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 noblest which the city even now possesses, namely, the Excise Office and Newgate. The end of the last century was, however, marked by the erection of the East India House, more decidedly Grecian than anything else which preceded it. Compared with what it has since been, architecture then was rather at a low ebb, for although one or two of the buildings above mentioned are noble works, they must be taken as exceptions to the meagre, insipid, and monotonous style which stamps this period, and which such erections as the Adelphi and Portland-place rather confirm than contradict. With the exception of St. Peter-le-poor, 1791, and St. Martin Outwich, 1796, not one church was built from the commencement of the reign of George III., till the regency."—Penny Cyclopædia, art. London. This remark applies to the city. Paddington church was built during that period, and opened in 1791. The chief public buildings of the period, besides those noticed, are the Mansion House, finished in 1753; Middlesex Hospital, built 1756; Magdalen Hospital, 1769; Freemasons' Hall, 1775; Somerset House, in its present state, 1775; and Trinity House, 1793. Westminster bridge was finished in 1750, and Blackfriars begun ten years afterwards; these, with London bridge, were the only roadways over the Thames during the eighteenth century.
The extremities of London continued to extend. Grosvenor-place, Hyde Park Corner, was reared 1767; Marylebone-garden was leased out to builders 1778; Somers-town was commenced 1786. "Though London increases every day," observes Horace Walpole in 1791, "and Mr. Herschel has just discovered a new square or circus, somewhere by the New-road, in the via lactea, where the cows used to feed; I believe you will think the town cannot hold all its inhabitants, so prodigiously the population is augmented." "There will be one street from London to Brentford, ay, and from London to every village ten miles round; lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish-town for building 1,400 houses; nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob; not at all, it was only passengers."
The Westminster Paving Act, passed in 1762, was the commencement of a new system of improvement in the great thoroughfares. The old signs, posts, water-spouts, and similar nuisances and obstructions, were removed, and a pavement laid down for foot passengers.
But until the introduction of gas, in the present century, the streets continued to be dimly lighted, and the services of the link boy at night to be in general requisition. In 1760, names began to be placed on people's doors, and four years subsequently, the plan of numbering houses originated. Burlington-street was the first place in which this convenient arrangement was made. In Lincoln's-inn-fields it was next followed.
The history of London, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, was emphatically that of an age of public excitements, some of them specially pertaining to the city, while in others the whole country shared. The removal of Mr. Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, from the high ministerial position he had occupied—an event which occurred in 1757—produced very strong ebullitions of feeling in the hearts of his numerous admirers. London largely participated in the popular admiration of that extraordinary man, and expressed a sense of his services by voting him the freedom of the city, which was presented to him in an elegant gold box. The success of the British arms during the next year, in the taking of Louisbourg, led to great rejoicings, illuminations, and the presentation to the king of loyal congratulatory addresses. In the year following, the wants of the army being found very urgent, and men being unwilling to enlist, a subscription was opened at Guildhall to meet the exigency by raising a fund, out of which the amount of premium on enlistment might be augmented. The taking of Quebec, in 1759, again awakened enthusiastic joy; and the record of bonfires, ringing of bells, and kindred demonstrations, are conspicuous in the civic annals for that year. The accession of George III., in 1760, was marked by the full payment to the young sovereign of all those loyal dues, which are tendered by the metropolitan authorities and community when such an important event occurs as the transfer of the sceptre into new hands. But the public excitement in his favor was soon exchanged for feelings equally intense of an opposite character. John Wilkes appeared on the stage of public life in 1754—a man utterly destitute of virtue and principle, but possessed of certain qualities likely to render him popular, especially an abundance of humor, and a wonderful degree of assurance. By attacking Lord Bute, the favorite of the king, but no favorite with the people, he gained applause, and was set down as a patriot. In No. 45 of the "North Briton," a newspaper which he edited, a violent attack on his majesty appeared; indeed, it went so far as to charge him with the utterance of a falsehood in his speech from the throne. The house of Wilkes was searched, and his person seized for this political offence; but sheltering himself under his parliamentary privileges, he obtained his dismissal from custody. Upon an information being filed against him by the attorney-general, he declined to appear, when the House of Commons took the matter in hand, and declared Wilkes's paper to be a false, seditious, and scandalous libel, and ordered it to be burned by the common hangman. The sympathies of many in London being with Wilkes, a riot ensued upon the attempt which the sheriffs made to execute the parliamentary sentence. Wilkes's disgrace was turned into a triumph, and the metropolis rang with the applause of this worthless individual. Unhappily, the proceedings against him had involved unconstitutional acts, which are sure to produce the indignation of a free people, and to transform into a martyr a man who is really criminal. He was next convicted of publishing an indecent poem; but again the improper means adopted to secure his conviction placed him before the people as a ministerial victim, and diverted attention from his flagrant vices. But the reign of this demagogue in London, properly speaking, did not begin till 1768, when he returned to England, after a considerable absence, and offered himself as a candidate for the city. Though exceedingly popular, he failed to obtain his election, but afterwards, with full success, he appealed to the Middlesex constituency. Then came the tug of war between the electors and the House of Commons. The latter invalidated the return, in which the former persisted. Riots were the consequence. One dreadful outbreak took place in St. George's-fields, when the military were ordered to fire, and some were killed or wounded. Three times Wilkes was returned by the people to parliament, and three times the parliament returned him to the people. This violation of popular rights was deeply resented in London, and throughout the country. It also made Wilkes's fortune; £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 illustrates how illegal proceedings defeat their object, though it be right; and how a rash eagerness in pursuing the ends of justice overturns them.
In connection with the Wilkes affair, there is a remarkable episode in the municipal history of the metropolis. A most serious misunderstanding took place between the monarch and the corporation. The proceedings of ministers in reference to the Middlesex election, led the civic authorities to present to the king a very strong remonstrance, begging him to dissolve the parliament, and dismiss the ministry. The monarch took time to consider what reply he should make to so formidable an application, and at length informed the corporation that he was always ready to receive the requests and listen to the complaints of his subjects, but it gave him concern to find that any should have been so far misled as to offer a remonstrance, the contents of which he considered disrespectful to himself, injurious to parliament, and irreconcilable with the principles of the constitution. Among the aldermen, there were some who disapproved of the remonstrance, and now strongly protested against it; but Beckford, who then, for the second time, filled the office of lord mayor, and strongly felt with the common council, livery, and popular party, earnestly resisted such opposition, and encouraged the citizens to maintain their stand against what was considered an exercise of arbitrary power on the part of government. The mayor summoned the livery, and delivered a speech just adapted to the assembly. Another remonstrance was drawn up, to be presented to his majesty by the lord mayor and sheriffs. To this the king replied, that he should have been wanting to the public and himself, if he had not expressed his dissatisfaction at their address. Beckford, who must have been a bold and eloquent man, breaking through all the rules of court etiquette, delivered an extempore speech to the sovereign, which he concluded by saying, "Permit me, sire, to observe, that whoever has already dared, or shall hereafter endeavor, by false insinuations and suggestions, to alienate your majesty's affections from your loyal subjects in general, and from the city of London in particular, and to withdraw your confidence in, and regard for, your people, is an enemy to your majesty's person and family, a violator of public peace, and a betrayer of our happy constitution, as it was established at the glorious and necessary revolution." Of course, no reply was given to this impromptu address, but it seemed to have excited no little wonder among the courtiers present on the occasion. On the birth of the princess Elizabeth, a short and loyal address of congratulation, avoiding all controversial topics, was presented by the same chief magistrate; to which his majesty answered, that so long as the citizens of London addressed him with such professions, they might be sure of his protection. The stormy agitation was of brief continuance. The ripples on the stream soon subsided. With this interview the good understanding between the king and the city appears to have been restored, though the bold remonstrance the latter had presented produced no practical effect. The popular lord mayor, who signalized himself especially by his speech in the royal closet, was removed by Divine Providence out of this life before the term of his mayoralty expired. After his decease, the citizens, to mark their esteem for his character, erected a monument to him in Guildhall, and engraved on it the speech which had given him so much celebrity.
The great dispute between the mother country and America, which began as early as 1765, could not fail to excite a deep interest in the capital of the empire. "The sound of that mighty tempest," as it was termed by Burke, was heard with deep concern at first by the London merchants, as threatening to injure their commercial interests; and when the Stamp Act, so odious from its influence in that respect, was repealed soon after it was passed, the whole city beamed with gladness and satisfaction. When, however, America asserted her independence, many in London, as well as in other parts of the country, felt their national pride so much wounded, that they encouraged the war, till finding the conflict with so distant and powerful a colony all in vain, they were willing to hear of peace, though at the expense of losing the chief part of the British territory in the western hemisphere. But in the feelings that the protracted struggle awakened, the metropolis only shared in connection with the provinces; they must, therefore, be passed over with this cursory notice, that we may attend to what particularly constitutes the history of the city.
This plunges us at once amidst scenes of excitement, much more serious and shocking than any others that have lately come under review. In 1779, the Protestant Association was formed, in consequence of some of the Roman Catholic disabilities being removed. The society met at Coachmakers' Hall, Noble-street, Foster-lane, under the presidency of lord George Gordon, whose general eccentricity bordered upon madness, and whose professed abhorrence of Popery sank into fanaticism. The association, in May, 1780, determined to petition for a repeal of the Act just passed, and it was resolved that the whole body should attend in St. George's-fields, on the second of June, to accompany lord George with the petition to the House of Commons. His lordship enforced this motion with vehement earnestness, and said that if less than 20,000 of his fellow-citizens attended him, he would not present the document. At the time and place appointed, an immense multitude assembled, computed at 50,000 or 60,000, wearing blue ribbons in their hats, marshaled under standards displaying the words "No Popery." In three divisions they marched six abreast, over Londonbridge, towards Westminster, being reinforced at Charing Cross by great numbers on horseback and in carriages. The then narrow avenues to the houses of parliament were thronged by these crowds, and such members of the legislature as they disliked were treated with insult, as they made their way through the dense concourse. The petition was presented; but when that business was finished for which the populace had been invited by the foolish nobleman, he found it impossible to disperse them. Harangues, so potent in convening the host, were utterly powerless when employed for their separation. Nor did the magistracy attempt a timely interference; but the mob was left to its own wild will, and like a swollen torrent, which bursts its banks, it poured over the city with destructive havoc. The chapels of the Bavarian and Sardinian embassy were pulled down that night. On the next day, Saturday, they committed no violence; but on Sunday they assailed a popish chapel and some houses in Moorfields, within sight of the military, who stood by unable to do anything, because they had no commands from the chief magistrate, who alone could authorize them to act. All that was done was to take a few of the rioters into custody, while the rest were left without any attempt at their dispersion. Utterly unnerved, the lord mayor virtually surrendered the city at this momentous crisis into the hands of the mob. Encouraged by the impunity with which they were left to pursue their own course, they attacked on the next day the house of Sir George Sackville, in Leicester-square, because he had moved the Catholic Relief Bill. On Tuesday, waxing bolder than ever, they besieged the old prison of Newgate, where a few of their associates were confined. Breaking the roof, and tearing away the rafters, they descended into the building by ladders, and rescued the prisoners. Two eye-witnesses, the poet Crabbe and Dr. Johnson, have left their impressions of this extraordinary scene: "I stood and saw," says the former of these writers, "about twelve women and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of them were to be hanged on Friday. You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. Newgate was at this time open to all; anyone might get in, and what was never the case before, anyone might get out."
"On Wednesday," says Dr. Johnson, "I walked with Dr. Scott, (lord Stowell,) to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the Protestants were plundering the sessions-house at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred, but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day." Besides Newgate, lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury-square was pulled down, and his valuable library burned. The Fleet, King's Bench, the Marshalsea, Wood-street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, were all opened, and such a jail delivery effected as the citizens had never witnessed before. A stop was put to business on the Wednesday; shops were closed; pieces of blue, the symbol of Protestant truth and zeal, were required to be hung out of the windows, and "No Popery" chalked on the doors. Before night, even the Bank was assailed, but not without a dreadful and destructive repulse from the military who garrisoned it, and were ordered to act. It is stated that the king, alarmed at the danger of his capital, and indignant at the inaction of the magistrates, took upon himself to command the services of the military for putting down the riot. While thirty fires were blazing in the streets, and the inhabitants passed a sleepless night, full of anguish, a large body of soldiers was engaged in the terrible, though necessary work of suppressing the riot by force. This was accomplished at the expense of not less than five hundred lives. By Friday, quietude was restored. Lord George Gordon was apprehended, but was acquitted upon trial, his conduct not coming within the limits of the statute of treason. Sixty of the deluded creatures, who at first were excited by his mischievous agitation however, had to pay the extreme penalty of the law. A happy contrast to this brutal kind of excitement has been recently (1850-51) displayed in the calm, deep, and, for the most part, intelligent resistance made to a far different measure—the papal aggression, in the creation of territorial bishoprics; one really calculated to excite far greater opposition. The years 1780 and 1850, stand out at the extremes of a period which has witnessed, in London and elsewhere, a change in public thought and habit of the most gratifying kind; and to what can this be so fairly ascribed, under the providence and blessing of God, as to the increase of instruction, especially religious instruction, through the medium of Sabbath and other schools, together with the distribution of the Bible and tracts, as well as other meliorating agencies operating on society?
Eight years after the anti-popery riots, another excitement, of a different kind, rolled its waves over the public mind in London; not, indeed, confined to the metropolis, but concentrating its force there, as the scene of the occurrence which produced it. This was the trial of Warren Hastings, for his alleged mal-administration of Indian affairs. But the great length to which it was extended wearied out the public patience, and ere the forensic business came to its close the court was forsaken, and the numerous London circles, at first thrown into a storm of feeling by the occurrence, resumed their former quietude, and almost forgot the whole matter.
The same year that Hastings' trial commenced, the public sympathy and sorrow were aroused in London, and throughout the nation, by the melancholy mental illness of George III., but the next year his sudden recovery created universal joy, which was demonstrated in the metropolis, after the usual fashion.
Then loyalty, with all his lamps
New trimmed, a gallant show,
Chasing the darkness and the damps,
Set London in a glow.
It was a scene, in every part,
Like those in fable feigned,
And seemed by some magician's hand
Created and sustained.
On the 23d of April, a general thanksgiving was held for the king's recovery, and on that account his majesty, accompanied by the royal family, went in procession to attend public worship in St. Paul's Cathedral; thus reminding us of the words of the Babylonish monarch, "Mine understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation."
At the close of the eighteenth century, the proceedings of revolutionary France sent a fresh stream of excitement through the public mind of England. On one side or the other, in sympathy with or in aversion to the measures adopted on the opposite side of the channel, most politicians, high and low, eagerly ranged themselves. The efforts of Mr. Pitt to prevent anything like the enactment here of what our neighbours were doing, were condemned or applauded by the two parties according to the principles they espoused. "The trials of Hardy, Tooke, Thelwall, and others," says a minister, then a student near the metropolis, "which took place not long after my entrance on college life, agitated London to an extent which I have never seen equaled, though my life has fallen on times and events of the most prodigious and portentous character."—Autobiography of the Rev. W. Walford. Clubs were formed of a more than questionable description, of which we remember to have received an illustrative anecdote from a citizen of London, now gray-headed, but then in the flower of his youth. Invited by a person of about his own age to attend a meeting, held in some obscure street, he was surprised on entrance to find a number of men, ranged on either side a room, sitting beside long tables, with one at the upper end, where sat the president for the evening. Several foaming tankards were brought in, when the president calling on the company to rise, took up one of the vessels, and striking off with his hand the foam that crested the porter, gave as a toast, "So let all —— perish." The blank was left to be filled up as each drinker pleased. The avowed dislike to kings, entertained by the boon companions there assembled, suggested to the visitor the word intended for insertion, and he gladly left the place, not a little alarmed lest he should be suspected of sympathy in treasonable designs.
Following political excitement came a monetary crisis, which struck a panic through the body of London merchants; for, in 1797, the Bank of England suspended its cash payments. But after all these storms, which severely tested its strength, the vessel of the state, under the blessing of the Almighty, righted itself, and scenes of political calm again smiled, and tides of commercial prosperity flowed upon old London.
In passing on to notice the general state of society in the metropolis during the last half of the eighteenth century, it is painful to notice the continuance of some of the revolting features which mark an earlier age. The old-fashioned burglaries, with the robberies and rogueries of the highway, were still perpetrated. A walk out of London after dark was by no means safe; and therefore, at the end of a bill of entertainment at Bellsize House, in the Hampstead-road, St. John's-wood, there was this postscript—"For the security of the guests, there are twelve stout fellows, completely armed, to patrol between London and Bellsize, to prevent the insults of highwaymen and footpads who infest the road." To cross Hounslow-heath or Finchley-common after sunset was a daring enterprise; nor did travelers venture on it without being armed, and even ball-proof carriages were used by some. At Kensington and other places in the vicinity of London, it was customary on Sunday evenings to ring a bell at intervals, to summon those who were returning to town to form themselves into a band, affording mutual protection, as they wended their way homewards. Town itself did not afford security; for George IV. and the Duke of York, when very young men, were stopped one night in a hackney-coach and robbed on Hay-hill, Berkeley-square. The state of the police, as these facts indicate, was most inefficient; but when the law seized on its transgressors, it was merciless in the penalty inflicted. Long trains of prisoners, chained together, might be seen marching through the streets on the way to jail, where the treatment they received was cruel in the extreme, and much more calculated to harden than to correct. The number of executions almost exceeds belief; and every approach to town exhibited a gibbet, with some miserable creature hanging in chains. These public spectacles missed their professed object, and the frequent executions did anything but check the commission of crime. The lowest classes constantly assembled to witness such spectacles, regarded them generally as mere matters of amusement, or as affording opportunities for the indulgence of their vices.
Some startling revelations of the state of things among London tradesmen, as well as the lowest orders, were made before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1835, relative to the period fifty years earlier. "The conduct of tradesmen," said one of the witnesses, "was exceedingly gross as compared with that of the same class at the present time. Decency was a very different thing from what it is now; their manners were such as scarcely to be credited. I made inquiries a few years ago, and found that between Temple-bar and Fleet-market, there were many houses in each of which there were more books than all the tradesmen's houses in the streets contained when I was a youth." He mentions, also, the open departure of thieves from certain public-houses, wishing one another success—"In Gray's-inn-lane," he remarks, "was the Blue Lion, commonly called the Blue Cat. I have seen the landlord of this place come into the room with a large lump of silver in his hand, which he had melted for the thieves, and pay them for it. There was no disguise about it. It was done openly." "At the time I am speaking of, there were scarcely any houses on the eastern side of Tottenham-court-road; there, and in the long fields, were several large ponds; the amusement here was duck-hunting and badger-baiting; they would throw a cat into the water, and set dogs at her; great cruelty was constantly practised, and the most abominable scenes used to take place. It is almost impossible for any person to believe the atrocities of low life at that time, which were not, as now, confined to the worst paid and most ignorant of the populace."
Turning to look for a moment at the opposite extreme of society, it is delightful to mark the improvement which had there taken place. While drawing-rooms and levees were held as before, though less frequent, the former being confined to once a week; while equipages of similar fashion as formerly continued to roll through the parks, Piccadilly, and the Mall; while the costumes and habits of courtiers exhibited no great variation; while theatres, and other places of amusement, were frequented by the fashionables; while gossiping calls in the morning, and gay parties at night, were the common and every-day incidents of West-end life—a very obvious improvement arose in the morals and general tone of feeling of people about court, in consequence of the exemplary and virtuous character of George III. and Queen Caroline. Fond of quiet and domestic repose, retiring into the bosom of their family, surrounded by a few favorite dependents, encouraging a taste for reading and music, and ever frowning upon vice in all its forms, they exerted a powerful influence upon those around them, and turned the palace into a completely different abode from what it had been in the time of the earlier Georges. Religion, too, if not in its earnest spirituality, yet in its decorous observances and its moral bearings, was maintained and promoted, both by royal precept and example. The monarch and his family were accustomed to attend regularly upon the services in the chapel attached to St. James's Palace.
The revival of religion in London, to which we adverted in a former chapter, produced permanent results. During the last half of the century, Christian godliness continued to advance. Whitefield's labors, as often as he visited the metropolis, produced a deep impression on the multitudes who, in chapels or the open air, were eager to hear him. Whitefield died in America, but a monument is erected to his memory in Tottenham-court Chapel, the walls of which often echoed with his fervid oratory. Wesley's exertions were prolonged till the year 1792. After a life of most energetic effort in the cause of Christ, this remarkable man expired at his house in London, 1791, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.
The countess of Huntingdon, Whitefield's early friend, exerted in London a powerful religious influence, "scattering the odors of the Saviour's name among mitres and coronets, and bearing a faithful testimony to her Divine Master in the presence of royalty itself." She has left behind her in the metropolis two remarkable proofs of her religious liberality and zeal, in Zion and Spafields Chapels, both of which she was the means of transforming out of places of amusement into houses for the service and praise of God.
The labors of Mr. Romaine, the minister of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe and St. Anne, Blackfriars, claim special notice. Previous to his induction to those parishes, he had preached at St. Dunstan's and St. George's, Hanover-square, exciting great attention, and, by the benediction of God, enjoying great success. The parishioners in the latter church were sometimes incommoded by the vast concourse who came to hear this evangelical clergyman. On one occasion, the Earl of Northampton rebuked them for complaining of the inconvenience, observing that they bore with patience the crowded ball-room or play-house. "If," he said, "the power to attract be imputed as matter of admiration to Garrick, why should it be urged as a crime against Romaine? Shall excellence be considered exceptionable only in Divine things?" Mr. Romaine was strongly opposed by some who disapproved of his sentiments, and was soon turned out of St. George's Church; after which the countess of Huntingdon made him her chaplain for awhile, in which office he preached in her drawing-room to the nobility, in her kitchen to the poor. Her house, where these services were performed, was in Park-street. Settled, at length, as the rector of the two churches above-named, this eminent servant of Christ—of whom it has been said that he was a diamond, rough often, but very pointed, and the more he was broken by years the more he appeared to shine—pursued uninterruptedly his holy and edifying ministrations till the time of his death in 1795. He was interred in St. Andrew's Church, where a monument, not devoid of artistic beauty, and executed by the elder Bacon, a well-known sculptor of that day, distinguishes the place of his remains. In 1780, there came to minister in the parish of St. Mary Woolnoth another individual, whose praise is in all the churches. This was John Newton, the friend of the poet Cowper. He lies buried in the edifice where he loved to proclaim the glorious Gospel of the blessed God; and on the tablet raised as a memorial of his worth is inscribed the following succinct account of his eventful life and of his character, so illustrative of Divine grace, in words written by himself: "John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy."
Rowland Hill, originally a clergyman of the establishment, and never fully sympathizing with any dissenting denomination, though confessing to many clerical irregularities, occupies a distinguished place among the men who devoted themselves to the faithful preaching of the Gospel in the metropolis. Surrey Chapel, which has proved a school in which many spirits have been trained for the celestial world, was erected by him in Blackfriars-road, 1782, and there till his death he continued to preach.
Two very celebrated prelates filled the see of London during this eventful period in the history of religion: Dr. Lowth, the elegant scholar and able commentator, who was translated to London in 1777; and Dr. Porteus, who succeeded him on his death in 1786, and though inferior in talents and learning, earned for himself a considerable literary reputation as a Christian divine, and distinguished his episcopate, which lasted till 1808, by his pious diligence and catholic charity.
Science, literature, and art, were promoted in London during the period before us, by the establishment of several well-known institutions. The British Museum was formed in 1753, in consequence of the will of Sir Hans Sloane, who bequeathed his large collection of curiosities to government for £20,000, which was £30,000 less than they cost him. An act of parliament was passed for their purchase, and Montague House, Bloomsbury, was taken and fitted up for the reception of Sloane's treasures, and other collections, scientific and literary, upon which great sums of money were expended. The Royal Academy, for the encouragement and improvement of British artists and sculptors, was constituted in 1768, and the first public exhibition was made at Somerset House in 1780. The Royal Institution in Albemarle-street was opened in 1799. The College of Surgeons was incorporated in 1800.
Other institutions, sacred to humanity and benevolence, and fraught with great benefit to multitudes of our suffering race, were originated within the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. In 1755, Middlesex Hospital was founded, the generous exertions which led to it having begun some years earlier. Three years later, the Magdalen Hospital, for the reformation and relief of penitent females, was opened in Prescott-street, Goodman-fields, and afterwards transferred to an appropriate building, erected for the purpose in St. George's-fields, in 1709. The foundation-stone of the Lying-in Hospital, on the Surrey side of Westminster-bridge, was laid in 1765; and a similar institution was begun in the City-road in 1770. The Royal Humane Society, for the recovery of persons from drowning, commenced in 1774. The Royal Literary Fund, for the relief of poor authors, was instituted in 1790.
The religious societies of London, whose character adorns the English capital, eclipsing its artistic and commercial splendour, chiefly belong to the present century. The London Missionary Society, however, for preaching the Gospel of Christ among the heathen, began as early as 1795. The declaration of the Society was signed at the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate-street. In the year 1709 was formed, also, the institution by which the present volume is issued—the Religious Tract Society. Commencing with small beginnings, it has, through the prospering hand of God upon its labors, been privileged to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ in one hundred and ten languages and dialects; and, in the course of half a century, to circulate its varied messengers of mercy to the vast amount of five hundred millions of copies.
Since the conclusion of the eighteenth century, London has undergone an unprecedented change, upon which the limits of this volume will not allow us to touch. The city, which is still swelling every year, in a degree which, if Horace, Walpole were living, would fill him with greater surprise than ever, is really new London. Few of the principal streets exhibit the appearance they did fifty years ago, and the architectural alteration is but a type of the social one. The superior sanitary arrangements, the more efficient police, the better education of most classes of society, the augmented provision for religious instruction and worship, the more decidedly evangelical tone of preaching in the metropolitan pulpits, and the increase of real piety amongst the population, must strike everyone, on even a superficial comparison of the past and present; and when we consider the great change wrought in half a century, it inspires encouragement in relation to the future. The impulse which things have received of late has been so mighty, that there is no calculating the acceleration of their future progress. Thus the remembrance of the past yields advantage, and we pluck hopes, "like beautiful wild flowers from the ruined tombs that border the highways of antiquity, to make a garland for the living forehead."—Coleridge. On taking a longer reach of comparison, an amount of wonder is inspired not to be adequately expressed. Had some sage in the Roman senate, two thousand years ago, proclaimed that the day would come, when an obscure town, situated on the Thames, a river scarcely known then to the Latin geographer, would vie with the city in which they were assembled on the Tiber, nay, eclipse it, and wax in glory while the other waned, that prediction would have strangely crossed their pride, and would have been indignantly pronounced incredible. Yet that day has come. The British town, then a mere inclosure, containing a few huts, has swelled into a city teeming with a population of above two millions, crowded with public buildings and costly habitations, filled with commerce, wealth, and luxury, the mirror of modern civilization, the metropolis of a mighty empire, and the wonder of the world—while the Roman city, then the mightiest and most splendid on the face of the earth, and the mistress of the globe, so far as its regions were discovered, retains no traces of her glory, and is chiefly interesting on account of her ancient name and associations.
Happily the genius of civilization in the two cities is completely diverse. In the early days of the Roman kingdom and republic, the people fought in self-defence; in later times, from a pure thirst for glory and dominion. In the best periods of its history, the virtues of the citizens were of the martial cast, and found a fostering influence in all the institutions of the state. To Rome, which then cradled a warlike people, London presents a contrast on which we look with satisfaction. London is the type of commercial civilization. The merchant, not the soldier, is most prominent and influential. The inhabitants of the English metropolis and country, it may be safely asserted, are looking not to armies as sources of greatness, and objects for gratulation, but to the busy thousands who are deepening and spreading the resources of national wealth by their commercial and manufacturing industry. The spirit of mercantile enterprise is as strongly stamped upon the English character, in their metropolis of the nineteenth century, as the spirit of war was stamped upon the character of the Romans in their metropolis before the Christian era. Rome had her trade as well as her army—her Ostia, whither her vessels brought for her use the luxuries of the East; but it was not there, but to the Campus Martius, where their legions performed their evolutions, that the stranger would have been taken to see the greatness of the republic. So the metropolis of the British empire is the rendezvous of a great military establishment, as well as an emporium of merchandise; but it is to the scenes on the borders of the Thames, to her spacious docks, her crowded shipping, her stores and warehouses, with all the accompaniments of busy commerce, presenting a spectacle which perfectly overpowers the mind with wonder—it is to those scenes that we should take the stranger, to impress him with an idea of the greatness of our chief city. The Hyde Park review, with cuirasses and swords glittering in the sun, and martial music floating through the air, affords a brilliant holiday entertainment, but all must feel that the English spirit of the nineteenth century is not there expressed. It is very true that the love of war has not lost its hold entirely on the public mind; that there are many who still pant for the conflict, and for the honors and prizes which successful warfare brings; but, we repeat it, the spirit of the nineteenth century is not there expressed, but it finds its exponent in the earnest activity which is ever witnessed round the neighborhood of London-bridge and the Exchange. The time is coming—is already come, when, as most intelligent men turn over the pages of the world's history, they award the palm of the noblest civilization to London, a city full of merchants and artisans, rather than to Rome, a city full of soldiers, flushed with the pride of victory, and drunk with the blood of the slain.
In all that relates to the state of society, the genius of the people, public opinion, general intelligence, taste, feeling, character—the comparison is decidedly in favor of the English capital. This is to be ascribed to many causes—to the intermingling of races, an insular position, political revolutions, enlarged experience, providential discoveries, and the creation of sentiments and opinions during centuries of mental activity; but, above all, it is to be ascribed to Christianity, which has long had a strong hold upon the hearts of multitudes, and which has indirectly exercised a most beneficial reflex influence upon the character of others, who have little regard for its doctrinal principles. The richest forms of modern civilization in London are founded on our religion. The elevation of woman to her proper rank, the improved character of the judicial code, the extinction of domestic slavery, the elevation of serfs of the soil to freemen having an estate in their own labor, the value set on life, the philanthropic institutions which abound—are all the results of evangelical light and principle. Let any one walk through the streets of London, and compare the aspect of things with what was exhibited to the man who walked through the streets of ancient Rome—and with all the vice and misery which exist in the former, there are found elements of social welfare, the acknowledged creation of Christian morals, at work, unknown in the latter. Indications of intelligence, peace, freedom, and charity, are found here, which were wanting there. The power and permanence of London must depend upon her morality and religion.
We look with intense interest to the young men of London. With pain, such as we cannot describe, we regard the gay, the dissolute, the intemperate—those who drown the higher faculties of the soul in sensual indulgence, who degrade their mental, moral, and spiritual nature, and, forgetting their relationship to angels, sink to the level of the brutes that perish. With pleasure, however, equally indescribable, we turn to the steady, the sober, the virtuous, the enlightened—those who labor after mental improvement, and especially those who seek spiritual excellence, who ask and practically answer the question, "While I am attending to the intellectual culture of the mind, ought I not to prepare for that eternity to which I am hastening, where moral and spiritual character will be all in all?" and who, repairing to the word of God, the source of all religious wisdom, have become the subjects of a discipline, which adorns the intellect with the beauties of sanctity, and prepares the soul for the vision and worship of heaven. Of such, London may well say with the mother of the Gracchi, but in a far more important sense, "These are my jewels."
Let it be the endeavor, as it is the duty of London citizens, to aid all wise schemes for its physical and intellectual amelioration, but especially such as relate to morals and religion. With a clear eye, a loving heart, a steady hand, and a determined will, each must apply himself to pulling down the evil, and building up the good. The moral health of a city should be the care of all its members. The most precious object amidst the multitude of precious things in the chief city of England is the citizen himself. Man, out of whose intellect, energy, and power, all the rest has grown—man, in whose capacities are found the germs of a greatness, the cultivation of which will a thousand times repay the toil it involves. The noblest of enterprises, be it remembered, is to be found, not in commercial speculation, or political reform, or even literary and scientific knowledge, but in the promotion of Christ's holy and saving religion, and in the recovery and purification of the soul, through faith in him, and its preparation for other realms of being in the infinite Hereafter. The enduring magnificence of such labor and its results exceeds all the doings of earthly ambition, even as the mighty Alps and Andes surpass the houses of ice and snow which children in their sports build up, and which are melting away before that sun in whose rays they glitter.
THE END.
BOOKS FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOLS.
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LONDON IN MODERN TIMES;
Or, Sketches of the English Metropolis during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. 18mo., pp. 222.
THE RODEN FAMILY;
Or, the Sad End of Bad Ways. Reminiscences of the West India Islands. Second Series, No. II. Three Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 159.
LEARNING TO FEEL.
Illustrated. Two volumes, 18mo., pp. 298.
LEARNING TO ACT.
Three Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 144.
ROSA, THE WORK GIRL.
By the Author of "The Irish Dove." Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 138.
THE FIERY FURNACE;
Or, the Story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. By a Sunday-School Teacher. Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 64.
ELIZABETH BALES:
A Pattern for Sunday-School Teachers and Tract Distributers. By J. A. JAMES. 18mo., pp. 84.
SOCIAL PROGRESS;
Or, Business and Pleasure. By the Author of "Nature's Wonders," "Village Science," etc. Sixteen Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 269.
MINES AND MINING.
18mo., pp. 212.
BLOOMING HOPES AND WITHERED JOYS.
By Rev. J. T. BARR, Author of "Recollections of a Minister," "Merchant's Daughter," etc. Five Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 286.
NINEVEH AND THE RIVER TIGRIS.
Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 210.
MOUNTAINS OF THE PENTATEUCH.
Conversations on the Mountains of the Pentateuch, and the Scenes and Circumstances connected with them in Holy Writ. 18mo., pp. 202.
MEMOIR OF ELIZA M. BARKER.
By A. C. ROSE. Two Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 108.
IDLE DICK AND THE POOR WATCHMAKER.
Originally written in French, by Rev. CESAR MALAN, of Geneva. With Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 82.
MY GRANDFATHER GREGORY.
With Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 118.
LITTLE WATER-CRESS SELLERS.
18mo., pp. 80.
SUNDAY AMONG THE PURITANS;
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IRISH STORIES FOR THOUGHTFUL READERS.
Five Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 285.
UNCLE WILLIAM AND HIS NEPHEWS.
Nine Illustrations. 18mo., pp. 64.