On three several occasions, Samuel Wesley was elected proctor or convocation man for the diocese of Lincoln. The first of these elections took place in 1701; a second in 1711; the date of the third is doubtful. These three attendances at convocation brought upon him an expenditure of £150, which he could ill afford to bear.
Convocation is an assembly of the clergy of the Church of England by their representatives. It is always held during the session of parliament, and consists of an upper and of a lower house. In the upper house sit the bishops; in the lower the inferior clergy, represented by their proctors and others. The lower house, of which Mr Wesley was a member, consists of twenty-two deans, fifty-three archdeacons, twenty-four prebendaries, and forty-four proctors, (being two proctors for the clergy of each diocese;) altogether one hundred and forty-three persons. The prolocutor or speaker of the lower house is always chosen by itself. His duty is to take care that the members of the house attend its sittings, to collect their debates and votes, and to convey to the upper house the resolutions which they pass. Convocation is always called together by the royal writ, directed to the archbishop of each province, requiring him to summon all bishops, deans, archdeacons, and others qualified or entitled to sit therein. Up to the year 1605, it was the privilege of convocation to fix the taxes which should be paid by the clergy; but, at that time, this privilege was surrendered to the House of Commons, on the condition that henceforth, and in lieu of it, the clergy should be allowed to vote at elections of members of parliament, a right of which heretofore they had been deprived. The power of convocation is limited. Its members are not to make any canons or ecclesiastical laws without the royal licence; nor, even when the royal licence is granted, can any newly-made laws or canons be put in force except under certain restrictions. They have the power to examine and to censure all heretical and schismatical books; but the authors of such books have an appeal to the king in chancery or to his delegates. It ought also to be added, that members of convocation have the same privileges allowed as belong to members of parliament.
Such, then, was the ecclesiastical parliament of which Samuel Wesley was elected a member, by his brother clergymen, in the diocese of Lincoln, in 1701. The honour was distinguished, though, to a poor man like himself, seriously expensive. Some writers have not been sparing in the censures they have thought proper to pronounce on Wesley for spending so much money on convocation attendance, which, as is alleged, might have been much better spent in the payment of his debts, or in providing for the wants of his wife and children. Such censures are soon uttered, but are scarcely merited. The convocation, which was called together in 1701, was one of unusual importance, and it behoved the clergy of the diocese of Lincoln to send as their proctor the most fitting man that the diocese contained; and that man, being elected, was bound by every principle of duty and of honour to take upon himself the onerous responsibility of representing the gentlemen who had thus distinguished him. The expenses of the office might be inconvenient, yet to be selected as a fitting representative to the most august and important ecclesiastical assembly in the land, was an honour not to be despised. Many a minister struggling with poverty would have readily made as great a sacrifice to have attained as high a dignity, especially if its attainment was likely to be the stepping-stone to yet higher ecclesiastical power and benefit. Samuel Wesley’s talents, learning, piety, and literary works were sufficient to justify him in aspiring after the higher, if not highest offices that the Church has to give; and it is not improbable that had it not been for his pecuniary embarrassments, and his cruel imprisonment in Lincoln gaol, he would have died, not the rector of an almost unknown country parish, but in one of the most distinguished positions to which a clergyman of the Church of England can be exalted. Apart from a sense of the honour which his brethren had bestowed upon him, and apart from his readiness to undertake difficult and expensive duties, it is no disparagement of Samuel Wesley’s unblemished character to say, that perhaps he had some hope of such promotion when he consented, at such an inconvenient sacrifice, to go as proctor to the house of convocation. Considering his talents, attainments, and labours, such ambition was neither mercenary nor inordinate. The clergy of the diocese of Lincoln conferred an honour upon the Epworth rector in thus electing him; but the honour was merited, and it would have been not only an act of kindness, but an act of justice, if those who gave the honour had also given the money which it cost to wear it.
A remarkable anecdote is related in connexion with Mr Wesley’s first attendance at convocation. Dr A. Clarke, who gives it, says he had it from the lips of Mr Wesley’s son John. The statement is as follows:—
“Were I,” said John Wesley, “to write my own life, I should begin it before I was born, merely for the purpose of mentioning a disagreement between my father and mother. ‘Sukey,’ said my father to my mother one day after family prayer, ‘why did you not say amen this morning to the prayer for the king?’ ‘Because,’ said she, ‘I do not believe the Prince of Orange to be king.’ ‘If that be the case,’ said he, ‘you and I must part; for if we have two kings, we must have two beds.’ My mother was inflexible. My father went immediately to his study; and, after spending some time with himself, set out for London, where, being convocation man for the diocese of Lincoln, he remained without visiting his own house for the remainder of the year. On March 8th, in the following year, 1702, King William died; and as both my father and mother were agreed as to the legitimacy of Queen Anne’s title, the cause of their misunderstanding ceased. My father returned to Epworth, and conjugal harmony was restored.”[151]
Mr Wesley’s own written account of this affair is the following:—“The year before King William died, my father observed my mother did not say amen to the prayer for the king. She said she could not, for she did not believe the Prince of Orange was king. He vowed he would never cohabit with her till she did. He then took his horse and rode away; nor did she hear anything of him for a twelvemonth. He then came back and lived with her as before. But I fear his vow was not forgotten before God.”[152]
There may be the merest modicum of truth in this strange story; but the greater part of it is unfounded.
We grant that Mrs Wesley held the doctrine of the “divine right of kings;” and holding that, of course, she regarded the Revolution of 1688 as a royal wrong, and considered William of Orange a usurper. Of this there can be no doubt. Writing in the year 1709, she says:—“Whether they did well, in driving a prince from his hereditary throne, I leave to their own consciences to determine; though I cannot tell how to think that a king of England can ever be accountable to his subjects for any maladministrations or abuse of power; but as he derives his power from God, so to Him only he must answer for his using it. But still I make a great difference between those who entered into the confederacy against their prince, and those who, knowing nothing of the contrivance, and so consequently not consenting to it, only submitted to the present government. But whether the praying for a usurper, and vindicating his usurpations after he has the throne, be not participating in his sins, is easily determined.”[153]
With such language before us, there can be no question that the opinions of Mrs Wesley concerning King William and his predecessor King James were widely different from those which her husband held; and it may be easily imagined that such a difference of opinion might lead to occasional unpleasantness. No one doubts the truthfulness of the story up to a certain point; namely, that Mrs Wesley, on a certain morning in 1701, at family prayer, omitted to say amen to the prayer for King William; that her husband took her to task for this omission; that sharp words ensued; and that he immediately set out for London. The one damaging point which we deny is, that Samuel Wesley allowed a miserable squabble respecting the rights of King William to make him neglect his wife, and to leave his house, his family, and his flock for the space of twelve months; a thing which, if true, would have been a scandalous, cruel, and wicked act, Fortunately there is ample evidence to refute such a disgraceful fiction.
We maintain, in the first place, that the story is highly improbable. Samuel and Susannah Wesley became husband and wife about the time of William and Mary’s accession. Something like a dozen years had elapsed since then. Every Sunday, and in fact, every day, Samuel Wesley had been accustomed to pray for King William. His wife knew this, and yet all the time they had lived in love and harmony. Up to this period, there is not the slightest evidence that any unpleasantness had sprung out of such a matter. Susannah Wesley loved her husband, and her husband loved her. “Reverence and love your mother,” wrote her husband to their son Samuel. “Though I should be jealous of any other rival in your breast, yet I will not be of her. The more duty you pay her, and the more frequently and kindly you write to her, the more you will please your affectionate father.” With such affection subsisting between them, is it likely that a man of the high character of Samuel Wesley would permit a paltry quarrel about King William to lead to such a lengthened connubial separation, involving not only a cruel neglect of his wife and family, but a criminal absence from his flock, and a public disgrace cast upon his hitherto spotless reputation? Those who can and do believe a legend so unlikely, have more faith than is desirable.
But, in the second place, we further maintain, that the disgraceful part of this story is not only improbable, but impossible. It is well known that convocation was summoned twice during the year 1701. In the first instance, it met on the 10th of February, and was prorogued on the 24th of June following. It was convened again on the 31st of December; and, between nine and ten weeks after, at the death of King William on the 8th of March 1702, it was again prorogued. How then stands the matter in reference to Samuel Wesley’s long-continued and criminal absence from his home and from his church? If he attended the convocation which opened on February 10, it is not true that “he remained without visiting his own house for the remainder of the year;” for, on the 14th and 18th of May of that same year, we find him at Epworth, attending to his wife with affectionate tenderness, when she was confined of twins; and writing to Archbishop Sharpe the two letters inserted in our last chapter. If, again, he attended the convocation which opened on Dec. 31st, all the time that he was absent from his family and from his parish was not more than about ten weeks; for, at the expiration of that time, according to the story itself, “King William died,” and, convocation being in consequence prorogued, “Wesley returned to Epworth, and conjugal harmony was restored.”
Let the reader choose which convocation in 1701 he likes, or, as we are inclined to do, let him entertain the opinion that Samuel Wesley attended both, yet, still the evidence above recited, most triumphantly refutes all that is disgraceful in this cock-and-bull story; for we have proof that, in neither case, was the rector of Epworth away from his family and charge for a longer period than ten or a dozen weeks.
We submit that in such an absence there was nothing to justify such a story. At least, an entire week would be spent in mere journeying. Then, there were the sittings of convocation, which we know were unusually important and exciting. Then there was the fact that Samuel Wesley was a literary man, and had already, in London, published a large number of literary works—a fact giving rise to business transactions, which the rector would doubtless attend to, now that he was personally present. And then, finally, there was the fact that his brother Matthew was resident in London, and probably also his mother, besides a large number of his early and literary friends, with all of whom, it is natural to suppose, he would wish to spend as much time as his other duties would permit. Put all these things together, and what is there to be gaped at in the rector of Epworth, as “convocation man,” being absent from his family and his church, once, or even twice, at the beginning of the years 1701 and 1702, for about ten or a dozen weeks? It is far from our intention to accuse either John Wesley or Adam Clarke of wilful misrepresentation; in this respect they are both far above suspicion, but the tale, as first told to John Wesley, was doubtless told in an exaggerated form; and it is no disrespect to the wonderful memory of Adam Clarke to say, that during the thirty or more years which elapsed between the time when John Wesley told the story and the time when Adam Clarke published it, the remembrance of the latter was not so vivid as to be infallible.
We begrudge the space which has been filled with this unfortunate anecdote; but Samuel Wesley is too great and good a man to permit his character to be injured undeservedly. Let the full truthfulness of the legend be admitted, and Wesley’s fair fame is branded. Viewed in such a light, the thing is serious, and deserves some research and trouble in refuting it. This is the only matter, in the whole of Mr Wesley’s history, that in the least affects his morality and honour; and, in our conscience, we believe that everything in the story, which is deserving of being censured, is unfounded fiction, and utterly unworthy of the public credence.
Samuel Wesley attended convocation thrice. It is certain that one of these occasions was in 1701, and it is probable that a second was in the same year; and hence we give a brief account of the proceedings of both these ecclesiastical gatherings.
With the exception of the abortive attempt in 1689, convocation, though regularly assembling with every parliament, had literally done nothing for the last nine and thirty years. Now, in 1701, it met to transact business. First of all, on February 10th, those ecclesiastical legislators assembled in St Paul’s Cathedral, where a sermon was preached by Dr Haley, Dean of Chichester. The members of the Lower House then proceeded to the Chapter House, and elected Dr Hooper, Dean of Canterbury, their prolocutor. “A man of learning,” says Burnet, “of good conduct, but reserved, crafty, and ambitious.” They then adopted certain resolutions as a preparation for the battle which they knew was coming. 1. That they had a right to sit whenever parliament sat, and that they could not be legally prorogued but when parliament was prorogued. 2. That they had no need of licence to enter upon debates, and to prepare matters. 3. That as parliament could pass no act without the royal assent, so convocation could neither enact nor publish a canon without the royal licence.
This soon brought them into conflict with their brethren of the Upper House. On February 25th, an order was brought to them, signed by the archbishop, proroguing both houses in the usual form. At the time, the Lower House was holding its session in the chapel of Henry VIII., and the session was continued in defiance of the archbishop’s mandate, until, after a short debate, they adjourned themselves. Then followed a private squabble between the archbishop and the prolocutor, respecting the prerogatives of the two houses. This lasted until the 6th of March, when the two houses met, and agreed upon the form of an address to the king, thanking him for his pious regard for the reformed churches in general, and expressing their determination to maintain the royal supremacy, and the articles and canons of the Church.
Their next session was a fortnight later, on March 20th, when the prolocutor of the Lower House brought up a representation of the “pernicious, dangerous, and scandalous” doctrines contained in Toland’s “Christianity not Mysterious,” and requested the bishops to agree to their resolutions, and to censure the book. This was another cause of jangling. Burnet says:—“This struck directly at Episcopal authority. It seemed strange to see men who had so long asserted the divine right of Episcopacy, and that presbyters were only their assistants and council, now assume to themselves the most important act of church government, the judging in points of doctrine.”
On March 22d, another book was discussed in the Upper House, entitled, “Essays on the Balance of Power,” in which it was asserted that persons had been promoted in the Church who were remarkable for nothing but enmity to the divinity of Christ.[154] The bishops, therefore, agreed that a paper should be affixed to the doors of Westminster Abbey, calling upon the author to make good his assertion, in order that the parties might be proceeded against, otherwise the passage in question would be voted a public scandal.
The next fortnight was spent in a quarrel between the two houses respecting the right of the Lower House to prorogue itself, and they then adjourned from the 8th of April to the 8th of May.
On the latter day the houses again assembled. The archbishop warmly rebuked the Lower House for their unwarrantable assumption in daring to prorogue themselves, and for claiming a distinct recess; and declared that such behaviour had “given the greatest blow to the Church that it received since the Presbyterian assembly that sat at Westminster in the late times of confusion.” This rebuke made bad things worse, and the Lower House became more rebellious than ever. The bishops appointed a committee of five to meet a similar number of the Lower House, for the purpose of examining the acts of the present synod, and to report upon them. To this proposal, the Lower House replied that they should not nominate any committee; but some of its members sent an address to the archbishop stating their disapproval of its proceedings. Burnet says:—“Many of the most eminent and learned of its members protested against its proceedings;” but the actual protest shows that the opposition, in point of numbers, was a very insignificant minority, consisting, at the most, of only fifteen persons.
To evince their opposition still more, the Lower House proceeded to attack the work of Burnet on the Thirty-nine Articles. This work had been undertaken at the request of Queen Mary, and was published in 1699, after being revised, corrected, and approved by three archbishops, Tillotson, Tennison, and Sharpe, and five bishops, Stillingfleet, Patrick, Lloyd, Williams, and More. The complaints of the Lower House were three. 1. That Burnet’s book tends to introduce such a latitude and diversity of opinions, as the articles were framed to avoid. 2. That there are many passages in the book which are contrary to the true meaning of the articles, and to other received doctrines of the Church. And, 3. That there are some things in the book which are of dangerous consequence to the Church of England, and which derogate from the honour of its reformation. For a time, the Upper House stoutly refused to receive these complaints, because of other irregularities of which the Lower House had been guilty; but, at length, at Burnet’s request, they were entertained. A committee was appointed, and came to the following resolutions:—1.That the Lower House “had no manner of power judicially to censure any book.” 2. That it “ought not to have entered on the examination of a book of any bishop without first acquainting the president and bishops with it.” 3. That the censure of Burnet’s book “is defamatory and scandalous.” 4. That Burnet, by his writings, “had done great service to the Church of England, and deserves the thanks of convocation.” 5. That the prolocutor and some other members of the Lower House had been guilty of contempt and disobedience.
These were hard words; but the unseemly squabble was soon over; for a few days afterwards, on June 24th, the royal writ prorogued parliament, and, of course, prorogued convocation with it.
The new convocation was opened on the 31st of December following. The Latin service was read by the Bishop of Oxford, and the sermon preached by the Dean of St Paul’s. Dr Woodward was elected prolocutor, and two months were occupied in the same angry discussions, respecting the prerogatives of the two houses, which had disgraced the convocation previous. The simple point contended for was this: the Lower House claimed to be on the same footing as to the Upper House that the Commons in Parliament are in regard to the House of Lords; that is, to adjourn by their own authority, apart from the Upper House, where, and to such time, as they should think proper. This the Upper House resisted, maintaining that the ancient usage was for the archbishop to adjourn both houses together, and to the same time. This was the only matter discussed by the convocation which met on December 31, 1701; and this was not settled, for, in the midst of the discussion, King William died on the 8th of March 1702, and thus those ecclesiastical brawlers were sent home to attend to more sacred work in their respective churches.
These disreputable contentions continued for many years after this. “The governing men in the Lower House,” says Burnet, “were headstrong and factious, and designed to force themselves into preferment by the noise they made, and by the ill-humour which they endeavoured to spread among the clergy, who were generally soured by their proceedings.”
It is impossible to say what part Samuel Wesley took in these convocation debates; and, in the absence of information, the reader is left to guess.
We conclude the present chapter with a brief review of the state of things during the reign of King William’s successor, Queen Anne. This will clear the way for further details respecting Mr Wesley.
Anne was proclaimed Queen of England in March 1702. She was in the thirty-eighth year of her age, but was as much under the tutelage of Lord and Lady Marlborough as if she had been a girl of fifteen, or of still tenderer years. Three days after her accession, Marlborough was decorated with the order of the garter, and very soon obtained the entire command of the English army. His countess was made groom of the stole and mistress of the robes, and was intrusted with the management of the privy purse. His two daughters were nominated ladies of the bedchamber; and the father-in-law of one of these ladies, the Earl of Sunderland, obtained the renewal of a pension of £2000, which had been granted him by King William. Marlborough’s influence, in the court of England was omnipotent.[155]
The Queen, unlike her predecessor King William, was a most bigoted Tory. From her infancy she had imbibed unconquerable prejudices against the Whigs; and looked upon them all not only as Republicans, who hated the very shadow of regal authority, but as implacable enemies to the Church of England. Hence she lost no opportunity of filling up offices of State with her own partisans and friends, and, in a short time, the Whigs of King William were displaced, and the Tories of Queen Anne took their posts.[156] All this had an influence on the nation in general. The people began to change their sentiments, and persons of all ranks began to argue in favour of strict hereditary succession, divine right, and non-resistance to the regal power.
“Nature,” says Macaulay, “had made Queen Anne a bigot. Such was the constitution of her mind, that, to the religion of her nursery she could not but adhere, without examination and without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin. In the court of her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged in favour of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court of her brother she was equally deaf to all that could be urged in favour of a general union among Protestants. This slowness and obstinacy made her important. It was a great thing to be the only member of the Royal family who regarded Papists and Presbyterians with an impartial aversion.”
Soon after the Queen’s accession there was a parliamentary election, and the choice went generally in favour of those who were friends to the Church and monarchy. The House of Commons was now ready, as well as her Majesty’s chief ministers, to concur in her designs for the suppression of Dissenters, and for the aggrandisement of the Established Church. The House of Lords, however, had been so remodelled, in the reign of King William, that there was only a minority of its members in favour of the Queen’s principles and projects, and hence ecclesiastical measures, which passed the Lower House with acclamations, met in the Upper House with opposition and defeat.
One of the first measures of the new parliament was the “Occasional Conformity Bill,” the real object of which was to render null the Toleration Act, by providing that all who took the sacrament and the test, as qualifications for office, and afterwards went to the meetings of Dissenters, should be disabled for holding public offices, and should be fined £100, and £5 additional for every day that such person or persons continued in public office after being present at such Dissenting meetings. The Queen’s Tories in the House of Commons carried the bill with a triumphant majority; but, in the House of Lords, King William’s bishops stoutly opposed the measure, and, despite the influence of Marlborough, succeeded in its rejection. When parliament broke up, the Queen told its members that she hoped such of her subjects as had “the misfortune to dissent from the Church of England would rest secure and satisfied in the Act of Toleration, which she was firmly resolved to maintain;” and that those who had the “happiness and advantage to be of our Church might rest assured that she would make it her particular care to encourage and maintain the Church in all its just rights and privileges, and so transmit it securely settled to posterity.”[157]
When parliament re-assembled, in 1703, the rejected “Occasional Conformity Bill” was again brought into the House of Commons, and passed without any considerable opposition, but was again rejected in the House of Lords.
In the same year, the Queen, on her birthday, showed her devoted attachment to the Church of England by making a grant of her whole revenue, arising out of the first-fruits and tenths, for augmenting the livings of the poorer clergy. These first-fruits and tenths amounted to about £16,000 a year, and, in the time of Charles II. had been distributed chiefly among his concubines and his illegitimate children. There were now hundreds of clergymen whose livings were not worth more than £20 a year, and thousands whose livings did not exceed £50 a year. Of course, the Queen was well nigh overwhelmed with addresses, thanking her for her royal bounty, and it was difficult to tell whether she was prouder of the title “Queen of England,” than she was of “Nursing-mother to the Church.” This tender care for poor ministers, however, did not extend to other sects of the Protestant communion; for, just at the same time, this royal benefactress allowed the Irish Parliament to stop the paltry grant of £1200 per annum, which had been paid to the poor Presbyterian ministers in Ulster in the reign of her predecessor, King William.
In 1704, the “Occasional Conformity Bill” was a third time introduced into the House of Commons, though there was still not the slightest chance of its passing in the House of Lords.
In the year following, Lord Halifax moved, in the Upper House, that a day might be appointed to inquire into the “Dangers of the Church,” it being alleged that the rejection of the “Occasional Conformity Bill” was likely to ruin both Church and State, and especially when this was coupled with the liberty of the press and the licence of the times, wherein no restraint was laid upon those who vilified the established religion. Both Houses of Parliament, however, passed a resolution, to the effect, that the Church of England was in a most safe and flourishing condition, and the Queen ordered a proclamation to be issued accordingly.
All this created great excitement, which will have to be more fully noticed in another chapter. At present, we can only add that, in 1712, an act was passed by parliament, to the effect, that, if any person holding public office should attend a conventicle, at which more than ten persons were assembled, he should be fined £40, and should be adjudged incapable henceforth to hold such office, or any other office or employment whatsoever, unless he conformed to the Church of England for one year without being present at any conventicle, and received, during that year, the holy sacrament at least three times.
This intolerant Act of Parliament was followed by another of a kindred kind, in 1714, the year of Queen Anne’s decease—“An Act to prevent the growth of schism, and for the further security of the Churches of England and Ireland, as by law established.” By this statute, it was enacted that, if any person dared to keep any public or private school without subscribing a declaration to the effect that he would conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, and without obtaining a licence from the ordinary of the place, such person, on conviction, should be committed to the common gaol for three months. The same penalty was to be inflicted upon a person who had duly qualified himself for the office of schoolmaster, and had obtained the necessary licence, if he dared to be present at any conventicle where prayer was not offered for Queen Anne.[158]
This was a fitting wind up of the reign of an ecclesiastical, though well-intentioned bigot. Anne was seized with apoplexy on the 28th of July 1714, and four days afterwards died, without being able either to receive the sacrament or to sign her will. This princess was remarkable neither for learning nor capacity, and yet “she was,” says John Wesley, “a good wife, a tender mother, a warm friend, an indulgent mistress, a munificent patron, and a merciful monarch; for, during her whole reign, no subjects’ blood was shed for treason. In a word, if she was not the greatest she was certainly one of the best and most unblemished sovereigns that ever sat upon the throne of England; and well deserved the expressive, though simple, epithet of ‘The good Queen Anne.’”[159]
Great efforts were made, during the reign of Anne, to multiply churches, but, at the same time, there was an enormous increase of places of public resort and public discussion. Club-houses, chocolate-houses, and coffee-houses became so numerous that, besides the large ones, there was one or more for almost every parish in the capital, in which citizens regaled themselves to their hearts’ content, and found fault with the management of public matters. On entering a coffee-house, the visitor had only to pay a penny at the bar, and for this he was not only served with a cup of coffee, but accommodated with the newspapers of the day, and with the newest pamphlets on morals and on politics. Tradesmen forsook their shops, and merchants their offices, to take care of the affairs of state, and to harangue upon the misconduct of the ministry, until, by neglecting their business, those oratorical financiers and disinterested patriots were, not unfrequently, seized by an ambushment of bumbailiffs, and, after having defrayed the debts of the nation, were ignominiously conducted to a sponging-house for not being able to pay their own.
While the middle and the lower classes were thus discussing politics, the fashionable orders were devoted to pleasure and to gallantry. From ten to twelve the beau received his visitors in bed, where he lay in state, his periwig, superbly powdered, lying beside him on the sheets; while his toilet-table was sprinkled with amorous poems, a canister of Spanish snuff, a smelling bottle, and a few fashionable trinkets. At twelve he rose, and after spending three hours in perfuming his clothes, in soaking his hands in washes to make them delicate and white, in tinging his cheeks with carminative to give them a gentle blush, in dipping his handkerchief in rose water, and in powdering his linen to banish from it the smell of soap—the self-indulgent exquisite then sat down to dinner. At four o’clock, he repaired to some place of public concourse, where he endeavoured to display his gallantry and wit. At five, he proceeded to the theatre, where, to give himself the air of a critic, he readjusted his cravat, and sprinkled his face with snuff. From the theatre he would wander to the park, buzzing and fluttering from lady to lady, and chattering to each a jargon made up of bad English, atrocious French, and undistinguishable Latin. And then, his lounge in the park being ended, he concluded the day by dropping into some fashionable party, where he chatted his empty nothings, played at ombre, and lost his money with an air of fashionable indifference.
Besides these fashionable beaus, there were those who, in the language of the day, were called bully-beaus,—fellows figuring in Ramillies’ perukes, laced hats, black cockades, and scarlet suits; and who maintained a reputation for courage, by empty swagger and violent assaults on the peaceable members of society. These gallants, instead of confining their follies and their fopperies within the compass of the metropolis, very often made country excursions to bamboozle fox-hunting squires, and to make love to their unsophisticated daughters. The fair rustics were dazzled by the surpassing finery of such manners, dress, and speech; while young clod-poll squires were set agog to emulate the captivating visitor. In this way many a youth, whose gayest party had been a country wake, was translated into a London fop. As soon as his father had broken his neck over a six-barred gate, or fairly drunk himself into his coffin, the rustic aspirant turned his back on the old mansion of his progenitors, and hied to London, dressed in his best leathern breeches tied at the knee with red taffeta, his new blue jacket, and his fashionable greatcoat, both adorned with buttons of the orthodox size and shape. Bully-beaus and sharpers took him into training; tailors, silk-mercers, and cabinetmakers hastened to his levees; whilst prize-fighters, horse-racers, fiddlers, and dancing-masters, pimps and parasites, soon transformed a raw country bumpkin into a finished gentleman of town.
Besides the fashionable and bully-beaus, already mentioned, there were the Darby-Captains, the Tash-Captains, the Cock-and-bottle Captains, and the Nickers. But of all the turbulent characters of the period, none were so distinguished as the Mohocks. These fellows, after drinking to an outrageous extent to qualify themselves for action, would rush into the streets with drawn swords, cutting, stabbing, and carbonading all the unlucky persons that happened to cross their path. Sometimes they “tipped the lion” on their victim, that is, flattened his nose and gouged out his eyes; sometimes they were “dancing-masters,” because they made people cut capers by thrusting swords into their legs; and sometimes they were “tumblers,” because they would place a woman topsy-turvy upon her head, or tumble her into an empty barrel, and send it rolling down Snow Hill. Rightly were they designated “Mohocks,” for they out-did the atrocities of the tribe of Indian savages whose name they used.
But leaving the male, look for a moment at the female sex. A fashionable lady in the days of Queen Anne was thought to be learned enough if she could barely read and write. If she could finish a letter without notorious bad spelling, she might pass for a wit. She plunged into all the amusements of the day with an intensity proportioned to her lack of moral and intellectual resources. A whirl of daily varieties was necessary to occupy the emptiness of her mind. She dashed over the town, upon a round of visiting, in a carriage with four laced and powdered footmen behind it. When she was obliged to stay at home, she regaled herself with frequent libations of tea, sometimes qualified with brandy. When her female friends dropped in, the scandal of the day commenced, and reputations were torn to tatters. When she held her levees, the dashing rake and notorious profligate had free access, and the lewd jest scarcely raised the fan to a single check. It was unfashionable to be religious; and if a lady of ton went to church, it was to see company and to deal courtesies from her pew. She patronised French milliners, French hairdressers, and Italian Opera singers. She loved tall footmen and turbaned negro footboys. She doated upon monkeys, paroquets, and lap-dogs; was a perfect critic in old China and Indian trinkets; and could not exist without a raffle or a sale.
The manners of high life being thus frivolous and depraved, no wonder that servants were neither wiser nor better than their employers. Complaints were universal of the arrogance, dishonesty, laziness, and luxury of valets and footmen; whilst charges against pert, mercenary, intriguing Abigails were equally loud and numerous. Their cleverness, to a great extent, consisted in obtaining the largest wages for the smallest services.
Such a condition of the national character was a fruitful soil for superstition and credulity. Almost every old mansion was still ghost-haunted, and almost every parish was tormented by a witch. Fortune-telling was a common and thriving occupation; and quack-doctors were, if possible, still more numerous than astrologers.
The country gentlemen cultivated their paternal acres, watched with almost Druidical reverence the safety of their ancient oaks, and were members of the worshipful quorum. On Sundays, they repaired to the village church, through a lane of uncovered and bowing peasantry; ascended “the squire’s pew,” the chief seat in the synagogue, and edified their tenantry by the loudness of their responses. At Christmas, a multitude of fattened hogs were slaughtered and distributed among the neighbours; while a string of black puddings and a pack of cards were sent to every poor family in the parish. A large portion of these rustic squires were fox-hunters, and appear, for the most part, to have been as unintellectual as the horses they galloped, or the animals they chased; for their proudest exploit was to clear a six-barred gate, and their highest ambition to secure a dead fox’s brush for the adornment of their hunting caps.
Their wives were quiet, domestic drudges, with scarcely enough of education to keep their book of household expenses, or to spell correctly the receipt of a new home-made wine, or of an improved syllabub. No longer thinking it the great business of life to embroider cushions and coverlets, they commonly settled down into the character of a Lady Bountiful, and occupied themselves in supplying the poor of their villages with money, the industrious with work, the idle with counsel, the vicious with rebuke, and the sick with medicines and with cordials. In this last department, many of them became so presumptuous that no ailment was too hard for them, from a toothache to a pestilence, from the stroke of a cudgel to that of a thunderbolt.
Their sons were taught a little Latin and less Greek, beaten into them, either at one of the public establishments or by the thwackem of a domestic schoolroom. When they had been whipped through the parts of speech, interjections and all, and driven through a few fragmentary portions of the classics, they were then qualified to shine equally in the senate or at the masquerade. The grand finish to such an education was the tour of Europe; and forth went the boy accordingly, in leading strings, to gaze at streets, mountains, rivers, and trees; and to pick up, in his rambles, the fashions, frivolities, and vices of the countries through which he passed.
Their peasantry still presented much the same rude simplicity which had characterised the poorer classes for the last hundred years. Rural education had undergone little, if any, improvement; and the monotonous toils of daily life were enlivened, chiefly, by wakes and fairs, thronged with puppet-shows, pedlars stalls, raffling-tables, and drinking-booths.
Such is a bird’s-eye view of the general state of English society at the commencement of the eighteenth century.[LY]
[The facts in this chapter have been gathered principally from Knight’s Pictorial History, Macaulay’s History, Burnet’s History of His Own Times, Lathbury’s History of Convocation, the Tatler, the Spectator, &c.]