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    fe ^ lapd in m MWk century " - * - * - %££ * £ * £ * Sr fS ^ r ^ s ^ ts ^ S ^^ ^ js ^ jniis SSSsSL »* 5 y == ^ ^ .- ; alarmed tbe g ^ J" ^ ° t j Ues the decay of the trade of the town ; and « &MSTrf 5 tiST-toSSZJ ^ would io . pl / . general collapse of the trade tbei decay of «"« g " ^ ailed towns , however , before the Reformation , existed for %££££ * T ££ 5 » the ceSrepSnts of industry : they existed for the protection rfSSSXilX ; and although it is not unlikely that the agitation of the Refor-££ 7 S 2 fdld to some degree interrupt the occupation of the peopleyetI believe Sat the true account of the henomenon which then bo much disturbed the

    parliap ment , is , that one of their purposes was no longer required ; the towns flagged for a time because the country bad become secure . The woollen manufacture in Worcestershire was spreading into the open country , and , doubtless , in other counties as well- and the ' beautiful houses' which had fallen into decay , were those which , in the old times of insecurity , had been occupied by wealthy merchants and tradesmen , who were now enabled , by a strong and settled government , to dispense with the shelter of locked gates and fortified walls , and remove their residences to more convenient situations . It was , in fact , the first symptom of the impending social revolution . Two years before the passing of this Act , the magnificent Hengrave Hall , in Suffolk had been completed by Sir Thomas Kitson , ' mercer of London , ' and Sir Thomas Kitson was but one of many of the rising merchants who were now able to root themselves on the land by the side of the Norman nobility , first to rival , and then

    slowly to displace them . Mr . Froude does full justice to the arbitrary yet efficient social organization of that day , which was suited to that day though it would not be to our own , and adds : — Again , in the distribution of the produce of land , men dealt fairly and justly with each , other ; and in the material condition of the bulk of the people there is a fair evidence that the system worked efficiently and well . It worked well f < - > r the support of a sturdy high-hearted race , sound in body and fierce in spirit , and furnished with thews and sinews which , under the stimulus of those " great shins of beef , " their common diet , were the wonder of the age . " What comyn folke in all this world , " says a state paper in 1515 , " may compare with the comyns of England in riches , freedom , liberty , welfare , and all prosperity ? What comyn folke is so mighty , so strong in the felde , as the comyns of England ? " The relative numbers of the French and English armies which fought at Cressy and Agincourt may have been

    exaggerated , but no allowance for exaggeration will affect the greatness of those exploits ; and in stories of authentic actions under Henry VIII ., where the accuracy of the account is undeniable , no disparity of force made Englishmen shrink from enemies wherever they could meet them . Again and again a few thousands of them carried dismay into the heart of France . Four hundred adventurers , vagabond apprentices from-London , who formed a volunteer corps in the Calais garrison , were for years the terror of Normandy . In the very frolic of conscious . power they fought and plundered , without pay , without reward , except what they could win for themselves ; and when they fell at last , they fell only when surrounded by six times their number , and were cut to pieces in careless desperation . Invariably , by friend and enemy alike , the English are described as the fiercest people in all Europe ( the English wild beasts , Benvenuto Cellini calls them ) : and this great physical power they owed to the profuse abundance in which they lived , and to the soldier ' s training in which every man of them was bred from childhood .

    He correctly estimates the true condition of the working classes by a comparison of their wages with the price of food , both of which were fixed by act of Parliament . Very curious are the details he has here brought together . We borrow the following : — Beef and pork were a halfpenny a pound—mutton was three farthing 3 . They were fixed at these prices by the 3 rd of the 24 th of Hen . VIII . But this act was unpopular both with buyers and with sellers . The old practice had been to sell in the gross , and under that arrangement the rates had been generally lower . Stowe Bays , " It was this year enacted that butchers should sell their beef and mutton by weightbeef for a halfpenny the pound , and mutton for three farthings ; which being devised

    for the great commodity of the realm ( as it was thought ) , hath proved far otherwise : for at that time fat oxen were sold for six-and-twenty shillings and eightpence the piece ; fat wethers for three shillings and fourpence the piece ; fat calves at a like price ; and fat lambs for twelvepence . The butchers of London sold penny pieces of beef for the relief of the poor—every piece two pound and a half , sometimes three pound for a penny ; and thirteen and sometimes fourteen of these pieces for twelvepence ; mutton eightpence the quarter , and an hundred weight of beef for four shillings and eightpence . " The act was repealed in consequence of the complaints against it , but the prices never fell again to what they had been , although beef sold in the gross could still be had for a halfpenny a pound in 1570 .

    Strong beer , such as we now buy for eighteenpence a gallon , was then a penny a gallon ; and table-beer less than a halfpenny . French and German wines were eightpence the gallon . Spanish and Portuguese wines a shilling . This was the highest price at which the best wines might be sold ; and if there was any fault in quality or quantity , the dealers forfeited four times the amount . Rent , another important consideration , cannot bo fixed so accurately , for parliament did not interfere with it . JJere , however , we are not without very tolerable information . " My father , " says Latimer , " was a yeoman , and had no lands of his own ; only ho had a . farm , of three , or four pounds by the year at the uttermost , and hereupon he tilled bo much as kept half a 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 . I remember that I buckled on his harness when he went to Blackheath field . lie kept me to school , or else I had not been able to have preached before the king's majesty now . He married my sisters with five pounds , or twenty nobles , each , having 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 . " If ' three or four pounds at the uttermost" was the rent of a farm yielding such results , the rent of labourora' cottages is not likely to havo been considerable .

    I am below the truth , therefore , with this scale of prices in assuming the penny in terms of a labourer ' s necessities to have been equal in the reign of Henry VIII . to the present shilling . For a penny , at the time of which I write , the labourer could buy more bread , beef , beer , and wine—ho could do more towards finding lodging for himself and his family—than the labourer of the nineteenth century can for a shilling . I do not see that thla admits of question . Turning , then , to the table of wages , it will be easy to ascertain ; hU position . By tho 8 rd of the 6 th of Henry VIII . it waa enacted that master carpenters , masons , bricklayers , tilers , plumbers , glaziers , joiners , Mid other employers of such , skilled workmen , should give to enoh of their journeymen , if no meat or drink waa allowed , sixpence a day for half tho year , fivopence a day for the other half ; or flvepence halfpenny for the yearly average . Tho common labourers were to receive fourpenco a day for half tho year , for tho remaining half , threepence . In the harvest months they were allowed to work by the piece , and

    might earn considerably more ; bo that , in fact ( and this was the rate at which their wages were usually estimated ) , the day labourer received on an average fourpence a day for the whole year . Nor was he in danger , except by his own fault or by unusual accident , of being thrown out of employ ; for he was engaged by contract for not less than a year , and could not be dismissed before his term had expired , unless some gross misconduct could be proved against him before two magistrates Allowing a deduction of one day in the week for a saint ' s day or a holiday , he received , therefore , steadily and regularly , if well conducted , ah equivalent of twenty shillings a week : twenty shillings a week and a holiday : and this is far from leinea

    -, mm . — - ¦ . -m . T __ _ A . 1 •* A . - . 11 . « O ** full account of his advantages . In most parishes , if not in all , there were large ranges of common and unenclosed forest land , which furnished his fuel to him gratis where pigs might range , and ducks and geese ; where , if he could afford a cow , he was in no danger of being unable to feed it ; and so important was this privilege considered , that when the commons began to be largely enclosed , parliament insisted that the working man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his own and his family ' s industry . By the 7 th of the 31 st of Elizabeth , it was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the occupants of such cottage .

    Arbitrary the Government was , to a degree which will make the present generation marvel , and cruel it was , for the people were fierce and cruel , so that we must not be much surprised at the following : —

    LAW AGAINST BEGGARS . For an able-bodied man to be caught a third time begging was held a crime deserving death , and the sentence was intended , on fit occasions , to be executed . The poor man ' s advantages , which I have estimated at so high a rate , were not purchased without drawbacks . He might not change his master at his will , or wander from place to place . He might not keep his children at his home unless he could answer for their time . If out of employment , preferring to be idle , he might be demanded for work by any master of the " craft" to which he belonged , and compelled to work whether he would or no . If caught begging once , being neither aged nor infirm , he was whipped at the cart ' s tail . If caught a second time , his ear was slit , or bored through -with a hot iron . If caught a third time , being thereby proved to be of no use upon this earth , but to live upon it only to his own hurt and to that of others , he suffered death as a felon . So the law of England remained for sixty years . First drawn by Henry , it continued unrepealed through the reigns of Edward and of Mary , subsisting , therefore , with the deliberate approval of both the great parties between whom the country was divided . Reconsidered under Elizabeth , the same law was again formally passed ;

    and it was , therefore , the expressed conviction of the English nation , that it was better for a man not to live at all than to live a profitless and worthless life . The vagabond was a sore spot upon the commonwealth , to be healed by wholesome discipline if the gangrene was not incurable ; to be cut away with the knife if the milder treatment of the cart-whip failed to be of profit . After this chapter , the chapters which will be read with the most general interest are those in the second volume which trace the early struggles of Protestantism , the many martyrdoms , on both sides , the curious admixture of religious and political interests—which has continued to the present clay to give religion in England a quite peculiar position—and the trial of Anne

    Boleyn . A more important or more interesting section of English history cannot easily be named than that comprised within the second of Mr . Froude ' s volumes ; but it is one which has been so distorted by political and religious prejudices on both sides that the historian ' s task is excessively delicate , unless he boldly adopt a partisan view , and leave to others to take the opposite . Mr . Froude is given to historical paradox , but he is extremely anxious to weig h evidence , and give each fact its due significance ; he states the case of Anne Boleyn , for instance , with scrupulous fairness , and leaves us in great perplexity as to which side to take , although he plainly indicates the side he himself takes .

    Mr . Froude is a master of narrative and in the rare art of ordonnanee of vast material , so that the whole subject is marshalled clearly before the reader in a shape to leave in the memory a durable impression . We can remember no book which surpasses it in this respect ; and one great result of the art is that we rise from the work with a feeling of having received solid instruction in an easy manner .

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    A LADY IN PERSIA . Glimj ) ses of Life and Manners in Persia . By Lady Sheil . Mu" " ^" Half of Persia , said a Scotch traveller , is a desert with salt . The other halt is a desert without salt . Lady Sheil , who is a competent wilness almost ratifies this description . When you sec a desolate plain or broad valley , sue says , with no trees , except a few willows and poplars grouped about t ic thinly-scattered villages , you see an epitome of Persian scenery , except on lie coasts of the Caspian . To believe the lyrists , Persian and others , would be to imagine a land red with roses , a vast paradise of nightingales and boweis , of resplendent cities , and Lights of tho World , each as bright as the young summer moon . Lady Shcil , whose Persian dreams had probably been this lieuov " Lalla Itookh , " seems to have been disappointed by the first glimpse ol all tiuu remains of a mighty ancient empire . A certain scepticism stole into her mi " when she remembered that these were the dominions of the Great King , vm

    they are among the disforested territories of Asia . Ladoucctie and -Laiuciu have proved the extraordinary changes worked in Persia by the destruction oiu woods ; so that , without accepting all that the ancient writers report as to w j opulence of tho Persian Empire—entire plains formed into gardens and sliadui alleys—rivers consumed in irrigation—foliage overhanging the l » g » wftys- ™«' air sweet with tho scent of flowers—we may conceive that , at a ionncr cpou . Lady Sheil would have found the " fine villages smothered m immense g dens , orchards of tho most delicious fruits , and vineyards ' '"{ "V ^ X than in the nineteenth century . Wherever the East is under the ^ TJlZ wants to become

    of Eastern rulers , it is in a state of decay . AH that Persia prosperous is the cultivation of tho soil . A century of beneficent govcri n < u might restore all that tho Tartars ruined , all that was destroyed by ^ "g ' V and Holagou . Yet . in Persia , in spite of its barbarism and poverty , 1 . troimuch to attract tho European mind . And Lady Shed enjoyed , an Jl < iv »"'' 5 . not conferred on Malcolm , notwithstanding his charming stones—or on u diplomatist Porter , though he made the best use of his eyes in Cirousa > on Moricr , familiarly ns ho talks—or on Kinncir , whom she ought not J havo forgotten in her list of preceding writers : she lived in the anderoons , homes of tho Persian women , tho harems of the Shah , and of several noMo * , and is enabled , therefore , to become the anccdotist of female manners m i «»

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    KAA THE LBABBB , [ No . 324 , Saturday , O 4 nB _^^__ __^__^^^ i ^— ii-tts ~ t ~ -- — ~ ' ~ ; — zm ^^^_

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2144/page/16/