S. 1683 26 During the interval which has elapsed since this chapter was written, England has continued to advance rapidly in material prosperity, I have left my text nearly as it originally stood;but I have added a few notes which may enable the reader to form some notion of the progress which has been made during the last nine years; and, in general, I would desire him to remember that there is scarcely a district which is not more populous, or a source of wealth which is not more productive, at present than in 1848. (1857.)27 Observations on the Bills of Mortality, by Captain John Graunt (Sir William Petty), chap. xi.
28 "She doth comprehend Full fifteen hundred thousand which do spend Their days within.''
Great Britain's Beauty, 1671.
29 Isaac Vossius, De Magnitudine Urbium Sinarum, 1685. Vossius, as we learn from Saint Evremond, talked on this subject oftener and longer than fashionable circles cared to listen.
30 King's Natural and Political Observations, 1696 This valuable treatise, which ought to be read as the author wrote it, and not as garbled by Davenant, will be found in some editions of Chalmers's Estimate.
31 Dalrymple's Appendix to Part II. Book I, The practice of reckoning the population by sects was long fashionable. Gulliver says of the King of Brobdignag; "He laughed at my odd arithmetic, as he was pleased to call it, in reckoning the numbers of our people by a computation drawn from the several sects among us in religion and politics."32 Preface to the Population Returns of 1831.
33 Statutes 14 Car. II. c. 22.; 18 & 19 Car. II. c. 3., 29 & 30Car. II. c. 2.
34 Nicholson and Bourne, Discourse on the Ancient State of the Border, 1777.
35 Gray's Journal of a Tour in the Lakes, Oct. 3, 1769.
36 North's Life of Guildford; Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, Parish of Brampton.
37 See Sir Walter Scott's Journal, Oct. 7, 1827, in his Life by Mr. Lockhart.
38 Dalrymple, Appendix to Part II. Book I. The returns of the hearth money lead to nearly the same conclusion. The hearths in the province of York were not a sixth of the hearths of England.
39 I do not, of course, pretend to strict accuracy here; but Ibelieve that whoever will take the trouble to compare the last returns of hearth money in the reign of William the Third with the census of 1841, will come to a conclusion not very different from mine.
40 There are in the Pepysian Library some ballads of that age on the chimney money. I will give a specimen or two:
"The good old dames whenever they the chimney man espied, Unto their nooks they haste away, their pots and pipkins hide.
There is not one old dame in ten, and search the nation through, But, if you talk of chimney men, will spare a curse or two."Again:
"Like plundering soldiers they'd enter the door, And make a distress on the goods of the poor.
While frighted poor children distractedly cried;This nothing abated their insolent pride."
In the British Museum there are doggrel verses composed on the same subject and in the same spirit:
"Or, if through poverty it be not paid For cruelty to tear away the single bed, On which the poor man rests his weary head, At once deprives him of his rest and bread."I take this opportunity the first which occurs, of acknowledging most grateful the kind and liberal manner in which the Master and Vicemaster of Magdalei College, Cambridge, gave me access to the valuable collections of Pepys.
41 My chief authorities for this financial statement will be found in the Commons' Journal, March 1, and March 20, 1688-9.
42 See, for example, the picture of the mound at Marlborough, in Stukeley's Dinerarium Curiosum.
43 Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.
44 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 3; 15 Car. II. c. 4. Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684.
45 Dryden, in his Cymon and Iphigenia, expressed, with his usual keenness and energy, the sentiments which had been fashionable among the sycophants of James the Second:-"The country rings around with loud alarms, And raw in fields the rude militia swarms;Mouths without hands, maintained at vast expense, Stout once a month they march, a blustering band, And ever, but in time of need at hand.
This was the morn when, issuing on the guard, Drawn up in rank and file, they stood prepared Of seeming arms to make a short essay.
Then hasten to be drunk, the business of the day."46 Most of the materials which I have used for this account of the regular army will be found in the Historical Records of Regiments, published by command of King William the Fourth, and under the direction of the Adjutant General. See also Chamberlayne's State of England, 1684; Abridgment of the English Military Discipline, printed by especial command, 1688; Exercise of Foot, by their Majesties' command, 1690.
47 I refer to a despatch of Bonrepaux to Seignelay, dated Feb.
