



Produced by Al Haines









LONDON

IN MODERN TIMES;


Or, Sketches of

THE ENGLISH METROPOLIS

DURING THE

SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.




New York

PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER,

SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 200 MULBERRY-STREET.


1851




CONTENTS.

Chap.

       INTRODUCTION
   I.--LONDON UNDER THE FIRST TWO MONARCHS OF THE STUART DYNASTY
  II.--LONDON DURING THE CIVIL WARS
 III.--THE PLAGUE YEAR IN LONDON
  IV.--THE FIRE OF LONDON
   V.--FROM THE RESTORATION OF THE CITY TO THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY
  VI.--LONDON DURING THE FIRST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
 VII.--LONDON DURING THE LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY




LONDON

IN MODERN TIMES.




INTRODUCTION.

This history of an old city opens many views into the realms of the
past, crowded with the picturesque, the romantic, and the
religious--with what is beautiful in intellect, sublime in feeling,
noble in character--and with much, too, the reverse of all this.
Buildings dingy and dilapidated, or tastelessly modernized, in which
great geniuses were born, or lived, or died, become, in connection with
the event, transformed into poetic bowers; and narrow dirty streets,
where they are known often to have walked, change into green alleys,
resounding with richer notes than ever trilled from bird on brake.
Tales of valor and suffering, of heroism and patience, of virtue and
piety, of the patriot's life and the martyr's death, crowd thickly on
the memory.  Nor do opposite reminiscences, revealing the footprints of
vice and crime, of evil passions and false principles, fail to arise,
fraught with salutary warnings and cautions.  The broad thoroughfare is
a channel, within whose banks there has been rolling for centuries a
river of human life, now tranquil as the sky, now troubled as the
clouds, gliding on in peace, or lashed into storms.

These dwelling-places of man are proofs and expressions of his
ingenuity, skill, and toil, of his social instincts and habits.  Their
varied architecture and style, the different circumstances under which
they were built, the various motives and diversified purposes which led
to their erection, are symbols and illustrations of the innumerable
forms, the many  hues, the strange gradations of men's
condition, character, habits, tastes, and feelings.  Each house has its
own history--a history which in some cases has been running on since an
era when civilization wore a different aspect from what it does now.
What changeful scenes has many a dwelling witnessed!--families have
come and gone, people have been born and have died, obedient to the
great law--"the fashion of this world passeth away."  Those rooms have
witnessed the birth and departure of many, the death of the guilty
sinner or pardoned believer, the gay wedding and the gloomy funeral,
the welcome meeting of Christmas groups around the bright fireside, and
the sad parting of loved ones called to separate into widely divergent
paths.  Striking contrasts abound between the outward material aspect
and the inward moral scenery of those habitations.  In this house,
perhaps, which catches the passenger's eye by its splendor, through
whose windows there flashes the gorgeous light of patrician luxury, at
whose door lines of proud equipages drive up, on whose steps are
marshaled obsequious footmen in gilded liveries, there are hearts
pining away with ambition, envy, jealousy, fear, remorse, and agony.
In that humble cottage-like abode, on the other hand, contentment,
which with godliness is great gain, and piety, better than gold or
rubies, have taken up their home, and transformed it into a terrestrial
heaven.

All this applies to London, and gives interest to our survey of it as
we pass through its numerous streets; it clothes it with a poetic
character in the eyes of all gifted with creative fancy.  The poetry of
the city has its own charms as well as the poetry of the country.  The
history of London supplies abundant materials of the character now
described; indeed, they are so numerous and diversified that it is
difficult to deal with them.  The memorials of the mother city are so
intimately connected with the records of the empire, that to do justice
to the former would be to sketch the outline, and to exhibit most of
the stirring scenes and incidents of the latter.  London, too, is
associated closely with many of the distinguished individuals that
England has produced, with the progress of arts, of commerce and
literature, politics and law, religion and civilization; so that, as we
walk about it, we tread on classic ground, rich