A notice of a Roman Catholic funeral must conclude this subject. It is taken from the will of 'Mr. Benjamin Dod, Citizen and Linnen Draper, who fell from his Horse, and dy'd soon after.'[72] 'I desire Four and Twenty Persons to be at my Burial ... to every of which Four and Twenty Persons ... I give a pair of white Gloves, a Ring of Ten Shillings Value, a Bottle of Wine at my Funeral, and Half a Crown to be spent at their Return that Night, to drink my Soul's Health, then on her Journey for Purification in order to Eternal Rest. I appoint the Room, where my Corps shall lie, to be hung with Black, and four and twenty Wax Candles to be burning; on my Coffin to be affixed a Cross, and this Inscription, Jesus, Hominum Salvator. I also appoint my Corps to be carried in a Herse drawn with Six white Horses, with white Feathers, and followed by Six Coaches, with six Horses to each Coach, to carry the four and twenty Persons.... Item I give to Forty of my particular Acquaintance, not at my Funeral, to every one of them a Gold Ring of Ten Shillings Value.... As for Mourning I leave that to my Executors hereafter nam'd; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I shall leave a legacy.' Here follows a long list of legacies. 'I will have no Presbyterian, Moderate Low Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, to be at or have anything to do with my Funeral. I die in the Faith of the True Catholic Church. I desire to have a Tomb stone over me, with a Latin Inscription, and a Lamp, or Six Wax Candles, to burn Seven Days and Nights thereon.'
Widows wore black veils, and a somewhat peculiar cap, and had long trains—allusions to which are very frequent in the literature of the time. That they were supposed to seclude themselves for six weeks, and debar themselves of all amusement for twelve months, is shown by the two following extracts from Steele's 'Funeral, or Grief à la Mode.'
'But, Tatty, to keep house 6 weeks, that's another barbarous Custom.'
'Oh, how my head runs my first Year out, and jumps to all the joys of widowhood! If, Thirteen Months hence, a Friend should haul one to a Play one has a mind to see!'
CHAPTER V.
HOUSES, FURNITURE, ETC.
'Queen Anne' houses — Vanbrugh's house — Real 'Queen Anne' houses — Hangings and wall papers — Letting and rent — Prevention of fire — A fire — Insurance companies — Water supply — Thames Water Works — New River — Coals — Furniture — China — Bedsteads.
Although for the purpose of this work it is necessary to say somewhat of the houses of the period, it is not worth while discussing the so-called revival of the architecture of Queen Anne's time. The modern houses are quaint and pretty, but they are innocent of any close connection with her reign. Artists' and architects' holiday rambles in Holland are provocative of most of them; 'sweet little bits' having been brought home in sketch-books from Dordrecht and kindred happy hunting-grounds for the picturesque. The style was not even adopted for mansions—vide Marlborough House and Blenheim; and the exterior of the ordinary town houses, even of the better class, was singularly unpretentious. Hatton[73] is struck with admiration of Queen Square (now Queen Anne's Gate), and says it is 'a beautiful New (tho' small) Square, of very fine Buildings.' If he could thus eulogise its architecture, what must have been the plainness of the exterior of ordinary houses! It was not that there was a lack of good architects, for Wren and Vanbrugh were alive, but the houses and furniture were in conformity with the spirit of the times—very dull, and plain, and solid. We must never forget that during nearly the whole of this queen's reign a cruel war exhausted the people's finances, that trade was circumscribed, and that there were no mushroom parvenus, with inflated fortunes made from shoddy or the Stock Exchange, to spend their wealth lavishly on architecture or art in any shape.
A dull mediocrity in thought and feeling prevailed, and if any originality in architecture was attempted, it would certainly have been satirised, as it was in the very little-known poem of 'The History of Vanbrugh's House.'[74]
When Mother Clud[75] had rose from Play,
And call'd to take the Cards away;
VAN Saw, but seem'd not to regard,
How MISS pickt ev'ry Painted Card;
And Busie both with Hand and Eye,
Soon Rear'd a House two Story high;
VAN's Genius without Thought or Lecture,
This hugely turn'd to Architecture.
He view'd the Edifice, and smil'd,
Vow'd it was pretty for a Child;
It was so perfect in its Kind,
He kept the Model in his Mind.