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1611.]

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.

353

there was no attempt to write down to the understandings of the people. The great preachers at Paul's Cross, in common with the great dramatic poets, employed the most elevated language and the richest imagery, in union with the most homely phrases. If some of their sentences were involved, some of their words unfamiliar, their arguments perplexing in their subtlety, their metaphors beyond the range of ordinary comprehension, the whole tendency of what they uttered was to elevate the minds of their readers. Their doctrine might be abstruse, their illustrations pedantic, but their tone was not cold and passionless. The rudest listener caught something of their

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excitement; the instructed listener did not retire into his own thoughts, wearied by platitudes and babyisms. The preachers, whether they followed the high-church archbishop Bancroft, or the puritan archbishop Abbot, were in earnest. They had great truths to proclaim to all men alike, and they tasked their abilities and their learning to utter them as if they really felt their grandeur and solemnity.

Whatever were the differences of opinion in the English Church, and however great the increase of non-conformists, the time for any serious attempt to re-establish Roman-Catholicism in England had evidently passed

VOL. IIL

354

away.

IRELAND-PLANTATION OF ULSTER.

[1611. It was the same in Scotland. But in Ireland the great bulk of the people still clung to the Roman Catholic worship. At the beginning of the reign of James the people of some cities boldly ejected the Protestant ministers from their churches; and they gave other demonstrations of a general resistance to the statutes of supremacy and uniformity which had been passed in the Irish parliament. They were met by a stricter execution of the laws against recusants and priests, as far as juries could be found to enforce them. In the meantime much had been done to bring the whole of the kingdom under the dominion of one system of law. The king's writ now ran in every part. Old customs which interfered with the administration of justice were abolished. The possession of lands by the chieftains was regulated according to English tenures; and the tenants were relieved from many of the exactions of their lords. The one evil which interfered with the tranquil progress of civilisation was the exclusion from civil privileges and offices which the majority had to endure, on account of their faith, at the hands of the minority. The great Irish chieftains, Tyrone and Tyrconnel, had submitted to the government of James, and had been graciously received at the English court. But the alterations in the tenure of lands had interfered with what they considered their territorial rights; and the denial of all toleration to the Roman Catholics had led them to conclude that resistance to the government might once more be attempted. In 1607 they suddenly departed from Ireland, with their families. They had embarked in treasonable schemes which they had no power to carry through. Tyrone became a pensioner of Spain and of the pope, and died in 1616 at Rome. The two earls having been attainted of treason and outlawed, their lands, to the extent of five hundred thousand acres, were forfeited to the crown. It is to the honour of the government of James that this opportunity was judiciously employed in accomplishing what is called "the plantation of Ulster." Extraordinary inducements were held out to English capitalists to settle in the north of Ireland; the corporation of London received large grants of lands in the county of Derry, upon their engagement to spend £20,000 upon the colony, and to build two towns. Hence the cities of Londonderry and Coleraine. The lord deputy, sir Arthur Chichester, carried through this project with great energy and prudence. The mistake of granting vast tracts to individuals, as in the time of Elizabeth, was not repeated. The allotments were in portions of 2000 acres, 1500 acres, and 1000 acres, the grantees agreeing to build according to their several proportions. The forfeited lands were divided amongst a hundred and four English and Scots, fifty-six servitors, and two hundred and eighty-six natives. Thus was Ulster to become, but not without its periods of fierce contention and of terrible massacre, the most prosperous and enlightened province of Ireland. Its half a million of acres had offered a precarious existence to a scattered race of half-civilised and marauding natives. It became the seat of agricultural and commercial industry—a model to the rest of Ireland for removing those social evils which were destined for two centuries to press far more heavily upon her than political jealousies or religious disunions.

The plantation of Ulster was a scheme which is attributed to the king and to his able counsellor, Bacon. It soon became mixed up with a manœuvre to put some ready money into the royal treasury, which the sturdy parliament

1613.]

BARONETS-THE NEW RIVER.

355

had refused to fill except upon conditions. Sir Antony Shirley, according to the representation of his son to the king, had the merit of inventing a wholesale mode of obtaining supplies by the sale of honours: "My father," he says, "being a man of excellent and working wit, did find out the device of making baronets, which brought to your majesty's coffers well nigh £100,000." A new title of honour, intermediate between a baron and a knight, was to be bestowed upon two hundred gentlemen possessing lands to the yearly value of £1000; and they were each to pay into the treasury for the patent the sum of £1095, being the estimated cost of thirty soldiers to defend the settlers in Ulster for three years. The project took to a certain extent. In ten years ninety-three patents of baronetcy were sold; but the price paid for them was employed in other purposes than the military protection of the new colony.

King James, to award him no more than justice, was favourably disposed to any large enterprise of public improvement; always provided that it offered him a chance of personal gain. We are indebted to him, in some degree, for a benefit which London enjoys to this day-the supply of pure water by the New River. In the third year

Chadwell Springs.

of the king's reign was passed "An Act for the bringing in of a fresh stream of running water to the North part of the City of London." It was to be brought from the springs of Chadwell and Amwell, in Hertfordshire; and the Corporation of London were empowered to execute the work. The Corporation in that age,and the character has not absolutely departed from the body, -was not very energetic in setting about costly enterprises for the public good. They did not undertake this work themselves; and when a spirited citizen and goldsmith at his own risk engaged in the undertaking,-a mighty work in those days and indeed at any time,-the Corporation refused him any pecuniary aid. James, when Hugh Middleton had spent all his private fortune, covenanted with him to bear half the share of the expense. The work was completed in 1613. Before the opening of the New River, London was supplied with water from the public conduits; and by the water-works at London Bridge, erected in 1582, by Peter Morris, a Dutchman. London in the reign of James was rapidly increasing. Other supplies were needed. The city had become nearly joined to Westminster; which an intelligent writer chiefly attributes to the union with Scotland under the king: "For the Scots, multiplying themselves here mightily, nestled themselves about the court; so that the Strand, from mud walls and thatched houses, came to that perfection of buildings, as now we see." * Yet this metropolis of the seventeenth century was very different from the metropolis? of the nineteenth. It was a city whose most crowded thoroughfares were in the neighbourhood of pleasant fields. The same writer says, "Go and walk

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356

INCREASE OF LONDON.

[1613

in her fields, you shall see some shooting at long marks, some at butts; some bowling upon dainty pleasant greens." The citizens had only to step out of Moorgate into Finsbury fields, to pursue their archery. The rural occupiers of the "town of St. Giles' in the Fields" were sometimes visited by the urban dwellers of Holborn and the Strand, who went thither to take the air; but the road which led to that village into Holborn, and by Drury Lane, through the growing traffic had become "foul and dangerous to all that pass that way."* The growth of London had been attempted to be repressed by statutory enactments under Elizabeth. James thought to accomplish the same end by proclamations. He said that the new buildings were "but a shelter for those who, when they had spent their estates in coaches, lacqueys, and fine clothes,

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like Frenchmen, lived miserably in their houses, like Italians." He commanded all noblemen and gentlemen who had mansions in the country, to return to them, and there abide, till the end of the summer season. He commanded them to go home to celebrate the feast of Christmas and to keep hospitality. The great people little heeded these proclamations; and the House of Commons told him they were illegal. London, from the happy circumstances of her position, was sure to increase with the increase of commerce. The presence of the courts of law at Westminster, the circumstance of the capital being the seat of government, favoured this increase. But one great

Statute, Jac. 3, c. 18.

1613.]

INCREASE OF LONDON.

357

natural cause was far more important to its prosperity than these incidental advantages. James, having been refused a benevolence by the City, sent for the Corporation; and vowed that he would remove his own court and the courts of Westminster Hall-he would send the Records in the Tower to a more loyal place-he would bring ruin upon the disobedient Londoners. The Lord Mayor replied, "Your majesty hath power to do what you please, and your City of London will obey accordingly; but she humbly desires that when your majesty shall remove your courts you would please to leave the Thames behind you."*

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1. The first St. Giles's Church.-2. Remains of the Walls anciently enclosing the Hospital precincts.3. Site of the Gallows, and afterwards of the Pound.-4. Way to Uxbridge, now Oxford Street.5. Elde Strate, since called Hog Lane.-6. Le Lane, now Monmouth Street.-7. Site of the Seven Dials, formerly called Cock and Pye Fields.-8. Elm Close, since called Long Acre.-9. Drury Lane.

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