has certain rights in letting out the 'shooting' on his estate. A game-certificate empowers a sportsman to shoot game; a game-licence enables a dealer to buy game from the sportsman; none may shoot or buy but those who hold these documents, for which duties or fees are paid; and as farmers are often much troubled by the proceedings of these sportsmen, it is necessary that the legislature (if such statutes as game-laws are needed at all) should define the season before which and after which the field-ramblings for game shall not be allowed. The reader, by noticing the civil suits and the criminal trials reported in the public journals, will see how frequently there are collisions between sportsmen, gamekeepers, farmers, and poachers, arising in various ways out of these matters. Definite days certainly must be fixed, as the subject now stands; but there is evidently no natural necessity that the days should actually be those which have been selected. Colonel Hawker, a great authority on these matters, recommends that, except in relation to black-game, moor-game, and ptarmigan, shooting should not be allowed

until the month of October. His reasons are as follow: 'By such an arrangement, thousands of very young partridges, that are not fair game, would escape being shot by the gentlemenpoachers, or falling a prey, when in hedges and hassocks, to the dogs of the pot-hunter. There would be avoided many disputes between farmers and eager young sportsmen (perhaps the sons of their landlords), who sometimes cannot resist following their game into the corn. There would be an end of destroying a whole nide of young pheasants in standing barley, which is so frequently and so easily done in September. The hot month of September was never meant for hard fagging. September is a month that the agriculturist should devote to his harvest, and the man of pleasure to sailing, sea-bathing, fishing, and other summer pursuits. But when October arrives, the farmer has leisure to enjoy a little sport after all his hard labour, without neglecting his business; and the gentleman, by a day's shooting at that time, becomes refreshed and invigorated, instead of wearing out himself and his dogs by slaving after partridges under the broiling sun of the preceding month. The evenings begin to close; and he then enjoys his home and his fireside, after a day's shooting of sufficient duration to brace his nerves and make everything agreeable.' It appears, therefore, that though the First of September' is an important day in the laws of game, those laws do not necessarily partake of the inflexibility of the oft-quoted laws of the Medes and Persians.

JOHN HOWARD.

LADY HERVEY-DREAD OF HAPPINESS. September 2, 1768, died Mary Lepell, Lady Hervey, celebrated for her beauty, wit, and good sense at the court of the second George.

In one of her letters, dated April 5, 1750, after expressing her pity for the Countess of Dalkeith in losing her husband, she says: 'I dread to see people I care for quite easy and happy. I always wish them some little disappointment or rub, for fear of a greater; for I look upon felicity in this world not to be a natural state, and consequently what cannot subsist: the further, therefore, we are put out of our natural position, with the more violence we return to it.'*

It is worthy of note, that Sir Humphry Davy entertained a similar view of human happiness. He enters in his journal, in the midst of the most triumphant period of his life: Beware of too much prosperity and popularity. Life is made up of mixed passages-dark and bright, sunshine and gloom. The unnatural and excessive greatness of fortune of Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon-the first died after divine honours were paid him; the second gained empire, the consummation of his ambition, and lost his life immediately; the third, from a private individual, became master of con tinental Europe, and allied to the oldest dynasty, and after his elevation, his fortune immediately began to fall. Even in private life too much prosperity either injures the moral man and occasions conduct which ends in suffering, or is accompanied by the workings of envy, calumny, and malevolence of others.'+

JOHN HOWARD.

To the service of a heart of the tenderest pity, John Howard united consummate skill in business, and a conscientiousness which no danger nor tedium could baffle. Burke's summary of his labours, happily spoken in parliament whilst Howard lived to hear them recognised, has never been superseded in grace and faithfulness: 'He has visited all Europe-not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples; not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosities of modern art; not to collect medals or to collate manuscripts; but, to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original: it is as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity.

Howard came of a mercantile stock, and his commercial training was not the least element in his usefulness. His father was a retired London

merchant, who, when his son's schooling was over, bound him apprentice to Newnham and Shipley, wholesale grocers of Watling Street, City, paying down

*Letters of Lady Hervey, p. 170.

Life of Sir Humphry Davy, by his brother.

£700 as premium. In the warehouse and countingroom, Howard continued until his father's death, in 1742, placed fortune in his hands. From a child he had been delicate, he had lost his mother in infancy, and city air and hard work had reduced his strength almost to prostration. He, therefore, purchased the remnant of his apprenticeship, and, in order to recruit his vigour, set out on a French and Italian tour.

On his return to London, he retired to lodgings in the suburban village of Stoke Newington. He was an invalid, weak, low-spirited, and restless, and falling seriously ill, was confined to bed for several weeks. His landlady, Mrs Sarah Lardeau, a widow, eked out a narrow income by letting apartments. To Howard, in his sickness, she behaved with all the tenderness of a mother, and the young man, on his recovery, questioned with himself how he should reward her. Overcome with gratitude, he decided to offer her his hand and fortune in marriage. | He was twenty-five, she was fifty-two. She was a good and prudent woman, and refused him with all natural and obvious reasons. He, however, was determined, asserted that he felt it his duty to make her his wife, and that yield she must. In the end she consented, and, strange to say, the odd union proved a happy one. For three years they dwelt together in perfect amity, until her death made him a widower so miserable, that Stoke Newington became unendurable, and for change of scene and relief, he set sail for Lisbon, with the design of relieving the sufferers by the terrible earthquake of that year, 1755; but Lisbon he never reached. England and France were at war, and on the voyage thither, his vessel was captured, and the crew and passengers carried into the port of Brest, where they were treated with the utmost barbarity, and Howard experienced the horrors of prison-life for the first time in his own person.

On his release and return to England, he settled on a small patrimonial estate at Cardington, near Bedford, and, in 1758, contracted his second marriage with Henrietta Leeds, the daughter of a lawyer, with whom he made the stipulation, that, in all matters in which there should be a difference of opinion between them, his voice should rule. She appears to have made him an admirable wife, and to have entered heartily into the charitable schemes whereby he blessed his neighbourhood and expended a large portion of his income. They built improved cottages, established schools, administered to the sick, and relieved the necessitous. Howard likewise dabbled in science, and was elected a member of the Royal Society. Medicine he was compelled to study in his care of the poor, but astronomy and meteorology were his favourite pursuits. As an illustration of the rigorous and methodical spirit he brought to every undertaking, it is related that, at the bottom of his garden, he had placed a thermometer, and, as soon as the frosty weather set in, he used to leave his warm bed at two o'clock every morning, walk in the bitter air to his thermometer, examine it by his lamp, and write down its register-which done to his satisfaction, he would coolly betake himself again to bed.

The quiet usefulness of his life at Cardington came to a melancholy termination by the death of his beloved wife in 1765, after giving birth to their only child, a son. Weak health and a heavy

JOHN HOWARD.

heart again induced him to seek relief in continental travel. On his renewed settlement at Cardington, he was, in 1773, elected sheriff of Bedford, and though ineligible, being a dissenter, he accepted, and was permitted to retain the office. Such & position to a man of Howard's temper could not possibly remain a sinecure, but at once drove him into active contact with the prisons of his county. Their inspection outraged alike his benevolence and justice. The cells were frequently damp, wet, dark, and ill ventilated, so that the phrase, to rot in prison,' was anything but a metaphor. In such noisome holes, innocence, misfortune, and vice were huddled together, and it was hard to say whether the physical or moral corruption was greater. Over these holds of wretchedness a jailer sat as extortioner of bribes and fees, and under him turnkeys, cruel and vicious, operated on their own account. From Bedford, Howard passed into the adjoining counties, and from thence into more distant parts, until he effected the tour of England, discovering everywhere abuses and horrors of which few had any conception. Howard's vocation was now fixed; the inspection and reformation of prisons became his business, and to the work he gave all his energies with a singleness of purpose and an assiduity which have placed his name in the first line of philanthropists. England alone was insufficient to exhaust his zeal; Europe he tracked from east to west, from north to south, and through the lazarettos of the Levant he passed as a ministering angel. The age was ripe for Howard. Kings and statesmen listened to his complaints and suggestions, and promised amendment. The revelations he was enabled to make stirred the feelings of the good and enlightened to the uttermost, and provided material for philosophers like Bentham, and stimulus and direction for the kind-hearted, like Mrs Fry.

Howard printed his work, on the State of Prisons, at Warrington. He was attracted thither by the skill of Mr Eyre, a printer, and the promise of literary assistance from Dr Aiken, the brother of Mrs Barbauld, then practising as surgeon in that town; and of Howard's habits, Dr Aiken has recorded some interesting particulars. Every morning-though it was then in the depth of a severe winter-he rose at two o'clock precisely, washed, said his prayers, and then worked at his papers until seven, when he breakfasted and dressed for the day. Punctually at eight he repaired to the printing-office, to inspect the progress of his sheets through the press. There he remained until one, when the compositors went to dinner. While they were absent, he would walk to his lodgings, and, putting some bread and dried fruit into his pocket, sally out for a stroll in the outskirts of the town, eating his hermit-fare as he trudged along, and drinking a glass of water begged at some cottagedoor. This was his only dinner. By the time that the printers returned to the office, he had usually, but not always, wandered back. Sometimes he would call upon a friend on his way, and spend an hour or two in pleasant chat, for though severe with himself, the social instincts were largely developed in his nature. At the press, he remained until the men left off their day's toil, and then retired to his lodgings to tea or coffee, went through his religious exercises, and retired to rest at an early hour. Such was the usual course of a day at

Warrington. Sometimes a doubt would suggest itself as to the precise truth of some statement, and though it might cost a journey of some hundreds of miles, off Howard would set, and the result would appear in a note of some insignificant modification of the text. Truth, Howard thought cheap at any price. Like Wesley, he ate no flesh and drank no wine or spirits. He bathed in cold water daily, ate little and at fixed intervals, went to bed early and rose early. Of this asceticism he made no show. After fair trial, he found that it suited his delicate constitution, and he persevered in it with unvarying resolution. Innkeepers would not welcome such a guest, but Howard was no niggard, and paid them as if he had fared on their meat and wine. He used to say, that in the expenses of a journey which must necessarily cost three or four hundred pounds, twenty or thirty pounds extra was not worth a thought.

Beyond the safeguard of his simple regimen, the precautions Howard took to repel contagious diseases were no more than smelling at a phial of vinegar while in the infected cell, and washing and changing his apparel afterwards; but even these, in process of time, he abandoned as unnecessary. He was often pressed for his secret means of escaping infection, and usually replied: 'Next to the free goodness and mercy of the Author of my being, temperance and cleanliness are my preservatives. Trusting in divine Providence, and believing myself in the way of my duty, I visit the most noxious cells, and while thus employed, I fear no evil.'

Howard died on the 20th of January 1790, at Kherson, in South Russia.

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON. London was only a few months freed from a desolating pestilence, it was suffering, with the country generally, under a most imprudent and illconducted war with Holland, when, on the evening of the 2d of September 1666, a fire commenced by which about two-thirds of it were burned down, including the cathedral, the Royal Exchange, about a hundred parish churches, and a vast number of other public buildings. The conflagration commenced in the house of a baker named Farryner, at Pudding Lane, near the Tower, and, being favoured by a high wind, it continued for three nights and days, spreading gradually eastward, till it ended at a spot called Pye Corner, in Giltspur Street. Mr John Evelyn has left us a very interesting description of the event, from his own observation, as follows:

Sept. 2, 1666.-This fatal night, about ten, began that deplorable fire near Fish Streete in

London.

'Sept. 3.-The fire continuing, after dinner I took coach with my wife and sonn, and went to the Bankside in Southwark, where we beheld that dismal spectacle, the whole Citty in dreadful flames neare ye water side; all the houses from the Bridge, all Thames Street, and upwards towards Cheapeside downe to the Three Cranes, were now consum'd.

The fire having continu'd all this night (if I may call that night which was as light as day for ten miles round about, after a dreadful manner)

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON.

when conspiring with a fierce eastern wind in a very drie season; I went on foote to the same place, and saw the whole South part of ye Citty burning from Cheapeside to ye Thames, and all along Cornehill (for it kindl'd back against ye wind as well as forward), Tower Streete, Fenchurch Streete, Gracious Streete, and so along to Bainard's Castle, and was now taking hold of St Paule's Church, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonish'd, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr'd to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and length, the Churches, Publiq Halls, Exchange, Hospitals, Monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house and streete to streete, at greate distances one from ye other; for ye heate with a long set of faire and warme weather, had even ignited the air, and prepar'd the materials to conceive the fire, which devour'd after an incredible manner, houses, furniture, and every thing. Here we saw the Thames cover'd with goods floating, all the barges and boates laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on ye other, ye carts, &c., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strew'd with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world had not seene the like since the foundation of it, nor to be outdone till the universal conflagration. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, the light seene above forty miles round about for many nights. God grant my eyes may never behold the like, now seeing above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, ye shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of Towers, Houses, and Churches, was like an hideous storme, and the aire all about so hot and inflam'd that at last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc'd to stand still and let ye flames burn on, wch they did for neere two miles in length and one in bredth. The clouds of smoke were dismall, and reach'd upon computation neer fifty miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. London was, but is no more!

'Sept. 4.-The burning still rages, and it was now gotten as far as the Inner Temple, all Fleet Streete, the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, Paul's Chain, Watling Streete, now flaming, and most of it reduc'd to ashes; the stones of Paules flew like granados, ye melting lead running downe the streetes in a streame, and the very pavements glowing with fiery rednesse, so as no horse nor man was able to tread on them, and the demolition had stopp'd all the passages, so that no help could be applied. The Eastern wind still more impetuously drove the flames forward. Nothing but ye Almighty power of God was able to stop them, for vaine was ye help of man.

'Sept. 5.-It crossed towards Whitehall; Oh the confusion there was then at that Court! It pleas'd

his Maty to command me among ye rest to looke after the quenching of Fetter Lane, and to preserve if possible that part of Holborn, while the rest of ye gentlemen tooke their several posts (for now they began to bestir themselves, and not till now, who hitherto had stood as men intoxicated, with their hands acrosse), and began to consider that nothing was likely to put a stop but the blowing up of so many houses as might make a wider gap than any had yet ben made by the

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON.

ordinary method of pulling them down with engines; this some stout seamen propos'd early enough to have sav'd neare ye whole Citty, but this some tenacious and avaritious men, aldermen, &c., would not permit, because their houses must have ben of the first. It was therefore now commanded to be practic'd, and my concern being particularly for the hospital of St Bartholomew neere Smithfield, where I had many wounded and sick men, made me the more diligent to promote

it, nor was my care for the Savoy lesse. It now pleas'd God by abating the wind, and by the industry of ye people, infusing a new spirit into them, that the fury of it began sensibly to abate about noone, so as it came no farther than ye Temple Westward, nor than ye entrance of Smithfield North; but continu'd all this day and night so impetuous towards Cripplegate and the Tower, as made us all despaire: it also broke out againe in the Temple, but the courage of the multitude persisting, and many houses being blown up, such gaps and desolations were soone made, as with the former three days' consumption, the back fire did not so vehemently urge upon the rest as formerly. There was yet no standing neere the burning and glowing ruines by neere a furlong's space.

"The poore inhabitants were dispers'd about St George's Fields, and Moorefields, as far as Highgate, and severall miles in circle, some under tents, some under miserable hutts and hovells, many without a rag or any necessary utensills, bed or board, who from delicatenesse, riches, and easy accommodations in stately and well-furnish'd houses, were now reduc'd to extreamest misery and poverty.

'In this calamitous condition I return'd with a sad heart to my house, blessing and adoring the mercy of God to me and mine, who in the midst of all this ruine was like Lot, in my little Zoar, safe and Bound.

An abbreviation for his majesty.

'Sept. 7.-I went this morning on foote from Whitehall as far as London Bridge, thro' the late Fleete Streete, Ludgate Hill, by St Paules, Cheapeside, Exchange, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, and out to Moorefields, thence thro' Cornehille, &c., with extraordinary difficulty, clambering over heaps of yet smoking rubbish, and frequently mistaking where I was. The ground under my feete was so hot, that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. In the mean time his Maty got to the Tower by water, to demolish ye houses about the graff, which being built intirely about it, had they taken fire and attack'd the White Tower where the magazine of powder lay, would undoubtedly not only have beaten downe and destroy'd all ye bridge, but sunke and torne the vessells in ye river, and render'd ye demolition beyond all expression for several miles about the countrey.

'At my return I was infinitely concern'd to find that goodly Church St Paules now a sad ruine, and that beautifull portico (for structure comparable to any in Europe, as not long before repair'd by the King) now rent in pieces, flakes of vast stone split asunder, and nothing remaining intire but the inscription in the architrave, shewing by whom it was built, which had not one letter of it defac'd. It was astonishing to see what immense stones the heat had in a manner calcin'd, so that all ye ornaments, columns, freezes, and projectures of massie Portland stone flew off, even to ye very

roofe, where a sheet of lead covering a great space was totally mealted; the ruines of the vaulted roofe falling broke into St Faith's, which being fill'd with the magazines of bookes belonging to ye stationers, and carried thither for safety, they were all consum'd, burning for a weeke following. It is also observable that ye lead over ye altar at ye East end was untouch'd, and among the divers monuments, the body of one Bishop remain'd intire. Thus lay in ashes that most venerable Church, one of the most antient pieces of early piety in ye Christian world, besides neere 100 more. The lead, yron worke, bells, plate, &c. mealted; the exquisitely wrought Mercers Chapell, the sumptuous Exchange, ye august fabriq of Christ Church, all ye rest of the Companies Halls, sumptuous buildings, arches, all in dust; the fountaines dried up and ruin'd whilst the very waters remain'd boiling; the vorrago's of subterranean cellars, wells, and dungeons, formerly warehouses, still burning in stench and dark clouds of smoke, so that in five or six miles traversing about I did not see one load of timber unconsum'd, nor many stones but what were calcin'd white as snow. The people who now walk'd about ye ruines appear'd like men in a dismal desart, or rather in some greate citty laid waste by a cruel enemy; to which was added the stench that came from some poore creatures bodies, beds, &c. Sir Tho. Gresham's statue, tho' fallen from its nich in the Royal Exchange, remain'd intire, when all those of ye Kings since ye Conquest were broken to pieces, also the standard in Cornehill, and Q. Elizabeth's effigies, with some armes on Ludgate, continued with but little detriment, whilst the vast yron chaines of the Cittie streetes, hinges, bars and gates of prisons, were many of them mealted and reduced to cinders by ye vehement heate. I was not able to passe through any of the narrow streetes, but kept the widest, the ground and aire, smoake and fiery vapour, continu'd so intense that my haire was almost sing'd, and my feete unsufferably surheated. The bie lanes and narrower streetes were quite fill'd up with rubbish, nor could one have knowne where he was, but by ye ruines of some Church or Hall, that had some remarkable tower or pinnacle remaining. I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one might have seene 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees dispers'd and lying along by their heapes of what they could save from the fire, deploring their losse, and tho' ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny for relief, which to me appear'd a stranger sight than any I had yet beheld.'

RELICS OF LONDON SURVIVING THE FIRE.

At the time of the Great Fire, the walls of the City enfolded the larger number of its inhabitants. Densely packed they were in fetid lanes, overhung by old wooden houses, where pestilence had committed the most fearful ravages, and may be said to have always remained in a subdued form ready to burst forth. Suburban houses straggled along the great highways to the north; but the greater quantity lined the bank of the Thames toward Westminster, where court and parliament continually drew strangers. George Wither, the Puritan

SURVIVING THE FIRE.

poet, speaks of this in his Britain's Remembrancer, 1628:

'The Strand, that goodly thorow-fare betweene The Court and City; and where I have seene Well-nigh a million passing in one day.'

That industrious and accurate artist, Wenceslaus Hollar, busied himself from his old point of view, the tower of St Mary Overies, or, as it is now called, St Saviour's, Southwark, in delineating the appearance of the city as it lay in ruins. He afterwards engraved this, contrasting it with its appearance before the fire. From its contemplation, the awful character of the visitation can be fully felt. Within the City walls, and stretching beyond them to Fetter Lane westwardly, little but ruins remain; a few walls of public buildings, and a few church towers, mark certain great points for the eye to detect where busy streets once were. The whole of the City was burned to the walls, except a small portion to the north-east. have, consequently, lost in London all those ancient edifices of historic interest-churches crowded with memorials of its inhabitants, and buildings consecrated by their associations-that give so great a charm to many old cities. The few relics of these left by the fire have become fewer, as changes have been made in our streets, or general alterations demanded by modern taste. It will be, however, a curious and not unworthy labour to briefly examine what still remains of Old London edifices erected before the fire, by which we may gain some idea of the general character of the old city.

We

Of its grand centre-the Cathedral of St Paulwe can now form a mental photograph when contemplating the excellent views of interior and exterior, as executed by Hollar for Dugdale's noble history of the sacred edifice. It was the pride of the citizens, although they permitted its longdrawn aisles' to be degraded into a public promenade, a general rendezvous for the idle and the dissolute. The authors, particularly the dramatic, of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, abound with allusions to the walks in Paul's;' and Dekker, in his Gull's Hornbook, devotes due space to the instruction of a young gallant, new upon town, how he is to behave in this test of London dandyism. The poor hangers-on of these newfledged gulls, the Captains Bobadil, et hoc genus omne, hung about the aisles all day if they found no one to sponge upon. Hence came the phrase, to dine with Duke Humphrey,' as the tomb of that nobleman was the chief feature of the middle aisle; despite, however, of its general appropriation to him, it was in reality the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, son to the Earl of Warwick, who died in 1538-having lived at Baynard's Castle, a palatial residence on the banks of the Thames, also destroyed in the fire. The next important monument in the Old Cathedral was that of Sir Christopher Hatton, the famous dancing chancellor' of Queen Elizabeth; and of this some few fragments remain, and are still preserved in the crypt of the present building. Along with them are placed other portions of monuments, to Sir Nicholas, the father of the great Lord Bacon; of Dean Colet, the founder of St Paul's School; and of the poet,

6

*See a picture of Old St Paul's in our first volume,

p. 423.