Ordered that Mr. Leng should have notice that his cocks and hens must not be in the Churchyard.' 'September 28, 1728: The old trees to be taken up, and sickemore and arbelle half of each be planted instead.' In Wales, and in a few places in the south and west of England, the custom still lingered of planting graves with flowers and sweet herbs:

Two whitened flintstones mark the feet and head;
While there between full many a simple flower,
Pansy and pink, with languid beauty smile;
The primrose opening at the twilight hour,
And velvet tufts of fragrant camomile.1

Pepys makes mention of a churchyard near Southampton
where the graves were accustomed to be all sown with sage.2
Before leaving the subject of church fabrics and their
immediate surroundings, some little mention should be made
of the effort made at the beginning of the century to supply
the deficiency of churches in London. After some pause,'
writes Addison, in one of his Roger de Coverley papers, the
old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice to take a
survey of the great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the
City was set with churches, and that there was scarcely a single
steeple on this side Temple Bar. "A most heathenish sight!"
said Sir Roger. "There is no religion at this end of the town.
The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect,
but church work is slow, very slow."'3 That growth of London,
which was to bring within its vast embrace village after
village and hamlet after hamlet, was already fast progressing,
and in the early part of the century had greatly outstripped
all church provision. Dean Swift, it is said, has the credit of
having first aroused public attention to this want.
In a para-
graph of his Project for the Advancement of Religion,' he had
said that five parts out of six of the people are absolutely
hindered from hearing divine service, particularly here in
London, where a single minister with one or two curates has
the care sometimes of about 20,000 souls incumbent on him.' 4

1 Elegy written in a churchyard in S. Wales, 1787, W. Mason's Works, 1811, i. 113.

2 Quoted in Brand's Popular Antiquities, ii. 299.

3 Spectator, No. 383, May 20, 1712.

'Project, &c.' 1709-Swift's Works, viii. 105, with Sir W. Scott's note.

A resolution was carried in the House of Commons (May 1711), that fifty new churches were necessary within the bills of mortality, and 350,000l. were granted for the purpose, which was a very popular thing." The sum was raised by a duty on coal--2s. per chaldron from 1716 to 1720, and 35. from 1720 to 1724.2 After this exertion, creditable alike to Parliament and to the citizens of London, the work of church-building seems to have pretty nearly ended for the century. Towards the middle of it, the bishops complained in their Charges that there was no spirit for building churches, and that the occasional briefs issued for the purpose brought in very little.3 Fifty years later the question had again become too serious to be overlooked, and with the revival of deeper religion in the Church, there was little likelihood of its being allowed to rest. In large towns, the disproportion between the population and the number and size of churches had become so great 'that not a tenth of the inhabitants could be received into them were they so disposed." A return made in 1811 showed that in a thousand large parishes in different parts of the kingdom there was church accommodation for only a seventh part of their aggregate population. 5 Parliament granted a million for the erection of new churches, and large subscriptions were raised by the societies. But Polwhele, writing in 1819, said there were two large London parishes, with a joint population of above 120,000, which kept their village churches with room for not more than 200; and that in 1812, Dr. Middleton tried in vain to build a new church for St. Pancras, where the population was 100,000 and the church would only accommodate 300. These facts seem almost incredible; probably the writer from whom they are quoted overlooked subsidiary chapels attached to the parish church. It is, however, very clear that in London and many of the large towns no energetic efforts had for a long time been made to meet necessities of very crying urgency.

Bishop Beveridge, writing in the first years of the last century, lamented that daily prayers are shamefully neglected 2 Annals of England, iii. 202. Butler's Durham Charge, 1751.

1 Calamy's Own Life, ii. 239.
Secker's Fifth Charge, 1753.
Considerations on the Present State of Religion, 1801, chap. v.

Qu. Rev. vol. x. 57.

R. Polwhele's Introduction to Lavington, cclxxxi.

'

all the kingdom over; there being very few places where they have public prayers upon the week days, except perhaps on Wednesdays and Fridays.' But in towns this order of the Church was far more carefully observed in Queen Anne's reign, and for some little time afterwards, than it has been since, at all events, until a very recent date. Archbishop Sancroft, in his circular letter of 1688 to the bishops of his province, had specially urged the public performance of the daily offices in all market and other great towns,' and as far as possible in less popular places also.2 In London there was little to complain of. Although Puritan opinion had been unfavourable to daily services-Baxter having gone so far as to say, that it must needs be a sinful impediment against other duties to say common prayer twice a day'3-the old feeling as to the propriety of daily worship was by no means so thoroughly impaired as it soon came to be. Conscientious Church people in towns would generally have acknowledged that it was a duty, wherever there was no real impediment. Paterson's account of the London churches shows that, in 1714, a large proportion of them were open morning and evening for Common Prayer. He notes, however, with an expression of great regret, that the number of worshippers was visibly falling off, and that in some cases evening service was being wholly discontinued in consequence of the paucity of attendance. In the popular writings of Queen Anne's time constant allusion may be found to the early six-o'clock matins. It must be acknowledged, however, that the daily services were sometimes attended for other purposes than those of devotion. Steele, in a paper in the 'Guardian,'' in which he highly commends the practice of daily morning prayers, says that 'going to six-o'clock service, upon admonition of the morning bell, he found when he got there many poor souls who had really come to pray. But presently, after the confession, in came pretty young ladies in mobs, popping in here and there about the church, clattering the pew doors

1 Beveridge's Necessity and Advantages of Public Prayer, 34.

2 Lathbury's Hist. of the Nonjurors, 77.

' Baxter's English Nonconformity, chap. 41. Quoted in Bingham's 'Origines Ecclesiastica '-Works, ix. 128.

4 Paterson's Pietas Londinensis, 305.

Guardian, No. 65, May 26, 1713.

behind them, and squatting into whispers behind their fans.' Before long 'there was a great deal of good company come in.' A few did, indeed, seem to take pleasure in the worship; but many seemed to make it a task rather than a voluntary act, and some employed themselves only in gossip or flirtation. He remarks, towards the close of the paper, that later hours ' were becoming more in vogue than the early service.

The duty of daily public worship was, as might be expected, chiefly insisted upon by the High Churchmen of the period. Thus we find Robert Nelson urging it. There were very few men of business, he said, who might not certainly so contrive their affairs, as frequently to dedicate half an hour in four-and-twenty to the public service of God.'2 Dodwell's biographer speaks of the great attention he paid to the daily prayers of the Church.3 Bull introduced at Brecknock daily prayers, instead of their only being on Wednesdays and Fridays; and at Carmarthen morning and evening daily prayers, whereas there had been only morning prayers before. In 1712 these were kept up and well frequented. Archbishop Sharp admonished his town clergy to maintain them regularly. Whiston, while he was yet incumbent of Lowestoft, used at daily matins and vespers an abridgment of the prayer approved by Bishop Lloyd." The custom was, however, by no means confined to High Churchmen. Thoresby, while he was yet more than half a Dissenter, feeling, for instance, much scruple as to the use of the cross in baptism, remarks in his 'Diary,' 'I shall never, I hope, so long as I am able to walk, forbear a constant attendance upon the public common prayer twice every day, in which course I have found much comfort and advantage.' Thus also a writer in the Guardian,' in 1713, remarked that there was a

'Pope represents morning prayer as going on at the same time that criminals were whipt in Bridewell, i.e. about 11:—

By Bridewell all descend,

As morning prayers and flagellations end.'

Dunciad, ii. pp. 269-70.

2 R. Nelson, Practice of True Devotion, chap. i. § 3.

Brokesby's Life of Dodwell, 1715, 542.

Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, 375-6.

Archbishop Sharp's Life, by his Son, i. 201.

6 Whiston's Memoirs, 1749, 124. Thoresby's Diary, Aug. 8, 1702, i. 375.

good deal of foolish party language about good and bad Churchmen, where the distinctions made were often both unmeaning and prejudicial. 'It has happened that the person who is seen every day at church has not been in the eyes of the world a Churchman; and he who has been very zealous to oblige every man to frequent it but himself, has been held to be a good son of the Church.''

Some time before the century had run through half its course, daily services were fast becoming exceptional, even in the towns. The later hours broke the whole tradition, and made it more inconvenient for busy people to attend them. Year after year they were more thinly frequented, and one church after another, in quick succession, discontinued holding them. It was one sign among many others of an increasing apathy in religious matters. At places like Bath or Tunbridge Wells the churches were still open, and tolerably full morning and evening.2 Elsewhere, if here and there a daily service was kept up, the congregation was sure to consist only of a few women; and the Bridget or Cecilia who was regularly there, was sure of being accounted by not a few of her neighbours, 'prude, devotee, or Methodist.' 3 In many London parishes special provision had been made, either by endowment or voluntary subscriptions, for the maintenance. of daily services. Where the latter was the case, the subscriptions began rapidly, to fall off. Malcolm has preserved a correspondence which passed in 1758 between Bishop Newton of Bristol and the inhabitants of the united parishes of St. Mary-le-Bow, St. Pancras, and Allhallows, of which, in accordance with a bad custom of the times, he continued to be rector. The bishop laments the diminution almost to nothing of the old subscription. The parishioners acknowledge that it is so; but argue, not without truth, that if the rector desires these services to be held, it should devolve upon him to provide them. They allow that attendance at the morning prayers had been generally omitted, but that they are by no means convinced of their propriety. At the end of the century, and 1 Guardian, No. 80, June 12, 1713.

2 Goldsmith's Life of Nash-Works, iii. 277-8. De Foe's Tour through Great Britain, 1738, i. 193, ii. 242.

3 Lloyd's Poems, 'A Tale,' c. 1757. Cowper's Poems, Truth.'

4

J. P. Malcolm, Manners and Customs of London, i. 363–73.