Volume I Part 29 (1/2)

[Footnote 190: Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, London Gazette, May 31, 1683; North's Life of Guildford.]

[Footnote 191: The great prices paid to Varelst and Verrio are mentioned in Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting.]

[Footnote 192: Petty's Political Arithmetic.]

[Footnote 193: Stat 5 Eliz. c. 4; Archaeologia, vol. xi.]

[Footnote 194: Plain and easy Method showing how the office of Overseer of the Poor may be managed, by Richard Dunning; 1st edition, 1685; 2d edition, 1686.]

[Footnote 195: Cullum's History of Hawsted.]

[Footnote 196: Ruggles on the Poor.]

[Footnote 197: See, in Thurloe's State Papers, the memorandum of the Dutch Deputies dated August 2-12, 1653.]

[Footnote 198: The orator was Mr. John Ba.s.set, member for Barnstaple.

See Smith's Memoirs of Wool, chapter lxviii.]

[Footnote 199: This ballad is in the British Museum. The precise year is not given; but the Imprimatur of Roger Lestrange fixes the date sufficiently for my purpose. I will quote some of the lines. The master clothier is introduced speaking as follows:

”In former ages we used to give, So that our workfolks like farmers did live; But the times are changed, we will make them know.

”We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day, Though a s.h.i.+lling they deserve if they kind their just pay; If at all they murmur and say 'tis too small, We bid them choose whether they'll work at all.

And thus we forgain all our wealth and estate, By many poor men that work early and late.

Then hey for the clothing trade! It goes on brave; We scorn for to toyl and moyl, nor yet to slave.

Our workmen do work hard, but we live at ease, We go when we will, and we come when we please.”]

[Footnote 200: Chamberlayne's State of England; Petty's Political Arithmetic, chapter viii.; Dunning's Plain and Easy Method; Firmin's Proposition for the Employing of the Poor. It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent philanthropist.]

[Footnote 201: King in his Natural and Political Conclusions roughly estimated the common people of England at 880,000 families. Of these families 440,000, according to him ate animal food twice a week. The remaining 440,000, ate it not at all, or at most not oftener than once a week.]

[Footnote 202: Fourteenth Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, Appendix B. No. 2, Appendix C. No 1, 1848. Of the two estimates of the poor rate mentioned in the text one was formed by Arthur Moore, the other, some years later, by Richard Dunning. Moore's estimate will be found in Davenant's Essay on Ways and Means; Dunning's in Sir Frederic Eden's valuable work on the poor. King and Davenant estimate the paupers and beggars in 1696, at the incredible number of 1,330,000 out of a population of 5,500,000. In 1846 the number of persons who received relief appears from the official returns to have been only 1,332,089 out of a population of about 17,000,000. It ought also to be observed that, in those returns, a pauper must very often be reckoned more than once.

I would advise the reader to consult De Foe's pamphlet ent.i.tled ”Giving Alms no Charity,” and the Greenwich tables which will be found in Mr.

M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary under the head Prices.]

[Footnote 203: The deaths were 23,222. Petty's Political Arithmetic.]

[Footnote 204: Burnet, i. 560.]

[Footnote 205: Muggleton's Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit.]

[Footnote 206: Tom Brown describes such a scene in lines which I do not venture to quote.]

[Footnote 207: Ward's London Spy.]

[Footnote 208: Pepys's Diary, Dec. 28, 1663, Sept. 2, 1667.]

[Footnote 209: Burnet, i, 606; Spectator, No. 462; Lords' Journals, October 28, 1678; Cibber's Apology.]

[Footnote 210: Burnet, i. 605, 606, Welwood, North's Life of Guildford, 251.]