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in 1672-a previous coinage of the year 1665 having been called in after only a very small portion of it had got into circulation. In 1684, the last year of his reign, Charles coined farthings of tin, with only a bit of copper in the middle. The figure, still retained, of Britannia sitting on a globe, holding in her right hand an olive-branch, and in her left a spear and shield, first appears on the copper coinage of this reign-having been modelled, it is said, after the celebrated court beauty, Miss Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond.

The money of James II. is of the same kind with that of his brother. His only farthings and halfpence, like those struck by Charles in the last year of his reign, are of tin, with a bit of copper in the centre. After his abdication he coined money in Ireland out of old brass guns and kitchen utensils, and attempted to make it current as sterling silver. Afterwards even the brass failed, and he was obliged to fabricate crowns, halfcrowns, shillings, and sixpences out of pewter.

The most important circumstance that occurred during the present period which materially affected the progress of the useful arts was the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., in 1685,* which compelled many thousands of French artisans to seek refuge in England. A numerous body of these emigrants settled in Spitalfields as silk-weavers; and their superior taste, skill, and ingenuity were displayed in the richness and variety of the silks, brocades, satins, and lutestrings which the looms of England soon afterwards produced. Fine paper for writing, which had been formerly imported, chiefly from France, was manufactured in England about the close of the period; and for the introduction of this improvement in the art of papermaking we were probably indebted to the refugees. The manufacture of glass was also greatly improved by foreign artisans whom the Duke of Buckingham brought from Venice about 1670.

With a view to extend the woollen-cloth manufacture, the great staple of the country, the exportation of wool and all materials used in scouring wool continued to be prohibited during the whole of the period. A singular law was passed in 1666 (the 18 Car. II. c. 4) for the encouragement of the woollen manufacture, by which it was directed that no person should be buried in any sort of grave-dress not entirely composed of wool, under a penalty of five pounds to be paid to the poor of the parish; and this having been found inadequate, another was passed in 1678 (the 30 Car. II. c. 3), which required persons in holy orders to take an affidavit in every case from a relative of the deceased, at the time of the interment, showing that the statute had been observed. In 1666 a person from the Netherlands came over with several of his countrymen, and set up an establishment for dyeing and dressing white woollen cloths, in which we had been surpassed by foreigners. About the See ante, p. 783 (where, however, in the note, 1636 is printed by mistake for 1685).

• VOL. III.

same time, or perhaps a few years afterwards, an improved weaving-machine, called the Dutch loom, was brought into England from Holland.*

Guernsey and Jersey, with the other Channel Islands, were partially exempted from an act passed in 1660, prohibiting the exportation of wool from England, being allowed to receive under licence 3300 tods of uncombed wool, the weight of each tod not to exceed thirty-two pounds. The manufacture of stockings and hosiery, for which these islands have since been celebrated, soon became very flourishing; and it is said that those engaged in this branch of industry in other parts of England, particularly in Somersetshire, complained of the privileges their competitors enjoyed in being allowed to import wool in the raw state.

In 1666 an act was passed for encouraging the manufacture and making of linen cloth and tapestry, and extraordinary encouragement was offered to those who set up the trade of hemp-dressing or any others connected with the manufacture of linen. Foreigners, after being engaged in these trades for the space of three years, were to be considered as natural-born subjects on taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.† In 1669 certain French Protestants settled at Ipswich, and manufactured fine linens which were sold as high as 15s. an ell. During the present period the manufacture of linens, introduced by the Scotch into the north of Ireland, was gradually rising into importance.

The printing of calicos was commenced in London in 1676, in imitation of the fabrics of India, which were now in very general use. A writer of the day remarks that, "instead of green say, that was wont to be used for children's frocks, is now used painted and Indian and striped calico, and instead of a perpetuano or a shallon to line men's coats with, is used sometimes a glazed calico, which in the whole is not 12d. cheaper and abundantly worse."

London continued to be almost the only place in which the silk manufacture was carried on; though a writer in 1678 observes that there was to be found" here and there a silk-weaver (of late years) in small cities and market-towns." In reply to a petition of the weavers, complaining of the importation of silk goods from India, the East India Company put forth a statement, in 1681, showing that since they had begun importing raw silk the manufacture in England had increased three-fourths. By an act passed in 1662, silkthrowsters were required to serve an apprenticeship of seven years to their trade. About 1680 it is noticed that there had been "engines of late invented that do weave only narrow ribands;" but these were of such inferior quality that none but

The following extract from a work published in 1677 will perhaps be interesting to those who have a technical knowledge of the woollen manufacture:-" Every 2 lhs, of wool, which is worth about 20d., will make a yard of kersey worth about 5s, or 68.; and every 4 lbs. of wool, worth about 3s. 4d., will make a yard of broad-cloth worth 11s. or 12s-Ancient Trades Decayed. +15 Car. II. c. 15.

Ancient Trades Decayed.

§ 14 Car. II. c. 5.

5 т

hawkers and pedlers would have anything to do

with them.

By an act passed in 1662 the importation of foreign bone-lace, cut-work, embroidery, fringe, band-strings, buttons, and needle-work was prohibited, on the ground that many persons obtained a living in England by making these articles, in which they used a large quantity of silk.*

In the metallic manufactures we have to notice the introduction of the art of tinning plate-iron from Germany, by Andrew Yarranton, an ingenious man who was sent over by a company to learn the process. He brought some German workmen back with him, and the manufacture was proceeding very successfully, when, as it is stated, a person enjoying favour at court having made himself acquainted with Yarranton's process, obtained a patent, and the first undertakers were obliged to abandon their enterprise. The first wire-mill in England is said to have been erected during this period by a Dutchman, at Sheen (Richmond), in Surrey. A yellow metal resembling gold was also made for the first time. The inventor being under the patronage of Prince Rupert

14 Car. II. c. 13.

(Duke of Cumberland), the name given to this material was 66 prince's metal," by which name it

is still known.

A floating-machine, worked by horses, for towing large ships against wind and tide, and a diving-machine, were amongst the mechanical inventions which obtained Prince Rupert's patronage. The latter was soon turned to profitable account, Sir William Phipps employing it in bringing up treasure from a Spanish ship which had been lost in the West Indies.

Since the cities and incorporated towns had been gradually losing their exclusive privileges, the number of persons living by trade and industry had greatly increased. During the present period complaints are made of "petty shopkeepers living in country villages ;" and it is stated by one writer that "now, in every country village where is, it may be, not above ten houses, there is a shopkeeper, and one that never served an apprenticeship to a shopkeeping trade whatsoever." They are described as "not dealers in pins only," but as carrying on a good trade. The "ruin" of cities and market-towns was predicted from this

cause.

CHAPTER V.

THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE FINE ARTS.

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of Norwich, no work of genius of the first class appeared in England in the twenty years from the meeting of the Long Parliament to the Restoration, and the literary productions having any enduring life in them at all that are to be assigned to that space make but a very scanty sprinkling. It was a time when men wrote and thought, as they acted, merely for the passing moment. The unprinted plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, indeed, were now sent to the press, as well as other dramatic works written in the last age, the theatres, by which they used to be published in another way, being shut up-a significant intimation, rather than anything else, that the great age of the drama was at an end. A new play continued to drop occasionally

See ante, p. 613.

from the commonplace pen of Shirley-almost the solitary successor of the Shakspeares, the Fletchers, the Jonsons, the Massingers, the Fords, and the rest of that bright throng. All other poetry, as well as dramatic poetry, was nearly silent-hushed partly by the din of arms and of theological and political strife, more by the frown of triumphant puritanism, boasting to itself that it had put down all the other fine arts as well as poetry, never again to lift their heads in England. It is observable that even the confusion of the contest that lasted till after the king's death did not so completely banish the muses, or drown their voice, as did the grim tranquillity under the sway of the parliament that followed. The time of the war, besides the treatises just alluded to of Milton, Taylor, and Browne, produced the Cooper's Hill and some other poetical pieces by Denham, and the republication of the Comus and other early poems of Milton; the collection of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher and Cowley's volume entitled "The Mistress" appeared in 1647, in the short interval of doubtful quiet between the first and the second war; the volume of Herrick's poetry was published the next year, while the second war was still raging, or immediately after its close; Lovelace's first volume, in 1649, probably before the execution of the king. Hobbes's Leviathan and one or two other treatises of his, all written some time before, were printed in London in 1650 and 1651, while the author was resident in Paris. For some years from this date the blank is nearly absolute. Then, when the more liberal despotism of Cromwell had displaced the Presbyterian moroseness of the parliament, we have Fuller's Church History printed in 1655; Harrington's Oceana, and the collection of Cowley's poetry, in 1656; Browne's Hydriotaphia and Garden of Cyrus, in 1658; Lovelace's second volume, and Hales's Remains, in 1659; together with two or three philosophical publications by Hobbes, and a few short pieces in verse by Waller, of which the most famous is his Panegyric on Oliver Cromwell, written after the Protector's death, an occasion which also afforded its first considerable theme to the ripening genius of Dryden. It is to be noted, moreover, that, with one illustrious exception, none of the writers that have been named belonged to the prevailing faction;-if Waller and Dryden took that side in their verses for a moment, it must be admitted that they both amply made up for their brief conformity; Denham, Browne, Taylor, Herrick, Lovelace, Fuller, Hales, Hobbes, Cowley, were all consistent, most of them ardent, royalists; Harrington was a theoretical republican, but even he was a royalist by personal attachments; Milton alone was in life and heart a Commonwealth-man and a Cromwellian.

From the appearance of his minor poems, in 1645, Milton had published no poetry, with the exception of a sonnet to Henry Lawes, the musician, prefixed to a collection of Psalm tunes by that composer in 1648, till he gave to the world his

Paradise Lost, in Ten Books, in 1667. In 1671 appeared his Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes; in 1673 a new edition of his minor poems, with nine new sonnets and other additions; and in 1674, what is properly the second edition of the Paradise Lost, now divided into Twelve Books. He died on Sunday, the 8th of November, in that year, when within about a month of completing the sixty-sixth year of his age. His prose writings have been already noticed in the preceding Book.* Verse, however, was the form in which his genius had earliest expressed itself, and also that in which he had first come forth as an author. Passing over his paraphrases of one or two Psalms done at a still earlier age, we have abundant promise of the future great poet in his lines "On the Death of a Fair Infant," beginning,

O fairest flower, no sooner blown but blasted, written in his seventeenth year; and still more in the "College Exercise," written in his nineteenth year. A portion of this latter is almost as prophetic as it is beautiful; and, as the verses have not been much noticed,† we will here give a few of them :

Hail, native Language, that by sinews weak
Did'st move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad'st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half-unpronounced, slide through my infant lips :

I have some naked thoughts that rove about,
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And, weary of their place, do only stay
Till thou hast deck'd them in their best array. }

Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound;
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door
Look in, and see each blissful deity

How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings

To the touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:

Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow, and lofts of piled thunder,
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In heaven's defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings, and queens, and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn songs at King Alcinous' feast,
While sad Ulysses' soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.

This was written in 1627. Fourteen years later, after his return from Italy, where some of his juvenile Latin compositions, and some others in the same language, which, as he tells us, he "had shifted in scarcity of books and conveniences to patch up amongst them, were received with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps ;" and when, assenting in so far to these commendations, and not less to an inward prompting which now grew daily upon him, he had ventured to indulge the hope that, by labour and study-" which I take,"

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