Now for another twice-told tale.
The last cross had not been removed from the last infected house, the last person dead of the Plague had not been buried, before the Great Fire of London broke out and purged the plague-stricken city from end to end.
Three great fires had destroyed London before this of the year 1666, viz., in 962, in 1087, which swept away nearly the whole of the City, and in 1212, when a great part of Southwark and of the City north of the bridge was destroyed.
This fire began early in the morning of Sunday, September 2d. It broke out at the house of one Farryner, a baker in Pudding Lane, Thames Street. All the houses in that lane, and, one supposes, in all the narrow lanes and courts about this part of the City, were of wood, pitched without; the lane was narrow, and the projecting stories on either side nearly met at the top. The baker's house was full of faggots and brushwood, so that the fire instantly broke out into full fury and spread four ways at once. The houses stood very thick in this, the most densely populated part of the City. In the narrow lanes north and south of Thames Street lived those who made their living as stevedores, watermen, porters, carriers, and so forth; in Thames Street itself, on either side, were warehouses filled with oil, pitch, and tar, wine, brandy, and such inflammable things, so that by six o'clock on Sunday morning all Fish Street was in flames, and the fire spreading so fast that the people barely had time to remove their goods. As it drew near to a house they hurriedly loaded a cart with the more valuable effects and carried them off to another house farther away, and then to another, and yet another. Some placed their goods in churches for safety, as if the flames would respect a consecrated building. The booksellers, for instance, of Paternoster Row carried all their books into the crypt of St. Paul's, thinking that there, at least, would be a safe place, if any in the whole world. Who could look at those strong stone pillars with the strong arched roof and suspect that the stones would crumble like sand beneath the fierce heat which was playing upon them? All that Sunday was spent in moving goods out of houses before the flames caught them; the river was covered with barges and lighters laden with furniture. Pepys watched the fire from Bankside. "We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill for an arch of above a mile long; it made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once; and a horrid noise the flames made, and the crackling of houses at their ruin." On Monday morning Pepys puts his bags of gold and his plate into a cart with all his best things, and drove off to Sir William Rider's, at Bethnal Green. His friend, Sir W. Batten, not knowing how to move his wine, dug a pit in his garden and put it there. In this pit, also, Pepys placed the papers of the Admiralty.
On Wednesday he walked into the town over the hot ashes. Fenchurch Street, Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, Cheapside, he found in dust. Of the Exchange nothing standing of all the statues but that of Sir Thomas Gresham – a strange survival. On Saturday he went to see the ruins of St. Paul's: "A miserable sight; all the roofs fallen, and the body of the Quire fallen into St. Faith's; Paul's school, also Ludgate and Fleet Street."
The fire was stayed at length by blowing up houses at the Temple Church, at Pie Corner, Smithfield (where the figure of a boy still stands to commemorate the fact), at Aldersgate, Cripplegate, and the upper part of Bishopsgate Street. It had consumed five-sixths of the City, together with a great piece beyond the western gates. It had covered an area of 436 acres, viz., 387 acres within the walls, and 73 without; it had destroyed 132,000 dwelling-houses, St. Paul's Cathedral, eighty-nine parish churches, four of the City gates, Sion College, the Royal Exchange, the old Grey Friars Church, the Chapel of St. Thomas of Acon, and an immense number of great houses, schools, prisons, and hospitals. The area covered, roughly speaking, an oblong nearly a mile and a half in length by half a mile in breadth. The value of the property destroyed was estimated at £10,000,000. There is no such fire of any great city on record, unless it is the burning of Rome under Nero.
Their city being thus destroyed, the citizens lost no time, but set to work manfully to rebuild it. The rebuilding of London is a subject of some obscurity. One thing is quite certain: that as soon as the embers were cool enough to enable the people to walk among them, they returned, and began to find out the sites of their former houses. It is also certain that it took more than two years to clear away the tottering walls and the ruins.
It was at first proposed to build again on a new plan; Sir Christopher Wren prepared one plan, and Sir John Evelyn another. Both plans were excellent, symmetrical and convenient. Had either been adopted, the City of London would have been as artificial and as regular as a new American town, or the City of Turin. Very happily, while the Lord Mayor and aldermen were considering the matter, the people had already begun to build. A most fortunate thing it was that the City rose again on its old lines, with its winding streets and narrow lanes. At first the houseless people, 200,000 in number, camped out in Moorfields, just north of the City. Very happily, these fields, which had long been a swamp or fen intersected by ditches, a place of pasture, kennels, and windmills, had been drained by the City in 1606, and were now laid out in pleasant walks, a place of resort for summer evenings, a wrestling and cudgel playing-ground, and a ground for the muster of the militia. Here they set up tents and cottages; here they presently began to build two-storied houses of brick.
As they had no churches, they set up "tabernacles," whether on the site of the old churches or in Moorfields does not appear. As they had no Exchange, they used Gresham College for the purpose; the same place did duty for the Guildhall; the Excise Office was removed to Southampton Fields, near Bedford House; the General Post-office was taken to Brydges Street, Covent Garden; the Custom-house to Mark Lane; Doctors' Commons to Exeter House, Strand. The part of the town wanted for the shipping and foreign trade was first put up. And thus the town, in broken-winged fashion, renewed its old life.
On September 18th the Houses of Parliament created a Court of Judicature for settling the differences which were sure to arise between landlord and tenants, and between owners of land, as to boundaries and other things. The Justices of the Court of King's Bench and Common Pleas, with the Barons of the Exchequer, were the judges of the Court. So much satisfaction did they give that the grateful City caused their portraits to be placed in Guildhall, where, I believe, they may be seen to this day.
In order to enable the churches, prisons, and public buildings to be rebuilt, a duty was laid upon coals. This duty was also to enable the City to enlarge the streets, take over ground for quays, and other useful purposes. Nothing, however, seems to have been granted for the rebuilding of private houses.
The building of the churches took a long time to accomplish. The first to be completed was that of St. Dunstan's in the East, the tower of which is Sir Christopher Wren's; the body of the church, which has since been pulled down, was by another hand. That was built two years after the Fire. Six years after the Fire another church was finished; seven years after three more; eight years after three more; ten years after five, and so on, dragging along until the last two of those rebuilt – for a great many were not put up again – were finished in the year 1697, thirty-one years after the Fire.
Within four years the rebuilding of the City was nearly completed. Ten thousand houses were built, a great many companies' halls, and nearly twenty churches. One who writes in the year 1690 (Angliæ Metropolis, or, The Present State of London) says, "As if the Fire had only purged the City, the buildings are infinitely more beautiful, more commodious, more solid (the three main virtues of all edifices) than before. They have made their streets much more large and straight, paved on each side with smooth hewn stone, and guarded the same with many massy posts for the benefit of foot-passengers; and whereas before they dwelt in low, dark, wooden houses, they now live in lofty, lightsome, uniform, and very stately brick buildings." This is great gain. And yet, looking at the houses outside Staple Inn and at the old pictures, at what loss of picturesqueness was this gain acquired? The records are nearly silent as to the way in which the people were affected by the Fire. It is certain, however, that where the Plague ruined hundreds of families, the Fire ruined thousands. Thirteen thousand houses were burned down; many of these were houses harboring two or three families, for 200,000 were rendered homeless. Some of them were families of the lower working class, the river-side laborers and watermen, who would suffer little more than temporary inconvenience, and the loss of their humble "sticks." But many of them were substantial merchants, their warehouses filled with wine, oil, stuffs, spices, and all kinds of merchandise; warehouses and contents all gone – swept clean away – and with them the whole fortune of the trader. And there were the retailers, whose stock in trade, now consumed, represented all they had in the world. And there were the master-workmen, their workshops fitted with such machinery and tools as belonged to their craft and the materials for their work – all gone – all destroyed. Where was the money found to replace these treasures of imported goods? Who could refurnish his shop for the draper? Who could rebuild and fill his warehouse for the merchant? Who could give back his books to the bookseller? No one – the stock was all gone.
The prisoners for debt, as well as those who were imprisoned for crime, regained their freedom when the prisons were burned down. Could the debts be proved against them when the papers were all destroyed?
The tenant whose rent was in arrears was safe, for who could prove that he had not paid?
All debts were wiped clean off the slate. There were no more mortgages, no more promissory bills to meet, no more drafts of honor. Debts as well as property were all destroyed together. The money-lender and the borrower were destroyed together. The schools were closed – for how long? The almshouses were burned down – what became of the poor old bedesmen and bedeswomen? The City charities were suspended – what became of the poor? The houses were destroyed – what became of rents and tithes and taxes?
The Fire is out at last; the rain has quenched the last sparks; the embers have ceased to smoke; those walls which have not fallen totter and hang trembling ready to fall. I see men standing about singly; the tears run down their cheeks; two hundred years ago, if we had anything to cry about, we were not ashamed to cry without restraint; they are dressed in broadcloth, the ruffles are of lace, they look like reputable citizens. Listen – one draws near another. "Neighbor," he says, "a fortnight ago, before this stroke, whether of God or of Papist, I had a fair shop on this spot." "And I also, good friend," said the other, "as you know." "My shop," continued the first, "was stocked with silks and satins, kid gloves, lace ruffles and neckties, shirts, and all that a gentleman or a gentlewoman can ask for. The stock was worth a thousand pounds. I turned it over six or seven times a year at least. And my profit was four hundred pounds." "As for me," said the other, "I was in a smaller way, as you know. Yet such as it was, my fortune was all in it, and out of my takings I could call two hundred pounds a year my own." "Now is it all gone," said the first. "All gone," the other repeated, fetching a sigh. "And now, neighbor, unless the company help, I see nothing for it but we must starve." "Must starve," the other repeated. And so they separated, and went divers ways, and whether they starved or whether they received help, and rose from the ashes with new house and newly stocked shop, I know not. Says Dryden on the Fire:
"Those who have homes, when home they do repair
To a last lodging call their wandering friends:
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care
To look how near their own destruction tends.
"Those who have none sit round where it was
And with full eyes each wonted room require:
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place,
As murdered men walk where they did expire.
"The most in fields like herded beasts lie down,
To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor:
And while their babes in sleep their sorrow drown,
Sad parents watch the remnant of their store."
I think there must have been a return for a while to a primitive state of barter and exchange. Not quite, because every man carried out of the Fire such money as he had. Pepys, for instance, placed his bags of gold in a cart and drove it himself, "in my night gown," to a friend at rural Bethnal Green. But there could have been very little money in comparison with the millions invested in the merchandise destroyed.
The most pressing want was food. The better sort had money enough for present needs, the poorer class had to be maintained. The corporation set thousands to work clearing rubbish, carting it way, pulling down the shaky walls, and throwing open the streets. When the quays were cleared, the business of the port was resumed. Then the houses and the shops began to rise. The former were built on credit, and the latter stocked on credit. Very likely the companies or the corporation itself became to a large extent security, advancing money to the builders and making easy terms about rent. Naturally, it was a time of enormous activity, every trader making up for lost time, and especially such trades as concerned the building, furnishing, or fitting of houses – a time of good wages and constant work. Indeed, it is stated that the prosperity of the West Country cloth-making business was never so great as during the years following the Fire, which had destroyed such a prodigious quantity of material. The City in time resumed its old aspect; the ruined thousands had sunk out of sight; and nothing could replace the millions that had been lost.
The manners of the City differed little in essentials from those of Queen Elizabeth's time. Let us note, however, two or three points, still keeping the unspeakable court out of sight, and confining ourselves as much as possible to the City. Here are a few notes which must not be taken as a finished picture of the time.
It was a great time for drinking. Even grave divines drank large quantities of wine. Pepys is constantly getting "foxed" with drink; on one occasion he is afraid of reading evening prayers lest the servants should discover his condition. Of course they did discover it, and went to bed giggling; but as they kept no diary the world never learned it. London drank freely. Pepys tells how one lady, dining at Sir W. Bullen's, drank at one draught a pint and a half of white wine. They all went to church a great deal, and had fast days on every occasion of doubt and difficulty; on the first Sunday in the year the longest Psalm in the book (I suppose the 119th) was given out after the sermon. This took an hour to say or sing, and all the while the sexton went about the church making a collection. On Valentine's Day the married men took each other's wives for valentines. Public wrestling matches were held, followed by bouts with the cudgels.
They still carried on the sport of bull and bear baiting, and on one occasion they baited a savage horse to death. That is, they attempted it, but he drove off all the dogs, and the people insisting on his death, they stabbed him to death. The King issued two patents for theatres, one to Henry Killigrew, at Drury Lane, whose company called themselves The King's Servants; the other to Sir William Davenant, of Dorset Gardens, whose company was The Duke's Servants. There were still some notable superstitions left. These are illustrated by the remedies advertised for the plague and other diseases. A spider, for instance, placed in a nutshell and wrapped in silk will cure ague. They believed in the malignant influence of the planets. One evening at a dancing house half a dozen boys and girls were taken suddenly ill. Probably they had swallowed some poisonous stuff. They were supposed to be planet-struck. And, of course, they believed in astrology and in chiromancy, the latter of which has again come into fashion.
Saturday was the day of duns. Creditors then went about collecting their money. In the autumn the merchants rode out into the country and looked after their country customers.
The social fabric of the time cannot be understood without remembering that certain nominal distinctions of our generation were then real things, and gave a man consideration. Thus, there were no peers left living in the City. But there were a few baronets and many knights. After them in order came esquires, gentlemen, and commoners. Those were entitled to the title of esquire who were gentlemen of good estate, not otherwise dignified, counsellors-at-law, physicians and holders of the King's commission. Everybody remembers Pepys's delight at being for the first time, then newly made Secretary to the Admiralty, addressed as esquire, and his irrepressible pride at being followed into church by a page. A younger brother could call himself a gentleman, and this, I take it, whether he was in trade or not. About this time, however, younger sons began leaving off going to the City and embarking in trade, and that separation of the aristocracy from the trade of the country, which made the former a distinct caste and has lasted almost until the present day, first began. It is now, however, so far as one can perceive the signs of the times, fast disappearing. The younger son, in fact, began to enter the army, the navy, or the Church. From the middle of the seventeenth century till the battle of Waterloo, war in Europe was almost continuous. A gentleman could offer his sword anywhere and was accepted. There were English gentlemen in the service of Austria, Russia, Sweden – even in that of France or Spain. Unfortunately, however, in this country we generally had need of all the gentlemen we could find to command our own armies. The title of gentleman was also conceded to attorneys, notaries, proctors, and other lesser degrees of the law; merchants, surgeons, tradesmen, authors, artists, architects, and the like, had then, and have now, no rank of any kind in consideration of their employments.
Tea, which at the Restoration was quite beyond the means of private persons, became rapidly cheaper and in daily use among the better class in London, though not in the country. Thus, in Congreve's "Way of the World," Mrs. Millamant claims to be "Sole Empress of my tea-table." Her lover readily consents to her drinking tea if she agrees to a stipulation which shows that the love of tea was as yet more fashionable than real, since it could be combined with that of strong drinks. He says that he must banish from her table "foreign forces, auxiliaries to the tea-table, such as orange brandy, aniseed, cinnamon, citron, and Barbadoes water, together with ratafia and the most noble spirit of clary."
The favorite places of resort in the City were the galleries of the Royal Exchange, filled with shops for the sale of gloves, ribbons, laces, fans, scent, and such things. The shops were kept by young women who, like the modern bar-maid, added the attraction of a pretty face to the beauty of their wares. The piazza of Covent Garden was another favorite place, but this, with Spring Gardens, Vauxhall, was outside the City. The old desecration of Paul's was to a great extent stopped by the erection of the West Porch, designed for those who met here for purposes of business.
Coffee-houses were first set up at this time, and at once became indispensable to the citizens, who before had had no other place of evening resort than the tavern. The City houses were "Dick's" and the "Rainbow," in Fleet Street; "Tom's," of Birchin Lane (not to speak of the more classic "Tom's," of Covent Garden). Nearly all the old inns of the City have now been destroyed. Fifty years ago many were still standing, with their galleries and their open courts. Such were the "Bell," of Warwick Lane; the "Belle Sauvage," of Ludgate Hill; the "Blossom," Laurence Lane; the "Black Lion," Whitefriars Street; the "Four Swans," Bishopsgate Street; the "Saracen's Head," Friday Street, and many others.
It is, I suppose, pretty clear that the songs collected by Tom d'Urfey are a fair representation of the delectable and edifying ditties sung in taverns, and when the society was "mixed." It would be easy to preach against the wickedness of the times which could permit the singing of such songs, but in reality they are no worse than the songs of the preceding generation, to which, indeed, many of them belong. And, besides, it does not appear that the better sort of people regaled themselves with this kind of song at all, and even in this collection there are a great many which are really beautiful. The following pretty lines are taken almost at random from one of the volumes of the Pills to Purge Melancholy. They are called a "Description of Chloris:"
"Have you e'er seen the morning Sun
From fair Aurora's bosom run?
Or have you seen on Flora's bed
The essences of white and red?
Then you may boast, for you have seen
My fairer Chloris, Beauty's Queen.
"Have you e'er pleas'd your skilful ears
With the sweet music of the Spheres?
Have you e'er heard the Syrens sing,
Or Orpheus play to Hell's black King?
If so, be happy and rejoyce,
For thou hast heard my Chloris' Voice.
"Have you e'er tasted what the Bee
Steals from each fragrant flower or tree?
Or did you ever taste that meat
Which poets say the Gods did eat?
O then I will no longer doubt
But you have found my Chloris out."
Many of the poems are patriotic battle-pieces; some present the shepherd in the usual fashion as consumed by the ardor of his love, being wishing and pining, sighing and weeping. That seeming extravagance of passion – that talk of flames and darts – was not entirely conventional:
"How charming Phillis is, how fair!
O that she were as willing
To ease my wounded heart of care,
And make her eyes less killing!"
It was not only exaggeration. I am quite certain that men and women were far less self-governed formerly than now: when, for instance, they were in love, they were much more in love than now. The passion possessed them and transported them and inflamed them. Their pangs of jealousy tore them to pieces; they must get their mistress or they will go mad. Nay, it is only of late – say during the last hundred years – that we have learned to restrain passions of any kind. Love, jealousy, envy, hatred, were far fiercer emotions under the Second Charles – nay, even under the Second George – than they are with us. Anger was far more common. It does not seem as if men and women, especially of the lower classes, ever attempted in the least to restrain their passions. To be sure they could at once have it out in a fight – a thing which excuses wrath. To inquire into the causes of the universal softening of manners would take us too far. But we may note as a certain fact that passions are more restrained and not so overwhelming: that love is milder, wrath more governed, and that manners are softened for us.
One must not, again, charge the City at this time with being more than commonly pestered by rogues. The revelations of the Elizabethan moralists, and the glimpses we get of mediæval rogues, forbid this accusation. At the same time there was a good standing mass of solid wickedness. Contemporary literature proves this, if any proof were wanted, abundantly. There is a work of some literary value called the Life of Meriton Latroon, in which is set forth an immense quantity of rogueries. Among other things the writer shows the tricks of trade, placing his characters in many kinds of shops, so as to give his experiences in each. We are thus enabled to perceive that there were sharpers and cheats in respectable-looking shops then, as now. And there seems no reason to believe that the cheats were in greater proportion to the honest men than they are now. Besides the tricks of the masters, the honest Meriton Latroon shows us the ways of the London prentice, which were highly promising for the future of the City. He robbed his master as much as he dared: he robbed him of money; he robbed him of stuffs and goods; he ruined the maids; he belonged to a club which met on Saturday nights, when the master was at his country-box, and exchanged, for the common good, the robberies of the week. After this they feasted and drank with young Bona Robas, who stole from them the money they had stolen from their shops. It is a beautiful picture, and would by some moralists be set down to the evil example of King Charles, who is generally held responsible for the whole of the wickedness of the people during his reign. But these prentices knew nothing of the court, and the thing had been going on all through the Protectorate, and, for that matter, I dare say as far back as the original institution of apprenticeship. One would fain hope that not all the City apprentices belonged to this club. Otherwise, one thinks that the burning of London ought to have been the end of London.
The worst vice of the age seems to have been gambling, which was as prevalent in the City as at the court; that is to say, one does not accuse sober merchants of gambling, but in every tavern there were cards and dice, and they were in use all day long. Now, wherever there is gambling there are thieves, sharpers, and cheats by profession, and in every age these gentry enjoy their special names, whether of opprobrium or of endearment. They were then called Huffs, Rooks, Pads, Pimpinios, Philo Puttonists, Ruffins, Shabbaroons, Rufflers, and other endearing terms – not that the number of the names proves the extent of the evil. Whatever they were called, the whole object of their lives – their only way of living – was to trick, extort, or coax money out of flats. Very often they were gentlemen by birth, younger sons of good families, who scorned any honest way of making their living. By their good manners, fashionable appearance, pleasing address, and known connections they often succeeded in getting hold of unsuspecting gentlemen from the country. It is the old, old story. Captain Hawk is always on the lookout for Master Pigeon, and too often catches him. The story that Thackeray has told belongs not to one period, but to all. Of course there was the lower class of rogues: the sturdy beggar, the man who cannot work because he has in his blood the taint of whole generations of idleness; the nomad, who would die unless he were always roving about the country; the outcast, who delights in pitting his wits against the law. A few of these I have chosen from the long lists. They are as follows:
The "Ruffler," who pretended to be an old soldier of Naseby or Marston Moor.
The "Angler," who carried a stick with a hook at the end of it, and found it useful when the window was left open.
The "Wild Rogue," used for boys and girls, children of thieves, who made a good living for their parents by hanging about the doors of crowded churches, and cutting off gold buttons from the coats of the merchants.
The "Clapperdozen," a woman who begged about the streets with stolen children.
The "Abram Man," a sham madman.
The "Whip Jack," a counterfeit sailor who pretended to be shipwrecked.
The "Mumpus," who pretended to be a decayed merchant or a sequestered clergyman.
The "Dommerer," who shammed dumb.
Let us turn from general statements to the consideration of a single family. That of Samuel Pepys might be taken as an example, and his Journal is by no means well-trodden and familiar ground. In fact, he is generally read in bits, for half an hour's amusement. Yet it is better to take a case not before the public at all. Besides, even a minute diary such as that of Pepys, kept day by day, leaves, when you come to construct the daily life out of it, great gaps here and there. Less literary documents may sometimes yield richer results. Even the most careful diarist scorns to speak of details. For them we must look into the humble papers of the household. For instance, I have before me a bundle of documents on which I lighted by accident, containing the household accounts of a respectable family for the years 1677-1679, and I propose by means of these accounts to reproduce the household daily life of a bourgeois well-to-do family of the time.
This family consisted of the master, the mistress, and "Mr. Arthur," who was probably the master's brother. The two former were at this time a young married couple, whose joys and anxieties are presently increased by the arrival of a baby. Their residence is a short distance from London, and their way of life may be taken to illustrate that of the general run of London citizens. The occupation of the master is not stated, but he appears to be a man following no profession or trade: perhaps a gentleman with a small estate. They seem to have kept no horses, so that their means were certainly narrow. Their nearest market-town was Hertford, whither they went by coach (fare one shilling) to buy what they wanted. Their house-keeping was conducted with an eye to economy, yet there is no stint, and occasionally there occurs an entry – quite inexplicable – of wild extravagance. They lived in the country, about fifteen miles from London, and presumably had a garden, yet they did not grow enough vegetables, herbs, and fruit for their own consumption. The household consisted, besides the family and the nurse, of a cook, two maids, and a gardener, or man of all work. The accounts are partly kept by the mistress and partly by a servant – perhaps a house-keeper. Remembering that Pepys consented to receive his sister "Pall" into his house only on the footing of a servant, the keeper of the accounts may very well have been a poor relation.