and palm oil from Bagdad; furs of various kinds from Norway and Scythia, and wine from France. "The city" at this time, (faith Fitzftephen,)" contains thirteen large conventual churches, and one hundred and twenty-fix that are parochial." The King's palace at Westminster is two miles from the city, (that is, from Ludgate, then its western extremity,) and the intermediate fpace is almost wholly filled up with the houses and gardens of the citizens *. On the north fide are open fields of corn and this obfervation fhould have confidered, that Fitzftephen was not a merchant, but a Monk, and that confequently countries appeared distant to him in the exact proportion as his ideas of commerce were contracted. If he walked upon the quays, and faw goods fhipped for Italy, he might, from what he had gathered of the commerce of other countries, with propriety affert, that no city exports its merchandise to fuch a diftance, as the term is comparative and indefinite. "Afk where the North? at York, upon the Tweed; At Scotland, in the Orcades; and there, At Nova Zembla, or the Lord knows where !" or, indeed, Fitzftephen might have known that goods, by being configned to an Italian port, were in the then regular track to the East Indies. *The author fhould have faid of the Nobility, for it was long after the age of Fitzftephen that the citizens of London had an idea of refiding weft of the metropolis. The nobility, as London became commercial, forfook their houfes within its walls, and erected many others betwixt the western gate and the Court, confequently ranging along the Strand, the fites of which may be accurately traced by the names of the streets built upon them and their demefnes. Thefe it is not neceffary here to enumerate; it may be fufficient to advert to the plan of London about the year 1600, which fhows, that even advanced as commerce was at that time, its influence was infufficient to induce fpeculators to cover those large spaces with bricks in the manner which has been fo extenfively and fo happily practifed fince the Revolution all round the metropolis. grafs, and a lake with several streams, beyond which is a forest wherein the citizens take the diversion of hunting. On the upper fide of Finfbury-field, near Old-street-road, and alfo near the fpot whereon the former hofpital of St. Luke was erected,ftood the Lord Mayor's Dog Houfe; and if we confider that the fpace from Moorgate Poftern to Iflington is only one mile and a half, it is curious to reflect how completely the face of the country, in this fhort space, These fields are now the fite of Finfbury-fquare and the adjacent streets. The manor adjoining to Moorfields is mentioned in an ancient record, it being granted, 20 Rich. II, to Robert de Wylingham, Prebend. of the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, under the name of the garden of Vinefbury, whence it may be inferred, that this place had formerly a large garden for vines, or vineyard, annexed to it. Of this kind of plantations having exifted in and about the metropolis, as may be gathered from the places built upon their fites being termed Vine yards, Vine Streets, Vine courts, &c. many inftances might be adduced, were they neceffary. It appears that vines were formerly cultivated in this kingdom to a much greater extent than at prefent, and that great quantities of wine were made. In the Domesday Book it is ftated, that "At Rogonia, in the hundred of Rochford, there is a vineyard, containing fix arpents, which when it thrives yields twenty modii of wine." There is extant in the cathedral of St. Paul a furvey of the manor of Finfbury, in the county of Middlefex, belonging to the Prebend of Haliwell and Finsbury, taken 30th December 1567, 10th Elizabeth, by which it appears, that the houses and gardens of Aldermen and opulent citizens were spread over this manor, particularly in Bunhill-field, Golding-lane, White-crofs-ftreet, Finfbury-fields, &c. The Lord Mayor for the time being is Lord of the Manor. The court leet and court baron, wherein the Senior City Pleader fits as Steward, are held annually fo after St. Luke's Day. It appears, that from very early times this fuburb was confidered as a place of recreation for the citizens. The fports of Finfbury-field have often been mentioned. Near this place were bowling alleys, and, in latter ages, theatres, tumblingbooths, &c. has has been changed, even within living memory, and how totally every trace of its former furface is annihilated. We learn from authentic records, that close to the wall of the city there was formerly a great more, or mere, to which also belonged a fishery that had more than once been the tubject of difpute, particularly in the reign of Edward the Ift, when the Lord Chancellor (Walter de Maton) feized both the more and the right of fishing for the ufe of the King: thefe, however, were returned to their ancient owners. A variety of other revolutions, recorded by our civic historians, have happened with refpect to this property. The right of enclosure of the common fields about Iflington, Hoxton, Shoreditch, and other places in the vicinity of the metropolis, was difputed in the year 1514. The people, it appears, reforted to the rough expedient of levelling all the impediments to their recreation; fince which the fields were never hedged t. From this digreffion, which the obfervations of Fitzftephen elicited, we refume the confideration of the commerce of London in the middle ages; which city, it must be obferved, in thofe times concentrated a large part of that of the whole country; and therefore we deem it, in this inftance, improper to pafs over the pompous defcription of its trade and profperity, * Lower Moorfield, it may be conjectured, from what has fo lately been undone, is most rapidly reverting to that ftate from which Sir Leonard Holliday, Mayor, A.D. 1606, 1ecovered it. This worthy Magiftrate, from a public nuifance, by tastefully laying out its walks which have been fo lately torn up, planting thole trees which have been to lately felled, and bounding thofe quarters that have fo lately been unbound, converted it into an agreeable and beaithful promenade for the citizens and their families. which Matthew of Weftminster difplays in the character of a perfon lamenting the miseries occafioned by the civil war. "Oh, England!" (fays he, page 396,)" formerly glorious, illuf trious, and exalted among the kingdoms, like the grandeur of the Chaldæans. The fleets of Tarthith were not comparable to thy fhips, carrying aromatics and all pretious merchandize throughout the four quarters of the globe. The fea was thy wall, and caftles trongly fortified were the gates of thy harbours. In thee chivalry, the church, and commerce, flourished. For thee the Pifans, the Genoefe, and the Venetians, tranfported the fapphire, the carbuncle, and the fmaraydus, drawn from the rivers of paradife. Afia fupplied thee with the fineft linen, Africa with cinnamon and balfam, Spain with gold, and Germany with filver. For thee Flanders, thy weaver, made pretious drapery of thy own materials. For thee thy own Gafcoigne produced wine. To thee all the islands betwixt the Hyades and Areturus were fubfervient. Thy inland parts abounded with wild beasts of the woods, and thy hills with cattle of every kind. Thou didst poffefs all the fowls of the air. Thy fields were beautiful. In the abundance of fish thou surpassed every region and though thou haft but a narrow tract of land, confined within the fhores of the fea, yet the coafts of all nations, warmed by the fleeces of thy theep, have blessed thy celebrated fertility. In thee the swords were converted into ploughfhares, and peace and religion were fo flourishing, that thou wert looked up to as a mirror to all catholic kingdoms. Alas! why art thou now ftripped of fuch great glory *?". Waiving, or rather curtailing, the exuberances The comparative opulence of London may be gathered from a circumstance much less romantic and exaggerated than this quotation, although it is one that does no great credit either to the huma nity of the inhabitants, or the benignity of their Monarchs. This circumftance is, its being confidered as the principal place of refort, or, as it has been termed, the head quarters of all the Jews in England; a people who, though in all countries, in former times, labouring under the most grievous oppreffions, impofts, exactions, and cruelties, we have always confidered exuberances of this florid defcription, and only confidering the dry detail of its contents, there is ftill fufficient reason to believe that England in general, and London in particular, had, with refpect to their manufactures and commerce, been in a progreffive ftate of improvement from the beginning of the twelfth century; in the courfe of which Fitzftephen, William of Malmfbury, and Henry of Huntingdon, wrote. The latter is, indeed, in his defcrip. tion of his country, little less florid than Matthew of Westminster, whom confidered as necessary links of that chain which connected and combined the commerce of the world. One of the many hardships impofed upon this unfortunate, though opulent race, was an obligation to bring their dead from all parts of the country to be interred in one general cemetary in Red-cross-street, Cripplegate, until A.D. 1177, when Henry the IId, feeing the inconvenience, as well as impolicy, of this restriction, permitted them to purchase burying-grounds in other parts of the kingdom.-(Bromton Col. 1129. Stow's London.) we have juft quoted, who wrote in the middle of the thirteenth; therefore it is probable that the fituation of commerce, and the flourishing ftate of the metropolis, warranted the affertions of all these authors. In fact, if we confider the immenfe drains of fpecie occafioned by the Crufades, by the avarice of the Court of Rome, by foreign wars, and even by the defence of the tranfmarine poffeffions of the Norman Monarch, we muft obferve, that this devoted kingdom has, from the period of the Conqueft, feemed a bank to the other parts of Europe, and therefore must believe that its commerce, in thofe times, was far greater than has been generally imagined; for although we have from the highest authority the account which is quoted in the note ftill it will be remembered, that a very The following account, given into the exchequer by Walter Harvey and William of Durham, Cuftodes, gives a view of the names and amount of dues collected from the eve of Eafter till Michaelmas 1268, viz. Divers tronages + and fome small strandages † Measuring dues for corn arriving at the port of Billingsgate, and Cuftoms of fish to London Bridge (Fish-street-hill), and some other cuftoms there Iffue of the field and bars of Smithfield Tolls taken at the gates of the city, and customs on the water of Stallages, cuftoms of the butchers and others exercising divers Ifues of Queehithe, being in the King's hands ++ Money paid for weighing at the public beam. Money paid for laying goods on the ftrand, fimilar to wharfage. SFor weighing. Rent for the ufe of a fall. 97 13 11 75 6 10 5 18 7 **Soccage, a word of difputed meaning. In law it means tenure lands derived from Soc, a plough-fhare. Here it feems to imply payment for certain privileges enjoyed by the butchers. ++ Henry the IId obliged all the veffels laden with corn to deliver at Queehithe, and fish to be landed at the fame place, which he directed should be the only fishmarket in London. 1246 it became the property of the City, by purchale from Richard Earl of Cornwall. For fome time it flourished exceedingly; but, it is faid, owing to the malpractices of the bakers of London, its profits became to low, that when Fabian wrote (about A.D. 1600) they icarcely exceeded twenty marks per annum of fuch money as was then current. The condition of the people during the long reign of Henry the IIId was, in confequence of the opprethons under which they laboured, deplorable. These operated with a peculiar force upon the Citizens of London, who were upon the most frivolous pretences fubject to the molt grievous exactions. Many of the Officers of the King, whofe names, faith Matthew Paris, it would be both tedious and dangerous to mention, quartering themselves, in a manner, on the citizens, took every opportunity that the relaxed ftate of the municipal laws afforded them of plundering the merchants, natives as well as foreigners, of their horfes, carts, wine, provisions, cloth, wax, and other articles. We have already glanced at the cruelty exercifed in thofe ages against the Jews; and as it would be neither ufe ful, nor pleasant, to dwell upon enormities that arole from that very paffion in Monarchs with which they charged thofe unfortunate people, who appear, in fome instances, to have fuffered under perfecutions that feemed to augur a revival of thofe that difgraced the times of Titus and Adrian, or their inflictions by the Crufaders, we gladly drop the fubject. In taking a philofophical view of the temper of the metropolitan subjects of Henry the IIId at this period, we find, that from the fcene of extortion on the one hand, and of profufion on the other, which were fo conftantly before their eyes, and confequently fo conftantly the fubjects of their cogi tations, the train was laid which, in its fubfequent explosion, if it did wholly feparate the City from the Court, was certainly the caufe of that want of confidence which foon after was fo apparent, and of that fcrutinizing jealousy with which minifterial measures were examined in the east, and also of the tenacity with which the Londoners, in common with the subjects of many other parts of the kingdom, adhered to their property, when the influence of the Commons gave them an opportunity to refift those infractions upon it which, long fanctioned by the Nobility, had before been reluctantly yielded to. The citizens of London, confidered collectively, however they may have been at times fubject to the impofition of falfe patriots, and exhibited as butts for the wit and ribaldry of the idle and extravagant, have, generally speaking, been a wife, a prudent, and a loyal people. In all public exigencies their advice has been reforted to. All parties have, by turns, endeavoured to obtain their fanction. In times of public danger and pecuniary diftrefs, they have both gallantly and liberally risked their perfons and property; while the eyes of the nation have been fixed upon the metropolis, and the conduct of London has in moft inftances been the guide to other Corporations; and although, in the periods to which we allude, the commerce of the country could not be deemed extenfive, in comparifon to the modern, nor did the national revenue depend fo much Enormous as the depreciation of fpecie, from the times of Henry the IId to the prefent, has been, we can hardly give credit to the statement of M. Paris, pp. 658-859, namely, that the annual revenue of England was, in that age, fomewhat under fixty thousand marks, and the net royal revenue about twentythree thousand. Forfeits of fundry foreigners (countrymen) for buying and felling in the city contrary to the ftatutes and customs thereof Pleas and perquifites in the city From the Waidarii (dealers in woad) of Amiens, Corbye, and upon it, yet we find, in the reign of Henry the IId, that the royal, like the public income, was more than equal to the expenditure; for the Monarch, from the favings made in the course of his reign, amaffed a fum which would for thofe times be thought immenfely large, were it not to be obferved that fome individuals were, in proportion, confiderably richer + In fact, although the imports of the country could not be deemed extensive, and were, except in the inftances of wine, woad, and corn ‡, moftly luxuries, confequently only in demand by the fuperior orders of fociety, yet the articles exported, confifting of hardware, cloth, and a variety of other goods, adapted to the general wants of mankind, being paid for in fpecie, produced gold and Gilver fufficient to countervail the papal drain, and other expenfes, to which we have obferved the country was, for a long feries of ages, expofed. Thofe fources of commerce, while they rendered the citizens and merchants of London progreffively rich, confequently afforded to them the means to difplay at once their magnificence and benevolence. This Monarch bequeathed above forty thousand marks of filver and five hundred marks of gold to religious and charitable purposes. The nature of thefe pious bequests antecedent to the Reformation is pretty well understood; therefore, although we have feen fome thing like an implied objection to the difpofal of the marks of filver which we are not difpofed to controvert, except by oblerving that they might have been were applied, there certainly can be none to the application of the five hundred marks of gold, which were unquef tionably a liberal and noble bequeft, as it was directed" to be divided into marriage portions for young women of free, that is to fay, of genteel condition.”M. Paris, p. 140. † Roger, Archbishop of York, died in 1181, poffeffed of 11,000 pounds of filver, and 300 pieces of gold, belides a gold cup, and a connderable quantity of filver plate. Large ftores of this article were collected in the metropolis, which in years of scarcity, fuch as has already been obferved frequently happened from bad huf. bandry, inattention to agriculture, and civil commotions, was termed the granary of the kingd m. VOL. XLIX. MARCH 1806. GENERAL BENOIT DE BOIGNE is one of those fingular characters, which Nature forms in her whimsical mo ments, to furprife mankind, and show the diverfity of her materials and the variety of her execution. If fmall ob jects may be introduced to draw a fimile for grand ones, I would obferve, that the fame motive which induced a Spinoza, a Machiavel, or a Rouseau, to compofe their eccentric productions, influenced Nature to mould a Suwarro, Potemkin, a Kuofiosko, or a de Boigne. He was by birth a Savoyard; of parents who were reputed refpectable and poor. His first career was under the direction of Mars, in the fervice of his Prince. Fond of novelty, and restless with ambition, he changed the poor profpects of a Sardinian Officer for the fplendid views offered by France, and ente ed into her Irish brigades as an Enfign. This was an harbinger of his fubfequent conduct-the calm life, the inflated poverty, and the fterile hopes of a Sardinian Officer, were ill calculated for de Boigne's mind, which was ever looking forward, ftil foaring to the fkies. I have never heard what induced him to quit the French banners, but I imagine it was no unworthy motive, as he had enemies alert enough, and fufficiently willing to exaggerate every tale, and amplify every anecdote which was to his difparage, or which could militate against his chara&er;could he have been cenfured, many voices would have vociferated his condemnation.-The next period in his diversified life was an Enign in the Ruffian army, ferving against the Turks. In an action on the frontiers of Turkey, a small party, to which he was attached, was cut off nearly to a man, and de Boigne taken prifoner; he was led Bb to |