May-day and Christmas resumed their former appearance. The May-pole in the Strand was erected in 1661. The theatres were re-opened, pouring forth a flood of licentiousness. The love of show and decoration was cherished afresh. Dresses and equipages shone in more than their ancient splendor. In 1661, it was thought necessary to repress the gilding of coaches and chariots, because of the great waste and expense of gold in their adorning.
London also witnessed other accompaniments of the restoration. The regicide trials took place soon after the king"s return, and could not fail deeply to interest, in one way or the other, the ma.s.s of the citizens, many of them personally acquainted with the parties, and perhaps abettors of the acts for which they were now arraigned.
Charing Cross was the scene of the execution of Harrison, Scrope, Jones, Hugh Peters, and others. The spirit in which they met their deaths was very extraordinary. "If I had ten thousand lives," said Scrope, "I could freely and cheerfully lay them down all to witness in this matter." Jones, the night before he died, told a friend that he had no other temptation but this, lest he should be too much transported, and carried out to neglect and slight his life, so greatly was he satisfied to die in that cause. Peters, whom Burke styles "a poor good man," said, as he was going to die, "What, flesh, art thou unwilling to go to G.o.d through the fire and jaws of death? This is a good day; He is come that I have long looked for, and I shall be with him in glory; and so he smiled when he went away." Others were executed at Tyburn; and there, too, the bodies of the protector Oliver Cromwell, Treton, and Bradshaw, were ignominiously exposed on a gibbet, having been dug out of their tombs in Westminster Abbey.
[1] He loved paintings and music, and encouraged proficients in elegant art. "I ventured," says Evelyn, in 1656, "to go to Whitehall, where of many years I have not been, and found it very glorious and well furnished."
[2] Perfect Politician, quoted in "London," vol. i, p. 360.
CHAPTER III.
THE PLAGUE YEAR IN LONDON.
Terrific pestilence had often visited London, and swept into the eternal world mult.i.tudes of victims; but no calamity of this kind that ever befel the inhabitants can be compared with the awful visitation of the great plague year. It broke out in Drury-lane, in the month of December, 1664. For some time it had been raging in Holland, and apprehensions of its approach to the sh.o.r.es of England had for months agitated the minds of the people. Remarkable appearances in the heavens were construed into Divine warnings of some impending catastrophe; and the common belief in astrology led many, in the excited state of feeling, to listen to the prognostications that issued from the press, in almanacs and other publications of the day. Defoe, in his remarkable history of the plague, which, though in its form fict.i.tious, is doubtless in substance a credible narrative, describes a man who, like Jonah, went through the streets, crying, "Yet forty days, and London shall be destroyed." Another ran about, having only some slight clothing round his waist, exclaiming, with a voice and countenance full of horror, "O, the great and dreadful G.o.d!" Yet the forebodings which were excited by reports from the continent, the traditions of former visitations of pestilences, the actual breaking out of the disease in a few instances, together with the superst.i.tious aggravations just noticed, only shadowed forth, in light pale hues, the dark and intensely gloomy colors of the desolating providence which the sovereign Ruler of all events brought over the city of London.
Head-ache, fever, a burning in the stomach, dimness of sight, and livid spots on the chest, were symptoms of the fatal disorder. These signs became more numerous as the months of the year 1665 advanced; yet the cases of plague were comparatively few till the month of June. "June the 7th," says an observant writer of that period in his diary, "the hottest day that ever I felt in my life. This day, much against my will, I did see in Drury-lane two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and "Lord, have mercy upon us!" writ there, which was a sad sight to me, being the first of that kind that to my remembrance I ever saw." Again, on the 17th of June: "It struck me very deep this afternoon, going with a hackney coach down Holborn from the lord treasurer"s, the coachman I found to drive easily, and easily, at last stood still, and came down hardly able to stand, and told me he was suddenly struck very sick, and almost blind he could not see; so I light, and went into another coach, with a sad heart for the poor man, and myself also, lest he should have been struck with the plague."
This description of the first sight of the marked door, and the coach going more and more easily till it stood still, with its plague-struck driver, places the reader in the midst of the scene of disease and sorrow, awakening sympathetic emotions with those sufferers in a now distant age.
The alarm increased as the deaths multiplied, and people began to pack up and leave London with all possible haste. The court and the n.o.bility removed to a distance, and so also did vast numbers beside who had the means of doing so, and were not confined by business; yet the general terror was so great throughout the kingdom that friends were sometimes far from being welcomed by those whom they visited. "It is scarcely possible," says Baxter, "for people who live in a time of health and security to apprehend the dreadful nature of that pestilence. How fearful people were thirty or forty, if not a hundred miles from London, of anything they brought from mercers" or drapers"
shops, or of goods that were brought to them, or of any persons who came to their houses. How they would shut their doors against their friends; and if a man pa.s.sed over the fields, how one would avoid another, how every man was a terror to another. O, how sinfully unthankful are we for our quiet societies, habitations, and health!"
But the bulk of the people, of course, were compelled to remain in the city, and, pent up in dirty, close, unventilated habitations, while the weather was burning hot, were exposed to the unmitigated fury of the contagion. The weekly bills of mortality rose from hundreds to thousands, till, in the month of September, the disease reached its height, and no less than ten thousand souls were hurried into eternity.
The operations of business were of course checked, and in many cases entirely suspended by the terrific progress of the calamity. Several shops were closed in every street; dwellings were often left empty, the inmates having been smitten or driven away by the fatal scourge. Some of the public thoroughfares were nearly deserted. The markets being removed beyond the city walls, to prevent the people as much as possible from coming together in ma.s.ses; the erection of houses also being unnecessary, and therefore discontinued for a while--carts and wagons, laden with provision, or with building materials, no longer frequented the highways, which, a few short months before, had been the scene of busy activity. Coaches were seldom seen, except when parties were hurrying away from the city, or when some one, affected by the disorder, was being conveyed home, with the curtains of the vehicle closely drawn. The gra.s.s growing in the streets, and the solemn stillness which pervaded many parts of the great city, in contrast with its previous state, are circ.u.mstances particularly mentioned in the descriptions of London in the plague year, and they powerfully serve to give the reader an affecting idea of the awful visitation. Few pa.s.sengers appeared, and those few hurried on, in manifest fear of each other, as if each was carrying to his neighbor the summons of death.[1]
The daughters of music were brought low; the din of business, and the murmur of pleasant talk, and the London cries were silenced. The shrieks, however, of sufferers in agony, or of maniacs driven mad by disease, broke on the awful quietude. People might be heard crying out of the windows for some to help them in their anguish--to a.s.suage the burning fever, or to carry their dead away. Occasionally, some rushed towards the Thames, with bitter cries, to seek relief from their torments by suicide. The Rev. Thomas Vincent, who was residing in London at the time, describes some touching examples of sorrow, which were only specimens of what prevailed to an indescribable extent.
"Amongst other sad spectacles," he says, "two, methought, were very affecting; one of a woman coming alone, and weeping by the door where I lived, (which was in the midst of the infection,) with _a little coffin under her arm_, carrying it to the new churchyard. I did judge that it was the mother of the child, and that all the family besides were dead, and that she was forced to coffin up and to bury with her own hands this her last dead child!" The second case to which this writer alludes is even more terrible than that now given, but out of regard to our readers" feelings we refrain from quoting it. A pa.s.senger, the same eye-witness adds, could hardly go out without meeting coffins; and Defoe gives us a picture, as graphic as it is awful, of the mode of sepulture adopted when the plague was at its height. He informs us that a great pit was dug in the churchyard of Aldgate parish, from fifteen to sixteen feet broad, and twenty feet deep; at night, the victims carried off in the day by death were brought in carts by torchlight to this receptacle, the bellman accompanying them, and calling on the inhabitants as they pa.s.sed along to bring out their dead. Sixteen or seventeen bodies, naked, or wrapped in sheets or rags, were thrown into one cart, and then huddled together into the common grave.
The king of terrors sweeping into the eternal world so many thousands, is a picture which must excite in the mind of the Christian solemn emotions. It is pleasing, however, to learn from Vincent how tranquilly G.o.d"s people departed in that season of Divine judgment.
"They died with such comfort as Christians do not ordinarily arrive unto, except when they are called forth to suffer martyrdom for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Some who have been full of doubts, and fears, and complaints, whilst they have lived and been well, have been filled with a.s.surance, and comfort, and praise, and joyful expectations of glory, when they have been laid on their death-beds by this disease; and not only more growing Christians, who have been more ripe for glory, have had their comforts, but also some younger Christians, whose acquaintance with the Lord hath been of no long standing." There were persons, however, who had lived through a course of profligacy, who, so far from being led to repentance by the awful dispensation they witnessed, only plunged into deeper excesses, driving away care by riot and intemperance, or availing themselves of the confusion of the times to commit robbery. The immorality, daring presumption, and reckless wickedness of a portion of the people during the London plague, as in the plague at Florence in 1348, and the plague at Athens, described by Thucydides, prove the depravity of the human heart, and the inefficacy of afflictions or judgments, if unaccompanied by Divine grace, to melt or change it. We learn, however, that by the preaching of the gospel some were graciously renewed and saved. Baxter informs us, that "abundance were converted from their carelessness, impenitency, and youthful l.u.s.ts and vanities, and religion took such a hold on many hearts as could never afterwards be loosed." The parish churches were in several instances forsaken by their occupants, but many G.o.dly men who had been ejected by the Uniformity Act, now came forward, with their characteristic disinterestedness and zeal, to supply their brethren"s lack of service. Vincent, already mentioned, with Clarkson, Cradock, and Terry, distinguished themselves by holy efforts for the conversion of sinners at that dreadful time. A broad sheet exists in the British Museum, containing "short instructions for the sick, especially those who, by contagion, or otherwise, are deprived of the presence of a faithful pastor, by Richard Baxter, written in the great plague year, 1665." Preaching was the princ.i.p.al method of doing good.
Large congregations a.s.sembled to hear the man of G.o.d faithfully proclaim his message. The imagination readily restores the timeworn Gothic structure in the narrow street--the people coming along in groups--the crowded church doors, and the broad aisles, as well as the oaken pews and benches, filled with one dense ma.s.s--the anxious countenances looking up at the pulpit--the divine, in his plain black gown and cap--the reading of the Scriptures--the solemn prayer--the sermon, quaint indeed, but full of point and earnestness, and possessing that prime quality, adaptation--the thrilling appeals at the close of each division of the discourse--the breathless silence, broken now and then by half-suppressed sobs and lamentations--the hymn, swelling in dirge-like notes--and the benediction, which each would regard as possibly a dismissal to eternity; for who but must have felt his exposure to the infection while sitting amidst that promiscuous audience? It is at times like these that the worth of the soul is appreciated, and a saving interest in Christ perceived to be more valuable than all the acc.u.mulated treasures of earth. So far as their health was concerned, the prudence of the people in congregating together in such crowds, at such a season, has been often and fairly questioned; yet who that looks at the imminent spiritual peril in which mult.i.tudes were placed, but must commend the religious concern which they manifested; and who that takes into account the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the preachers, laboring without emolument at the hazard of their lives, but must applaud their apostolic zeal?--_Spiritual Heroes_, p. 289.
The plague reached its height in September--during one night of that month ten thousand persons died. After this the pestilence gradually diminished, and by the end of the year it had ceased. The visitation has acquired additional interest for us of late from the occurrence of cholera to an alarming extent. The former, like the latter, was increased by poverty and filth, and to a much greater degree; for, badly as houses have been ventilated, of late, and defective as may be our drainage, our fathers were incomparably worse off than we are in these respects. Houses were crowded together, and left in a state of impurity which would shock the least delicate and refined of the present day. There were scarcely any under sewers. Ditches were the channels for carrying off refuse; and as supplements to these imperfect methods of cleansing a great city, there were public dunghills. The effluvia from such sources was, indeed, humanly speaking, enough to cause a pestilence, and at the time of the plague must have been intolerable from the heat of the weather; while some means, also, adopted by the authorities for stopping the ravages of mortality, only promoted the evil--such as the shutting up of houses, and the kindling fires in the streets. The state of the metropolis then, and even now, may be a.s.signed as an auxiliary cause of the spread of plague and cholera; but it must be confessed, there lies at the bottom of these visitations much of mystery, inexplicable by reference to mere human agencies. There is a power at work in the universe deeper far than any of those which our poor natural philosophy can detect. Not that these extraordinary occurrences show us the presence of a Divine providence which does not operate at other, and at all times; not as if the mysterious agency of G.o.d were sometimes in action, and sometimes in repose; not as if the Almighty visited the earth yesterday, and left it to-day; not as if his kingly rule over the world were broken by interregnums;--by no means; still these events are like the lifting up of the veil of second causes, and the disclosure of depths of power down which mortals ought to look with reverence. They suggest to the devout solemn views of nature and man--of life and death--of G.o.d ruling over all. Loudly, also, do they remind us of the malignity of sin, and the evils which it has brought on a fallen world. Happy is he who, amidst desolations such as we have now described, can, through a living faith in Christ, exclaim, "The Lord is my refuge and fortress: my G.o.d; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver me from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence."
[1] Judge Whitelock came up to London from Buckingham to sit in Westminster Hall. He reached Hyde Park Corner on the morning of the 2d, "where he and his retinue dined on the ground, with such meat and drink as they brought in the coach with them, and afterwards he drove fast through the streets, which were empty of people and overgrown with gra.s.s, to Westminster Hall, where he adjourned the court, returned to his coach, and drove away presently out of town."--_Whitelock_, p. 2.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRE OF LONDON.
"One woe is past, another woe cometh quickly." Just a year after the plague was at its height, the great fire of London occurred. On Sunday, September 3d, 1666, soon after midnight, the house of Farryner the king"s baker, near London-bridge, was discovered to be in flames.
Before breakfast time no less than three hundred houses were consumed.
Such a rapid conflagration struck dismay throughout the neighborhood, and unnerved those who, in the first instance, by prompt measures might have stayed the mischief. Charles II., as soon as he heard of what had happened, displayed a decision, firmness, and humanity, which relieve, in some degree, the dark shades Of his character and life; and gave orders to pull down the houses in the vicinity of the fire. Soon afterwards he hastened to the scene of danger, in company with his brother, the duke of York, using prudent measures to check the conflagration, to help the sufferers, and inspire confidence in the minds of the people. But the lord mayor was like one distracted, uttering hopeless exclamations on receiving the royal message, blaming the people for not obeying him, and leaving the scene of peril to seek repose; while the inhabitants ran about raving in despair, and the fire, which no proper means were employed to quench, went on its own way, devouring house after house, and street after street. By Monday night, the fire had reached to the west as far as the Middle Temple, and to the east as far as Tower-street. Fleet-street, Old Bailey, Ludgate-hill, Warwick-lane, Newgate, Paul"s-chain, Watling-street, Thames-street, and Billingsgate, were destroyed or still wrapped in flame.
On Tuesday the fire reached the end of Fetter-lane and the entrance to Smithfield. Around Cripplegate and the Tower, the devouring element violently raged, but in other directions it somewhat abated. Engines had been employed in pulling down houses, but this process was too slow to overtake the mischief. Gunpowder was then used to blow up buildings, so that large gaps were made, which cut off the edifices that were burning from those still untouched. By these means, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the devastation was curbed. The brick buildings of the Temple also checked its progress to the west. Throughout Wednesday the efforts of the king and duke, and some of the lords of the council, were indefatigable. Indeed, his majesty made the round of the fire twice a day, for many hours together, both on horseback and on foot, giving orders to the men who were pulling down houses, and repaying them on the spot for their toils out of a money-bag which he carried about with him. On Thursday, the fire was thought to be quite extinguished, but in the evening it burst out afresh near the Temple.
Renewed and vigorous efforts at that point, however, soon stayed its ravages, and in the course of a short time it was finally extinguished.
The s.p.a.ce covered with ruins was four hundred and thirty-six acres in extent. The boundaries of the conflagration were Temple-bar, Holborn-bridge, Pye-corner, Smithfield, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, near the end of Coleman-street, at the end of Basinghall-street, by the postern at the upper end of Bishopsgate-street, in Leadenhall-street, by the Standard in Cornhill, at the church in Fenchurch-street, by the Clothworkers" Hall, at the middle of Mark-lane, and at the Tower-dock.
While four hundred and thirty-six acres were covered with ruins, only seventy-five remained with the property upon it uninjured. Four hundred streets, thirteen thousand houses, eighty-seven parish churches, and six chapels; St. Paul"s Cathedral, the Royal Exchange and Custom House, Guildhall and Newgate, and fifty-two halls of livery companies, besides other public buildings, were swept away. Eleven millions" value of property the fire consumed, but, through the mercy of G.o.d, only eight lives were lost.
The rapid spread of the devastation may be easily accounted for in the absence of timely means to stop it. The buildings were chiefly constructed of timber, and covered with thatch. The materials were rendered even more than commonly combustible by a summer intensely hot and dry. Many of the streets were so narrow that the houses facing each other almost touched at the top. A strong east wind steadily blew for three days over the devoted spot, like the blast of a furnace, at once fanning the flame and scattering firebrands beyond it. It was like a fire kindled in an old forest, feeding on all it touched, curling like a serpent round tree after tree, leaving ashes behind, and darting on with the speed of lightning to seize on the timber before.
Into the origin of the calamity the strictest investigation was made.
Some ascribed it to incendiaries. Party spirit led to the accusation of the papists, as perpetrators of the deed. One poor man was executed, on his own confession, of having a hand in it, but under circ.u.mstances which pretty clearly prove that he was a madman, and was really innocent of the crime of which, through a strange, but not incredible hallucination of mind, he feigned himself guilty. Other persons ascribed it to what would commonly be called an accidental circ.u.mstance--a great stock of f.a.gots in the baker"s shop being kindled, and carelessly left to burn in close contiguity with stores of pitch and rosin. Many considered that the providence of Almighty G.o.d, who works out his own wonderful purposes of judgment and mercy by means which men call accidental, overruled the circ.u.mstances out of which the fire arose, as a source of terrific chastis.e.m.e.nt for the sins of a wicked and G.o.dless population, who had hardened their necks against Divine reproof administered to them in another form so shortly before.
A religious sentiment in reference to the visitation took possession of many minds, habitually undevout; and even Charles himself was heard, we are told by Clarendon, to "speak with great piety and devotion of the displeasure that G.o.d was provoked to."
Eye-witnesses have left behind them graphic sketches of this spectacle of terror. "The burning," says Vincent, in his tract called "G.o.d"s Terrible Advice to the City by Plague and Fire,"--"the burning was in the fashion of a bow; a dreadful bow it was, such as mine eyes never before had seen--a bow which had G.o.d"s arrow in it with a flaming point." "The cloud of smoke was so great, that travelers did ride at noon-day some six miles together in the shadow of it, though there were no other clouds to be seen in the sky." "The great fury of the fire was in the broader streets in the midst of the night; it was come down to Cornhill, and laid it in the dust, and runs along by the stocks, and there meets with another fire, which came down Threadneedle-street, a little farther with another which came up from Wallbrook, a little farther with another which came up from Bucklersbury, and all these four joining together break into one great flame, at the corner of Cheapside, with such a dazzling light and burning heat, and roaring noise by the fall of so many houses together, that was very amazing."
One trembles at the thought of these blazing torrents rolling along the streets, and then uniting in a point, like the meeting of wild waters--floods of fire dashing into a common current. Evelyn observes that the stones of St. Paul"s Cathedral flew about like granadoes, and the melted lead ran down the pavements in a bright stream, "so that no horse or man was able to tread on them." "I saw," he says in his Diary, "the whole south part of the city burning, from Cheapside to the Thames, and all along Cornhill, (for it likewise kindled back against the wind as well as forward,) Tower-street, Fenchurch-street, Gracechurch-street, and so along to Baynard"s Castle, and was taking hold of St. Paul"s Church, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly." He saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with such property as the inhabitants had time and courage to save; while on land the carts were carrying out furniture and other articles to the fields, which for many miles were strewed with movables of all sorts, and with tents erected to shelter the people. "All the sky," he adds, "was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen for above forty miles around for many nights; the noise and cracking of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like a hideous storm; and the air all about so hot and inflamed, that at last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forced to stand still, and let the flames burn on, which they did for nearly two miles in length and one in breadth.
The clouds also of smoke were dismal, and reached upon computation nearly fifty miles in length."
A great fire is a most sublime, as well as appalling spectacle, and generally presents some features of the picturesquely terrible.
Guildhall, built of oak, too solid and old to blaze, became so much red-hot charcoal, as if it had been a palace of gold, or a building of burnished bra.s.s. There were circ.u.mstances, too, connected with the destruction of magnificent edifices, full of a sort of poetical interest. The flame inwrapped St. Paul"s Cathedral, and rent in pieces the n.o.ble portico recently erected, splitting the stones into flakes, and leaving nothing entire but the inscription on the architrave, which, without one defaced letter, continued amidst the ruins to proclaim the builder"s name. In remarkable coincidence with this, at the same time that the fire entered the Royal Exchange, ran round the galleries, descended the stairs, compa.s.sed the walks, filled the courts, and rolled down the royal statues from their niches, the figure of the founder, Sir Thomas Gresham, was left unharmed, as if calmly surveying the destruction of his own munificent donation to the old city, and antic.i.p.ating the certainty of the re-edification of that monument of his fame, as well as the revival of that commerce, in the history of which his own is involved. As we think of this, we call to mind another interesting incident, which occurred when the building was burned down a second time in 1838. Some readers, perhaps, will remember, that the bells in the tower rang out their last chime to the tune of "There"s na" luck about the house," just as they were on the point of coming down with a tremendous crash; as though uttering swanlike notes in death.
The area devastated by the fire may be estimated, if we fancy a line drawn from Temple Bar to the bottom of Holborn-hill, then through Smithfield across Aldersgate-street to the end of Coleman-street, then sweeping round by the end of Bishopsgate and Leadenhall-streets, and taking a curve till it touches the Tower, the river forming the southern boundary of this large s.p.a.ce. Within these limits, after the fire, there arose a new London, of n.o.bler aspect, and formed for grander destinies than the old one, relieved by that very fire, under the blessing of Divine Providence, from liability to the recurrence of the dreadful plague, which had from time to time recruited its death-dealing energy from the filth of old crowded streets, with all their noxious exhalations. If a panic seized the citizens when the first alarm of the conflagration spread among them, they redeemed their character by the self-possession and activity which they evinced in repairing the desolation. Not desponding, but inspired with the hope of the future prosperity of their venerable city, they concurred with king and parliament in the zeal and diligence requisite for the emergency. Scarcely were the flames extinguished, when they set to work planning the restoration. "Everybody," observes Evelyn, "brings in his idea; amidst the rest, I presented his majesty my own conceptions, with a discourse annexed. It was the second that was seen within two days after the conflagration, but Dr. Wren had got the start of me." This Dr. Wren had been spoken of by the same writer, fourteen years before, as a miracle of a youth. Having made wonderful attainments in science, he had devoted himself with enthusiasm to the study of architecture, and now, in the wide s.p.a.ce in which at once a full-grown city was to appear, a field presented itself worthy of the exercise of the greatest powers of art--a field, indeed, which could rarely in the world"s history be looked for. Doubtless Wren"s mind was all on fire with the grand occasion, and put forth all its marvelous ability to meet so unparalleled a crisis. Before the architect"s imagination there rose the view of a city, built with scientific proportions, with a broad street running in a perfect line from a magnificent piazza, placed where St. Dunstan"s church stands, to another piazza on Tower-hill, with an intermediate piazza corresponding with these, from each of which streets should radiate. Then, on the top of Ludgate-hill, over which the broad highway was to run, the new cathedral was to rise, in the midst of a wide open s.p.a.ce, displaying to advantage its colossal form; and on its northern side there was to branch out, at a narrow angle with the other main thoroughfare, an avenue of like dimensions, leading to the Royal Exchange--the site, in fact, (but intended to cover a wider s.p.a.ce,) of our present Cheapside.
The Royal Exchange was to be an additional grand centre, adorned with piazzas, whence a third vast thoroughfare was to sweep along to Holborn. All acute angles were to be avoided. The great openings were to exhibit graceful curves, parochial edifices were to be conspicuous and insulated, the halls of the twelve great companies were to be ranged round Guildhall, and architecture was to do the utmost possible in every street. A like vision dawned on the fancy of Sir John Evelyn, who in this respect was no unworthy compeer of Wren. But, though the architect showed the practicability of the scheme, without any loss of the property, or infringement of the rights of the citizens, their obstinacy in not allowing the old foundations to be altered, and their determination not to give up the ground to commissioners for making out the new streets and sites of buildings, defeated the scheme; "and thus," writes Wren, (with a deep sigh one thinks he penned the words while his darling dream melted away,) "the opportunity, in a great degree, was lost, of making the new city the most magnificent, as well as commodious for health and trade, of any upon earth." Sir Christopher Wren could do nothing as he wished. The Monument was not what he meant it to be. The churches were not placed as he would have had them, so as to exhibit to advantage their architectural character.
Even St. Paul"s was shorn of the glory with which it was enriched in the architect"s mind. It was narrowed and altered by incompetent judges, especially the Duke of York, who wished to preserve in it arrangements convenient for a popish cathedral, which he wildly hoped it would ultimately become. When Wren was compelled to give way, he even shed tears in the bitterness of his disappointment and grief. He finally had to do on a large scale, what common minds are ever doing in their little way--sacrifice some fondly cherished ideal to a stern necessity.
But, crippled as his genius was by the untoward position in which he was placed, he accomplished marvelous works of art in the churches so numerous and varied, built from his designs, and especially in the grand cathedral, which rises above the rich group of towers, domes, steeples, and spires, with a lordly air. It is related, in connection with the building of St. Dunstan"s church in the east, the steeple of which is constructed upon quadrangular columns, that so anxious was he respecting the result, that he placed himself on London-bridge, watching through a lens the effect of removing the temporary supporters, by the aid of which the building was reared. The ascent of a rocket proclaimed the stability of the structure, and Sir Christopher smiled at the thought of his having for a moment hesitated to trust to the certainty of mathematical calculations. Informed one night afterwards, that a hurricane had damaged all the steeples in London, he remarked, "Not St. Dunstan"s, I am quite sure." St. Stephen"s, Wallbrook, is generally considered the _chef-d"oeuvre_ of Sir Christopher Wren. "Had the materials and volume," to quote the opinion of two celebrated architects, "been so durable and extensive as those of St. Paul"s Cathedral, he had consummated a much more efficient monument to his well-earned fame than that fabric affords." But the beauty of the edifice is in the interior. "Never was so sweet a kernel in so rough a sh.e.l.l--so rich a jewel in so poor a setting." The cost of the fabric was only 7,652. 13_s._ (Cunninghame"s Handbook of London.)
The first stone of St. Paul"s was laid on the 21st of June, 1675, by the architect; and he notices in his Parentalia a little circ.u.mstance connected with the preparations, which was construed by those present into a favorable omen, and which evidently interested and pleased his own mind. When the centre of the dimensions of the great dome was fixed upon, a man was ordered to bring a flat stone from the heap of rubbish, to be laid as a mark for the masons. The piece he happened to take up for the purpose was the fragment of a grave-stone, with nothing of the inscription left but the words, "_Resurgam_," "I shall rise again." And, true enough, St. Paul"s did rise again, with a splendor which posterity has ever admired. It is, undoubtedly, the second church in Christendom of that style of architecture, St. Peter"s at Rome being the first. Inferior in point of dimensions, and sadly begrimed with smoke, in contrast with St. Peter"s comparatively untarnished freshness--dest.i.tute, too, of its marble linings, gilded arches, and splendid mosaics"--it is, on the whole, as Eustace, a critic prejudiced on the side of Rome, acknowledged, a most extensive and stately edifice: "It fixes the eye of the spectator as he pa.s.ses by, and challenges his admiration, and, even next to the Vatican, though by a long interval, it claims superiority over all the transalpine churches, and furnishes a just subject of national pride and exultation." It was not until 1710 that the building was complete, when the architect"s son laid the topmost stone on the lantern of the cupola.
In the prospectus published by Evelyn for the rebuilding of London, he observed, that if the citizens were permitted to gratify their own fancies, "it might possibly become, indeed, a new, but a very ugly city, when all was done." The citizens were permitted to have their own way, and the result was very much what he antic.i.p.ated. The old sites of streets and public buildings were, to a great extent, adopted.
The former remained narrow, winding, inconvenient--indeed, more inconvenient than ever; for what might be borne with when even ladies of quality traveled on horseback, became scarcely endurable when lumbering coaches were all the fashion. Churches and other edifices of importance were planted in inappropriate situations, and were blocked up by houses and shops. In Chamberlayne"s _Angliae Not.i.tia_ for 1692, he laments that within the city the s.p.a.cious houses of n.o.blemen, rich merchants, the halls of companies, and the fair taverns, were hidden from strangers, the room towards the street being reserved for tradesmen"s shops; but from his account and that of others, it appears plain enough that the men of that day felt that London, as rebuilt after the fire, was far superior to what it had been in the times of their fathers. The old wooden lath and plaster dwellings gave place to more substantial habitations of brick and stone, and the public structures appeared to those who were contemporary with their erection, proud trophies of skill, art, and wealth. "Notwithstanding," exclaims the author just noticed, "all these huge losses by fire, notwithstanding the most devouring pestilence in the year immediately foregoing, and the then very chargeable war against three potent neighbors, the citizens, recovering in a few months their native courage, have since so cheerfully and unanimously set themselves to rebuild the city, that, (not to mention whole streets built and now building by others in the suburbs,) within the s.p.a.ce of four years, they erected in the same streets ten thousand houses, and laid out three millions sterling. Besides several large hospitals, divers very stately halls, nineteen fair solid stone churches were all at the same time erecting, and soon afterwards finished, and now, in the year 1691, above twenty churches more, of various beautiful and solid architecture are rebuilt. Moreover, as if the late fire had only purged the city, the buildings are becoming infinitely more beautiful." The author speaks with immense satisfaction of the new houses, churches, and halls, richly-adorned shops, chambers, balconies, and portals, carved work in stone and wood, with pictures and wainscot, not only of fir and oak, but some with sweet-smelling cedar, the streets paved with stone and guarded with posts; and ends by observing, that though the king might not say he found London of brick and left it of marble, he could say, "I found it wood and left it brick."
CHAPTER V.
FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE CITY TO THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY.
Great as was the consternation described in the foregoing chapter, scarcely less terror was produced in the minds of the citizens by the apprehension of a Dutch invasion about the same time. In 1666, even before the fire, this feeling was excited. The ships of France and Holland approached the Thames, and engaged with the English fleet.
"After dinner," says Lady Warwick, whose entry in her journal, under date, July 29, brings the occurrence home to us--"after dinner came the news of hearing the guns that our fleet was engaged. My head was much afflicted by the consideration of the blood that was spilt, and of the many souls that would launch into eternity." There is a fine pa.s.sage, descriptive of the excitement at this time, in Dryden"s Essay on Poesie: "The noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city, so that men being alarmed with it, and in dreadful suspense of the event, which we knew was then deciding, every one went following the sound as his fancy led him, and leaving the town almost empty, some took towards the park, some cross the river, others down it, all seeking the noise in the depth of the silence. Taking, then, a barge, which the servant of Lisidenis had provided for them, they made haste to shoot the bridge, and left behind them that great fall of waters, which hindered them from hearing what they desired; after which, having disengaged themselves from many vessels which rode in anchor in the Thames, and almost blocked up the pa.s.sage to Greenwich, they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and then every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it was not long ere they perceived the air breaking about them, like the noise of distant thunder, or of swallows in the chimney, those little undulations of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror, which they had betwixt the fleets. After they had listened till such time as the sound, by little and little, went from them, Eugenius, lifting up his head, and taking notice of it, was the first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation"s victory, adding, we had but this to desire in confirmation of it, that we might hear no more of that noise, which was now leaving the English coast." This pa.s.sage, which Montgomery eulogizes most warmly in his Lectures on English Poetry, as one of the most magnificent in our language, places before us, with graphic force, the state of curiosity, suspense, and solicitude, which was experienced by mult.i.tudes of citizens at the period referred to.
In the following year, fresh excitement from the same source arose.
The monarch was wasting upon his pleasures a considerable portion of the money which parliament had voted for the defence of the kingdom.
The national exchequer was empty, and the credit of the navy commissioners gone. No loans could be obtained, yet ready money was demanded by the laborers required in the dockyards, by the sailors who were wanted to man the vessels, and by the merchants from whose stores the fleet needed its provisions. Not a gun was mounted in Tilbury Fort, nor a ship of war was in the river ready to oppose the enemy, while crowds thronged about the Admiralty, demanding their pay, and justly upbraiding the government. The Dutch ships, under De Ruyter, entered the Thames, sailed up the Medway, and seized the Royal Charles, besides three first-rate English vessels. One can easily conceive the second panic which this event must have produced among the citizens; nor is it difficult to imagine the suspension of business, the general exchange of hasty inquiries in that hour of terror, and the flocking of the people to the river-side to learn tidings of the fleet. Though the Dutch ships, unable to do further mischief on that occasion, returned to join the rest of the naval force anch.o.r.ed off the Nore; yet the citizens could not be relieved from their anxiety by this circ.u.mstance, for they knew that the foe would remain hovering about their coasts, and they could not tell but that in some unlooked-for moment the invaders might approach the very walls of their city. Some weeks of painful apprehension followed, and twice again did the admiral threaten to remount the Thames. An engagement between the English squadron and a portion of the invading armament of Holland prevented the accomplishment of that design, and saved London for the present from further fear.
Strong political excitement was produced in the city of London, at a later period of Charles II."s reign, by another kind of invasion. The monarch and court, finding themselves thwarted in their arbitrary system of government by the spirit of the citizens, who were jealous of their own liberties, ventured, in defiance of the national const.i.tution and the charters of the city, to interfere in the munic.i.p.al elections.
They attempted to thrust on the people as sheriffs men whom they knew they could employ as tools for despotic purposes. In 1681, a violent attempt of this sort was made, when the city returned in opposition to the wishes of king and court, two patriotic and popular men, Thomas Pilkington and Samuel Shaw. The king could not conceal his chagrin at this election, and when invited to dine with the citizens, replied, "Mr. Recorder, an invitation from the lord mayor and the city is very acceptable to me, and to show that it is so, notwithstanding that it is brought by messengers so unwelcome to me as those two sheriffs are, yet I accept it." Many of the citizens about the same time, influenced by fervent Protestant zeal, and by attachment to the civil and religious liberties of the country, were apprehensive of the consequences if the Duke of York, known to be a Roman Catholic, were allowed to ascend the British throne. The anti-papal feelings of the nation had been increased by the belief of a deeply-laid popish plot, which the infamous t.i.tus Oates pretended to reveal; and in London those sentiments had been rendered still more intense by the murder of Sir Edmondbury G.o.dfery, the magistrate who received Oates"s depositions.
His death, over which a large amount of mystery still rests, was attributed to the revenge of the papists for the part he had taken in the prosecution against them. The hatred of which, in general, Roman Catholics were the objects, centered on the prince, from whose succession to the crown the restoration of the old religion of the country was antic.i.p.ated. His name became odious, and it was difficult to shield it from popular indignity. Some one cut and mangled a picture of him which hung in Guildhall. The corporation, to prevent his royal highness from supposing that they countenanced or excused the insult, offered a large reward for the detection of the offender, and the Artillery Company invited the prince to a city banquet. The party most active in opposing his succession determined to have a large meeting and entertainment of their own, to express their opinion on the vital point of the succession to the crown; but the proceeding was sternly forbidden by the court, a circ.u.mstance which only served to deepen the feelings of discontent already created to a serious extent in very many b.r.e.a.s.t.s. This was followed up by the lord mayor nominating, in the year 1682, a sheriff favorable to the royal interests, and intimating to the citizens that they were to confirm his choice. The uproar at the common hall on Midsummer-day was tremendous.
The citizens contended for their right of election, and nominated both sheriffs themselves, selecting two persons of popular sentiments.
Amidst the riot, the lord mayor was roughly treated, and consequently complained to his majesty, the result of which was, that the two sheriffs already in office, and obnoxious to the court, were committed to the Tower for not maintaining the peace. Papillion and Dubois, the people"s candidates, were elected. The privy council annulled the election, and commanded another; when the lord mayor most arbitrarily declared North and Box, the court candidates, duly chosen. Court and city were now pledged to open conflict; the former pursuing thoroughly despotic measures to bring the latter to submission. One rich popular citizen was fined to the amount of 100,000, for an alleged scandal on the popish duke, and at length it was resolved to take away the city charter. Forms of law were adopted for the purpose. An information, technically ent.i.tled a _quo warranto_, was brought against the corporation in the court of King"s Bench. It was alleged, in support of this suit at the instance of the crown, that the common council had imposed certain tolls by an ordinance of their own, and had presented and published throughout the country an insolent pet.i.tion to the king, in 1679, for the calling of parliament. The court, swayed by a desire to please the king, p.r.o.nounced judgment against the corporation, and declared their charter forfeited; yet only recorded that judgment, as if to inveigle the corporation into some kind of voluntary submission, as the price of preserving a portion of what they were now on the point of altogether losing. Such an issue, of course, was regarded by the court as more desirable than an act of direct force, which was likely to irritate the citizens, and arouse wrath, which might be treasured up against another day. The city, to save their estates, yielded to the law, and submitted to the conditions imposed by the king--namely, that no mayor, sheriff, recorder, or other chief officer, should be admitted until approved by the king; that in event of his majesty"s twice disapproving the choice of the citizens, he should himself nominate a person to fill the office, without waiting for another election; that the court of aldermen might, with the king"s permission, remove any one of their body, and that they should have a negative on the election of the common council, and, in case of disapproving a second choice on the part of the citizens, should themselves proceed to nominate such as they themselves approved. "The city was of course absolutely subservient to the court from this time to the revolution." (Hallam"s Const.i.tutional History, chap. ii, p. 146.)