards were swept from the ocean, and English

merchants were encouraged to extend their enterprises, not only by the

greater security at sea, but by the act of the Long Parliament allowing

the import of commodities from its colonies and possessions in America,

Asia, and Africa, only in English bottoms. This, it has been contended,

did us no good, because it compelled the Dutch to turn their attention

to the Baltic trade, and enabled them to get the precedence of us

there. But this is a mistake; for the removal of the overbearing fleets

of the Dutch, and the stimulus given to our commerce by this privilege,

led to a far greater amount of mercantile activity in England, and

helped us to assume a position in which at a later date we could safely

introduce the principles of free navigation.

[Illustration: MAY DAY REVELS IN THE TIME OF CHARLES II.]

Cromwell fostered British commerce by all the means in his power, and

most successfully; and the commercial activity thus excited acquired

power, and continued to increase ever afterwards. He encouraged and

extended the colonies, especially by the acquisition of Jamaica,

and the trade with the West Indies and American colonies added

increasingly, during the period now under review, to our commercial

wealth and navy. The writer of "The World's Mistake in Oliver

Cromwell," published in the "Harleian Miscellany," says:--"When this

tyrant, or Protector, as some call him, turned out the Long Parliament

in April, 1653, the kingdom had arrived at the highest pitch of trade

it ever knew. The riches of the nation showed itself in the high value

of land and of all our native commodities, which are the certain marks

of opulence." Besides this, the great quantity of land thrown into the

hands of small proprietors, from time to time, and from a succession

of causes, ever since the breaking up of the Roman Church, and all

its monasteries and convents by Henry VIII., was every day telling

more markedly on the wealth and spirit of the people. We have just

seen what a powerful body the yeomanry had grown; and, from the same

causes, a large accession of capital had flowed into trade. The culture

of these divided lands was enormously increased; instead of lying as

vast deserts and hunting grounds, they now were become fertile farms.

The internal resources of the country were rapidly and constantly

developing themselves; and from the cool transfer of the taxation from

the aristocracy to the people at large, it had become the interest of

the monarchs, if they did little positively to accelerate the growth of

national wealth, at least to leave in freedom the capital-increasing

exertions of the population. The more the people traded abroad, the

greater were the proceeds of the customs; the more they consumed, the

greater the proceeds of the excise; now the chief items of the royal

revenue. All the sources of national wealth originated in the Long

Parliament and the Commonwealth, for the transfers of the customs and

excise were first made then, and only resumed after the Restoration.

[Illustration: SHIPS OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.]

We may now notice the rapid growth of these items of revenue. In the

first year of Charles II.'s reign--namely, 1660--the proceeds of the

customs were £361,356; in the last year of James's reign, 1688, they

were £781,987. Thus, in twenty-eight years the customs had more than

doubled themselves. We have not the same complete accounts of the

excise, imports and exports, for the same period; but those which we

have show the same progressive ratio. In 1663, the imports and exports

together amounted to £6,038,831; in 1669, or only six years afterwards,

they were £6,259,413; and, since 1613, they had risen up to this amount

from £4,628,586. This showed a steady increase of consumption in the

nation. During this time the imports exceeded the exports considerably,

demonstrating the fact that the internal wealth was greater than the

export of goods; but the balance of trade gradually adjusted itself,

and, in 1699, the excess of exports over imports was £1,147,660;

showing that even exportable articles of manufacture, of raw produce,

or of commodities the growth of our colonies and settlements, had

continued to increase. The proceeds of the excise in 1660, when Charles

became possessed of it, amounted only to about one million; but

increased so rapidly that in little more than a century it reached ten

millions.

The value of land, and of all kinds of property, rose in proportion.

Davenant, in his "Discourses on Trade," shows that the value of the

whole rental of England in 1660 was but £6,000,000; in 1688 it was

£14,000,000. So that, in 1660, the whole land of England, at twelve

years' purchase, was worth only £72,000,000; but, in 1688, at fourteen

years' purchase, its then estimated value, it was worth £254,000,000.

As to the mercantile shipping of the country, its tonnage in 1688 was

nearly double what it was in 1666. Sir William Petty, in his "Political

Arithmetic," published in 1676, states that, within the previous forty

years, the houses in London had doubled themselves: the coal trade from

Newcastle had quadrupled itself, being then 80,000 tons yearly; the

Guinea and American trades had grown up from next to nothing to 40,000

tons of shipping; the customs were trebled; the postage of letters

increased from one to twenty; the whole income of Government, in short,

was trebled; and the number and splendour of coaches, equipages, and

household furniture were wonderfully increased.

These effects were surely no results of the wise measures of such

monarchs as Charles and James; they were traceable, as clearly as

light to the sun, to the bold and able heads of the Long Parliament

and Commonwealth, to their victories over the enemies and rivals of

the nation, and to the able regulations which they had made in all

quarters for the honourable maintenance of our name and the prosperity

of our commerce. What such men as Charles and James did may be seen by

examining the condition of what fell under their own management. What

the nation at large did by its native energy we have just seen; what

these monarchs did let us now see. The royal navy, in 1666, amounted

only to 62,594 tons; but in 1685, the last year of Charles, it amounted

to 103,558 tons; and, though it fell off a little under James, in

1688, the last year of James, it still reached 101,892 tons. This

looks admirable on the surface; but it is necessary to look under the

surface, and then we perceive a marvellous difference. The nation had

become justly proud of its navy, which had destroyed the great Armada,

and, under Blake, had put down the supremacy of Holland and Spain at

sea; and though the Commons were averse from trusting Charles II. with

money, after they saw that it all went to concubines and parasites,

they were never appealed to on the subject of the navy in vain. When

Danby was minister, they voted at once £600,000 for the building of

thirty new men-of-war. On the evidence of Pepys, the Secretary of the

Admiralty, we have it, that scarcely any of this magnificent array

of ships were fit for use. The very thirty new vessels for which the

£600,000 had been voted had been built of such villainous timber that

they were absolutely unseaworthy; and the rest were so rotten and

worm-eaten that they would have sunk if they were carried out of port.

The same testimony was borne by the French ambassador, Bonrepaux, who,

when Charles made a bluster as if he would go to sea, in 1686, examined

our fleet, and reported to his Government that it need not trouble

itself about the English navy, for that both ships and men were merely

nominal. In fact, the money which should have repaired the ships and

paid the officers and men had gone the way of all Charles's money.

Pepys was pursued in the streets by starving sailors, who demanded the

redemption of their tickets; shoals of them lay in the streets, without

food or means of procuring shelter; many of them perished of hunger,

and some officers are said to have shared the same fate. The whole

was the most shameful scene of waste of the public money, neglect of

vessels and of men, of utter indolence on the part of the Crown, and

consequent negligence on the part of the authorities; of scandalous

corruption in many of them, and knavery and peculation in contractors.

Such was the state of things that, in 1667, or seven years after the

Commonwealth, the Dutch, under De Ruyter, entered the Thames, destroyed

the fortifications at Sheerness, took and burned some of our largest

ships, and threw the capital into paroxysms of terror. "Many English

sailors," says Pepys, "were heard on board the Dutch ships, crying, 'We

did heretofore fight for tickets--now we fight for dollars!'"

Besides the causes already enumerated for the rapid progress of

England in wealth and prosperity at this period, the persecutions of

Protestants abroad, which drove hither their weavers and artisans, and

the union with Scotland, giving internal peace and security, had a

wonderful influence. De Witt, the celebrated Dutch minister, refers to

these causes in a remarkable passage of his work called "The Interest

of Holland," published in 1669. "When," he says, "the compulsive laws

of the Netherland Halls had first driven the cloth-weaving from the

cities into our villages, and, by the cruelty of the Duke of Alva,

the say-weaving went also after it, the English by degrees began to

send their manufactures throughout Europe; they became potent at sea,

and no longer to depend on the Netherlands. Also by that discovery of

the inexpressibly rich cod-bank of Newfoundland, those of Bristol in

particular made use of that advantage. Moreover, the long persecution

of Puritans in England has occasioned the planting of many English

colonies in America, by which they derive a very considerable foreign

trade thither; so that this mighty island, united with Ireland under

one king, seated in the midst of Europe, having a clear, deep coast,

with good havens and bays, in so narrow a sea that all foreign ships

that sail either to the eastward or the westward are necessitated, even

in fair weather, to shun the dangerous French coast, and sail along

that of England, and in stormy weather to run in and preserve their

lives, ships, and merchandise in the bays--so that England now, by its

conjunction with Scotland, being much increased in strength, as well

as by manufactures as by a great navigation, will in all respects be

formidable to all Europe."

The clear-sighted Dutch diplomatist has summed up the grand points of

England's advantages at that and succeeding periods, and some of these

deserve our particular attention. The union with Scotland, though yet

dependent only on the Crown of the two countries resting on the same

head, was a circumstance of infinite advantage. It gave a settlement

and security to all the northern portions of the island which they

had never enjoyed before. Till James VI. of Scotland became James

I. of England, not only agriculture but all kinds of manufacturing

and commercial enterprise were kept in check by the frequent hostile

inroads of the Scots. Even when there was peace between the Crowns, the

fierce people inhabiting both sides of the Border were in continual

bickerings with each other; and a numerous body of mosstroopers, whose

only profession was plunder, harassed the rich plains of England by

their predatory raids. The state of things described by Sir Walter

Scott as existing in these regions only about a century ago, gives us

a lively idea of what must have been the savagery of the Borderers at

the time we are describing. If he himself, as he tells us, was probably

the first who drove a gig into Liddesdale, and if at that time the

wilds and moorlands of the Border were peopled by tribes of freebooters

as lawless as savages, what must have been the state of the northern

counties whilst the two countries were at feud? We are told that even

the judges and king's officers could not reach the towns on the Border

without a strong military guard.

But as the union of the Crowns became settled and consolidated, a

new era commenced north of the Trent. These counties, full of coal

and ironstone, abounding with streams and all the materials for

manufacture, began to develop their resources, and to advance in

population and activity at an unexampled rate. Birmingham and Sheffield

extended their hardware trade; Leeds and its neighbouring villages, its

cloth manufactures; Manchester, its cotton-spinning, though yet little

aided by machinery; and Liverpool was rapidly rising as a port by its

trade with Ireland. The union of the Crowns was, in fact, the beginning

of that marvellous impetus which has at this day covered all the north

with coal-works, iron-works, potteries, spinning and weaving factories,

and towns, which have grown up around them with their 530,000 people,

like Birmingham; their 425,000, like Sheffield; their 445,000, like

Leeds; their 780,000, like Manchester (with Salford); and 716,000, like

Liverpool. It was the same security amid attendant advantages which

raised the immense commercial and manufacturing population of Glasgow,

Paisley, Greenock, and neighbouring towns on the other side of the

Border--Glasgow alone now numbering its 787,000 people.

In the south and west Norwich and Bristol were most flourishing towns.

Norwich owed its growth and prosperity to the establishment of the

worsted manufacture, brought thither by the Flemings as early as the

reign of Henry I., in the thirteenth century, and to the influence of

four thousand other Flemings, who fled from the cruelty of the Duke of

Alva in Elizabeth's time, bringing their manufacture of bombazines,

which has now expanded itself into a great trade in bombazines, shawls,

crapes, damasks, camlets, and imitations of Irish and French stuffs.

Norwich had its fine old cathedral, its bishop's palace, its palace of

the Duke of Norfolk, adorned with the paintings of Italy, and where the

duke used at this time to live with a state little less than royal. It

had also a greater number of old churches than any town in England,

except London: old hospitals and grammar schools, and the finest

market-place in the kingdom.

Bristol, next to London, was the great trading port, and the commerce

with America and the West Indies was fast swelling its importance. One

of its most lucrative and, at the same time, most infamous sources of

commerce was the conveyance of convicts to the Plantations of America

and Jamaica. We have seen the eagerness of the courtiers of James

II., and even the queen and ladies, for a share of this traffic, and

the numbers of the unfortunate men implicated in the insurrection of

Monmouth who were sent off thither and sold. Jeffreys himself condemned

eight hundred and forty of them to this slavery, and calculated that

they were worth ten pounds apiece to those who had to sell them to

the British merchants, who probably made much more of them. That the

profits were enormous is evident by the avidity with which victims were

sought after, and with which innocent persons were kidnapped for the

purpose. Bristol, indeed, at that time was engaged in a veritable white

slave-trade, and the magistrates were deep in it, which fact coming to

Jeffreys' knowledge, he made it a plea for extorting money from them.

To understand, however, the immense difference between the England of

that day and of the present, we have only to state that the population

of none of these pre-eminent towns amounted to 30,000, few county towns

exceeded 4,000 or 5,000, and the whole population of England was,

according to various calculations, at the most five millions and a

half, nor was it increasing at all rapidly.

To protect the trade of England, Charles II. passed an Act (statute 12

Car. II., c. 18), commonly called the Navigation Act, carrying out the

principle of the Act of the Commonwealth already referred to, confining

the import of all commodities from Asia, Africa, or America to English

bottoms, and also all goods from Europe to English ships, or the ships

of the particular country exporting them. The next year a similar Act

was passed by the Scottish Parliament. The Act of the Commonwealth had

effected its purpose--the depression of the Dutch carrying trade--and

it was now time to relax these restrictions, but we shall see that

even at a later day it required a struggle to repeal these laws, and

to convince people, by the subsequent immense increase of foreign

commerce, of the impolicy of them. Charles's Government went further,

and, in 1662, forbade any wine but Rhenish, or any spirits, grocery,

tobacco, potashes, pitch, tar, salt, resin, deals, firs, timber, or

olive oil, to be imported from Germany or the Netherlands. In 1677,

alarmed at the vast importation of French goods and produce, his

Government prohibited every French article for three years; but the Act

remained unrepealed till the 1st of James II., by which our merchants

and shopkeepers were deprived of great profits on these silks, wines,

fruits, and manufactured articles, and the public of the comfort of

them.

Another evidence of the growth of the country was the increase of the

business of the post-office. The origin of the English post-office is

due to Charles I., who, at the commencement of his disputes with the

Parliament, established a system of posts and relays. This the Civil

War put an end to; but the Commonwealth, in 1656, established the

post-office, with several improvements. At the accession of Charles,

a new Act was passed (12 Car. II., c. 25); and three years afterwards

the proceeds of this office and of the wine duties were settled on the

Duke of York and his heirs male. The duke farmed it out at £21,500,

but on his accession the revenue amounted to £65,000. By this post a

single letter was carried eighty miles for twopence; beyond eighty

miles threepence was charged, and there was an advance according to

the weight of packets. The privilege of franking was allowed, though

not expressly granted in the Act, to peers and members of Parliament.

There were mails, however, only on alternate days, and in distant and

difficult parts of the country, as on the borders of Cornwall and the

fens of Lincolnshire, only once a week. Wherever the Court went mails

were sent daily; this was the case, also, to the Downs, and, in the

season, to Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Where coaches did not run, men

on horseback carried the bags. The increasing business of London soon

demanded a more frequent delivery, and the penny post was first started

by William Dockwray, which delivered letters six times a day in the

City, and four times in the outskirts. At this time the post-office

business included the furnishing of all post-horses--whence the name;

and the Governments on the Continent generally retain more or less

of this practice. The growth of England from the time of the Stuarts

till now receives a significant proof in the present gross revenue

for letters, stamps, telegrams, and other post office business being

upwards of £16,000,000 a year.

The transmission of the mails made it necessary to improve the roads,

and hence arose the toll-bar system, by an Act of 15 Car. II., which

ordered the repairing of highways and the erection of bars or gates

upon them, in Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire,

owing to the Great North Road being so much cut up by the heavy

malt and barley waggons going to Ware, whence their contents were

forwarded by water to London and other towns. The system was found so

advantageous that it gradually became general.

[Illustration: THE OLD EAST INDIA HOUSE IN 1630.]

The extension and improvement of our manufactures was greatly promoted

by the persecution of the Protestants in France and the Spanish

Netherlands. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, compelled

thousands of citizens to seek refuge in England, who, as we have seen,

were at first warmly patronised by James II., but afterwards as much

discouraged. Their value to the country was, however, too obvious for

the community to sanction this neglect. They settled in Spitalfields,

and introduced the weaving of silks, brocades, and lutestrings; and the

trade and the descendants of these refugees until lately distinguished

the same quarter of London. It is supposed that they also brought with

them the art of making the finest kinds of writing paper, which was

previously imported from France.

Before this, and from the very beginning of this period, other

foreigners--refugees tempted by liberal offers--had introduced other

manufactures. In the year of Charles's accession, the Anglo-French

population of Jersey and Guernsey were allowed to import wool from

England duty free, and pushed their manufacture--worsted hosiery--to

great perfection. In 1660 some Flemings introduced the improved arts

of dyeing and dressing woollen cloths, by which they raised our cloths

to an equality with the Continental ones. Other foreigners in the same

year were encouraged to commence the manufacture of linen and tapestry.

Some others settled at Ipswich, in 1669, and the Scots, who had carried

the linen-weaving to Ireland, were at this time making great progress

with it there. In 1670 the Duke of Buckingham brought from Venice men

skilled in the manufacturing of glass; the Dutch loom was brought

over, and, in 1676, the printing of calicoes, now so vast a trade at

Manchester, was commenced in London, in imitation of those brought

from India. In 1680 machines for ribbon-weaving were introduced,

to which Coventry owed so much of her trade. The art of tinning

sheet-iron was brought over from Germany by natives of that country,

at the instigation of Andrew Yarranton, the agent of an English

company. A Dutchman erected the first wire-mill in England at Sheen,

near Richmond; and pinchbeck was introduced by its inventor under the

patronage of Prince Rupert. In fact, the seeds of many of the greatest

branches of English manufactures were sown during this period.

One of our largest trading companies also was fast growing, and was

destined to lay the foundation of the grandest colonial territory which

the world ever saw. Most of the companies which had previously existed

were now gone down, or were broken up by the increasing aversion of

the nation to monopolies; but the East India Company were every day

acquiring fresh life and power. The scene of their operations lay so

distant from public observation, particularly at that day when the

means of communication were so tardy and partial, and the Press did not

maintain an instant and perpetual attention upon everything concerning

the realm, that the Government were only too glad to leave with the

Company the whole management of those remote affairs, especially as

they poured so much profit into the country, of which the Government

had their share. Accordingly, Charles had scarcely seated himself

on his throne than he renewed the charter of the Company granted by

Cromwell in 1657, with augmented powers. This charter, dated the 3rd

of April, 1661, gave the Company the most absolute and unconditional

power. They were authorised to seize and send home any Englishman

presuming to trade in the East, and found so trading either in India

or the Indian seas. They were empowered to appoint their own judges,

and conduct the whole civil and military establishment; to make war

or peace with any of the native powers, or any powers not Christian;

to build any ports they pleased there or in St. Helena for their

accommodation and defence. In short, the most complete absolutism

was conferred on them in their territories, or such as they should

gain, and the most entire secrecy of transactions, by shutting out

every individual who might be disposed to pry into or criticise their

proceedings.

Bombay, which Charles had received with Catherine from Portugal, as

part of her marriage portion, was, in 1667, handed over to the Company,

and the effect of this addition of territory and of power was soon

seen. In 1676 their accumulated profits had doubled their capital,

and the price of their stock rose to 245 per cent. The following

facts, drawn from a publication supposed to be written by Sir Josiah

Child, entitled "The East India Trade a most Profitable Trade to this

Kingdom," which appeared in 1667, will show the extraordinary traffic

of the Company at that early period. They employed, the writer said,

from thirty to thirty-five ships of from three hundred to six hundred

tons burden. Their annual exports amounted to £430,000, and their

imports to £860,000; consisting of silks, raw and wrought, calico,

drugs, pepper, indigo, saltpetre, etc. They, moreover, licensed other

traders, who brought from India diamonds, pearls, musk, ambergris,

etc., to the amount of £150,000, and took out goods from England to

double that amount.

The writer proceeds to show how profitable this trade was to the

public as well as to the Company:--"The pepper I reckon at eightpence

a pound weight; so necessary a spice for all people, which formerly

cost us three shillings and fourpence a pound, being nowhere to be

had but in India; and were we obliged to have it from the Dutch, they

would probably raise it as high as they do their other spices; yet,

supposing it so low as one shilling and fourpence a pound, it would

be a further expense of £6,000 to the nation. Saltpetre is of that

absolute necessity that, without it, we should be like the Israelites

under the bondage of the Philistines--without the means of defending

ourselves. Possibly, if we had no Indian trade, we might, in time of

peace, purchase it, though it would cost us double what it does now.

But, in case of war, where could we have sufficient? Not surely from

our enemies. Or would our gentlemen, citizens, and farmers be willing

to have their cellars and rooms dug up, as in Charles I.'s reign, and

be deprived of freedom in their own houses, exposed and laid open to

saltpetre-men? Which method would be, besides, by no means equal to

the affording us the necessary supplies. Raw silk we might possibly

be supplied with from other parts, though not so cheap as from India;

and Indian wrought silks serve us instead of so much Italian or French

silks, which would cost us almost treble the price of Indian silks, to

the kingdom's loss of about £20,000 a year. Calicoes serve instead of

the like quantity of French, Dutch, and Flemish linen, which would cost

us thrice as much; hereby £200,000 or £300,000 is saved to the nation."

Amongst the articles of the greatest luxury which the Company imported

was tea. So long as we procured tea from the Dutch merchants it was too

dear for general use. So late as 1666--that is, six years after the

Restoration--it cost fifty shillings a pound from the Dutch East India

Company; but the English Company soon afterwards made their way to

China, in 1678, and imported four thousand seven hundred pounds of it;

and from this period we may date the more frequent use of tea. It was

long, however, before it became the formidable rival of beef and beer

at breakfast, or superseded these articles at the afternoon meal. It

was at first sold in the liquid state in London, and it was many years

before it made its way through the country; many ladies, in ignorance

of its true use, committing the mistake of boiling the leaves, and

serving them up as greens, throwing away the liquid!

In 1677, under the privilege of a new charter from Charles, the Company

began to earn money in their Indian territories. These privileges were

again extended by a fresh charter from Charles in 1683, and by James in

1686. In 1687 the Company laid the foundations of Calcutta, and went on

rapidly acquiring trade and territory, to be noticed at a later period.

Meanwhile, the trade with our American and West Indian colonies was

becoming valuable. During the latter years of the Stuart dynasty, the

exports to these colonies had risen to the amount of about £400,000

per annum, in different manufactures, provisions, household furniture,

etc.; and the imports thence in tobacco, sugar, ginger, cotton wool,

fustic, indigo, cocoa, fish, furs, and timber to nearly a million. Thus

the trade and wealth of England at the close of this period were in a

condition of healthy and rapid development, and our colonial system

was beginning to attract the "envy and admiration of the world." What

this has grown to by a steady progression in our time may be seen by

comparing the revenue of the country now with what it was then. Then it

amounted to about £1,500,000; now it amounts from all sources to over

£141,000,000.

Notwithstanding the rapid growth of the country in commerce and

internal wealth, it would be a false indication that the working

classes were well off. They were a body without education, without

political rights, and, consequently, without that intelligence and

union which can alone insure the fair reward of their labour; nor was

the humanity of the most civilised portion of the community at that

period of a degree which regarded the sufferings of others with much

feeling. All accounts of it leave the impression that it was a hard

and cruel age; as is usually the case, when sensuality and barbarity

go hand in hand. The sanguinary vengeance which Charles took on the

leaders of the Commonwealth immediately on his restoration; the savage

persecutions for religion in England and Scotland; the terrible

use of the iron boot and the thumbscrew in the latter country; the

bloody campaign of Jeffreys in England; the sale of convicts, and the

kidnapping of innocent people for the Plantations; public whippings,

pilloryings, brandings, and tongue-borings, as in the case of James

Naylor--all indicate a brutal and unfeeling tone of society. Macaulay

quotes from writers of the age many other revolting traits of this

stamp. "Whigs were disposed to murmur because Stafford was suffered to

die without seeing his bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled

and insulted Russell as his coach passed from the Tower to the scaffold

in Lincoln's Inn Fields. As little mercy was shown by the populace to

sufferers of a humbler rank. If an offender was put into the pillory,

it was well if he escaped with life, from the shower of brickbats and

paving-stones. If he were tied to the cart's tail, the crowd pressed

round him, imploring the hangman to give it the fellow well, and make

him howl. Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell, on court

days, for the purpose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp there

whipped. A man pressed to death for refusing to plead, or burned for

coining, excited less sympathy than is now felt for a galled horse

or an overdriven ox. Fights, compared with which a boxing-match is a

refined and humane spectacle, were the favourite diversions of a large

part of the town. Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack each

other to pieces with deadly weapons, and shouted with delight when one

of the combatants lost a finger or an eye. The prisons were hells on

earth--seminaries of every crime and every disease. At the assizes, the

lean and yellow culprits brought with them from their cells to the dock

an atmosphere of stench and pestilence which sometimes avenged them

signally on the bench, bar, and jury. But on all this misery society

looked with profound indifference."

But we shall soon find that this conclusion is, on the whole, too

sweeping. Even that age had its philanthropists, and we may name the

crowds who flocked to witness the agonies of a hanging man to point in

some degree the wide distance between the mobs of this age and that.

But, as concerns the condition of the people, the important difference

is that the humanity which now pervades the community was scarcely to

be recognised then. The poor were treated with little tenderness.

Though four-fifths of the working people were engaged in agriculture,

agriculture was then extended over a very small portion of the country.

There was a surplus of hands, and these, therefore, were poorly paid,

whilst their clothing and provisions were comparatively high. Not

more than half the area of the island was then, it is supposed, in

cultivation, and the tillage was rude and slovenly. The rate of wages

for agricultural labourers, wood-cutters, shepherds, and the like,

differed in different parts of England, but in the best it did not

average more than four shillings a week with food, or six shillings

without. In 1661, the magistrates of Essex fixed the rate of wages from

March to September at eightpence a day with food, and one shilling

and twopence without; and for the other months, sixpence with food,

and a shilling without. Women had, of course, less. In most counties

a similar scale was fixed by the magistrates; and an Act of Elizabeth

empowered them to punish whoever gave more or less, and the labourer

who received more or less. Wheat at that time was seventy shillings a

quarter--a price enormously in excess of current prices. All kinds of

clothing that they could make themselves were much higher than with us,

because manufacturing was not so extensive.

The wages of artisans were but little better, except in London, where

first-rate bricklayers and carpenters could earn two shillings or

two-and-sixpence a day. In many counties, indeed, they were restricted

to the same rate as that of the labourers. In 1685 this was the

case in Warwickshire, where the daily wages of masons, bricklayers,

carpenters, shinglers, and other handicraftsmen, were fixed with

those of ploughmen, miners, ditchers, etc., at only sixpence a day. A

shilling a day is quoted as extravagant wages. The consequence was that

children were compelled to work as early as six years of age. This was

very much the case at Norwich; and writers of the time refer with pride

to the fact that before nine years of age children earned more than was

necessary for their own support by twelve thousand pounds a year! The

consequence of the miserable pay and the dearness of food and clothing

was an amount of pauperism scarcely less than in the reign of Henry

VIII. or Elizabeth. The poor rates amounted at that period to from

seven to nine hundred thousand pounds a year.

The condition of the poor was rendered infinitely worse two years after

the restoration of Charles II. than it had been, by an Act which was

passed to prevent them from settling in any other place than the one

where they had previously resided. This was the origin of the law of

settlement, which continued down to 1834 to harass the poor, and to

waste the parochial funds in litigation. In fact, Sir Frederick Eden,

in his work on "The State of the Poor," asserts that it caused more

litigation, and was more profitable to the lawyers, than any other Act

ever passed.

The preamble of the Act of 1662 recounts the prevalence of pauperism,

and at the same time professes that this enactment "is for the good of

the poor"! "The necessity," it says, "number, and continued increase of

the poor, not only within the circles of London and Westminster, with

the liberties of each of them, but also through the whole kingdom of

England and dominion of Wales, is very great and exceeding burdensome,

being occasioned by reason of some defects in the law concerning

the settlement of the poor, and for want of due provision of the

regulations of relief and employment in such parishes or places where

they are legally settled, which doth enforce many to turn incorrigible

rogues, and others to perish for want, together with the neglect of the

faithful execution of such laws and statutes as have formerly been made

for the apprehension of rogues and vagabonds, and for the good of the

poor."

It was therefore provided that any two justices of the peace should,

on complaint made by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor,

within forty days after the arrival of any new comer in the parish,

proceed to remove him by force to the parish where he had last a legal

settlement, either as native, householder, sojourner, apprentice or

servant, unless he either rented a house of ten pounds a year, or could

give such security against becoming chargeable as the judges should

deem sufficient. This was made more stringent by a subsequent Act, 1

James II. c. 17, which, to prevent any one from getting a settlement by

the neglect or oversight of the parish authorities, dated the day of

his entrance into the parish only from the time that he gave a written

notice of his new abode and the number of his family.

These enactments, in fact, converted the free labourers of England into

serfs. They were bound to the soil, and could not move from the spot

unless by the will of the overseers and justices. It was not necessary

that a man should become chargeable to the parish in order to effect

his removal; it was enough that the authorities could assume that he

might become so; and it was not till 1795--in fact, till the reign of

George III.--that this oppressive law was ameliorated, allowing working

people to change their abode as they saw a better chance of employment

elsewhere, so long as they did not come upon the parish.

The unsatisfactory state of pauperism to which the law of settlement

brought the kingdom set numbers of heads at work to plan schemes of

employing the destitute poor; and Sir Josiah Child proposed that

persons should be appointed for this purpose, to be called "the fathers

of the poor." This seems to be the origin of the modern guardians of

the poor. It was too early in the history of endeavour to educate and

employ the poor, for these recommendations to receive much general

attention; but there were some individuals who set themselves zealously

to work to convert the swarming paupers into profitable workers and

respectable members of society. The most eminent of these were two

shopkeepers of London, Andrew Yarranton and Thomas Firmin. Yarranton

was a linendraper; and, being employed by "twelve gentlemen of England"

to bring over men from Saxony and Bohemia who understood the art of

tinning sheet-iron, he there made close observation of the manufacture

of linen, and conceived the idea of introducing the linen manufacture,

and employing the unemployed poor upon it and the manufacture of iron.

He went to Ipswich, to see whether the linen manufacture could not be

established there; but he found the poor already so well employed in

the stuff and say and Colchester trade, that he did not think it a

suitable place. He calculated the paupers at that time at a hundred

thousand, and reckoned that by employing this number at fourpence a

day each would occasion a profitable outlay amongst them of upwards of

six hundred thousand pounds, by which means almost the whole of the

poor-rates would be saved. In 1677 he published a book containing his

views called "England's Improvement by Sea and Land," showing how to

set at work all the poor of England, with the growth of our own lands;

to prevent unnecessary suits at law, with the benefits of a voluntary

register; where to procure vast quantities of timber for the building

of ships, with the advantage of making the great rivers of England

navigable. He gave rules for the prevention of fires in London and

other cities, and informed the several companies of handicraftsmen

how they might always have cheap bread and drink. In short, Mr.

Yarranton was a regularly speculative man, but one who had a good share

of calculating common sense in the midst of his manufacturing and

philanthropic schemes. Apparently he travelled the kingdom well, and

made careful observations as to the best localities for carrying on his

proposed trades; and he seems to have come to the conclusion that the

midland counties would be the best for the linen manufacture, and that

most people might be employed on it. The midland counties he regarded

as admirably adapted for the growth of flax, from the fertility of the

land, and for the trade, because of the easy conveyance of goods by

water on the rivers Trent, Soar, Avon, and Thames, from the counties of

Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, Northampton, and Oxford. He found many

parts of England already so well supplied with manufactures, that he

did not think the poor required more work there; and his descriptions

of the manufactures going on in different parts of the island give a

lively view of the manufacturing industry of the time. "In the West

of England," he says, "clothing of all sorts, as in Gloucestershire,

Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and a small portion of

Warwickshire; in Derby, Nottingham, and Yorkshire, the iron and woollen

manufactures; in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex, the woollen manufacture;

in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, some cloth, iron, and materials for

shipping. Then the counties to raise provisions and to vend them

at London, to feed that great mouth, are Cambridge, Huntingdon,

Buckingham, Hertford, Middlesex, and Berks."

A publication like this of Andrew Yarranton was calculated to produce

the most beneficial change in the condition of the people. It pointed

out the true resources and wealth of the nation, and showed a way to

get rid of pauperism, and at the same time to raise and enrich the

whole realm. It made landowners aware of the extent to which their

estates would be augmented in value by the introduction of popular

industries; and one of its most immediate effects seems to have been

its influence on Yarranton's fellow London shopkeeper, Mr. Thomas

Firmin.

In "The Life of Mr. Thomas Firmin, late citizen of London, written by

one of his most intimate acquaintance," 1698, we learn that he was a

shopkeeper of Leadenhall Street. We learn, moreover, that he was born

at Ipswich in 1632, and began the world as a tradesman with a hundred

pounds. His character for probity and ability was already such that he

flourished, married a citizen's daughter with five hundred pounds, and

in process of time occupied superior premises in Lombard Street. Here,

though a confirmed Unitarian, and entertaining the celebrated Unitarian

leader, Mr. Biddle, and procuring him an allowance of one hundred

crowns from Cromwell whilst he was kept prisoner in Scilly, yet he was

on intimate terms with Dr. Tillotson, and many other eminent Churchmen.

Though not bearing on our main subject, the following extract is worth

diffusing amongst the religious of to-day:--"During the imprisonment

of Mr. Biddle at Scilly, Mr. Firmin was settled in Lombard Street,

where first Mr. Jacomb, then Dr. Outram, was minister. With these two,

being excellent preachers and learned men, he maintained a respectful

and kind friendship. Now also he grew into intimacy with Dr. Whichcot,

Dr. Worthington, Dr. Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of Chester; Mr.

Tillotson (for he was not yet doctor), Archbishop of Canterbury; but in

their dignity, and to their very last, Mr. Firmin had the same place

and degree in their friendship and esteem that at any time formerly

he had. While Dr. Tillotson preached the Tuesday's lecture at St.

Lawrence, so much frequented by all the divines of the town, and by

a great many persons of quality and distinction, when the doctor was

obliged to be at Canterbury, where he was dean, or was out of town,

either for diversion or health, he generally left it to Mr. Firmin

to provide preachers for his lecture; and Mr. Firmin never failed

to supply his place with some very eminent preacher, so that there

never was a complaint on the account of Dr. Tillotson's absence; and

this Mr. Firmin could easily do, for now there was hardly a divine of

note, whether in London or in the country, that frequented London,

but Mr. Firmin was become acquainted with him; which thing helped

him much to serve the interests of many hopeful young preachers and

scholars, candidates for lectures, schools, cures, or rectories, for

whom he would solicit with as much affection and diligence as other

men do for their sons or other near relations. See here a trader, who

knew no Latin or Greek, no logic or philosophy, compassed about by an

incredible number of learned friends who differed so widely in opinion

from him."

The secret of it was Firmin's freedom from bigotry, and his perfectly

benevolent character. When the Plague broke out in 1665, which carried

off nearly a hundred thousand people, and left vast numbers destitute

from the flight of the employers, Firmin seized on the plan of

manufacturing linen, so earnestly recommended by Yarranton, and this

upon a method first set on foot by Thomas Gouge, the clergyman of St.

Sepulchre's. This was to buy up both flax and hemp rudely dressed, and

give it out to the poor to spin at their own homes. He built a house in

Aldersgate, which he called his great work-house, or spinning-house,

and there he gave out the flax and hemp, and took in the yarn. The

object of Firmin was not to make money by the speculation, but to

allow the poor people all the profit; and, indeed, he allowed them

more, for he sank a considerable sum of money in it. But he was fast

growing rich, and he was too wise to allow himself to become the slave

of riches; and though from six hundred pounds his capital had grown

to twenty thousand pounds, he determined not to leave more than five

thousand pounds behind him. His object was to employ the people instead

of giving them money as a charity; and he observed that he found it

greatly to the relief of the poor; for that they could earn threepence

or fourpence a day, working only such times as they could spare from

any other occupations, "who, being at work in their own homes, and

where they could with convenience attend it, many of them became so

much pleased with it, that so much money given them for doing nothing

would not have done them half so much good as that which they got by

their own labour in this employment."

But Firmin had not studied the dry rules of political economy, and had,

therefore, no objection to give money too where he saw it was needed.

He had studied in the school of Christ, who said, "The poor ye have

always with you"; and "What you do to one of these little ones you do

also unto me." He was not opposed to all almshouses and hospitals,

lest people should calculate on them and grow lazy. Concerning this

work-house and the spinners, he would often say that "to pay the

spinners, to relieve 'em with money begged for 'em, with coals and

sheeting, was to him such a pleasure as magnificent buildings, pleasant

walks, well-cultivated orchards and gardens, the jollity of music and

wine, or the charms of love or study, are to others."

The East India and Guinea Companies, as well as many private persons,

took his goods; and the Fire of London, following the Plague, gave him

plenty of work to do in the way of assisting the destitute. Firmin

added woollen spinning and weaving to the spinning of flax and hemp;

but, after all, he considered the making of linens the most adapted to

employ the people in such circumstances. "I know of no commodity of the

like value," he says, "that can be set up with less stock. Three parts

of four, even of that cloth which comes not to above two shillings an

ell, will be paid for work to the spinner and weaver; and many times a

woman will spin a pound of flax that cost but sixpence or sevenpence to

that fineness, that she will receive twelvepence or fourteenpence for

her pains, which will make an ell of cloth worth three shillings; at

which rate five parts of six will be paid for labour: nay, sometimes I

have seen a pound of flax, not worth above one and sixpence at most,

spun to that fineness that it hath been worth ten shillings; and in

other parts I have seen a pound of flax of not much higher value spun

to that fineness that it hath been worth three or four pounds sterling."

Firmin next set children to work in schools of industry--a plan again

introduced as new in our own day. The idea, he confesses, came from

abroad, but he had the honour of introducing it in England. "I have,"

he says, "at this time some children working for me, not above seven or

eight years old, who are able to earn twopence a day, and some, that

are a little older, two shillings a week; and I doubt not to bring any

child about that age to do the like; and still, as they grow up and

become proficients, even in this poor trade of spinning, they will be

able to get more and spin better than older people. Neither would I

have those schools confined only to spinning, but to take in knitting,

and make lace or plain work, or any other work which children shall be

thought most fit for." He then refers to the foreign practice, and to

the fact of children being employed at Norwich, where it was computed

that they had earned twelve thousand pounds more than they had spent in

knitting fine Jersey stockings.

This was a plan admirable for teaching children all kinds of businesses

and household work, but liable to enormous abuses; and the trading

community seized on it and carried it into coal mines, and cotton and

other factories, to that fearful extent of cruelty that compelled the

Legislature of our time to step in and protect the unhappy children.

Firmin's honest and benevolent mind did not foresee this evil use of

the idea; yet he was by no means incautious. He used to beg often as

much as five hundred pounds a year, and distribute it amongst the poor;

but he always took pains to inquire into cases of real necessity, and

visited the sufferers in their own houses to convince himself of their

actual distress.

In Yarranton, Gouge, and Firmin we see the pioneers of that great host

of philanthropists who have from time to time followed in their steps,

till now the whole country is alive with schools, ragged schools,

reformatories, schemes of industry, and the numerous institutions which

are on foot to improve the condition of the poor. In that age we see

the germs of the vast manufacturing system which has made one great

workshop of Britain, and caused its redundant population to overflow

to the amount of nearly a quarter of a million a year into other

countries and hemispheres, carrying their industrious habits and skill

to found new nations. Indeed, taking altogether the age under review,

notwithstanding the dissoluteness of the Government and the selfishness

of the upper and middle classes, and the roughness of the lower, it

was an epoch in which the elements of future greatness were rife. The

rigour and independence which punished the tyranny of Charles I., and

created the Commonwealth, though they seemed to recede in Charles II.'s

reign, again displayed themselves under James II., and driving away

the impracticable Stuarts, established an elective monarchy, the Bill

of Rights, and religious freedom. In that period philanthropy became

united with manufacturing and commercial enterprise, whence have sprung

the glory and greatness of England; and then, too, in the writings of

Child, Davenant, Petty, and others, dawned the first principles of

political economy, afterwards elaborated into a system by Adam Smith,

and still perfecting itself as a science by the correction of its

errors, and the blending of a spirit of humanity with its original

exactness of deduction. The great principles of the Commonwealth

moulding the monarchy at the Revolution to its demands, settled

permanently the liberties and the ascendency of the English race.

[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF WILLIAM AND MARY.]