The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 - Thomas Babington Macaulay (novel books to read TXT) 📗

the beginning of the cold

weather; and, during several months, even the gentry tasted

scarcely any fresh animal food, except game and river fish, which

were consequently much more important articles in housekeeping

than at present. It appears from the Northumberland Household

Book that, in the reign of Henry the Seventh, fresh meat was

never eaten even by the gentlemen attendant on a great Earl,

except during the short interval between Midsummer and

Michaelmas. But in the course of two centuries an improvement had

taken place; and under Charles the Second it was not till the

beginning of November that families laid in their stock of salt

provisions, then called Martinmas beef.68


The sheep and the ox of that time were diminutive when compared

with the sheep and oxen which are now driven to our markets.69

Our native horses, though serviceable, were held in small esteem,

and fetched low prices. They were valued, one with another, by

the ablest of those who computed the national wealth, at not more

than fifty shillings each. Foreign breeds were greatly preferred.

Spanish jennets were regarded as the finest chargers, and were

imported for purposes of pageantry and war. The coaches of the

aristocracy were drawn by grey Flemish mares, which trotted, as

it was thought, with a peculiar grace, and endured better than

any cattle reared in our island the work of dragging a ponderous

equipage over the rugged pavement of London. Neither the modern

dray horse nor the modern race horse was then known. At a much

later period the ancestors of the gigantic quadrupeds, which all

foreigners now class among the chief wonders of London, were

brought from the marshes of Walcheren; the ancestors of Childers

and Eclipse from the sands of Arabia. Already, however, there was

among our nobility and gentry a passion for the amusements of the

turf. The importance of improving our studs by an infusion of new

blood was strongly felt; and with this view a considerable number

of barbs had lately been brought into the country. Two men whose

authority on such subjects was held in great esteem, the Duke of

Newcastle and Sir John Fenwick, pronounced that the meanest hack

ever imported from Tangier would produce a diner progeny than

could be expected from the best sire of our native breed. They

would not readily have believed that a time would come when the

princes and nobles of neighbouring lands would be as eager to

obtain horses from England as ever the English had been to obtain

horses from Barbary.70


The increase of vegetable and animal produce, though great, seems

small when compared with the increase of our mineral wealth. In

1685 the tin of Cornwall, which had, more than two thousand years

before, attracted the Tyrian sails beyond the pillars of

Hercules, was still one of the most valuable subterranean

productions of the island. The quantity annually extracted from

the earth was found to be, some years later, sixteen hundred

tons, probably about a third of what it now is.71 But the veins

of copper which lie in the same region were, in the time of

Charles the Second, altogether neglected, nor did any landowner

take them into the account in estimating the value of his

property. Cornwall and Wales at present yield annually near

fifteen thousand tons of copper, worth near a million and a half

sterling; that is to say, worth about twice as much as the annual

produce of all English mines of all descriptions in the

seventeenth century.72 The first bed of rock salt had been

discovered in Cheshire not long after the Restoration, but does

not appear to have been worked till much later. The salt which

was obtained by a rude process from brine pits was held in no

high estimation. The pans in which the manufacture was carried on

exhaled a sulphurous stench; and, when the evaporation was

complete, the substance which was left was scarcely fit to be

used with food. Physicians attributed the scorbutic and pulmonary

complaints which were common among the English to this

unwholesome condiment. It was therefore seldom used by the upper

and middle classes; and there was a regular and considerable

importation from France. At present our springs and mines not

only supply our own immense demand, but send annually more than

seven hundred millions of pounds of excellent salt to foreign

countries.73


Far more important has been the improvement of our iron works.

Such works had long existed in our island, but had not prospered,

and had been regarded with no favourable eye by the government

and by the public. It was not then the practice to employ coal

for smelting the ore; and the rapid consumption of wood excited

the alarm of politicians. As early as the reign of Elizabeth,

there had been loud complaints that whole forests were cut down

for the purpose of feeding the furnaces; and the Parliament had

interfered to prohibit the manufacturers from burning timber. The

manufacture consequently languished. At the close of the reign of

Charles the Second, great part of the iron which was used in this

country was imported from abroad; and the whole quantity cast

here annually seems not to have exceeded ten thousand tons. At

present the trade is thought to be in a depressed state if less

than a million of tons are produced in a year.74


One mineral, perhaps more important than iron itself, remains to

be mentioned. Coal, though very little used in any species of

manufacture, was already the ordinary fuel in some districts

which were fortunate enough to possess large beds, and in the

capital, which could easily be supplied by water carriage, It

seems reasonable to believe that at least one half of the

quantity then extracted from the pits was consumed in London. The

consumption of London seemed to the writers of that age enormous,

and was often mentioned by them as a proof of the greatness of

the imperial city. They scarcely hoped to be believed when they

affirmed that two hundred and eighty thousand chaldrons that is

to say, about three hundred and fifty thousand tons, were, in the

last year of the reign of Charles the Second, brought to the

Thames. At present three millions and a half of tons are required

yearly by the metropolis; and the whole annual produce cannot, on

the most moderate computation, be estimated at less than thirty

millions of tons.75


While these great changes have been in progress, the rent of land

has, as might be expected, been almost constantly rising. In some

districts it has multiplied more than tenfold. In some it has not

more than doubled. It has probably, on the average, quadrupled.


Of the rent, a large proportion was divided among the country

gentlemen, a class of persons whose position and character it is

most important that we. should clearly understand; for by their

influence and by their passions the fate of the nation was, at

several important conjunctures, determined.


We should be much mistaken if we pictured to ourselves the

squires of the seventeenth century as men bearing a close

resemblance to their descendants, the county members and chairmen

of quarter sessions with whom we are familiar. The modern country

gentleman generally receives a liberal education, passes from a

distinguished school to a distinguished college, and has ample

opportunity to become an excellent scholar. He has generally seen

something of foreign countries. A considerable part of his life

has generally been passed in the capital; and the refinements of

the capital follow him into the country. There is perhaps no

class of dwellings so pleasing as the rural seats of the English

gentry. In the parks and pleasure grounds, nature, dressed yet

not disguised by art, wears her most alluring form. In the

buildings, good sense and good taste combine to produce a happy

union of the comfortable and the graceful. The pictures, the

musical instruments, the library, would in any other country be

considered as proving the owner to be an eminently polished and

accomplished man. A country gentleman who witnessed the

Revolution was probably in receipt of about a fourth part of the

rent which his acres now yield to his posterity. He was,

therefore, as compared with his posterity, a poor man, and was

generally under the necessity of residing, with little

interruption, on his estate. To travel on the Continent, to

maintain an establishment in London, or even to visit London

frequently, were pleasures in which only the great proprietors

could indulge. It may be confidently affirmed that of the squires

whose names were then in the Commissions of Peace and Lieutenancy

not one in twenty went to town once in five years, or had ever in

his life wandered so far as Paris. Many lords of manors had

received an education differing little from that of their menial

servants. The heir of an estate often passed his boyhood and

youth at the seat of his family with no better tutors than grooms

and gamekeepers, and scarce attained learning enough to sign his

name to a Mittimus. If he went to school and to college, he

generally returned before he was twenty to the seclusion of the

old hall, and there, unless his mind were very happily

constituted by nature, soon forgot his academical pursuits in

rural business and pleasures. His chief serious employment was

the care of his property. He examined samples of grain, handled

pigs, and, on market days, made bargains over a tankard with

drovers and hop merchants. His chief pleasures were commonly

derived from field sports and from an unrefined sensuality. His

language and pronunciation were such as we should now expect to

hear only from the most ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jests,

and scurrilous terms of abuse, were uttered with the broadest

accent of his province. It was easy to discern, from the first

words which he spoke, whether he came from Somersetshire or

Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about decorating his abode,

and, if he attempted decoration, seldom produced anything but

deformity. The litter of a farmyard gathered under the windows of

his bedchamber, and the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew close

to his hall door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty; and

guests were cordially welcomed to it. But, as the habit of

drinking to excess was general in the class to which he belonged,

and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate large

assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the

ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days

was indeed enormous. For beer then was to the middle and lower

classes, not only all that beer is, but all that wine, tea, and

ardent spirits now are. It was only at great houses, or on great

occasions, that foreign drink was placed on the board. The ladies

of