Chapter II: A Perambulation (3)

The building of the churches took a long time to accomplish. The first to be completed was that of St. Dunstan's in the East, the tower of which is Sir Christopher Wren's; the body of the church, which has since been pulled down, was by another hand. That was built two years after the Fire. Six years after the Fire another church was finished; seven years after three more; eight years after three more; ten years after five, and so on, dragging along until the last two of those rebuilt--for a great many were not put up again--were finished in the year 1697, thirty-one years after the Fire.

Within four years the rebuilding of the City was nearly completed. Ten thousand houses were built, a great many companies' halls, and nearly twenty churches. One who writes in the year 1690 (_Angliæ Metropolis, or, The Present State of London_) says, "As if the Fire had only purged the City, the buildings are infinitely more beautiful, more commodious, more solid (the three main virtues of all edifices) than before. They have made their streets much more large and straight, paved on each side with smooth hewn stone, and guarded the same with many massy posts for the benefit of foot-passengers; and whereas before they dwelt in low, dark, wooden houses, they now live in lofty, lightsome, uniform, and very stately brick buildings." This is great gain. And yet, looking at the houses outside Staple Inn and at the old pictures, at what loss of picturesqueness was this gain acquired? The records are nearly silent as to the way in which the people were affected by the Fire. It is certain, however, that where the Plague ruined hundreds of families, the Fire ruined thousands. Thirteen thousand houses were burned down; many of these were houses harboring two or three families, for 200,000 were rendered homeless. Some of them were families of the lower working class, the river-side laborers and watermen, who would suffer little more than temporary inconvenience, and the loss of their humble "sticks." But many of them were substantial merchants, their warehouses filled with wine, oil, stuffs, spices, and all kinds of merchandise; warehouses and contents all gone--swept clean away--and with them the whole fortune of the trader. And there were the retailers, whose stock in trade, now consumed, represented all they had in the world. And there were the master-workmen, their workshops fitted with such machinery and tools as belonged to their craft and the materials for their work--all gone--all destroyed. Where was the money found to replace these treasures of imported goods? Who could refurnish his shop for the draper? Who could rebuild and fill his warehouse for the merchant? Who could give back his books to the bookseller? No one--the stock was all gone.

The prisoners for debt, as well as those who were imprisoned for crime, regained their freedom when the prisons were burned down. Could the debts be proved against them when the papers were all destroyed?

The tenant whose rent was in arrears was safe, for who could prove that he had not paid?

All debts were wiped clean off the slate. There were no more mortgages, no more promissory bills to meet, no more drafts of honor. Debts as well as property were all destroyed together. The money-lender and the borrower were destroyed together. The schools were closed--for how long? The almshouses were burned down--what became of the poor old bedesmen and bedeswomen? The City charities were suspended--what became of the poor? The houses were destroyed--what became of rents and tithes and taxes?

The Fire is out at last; the rain has quenched the last sparks; the embers have ceased to smoke; those walls which have not fallen totter and hang trembling ready to fall. I see men standing about singly; the tears run down their cheeks; two hundred years ago, if we had anything to cry about, we were not ashamed to cry without restraint; they are dressed in broadcloth, the ruffles are of lace, they look like reputable citizens. Listen--one draws near another. "Neighbor," he says, "a fortnight ago, before this stroke, whether of God or of Papist, I had a fair shop on this spot." "And I also, good friend," said the other, "as you know." "My shop," continued the first, "was stocked with silks and satins, kid gloves, lace ruffles and neckties, shirts, and all that a gentleman or a gentlewoman can ask for. The stock was worth a thousand pounds. I turned it over six or seven times a year at least. And my profit was four hundred pounds." "As for me," said the other, "I was in a smaller way, as you know. Yet such as it was, my fortune was all in it, and out of my takings I could call two hundred pounds a year my own." "Now is it all gone," said the first. "All gone," the other repeated, fetching a sigh. "And now, neighbor, unless the company help, I see nothing for it but we must starve." "Must starve," the other repeated. And so they separated, and went divers ways, and whether they starved or whether they received help, and rose from the ashes with new house and newly stocked shop, I know not. Says Dryden on the Fire:

"Those who have homes, when home they do repair
To a last lodging call their wandering friends:
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care
To look how near their own destruction tends.

"Those who have none sit round where it was
And with full eyes each wonted room require:
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murdered men walk where they did expire.

"The most in fields like herded beasts lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor:
And while their babes in sleep their sorrow drown,
Sad parents watch the remnant of their store."

I think there must have been a return for a while to a primitive state of barter and exchange. Not quite, because every man carried out of the Fire such money as he had. Pepys, for instance, placed his bags of gold in a cart and drove it himself, "in my night gown," to a friend at rural Bethnal Green. But there could have been very little money in comparison with the millions invested in the merchandise destroyed.

The most pressing want was food. The better sort had money enough for present needs, the poorer class had to be maintained. The corporation set thousands to work clearing rubbish, carting it way, pulling down the shaky walls, and throwing open the streets. When the quays were cleared, the business of the port was resumed. Then the houses and the shops began to rise. The former were built on credit, and the latter stocked on credit. Very likely the companies or the corporation itself became to a large extent security, advancing money to the builders and making easy terms about rent. Naturally, it was a time of enormous activity, every trader making up for lost time, and especially such trades as concerned the building, furnishing, or fitting of houses--a time of good wages and constant work. Indeed, it is stated that the prosperity of the West Country cloth-making business was never so great as during the years following the Fire, which had destroyed such a prodigious quantity of material. The City in time resumed its old aspect; the ruined thousands had sunk out of sight; and nothing could replace the millions that had been lost.

The manners of the City differed little in essentials from those of Queen Elizabeth's time. Let us note, however, two or three points, still keeping the unspeakable court out of sight, and confining ourselves as much as possible to the City. Here are a few notes which must not be taken as a finished picture of the time.

It was a great time for drinking. Even grave divines drank large quantities of wine. Pepys is constantly getting "foxed" with drink; on one occasion he is afraid of reading evening prayers lest the servants should discover his condition. Of course they did discover it, and went to bed giggling; but as they kept no diary the world never learned it. London drank freely. Pepys tells how one lady, dining at Sir W. Bullen's, drank at one draught a pint and a half of white wine. They all went to church a great deal, and had fast days on every occasion of doubt and difficulty; on the first Sunday in the year the longest Psalm in the book (I suppose the 119th) was given out after the sermon. This took an hour to say or sing, and all the while the sexton went about the church making a collection. On Valentine's Day the married men took each other's wives for valentines. Public wrestling matches were held, followed by bouts with the cudgels.

They still carried on the sport of bull and bear baiting, and on one occasion they baited a savage horse to death. That is, they attempted it, but he drove off all the dogs, and the people insisting on his death, they stabbed him to death. The King issued two patents for theatres, one to Henry Killigrew, at Drury Lane, whose company called themselves The King's Servants; the other to Sir William Davenant, of Dorset Gardens, whose company was The Duke's Servants. There were still some notable superstitions left. These are illustrated by the remedies advertised for the plague and other diseases. A spider, for instance, placed in a nutshell and wrapped in silk will cure ague. They believed in the malignant influence of the planets. One evening at a dancing house half a dozen boys and girls were taken suddenly ill. Probably they had swallowed some poisonous stuff. They were supposed to be planet-struck. And, of course, they believed in astrology and in chiromancy, the latter of which has again come into fashion.

Saturday was the day of duns. Creditors then went about collecting their money. In the autumn the merchants rode out into the country and looked after their country customers.

The social fabric of the time cannot be understood without remembering that certain nominal distinctions of our generation were then real things, and gave a man consideration. Thus, there were no peers left living in the City. But there were a few baronets and many knights. After them in order came esquires, gentlemen, and commoners. Those were entitled to the title of esquire who were gentlemen of good estate, not otherwise dignified, counsellors-at-law, physicians and holders of the King's commission. Everybody remembers Pepys's delight at being for the first time, then newly made Secretary to the Admiralty, addressed as esquire, and his irrepressible pride at being followed into church by a page. A younger brother could call himself a gentleman, and this, I take it, whether he was in trade or not. About this time, however, younger sons began leaving off going to the City and embarking in trade, and that separation of the aristocracy from the trade of the country, which made the former a distinct caste and has lasted almost until the present day, first began. It is now, however, so far as one can perceive the signs of the times, fast disappearing. The younger son, in fact, began to enter the army, the navy, or the Church. From the middle of the seventeenth century till the battle of Waterloo, war in Europe was almost continuous. A gentleman could offer his sword anywhere and was accepted. There were English gentlemen in the service of Austria, Russia, Sweden--even in that of France or Spain. Unfortunately, however, in this country we generally had need of all the gentlemen we could find to command our own armies. The title of gentleman was also conceded to attorneys, notaries, proctors, and other lesser degrees of the law; merchants, surgeons, tradesmen, authors, artists, architects, and the like, had then, and have now, no rank of any kind in consideration of their employments.

Tea, which at the Restoration was quite beyond the means of private persons, became rapidly cheaper and in daily use among the better class in London, though not in the country. Thus, in Congreve's "Way of the World," Mrs. Millamant claims to be "Sole Empress of my tea-table." Her lover readily consents to her drinking tea if she agrees to a stipulation which shows that the love of tea was as yet more fashionable than real, since it could be combined with that of strong drinks. He says that he must banish from her table "foreign forces, auxiliaries to the tea-table, such as orange brandy, aniseed, cinnamon, citron, and Barbadoes water, together with ratafia and the most noble spirit of clary."

The favorite places of resort in the City were the galleries of the Royal Exchange, filled with shops for the sale of gloves, ribbons, laces, fans, scent, and such things. The shops were kept by young women who, like the modern bar-maid, added the attraction of a pretty face to the beauty of their wares. The piazza of Covent Garden was another favorite place, but this, with Spring Gardens, Vauxhall, was outside the City. The old desecration of Paul's was to a great extent stopped by the erection of the West Porch, designed for those who met here for purposes of business.

Coffee-houses were first set up at this time, and at once became indispensable to the citizens, who before had had no other place of evening resort than the tavern. The City houses were "Dick's" and the "Rainbow," in Fleet Street; "Tom's," of Birchin Lane (not to speak of the more classic "Tom's," of Covent Garden). Nearly all the old inns of the City have now been destroyed. Fifty years ago many were still standing, with their galleries and their open courts. Such were the "Bell," of Warwick Lane; the "Belle Sauvage," of Ludgate Hill; the "Blossom," Laurence Lane; the "Black Lion," Whitefriars Street; the "Four Swans," Bishopsgate Street; the "Saracen's Head," Friday Street, and many others.

It is, I suppose, pretty clear that the songs collected by Tom d'Urfey are a fair representation of the delectable and edifying ditties sung in taverns, and when the society was "mixed." It would be easy to preach against the wickedness of the times which could permit the singing of such songs, but in reality they are no worse than the songs of the preceding generation, to which, indeed, many of them belong. And, besides, it does not appear that the better sort of people regaled themselves with this kind of song at all, and even in this collection there are a great many which are really beautiful. The following pretty lines are taken almost at random from one of the volumes of the _Pills to Purge Melancholy_. They are called a "Description of Chloris:"

"Have you e'er seen the morning Sun
From fair Aurora's bosom run?
Or have you seen on Flora's bed
The essences of white and red?
Then you may boast, for you have seen
My fairer Chloris, Beauty's Queen.

"Have you e'er pleas'd your skilful ears
With the sweet music of the Spheres?
Have you e'er heard the Syrens sing,
Or Orpheus play to Hell's black King?
If so, be happy and rejoyce,
For thou hast heard my Chloris' Voice.

"Have you e'er tasted what the Bee
Steals from each fragrant flower or tree?
Or did you ever taste that meat
Which poets say the Gods did eat?
O then I will no longer doubt
But you have found my Chloris out."

Many of the poems are patriotic battle-pieces; some present the shepherd in the usual fashion as consumed by the ardor of his love, being wishing and pining, sighing and weeping. That seeming extravagance of passion--that talk of flames and darts--was not entirely conventional:

"How charming Phillis is, how fair!
O that she were as willing
To ease my wounded heart of care,
And make her eyes less killing!"

It was not only exaggeration. I am quite certain that men and women were far less self-governed formerly than now: when, for instance, they were in love, they were much more in love than now. The passion possessed them and transported them and inflamed them. Their pangs of jealousy tore them to pieces; they must get their mistress or they will go mad. Nay, it is only of late--say during the last hundred years--that we have learned to restrain passions of any kind. Love, jealousy, envy, hatred, were far fiercer emotions under the Second Charles--nay, even under the Second George--than they are with us. Anger was far more common. It does not seem as if men and women, especially of the lower classes, ever attempted in the least to restrain their passions. To be sure they could at once have it out in a fight--a thing which excuses wrath. To inquire into the causes of the universal softening of manners would take us too far. But we may note as a certain fact that passions are more restrained and not so overwhelming: that love is milder, wrath more governed, and that manners are softened for us.

One must not, again, charge the City at this time with being more than commonly pestered by rogues. The revelations of the Elizabethan moralists, and the glimpses we get of mediæval rogues, forbid this accusation. At the same time there was a good standing mass of solid wickedness. Contemporary literature proves this, if any proof were wanted, abundantly. There is a work of some literary value called the _Life of Meriton Latroon_, in which is set forth an immense quantity of rogueries. Among other things the writer shows the tricks of trade, placing his characters in many kinds of shops, so as to give his experiences in each. We are thus enabled to perceive that there were sharpers and cheats in respectable-looking shops then, as now. And there seems no reason to believe that the cheats were in greater proportion to the honest men than they are now. Besides the tricks of the masters, the honest Meriton Latroon shows us the ways of the London prentice, which were highly promising for the future of the City. He robbed his master as much as he dared: he robbed him of money; he robbed him of stuffs and goods; he ruined the maids; he belonged to a club which met on Saturday nights, when the master was at his country-box, and exchanged, for the common good, the robberies of the week. After this they feasted and drank with young Bona Robas, who stole from them the money they had stolen from their shops. It is a beautiful picture, and would by some moralists be set down to the evil example of King Charles, who is generally held responsible for the whole of the wickedness of the people during his reign. But these prentices knew nothing of the court, and the thing had been going on all through the Protectorate, and, for that matter, I dare say as far back as the original institution of apprenticeship. One would fain hope that not all the City apprentices belonged to this club. Otherwise, one thinks that the burning of London ought to have been the end of London.

The worst vice of the age seems to have been gambling, which was as prevalent in the City as at the court; that is to say, one does not accuse sober merchants of gambling, but in every tavern there were cards and dice, and they were in use all day long. Now, wherever there is gambling there are thieves, sharpers, and cheats by profession, and in every age these gentry enjoy their special names, whether of opprobrium or of endearment. They were then called Huffs, Rooks, Pads, Pimpinios, Philo Puttonists, Ruffins, Shabbaroons, Rufflers, and other endearing terms--not that the number of the names proves the extent of the evil. Whatever they were called, the whole object of their lives--their only way of living--was to trick, extort, or coax money out of flats. Very often they were gentlemen by birth, younger sons of good families, who scorned any honest way of making their living. By their good manners, fashionable appearance, pleasing address, and known connections they often succeeded in getting hold of unsuspecting gentlemen from the country. It is the old, old story. Captain Hawk is always on the lookout for Master Pigeon, and too often catches him. The story that Thackeray has told belongs not to one period, but to all. Of course there was the lower class of rogues: the sturdy beggar, the man who cannot work because he has in his blood the taint of whole generations of idleness; the nomad, who would die unless he were always roving about the country; the outcast, who delights in pitting his wits against the law. A few of these I have chosen from the long lists. They are as follows:

The "Ruffler," who pretended to be an old soldier of Naseby or Marston Moor.

The "Angler," who carried a stick with a hook at the end of it, and found it useful when the window was left open.

The "Wild Rogue," used for boys and girls, children of thieves, who made a good living for their parents by hanging about the doors of crowded churches, and cutting off gold buttons from the coats of the merchants.

The "Clapperdozen," a woman who begged about the streets with stolen children.

The "Abram Man," a sham madman.

The "Whip Jack," a counterfeit sailor who pretended to be shipwrecked.

The "Mumpus," who pretended to be a decayed merchant or a sequestered clergyman.

The "Dommerer," who shammed dumb.

Let us turn from general statements to the consideration of a single family. That of Samuel Pepys might be taken as an example, and his Journal is by no means well-trodden and familiar ground. In fact, he is generally read in bits, for half an hour's amusement. Yet it is better to take a case not before the public at all. Besides, even a minute diary such as that of Pepys, kept day by day, leaves, when you come to construct the daily life out of it, great gaps here and there. Less literary documents may sometimes yield richer results. Even the most careful diarist scorns to speak of details. For them we must look into the humble papers of the household. For instance, I have before me a bundle of documents on which I lighted by accident, containing the household accounts of a respectable family for the years 1677-1679, and I propose by means of these accounts to reproduce the household daily life of a bourgeois well-to-do family of the time.

This family consisted of the master, the mistress, and "Mr. Arthur," who was probably the master's brother. The two former were at this time a young married couple, whose joys and anxieties are presently increased by the arrival of a baby. Their residence is a short distance from London, and their way of life may be taken to illustrate that of the general run of London citizens. The occupation of the master is not stated, but he appears to be a man following no profession or trade: perhaps a gentleman with a small estate. They seem to have kept no horses, so that their means were certainly narrow. Their nearest market-town was Hertford, whither they went by coach (fare one shilling) to buy what they wanted. Their house-keeping was conducted with an eye to economy, yet there is no stint, and occasionally there occurs an entry--quite inexplicable--of wild extravagance. They lived in the country, about fifteen miles from London, and presumably had a garden, yet they did not grow enough vegetables, herbs, and fruit for their own consumption. The household consisted, besides the family and the nurse, of a cook, two maids, and a gardener, or man of all work. The accounts are partly kept by the mistress and partly by a servant--perhaps a house-keeper. Remembering that Pepys consented to receive his sister "Pall" into his house only on the footing of a servant, the keeper of the accounts may very well have been a poor relation.

The rent of the house was £26 a year. It contained two sitting-rooms and four bedrooms, with a kitchen. The parlor, or best sitting-room, was hung with five pieces of fine tapestry; the other sitting-room with gray linsey-woolsey and gilt leather; the bedrooms had hangings of striped cloth. Curtains of green cloth with a green carpet decorated the parlor; the other rooms had green, say, or "sad color" striped curtains. The best bedroom contained a magnificent "wrought"--_i.e._, carved--bedstead with a canopy, curtains, a valance, and chairs all of the same material. There were three other bedrooms, one for Mr. Arthur, one for the nurse and the baby, unless they slept at the foot of the big bed, and one for the maids. The gardener slept out of the house. The furniture of the parlor consisted of one central table--the dining-table--a table with a drawer, a cupboard, a clock case, a leather chair, a plush chair, six green cloth chairs, and two green stools. The carpet and curtains have been already mentioned; there were no pictures, no cabinets, no book-shelves, no mirrors, no sofas. The other room was more simply furnished with a Spanish table, a plain table, and a few chairs. Two of the bedrooms had looking-glasses, and there was a very generous provision of feather-beds, bolsters, pillows, and blankets, which speaks of comfort for the night.

The inventory of the kitchen furniture is, unfortunately, incomplete. There is no mention at all made of any china-ware. Yet porcelain was by this time in common use. It was made at Bow and at Chelsea. In middle-class houses the master and mistress used it at table, while servants and children still had pewter or even wooden platters. The inventory speaks of porringers, doubtless of wood, of pewter candlesticks--there are no brass candlesticks--of a three-pint pewter pot, of a great and little bowl--for possets and hot spiced ale--and of wooden platters. Nothing is said of silver; there are no silver cups--in the century before this no respectable householder was without one silver mazer at least; there are no silver candlesticks; there is no mention of forks. Now the two-pronged fork of steel was made in Sheffield certainly in the middle of the century. It would be curious if the ordinary household still kept up the old fashion of eating without forks so late as 1677.

Such was the equipment of the house, one sitting-room, and one bedroom handsomely, the rest plainly, furnished.

The first thing which strikes one in the accounts is the enormous consumption of beer. The household drank two kilderkins, or thirty-six gallons, of beer every week! One hundred and forty-four quarts a week! Twenty-one quarts a day! It means nearly three quarts a head. This seems impossible. There must have been some external assistance. Perhaps the master had some kind of farm, or employed other servants. But it is not really impossible. We must remember that there was no tea, that people would not drink water if they could get anything else, and that small beer was the national beverage, taken with every meal, and between meals, and that the allowance was practically _à discretion_. It was certainly quite possible, and even common, for a man to drink three quarts a day. A hundred years later Benjamin Franklin describes the daily beer-drinking in a London printing-house. The men took a pint before breakfast, a pint with breakfast, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint at six, and a pint when work was knocked off. This makes three quarts, without counting any beer that might be taken in the evening. In the well-known and often-quoted account of Mr. Hastings (Hutchin's _History of Dorsetshire_), who lived over a hundred years, it is recorded of him that he would take his glass or two of wine or strong ale at dinner, but that he always had beside him his great "tun-glass" filled with small beer, which he stirred with rosemary. But, even if the men drank three quarts a day, the women could not.

In addition to the small beer, which cost threepence a gallon, there are continual entries of ale at twopence a quart. This was bought at the tavern. There were many kinds of ale, as cock ale, college ale, wormwood ale, sage ale, and scurvy-grass ale, some of them medicated, to be taken at certain seasons of the year. There was also wine, but not much. Occasionally they bought a cask--a tierce of forty-two gallons--and bottled it at home. The kind of wine is not stated. Sometimes they send out to the nearest tavern for a bottle, and it cost a shilling.

The accounts seem to set down everything wanted for the conduct of a house; every week, however, there is an unexplained item, called "cook's bill." This, I think, is the separate account of the servants' table. The "cook's bill" amounts every week to a good sum, a little above or a little below a pound. Perhaps it contained the wages as well as the board. The amount of food entered certainly does not seem enough for the servants as well as the family.

During the winter they bought no fresh beef at all. In November they bought great pieces, thirty, forty, even seventy pounds at a time. This was for the pickling-tub. Boiled beef played a great part in the winter's dinners. If they drank enormous quantities of beer they managed with very little bread. I find that, taking ten consecutive weeks, they spent no more than eight shillings upon bread. The price of wheat was then subject to very great variations. For example:

In the year 1675 it was £3 4_s._ 8_d._ the quarter.
" 1676 " 1 18 0 "
" 1677 " 2 2 0 "
" 1678 " 2 19 0 "

In other words, it was dearer in 1678 than it is in 1890, and that when the purchasing power of money was four times what it is now. Now it may be reckoned that in a house where there are children the average consumption of bread is at this day ten pounds weight a head. In this household of seven the average consumption was no more than eight pounds altogether. Setting aside the servants, the family had no more than two pounds of bread apiece every week, or four and a half ounces a day, which is one slice not too thick. Oat cake, however, they used in good quantity, so that the bread would be considered as a luxury.

The old vice of the English in eating vast quantities of meat to very little bread or vegetable could no longer be a reproach to them. By this time there was abundance of vegetables of every kind. We are especially told that in the serving of the boiled beef great quantities of vegetables, carrots, parsnips, cauliflowers, cabbage, spinach, beans, peas, etc., were served with it, and so also with other meat. There is no mention of potatoes, though one had always thought that they were firmly established in the country by this time. Their own garden was not able to furnish them with enough fruit or vegetables, which they have to buy constantly. They also buy nosegays in the summer.

The prices of things in the time of Charles the Second, may be found interesting. In considering them, remember, as stated above, that the general purchasing power of money was then four times that of the present time. A leg of mutton generally costs two-and-sixpence; a shoulder, two shillings; a hand of pork, eighteenpence; "a cheese"--they had one every week, but it is not stated how much it weighed--varies from one-and-twopence to one-and-eightpence. Butter is eight or nine pence a pound; they used about a pound a week. Sugar is sixpence a pound. They bought their flour by sixpennyworths, and their coals in small quantities for eighteenpence each week during the winter, so that their fires must have been principally kept going with wood. Once a month the washer-woman is called in, and sheets are washed; therefore, the washing was all done at home. Raisins and currants at twopence a pound, eggs, nutmegs, ginger, mace, rice, suet, etc., proclaim the pudding. It was made in fifty different ways, but the ingredients were always the same, and in this family they evidently had pudding every day. Cakes, also, they had, and pies, both fruit pies and meat pies, and open tarts. These were all sent to the bake-house to be baked at one penny each, so that the kitchen contained no oven. Candles were fivepence a pound, but the entries of candles are so irregular that one suspects the accounts to be imperfect. Herrings were bought nearly every week, and sometimes ling--"a pole of ling." Bacon was sevenpence a pound. Rice was also sevenpence a pound. Oranges came in about December; cherries in their season were twopence a pound; gooseberries, fourpence, sold, I suppose, by the measure; pease, sixpence a peck; beans, fourpence a quart; asparagus ("sparragrasse") was in April excessively dear--we find them giving six shillings and twopence, a most extravagant expenditure for a single dish; two weeks later it has gone down to eighteenpence for two hundred. But how could so careful a housewife spend six and twopence on a single dish? A "sallet"--that is, a lettuce--is one penny. Once in six weeks or so we find mention of "earbs"--that is, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc.--for twopence. "Cowcumbers" are a penny apiece, and a favorite vegetable. Radishes, carrots, turnips, French beans are also bought. In the spring cream-cheese appears. Sweet brier is bought every year, one knows not for what, and roses by the bushel, evidently for rose-water. This is the only allusion to the still-room, which undoubtedly formed part of the ménage. Nothing is said of preserved fruits, home-made wines, distilled waters, or pickles, which then formed a great part of house-keeping. They pickled everything: walnuts, gherkins, asparagus, peaches, cauliflowers, plums, nectarines, onions, lemons, barberries, mushrooms, nasturtium buds, lime-tree buds, oysters, samphire, elder roots. They distilled rose-buds and rose-leaves, lavender, walnut-water, and cherry-water. They always had plague-water handy, hysterical-water, and other sovereign remedies. They "jarred" cherries, quinces, hops, apricots, damsons, and peaches. They made syrups in many pleasing varieties. They knew how to keep green pease, green gooseberries, asparagus, and damsons till Christmas. They made wine out of all the fruits in their season; the art still survives, though the club-man of the town turns up his nose at the delicate cowslip, the robust ginger, and the dainty raspberry--a dessert wine. They potted everything, from pigeon to venison. Nothing is said of these things in the account-books. But the large quantity of vinegar bought every week shows the activity of the pickling department. Only once is there any appearance of spirits. It is when a bottle of brandy is bought, at one shilling and twopence. Perhaps that was used to fortify the raspberry and the currant wines. Very little milk is bought. Sometimes for many months there is no mention of milk. This may have been because their own dairy supplied them. Perhaps, however, milk was only occasionally used in the house. The food of very young children, infants after they were weaned, was not then milk but pap, which I suppose to have been some compound of flour and sugar. There is no mention in the accounts at all of tea, coffee, or chocolate. Tea was already a fashionable drink, but at this time it was sixty shillings a pound--a price which placed it quite beyond the reach of the ordinary household. Coffee was much cheaper; at the coffee-houses it was sold at a penny a cup, but it had not yet got into private houses.

Turning to other things besides food. Schooling "for E. J." was twopence a week. His shoes were one shilling and ninepence the pair. The cobbler who made them was Goodman Archer; Goody Archer was his wife. A letter cost twopence or fourpence; everything bought or ordered was brought by the carrier, which greatly increased the expense; a lady's gloves cost two shillings a pair; her silk stockings, ten shillings, and ordinary stockings, six shillings a pair; her shoes, three shillings; her mask, one shilling; her pattens for muddy weather were two shillings a pair; her knitting-needles cost a penny apiece; her steel bodkin, twopence; her needles, eightpence the half-hundred; her pins, ninepence a thousand; her ribbons, threepence a yard. As for the little things required for the house, they were far dearer than now, considering especially the value of money. For instance, a mop cost a shilling; a pitcher, fivepence; glasses, one shilling and eightpence each; an earthenware pan, fourpence; a broom, sixpence; a mustard-pot, one shilling and sixpence; a padlock, tenpence; a mouse-trap, tenpence; eleven shillings were given for a pair of candlesticks, probably of brass. Holland was two shillings a yard; a "newsbook" cost a penny. On one occasion--only once--it is recorded that the family bought a book. Only one, and then it was so expensive that they could never afford to buy another. This is the entry: "Paid a gentleman for a book, £3 10_s._ 0_d._" What book, one asks in wonder, could be worth seventy shillings in the year 1678--that is, about £15 of present money--to a man who was neither a scholar nor a collector?

The servants were up and took their breakfast at six in the winter and at five in the summer. The family breakfasted at eight. They had, for the most part, cold meat and beer with oat-cake. Pepys tells us of a breakfast of cold turkey-pie and goose--imagine a poor, weak creature of this generation making a breakfast of turkey-pie and goose, or of goose alone, with small beer! At another time he had bread and butter, sweetmeats, and strong drinks. And on another occasion he sat down to a table spread with oysters, anchovies, and neats' tongues, with wine "of all sort."

At two o'clock dinner was served. If it was boiled-beef day, the broth was served in porringers, bread or oat-cake being crumbled into it with herbs. When it was not boiled-beef day, they had fresh meat or poultry (the latter only seldom), and, in season, what are called in the accounts "pateridges"--it really matters little how a bird is spelled, provided it is well cooked and ready to be eaten. The invariable rule of the house was to have two joints a week, mutton, veal, pork, or poultry. This provided four dinners, or perhaps five. The other two or three dinners were consecrated to boiled beef. Calf's head and bacon was (deservedly) a favorite dish; they did not disdain tripe; black puddings were regarded with affection; a hog's cheek was reckoned a toothsome kickshaw; anchovies, prawns, and lobsters are also mentioned with commendation. On most days they had a pudding--the good old English pudding, boiled or baked, with raisins and "currance" in it, flour, eggs, butter, sugar, nutmeg, mace, ginger, suet, and sometimes milk--a famous pudding of which no one was ever tired.

The menu of a dinner where there was company is preserved in Pepys. Everything was served at once. They had marrow-bones, a leg of mutton, three pullets, and a dozen larks in one dish, a tart, a neat's tongue, anchovies, and a dish of prawns, and cheese. This was for thirteen persons.

The dishes were served in pewter, as they are still for the students in the hall of Lincoln's Inn. The supper, of which very little is said, was like the breakfast, but not quite so solid. Cheese played a large part in the supper, and in summer "a sallet"--cost, one penny--or a dish of "redishes" helped out the cold meat. After supper a cool tankard of ale--not small beer--stood within the master's reach while he took his pipe of tobacco. In the winter there was a posset or a toasted crab in the jug.

One is sorry to part with this interesting family, but, unfortunately, further information is lacking; I could give the inventory of the master's linen and that of his wife, but these details want general interest. So they disappear, the master, the mistress, Mr. Arthur, and the baby. Let us hope that they all enjoyed a long life and prospered exceedingly. After pondering so long over their account-books, one seems to know them so well. They have become personal friends. They sit on the green cloth chairs in the room with the green carpet and the green curtains and the fine tapestry. The chairs are high and straight in the back. Madam has her knitting in her lap. The master and Mr. Arthur sit on opposite sides of the fire, their heads adorned with beautiful flowing perriwigs of brown hair, their own color, which they have curled every week at an expense of twopence. They are sipping hot spiced ale and talking of last Sunday morning's sermon. They are grave and responsible people, rather fat in the cheeks because they take so little exercise and so much beer. In the window stands a row of books. Among them was Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and Dying_, Herrick's _Hesperides_, Baxter's _Saints' Rest_, Braithwaite's _Arcadian Princess_, Milton's _Paradise Lost_, the first edition in ten books; a Book of Husbandry, a Prophetical Almanack--that of Montelion--and I suppose, if we only knew it, the book for which they paid the "gentleman" £3 10_s._--was it a Bible, illustrated? It is only seventeen years since the commonwealth; there are Puritans still; their talk chiefly turns on godly matters; the clamor and the scandal of the Court hardly so much as reaches their ears. The clouds roll over; they are gone. Oh, world of change and fleeting shadows! Whither do they go, the flying shadows, the ghosts, the groups and pictures of the men and women that flit before our eyes when we raise the wizard's wand and conjure up the spirits of the past?

IX

GEORGE THE SECOND

From the accession of the First to the death of the Fourth George very little change took place in the outward appearance or the customs of London and its people. Not that these kings could have had anything to do with the manners or the changes of the City. The first two Georges were Germans who understood not their chief town, and had neither love nor fear for the citizens, such as possessed the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts. There was little change, because the forces that produce change were working slowly. Ideas, for instance, are always changing, but the English people are slow to catch the new ideas. They were born in this country, but they were developed in France, and they produced the French Revolution. For this they were suppressed in England, only to grow and spread more rapidly underground, and to produce changes of a more stable kind than the effervescence of the First Republic.

There was little communication between town and town or between town and country. The rustic never left his native village unless he enlisted. Then he never returned. The mechanic lived out his life over his work on the spot where he was born and where he was brought up. The London shopkeeper never went farther afield than Hampstead, and generally found sufficient change of air at Bagnigge Wells or in Moorfields. If wealth and trade increased, which they did by leaps and bounds, it was still on the old lines: the City jealous of its rights, the masters keeping the wealth for themselves, and the men remaining in silence and submission.

One important change may, however, be noted. The City had by this time ceased altogether to attract the younger sons of the country gentry; the old connection, therefore, between London and the counties was severed. The chief reason was that the continual wars of the century found employment and a career for all the younger sons in the services, and that the value of land went up enormously. Trade was no longer recruited from the better sort, class distinctions were deepened and more sharply defined even among the middle class: a barrister looked down upon a merchant, and would not shake hands with an attorney, while a simple clergyman would not associate with a man in business. Sydney Smith, for instance, refused to stay a night at a country-house because its owner was a banker and a tradesman. The real extent of the contempt with which trade was regarded, and the width of the breach between the court and the City, was illustrated when the corporation entertained the Queen on her accession at Guildhall, when the Lord Mayor and the corporation, the _givers of the feast_, were actually set down at a lower table separate from the Queen their guest! Think of that other great dinner chronicled above, where the mayor entertained four kings and played cards with them after dinner!

In the picture of London just before the present age we will confine ourselves as much as possible to the life of the bourgeois. For the court, for the life of the aristocracy, the statesmen, the poets, the scholars, the artists--they are sufficiently written about elsewhere. Here we will keep as much as we can to the great mass of the London citizens who know nothing of court and noble, but are sober, hard-working, honest folk, their chief care being to pay their way, avoid bankruptcy, and amass a certain sum of money before they die; their chief subject of admiration being the man who leaves behind him a great fortune made in trade; their chief pleasures being those of the table.

First, for the extent of the City.

London in 1750 was spreading, but not yet rapidly. East and west it spread, not north and south. Eastward the City had thrown out a long arm by the river-side. St. Katherine's Precinct was crowded; streets, two or three deep, stretched along the river-bank as far as Limehouse, but no farther. These were inhabited by the people who made their living on the river. Immediately north of these streets stretched a great expanse of market-gardens and fields. Whitechapel was already a crowded suburb, filled with working-men. This was one of the quarters where the London mob was born and bred, and free from interference of clergy or rich folk. Clerkenwell, with the parts about Smithfield, was another district dear to thieves, pickpockets, and rowdies. Within its boundaries the City was well and carefully ordered. Unfortunately, this order did not extend beyond the walls. Outside there were no companies, no small parishes, no rich merchants, no charities, schools, or endowments, and practically it was without churches.

On the north side, Moorfields still remained an open space; beyond lay Hoxton Fields, White Conduit Fields, Lamb's Conduit Fields, and Marylebone Fields. The suburb of Bloomsbury was beginning. A crowded suburb had sprung up north of the Strand. Westminster was a great city by itself. Southwark, now a borough with half a million people, as great as Liverpool, occupied then a little strip of marshy land not half a mile broad at its widest. East and west, to Lambeth on the one side and to Redriff on the other, was a narrow strip of river-side, dotted with houses and hamlets.

The walls of the City were never formally pulled down. They disappeared bit by bit. Houses were built close to them and upon them: they were covered up. Excavations constantly bring to light some of the foundations. When a church-yard was placed against the wall, as at St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and at St. Alphege, London Wall, some portions were allowed to remain. The course of the wall is perfectly well known, and has often been mapped. It is strange, however, that the corporation should have been so careless as to make no attempt at all to preserve some portions of this most interesting monument.

The gates still stood, and were closed at sunset, until the year 1760. Then they were all pulled down, and the materials sold. Temple Bar, which was never a City gate, properly speaking, remained until the other day. The gates were, I suppose, an obstruction to traffic, yet one regrets their disappearance. They were not old, but they had a character of their own, and they preserved the memory of ancient sites. I wish they could have been preserved to this day. A statue of Queen Elizabeth, which formerly stood on the west front of Lud Gate, is, I believe, the only part of a City gate not destroyed. It is now placed on the south wall of St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, where thousands pass by every day, regardless of this monument of London before the fire!

I have found, in a pamphlet written (1754) to advocate certain improvements in the City, glimpses of things too petty for the dignity of history, yet not without interest to one who wishes to reconstruct the life of the time. For instance, the streets were not cleaned, except in certain thoroughfares; at the back of the Royal Exchange, for instance, was a scandalous accumulation of filth suffered to remain, and the posterns of the City gates were equally neglected and abused. The rubbish shot into the streets was not cleared away; think of the streets all discharging the duty of the dust-bin! Cellar doors and windows were left open carelessly; stone steps projected from the houses far across the foot-path. Where pavement had been laid down it was suffered to become broken and ruinous, and so left. Houses that had fallen down or been burned down were left unbuilt, an ugly hole in the line of the street. Sheds for shops were placed against the walls of churches, as at St. Antholin's, Budge Row, and at St. Ethelburga's, where they still remain, transformed into houses. Sheds for shops have been built out in the street before the houses in certain places. Houses rebuilt are pushed forward into the street. Live bullocks driven through the streets are a constant danger; mad dogs are another danger--why is there no tax on dogs? Beggars and vagrants swarm in every street. The common people practise habitually a profaneness of speech which is shocking. These are some of the things complained of by my pamphleteer. He next advocates certain improvements. He would establish a public Mercantile Library--we now have it at the Guildhall. He complains that the City gates have been encroached upon and defaced--six years later they were taken down. He shows us that while within the City itself there were oil-lamps set up at regular intervals in all the streets, there were none outside the Freedom. At that time beyond St. Martin's le Grand, and in the district of St. Bartholomew's, the streets were left in darkness absolute. This was shortly afterwards remedied. He wants stronger and stouter men for the City watch, and would have some stationed in different parts of the City in the daytime. That, too, was done, after many years. We must consider that the old theory was that the citizens should in the daytime keep order for themselves. He asks why no wheel carriages are permitted on the north side of St. Paul's. He might ask the same question still, and the answer would be that it is a very great happiness to be able to keep one, if only one, street in London free from carts and omnibuses.

He then proceeds to propose the erection of equestrian statues in various parts of the City. This has now been accomplished, but yet we are not wholly satisfied. He would put up piazzas, porticos, and triumphal arches here and there; he would remove the bars and chains of Holborn, Smithfield, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and Whitechapel, and would put up stone piers with the City arms upon them. We have almost forgotten those bars and chains. He proposes a new stone bridge across the river at the mouth of Fleet Ditch. Blackfriars Bridge has been erected there. It is a most instructive pamphlet, written, it is evident, by a man much in advance of his age.

The best description of London about this time is certainly Gay's "Trivia." Witness the following lines on Thames Street:

"O who that rugged street would traverse o'er,
That stretches, O Fleet Ditch, from thy black shore
To the Tow'r's moated walls? Here steams ascend
That, in mixed fumes, the wrinkled nose offend.
Where chandler's cauldrons boil; where fishy prey
Hide the wet stall, long absent from the sea;
And where the cleaver chops the heifer's spoil,
And where huge hogsheads sweat with trainy oil;
Thy breathing nostril hold: but how shall I
Pass, where in piles Carnavian cheeses lie;
Cheese, that the table's closing rites denies,
And bids me with th' unwilling chaplain, rise?"