intendence, by Day, in 1563. They are STATE AND CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE Harrison, in his description of England, written in 1586, says, "As for slaves and bondmen, we have none; naie, such is the privilege of our countrie, by the especiall grace of God, and bountie of our princes, that if anie come hither from other realms, so soone as they set foot on land, they become so free of condition as their masters." This indicates an important change in the state of the lower classes; it was one of the causes which rendered a public provision for the poor requisite. Other causes, such as the change in value of the precious metals, the progress of society, and the dissolution of the monasteries, have been already noticed; but the latter has too often been considered as the principal, if not the only cause of the increase of the poor. a sturdy beggar was to be whipped on his first conviction, to have his ear cropped on the second, and to be executed as a felon and an enemy of the commonwealth for the third offence. All these laws were enacted prior to the Reformation, and before the dissolution of the monasteries. In the first year of Edward vi., the last severe act was repealed; still the sturdy beggar was to be forced to work, and branded, and if he repeatedly ran away, was to be treated as a felon. Other laws followed in that reign, and of Mary, and in the early part of Elizabeth; all directing relief to be given to the impotent poor, and latterly the justices had power to assess all the inhabitants of a place according to “their good discretions," in such sums as the justices should appoint for the maintenance of the poor. In the forty-third of Elizabeth, the well known statute which forms the basis of the later systems was passed, directing a more regular way of parochial assessment, and of maintenance for the impotent poor, and destitute children, and for the employment of all able to labour. The plan was well intended, but had some imperfections, and unhappily most of the measures devised as improvements during the two following centuries, tended to impede rather than to promote the right working of the humane statute of Elizabeth, which hitherto never has been carried into effect, fully in the spirit designed by its originators. The increase of population was, of course, one cause for an increased number of poor. At the close of the sixteenth century, the population of England and Wales was estimated at nearly five millions, a number far below its present inhabitants, but considerably more than they had been at the close of the civil wars of the roses. The statements of sir Thomas More and others, before the Reformation, have been already noticed, showing the increase of the poor, or rather that they already claimed more of public notice, and that so far from the monasteries affording effectual relief, they tended rather to increase the number of paupers. Thus we find laws for the suppression of mendicancy, in 1495 and 1504; the | latter restricting the impotent poor to their native places, or last abodes. In 1531, a more severe law was passed, subjecting impotent poor to imprisonment, if they begged out of their dis- The cultivation of the land was not tricts, and able-bodied mendicants were much improved during the sixteenth to be whipped. In 1536, another law, century, either as to the implements of first establishes compulsory relief, which husbandry, or the processes for renderwas to be afforded, both to " poor crea- ing the land more fertile. But an altertures," and to "sturdy vagabonds" in ation was in progress; the changes which their own districts, to prevent the ne- followed the discovery of America, with cessity for their begging openly; and the consequent reduction in the value of voluntary alms were to be collected for money, the difference in the tenure of the purpose, every preacher and parson property, and the progress of commerce, exhorting and provoking people to be all promoted improvements in agriculliberal, especially at the time of confes-tural affairs, but not without a severe sion, and making of wills. So great struggle. It was difficult for those who had the evil of pauperism become, that witnessed the trials resulting from a state of transition, to enter calmly into the subject, and to bear in mind, that however desirable any particular state of society may appear, it is impossible for a nation to continue permanently therein. As the poet says, Change is the diet on which all subsist Thus Latimer, in one of his sermons before Edward vi., describes the English yeoman of the commencement of the sixteenth century. "My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pound by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept halfa-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king a harness with himself and his horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before his king's majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds or twenty nobles apiece; so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbours; and some alms he gave to the poor. And all this he did of the said farm, where he that now hath it payes sixteen pound by year or more, and is not able to do any thing for his prince, for himself, or for his children, or to give a cup of drink to the poor." Not long after the period here mentioned, one hundred acres of arable, and as many of pasture land in Cambridgeshire, were let at ten pounds a year; that is, a shilling an acre: the rent was to pay the wages and expenses of the knight of the shire for attending parliament. From Latimer's account, we learn that in half a century the rental of his father's farm increased fourfold, evidence both of the depreciation of money, and the progress of national wealth. With respect to the other remarks of good bishop Latimer, without at all disputing that the more simple the state of society, the greater proportion there will be of real comfort, we may question how far his comparison is fair. In all probability a man, such as he describes his father to be, would in Edward's right have been found proportionally advanced in the scale of society, while his father's successor, had he lived half a century earlier, would have been a mere cottier, one of the halfdozen men who tilled the soil. The complaint that what "heretofore went for twenty or forty pound by year, now is let for fifty or a hundred," did not show, as he said, that the landlords had for their possessions "yearly too much;" it only proved the change in the nominal value. He at the same time testified that while God sent plentifully the fruits of the earth, all kinds of victual had become dearer, and even anticipated we shall at length be constrained to pay for a pig a pound." 66 Harrison gives a much more favourable description of the farmer, not very long afterwards. "Though foure pounds of the old rent be improved to fortie, fiftie, or an hundred poundes, yet will the farmer thinke his gains very small towards the end of his terme, if he have not six or seven years rent lying by him, therewith to purchase a new lease; beside a fair garnish of pewter on his cupbord, with so much more in odd vessell going about the house; three or foure feather bedds, so many coverlids and carpets of tapestrye, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, if not a whole neast; and a dozzen of spoons to furnish out the sute." It was true, as Latimer complained, that "all the enhancing and rearing goeth to private commodity and wealth." The natural heart of man is prone to covetousness; thus the apostle James had to complain, and justly, of the rich men of his day, who kept back the wages of the labourer, and it is to be feared there are many such in our day; but this is a different question from that under notice. The general increase of prices, if it does not proceed from famine and scarcity, will always be found to regulate itself. But whatever may be the price of the produce of the earth, it is painful to think that the wages of the labourer will in general be found barely sufficient. The number who cultivate the soil in any regularly settled country, soon fully equals the demand for labour. Still the state of a free labourer, if industrious and steady, is vastly superior to that of a slave, or of the serf or bondman of the feudal times. Where slavery exists, the master has no inducement from interest, to treat his slaves upon different principles from his cattle, while those who suffer under a bad master, have no refuge or way of escape; their children also What charge and pain, Doth follow toiling plough. Yet farmer may To stop so many a gap. At the commencement of the sixteenth are doomed to the same course of life: while the free-born peasant, even if sorely pinched himself, and hardly able to rear his family, knows that other lines of life are open to them, which present greater opportunity for rising to those who possess ability, while he himself is protected from ill usage, and can change his service whenever he sees occasion to Harrison, in 1586, estimates the yield do so. Nor is the employment of free or produce of corn ground in average labourers, rather than slaves, less advan-years, to be sixteen to twenty bushels of tageous to the master. But to proceed wheat or rye well tilled and dressed, with this discussion would lead us from thirty-six bushels of barley, or four to our immediate subject. The sixteenth five quarters of oats. century, however, is to be noticed as having seen the end of slavery in Eng-century, the usual price of wheat, soon land; a material change and improve- after harvest, in plentiful years, appears ment in the lower classes followed; but to have been about 5s. the quarter. this, like every state of transition, was During the middle of this period, it not passed through without considerable averaged 8s. ; towards the close it had insuffering, as we have already noticed. creased to 15s. and upwards. A law, passed in 1594, allowed the exportation of wheat, when the price was not more than 20s., of peas and beans at 13s. 4d., barley and malt 12s.: we may therefore suppose these were reckoned fair average prices. The mixture of rye and wheat sown together, was called miscelin. But there were many years in which, from scarcity, the price of wheat increased to two or three pounds, and in one of the closing years, for a short time, to five pounds the quarter. Raleigh computed that the value of corn imported, at this period, was equal to two millions annually. The chief consumption was of bread made from inferior grain. The allowance to a baker, in 1495, was 2s. per quarter; in 1592, when the best wheat was 21s. 4d., it was 6s. 10d. per quarter of flour, reckoned thus: fuel, 6d.; two journeymen and two boys, 1s. 8d. ; yeast, ls. ; candles and salt, 4d.; himself, family, and house rent, 2s.; the miller's toll, Is. 4d. Bakers, living at Stratford, were allowed to sell bread from carts in London, being two ounces heavier in the penny loaf than bread baked in the city. There were large mills on the river Lea in that neighbourhood. The employments of a farmer's wife at this period were not trivial, if a writer in 1539 is correct. In addition to caring for the food and clothing of the family, "it is a wife's occupation to wynowe all manner of cornes, to make malte, to washe and wrynge, to make heye, shere corne, and in time of nede to helpe her husbande to fyll the muckwayne or dounge carte, to drive the ploughe, to loade heye, corn, and suche other. And to go or ride to the market; to set butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekyns, capons, hennes, pygges, gese, and all manner of cornes. We must suppose this to be the beau ideal of a farmer's wife of the sixteenth century; few specimens of such a concentration of accomplishments could really have existed! A poem, written by Thomas Tusser, of Essex, about the middle of the century, contains minute particulars of the agriculture of that periods. We have room only for one extract-the "Corn Harvest.' 1. One part cast forth, for rent due out of hand. 6. One part, to uphold thy teams that draw there with. 7. One part, for servant, and workman's wages lay. crave. 10. Thyselfe and child, the last one part would have. Who minds to quote Upon this note, May easily find enow, The improvement of agriculture, during this century, mainly proceeded from the progress of manufactures and commerce, with the advance of the general state of society. Agriculture and commerce mutually benefit each other; to think these interests are really opposed, is a great mistake. The English manufacturers and farmers are reciprocally the best customers to each other; but if undue advantages are given to either class, the other must suffer. The increase of flocks, and of inclosures for pasture, excited much discontent at this period; it doubtless produced inconvenience, which ever must be the case during a state of transition; but it was another evidence of the general prosperity of the country. Among the evils remaining from feudal times, the practice of purveyance severely oppressed the agriculturist. By this power, the queen's officers could take any rural produce at certain prices, usually below the market rate: a large proportion was often resold for their own profit; or they took money from the farmers as a bribe not to remove the articles. An anecdote is told of a farmer, who made his way to court, and insisted upon seeing the queen: when he saw her pass, he made his best reverences, observing aloud, so as to attract her attention, that this was indeed a fair well-shaped lady, more so than his daughter Madge, who was reckoned the fairest in his parish; but it could not be she that took all his poultry, and sheep, and corn; that must be a very monstrous sized person who could consume all that her purveyor required. The queen never countenanced malpractices in her officers, and being not displeased with the compliment to her personal appearance, ordered the complaint to be inquired into, and that the guilty purveyor should be punished. This evil became so notorious, that it was partly done away before the end of her reign. Another proof of progress in the state of society, and which strongly indicated an increased feeling of security, was the increase of gardens and orchards during the sixteenth century; but as yet, in general, they consisted only of enclosed pieces of ground near the mansion house, with a limited assortment of flowers, trees, and vegetables. The real progress of English gardening rather belongs to the next century, though Harrison, in 1486, speaks of great improvements in the preceding forty years, having sorts of fruit trees in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth. He speaks of near three hundred sorts of "simples," "not one of them being common, as growing in his own little garden, of about three hundred square feet. One evidence of this progress, even in London, appears in the account of Henry VII. "for making an arber | at Baynard's castle, 5s." The palace gardens of Elizabeth are described as having groves, ornamented with trellis work, cabinets of verdure, walks em.. bowered with trees, columns and pyramids of marble, statues, and fountains. OLD HUMPHREY ON TERMS USED WHAT a continual holiday of the heart! what an unceasing jubilee of the spirit would it be if mankind would always dwell together in peace and love! But the time is not yet. While sin is alive, sorrow will never die; and, therefore, though our paths are thronged with countless mercies, we must not expect them to abound with thornless flowers. That it is an advantage, nay, a duty to look on the sunny side of things, is clear; and yet there are so many sources of grief and distress, that a thinking man can hardly avoid, now and then, walking in the shade, afflicting himself with regret, and shrouding his spirit with melancholy reflections. I was musing, the other day, on the many forms of expression that we meet with, and read over, without emotion, as things of course, though they involve every thing that is dreadful to human nature. Among them, I was calling to mind some of the phrases that are used in reference to war. There is, in many of these, such a brevity and careless ease, that we hardly seem required to pause upon them. "The troops were driven into the river." "The town was taken by storm." "The garrison were put to the sword.” "The city was given up to pillage." "The place was burned to the ground." These light and tripping phrases are common place in military despatches, and, yet, what fearful excesses! what dreadful sufferings they involve ! Let us take one of them, and for a moment examine it in a few of its ramifications. True it is, that we are now at peace; but a calm is often succeeded by an unexpected storm, and the quietude of Vesuvius is followed by the loud bellowing of the burning mountain. Peace and war depend much on the public mind, and of that public we all form a part; it may be well, therefore, to keep alive within us that hatred, which a review of the cruel excesses of war is calculated to inspire. Let us take, for our examination, the expression, "The city was given up to pillage." Those who have read much of scenes of warfare, well know that imagination is not likely to exceed the reality of the miseries which war has generally produced. The narratives of Labaume and Porter, Wilson, Segur, Dufens, and others, bring to our view such extravagant scenes of calamity and cruelty, such displays of horrible enormity, that we wonder why mankind do not, with one united and universal cry of abhorrence, exclaim against the practice and principle of heart-hardening and demoralizing war. But let it not be thought that I have any pleasure in blackening the reputation of a soldier: neither would I presumptuously brand the brow of him who differs with me in opinion; but, feeling as I do, that the word of God is the word of peace, and that war is a bitter evil; and knowing, as I do, how thoughtlessly we receive and retain the opinions of those around us, right or wrong, I claim the liberty of free speech, while I endeavour to excite more consideration and sympathy among the advocates of war, than is usually manifested. "The city was given up to pillage." What is the real meaning of the term, giving up a place to pillage? for it explains itself so little, that it may be worth while, for once, if it be only for the sake of impressing it on our memories, to make ourselves familiar with the signification, as explained by past experience. It means, then, neither more nor less than this, that an infuriated soldiery are given free leave and liberty to indulge, without restraint, their selfish, brutal, and cruel passions, in plundering, burning, and destroying the property of unoffending people; and in ill-using, maiming, and murdering them without control. This is the plain meaning, so far as we can gather it from the most authentic records of the occurrences, which have taken place in cases of the kind. Indeed it must be so; for, in giving armed and revengeful soldiers permission to pillage, you give them leave to take, by force, the property of those who, naturally enough, will make a struggle to retain it: the consequences are inevitable, and strife is succeeded by bloodshed. How fearful, then, is the expression, The city was given up to pillage!" 66 The enormity of giving up a city to pillage is not seen or felt, when we read of it as taking place in a distant part of the world; it comes not home "to our business and bosoms," as it would do, were the occurrence to take place under our observation; but rapine and murder are crimes wherever they are practised, and pain and heart-rending calamity are as hard to endure in one part of the world as in another. "The city was given up to pillage." There will be no harm in applying this to the immediate town or city in which we dwell; the place wherein we possess property, and where those live who are dear to us, as the ruddy drops that warm our hearts; and here let no one accuse me of wantonly harrowing up human feelings. Let no man tell me that I do wrong in painting war in its own sanguinary colours! I am persuaded it is because Christians have been guiltily silent, as to war's abominations, that so little repugnance is felt against strife and bloodshed. To shrink from a painted battle is affectation, if we have no antipathy to a real one! Surely, if a monster affrights us not, we should not be scared at his shadow ! What I have read of the pages of warfare, has wrung from my very spirit a strong sympathy for the victims of violence, and called forth an urgent, and irrepressible desire to excite the same sympathy in others. Let me, then, pursue my course. For a moment, let me suppose the roaring cannon to have brought down our church spires; to have broken in the walls and roofs of our habitations; and that bomb shells, Shrapnell shells, and Congreve rockets have set buildings without number on fire, and spread confusion around. All at once the thundering of the cannon ceases; the bombs and rockets are no longer seen in the air, and a new and more dreadful plague spreads abroad. Wild and savage yells are heard, with the rattle of iron hoofs, and trampling of hurried feet. Bands of armed men on foot and on horseback, burst in, like a resistless torrent, among us. Doors are smashed, windows broken. Here, soldiers broach or stave in the casks! there, others drain the jugs or the bottles, till fired with brutal passions, drunkenness, revenge, and fury, they wallow in pollution, and deal around them desolation and death. Household furniture is destroyed. Cabinets, bureaus, and boxes broken to pieces. Jewels, money, curiosities, and clothing huddled together, to be carried |