London in Modern Times

he same time. In 1666, even before the fire, this feeling was excited. The ships of France and Holland approached the Thames, and engaged with the English fleet. "After dinner,"

, they made haste to shoot the bridge, and left behind them that great fall of waters, which hindered them from hearing what they desired; after which, having disengaged themselves from many vessels which rode in anchor in the Thames, and almost blocked up the passage to Greenwich, they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and then every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it was not long ere they perceived the air breaking about them, like the noise of distant thunder, or of swallows in the chimney, those little undulations of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror, which th

s thronged about the Admiralty, demanding their pay, and justly upbraiding the government. The Dutch ships, under De Ruyter, entered the Thames, sailed up the Medway, and seized the Royal Charles, besides three first-rate English vessels. One can easily conceive the second panic which this event must have produced among the citizens; nor is it difficult to imagine the suspension of business, the general exchange of hasty inquiries in that hour of terror, and the flocking of the people to the river-side to learn tidings of the fleet. Though the Dutch ships, unable to do further mischief on that occasion, returned to

whose succession to the crown the restoration of the old religion of the country was anticipated. His name became odious, and it was difficult to shield it from popular indignity. Some one cut and mangled a picture of him which hung in Guildhall. The corporation, to prevent his royal highness from supposing that they countenanced or excused the insult, offered a large reward for the detection of the offender, and the Artillery Company invited the prince to a city banquet. The party most active in opposing his succession determined to have a large meeting and entertainment of their own, to express their opinion on the vital point of the succession to the crown; but the proceeding was sternly forbidden by the court, a circumstance which only served to deepen the feelings of discontent already created to a serious extent in very many breasts. This was followed up by the lord mayor nominating, in the year 1682, a sheriff favorable to the royal interests, and intimating to the citizens that they were to confirm his choice. The uproar at the common hall on Midsummer-day was tremendous. The citizens contended for their right of election, and nominated both sheriffs themselves, selecting two persons of popular sentiments. Amidst the riot, the lord mayor was roughly treated, and consequently complained to his majesty, the result of which was, that the two sheriffs already in office, and obnoxious to the court, were committed to the Tower for not maintaining the peace. Papillion and Dubois, the people's candidates, were elected. The privy council annulled the election, and commanded another; when the lord mayor most arbitrarily declared North and Box, the court candidates, duly chosen. Court and city were now pledged to open conflict; the former pursuing thoroughly despotic measures to bring the latter to submission. One rich popular citizen was fined to the amount of ￡100,000, for an alleged scan

his mind with the hopes and consolations of the gospel of Christ. Late the last night he spent on earth their final separation in this world took place; when, after tenderly embracing her several times, both magnanimously suppressing their indescribable emotions, he exclaimed, as she left the cell, "The bitterness of death is past." Winding up his watch the next morning, he observed, "I have done with time, and am going to eternity." He earnestly pressed upon Lord Cavendish the importance of religion, and declared how much comfort and support he derived from it in his extremity. Some among the crowds that filled the streets wept, while others insulted; he was touched by the tenderness of the one party, without being provoked by the heartlessness of the other. Turning into Little Queen-street, he said, "I have often turned to the other hand with great comfort, but now I turn to this with greater." "A tear or two" fell from his eyes as he uttered the words. He sang psalms a great part of the way, and said he hoped to sing better soon. On being asked what he was singing, he said, the beginning of the 119th Psalm. On entering Lincoln's-inn-fields, the sins of his youth were brought to his remembrance, as he had there indulged in those vices which characterized the court of Charles II. "This has been to me a place of sinning, and God now makes it the place of my punishment." As he observed the great crowds assembled to witness his end, he re

we of the b

sing, and th

love, and suitableness in humors, to creatures, what must it

such serene brightness amidst the sorrows of his friend. Sydney was a staunch republican, and his patriotism was cast in the hard and severe mould of ancient Rome. He was another Brutus. This distinguished man was executed on Tower-hill, December the 7th, 1683, a

, he was completely in the hands of his persecutors, who wreaked on him their vengeance with merciless intensity and haste. On the 23d of the same month, he was hanged, drawn, and quartered, in front of his own house, at the end of King-street, Cheapside. After his death his innocency was established, and it is said that James, who now occupied the throne, lamented the injustice he had done. The duke of Monmouth, the king's nephew, perished on Tower-hill, July, 1

inations. The king, observing the tide of popular feeling set in so decidedly against him, endeavored to reconcile the city of London by restoring to it the charter, which, in his brother's reign, had been so unjustly taken away. But though this brought votes of thanks in return, it established no confidence towards the sovereign on the part of the people. The prince of Orange, invited over by several distinguished persons, wearied by the long continuance of tyranny, landed at Torbay, when James, having committed the care of the metropolis to the lord mayor, marched forth to meet his formidable rival. The result belongs to the history of England. The lo

nt charter. When a conspiracy against William was discovered, in 1692, the city train bands displayed their loyalty, and marched to Hyde Park to be reviewed by the queen; and again, when an assassination plot was detected, an association was formed among the c

s of." This was at the close of the sovereign's wretched career. "Six days after," adds the writer, "was all in the dust!" This passage cannot but call up in the Christian mind, awful thoughts of the eternal condition of such as spend their days in the pleasures of sin, and then drop into that invisible world, on the brink of which they were all along "sporting themselves with their own deceivings." Sinful practices, such as stained the court of Charles II., are too often attempted to be disguised under palliative terms; but the solemn warning of Scripture remains, "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God on the children of disobedience." It is pleasing here to remember, that among those whom their dignified station, or their duties towards the sovereign and royal family, brought more or less into contact with the court, there were persons of a very different character from the gay circle around them, and whose thoughts, amidst the most brilliant spectacles, were lifted up to objects that are beyond earthly vision. "In the morning," says lady Warwick, in her diary, April 23, 1667, "as soon as dressed, in a short prayer I committed my soul to God, then went to Wh

wear out his courtiers. He once said to prince George of Denmark, who was corpulent, "Walk with me, and hunt with my brother, and you will not long be distressed with growing fat." Playing with dogs, feeding ducks, and chatting with people, were occupations the king was much addicted to, and were thought by his subjects to be so condescending, familiar, and kind, that they tended much to promote his personal popularity with the London citizens and others. Along St. James's Park, at the back of what are now Carlton Gardens, there ran a wall, which formed the boundary of the king's garde

was cherished and indulged by the highest personages. "At this time," (1668,) says Burnet, "the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading; both the king and queen and all the court went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there with a great deal of wild frolic. In all this people were so disguised, that without being in the secret none could distinguish them. They were carried about in hackney chairs. Once the queen's chairman, not knowing who she was, went from her. So she was alone, and was much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach; some say a cart."

ent was annually celebrated by the lovers of frivolous pleasure in London, with the gayest rejoicings, in which the garland and the dance bore a conspicuous part. While habits of dissipation were too common among the inhabitants generally, vice and crime were encouraged among the abandoned classes, by the existence of privileged places, such as Whitefriars, the Savoy, Fuller's Rents, and the Minories, where men who had lost all character and credit took refuge, and carried on with impunity their nefar

r had been impressed by the teaching of earnest-minded preachers and pastors who still remained. The fire, as well as the plague, in connection with the fidelity of some of God's servants, was, no doubt, instrumental, under the blessing of his Holy Spirit, in t

oner to the Gate-house. His meeting-house in White-yard was broken up, and a fine of ￡40 imposed on the people, and ￡20 on the minister. It is related of James Janeway, that as he was walking by the wall at Rotherhithe, a bullet was fired at him; and that a mob of soldiers once broke into his meeting house in Jamaica-row, and leaped upon the benches. Amidst the confusion, some of his friends threw over him a colored coat, and placed a white hat on his head, to facilitate his escape. Once, while preaching in a gardener's house, he was surprised by a band of troopers, when, throwing himself on the ground, some persons covered him with cabbage leaves, and so preserved him from his enemies. (Spiritual Heroes, p. 313.) In secresy the good people often met to worship, according to the dictates of their consciences; and until lately there remained in the ruins of the old priory of Bartholomew, in Smithfield, doors in the crypt, which tradition reported to have been used for admission into the gloomy subterranean recesses, where the persecuted ones, like the primitive Christians in the catacombs of Rome, worshiped the Father through Jesus Christ. The Friends, or Quakers, as they were termed, at this time manifested g

he dispensing power as unconstitutional. He said, "he had rather go without his own desired liberty than have it in a way so destructive of the liberties of his country and the Protestant interest, and that this was the sense of the main body of dissenters." The indulgence was withdrawn. Toleration bills failed in the House of Commons. The Test Act was brought in; fruitless attempts were made for a comprehension; and London was once more a scene of persecution. Informers went abroad, seeking out places where nonconformists were assembled

hapel of St. James's. At Whitehall, the ecclesiastics appeared in their canonical habits, and were encouraged in their attempts to proselyte the people to the unreformed faith. A diarist of the times, under date January 23, 1667, records a visit he paid to the popish establishment in St. James's Palace, composed of the chaplains and priests connected with Catharine of Braganza, Charles II.'s queen: "I saw the dormitory and the cells of the priests, and we went into one-a very pretty little room, very clean, hung with pictures, and set with books. The priest was in his cell, with his hair-clothes to his skin, barelegged, with a sandal only

e dead body of Sir Edmondbury Godfery, composed the spectacle. It started from Bishopsgate, and passing along Cheapside and Fleet-street terminated at Temple Bar, where the pope was cast into a bonfire, and the whole concluded with a display of fireworks. While anti-popish proceedings of this description might be leavened with much of the ignorance and intolerance which mark the odious system thus assailed, and can, therefore, be regarded with little satisfaction, it must be remembered that there was abundant cause at that time for those who prized the liberties of their country, as well as those who valued the truths of religion, to regard with alarm and to resist with vigor the incursions of a political Church, which sought to crush those liberties, and to darken those truths. The evils of Popery, inherent and unchangeable, obtruded themselves most offensively, and with a threatening aspect, at a period when they were defended and maintained in high places; and it was notorious that the successor to the English crown was pl

den," says Evelyn, "at his new-built palace, sitting in his gout wheel-chair, and seeing the gates set up towards the north and the fields. He looked and spake very disconsolately. After some while, deploring his condition to me, I took my leave. Next morning, I heard he was gone." The house was afterwards pulled down. In 1668, Burlington House was finished, placed where it is because it was at the time of its erection thought certain that no one would build beyond it. "In London," says Sir William Chambers, "many of our noblemen's palaces towards the streets look like convents; nothing appears but a high wall, with one or two large gates, in which there is a hole for those who are privileged to go in and out. If a coach arrives, the whole gate is open indeed, but this is an operation that requires time, and the porter is very careful to shut it up again immediately, for reasons to him very weighty. Few in this vast city suspect, I believe, that behind an old brick wall in Piccadilly there is one of the finest pieces of architecture in Europe." All to the west and north of Burlington House was park and country, where huntsmen followed the chase, or fowlers plied their toils with gun and net, or anglers wielded rod and line on the margin of fair ponds of water. "We should greatly err," observes Mr. Macaulay, "if we were to suppose that any of the streets and squares then wore the same appearance as at present. The great majority of the houses, indeed, have since that time been wholly or in part rebuilt. If the most fashionable parts of the capital could be placed before us, such as they then were, we should be

nsus of the population was taken. According to the number of deaths, it is computed there were about half a million of souls-a population seventeen times larger than that of the second town in the kingdom, three times greater than that of Amsterdam, and more than those of Paris and Rome, or Paris and Rouen put together. Though the amount of trade was small compared with what it is now, yet the sum of more than thirty thousand a year, in the shape of customs, (it is more than eleven millions now,) filled our ancestors with astonishment. Writers of that day speak of the masts of the ships in the river as resembling a forest, and of the wealth of the merchants, according to the notions of the day, as princelike. More men, wrote Sir Josiah Child in 1688, were to be found upon the Exchange of London, worth ten thousand pounds than thirty years before there were worth one thousand. He adds, there were one hundred coaches kept now for one formerly; and remarks, that a serge gown, once worn by a gentlewoman, was now discarded by a chambermaid. The manufactures of the country were greatly increased and wonde

was likely to have occasioned much mischief. He relates the odd circumstance of an old woman, squeezed in the crowd, asking f