Part 15 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: GROUP SHOWING COSTUMES AND SEDAN CHAIR, ABOUT 1720.
(_From an engraving by Kip._)]
Though the appearance of the City had changed, and its colour and picturesqueness were gone, at no time was London more powerful or more magnificent. There were no n.o.bles living within the walls: only two or three of the riverside palaces remained along the Strand: there were no troops of retainers riding along the streets in the bright liveries of their masters: the picturesque gables, the latticed windows, the overhanging fronts--all these were gone: instead of the old churches rich with ancient carvings, frescoes in crimson and blue, marble monuments and painted gla.s.s, were the square halls--preaching halls--of Wren with their round windows, rich only in carved woodwork: the houses were square with sash windows: the shop fronts were glazed: the streets were filled with grave and sober merchants in great wigs and white ruffles. They lived in stately and commodious houses, many of which still survive--see the Square at the back of Austin Friars Church for a very fine example--they had their country houses: they drove in chariots: and they did a splendid business. Their s.h.i.+ps went all over the world: they traded with India, not yet part of the Empire: with China, and the Far East: with the West Indies, with the Levant. They had Companies for carrying on trade in every part of the globe. The South Sea Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Turkey Company, the African Company, the Russian Company, the East India Company--are some. The s.h.i.+ps lay moored below the Bridge in rows that reached a mile down the river.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TEMPLE BAR, LONDON.
(_Built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670; taken down in 1878 and since rebuilt at Waltham Cross._)]
All this prosperity grew in spite of the wars which we carried on during the whole of the last century. These wars, though they covered the Channel and the Bay of Biscay with privateers, had little effect to stay the increase of London trade. And as the merchants lived within the City, in sight of each other, their wealth was observed and known by all. At the present day, when London from nightfall till morning is a dead city, no one knows the wealth of the merchants and it is only by considering the extent of the suburbs that one can understand the enormous wealth possessed by those men who come up by train every day and without ostentation walk among their clerks to their offices in the City. A hundred and fifty years ago, one saw the rich men: sat in church with them: sat at dinner with them on Company feast days: knew them. The visible presence of so much wealth helped to make London great and proud. It would be interesting, if it were possible, to discover how many families now n.o.ble or gentle--county families--derive their origin or their wealth from the City merchants of the last century.
In one thing there is a great change. Till the middle of the seventeenth century it was customary for the rank of trade to be recruited--in London, at least--from the younger sons. This fas.h.i.+on was now changed.
The continual wars gave the younger sons another career: they entered the army and the navy. Hence arose the contempt for trade which existed in the country for about a hundred and fifty years. It is now fast dying out, but it is not yet dead. Younger sons are now going into the City again.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FLEET STREET AND TEMPLE BAR.]
The old exclusiveness was kept up jealously. No one must trade in the City who was not free of the City. But the freedom of the City was easily obtained. The craftsman and the clerk remained in their own places: they were taught to know their places: they were taught, which was a very fine thing, to think much of their own places and to take pride in the station to which they were called: to respect those in higher station and to receive respect from those lower than themselves. Though merchants had not, and have not, any rank a.s.signed to them by the Court officials, there was as much difference of rank and place in the City as without. And in no time was there greater personal dignity than in this age when rank and station were so much regarded.
But between the n.o.bility and the City there was little intercourse and no sympathy. The manners, the morals, the dignity of the City ill a.s.sorted with those of the aristocracy at a time when drinking and gambling were ruining the old families and destroying the n.o.blest names.
There has always belonged to the London merchant a great respect for personal character and conduct. We are accustomed to regard this as a survival of Puritanism. This is not so: it existed before the arrival of Puritanism: it arose in the time when the men in the wards knew each other and when the master of many servants set the example, because his life was visible to all, of order, honour, and self-respect.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A COACH OF THE MIDDLE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
(_From an engraving by John Dunstall._)]
56. UNDER GEORGE THE SECOND.
PART II.
After the Great Fire, the number of City churches was reduced from 126 to 87. Those that were rebuilt were for the most part much larger and more capacious than their predecessors. In many cases, Wren, the great architect, who rebuilt St. Paul's Cathedral and all the churches, in order to get a larger church took in a part of the churchyard, which accounts for the fact that many of the City churchyards are now so small. Again, as the old churches had been built mainly for the purpose of saying and singing ma.s.s, the new churches were built mainly for the purpose of hearing sermons. They were therefore provided with pews for the accommodation of the hearers, and resembled, in their original design, a convenient square room, where the preacher might be seen and heard by all, rather than a cruciform church. Some of Wren's churches, however, though they may be described as square rooms, are exceedingly beautiful, for instance, St. Stephen's, Walbrook, while nearly all are enriched with woodwork of a beautiful description. It was the custom in the last century to attend frequent church services, and to hear many sermons. The parish church entered into the daily life much more under George the Second's reign than it does now, in spite of our improved services and our multiplication of services. In forty-four City churches there was service, sometimes twice, sometimes once, every day. In all of them there were evening services on Wednesday and Fridays: in many there were endowed lectures.h.i.+ps, which gave an additional sermon once a week, or at stated times. Fast days were commonly observed, though it was not customary to close shops or suspend business on Good Friday or Ash Wednesday: not more than half of the City churches possessed an organ: on Sunday afternoons the children were duly catechised: if boys misbehaved, the beadle or s.e.xton caned them in the churchyard: the laws were still in force which fined the paris.h.i.+oners for absence from church and for harbouring in their houses people who did not go to church.
Except for Sunday services, sermons, and visitations of the sick, the clergy had nothing to do. What is now considered the work of the parish clergy--the work that occupies all their time--is entirely modern.
Formerly this kind of work was not done at all; the people were left to themselves: the clergy were not the organisers of mothers' meetings, country jaunts, athletics, boys' clubs, and amus.e.m.e.nts. The Nonconformists still formed an important part of the City. They had many chapels, but their social influence in London, which was very great at the beginning of the century, declined steadily, until thirty or forty years ago it stood at a very low ebb indeed.
In the streets the roads were paved with round pebbles--they were 'cobbled': the footway was protected by posts placed at intervals: the paving stones, which only existed in the princ.i.p.al streets before the year 1766, were small, and badly laid: after a shower they splashed up mud and water when one stepped upon them. The signs which we have seen on the Elizabethan houses still hung out from every shop and every house: they had grown bigger: they were set in immense frames of ironwork, which creaked noisily, and sometimes tore out the front of a house by their enormous weight. The shop windows were now glazed with small panes, mostly oblong, and often in bow windows: you may find several such shops still remaining: one at the top of the Haymarket: one in Coventry Street: one in the Strand: there were no fronts of plate gla.s.s brilliantly illuminated to exhibit the contents exposed for sale: the old-fas.h.i.+oned shopkeeper prided himself on keeping within, and out of sight, his best and choicest goods. A few candles lit up the shop in the winter afternoons.
[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW OF SCHOOL CONNECTED WITH BUNYAN'S MEETING HOUSE.]
To walk in the streets meant the encounter of roughness and rudeness which would now be thought intolerable. There were no police to keep order: if a man wanted order he might fight for it. Fights, indeed, were common in the streets: the waggoners, the hackney coachmen, the men with the wheelbarrows, the porters who carried things, were always fighting in the streets: gentlemen were hustled by bullies, and often had to fight them: most men carried a thick cudgel for self-protection.
The streets were far noisier in the last century than ever they had been before. Chiefly, this was due to the enormous increase of wheeled vehicles. Formerly everything came into the City or went out of it on the backs of pack-horses and pack-a.s.ses. Now the roads were so much improved that waggons could be used for everything, and the long lines of pack-horses had disappeared from the main roads. In the country lanes the pack-horse was still employed. Everybody was able to ride, and the City apprentice, when he had a holiday, always spent it on horseback.
But for everyday the hackney coach was used. Smaller carts were also coming into use. And for dragging about barrels of beer and heavy cases a dray of iron, without wheels, was used. All these innovations meant more noise and still more noise. Had Whittington, in the time of George II., sat down on Highgate Hill (still a gra.s.sy slope), he would have heard, loud above the sound of Bow Bells, the rumbling of the waggons on Cheapside.