prose. Among the commands which he issued there is one which is well worthy of a passing notice. Between 1720 and 1730 it was observed that young men of fashion in London had begun in their morning walks to lay aside their swords, which were hitherto looked upon as the indispensable signs of a gentleman, and to carry walking-sticks instead. Beau Nash

made a great step in the same direction by absolutely prohibiting swords within his dominions, and this was, perhaps, the beginning of a change of fashion which appears to have been general about 1780, and which has a real historical importance as reflecting and sustaining the pacific habits that were growing in society. In addition to Bath, Tunbridge Wells, Epsom, Buxton, and the more modest Islington retained their popularity, and a new rival was rising into note. The mineral springs of Cheltenham were discovered about 1730, and in 1738 a regular Spa was built. But soon after the middle of the century a great and sudden change took place. Up to this time there is scarcely a record of sea-bathing in England, but in 1750 Dr. Richard Russell published in Latin his treatise 'On glandular consumption, and the use of sea-water in diseases of the glands.' It was translated in 1753. The new remedy acquired an extraordinary popularity, and it produced a great, permanent, and on the whole very beneficial change in the national tastes. In a few years obscure fishing-villages along the coast began to assume the dimensions of stately wateringplaces, and before the century had closed Cowper described, in indignant lines, the common enthusiasm with which all ages and classes rushed for health or pleasure to the sea.2

See a curious passage from 'The Universal Spectator, of 1730, quoted in the Pictorial Hist. of England, iv. 805. Beau Nash's Life, by Doran. Doran's article on Beau Nash, in the Gentleman's Magazine. Townsend's

Hist. of the House of Commons, ii. p. 412-416. The evils resulting from the prevailing fashion of wearing swords, had been noticed in the beginning of the century in a treatise on the subject by a writer named Povey. 2 Your prudent grandmammas, ye modern belles, Content with Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge Wells, When health required it, would consent to roam, Else more attached to pleasures found at home; But now alike, gay widow, virgin, wife, Ingenious to diversify dull life, In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys, Fly to the coast for daily, nightly joys, And all, impatient of dry land, agree With one consent to rush into the sea.

Retirement.

There was not, I think, any other change in the history of manners during the first sixty years of the eighteenth century, so considerable as to call for extended notice in a work like the present. The refinements of civilisation advanced by slow and almost insensible degrees into country life as the improvements of roads increased the facilities of locomotion, and as the growth of provincial towns and of a provincial press multiplied the centres of intellectual and political activity. In these respects, however, the latter half of the century was a far more memorable period than the former half; and the history of roads, which I have not yet noticed, will be more conveniently considered in a future chapter. The manners and tastes of the country gentry were often to the last degree coarse and illiterate, but the large amount of public business that in England has always been thrown upon the class, maintained among them no contemptible level of practical intelligence; and some circulation of intellectual life was secured by the cathedral towns, the inland watering-places, and the periodical migrations of the richer members to London or Bath. The yeomanry class, also, as long as they existed in considerable numbers, maintained a spirit of independence in country life which extended even to the meanest ploughman, and had some influence both in stimulating the faculties, and restraining the despotism of the country magistrates. Whatever may have been the defects of the English country gentry, agriculture under their direction had certainly attained a much higher perfection than in France,2 and though narrow-minded and intensely prejudiced, they formed an upright, energetic, and patriotic element in English public life. The well-known pictures of Sir Roger de Coverley and of Squire Western exhibit in strong lights their merits and their faults, and the contrast between rural and metropolitan manners was long one of the favourite subjects of the essayists. That contrast, however, was rapidly diminishing. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the habit of making annual visits to London or to a watering-place very greatly increased, and it

Defoe has noticed this independence in lines more remarkable for their meaning than for their form. The meanest English plowman studies law, And keeps thereby the magistrates in awe.

Will boldly tell them what they ought to do,
And sometimes punish their omissions too.
True-born Englishman,

2 See the comparison in Arthur Young's Tour in France.

contributed at once to soften the manners of the richer and to accelerate the disappearance of the poorer members of the class. A scale and rivalry of luxury passed into country life which made the position of the small landlord completely untenable. At the beginning of the century there still existed in England numerous landowners with estates of 2001. or 300l. a year. The descendants in many cases of the ancient yeomen, they ranked socially with the gentry. They possessed to the full extent the pride and prejudices, and discharged very efficiently many of the duties of the class; but they lived exclusively in the country, their whole lives were occupied with country business or country sports, their travels rarely or never extended beyond the nearest county town, and in tastes, in knowledge, and in language they scarcely differed from the tenant-farmer. From the early years of the eighteenth century this class began rapidly to diminish, and before the close of the century it was almost extinct.' Though still vehement Tories, full of zeal for the Church and of hatred of Dissenters and foreigners, the Jacobitism of the country gentry had subsided during the reign of George II., and they gave the Pretender no assistance in 1745. Their chief vice was hard-drinking. Their favourite occupations were field sports. These amusements, though they somewhat changed their character, do not appear to have at all diminished during the first half of the eighteenth century, and it was in this period that Gay, and especially Somer

This change is well noticed in a very able book published in 1772. The author says: An income of 2007. or 300l. a year in the last age was reckoned a decent hereditary patrimony, or a good establishment for life; but now.. all country gentlemen give in to so many local expenses, and reckon themselves so much on a par, that a small estate is but another word for starving; of course, few are to be found, but they are bought up by greater neighbours or become mere farmers.'-Letters on England, p. 229. In Grose's Olio, published in 1792, there is a very graphic description of the mode of living of the little independent country gentleman of 3001. per annum,' 'a character,' the author says, 'now worn out and gone.'

2 Mrs. Montagu, in one of her

letters from Yorkshire to a friend in London, writes: "We have not been troubled with any visitors

since

Mr. Montagu went away; and could you see how awkward, how absurd, how uncouth are the generality of people in this country, you would look upon this as no small piece of good fortune. For the most part they are drunken and vicious, and worse than hypocrites-profligates. I am very happy that drinking is not within our walls. We have not had one person disordered with liquor since we came down, though most of the poor ladies in the neighbourhood have had more hogs in their drawingroom than ever they had in their hog sty.'-Doran's Life of Mrs. Montagu, p. 36.

ville, published the most considerable sporting poems in the language. Hawking, which had been extremely popular in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and which was a favourite sport of Charles II., almost disappeared in the beginning of the eighteenth century. Stag-hunting declined with the spread of agriculture, but hare-hunting held its ground, and fox-hunting greatly increased. Cricket, which would occupy a distinguished place in any modern picture of English manners, had apparently but just arisen. The earliest notice of it, discovered by an antiquary who has devoted much research to the history of amusements, is in one of D'Urfey's songs, written in the beginning of the century. It was mentioned as one of the amusements of Londoners by Strype in his edition of Stow's 'Survey' published in 1720, and towards the close of the century it greatly increased.

1

There had been loud complaints ever since the Revolution, both in the country and in the towns, of the rapid rise of the poor-rates, but it seems to have been due, much less to any growth of real poverty than to improvident administration and to the dissipated habits that were generated by the poor-laws. Although the controversy on the subject of these laws did not come to a climax till long after the period we are now considering, the great moral and economical evils resulting from them were clearly seen by the most acute thinkers. Among others, Locke, in a report which he drew up in 1697, anticipating something of the later reasoning of Malthus, pointed out forcibly the danger to the country from the great increase of able-bodied pauperism, and attributed it mainly, if not exclusively, to the relaxation of discipline and the corruption of manners.' The annual rates in the last thirty years of the seventeenth century were variously estimated at from 600,000l. to 840,000. They rose before the end of the reign of Anne to at least a million. They again sank for a time after an Act, which was carried in 1723, for founding workhouses and imposing a more severe discipline on paupers, but they soon regained their ascending movement and continued steadily to increase during the remainder of the century. Popular education and the rapid growth of manufacturing wages had not yet produced that high type of capacity and

1 Strutt's Sports and Pastimes, p. 106.

knowledge which is now found among the skilled artisans of the great towns, but the broad lines of the English industrial character were clearly discernible. Probably no workman in Europe could equal the Englishman in physical strength, in sustained power and energy of work, and few, if any, could surpass him in thoroughness and fidelity in the performance of his task and in general rectitude and honesty of character. On the other hand, he was far inferior to most Continental workmen in those branches of labour which depended on taste and on delicacy of touch, and most industries of this kind passed into the hands of refugees. His requirements were much greater than those of the Continental workman. In habits of providence and of economy he ranked extremely low in the industrial scale; his relaxations usually took the form of drunkenness or brutal sports, and he was rather peculiarly addicted to riot and violence. An attempt to estimate with any precision the position of the different classes engaged in agriculture or manufacturing industry is very difficult, not only on account of the paucity of evidence we possess, but also on account of the many different and fluctuating elements that have to be considered. prosperity of a class is a relative term, and we must judge it not only by comparing the condition of the same class in different countries and in different times, but also by comparing it with that of the other sections of society. The value of money has greatly changed,' but the change has not been uniform; it has been counteracted by other influences; it applies much more to some articles of consumption than to others, and therefore affects very unequally the different classes in the community. Thus the price of wheat in the seventy years that followed the Revolution was not very materially different from what it now is, and during the first half of the eighteenth century it, on the

It is worthy of notice that the complaints of the increasing price of living in the first half of the eighteenth century, were, among the upper classes, little less loud than those we hear in the present day. Thus the author of Faction Detected by the Evidence of Facts, which was published in 1743, speaking of the royal income at different periods of English history, says, 'King William and

The

Queen Anne had but 700,000l. per annum, but neither had any family to provide for, and both lived in times when that income would have supported a greater expense than a million would now do; for the truth of which I appeal to the experience of every private family, and to the known advance of price in all commodities and articles of expense whatsoever' (p. 137).