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are now rich corn land and meadows, intersected by green hedgerows and
dotted with villages and pleasant country seats would appear as moors
overgrown with furze and fens abandoned to wild ducks. We should see
straggling huts built of wood and covered with thatch, where we now see
manufacturing towns and seaports renowned to the farthest ends of the
world. The capital itself would shrink to dimensions not much exceeding
those of its present suburb on the south of the Thames. No less strange to
us would be the garb and manners of the people, the furniture and the
equipages, the interior of the shops and dwellings."
As some very slight confirmation of the foregoing observations
it maybe noted that a reference to the boundaries of the
Parish of St. James, as described in the Act creating the
Parish (page 64) will show that at least some of the landmarks
of that period have now passed into entire oblivion.
Nor is the change confined to the physical aspect of the
country alone. In almost every respect the condition of life
is vastly different from what it was two centuries ago.
Politically, England was between two crises. The rebellion
of 1649 had been followed by the Restoration in 1660, to be
succeeded in turn by the revolution of 1688. Within the
previous century the religious opinions of the governing
class had undergone violent transitions, varying from the
extreme Romanism of Philip and Mary to the Puritanism of
the Commonwealth, Stimulated by the dispersion of the
Armada, and the discoveries of Raleigh and other adventurers,
and in spite of the corruption which almost universally
prevailed in official circles, the English Navy, both Royal
and mercantile, had developed to a marvellous degree, and
was already disputing with the Dutch Navy the supremacy of
the seas. The troubles through which the nation had passed
combined with a natural independence of spirit which led the
dominant party, whether King, Barons, or Parliament, to
assert freedom from the yoke of Rome, even in pre-reformation
times, had created in the English character that
power of self-government which has since so pre-eminently