Description of West Gate, Southampton. Mr. Cooke expressed his displeasure, The debtor, restored to his family, FRONTISPIECE. THE WEST GATE, SOUTHAMPTON. HE frontispiece which we have cho- the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, exhibits a From the ninth century, we possess which was first rendered most unfor- In 1938 we find that Southampton From the beach at Southampton, the gallant army embarked which gained court. The second scene of Henry V, immortal glory in the field of Ag nget 2, although the poet, like a skilfu historical painter, has thrown perhaps too deep a shade upon some characters, is one of those elusions of Shakspeare, to let the high light fall upon his hero, that have made an impression on the human mind which nothing can eradicate. The West-Gate of Southampton, to which it is now time to direct the attention of the reader, is, as will be observed in the View, prominently marked with the architectural traits of the age* in which it was erected; it is a low plain pointed vault, very strongly, and carefully defended, there consequently being in its thickness at least two grooves, for portcullises, and six square apertures for discharging arrows, pouring hot water, and other annoyances, on assailants, The tower over this gate is modernized, but does not seem to have, at any time, exhibited a very beautiful ap pearance. The length of the wall from the Water-gate to the West-gate, is about three hundred and eighty yards. The west-quay is small; but, by the caution with which its Gate was defended, has evidently been considered as of great consequence in former ages. *Probably the time of the Saxons. M. VESTIGES, COLLECTED AND RECOLLECTED, BY JOSEPH MOSER, ESQ. A PRILOSOPHICAL AND MORAL VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN LONDON. WITH NOTES, &c. Chapter XVIII. IF, in the two preceding parts of this desultory sketch of civic history, our progress has been comparatively slow, candour must suppose it to have been retarded by the frequent impediments that have intercepted our course, the obstacles that we have had to contend with, and the difficulties attendant upon accurate research: this combina tion would have been sufficient to have repressed the energy of curiosity, aud to have counteracted the efforts of industry, had we not found a patriotic satisfaction in recording by what steps our metropolitan city gradually advanced to the exalted eminence which it now occapies in the commercial and political scale of the universe. The paths of history, how often so ever they may have been trodden, are not always rendered smooth in proportion to the numbers that have passed over them. In contemplating the events of former periods, men very frequently discover new motives operating to produce consequences heretofore the sport of conjecture; they very frequently be. hold events in new points of view; they derive new ideas from contemplation and comparison, which lead to new conclusions. This has been the case with respect to this work in its progressive course. Upon the firm bass of facts, though viewing them in lights different from our precursors or cotemporaries, we have built our superstructure, which, consonant with our designation, we rather mean to oiler as a collection of hints, notices, and obser· ations, than a regular historically connected sys tem. To such an undertaking neither our talents nor our time are equal. Nor, if they were, could we condense our sab. ject into the space to which we are at present limited, Having made these general observa- tions, (which have, in some sort, more reference to the past than regard to the future,) it is necessary to extend them still further, while we state, that the difficulties of which we have complained respecting the former, would, it should seem, in a considerable degree, be obviated in this latter part of the work by the happy discovery of the art of printing, which has multiplied resources, and rendered the act of arrangement more troublesome than those of research and collection. This, however true as a general proposition, is subject to considerable li imitation, and able to much observation. The art of printing, as practised in the fifteenth century, rather multiplied copies than originals. The first PRESSES were either almost entirely employed in translations from the classics, or engaged in fixing the more volatile effusions of romance and poetry, particularly those of italy, or in impressing thousands of reams of popular tales into the service of their country, or groaning under those solid and ponderous tomes of ecclesiastical dullness which were emphatically termed labours: general history was, therefore, but little regarded; local history still less; and domestic not at all. Although, as has been seen in the preceding pages, the annals and history of their country were the favourite speculations of the English writers from the time of venerable Bede; and though, for many centuries antecedent to the fourteenth, the talents of men of the greatest genius were, when relieved from the intricacies of controversy, scarcely engaged upon any other subjects; yet it does not appear that inany of their works, notwithstanding they were, perhaps, pretty extensively disseminated in manuscript, were published through the medium of the press, until a period considerably st.bsequent to the reformation. In consequence of the confusion created at that time by the conjunction of avarice and ignorance, innumerable piles of scriptural treasure, autiquities, manuscripts, and libraries of monastic literature, that might have diffused light over transactious calculated to have furnished us with meinoirs, characters, anecdotes, genealogies, tities, and au intnite variety of other va luable memorials and materials, now C consigned to irremediable obscurity, or sunk into total oblivion, were destroyed, dispersed, or lost. It is, therefore, impossible, in a pursuit of this nature, to derive that assistance which might, in many instances, be wished from written documents: and as the subjects of local investigation have, many of them, been totally annihilated, we are precluded from a contemplation of even their vestiges. Yet although this generally applies to the great change of property which took place at the period alluded to, still, with respect to the city of London, something may be gathered from those records which remain, and those writings which survived the monastic dissolution; though we must observe, that such was the party spirit during the contention of the two Houses of York and Lancaster, (a spirit which also burned in the bosom of Henry the VIIth, and was not quite extinguished in that of Henry the VIIIth,) that, with respect to the detail of public events and the delineation of public characters, they must be examined with great attention, and received with great caution. The beginning of the fifteenth century was marked by the tragical death, or murder, of Richard the IId, at Pomfret Castle, and the usurpation of Henry the IVth; an event which laid the foundation of those wars to which we have alluded. At the same period the Lollards, who had been considerably encouraged, and indeed openly protected, by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and King of Castile, were proceeded against with a rigour that consigned more than one victim to the stake. That Wicliffe had a number of adherents in the city of London cannot, from a view of the transactions of the times, be doubted. The general theme of his discourses, and of those of the preachers with whom he was connected, was the dissolute lives, the enormous revenues, and the pride of the Clergy. These, to the inhabitants of the metropolis, who had too frequently ocular demonstration of the truth of part of his and their assertions, and, in their purses, an acute the defence of the kingdom and the The commerce of London, which had *The idea of this petition is extremely It is well known, that annexed to all the Some vestiges of those were to be seen within The opinion of Manuel Palæologus, the feeling of the remainder, were popular daily receives and dispatches vessels to va- rious countries." (Lam Chalcocondyles, l. ii.) in the export trade of woollen manufactures of which, by the statute 7 Hen. IV, c. 9, it appears, that the citizens of London aimed at the monopoly; for we there learn, that the magistrates and traders of the city, having. taken upon them to prevent cloth makers, dealers in wine, iron, (we presume manufactured,) oil, wax, &c., from sel ling their goods wholesale in London to any but citizens; the Parliament, therefore, enacted, that they might freely sell those articles, by wholesale, in London, to any of the King's subjects. In this statute it was also enacted, that those who did not possess twenty shillings yearly in land or rent, (a large sum for that time, indeed half a qualification for sundry purposes where a qualification included a maintenance,) should not put their sons and daughters to be apprentices. But such persons were allowed to send their children to school *. and London became its emporium. Manuel, who had applied in vain to the Latins for succour, harassed with long continued warfare, at length resigned his crown to his son, John the VIIth, and retired to a convent, where he died in 1425, aged 75. * This has been stated as an act of oppression operating against the emancipation of the poor, by preventing their chil dren from obtaining that small portion of freedom enjoyed by mechanics; for, it will be observed, that no person who had been regularly indented, and had served, could be thereafter considered as a slave. But we rather think it was intended to make the mechanic arts of more consequence, by restricting their attainment to a higher class of people. Slavery had, even in its very idea, been by this time worn out in the metropolis, and nearly so in the country. It has been also said, that the permission to learn to read was of little avail before the art of printing had brought books within the reach of the poor; yet surely paternosters, ave marias, and creeds, in manuscript, bad, before this time, been cheaply disseninated by the first stationers; nay, even popular tales and ballads had been circulated by the same medium. Many of the monasteries had schools, where the children, without any very accurate distinction as to their parents' situation in life, were tanght gratis; and although, even in the days of Elizabeth, to be able to read was, among the lower class of people, considered as a novelty, and that class is still, in many instances, wholly illiterate; so in the time of Henry the IVth the poor, probably, were ignorant in a still greater degree, yet were there then many exceptions to that general rule, When Wool, we have observed, was at this period considered as the principal article, the great support of commerce. It was also deemed a sure resource in times of pecuniary distress. If the danger of the public became urgent; if extraordinary exertions were to be made; if revenue, was to be anticipated; in all these cases, what is now done by the security of universal taxation, then principally rested upon this staple. Of this an instance occurred early in this century. Upon the subsidies arising from wool, the King, Henry the IVth, borrowed money for the payment of his garrison of Calais; a transaction that has been considered as important, inasmuch as, in the opulence of laymen, it indicates the happy conse quences of the silent influx of wealth derived from commercial sources *. We have thought it necessary to add the art of printing operated, farthing, halfpenny, and penny books, spread beyond calculation; which would not have been the case if the poor, who were the great encou ragers of this kind of literature, had been unable to read them. *The sums subscribed to this LOYALTY LOAN were as follow: Norbury (Fishmonger) was Treasurer of the Exchequer in the last year of Richard the 11d and the first year of Henry the IVth Hende, Mayor 1391 and 1404, was a Draper. He built the parish-church of St. Swithin by the London Stone, and several other edifices for the purposes of piety and charity. Wittyngton (Mercer) was, by royal autho rity, substituted in the place of Adain Bamme, Goldsmith, who died in his mayoralty. He was also Mayor in 1406 and 1419; (at a period when he wished to have retired from the fatigue of public duty :) so that he was in office at the time of this loan. He seems also to have been Mayor of the Staple of Calais, though residing in London, about 1420.-(MS. Bib. Cott. Galba, B. i, No, 172.) these brief notices to the commercial traits that have before been exhibited, to impress more strongly the idea of the energy of commerce and manufactures, when they had taken deep rools in the metropolis, and shot their fibres not only over the kingdom, but the Eu ropean, and, in some degree, the Asian worlds; for, notwithstanding the turbulent state of the country during the reign of Henry the IVth, and the still more dreadful desolation that followed that brilliant but evanescent, and indeed deceitful gleam of Gallic domination, which the conquest of France by Henry the Vth afforded; neither the adventurous spirit of the merchants of the metropolis, nor the industry of her manufacturers, appear to have received any very material checks; which is the more extraordinary, because in the outset of this piece of royal Quixotism the King ordered that all the vessels of England, of twenty fous burthen or upwards, should be taken into his service, (by which means he collected a fleet of 1500 for the conveyance of his troops,) while the Captains of those belonging to the Tower, i. e. n'en of war, had commission to impress men for their ships; and in the progress of it, the arrival of the English in Normandy spread such a terror through the district, that above twenty-five thousand families fled into the adjacent province of Bretagne, and carried the art of making woollen cloth, of which the Bretons were hitherto ignorant, among them; by which means the manufacture was dispersed more widely through France, to the consequent injury of this country. It has been justly observed, that had this conquest become permanent, had that claim to the crown of France which in an evil hour operated upon the splendid but highly romantic mind of Edward the lid, been confirmed to his successors; had this chivalrous monarch, who, in his armorial bearings, first quartered the Gallic lilies with bis own leopards, conveyed to his descend This is from Walsingham, we think the first notice of the existence of regular commissions for impressing men into the sea service; from which press warrants are derived. In this invasion of France, it appears that more than double the number of vessels were employed than in that of Edward the IIId, 1346. Then it is stated that the whole number of ships furnished, in consequence of the determination of the Naval Parliament, was only 685. ants a title more substantial than he raidic, it would perhaps, from the pefod in which Henry the VIth was “In swaddling bands crown'd King," have rendered the whole of the British Islands provinces to the French empire, in consequence of the people of the latter feeling their military importance, and drawing all the strength and resources of this kingdom into their territories. " By the invasion of France" “England (says Mr. Macpherson *) like his predecessor, who first started was depopulated, and Henry the Vth, the fatal pretension to the sovereignty of that kingdom, found himself reduced to the miserable and illusory expedient of diminishing the value of the current money of his own t.” So "In short, the interests of commerce and the happiness of the people were equally disregarded during this splendid that nothing but its own energies could reign of conquest and desolation.” in any degree have protected the forthe public mind upon conquests which, mer; and the rapturous ebullitions of as has been observed, were futile in their aim, and baneful in their effects, have afforded transitory gleams of the latter. The coronation of the young King (Henry the VIth) in France was attended with a profusion which, were it not so well authenticated, would shake credibility to the centre. May 19, 1430, the King, or rather the Council, borrowed 50,000l. for the expenses of a coronation in France. Only fifteen cities and towns appear in the records as lenders: whereof London advanced 6,666. 138. 44d.; Bristol, 3331. 6s. 8d.; York, 162). Coventry, 1001.; Annals of Commerce, Vol. I, p. 636. There is not, perhaps, in the whole circle tainly not a more useful, speculation, than of political economy, a more pleasing, cer that which embraces the state of the ancient revenue and expenditure of the kingdom of England; because, by comparison, if the magnitude of the object in latter ages did not set all comparison at defiance, we might learn to emulate the frugality (we will not, from the known purity of modern times, say the integrity,) of our ancestors: but, he this as it may, we shall, as a curiosity, quote the following statement of those accounts for ore year, ending at Michaelmas 1420, present. d to the King, May 6, 1421; which appears the more worthy of attention, as it shows that, event in those times, the greatest part of the public expenses were supported by the trade of the country. |