Now buried in the depths below, Now mounted up to heaven again; They reel and stagger to and fro, At their wits" end like drunken men."
The mania spread so that the South Sea scheme itself could not satisfy the l.u.s.t for money. Maitland enumerates one hundred and fifty-six companies formed at this time. Among some which look feasible, there were the following characterized by extravagant absurdities:--An a.s.sociation for discovering gold mines, for bleaching hair, for making flying engines, for feeding hogs, for erecting salt-pans in Holy Island, for making b.u.t.ter from beech trees, for making deal boards out of saw-dust, for extracting silver from lead, and finally, (which seems to have been much needed to exhaust the maddening vapors that had made their way into it,) for manufacturing an air pump for the brain.
Some of them were surely mere satires on the rest; yet Maitland says, after giving his long list, "Besides these bubbles, there were innumerable more that perished in embryo; however, the sums intended to be raised by the above airy projects amounted to about three hundred million pounds. Yet the lowest of the shares in any of them advanced above cent. per cent., most above four hundred per cent., and some to twenty times the price of subscription." The bulk of these speculators must clearly have been bereft of their senses, and the madness was too violent to last long. The evil worked its own cure. The golden bubble was blown larger, and larger, till it burst. Then came indescribable misery. Thousands were ruined. Revenge against the inventors now took the place of cupidity, and indignation aroused those who had looked patiently on during the rage of the _money_ mania. One n.o.bleman in parliament proposed that the contrivers of the South Sea scheme should, after the manner of the Roman parricide, be sown up alive in sacks, and flung into the Thames. A more moderate punishment was inflicted in the confiscation of all the estates belonging to the directors of the company, amounting to above two millions, which sum was divided among the sufferers. The railway speculation in our own time was a display of avarice of the same order; and all such indulgence in the inordinate l.u.s.t of gain is sure to be overtaken, in the end, by its righteous penalty. The laws of Divine providence provide for the punishment of those who thus, under the influence of an impetuous selfishness, grasp at immoderate possessions. Covetousness overreaches itself in such cases, and misses its mark. How many instances have occurred in the present day ill.u.s.trative of that wise saying in Holy Scripture: "As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at the end shall be a fool!" The solemn lessons thus suggested should be practically studied by the man of business, and while he is taught to moderate his desires after the things of this world, he is also instructed to turn the main current of his thoughts and feelings into a far different channel, to seek durable riches and righteousness--bags which wax not old--treasures which thieves cannot break through and steal; and to "so pa.s.s through things temporal, as not to lose the things which are eternal."
The history of London in the reign of George II. is remarkable for the excitement which was produced by the northern rebellion, and for a far different excitement, which we shall presently notice with great delight. The progress of the arms of Prince Edward, the pretender, in the year 1745, created much alarm in all parts of the country, especially in London, the seat of government. When the invading army was found to have proceeded as far as Derby, it was generally expected it would advance to the metropolis. The loyalty of the citizens was called forth by the impending peril, and all cla.s.ses hastened to express their attachment to the sovereign, and their readiness to support the house of Hanover in this great emergency. The corporation, the clergy, and the dissenting ministers, presented dutiful addresses.
Several corps of volunteers were raised, large sums of money were contributed, and even the peace-loving body of Friends came forward to furnish the troops with woolen waistcoats to be worn under their clothing. As the cause of Popery was identified with that of the pretender, the Papists in London were regarded with great apprehension.
A proclamation was issued for putting the laws in force against them and all non-jurors. Romanists and reputed Romanists were required to remove out of the city, to at least ten miles off. All Jesuits and priests who, after a certain time, should be found within that distance were to be brought to trial. The pretender was defeated at Culloden, and the news took off a heavy burden of fear from the minds of the London citizens. Many prisoners were brought to the metropolis, and among them the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and Lord Lovat, who were all executed for treason on Tower-hill. The beheading of the last of these brought to a close the long series of sanguinary spectacles of that nature, which had gathered from time to time such a vast concourse of citizens, on the hill by the Tower gates.
The other kind of excitement in London, hinted at above, relates to the most important of all subjects. Spiritual religion had been at a low ebb for a considerable period among the different denominations of Christians. A cold formalism was but too common. It is not, however, to be inferred that men of sound and earnest piety did not exist, both among Churchmen and dissenters. One beautiful specimen of religious fervor and consistency may be mentioned in connection with the earlier part of this century. Sir Thomas Abney, who filled the office of lord mayor in 1701, and also represented the city in parliament, is described as having been an eminent blessing to his country and the Church of G.o.d. He died in 1722, deeply regretted, not only by his religious friends, but by his fellow-citizens in general. We have seen or heard it stated respecting him, that during his mayoralty he habitually maintained family worship, without suffering it to be interrupted by any parties or banquets. On such occasions prayer was introduced, or he retired to present it in the bosom of his family.
Many other beautiful instances of a devout spirit, of faith in Christ, and of love to G.o.d, were, no doubt, open at that time to the eye of Him who seeth in secret; but neither then, nor for some time afterwards, were any vigorous efforts made to bring religion home with power to the ma.s.s of the London population. That distinguished man, the Rev. George Whitefield, was an instrument in the hand of G.o.d of effecting in the metropolis, before the close of the first half of the century, an unprecedented religious awakening. He came up to officiate in the Tower in 1737, but his first sermon in London was delivered in Bishopsgate church. On his second visit, crowds climbed the leads, and hung on the rails of the buildings in which he was engaged to minister, while mult.i.tudes went away because not able to get anywhere within the sound of his voice. Nothing had been seen like it since the days of such men as Baxter and Vincent. When collections were needed, Whitefield was eagerly sought, as the man capable above all others of replenishing the exhausted coffers of Christian beneficence. The people sat or stood densely wedged together, with eyes riveted on the speaker, and many a tear rolled down the cheeks of citizen and apprentice, matron and maiden, as the instructions and appeals of that wonderful preacher, expressed in stirring words and phrases, fell upon their ears, in tones marvelously rich, varied, and musical. With an eloquence, which now flashed and rolled like the elements in a thunder-storm, and then tenderly beamed forth like the sun-ray on the flower whose head the storm had drenched and made to droop, did he enforce on the people truths which he had gathered out of G.o.d"s precious word, and the power of which he had evidently himself realized in all the divinity of their origin, the sublimity of their import, the directness of their application, and the unutterable solemnity of their results. As a man dwelling amidst eternal things, with heaven and h.e.l.l before him, the eye of G.o.d upon him, and immortal souls around him, hastening to their account,--in short, as every minister of Christ"s holy gospel ought to deliver his message, did he do so. The holiness of G.o.d, as a Being of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; the perfect excellence of the Divine law; its demand of entire obedience; its adaptation, if observed, to promote the happiness of man; its spirituality, reaching to the most secret thoughts and affections of the heart; the corruption of human nature; the alienation of man from G.o.d, and his moral inability to keep the Divine law; the sentence of everlasting condemnation, which, as the awful, but righteous consequence, falls upon our race; the marvelous kindness of G.o.d in so commending his love to us, "that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us;" the Saviour"s fulfillment of the law in his gracious representative character; the perfect satisfaction for sin rendered by his atoning sacrifice; the unutterable condescension and infinite love with which he receiveth sinners; the grace of the Holy Spirit; the necessity of an entire regeneration of the soul by his Divine agency; the full and free invitations of the gospel to mankind at large; forgiveness through the blood of Christ offered to all who believe; the universal obligation of repentance; the requirement of holiness of heart and life, as the evidence of love to Christ, and the indwelling of the Spirit, as the Author of holiness; such were the grand truths which formed the theme of Whitefield"s discourses, and which, in numerous instances, fell with startling power on ears unaccustomed to evangelical statements and appeals. The preacher was a man of prayer as well as eloquence, and in his London visits poured out his heart in earnest supplication to G.o.d for the effusion of his Holy Spirit upon the vast ma.s.ses of unconverted souls, slumbering around him in the arms of spiritual death. Whitefield could not confine himself to churches, and his out-door preaching soon increased the interest which his former services had produced. "I do not know," said the celebrated Countess of Hertford, in one of her letters, "whether you have heard of our new sect, who call themselves Methodists. There is one Whitefield at the head of them, a young man of about five-and-twenty, who has for some months gone about preaching in the fields and market-places of the country, and in London at May Fair and Moorfields to ten or twelve thousand people at a time." Larger mult.i.tudes still are said to have been sometimes convened; on Kennington Common, for example, the number of Whitefield"s congregation has been computed at sixty thousand.
The notice taken of the young preacher by this lady of fashion, is only a specimen of the interest felt in his proceedings by many persons in the same rank of life. The n.o.bility attended in the drawing-room of the Countess of Huntingdon to listen to his sermons, or accompanied her to the churches where he had engaged to officiate. Long lists of these t.i.tled names have been preserved, in which some of the unlikeliest occur, such as Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Bolingbroke, Bubb Doddington, and George Selwyn. Indeed, it seems to have been quite the fashion for the great ones of the land to cl.u.s.ter round this man of G.o.d. He was the theme of their conversation.
By all he was marveled at; by some he was censured or ridiculed; by more he was praised and caressed; by a few he was honored and blessed as the means of their spiritual renewal or edification. Among the middle and lower cla.s.ses in London, as elsewhere, did he reap his richest harvests. How many hundreds and thousands were melted down under the power of the word which he proclaimed! How many of that generation in our old city are now before the throne of the Lamb, adoring the gracious Providence which brought them within the sound of Whitefield"s voice!
A remarkable occurrence in London, in the year 1750, gave occasion for a singular display of this great preacher"s holy zeal. Shocks of an earthquake were felt in different parts of London and the vicinity, especially in the neighborhood of the river Thames. Such visitations are sure to produce violent terror, and on this occasion the feeling reached its highest pitch. The people, apprehending there was greater danger in their own houses, and in the streets lined with buildings, than in wide s.p.a.ces open and unenc.u.mbered, rushed, in immense crowds, to Hyde Park, and there waited, in fearful foreboding of the judgments of the Almighty. One night, when the excitement was overwhelming, and a dense mult.i.tude had congregated there under the dark arch of heaven, Whitefield, regarding it as a signal opportunity for preaching the gospel to his fellow-countrymen, hastened to the spot, and delivered one of his most powerful and pathetic discourses. He called the attention of the throngs before him to the coming advent of the Son of G.o.d, to judge the world in righteousness, when not the inhabitants of one city only, but all of Adam"s race, in every clime, would be gathered together, to receive from the lips of Eternal Justice their final and unalterable sentence. Nor did he fail to point out the character of Christ in his relation to man as a Saviour as well as Judge, urging his hearers to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel. "The awful manner in which he addressed the careless, Christless sinner, the sublimity of the discourse, and the appearance of the place, added to the gloom of night, continued to impress the mind with seriousness, and to render the event solemn and memorable in the highest degree." While the shades of night rendered him invisible to his audience, his clear voice--which could be heard distinctly at the distance of a mile, pa.s.sing through a marvelous variety of intonations, in which the very soul of the speaker seemed to burst out in gushes of terror or love--must, as it sounded over the park, and fell upon the eager listening thousands, have seemed to them like the utterance of some impalpable and unseen spirit, who, with unearthly powers of address, had come down from heaven to warn and invite. "G.o.d," he observed, in writing to Lady Huntingdon, "has been terribly shaking the metropolis; I hope it is an earnest of his giving a shock to secure sinners, and making them to cry out, "What shall we do to be saved?" What can shake a soul whose hopes of happiness in time and in eternity are built upon the Rock of ages? Winds may blow, rains may and will descend even upon persons of the most exalted stations, but they that trust in the Lord Jesus Christ never shall, never can be totally confounded." Charles Wesley was in town during this dispensation of Providence, (which happily pa.s.sed off without inflicting any serious injury,) and he also employed himself in faithful and earnest preaching. So did Mr.
Romaine, whose ministry will be noticed more particularly in the next chapter. The only additional information we can give respecting this religious revival, is that the Rev. John Wesley, equally distinguished with Whitefield, but by gifts of a different order, began his course in London as the founder of the Methodist Connection, in 1740, and spent among the London citizens a large portion of his apostolic and self-denying labors, with unconquerable perseverance and eminent success. He was accustomed, at the commencement of his career, to meet with the Moravians for religious exercises in their chapel in Fetter-lane; thus a.s.sociating that edifice, which still remains, with the early history of Methodism. "There the great leaders in this glorious warfare, with their zealous coadjutors--persons whose whole souls were consecrated to the cause of G.o.d our Saviour--often took sweet counsel together. They have all long since gone to their rest, to meet in a better temple together, as they have often worshiped in the temple below, and to go out no more."
In further ill.u.s.tration of the state of London at the time now under our review, we will turn to consider some other of its social aspects.
Literary society presents some curious and amusing facts. The booksellers before the fire were located, for the most part, in St.
Paul"s Church-yard. It is stated that not less than 150,000 worth of books were consumed during that conflagration. The calamity proved the ruin of many, and was the occasion of raising very enormously the price of old books. Little Britain, near Duck-lane, became the rendezvous of the trade, which remained there for some years afterwards. "It was,"
says Roger North, "a plentiful and perpetual emporium of learned authors." The shops were s.p.a.cious, and the literati of the day gladly resorted thither, where they seldom failed to find agreeable conversation. The booksellers themselves were intelligent persons, with whom, for the sake of their bookish knowledge, the most brilliant wits were pleased to converse. Before 1750, the literary emporium of London was transferred to Paternoster-row. Up to that time the activity in the publishing business was very great, especially in the pamphlet line; perhaps there were more publishers then than even now.
Dunton, a famous member of the fraternity, wrote his own life, in which he enumerates a long list of his brethren, with particulars relating to their character and history. The authors of London were computed by Swift to amount in number to some thousands. While a Swift, a Pope, an Addison, a Steele, a Bolingbroke, a Johnson, and other world-known names in that Augustan age of letters, produced works of original genius, the bulk of the writers who supplied the trade were "mere drudges of the pen--manufacturers of literature." A whole herd of these were dealers in ghosts, murders, and other marvels, published in periodical pamphlets, upon every half sheet of which the tax of a halfpenny was laid on in the reign of Queen Anne. "Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with?" asks Dean Swift, in a letter to Mr. Dingley--"methinks the stamping is worth a half-penny." These panderers to a vitiated taste, which is far from having disappeared in our own day, and other writers of the humbler cla.s.s, were so numerous in Grub-street, that the name became the cognomen for the humblest brethren of the book craft. There and elsewhere did they pour forth their lucubrations in lofty attics, which led Johnson to make the pompous remark, "that the professors of literature generally reside in the highest stories. The wisdom of the ancients was well acquainted with the intellectual advantages of an elevated situation; why else were the muses stationed on Olympus or Parna.s.sus, by those who could, with equal right, have raised them bowers in the vale of Tempe, or erected their altars among the flexures of Meander?" The favorite places of resort for poets, wits, and authors, were the coffee-houses, especially Wills", in Russell-street, Convent Garden, where Dryden had long occupied the critics" throne, and swayed the sceptre over the kingdom of letters. Thither went the aspirant after fame, to obtain subscribers for his forthcoming publication, or to secure the approving nod of some literary Jupiter; and there many an offspring of the muse was strangled in the birth, or if suffered to live, treated with merciless severity. In the same street lived Davies, the bookseller, at whose house Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, became acquainted with his hero. "The very place," he says, "where I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the ill.u.s.trious subject of this work, deserves to be particularly marked. It was No. 8. I never pa.s.s by without feeling reverence and regret."
Pope was the most successful author of his time, and realized 5,320 by his Iliad. The keenness of his satire in the Dunciad threw literary London into convulsions. On the day the book was first vended, a crowd of authors besieged the shop, threatening to prosecute the publisher, while hawkers crushed in to buy it up, with the hope of reaping a good harvest from the retailing of so caustic an article. The dunces held weekly meetings to project hostilities against the satirical critic, whose keen weapon had cut them to the quick. One wrote to the prime minister to inform him that Mr. Pope was an enemy to the government; another bought his image in clay to execute him in effigy. A surrept.i.tious edition was published, with an owl in the frontispiece, the genuine one exhibiting an a.s.s laden with authors. Hence arose a contest among the booksellers, some recommending the edition of the owl, and others the edition of the a.s.s, by which names the two used to be distinguished. In 1737, Dr. Johnson came up to the metropolis with two-pence halfpenny in his pocket--David Garrick, his companion, having one halfpenny more. Toiling in the service of Cave, and writing for the Gentleman"s Magazine, then a few years old, the former could but obtain a bare subsistence, which forced from him the well-known lines in his poem on London:--
"This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, Slow rises worth by poverty depressed."
He lodged at a stay-maker"s, in Exeter-street, and dined at the Pine Apple, just by, for eight-pence. An odd example of the intercourse between bookmakers and bookvenders, is preserved in the anecdote of Johnson beating Osborne, his publisher, for alleged impertinence. Of the genial habits of literary men in London, we have an ill.u.s.tration in the clubs which he formed, or to which he belonged. That which still continues to hold its meetings at the Thatched House, is the continuation of the famous one established at a later period than is embraced in this chapter, at the Turk"s Head, where Johnson used to meet Reynolds, Burke, and Goldsmith.
But it is time to glance at fashionable London. As to its locality, it has been anything but stationary. Gradually, however, it has been gliding westward for the last three centuries and more. First breaking its way through Ludgate, and lining the Thames side of the Strand with n.o.ble houses, then pushing its course farther on, and spreading itself out over the favored parishes of St. James and St. George. Here, during the first half of the last century, might be seen the increasing centralization of English patricians. The city was deserted of aristocratic inhabitants, and Devonshire-square was the spot "on which lingered the last lady of rank who clung to her ancestral abode." But this westward tendency, flowing wave on wave, was checked for awhile in Soho and Leicester-squares, which remained till within less than a hundred years ago, the abode or resort of the sons and daughters of fashion. St. James"s, Grosvenor, and Hanover-squares, were, however, of a more select and magnificent character. The t.i.tled in Church and state loved to reside in the elegant mansions which lined and adorned them, so convenient for visits to court, which then migrated backwards and forwards between St. James"s and Kensington. Still, though these anti-plebeian regions were scenes of increasing convenience, comfort, and luxury, some of the nuisances of former days lingered amidst them; and as late as 1760, a great many hogs were seized by the overseers of St. George"s, Hanover-square, because they were bred, or kept in the immediate neighborhood of these wealthy abodes.
On the levee day of a prime minister, a couple of streets were sometimes lined with the coaches of political adherents, seeking power or place, when favored visitors were admitted to an audience in his bedchamber. The royal levees were thronged with mult.i.tudes of courtiers, who thereby accomplished the double purpose of paying their respect to the sovereign and reviving their friendships with each other. It is very melancholy to read in dean Swift"s letters such a pa.s.sage as the following, since it evinces so painful a disregard of the religious character and privileges of the Lord"s-day, very common, it is feared, at the time to which it relates: "Did I never tell you,"
he says, "that I go to court on Sundays, as to a coffee-house, to see acquaintances whom I should not otherwise see twice a year."
"Drawing-rooms were first introduced in the reign of George II., and during the lifetime of the queen were held every evening, when the royal family played at cards, and all persons properly dressed were admitted. After the demise of the queen in 1737, they were held but twice a week, and in a few years were wholly discontinued, the king holding his "state" in the morning twice a week."--_Cunninghame_.
Promenading in Pall Mall and the parks on foot was a favorite recreation of the lords and ladies of the first two Georges" reigns, at which they might be seen in court dresses, the former with bag wig and sword, the latter with hooped petticoats and high-heeled shoes, sweeping the gravel with their trains, and looking with immense contempt on the citizens east of Temple-bar who dared to invade the magic circle which fashion had drawn around itself. These gathering places for the gay were often infested by persons who committed outrages, to us almost incredible. Emulous of the name, as of the deeds of the savage, they took the t.i.tle of Mohawks, the appellation of a well-known tribe of Indians. Their sport was, sword in hand, to attack and wound the quiet wayfarer. On one occasion, we find from Swift"s letters, that he was terribly frightened by these inhuman wretches. Even women did not escape their violence. "I walked in the park this evening," says Swift, under date of March 9th, 1713, "and came home early to avoid the Mohawks." Again, on the 16th, "Lord Winchelsea told me to-day at court, that two of the Mohawks caught a maid of old lady Winchelsea"s at the door of their house in the park with a candle, who had just lighted out somebody. They cut all her face, and beat her without any provocation."
Another glimpse of the London of that day, which we catch while turning over its records, presents a further unfavorable ill.u.s.tration of the state of society, both in high and in low life. In May Fair there stood a chapel, where a certain Dr. Keith, of infamous notoriety, performed the marriage service for couples who sought a clandestine union; and while the rich availed themselves of this provision, persons in humbler life found a similar place open to them in the Fleet prison.
Parliament put down these enormities in 1753.
Ranelagh and Vauxhall were places of frivolous amus.e.m.e.nt resorted to even by the higher cla.s.ses. From these and other haunts of folly, lumbering coaches or sedan chairs conveyed home the ladies through the dimly lighted or pitch dark streets, and the gentlemen picked their way over the ruggedly paved thoroughfares, glad of the proffered aid of the link boys, who crowded round the gates of such places of public entertainment or resort as were open at night, and who, arrived at the door to which they had escorted some fashionable foot pa.s.senger, quenched the blazing torch in the trumpet-looking ornament, which one now and then still sees lingering over the entrance to some house in an antiquated square or court, a characteristic relic of London in the olden time. A walk along some of the more quiet and retired streets at the west end of the metropolis, which were scenes of fashion and gayety a hundred years ago, awaken in the mind, when it is in certain moods, trains of solemn and healthful reflection. We think of the generations that once, with light or heavy hearts, pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed along those ways, too many of them, we fear, however burdened with earthly solicitudes, sadly heedless of the high interests of the everlasting future. Led away by the splendid attractions of this world, its wealth, power, praise, or pleasure, they too surely found at last that what they followed so eagerly, and thought so delightful, was only a delusion, like the gorgeous mirage of the desert. Some few years hence, and we shall have ourselves gone the way of all the earth.
Other feet will tread the pavement, and other eyes drink in the light, and look upon the works and ways of fellow-mortals; and other minds will call up recollections of the past, and moralize with sombre hues of feeling as we do now; and where then will the reader be? It is no impertinent suggestion in a work like this, that he should make that grave inquiry--nor pause till, in the light which illumines the world to come, he has duly considered all the materials he possesses for supplying a probable answer.
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON DURING THE LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
"In the latter half of the century few public buildings were erected, yet among them were two of the n.o.blest which the city even now possesses, namely, the Excise Office and Newgate. The end of the last century was, however, marked by the erection of the East India House, more decidedly Grecian than anything else which preceded it. Compared with what it has since been, architecture then was rather at a low ebb, for although one or two of the buildings above mentioned are n.o.ble works, they must be taken as exceptions to the meagre, insipid, and monotonous style which stamps this period, and which such erections as the Adelphi and Portland-place rather confirm than contradict. With the exception of St. Peter-le-poor, 1791, and St. Martin Outwich, 1796, not one church was built from the commencement of the reign of George III., till the regency."--_Penny Cyclopaedia, art. London_. This remark applies to the city. Paddington church was built during that period, and opened in 1791. The chief public buildings of the period, besides those noticed, are the Mansion House, finished in 1753; Middles.e.x Hospital, built 1756; Magdalen Hospital, 1769; Freemasons" Hall, 1775; Somerset House, in its present state, 1775; and Trinity House, 1793.
Westminster bridge was finished in 1750, and Blackfriars begun ten years afterwards; these, with London bridge, were the only roadways over the Thames during the eighteenth century.
The extremities of London continued to extend. Grosvenor-place, Hyde Park Corner, was reared 1767; Marylebone-garden was leased out to builders 1778; Somers-town was commenced 1786. "Though London increases every day," observes Horace Walpole in 1791, "and Mr.
Herschel has just discovered a new square or circus, somewhere by the New-road, in the _via lactea_, where the cows used to feed; I believe you will think the town cannot hold all its inhabitants, so prodigiously the population is augmented." "There will be one street from London to Brentford, ay, and from London to every village ten miles round; lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish-town for building 1,400 houses; nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob; not at all, it was only pa.s.sengers."
The Westminster Paving Act, pa.s.sed in 1762, was the commencement of a new system of improvement in the great thoroughfares. The old signs, posts, water-spouts, and similar nuisances and obstructions, were removed, and a pavement laid down for foot pa.s.sengers.
But until the introduction of gas, in the present century, the streets continued to be dimly lighted, and the services of the link boy at night to be in general requisition. In 1760, names began to be placed on people"s doors, and four years subsequently, the plan of numbering houses originated. Burlington-street was the first place in which this convenient arrangement was made. In Lincoln"s-inn-fields it was next followed.
The history of London, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, was emphatically that of an age of public excitements, some of them specially pertaining to the city, while in others the whole country shared. The removal of Mr. Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, from the high ministerial position he had occupied--an event which occurred in 1757--produced very strong ebullitions of feeling in the hearts of his numerous admirers. London largely partic.i.p.ated in the popular admiration of that extraordinary man, and expressed a sense of his services by voting him the freedom of the city, which was presented to him in an elegant gold box. The success of the British arms during the next year, in the taking of Louisbourg, led to great rejoicings, illuminations, and the presentation to the king of loyal congratulatory addresses. In the year following, the wants of the army being found very urgent, and men being unwilling to enlist, a subscription was opened at Guildhall to meet the exigency by raising a fund, out of which the amount of premium on enlistment might be augmented. The taking of Quebec, in 1759, again awakened enthusiastic joy; and the record of bonfires, ringing of bells, and kindred demonstrations, are conspicuous in the civic annals for that year. The accession of George III., in 1760, was marked by the full payment to the young sovereign of all those loyal dues, which are tendered by the metropolitan authorities and community when such an important event occurs as the transfer of the sceptre into new hands. But the public excitement in his favor was soon exchanged for feelings equally intense of an opposite character. John Wilkes appeared on the stage of public life in 1754--a man utterly dest.i.tute of virtue and principle, but possessed of certain qualities likely to render him popular, especially an abundance of humor, and a wonderful degree of a.s.surance. By attacking Lord Bute, the favorite of the king, but no favorite with the people, he gained applause, and was set down as a patriot. In No. 45 of the "North Briton," a newspaper which he edited, a violent attack on his majesty appeared; indeed, it went so far as to charge him with the utterance of a falsehood in his speech from the throne. The house of Wilkes was searched, and his person seized for this political offence; but sheltering himself under his parliamentary privileges, he obtained his dismissal from custody. Upon an information being filed against him by the attorney-general, he declined to appear, when the House of Commons took the matter in hand, and declared Wilkes"s paper to be a false, seditious, and scandalous libel, and ordered it to be burned by the common hangman. The sympathies of many in London being with Wilkes, a riot ensued upon the attempt which the sheriffs made to execute the parliamentary sentence. Wilkes"s disgrace was turned into a triumph, and the metropolis rang with the applause of this worthless individual. Unhappily, the proceedings against him had involved unconst.i.tutional acts, which are sure to produce the indignation of a free people, and to transform into a martyr a man who is really criminal. He was next convicted of publishing an indecent poem; but again the improper means adopted to secure his conviction placed him before the people as a ministerial victim, and diverted attention from his flagrant vices. But the reign of this demagogue in London, properly speaking, did not begin till 1768, when he returned to England, after a considerable absence, and offered himself as a candidate for the city. Though exceedingly popular, he failed to obtain his election, but afterwards, with full success, he appealed to the Middles.e.x const.i.tuency. Then came the tug of war between the electors and the House of Commons. The latter invalidated the return, in which the former persisted. Riots were the consequence. One dreadful outbreak took place in St. George"s-fields, when the military were ordered to fire, and some were killed or wounded. Three times Wilkes was returned by the people to parliament, and three times the parliament returned him to the people. This violation of popular rights was deeply resented in London, and throughout the country. It also made Wilkes"s fortune; 20,000 were raised for him; all kinds of presents were showered on the favorite; and his portrait, in every form of art, was in universal request. In the Common Pleas, he afterwards obtained a verdict against Lord Halifax for false imprisonment and the illegal seizure of papers. He was subsequently elected sheriff, alderman, and mayor of London; and finally, in 1779, sank down into neglect much more comfortably than he deserved, as chamberlain of the city. His history singularly ill.u.s.trates how illegal proceedings defeat their object, though it be right; and how a rash eagerness in pursuing the ends of justice overturns them.
In connection with the Wilkes affair, there is a remarkable episode in the munic.i.p.al history of the metropolis. A most serious misunderstanding took place between the monarch and the corporation.
The proceedings of ministers in reference to the Middles.e.x election, led the civic authorities to present to the king a very strong remonstrance, begging him to dissolve the parliament, and dismiss the ministry. The monarch took time to consider what reply he should make to so formidable an application, and at length informed the corporation that he was always ready to receive the requests and listen to the complaints of his subjects, but it gave him concern to find that any should have been so far misled as to offer a remonstrance, the contents of which he considered disrespectful to himself, injurious to parliament, and irreconcilable with the principles of the const.i.tution.
Among the aldermen, there were some who disapproved of the remonstrance, and now strongly protested against it; but Beckford, who then, for the second time, filled the office of lord mayor, and strongly felt with the common council, livery, and popular party, earnestly resisted such opposition, and encouraged the citizens to maintain their stand against what was considered an exercise of arbitrary power on the part of government. The mayor summoned the livery, and delivered a speech just adapted to the a.s.sembly. Another remonstrance was drawn up, to be presented to his majesty by the lord mayor and sheriffs. To this the king replied, that he should have been wanting to the public and himself, if he had not expressed his dissatisfaction at their address. Beckford, who must have been a bold and eloquent man, breaking through all the rules of court etiquette, delivered an extempore speech to the sovereign, which he concluded by saying, "Permit me, sire, to observe, that whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavor, by false insinuations and suggestions, to alienate your majesty"s affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the city of London in particular, and to withdraw your confidence in, and regard for, your people, is an enemy to your majesty"s person and family, a violator of public peace, and a betrayer of our happy const.i.tution, as it was established at the glorious and necessary revolution." Of course, no reply was given to this impromptu address, but it seemed to have excited no little wonder among the courtiers present on the occasion. On the birth of the princess Elizabeth, a short and loyal address of congratulation, avoiding all controversial topics, was presented by the same chief magistrate; to which his majesty answered, that so long as the citizens of London addressed him with such professions, they might be sure of his protection. The stormy agitation was of brief continuance. The ripples on the stream soon subsided. With this interview the good understanding between the king and the city appears to have been restored, though the bold remonstrance the latter had presented produced no practical effect. The popular lord mayor, who signalized himself especially by his speech in the royal closet, was removed by Divine Providence out of this life before the term of his mayoralty expired. After his decease, the citizens, to mark their esteem for his character, erected a monument to him in Guildhall, and engraved on it the speech which had given him so much celebrity.
The great dispute between the mother country and America, which began as early as 1765, could not fail to excite a deep interest in the capital of the empire. "The sound of that mighty tempest," as it was termed by Burke, was heard with deep concern at first by the London merchants, as threatening to injure their commercial interests; and when the Stamp Act, so odious from its influence in that respect, was repealed soon after it was pa.s.sed, the whole city beamed with gladness and satisfaction. When, however, America a.s.serted her independence, many in London, as well as in other parts of the country, felt their national pride so much wounded, that they encouraged the war, till finding the conflict with so distant and powerful a colony all in vain, they were willing to hear of peace, though at the expense of losing the chief part of the British territory in the western hemisphere. But in the feelings that the protracted struggle awakened, the metropolis only shared in connection with the provinces; they must, therefore, be pa.s.sed over with this cursory notice, that we may attend to what particularly const.i.tutes the history of the city.
This plunges us at once amidst scenes of excitement, much more serious and shocking than any others that have lately come under review. In 1779, the Protestant a.s.sociation was formed, in consequence of some of the Roman Catholic disabilities being removed. The society met at Coachmakers" Hall, n.o.ble-street, Foster-lane, under the presidency of lord George Gordon, whose general eccentricity bordered upon madness, and whose professed abhorrence of Popery sank into fanaticism. The a.s.sociation, in May, 1780, determined to pet.i.tion for a repeal of the Act just pa.s.sed, and it was resolved that the whole body should attend in St. George"s-fields, on the second of June, to accompany lord George with the pet.i.tion to the House of Commons. His lordship enforced this motion with vehement earnestness, and said that if less than 20,000 of his fellow-citizens attended him, he would not present the doc.u.ment.
At the time and place appointed, an immense mult.i.tude a.s.sembled, computed at 50,000 or 60,000, wearing blue ribbons in their hats, marshaled under standards displaying the words "No Popery." In three divisions they marched six abreast, over Londonbridge, towards Westminster, being reinforced at Charing Cross by great numbers on horseback and in carriages. The then narrow avenues to the houses of parliament were thronged by these crowds, and such members of the legislature as they disliked were treated with insult, as they made their way through the dense concourse. The pet.i.tion was presented; but when that business was finished for which the populace had been invited by the foolish n.o.bleman, he found it impossible to disperse them.
Harangues, so potent in convening the host, were utterly powerless when employed for their separation. Nor did the magistracy attempt a timely interference; but the mob was left to its own wild will, and like a swollen torrent, which bursts its banks, it poured over the city with destructive havoc. The chapels of the Bavarian and Sardinian emba.s.sy were pulled down that night. On the next day, Sat.u.r.day, they committed no violence; but on Sunday they a.s.sailed a popish chapel and some houses in Moorfields, within sight of the military, who stood by unable to do anything, because they had no commands from the chief magistrate, who alone could authorize them to act. All that was done was to take a few of the rioters into custody, while the rest were left without any attempt at their dispersion. Utterly unnerved, the lord mayor virtually surrendered the city at this momentous crisis into the hands of the mob. Encouraged by the impunity with which they were left to pursue their own course, they attacked on the next day the house of Sir George Sackville, in Leicester-square, because he had moved the Catholic Relief Bill. On Tuesday, waxing bolder than ever, they besieged the old prison of Newgate, where a few of their a.s.sociates were confined. Breaking the roof, and tearing away the rafters, they descended into the building by ladders, and rescued the prisoners. Two eye-witnesses, the poet Crabbe and Dr. Johnson, have left their impressions of this extraordinary scene: "I stood and saw," says the former of these writers, "about twelve women and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of them were to be hanged on Friday. You have no conception of the frenzy of the mult.i.tude. Newgate was at this time open to all; anyone might get in, and what was never the case before, anyone might get out."
"On Wednesday," says Dr. Johnson, "I walked with Dr. Scott, (lord Stowell,) to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the sessions-house at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred, but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day."
Besides Newgate, lord Mansfield"s house in Bloomsbury-square was pulled down, and his valuable library burned. The Fleet, King"s Bench, the Marshalsea, Wood-street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, were all opened, and such a jail delivery effected as the citizens had never witnessed before. A stop was put to business on the Wednesday; shops were closed; pieces of blue, the symbol of Protestant truth and zeal, were required to be hung out of the windows, and "No Popery" chalked on the doors. Before night, even the Bank was a.s.sailed, but not without a dreadful and destructive repulse from the military who garrisoned it, and were ordered to act. It is stated that the king, alarmed at the danger of his capital, and indignant at the inaction of the magistrates, took upon himself to command the services of the military for putting down the riot. While thirty fires were blazing in the streets, and the inhabitants pa.s.sed a sleepless night, full of anguish, a large body of soldiers was engaged in the terrible, though necessary work of suppressing the riot by force. This was accomplished at the expense of not less than five hundred lives. By Friday, quietude was restored. Lord George Gordon was apprehended, but was acquitted upon trial, his conduct not coming within the limits of the statute of treason. Sixty of the deluded creatures, who at first were excited by his mischievous agitation however, had to pay the extreme penalty of the law. A happy contrast to this brutal kind of excitement has been recently (1850-51) displayed in the calm, deep, and, for the most part, intelligent resistance made to a far different measure--the papal aggression, in the creation of territorial bishoprics; one really calculated to excite far greater opposition. The years 1780 and 1850, stand out at the extremes of a period which has witnessed, in London and elsewhere, a change in public thought and habit of the most gratifying kind; and to what can this be so fairly ascribed, under the providence and blessing of G.o.d, as to the increase of instruction, especially religious instruction, through the medium of Sabbath and other schools, together with the distribution of the Bible and tracts, as well as other meliorating agencies operating on society?
Eight years after the anti-popery riots, another excitement, of a different kind, rolled its waves over the public mind in London; not, indeed, confined to the metropolis, but concentrating its force there, as the scene of the occurrence which produced it. This was the trial of Warren Hastings, for his alleged mal-administration of Indian affairs. But the great length to which it was extended wearied out the public patience, and ere the forensic business came to its close the court was forsaken, and the numerous London circles, at first thrown into a storm of feeling by the occurrence, resumed their former quietude, and almost forgot the whole matter.
The same year that Hastings" trial commenced, the public sympathy and sorrow were aroused in London, and throughout the nation, by the melancholy mental illness of George III., but the next year his sudden recovery created universal joy, which was demonstrated in the metropolis, after the usual fashion.
Then loyalty, with all his lamps New trimmed, a gallant show, Chasing the darkness and the damps, Set London in a glow.
It was a scene, in every part, Like those in fable feigned, And seemed by some magician"s hand Created and sustained.
On the 23d of April, a general thanksgiving was held for the king"s recovery, and on that account his majesty, accompanied by the royal family, went in procession to attend public worship in St. Paul"s Cathedral; thus reminding us of the words of the Babylonish monarch, "Mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation."
At the close of the eighteenth century, the proceedings of revolutionary France sent a fresh stream of excitement through the public mind of England. On one side or the other, in sympathy with or in aversion to the measures adopted on the opposite side of the channel, most politicians, high and low, eagerly ranged themselves.
The efforts of Mr. Pitt to prevent anything like the enactment here of what our neighbours were doing, were condemned or applauded by the two parties according to the principles they espoused. "The trials of Hardy, Tooke, Thelwall, and others," says a minister, then a student near the metropolis, "which took place not long after my entrance on college life, agitated London to an extent which I have never seen equaled, though my life has fallen on times and events of the most prodigious and portentous character."--_Autobiography of the Rev. W.
Walford_. Clubs were formed of a more than questionable description, of which we remember to have received an ill.u.s.trative anecdote from a citizen of London, now gray-headed, but then in the flower of his youth. Invited by a person of about his own age to attend a meeting, held in some obscure street, he was surprised on entrance to find a number of men, ranged on either side a room, sitting beside long tables, with one at the upper end, where sat the president for the evening. Several foaming tankards were brought in, when the president calling on the company to rise, took up one of the vessels, and striking off with his hand the foam that crested the porter, gave as a toast, "So let all ---- perish." The blank was left to be filled up as each drinker pleased. The avowed dislike to kings, entertained by the boon companions there a.s.sembled, suggested to the visitor the word intended for insertion, and he gladly left the place, not a little alarmed lest he should be suspected of sympathy in treasonable designs.
Following political excitement came a monetary crisis, which struck a panic through the body of London merchants; for, in 1797, the Bank of England suspended its cash payments. But after all these storms, which severely tested its strength, the vessel of the state, under the blessing of the Almighty, righted itself, and scenes of political calm again smiled, and tides of commercial prosperity flowed upon old London.
In pa.s.sing on to notice the general state of society in the metropolis during the last half of the eighteenth century, it is painful to notice the continuance of some of the revolting features which mark an earlier age. The old-fashioned burglaries, with the robberies and rogueries of the highway, were still perpetrated. A walk out of London after dark was by no means safe; and therefore, at the end of a bill of entertainment at Bellsize House, in the Hampstead-road, St.
John"s-wood, there was this postscript--"For the security of the guests, there are twelve stout fellows, completely armed, to patrol between London and Bellsize, to prevent the insults of highwaymen and footpads who infest the road." To cross Hounslow-heath or Finchley-common after sunset was a daring enterprise; nor did travelers venture on it without being armed, and even ball-proof carriages were used by some. At Kensington and other places in the vicinity of London, it was customary on Sunday evenings to ring a bell at intervals, to summon those who were returning to town to form themselves into a band, affording mutual protection, as they wended their way homewards. Town itself did not afford security; for George IV. and the Duke of York, when very young men, were stopped one night in a hackney-coach and robbed on Hay-hill, Berkeley-square. The state of the police, as these facts indicate, was most inefficient; but when the law seized on its transgressors, it was merciless in the penalty inflicted. Long trains of prisoners, chained together, might be seen marching through the streets on the way to jail, where the treatment they received was cruel in the extreme, and much more calculated to harden than to correct. The number of executions almost exceeds belief; and every approach to town exhibited a gibbet, with some miserable creature hanging in chains. These public spectacles missed their professed object, and the frequent executions did anything but check the commission of crime. The lowest cla.s.ses constantly a.s.sembled to witness such spectacles, regarded them generally as mere matters of amus.e.m.e.nt, or as affording opportunities for the indulgence of their vices.
Some startling revelations of the state of things among London tradesmen, as well as the lowest orders, were made before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1835, relative to the period fifty years earlier. "The conduct of tradesmen," said one of the witnesses, "was exceedingly gross as compared with that of the same cla.s.s at the present time. Decency was a very different thing from what it is now; their manners were such as scarcely to be credited. I made inquiries a few years ago, and found that between Temple-bar and Fleet-market, there were many houses in each of which there were more books than all the tradesmen"s houses in the streets contained when I was a youth."
He mentions, also, the open departure of thieves from certain public-houses, wishing one another success--"In Gray"s-inn-lane," he remarks, "was the Blue Lion, commonly called the Blue Cat. I have seen the landlord of this place come into the room with a large lump of silver in his hand, which he had melted for the thieves, and pay them for it. There was no disguise about it. It was done openly." "At the time I am speaking of, there were scarcely any houses on the eastern side of Tottenham-court-road; there, and in the long fields, were several large ponds; the amus.e.m.e.nt here was duck-hunting and badger-baiting; they would throw a cat into the water, and set dogs at her; great cruelty was constantly practised, and the most abominable scenes used to take place. It is almost impossible for any person to believe the atrocities of low life at that time, which were not, as now, confined to the worst paid and most ignorant of the populace."