them, with great audacity and vehemence, swore that he would cut Steele's throat or teach him better manners. 'In this country,' said Lord Forbes, 'you will find it easier to cut a purse than to cut a throat.' His brother officers joined with his lordship, and turned the cut-throats out with every mark of disgrace. 13. The City. By this time the thoughtful reader will begin to wonder where all the money came from to support the life of London. It came from great landed estates in the country on the one hand, and from a rapidly growing commerce on the other. "When I have been upon the 'Change,' says the Spectator in one of its issues, "I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person where he is represented in effigy and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury." The community centering about this enormous mine of wealth was called in distinction from the court and the aristocracy the "city," and its members were known as 1 For further descriptions of the Coffee-House, see the Spectator, Nos. 46, 49, 148, 197, 403. 2 Exchange. "citizens." In this region were gathered the great merchants of the realm. Every day they increased in power; every day they grew prouder of their increasing wealth. Their wealth, however, could not save them from the witticisms of the clever fellows about town. Too often, indeed, the witticisms were well deserved. The average merchant was apt to be pompous and self-important, and the very fact that he could not get admittance to a lord's levees or a lady's routs1 only made him strut a little more vaingloriously. There were few merchants as dignified as Sir Andrew Freeport,2 and few clever writers willing to treat him with as much respect as the editors of the Spectator show to that worthy gentleman. It was not from the "city," however, that men of fashion drew their wealth. It came for the most part from the rents of landed estates in the country. This land had descended to them from their fathers, and, however great the debts which they slipped off their shoulders when they too went to their graves, this land would for the most part descend to their eldest sons, who could neither dispose of it nor bequeath it elsewhere. Creditors might make up their losses as best they could, and younger sons, at least those who could not live on the generosity of their elder brothers, were left to their own resources. To these younger sons, 14. The Landed Interest. 1 The term used for fashionable assemblies in the eighteenth century. 2 See page 58, in this volume. only three kinds of employment seemed honorable,statecraft, fighting in her Majesty's army or navy, and the Church; or, if the estates of the father had been comparatively small, they might, without disgrace, try law or medicine. Meanwhile, their elder brothers kept up the honor of the family name. 15. Travel into the Country. Many landlords, however, seldom, if ever saw the city of London. To know their manner of life, one must travel into the country districts; and journeying was slow and dangerous. Every highway of importance was marked by gibbets, and from many a gibbet hung the corpse of a highwayman. The coaches were without springs, and the roads were almost intolerable. “On the best lines of communication," says one writer, "ruts were so deep and obstructions so formidable that it was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the road became available. Seldom could two vehicles pass each other unless one of them stopped." The inns along the route were identified to a passer-by by their grotesque signs, but to the old stager they must have stood out even more distinctly for the oddities of the host or hostess. Few of these worthies probably had ever stepped out of their own county. Many of them probably had never been a half-day's ride from home. A journey made from county to county was like an ocean voyage thirty years ago. The passengers quickly got acquainted. And wherever they stopped the men always paid for the women's refreshments as well as their own. 16. The Country Gentleman. It was only after some such journey as this that one came into the petty territories of the small country gentleman, where, the year round, he lived among his tenants. His house was usually either of plaster striped with timber, or else of red brick with long bow-windows. Unpleasantly close to his house was his stable, and usually the whole space between was little better than a stable-yard. The owner himself was generally a roystering fellow who devoted his attention to hunting, cock-fighting, smoking, drinking, and lording it over his neighbors. He might follow the fox or the hare wherever it went, though he trampled down the standing grain on his tenants' or his neighbors' estates. If his income were of a certain figure, he might confiscate to his own use the guns, nets, and traps which he found in the possession of the man of more ordinary means.1 In his pleasures, the law gave him the privileges of a petty despot. 17. Hunting Fashions. In the half century before the Spectator was published, travel to and from London had grown a little more common. In that same period, the country squires had fallen into the habit of meeting occasionally at some central bowling-green to bowl, dine, dance, or discuss the news of the county. Still, 1 This privilege was given him by the game act. A man had to have forty pounds a year in rents or a handsomer sum in other forms of property before he was allowed to hunt. A man with a hundred pounds a year in rents had the privilege of confiscation. the ordinary squire seldom if ever saw London; and he cared less for his neighbors than he did for his hounds, his horses, his pipe, and his beer. In fashions, he always lagged behind the age. Like his father, he selected his hounds not so much for their speed as for the musical effects of their voices when they blended in the chase. His hunting too was primitive. Much of the land was still so overrun with bogs and ditches that the master of the pack had to follow the dogs on foot, and by the long pole he balanced in his hand vault the spots which the men on horseback had carefully to skirt. 18. The Country Squire. The administration of much of the county law was left in the hands of the country gentlemen. The humblest office open to them was that of justice of the peace, which brought with it the honorary title of "Squire." In this capacity, they gave marriage certificates, bound disorderly persons over to keep the peace, and in criminal courts, meeting quarterly and known as quarter-sessions, administered the highway, game, and poor laws. Twice a year the judges of the superior courts held court sessions-known as assizes-in the various counties of England, and summoned such squires as were "eminent for knowledge and prudence" to sit with them. This body of "eminent" squires was known as the quorum. In addition to receiving such honors, the landed gentleman might be elected "Sheriff of the County," an office which gave him the right to appear on state occasions in court dress; or, if he were a |