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hear John Dryden2 talk. There were coffee-houses for every class.

9. The country gentlemen, now a 'polished and an important class, were, at the time of the Revolution, rough and poorly educated. Their lands yielded rents equal to about one-fourth of those now paid. Seldom leaving their native county even for London, they spent their days in field-sports or in attending the neighbouring markets. Drunkenness was a common and fashionable vice, and continued to be so more or less until the beginning of the present century.

10. The country clergy stood low in the social scale. In most mansions there was a chaplain, or, as he was often called, a Levite, who, receiving his board and £10 a-year, was no better than an upper servant. His wife was often taken from the kitchen of his patron. Even if he got a parish he lived and worked like a peasant: his sons were ploughmen, and his daughters went to service.

11. Of the labouring classes we know little. Four-fifths of them were employed in agriculture. In Devon, Suffolk, and Essex the highest wages were paid, averaging five shillings a-week without food. Those engaged in manufactures earned about six shillings a-week. The poor-rate was the heaviest tax, for the 'paupers amounted to no less than one-fifth of the community.

12. The Cavalier and the Roundhead presented a striking contrast in their dress and habits. Bright colours, 'profuse ornament, and graceful style marked the costume of the Cavalier. His richly

laced cloak, over which lay an embroidered collar, his broad-leafed hat of beaver with its white and flowing plume, his silken doublet, and his flowing

[graphic][merged small]

locks, made up a figure the most picturesque of any period in our history. The Puritan or Roundhead wore a cloak of sad-coloured brown or black, a plain collar of linen laid carelessly down on the plaited cloth, and a hat with a high steeple-shaped crown over his closely clipt or lank straight hair. 13. The roads were so bad that travelling was very difficult. Rich men travelled in their own coaches, but they were obliged often to have six horses to pull them through the mud. The inns were good and comfortable. 'Highwaymen, well

armed and mounted on fine horses, infested all the great roads; and it is said that many of the innkeepers were paid by them to give information about those travellers who were worth attacking.

14. There was nothing at all equal to our modern newspaper. The only paper allowed was The London Gazette, a two-paged sheet of very 'meagre contents, and issued twice a-week. An important feature of social life during this age was The Newsletter. This was an epistle, despatched to the country generally once a-week, giving all the chat. of the coffee-houses and the news of the capital. Several families 'subscribed to pay some Londoner, who gave them the scraps of news gathered during his rambles.

15. There were few printing-presses in the country except in London and at the Universities. The only press north of the Trent was at York. Books were therefore scarce and dear, and very few were to be found in the best country houses. In London the booksellers' shops were thronged with readers. The favourite and fashionable study of the later Stewart days was chemistry. Charles the Second had a laboratory in his palace at Whitehall. It was soon discovered that chemistry might be turned to the improvement of agriculture. Experiments were made on various soils, new fruits and vegetables were grown in the gardens, and farmers began to think that perhaps after all there might be some profit in the study of science.

a-bound-ed, was plentiful.

Co-mes-tic, household.

ex-qui-sites, fops.
free-boot-ers, robbers.

[hire.

cm-broi-dered, ornamented; braided hack-ney-coach, a coach let out for

[blocks in formation]

1. George the First was the first King of the House of Brunswick. He was in his fifty-fifth year when he came to the throne. His mother was

Sophia of Hanover, grand-daughter of James the First.1 He had married his cousin, Sophia of Brunswick, but had treated her very cruelly, having shut her up in a castle of Hanover for forty years, and not allowing her to see her own children.

2. His first act was to call on Parliament to punish those lords who had opposed his being King, and had favoured the Pretender, the son of James the Second, whose party took the name of Jacobites.2 The Earl of Oxford, who was their leader, was imprisoned for two years. Others of them fled to the Continent, and their estates were seized by the Crown.

3. A rebellion called "the Fifteen" then broke out in Scotland in favour of the Pretender. It was

1715

headed by the Earl of Mar, who raised an army of 10,000 men. His forces were defeated at Sheriffmuir,3 by the royal troops under A.D. the Duke of Argyle; and on the same day a rebel army, under the Earl of Derwentwater, was defeated at Preston.* The Earl of Mar fled with the Pretender to France. Derwentwater and many others were executed. Upwards of one thousand persons were banished to America.

1720

A. D.

4. Perhaps the strangest event of this reign was the famous "South Sea Bubble." The South Sea Company was started to lend money to the Government, and it was to have the 'sole right of trading to the South Seas. Stories were then told of great fortunes to be made by buying the shares of the Company, and thousands of people rushed to it with all the money they could bring together, in the hope of growing suddenly rich.

5. But the mighty Bubble soon burst. Shares which had cost ten times their value could not be sold at any price, and thousands of families were ruined.

1727

A. D.

6. During a visit to his subjects in Hanover, the King fell ill while travelling in his carriage, and died next day. Though King of England for thirteen years, he could neither write nor speak the English language! This made him unpopular; but he was an able ruler: his manners were 'simple, and he was a lover of peace.

for-tunes, riches; wealth.

shares, parts or portions of the profits
which the Company sold.
sim-ple, plain.

sole, only.

the

Con-ti-nent, some part of

Europe. [worth. their value, as much as they were un-pop-u-lar, not pleasing to the people.

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