LONDON BEFORE THE GREAT

FIRE.

it were possible for us by the aid of one of Professor Teufelsdroeckh s time and space annihilating felts to alight in the City of London in the year of grace 1660-ever memorable in the annals of the realm as the year which witnessed the restoration of Charles II. to the throne of his fathers-we should find ourselves in a world which we should experience much difficulty in recognising as our own-quite as rich in curiosities as any of the buried cities of Italy—and of which we should know as little as we do concerning the daily life of Timbuctoo. So quickly and completely do national manners and customs become transformed. The mouldering hand of time directs the steps of men into ways that their fathers and grandfathers never trod, and the space of three or four long lives is sufficient to bridge the gulf that separates us from a state of society which would excite as much surprise within our breasts as the characters at a masquerade—a state of society that would be as different in its tastes, ideas, employments, inclinations, and customs from that to which we are accustomed as could possibly be imagined. The London of the present day no more resembles the London of the Restoration era than the inhabitants of Kamschatka resemble those of Central Africa, and the progress which science has made in the invention of gas and innumerable other conveniences of home life, to say nothing of the various applications of steam and electricity, has not only effected a complete transformation in the topographical aspect of London, but in the public and private life of the city also, so much so, indeed, as to all but defy any attempt on the part of statisticians to appraise their scope and extent.

It is not our intention in this article to enter into any elaborate disquisition upon the memorable associations which, in the course of centuries, have clustered around the crowded highways and byways of our "murky Babel," seeing that such a task would entail researches far too extensive for our limits. What we do, however, propose to do, is to turn away from the proceedings of statesmen and parliaments, and to bring before the reader a number

of scattered facts collected mainly from contemporary literature, illustrating, from different points of view, the habits, the manners, the conditions, and the opinions of the different classes of London citizens at the time when the reins of government passed from the hands of the Protector into those of Charles II.

At the particular date to which we refer, the metropolis, which has now almost become “a province covered with houses ❞—although it appears to have been the most populous capital in Europe-had extended very little beyond the ancient city limits, and the houses westward of the boundary were for the most part the residences of the nobility, and stood in the midst of gardens that were bounded by open fields. At that time, of course, not one of the docks and warehouses which now line the banks of the Thames, from the Tower to Blackwall, and from Westminster to Rotherhithe, had emerged into existence, and only one bridge spanned the river. The roadway between the overhanging houses on London Bridge was so narrow that it was scarcely possible for two vehicles to pass one another in safety, and foot passengers could proceed across it in safety only by following in their miry wake. The case was much the same with all the London streets prior to the outbreak of the great fire of 1666. They all remained in blissful ignorance of commissioners of improvements and boards for lighting and paving. No London thoroughfare was lighted at night, and all the shops were distinguished by painted signboards. To the north of the city extended green fields and hills, the contour of which it would now be impossible to trace amidst the buildings by which they are overspread. Belgravia and Tyburnia-two important localities which have long since been incorporated into the voracious metropolis itself— slumbered in the womb of time; and he who had then ventured to predict the parturition of the parent would have been pronounced a rash individual indeed. Chelsea was still a rural village with little more than a thousand inhabitants. Islington was so peaceful a retreat that it was the "delight of poets," and a place where milkmaids and invalids wandered over fields and meadows resplendent with buttercups and daisies. The country lay open nearly all the way to Hampstead and Highgate from the rear of Holborn, where many private mansions of civic magistrates stood surrounded by their terraced gardens, which were planted usually with lime trees, and sometimes adorned with fountains, summer-houses, and grottoes. South of Moorfields or London Wall might then have been seen a pleasure-ground adorned with trees, laid out with turf and gravel paths and railings, and traversed by a broad and shady walk known

as the City Mall. Gresham House was surrounded by spacious walks and gardens which extended nearly as far as Cornhill. The Minories-so-called from the fact of the lands having formerly belonged to the nunnery of St. Clair-formed a comparatively open space, and hard by it stood a farm where Stowe often bought a quart of new milk for a halfpenny. At this time, certain districts which now form densely-populated portions of the metropolis were in a semirural condition. Spitalfields, which had in former ages been the cemetery of Roman London, and which in after days became the property of the Hospital and Priory of St. Mary beyond Bishopsgate, were really what their name implied. From Houndsditch, a street of houses standing in their own gardens extended nearly as far as the parish church of Shoreditch, which was almost the last building in that direction. Under the elm trees in Moorfields linen was spread out to dry and books were sold. Cattle grazed and archers shot their arrows in Finsbury, and Goswell Street was a lonely road all the way to the pleasant village of Islington. Clerkenwell was chiefly occupied by the precincts of the once great Priory of the Hospitallers of St. John, and by several mansions surrounded by gardens, tenanted by the aristocracy. Spafields afforded pasturage for cows, and Sadlers Wells, Islington Spa, and Merlin's cave were daily resorted to by crowds of citizens on account of the curative powers latent in their waters. The new Tunbridge Wells at Islington was a fashionable morning lounge, the site of which is now occupied by a squalid rookery of misery and vice. At that time the Pindar of Wakefield was a roadside hostelry in Gray's Inn Road, and Aubrey mentions the yellow-flowered Neapolitan bank cresses which flourished in its vicinity. Gray's Inn Gardens were the scene of a fashionable morning promenade, and from them there was an almost uninterrupted view to the pleasant heights of Highgate and Hampstead, which had then scarcely lost the woodland scenery of the ancient forest of Middlesex. Bloomsbury and the vicinity of Bedford. Square, it is hardly necessary to say, retained much of their rural character. The gardens of Montagu House (which were destined in later days to be overspread by the British Museum, and which were bounded by fields), as well as the gardens of the houses in Great Russell Street, were still fragrant and overlooked an expanse of open country which terminated in the northern heights. Chancery Lane, Fetter Lane, and Shoe Lane intersected gardens in which were straggling lines of cottages. St. Giles's still retained much of its rural character, and consisted of only a few houses amidst trees standing near the church, while northwards and westwards stretched open

country, traversed by roads with avenues of trees, and eastwards by green enclosures, from the walls of what had been the hospital to Chancery Lane, many inns standing upon the Holborn Road. Strictly speaking, St. Giles's Pound was at the threshold of London. The site of Long Acre, Seven Dials, and Soho was occupied by what were known as the "Cock and Magpie fields," so called from a celebrated house of public entertainment which bore that name. Drury House, near the Strand end of Drury Lane (where the village of St. Giles began), was the only mansion of importance which the locality could boast, and was shaded by a row of stately elm trees. The physic garden where John Gerard, citizen and surgeon, had culled his simples a hundred years previously, was still in existence when Charles II. ascended the throne.

The cities of London and Westminster were united only by a few houses in the occupation of the nobility, which occupied the line of the Strand. The space lying between Charing Cross and St. James's Palace was occupied by fields, and near at hand stood Spring Gardens, where the melodious notes of the nightingale were frequently to be heard by attentive listeners during the stillness of a summer's night. Hedgerows surrounding a few houses were to be seen in the Haymarket, and more than one hundred and forty elm trees bordered the walk in Pall Mall. The line of road which now bears the name of Piccadilly was known only as the road to Bath, was for the most part unpaved, and coaches were frequently overturned in the hollow way. The site of Bond Street was covered with green bushes, and all beyond it was open country. Building on Windmill Fields was strictly forbidden, as also on the open fields which adjoined Soho. Pimlico was almost all fields and gardens, and in the adjacent lower parts of Westminster were gardens in which people gathered their roses, their lilies, and their ruddy ripe fruit. Whitehall Palace, and the sumptuous mansions of the nobles and prelates that lined the Strand, retained their sloping gardens and their water gates. The world of Tyburnia, which has attained the most marvellous dimensions within the recollection of many who are still living, was a wide expanse of waste land over which the traveller after nightfall wended his way with many misgivings. Over what is now the Regent's Park sportsmen were often to be seen wandering with their dogs.'

Extraordinary as these changes are, more extraordinary still are those which have passed over the face of the city, properly so called, since the Restoration. At that time all the rich merchants, all the noblemen and courtiers, resided within the city walls in stately old Travels of Cosmo the Third through England, p. 162; see also Sorbière's journey to London,

residences, a few of which still remain in quiet courts and narrow lanes, which lie adjacent to the great highways of commercial enterprise, as mute witnesses of the age. The town residence of that rich and powerful North of England family, the Nevilles, stood in Leadenhall Street. The house of Sir John de Lumley, another Lord of the County Palatine of Durham, stood in Wood Street. Shaftesbury (originally Thanet) House was erected by Inigo Jones on the east side of Aldersgate Street, for the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet. London House, originally Veter House, long continued to be the town mansion of the Bishops of London. The Earl of Berkeley's residence, with its gardens, stood in St. John's Lane, not very far from Smithfield. Wills and other contemporary documents suffice to show that people of rank and position then resided in districts of London where their successors certainly would not think of residing at the present time. Evelyn tells us that Sir Robert Clayton, Sheriff of London, possessed a palace in the Old Jewry, which contained a magnificent cedar banqueting room, wainscoted with cedar, and ornamented with frescoes representing the battles between the gods and the giants, incomparably done.' Sir Dudley North possessed a mansion in Basinghall Street, and on the rich furniture of his reception rooms it is recorded he spent the sum of four thousand pounds. The court quarter of London, however, was Soho, which contained many stately houses. The south side of the square was occupied by the house which was built for the Duke of Monmouth by Sir Christopher Wren. In Carlisle Street stood the palatial residence of the Dowager Lady Carlisle, who there enjoyed her "cherry orchard and flower garden." Robert Sydney, Earl of Leicester, possessed a house at the north-east corner of Leicester Fields, and adjacent to it on the west was the residence of the Earl of Aylesbury.

The fine ancient Gothic cathedral dedicated to St. Paul, and anciently called Eastminster, covered three acres with its walls. The beautiful spire rose high above all the others in the city, and one of its aisles, familiarly known as "Paul's Walk "-strange as it may seem to modern notions-constituted the daily resort of traders, of newsmongers and of card-sharpers. In front of the venerable pile there had stood, prior to 1641, a structure known as Paul's Cross, a pulpit constructed of wood, renowned as much for the political sermons which had been preached from it as for the nobler exertions of Bishop Latimer and other distinguished ecclesiastical reformers. This cross was demolished in 1641, by order of the Long Parliament, who, fired by what they considered to be a wholesome godly zeal, issued a commission for the destruction of pictures and other monuments

Evelyn's Diary, ed. Bray, ii. 79.