The mania spread so that the South Sea scheme itself could not satisfy the lust for money. Maitland enumerates one hundred and fifty-six companies formed at this time. Among some which look feasible, there were the following characterized by extravagant absurdities:—An association for discovering gold mines, for bleaching hair, for making flying engines, for feeding hogs, for erecting salt-pans in Holy Island, for making butter from beech trees, for making deal boards out of saw-dust, for extracting silver from lead, and finally, (which seems to have been much needed to exhaust the maddening vapors that had made their way into it,) for manufacturing an air pump for the brain.
Some of them were surely mere satires on the rest; yet Maitland says, after giving his long list, "Besides these bubbles, there were innumerable more that perished in embryo; however, the sums intended to be raised by the above airy projects amounted to about three hundred million pounds. Yet the lowest of the shares in any of them advanced above cent. per cent., most above four hundred per cent., and some to twenty times the price of subscription." The bulk of these speculators must clearly have been bereft of their senses, and the madness was too violent to last long. The evil worked its own cure. The golden bubble was blown larger, and larger, till it burst. Then came indescribable misery. Thousands were ruined. Revenge against the inventors now took the place of cupidity, and indignation aroused those who had looked patiently on during the rage of the money mania. One nobleman in parliament proposed that the contrivers of the South Sea scheme should, after the manner of the Roman parricide, be sown up alive in sacks, and flung into the Thames. A more moderate punishment was inflicted in the confiscation of all the estates belonging to the directors of the company, amounting to above two millions, which sum was divided among the sufferers. The railway speculation in our own time was a display of avarice of the same order; and all such indulgence in the inordinate lust of gain is sure to be overtaken, in the end, by its righteous penalty. The laws of Divine providence provide for the punishment of those who thus, under the influence of an impetuous selfishness, grasp at immoderate possessions. Covetousness overreaches itself in such cases, and misses its mark. How many instances have occurred in the present day illustrative of that wise saying in Holy Scripture: "As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not, so he that getteth riches and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at the end shall be a fool!" The solemn lessons thus suggested should be practically studied by the man of business, and while he is taught to moderate his desires after the things of this world, he is also instructed to turn the main current of his thoughts and feelings into a far different channel, to seek durable riches and righteousness—bags which wax not old—treasures which thieves cannot break through and steal; and to "so pass through things temporal, as not to lose the things which are eternal."
The history of London in the reign of George II. is remarkable for the excitement which was produced by the northern rebellion, and for a far different excitement, which we shall presently notice with great delight. The progress of the arms of Prince Edward, the pretender, in the year 1745, created much alarm in all parts of the country, especially in London, the seat of government. When the invading army was found to have proceeded as far as Derby, it was generally expected it would advance to the metropolis. The loyalty of the citizens was called forth by the impending peril, and all classes hastened to express their attachment to the sovereign, and their readiness to support the house of Hanover in this great emergency. The corporation, the clergy, and the dissenting ministers, presented dutiful addresses. Several corps of volunteers were raised, large sums of money were contributed, and even the peace-loving body of Friends came forward to furnish the troops with woolen waistcoats to be worn under their clothing. As the cause of Popery was identified with that of the pretender, the Papists in London were regarded with great apprehension. A proclamation was issued for putting the laws in force against them and all non-jurors. Romanists and reputed Romanists were required to remove out of the city, to at least ten miles off. All Jesuits and priests who, after a certain time, should be found within that distance were to be brought to trial. The pretender was defeated at Culloden, and the news took off a heavy burden of fear from the minds of the London citizens. Many prisoners were brought to the metropolis, and among them the Earl of Kilmarnock, Lord Balmerino, and Lord Lovat, who were all executed for treason on Tower-hill. The beheading of the last of these brought to a close the long series of sanguinary spectacles of that nature, which had gathered from time to time such a vast concourse of citizens, on the hill by the Tower gates.
The other kind of excitement in London, hinted at above, relates to the most important of all subjects. Spiritual religion had been at a low ebb for a considerable period among the different denominations of Christians. A cold formalism was but too common. It is not, however, to be inferred that men of sound and earnest piety did not exist, both among Churchmen and dissenters. One beautiful specimen of religious fervor and consistency may be mentioned in connection with the earlier part of this century. Sir Thomas Abney, who filled the office of lord mayor in 1701, and also represented the city in parliament, is described as having been an eminent blessing to his country and the Church of God. He died in 1722, deeply regretted, not only by his religious friends, but by his fellow-citizens in general. We have seen or heard it stated respecting him, that during his mayoralty he habitually maintained family worship, without suffering it to be interrupted by any parties or banquets. On such occasions prayer was introduced, or he retired to present it in the bosom of his family. Many other beautiful instances of a devout spirit, of faith in Christ, and of love to God, were, no doubt, open at that time to the eye of Him who seeth in secret; but neither then, nor for some time afterwards, were any vigorous efforts made to bring religion home with power to the mass of the London population. That distinguished man, the Rev. George Whitefield, was an instrument in the hand of God of effecting in the metropolis, before the close of the first half of the century, an unprecedented religious awakening. He came up to officiate in the Tower in 1737, but his first sermon in London was delivered in Bishopsgate church. On his second visit, crowds climbed the leads, and hung on the rails of the buildings in which he was engaged to minister, while multitudes went away because not able to get anywhere within the sound of his voice. Nothing had been seen like it since the days of such men as Baxter and Vincent. When collections were needed, Whitefield was eagerly sought, as the man capable above all others of replenishing the exhausted coffers of Christian beneficence. The people sat or stood densely wedged together, with eyes riveted on the speaker, and many a tear rolled down the cheeks of citizen and apprentice, matron and maiden, as the instructions and appeals of that wonderful preacher, expressed in stirring words and phrases, fell upon their ears, in tones marvelously rich, varied, and musical. With an eloquence, which now flashed and rolled like the elements in a thunder-storm, and then tenderly beamed forth like the sun-ray on the flower whose head the storm had drenched and made to droop, did he enforce on the people truths which he had gathered out of God's precious word, and the power of which he had evidently himself realized in all the divinity of their origin, the sublimity of their import, the directness of their application, and the unutterable solemnity of their results. As a man dwelling amidst eternal things, with heaven and hell before him, the eye of God upon him, and immortal souls around him, hastening to their account,—in short, as every minister of Christ's holy gospel ought to deliver his message, did he do so. The holiness of God, as a Being of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; the perfect excellence of the Divine law; its demand of entire obedience; its adaptation, if observed, to promote the happiness of man; its spirituality, reaching to the most secret thoughts and affections of the heart; the corruption of human nature; the alienation of man from God, and his moral inability to keep the Divine law; the sentence of everlasting condemnation, which, as the awful, but righteous consequence, falls upon our race; the marvelous kindness of God in so commending his love to us, "that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us;" the Saviour's fulfillment of the law in his gracious representative character; the perfect satisfaction for sin rendered by his atoning sacrifice; the unutterable condescension and infinite love with which he receiveth sinners; the grace of the Holy Spirit; the necessity of an entire regeneration of the soul by his Divine agency; the full and free invitations of the gospel to mankind at large; forgiveness through the blood of Christ offered to all who believe; the universal obligation of repentance; the requirement of holiness of heart and life, as the evidence of love to Christ, and the indwelling of the Spirit, as the Author of holiness; such were the grand truths which formed the theme of Whitefield's discourses, and which, in numerous instances, fell with startling power on ears unaccustomed to evangelical statements and appeals. The preacher was a man of prayer as well as eloquence, and in his London visits poured out his heart in earnest supplication to God for the effusion of his Holy Spirit upon the vast masses of unconverted souls, slumbering around him in the arms of spiritual death. Whitefield could not confine himself to churches, and his out-door preaching soon increased the interest which his former services had produced. "I do not know," said the celebrated Countess of Hertford, in one of her letters, "whether you have heard of our new sect, who call themselves Methodists. There is one Whitefield at the head of them, a young man of about five-and-twenty, who has for some months gone about preaching in the fields and market-places of the country, and in London at May Fair and Moorfields to ten or twelve thousand people at a time." Larger multitudes still are said to have been sometimes convened; on Kennington Common, for example, the number of Whitefield's congregation has been computed at sixty thousand.
The notice taken of the young preacher by this lady of fashion, is only a specimen of the interest felt in his proceedings by many persons in the same rank of life. The nobility attended in the drawing-room of the Countess of Huntingdon to listen to his sermons, or accompanied her to the churches where he had engaged to officiate. Long lists of these titled names have been preserved, in which some of the unlikeliest occur, such as Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Bolingbroke, Bubb Doddington, and George Selwyn. Indeed, it seems to have been quite the fashion for the great ones of the land to cluster round this man of God. He was the theme of their conversation. By all he was marveled at; by some he was censured or ridiculed; by more he was praised and caressed; by a few he was honored and blessed as the means of their spiritual renewal or edification. Among the middle and lower classes in London, as elsewhere, did he reap his richest harvests. How many hundreds and thousands were melted down under the power of the word which he proclaimed! How many of that generation in our old city are now before the throne of the Lamb, adoring the gracious Providence which brought them within the sound of Whitefield's voice!
A remarkable occurrence in London, in the year 1750, gave occasion for a singular display of this great preacher's holy zeal. Shocks of an earthquake were felt in different parts of London and the vicinity, especially in the neighborhood of the river Thames. Such visitations are sure to produce violent terror, and on this occasion the feeling reached its highest pitch. The people, apprehending there was greater danger in their own houses, and in the streets lined with buildings, than in wide spaces open and unencumbered, rushed, in immense crowds, to Hyde Park, and there waited, in fearful foreboding of the judgments of the Almighty. One night, when the excitement was overwhelming, and a dense multitude had congregated there under the dark arch of heaven, Whitefield, regarding it as a signal opportunity for preaching the gospel to his fellow-countrymen, hastened to the spot, and delivered one of his most powerful and pathetic discourses. He called the attention of the throngs before him to the coming advent of the Son of God, to judge the world in righteousness, when not the inhabitants of one city only, but all of Adam's race, in every clime, would be gathered together, to receive from the lips of Eternal Justice their final and unalterable sentence. Nor did he fail to point out the character of Christ in his relation to man as a Saviour as well as Judge, urging his hearers to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel. "The awful manner in which he addressed the careless, Christless sinner, the sublimity of the discourse, and the appearance of the place, added to the gloom of night, continued to impress the mind with seriousness, and to render the event solemn and memorable in the highest degree." While the shades of night rendered him invisible to his audience, his clear voice—which could be heard distinctly at the distance of a mile, passing through a marvelous variety of intonations, in which the very soul of the speaker seemed to burst out in gushes of terror or love—must, as it sounded over the park, and fell upon the eager listening thousands, have seemed to them like the utterance of some impalpable and unseen spirit, who, with unearthly powers of address, had come down from heaven to warn and invite. "God," he observed, in writing to Lady Huntingdon, "has been terribly shaking the metropolis; I hope it is an earnest of his giving a shock to secure sinners, and making them to cry out, 'What shall we do to be saved?' What can shake a soul whose hopes of happiness in time and in eternity are built upon the Rock of ages? Winds may blow, rains may and will descend even upon persons of the most exalted stations, but they that trust in the Lord Jesus Christ never shall, never can be totally confounded." Charles Wesley was in town during this dispensation of Providence, (which happily passed off without inflicting any serious injury,) and he also employed himself in faithful and earnest preaching. So did Mr. Romaine, whose ministry will be noticed more particularly in the next chapter. The only additional information we can give respecting this religious revival, is that the Rev. John Wesley, equally distinguished with Whitefield, but by gifts of a different order, began his course in London as the founder of the Methodist Connection, in 1740, and spent among the London citizens a large portion of his apostolic and self-denying labors, with unconquerable perseverance and eminent success. He was accustomed, at the commencement of his career, to meet with the Moravians for religious exercises in their chapel in Fetter-lane; thus associating that edifice, which still remains, with the early history of Methodism. "There the great leaders in this glorious warfare, with their zealous coadjutors—persons whose whole souls were consecrated to the cause of God our Saviour—often took sweet counsel together. They have all long since gone to their rest, to meet in a better temple together, as they have often worshiped in the temple below, and to go out no more."
In further illustration of the state of London at the time now under our review, we will turn to consider some other of its social aspects. Literary society presents some curious and amusing facts. The booksellers before the fire were located, for the most part, in St. Paul's Church-yard. It is stated that not less than £150,000 worth of books were consumed during that conflagration. The calamity proved the ruin of many, and was the occasion of raising very enormously the price of old books. Little Britain, near Duck-lane, became the rendezvous of the trade, which remained there for some years afterwards. "It was," says Roger North, "a plentiful and perpetual emporium of learned authors." The shops were spacious, and the literati of the day gladly resorted thither, where they seldom failed to find agreeable conversation. The booksellers themselves were intelligent persons, with whom, for the sake of their bookish knowledge, the most brilliant wits were pleased to converse. Before 1750, the literary emporium of London was transferred to Paternoster-row. Up to that time the activity in the publishing business was very great, especially in the pamphlet line; perhaps there were more publishers then than even now. Dunton, a famous member of the fraternity, wrote his own life, in which he enumerates a long list of his brethren, with particulars relating to their character and history. The authors of London were computed by Swift to amount in number to some thousands. While a Swift, a Pope, an Addison, a Steele, a Bolingbroke, a Johnson, and other world-known names in that Augustan age of letters, produced works of original genius, the bulk of the writers who supplied the trade were "mere drudges of the pen—manufacturers of literature." A whole herd of these were dealers in ghosts, murders, and other marvels, published in periodical pamphlets, upon every half sheet of which the tax of a halfpenny was laid on in the reign of Queen Anne. "Have you seen the red stamp the papers are marked with?" asks Dean Swift, in a letter to Mr. Dingley—"methinks the stamping is worth a half-penny." These panderers to a vitiated taste, which is far from having disappeared in our own day, and other writers of the humbler class, were so numerous in Grub-street, that the name became the cognomen for the humblest brethren of the book craft. There and elsewhere did they pour forth their lucubrations in lofty attics, which led Johnson to make the pompous remark, "that the professors of literature generally reside in the highest stories. The wisdom of the ancients was well acquainted with the intellectual advantages of an elevated situation; why else were the muses stationed on Olympus or Parnassus, by those who could, with equal right, have raised them bowers in the vale of Tempe, or erected their altars among the flexures of Meander?" The favorite places of resort for poets, wits, and authors, were the coffee-houses, especially Wills', in Russell-street, Convent Garden, where Dryden had long occupied the critics' throne, and swayed the sceptre over the kingdom of letters. Thither went the aspirant after fame, to obtain subscribers for his forthcoming publication, or to secure the approving nod of some literary Jupiter; and there many an offspring of the muse was strangled in the birth, or if suffered to live, treated with merciless severity. In the same street lived Davies, the bookseller, at whose house Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, became acquainted with his hero. "The very place," he says, "where I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the illustrious subject of this work, deserves to be particularly marked. It was No. 8. I never pass by without feeling reverence and regret."
Pope was the most successful author of his time, and realized £5,320 by his Iliad. The keenness of his satire in the Dunciad threw literary London into convulsions. On the day the book was first vended, a crowd of authors besieged the shop, threatening to prosecute the publisher, while hawkers crushed in to buy it up, with the hope of reaping a good harvest from the retailing of so caustic an article. The dunces held weekly meetings to project hostilities against the satirical critic, whose keen weapon had cut them to the quick. One wrote to the prime minister to inform him that Mr. Pope was an enemy to the government; another bought his image in clay to execute him in effigy. A surreptitious edition was published, with an owl in the frontispiece, the genuine one exhibiting an ass laden with authors. Hence arose a contest among the booksellers, some recommending the edition of the owl, and others the edition of the ass, by which names the two used to be distinguished. In 1737, Dr. Johnson came up to the metropolis with two-pence halfpenny in his pocket—David Garrick, his companion, having one halfpenny more. Toiling in the service of Cave, and writing for the Gentleman's Magazine, then a few years old, the former could but obtain a bare subsistence, which forced from him the well-known lines in his poem on London:—
"This mournful truth is everywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth by poverty depressed."
He lodged at a stay-maker's, in Exeter-street, and dined at the Pine Apple, just by, for eight-pence. An odd example of the intercourse between bookmakers and bookvenders, is preserved in the anecdote of Johnson beating Osborne, his publisher, for alleged impertinence. Of the genial habits of literary men in London, we have an illustration in the clubs which he formed, or to which he belonged. That which still continues to hold its meetings at the Thatched House, is the continuation of the famous one established at a later period than is embraced in this chapter, at the Turk's Head, where Johnson used to meet Reynolds, Burke, and Goldsmith.