ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY.

dred and fifty-two Turnpike Acts were passed." Ch. 14. This course of legislation soon wrought a material change in the aspect, the social relations, the wealth and manners of the country. Revolutions which neither sumptuary laws nor Orders in Council can retard or promote, are thus brought about by laws which are not thought of sufficient importance to be recorded in the principal volumes of the statute-book.

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The neatness and taste which now surround Want of taste in country the humblest villa seldom adorned the residence mansions. of a country gentleman before 1760. Landscapegardening was confined' to the seats of the great proprietors; and even a common flower-garden was not a usual appendage to the house of a gentleman qualified to be knight of the shire. The house itself, though a substantial structure, was rarely kept in the state of repair and cleanliness which the modern sense of comfort and decency requires. The stables and kennels were close to the house, occupying the site which is now covered with conservatories and parterres. The rough fields through which this gloomy mansion was approached, presented a very different aspect to the highly-cultivated lands and neat enclosures which now surround a lawn, laid out in well-kept walks, and ornamented by shrubs and plants from every quarter of the globe.

It is not surprising that the more opulent of

"CHALMERS' Estimate of the Strength of Great Britain.

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Ch. 14.

Increase of visitors to London.

INCREASE OF VISITORS

the country families were impatient of a life which presented as few attractions as the backwoods of America at the present day. Accordingly, notwithstanding proclamations and sumptuary edicts, the tide of emigration to London which set in soon after the accession of the Tudors, went on swelling with a rapidity which writers and statisticians regarded with wonder and alarm. I have already referred to Evelyn's estimate of the great increase of the metropolis in his time. Another writer, a few years later, describes the new town lately sprung up from Piccadilly to Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street), as covering an area larger than the cities of Bristol, Exeter, and York put together. The increased resort to the capital caused a rapid improvement in the internal communications of the country; and, in the first year of George the Third, we find it complained, that, in consequence of the facilities afforded by turnpike-roads and stage coaches, London manners had contaminated the country, French cookery was superseding the rude hospitality of the squires, and every little town imitated the fashions of the metropolis.y This is an exaggerated picture; but there is no doubt that the manners of the rural gentry had, to a great extent, been civilised when George the Third began his reign. The ignorant, boisterous, drinking squire was to be

X

Tour through England, 1748. Vol. ii. p. 107.

y Annual Register, 1761, p. 205.

TO THE METROPOLIS.

found for many years after that era, and is not yet wholly extinct, but he had ceased to infest the country. The wife of a country gentleman was no longer content with the position of a housekeeper, and her daughters received an education very different from that of young ladies in the time of Queen Anne. They learned the ordinary accomplishments, and the rudiments, at least, of a more solid education, at a boarding-school; and a winter in London, or a season at Bath, sufficed to remove any rusticity or bashfulness which might have survived the discipline of the seminary.

Ch. 14.

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ment of clubs,

Up to the middle of the century, gaming con- Establishtinued to be the principal amusement of fashionable assemblies; but, after the establishment of gaming clubs, play was conducted on too large a scale, and was too engrossing a pursuit to be followed in mixed society. Other diversions, in which both sexes could take part, were invented about this time. Numerous places of public amusement were opened in London and the suburbs. As the fashionable dinner-hour was at three or four, the evening commenced about seven o'clock. The theatre, a card-drum, a ball, and, occasionally, a masquerade, had for many years constituted the varied round of dissipation in the metropolis. But the increasing crowds which

Lady Hervey, in 1748, writes: "Tis really prodigious to see how deep the ladies play.'-Memoirs, p. 139.

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Ch. 14.

Places of fashionable amusement.

PLACES OF PUBLIC AMUSEMENT.

annually flocked to London required a sphere of society more extended than the narrow pale of fashion. Ranelagh, Vauxhall, Cornelys's, and the Pantheon were among the principal places of resort for persons of fashion, and those who desired to be so considered. These places were adapted to every taste, and offered dissipation for every day. The chief of them was Ranelagh, a large building at Chelsea, the attraction of which ceased only at the commencement of the present certury. A fine band was stationed in the orchestra; the large area of the building was appropriated to the company, who desired to walk about and mix with the promiscuous throng; and boxes opening into the garden were provided for the accommodation of those who preferred more select society. Here the gossip and scandal of the town were regularly retailed. The fashions were discussed; the pretensions of reigning toasts were canvassed; the jointures of widows and the fortunes of young ladies were keenly calculated by spendthrifts, gamblers, and gentlemen from the sister island.

To Ranelagh, visitors from the country and foreigners always repaired, to see the world of London and English society. Many persons, who did not venture into other public assemblies, found nothing objectionable in the Rotunda at Chelsea. Dignified clergy, statesmen, philosophers, authors, here mingled with fops, fine ladies, country gentlemen, city people, apprentices, kept-mistresses, highwaymen and thieves. But these assembly

RANELAGH AND VAUXHALL.

Ch. 14.

rooms, though open to the public, were, to a certain degree, kept select by the price of admission; and spacious well-arranged halls, where people could walk about without inconvenience or restraint, meet their friends, and see a variety of manners, while conversation was relieved by brilliant music, must have been far more agreeable than the modern fashion of crowded assemblies at private houses, or formal concerts at which no voices must be heard but those of the paid, or still worse, perhaps, of the unprofessional performers. But there were other assemblies a century ago, for which even the dreary dissipation of 1857 is a happy exchange. We have abandoned, I hope for ever, the manifold profligacy of Vauxhall, Cornelys's, and the Pantheon. The gardens on the Surrey side of the river were frequented by persons of fashion up to a recent period; but no person now living has witnessed the debaucheries which were of nightly occurrence at Vauxhall from the time of Queen Anne to an advanced period of the reign of George the Third. The boxes were scenes of drunkenness and riot. The dark vistas and secluded alleys were infamous for still more heinous vice and crime. A lady, who, by a chance which frequently occurred, lost for a few minutes the protection of her party, was in imminent danger of insult or even outrage. Young women of every condition were, in every place of public resort, unless vigilantly watched, exposed to impertinence from persons who, by

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