confidence that advancement in knowledge and in morals may here keep pace with the progress of prosperity, and that as the fouler Hindoo superstitions already pale before the growing light of day, so that God, in his own good time, and in the measure of his own appointed Revelation, may, even to this long benighted people, make himself clearly and fully known.

"resemblance to the common Indian pronunciation of Ceylon; as "muslin from Moosul and calico from Calicut, the emporia from which "these substances became known in the west." (South of India, vol. iii. p. 20.

LIFE AND MANNERS.] HOW TO TRACE.

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CHAPTER LXX.

LIFE AND MANNERS.

WITH Some new classes of critics, or of those who claim to be so, it has grown a common reproach against the historian of almost every period, that while dwelling at full length on battles and on sieges, on cabals and stateintrigues, on nobles and on princes, he lightly glides over the true condition, - the habits and the feelings, of the people. But they who thus complain have perhaps considered rather the importance of the subject than the scantiness of the materials. While the deeds of a fleet or army, of a Sovereign or senate, are graven on brass and marble, or chronicled in records and rolls, the customs and pursuits of private life and the course of every-day affairs, being deemed too slight for commemoration in their own age, for the most part elude the discernment of the next. During the darker ages scarce any means exist to fill the void. Even within the last two centuries the means are very far from adequate. Nor are these in any measure obvious and easy to the learner. They cannot, like the narrative of wars or treaties, be deduced from any continuous chain of documents; but must be, where they can be, gleaned from a thousand scattered hints. For their sake we must explore the gloomy secrets of the scaffold and the prison-vault; for their sake we must gather far and wide the gossip of familiar correspondence, the entries of journals and account books, or the occasional allusions in novels, plays, and songs. And even with regard to these last, though giving us what nothing else supplies, they must not be implicitly received; on the contrary, the utmost caution and reserve are needed, lest we mistake the caricature for the portrait, and the exception for the rule.

On comparing the Great Britain of the last century with the Great Britain of the present day, the change is nowhere more apparent than in the ease and speed of travelling, and the consequent increase of travellers. Of this the steam-engine is of course the principal cause; but it should be noted, that personal security likewise is a plant of later growth. Only three summers since, a French gentleman in the Highlands was gazing with some surprise at the tranquil and orderly scenes around him, and saying that his friends at Paris had advised him to come upon his journey well provided with pistol and sword, since, as they bid him bear in mind, "you are "going to the country of Rob Roy!" We can scarce blame these Parisians for so faithfully remembering that little more than a hundred years ago Rob Roy was able to levy his "black mail" on all who came beneath the shadow of his mountains. But they might at least with equal reason have applied the same advice to England; for much less than a hundred years ago, the great thoroughfares near London, and, above all, the open heaths, as Bagshot and Hounslow, were infested by robbers on horseback, who bore the name of highwaymen. Booty these men were determined by some means or other to obtain. In the reign of George the First they stuck up handbills at the gates of many known rich men in London, forbidding any one of them, on pain of death, to travel from town without a watch or with less than ten guineas

of money. * Private carriages and public conveyances

were alike the objects of attack. Thus, for instance, in 1775, Mr. Nuthall, the solicitor and friend of Lord Chatham, returning from Bath in his carriage with his wife and child, was stopped and fired at near Hounslow, and died of the fright. In the same year the guard of the Norwich stage (a man of different metal from the lawyer) was killed in Epping Forest, after he had himself shot dead three highwaymen out of seven that assailed him. Let it not be supposed, that such examples were but few and far between; they might from the records of that time be numbered by the score; although in most cases the loss was rather of property than life. These *Lettres d'un Français (en Angleterre), vol. iii. p. 211. ed. 1745, + Ann. Regist. 1775, pp. 97. and 182.

LIFE AND MANNERS.] HIGHWAYMEN.

313

outrages appear to have increased in frequency towards the close of the American War. Horace Walpole, writing from Strawberry Hill at that time, complains that, having lived there in quiet for thirty years, he cannot now stir a mile from his own house after sunset, without one or two servants armed with blunderbusses.* Some men of rank at that period-Earl Berkeley, above all. were famed for their skill and courage in dealing with such assailants. One day so runs the story - Lord Berkeley, travelling after dark on Hounslow Heath, was wakened from a slumber by a strange face at his carriage-window and a loaded pistol at his breast. "I have you now, my Lord," said the intruder, "after all your boasts, as I hear, that you would never let yourself be robbed !"- "Nor would "I now," said Lord Berkeley, putting his hand into his pocket, as though to draw forth his purse, "but for that "other fellow peeping over your shoulder." The highwayman hastily turned round to look at this unexpected intruder, when the Earl, pulling out instead of a purse a pistol, shot him dead upon the spot.

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It is strange that so highly civilised a people should have endured these highway robberies so long. In this respect we scarcely seemed above the level of the modern Romans. But stranger still, perhaps, to find some of the best writers of the last century treat them as subjects of jest, and almost as subjects of praise. From such pro

ductions as the "Tom Clinch" of Swift, or the 66 Beggars' Opera" of Gay, we may collect that it was the tone in certain circles to depict the highwaymen as daring and generous spirits, who "took to the road," as it was termed, under the pressure of some momentary difficulties, the gentle-folk, as it were, of the profession, and far above the common run of thieves. †

A highly intelligent traveller, towards the year 1770, *To the Earl of Strafford, Oct. 3. 1782.

† Some of these worthies appear to have enjoyed a kind of traditionary fame; above all, "the bold Turpin," who was hanged at York for horse-stealing, in 1739. See his Life in the Newgate Calendars of Mr. William Jackson (vol. ii. pp. 331-349.) Many of them showed great pride in their own achievements. Not know 66 me!" said John Rann to the tollman on the Tottenham Road, "why I am Sixteen-string Jack, the famous highwayman!" (Ibid. vol. v. p. 142.)

*

has described a great number of our country inns, and upon the whole in favourable terms. There might be comfort in many a wayside cottage such as Izaac Walton speaks of, neat and trim, with its rosemary-strewn sheets, its dish of new-caught trout, and its ballads on the walls. There might be splendour in some few houses, as “The Castle at Marlborough, along the great Bath road, and other lines of daily and luxurious thoroughfare. Even in those of humble pretensions there was seldom wanting a secret bin, from the dust and cobwebs of which the landlord could draw upon occasion a bottle of excellent Bordeaux, Travellers of rank were frequently expected to call for such even when they had no need of it; "for "the good," "of the house." as the phrase wentBut the dinner was seldom equal to the wine, and the charges were often exorbitantly high. When, in 1763, the Duke de Nivernois, the new ambassador from France, landed at Dover, he was astonished at the charges in his bill. This was no new matter of complaint. So early as 1619 we find Lord Herbert of Cherbury say: "At Calais, I remember, my cheer was twice as good as at "Dover, and my reckoning half as cheap."†

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Besides the slowness, the risk, and the cost of travelling, which might tend to diminish the journeys to London in that age, the country gentlemen were also in some measure kept away by their estrangement from the two first princes of the House of Hanover. Not a few who had been loyal subjects of Queen Anne disliked the reign of her German cousins, and began to cast a wistful look towards her nearer kindred beyond the sea. Without partaking, or desiring to partake, the Jacobite designs, they would at least, while giving in due form, "the King," as their first toast after dinner, make a motion with the glass to pass it on the other side of the water-decanter which stood before them, and imply or speak the words, over the water." They would revile all adherents of the Court as 66 a parcel of Roundheads "and Hanover Rats." Roundhead, as is well known,

66

* See the Northern Tour, by Arthur Young, vol. iv. pp. 586

-594.

† Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, p. 131. ed. 1770.

This was the phrase of Squire Western (Tom Jones, book v. c.