are at the back of Austin Friars Church for a
very fine example--they had their country houses: they drove in
chariots: and they did a splendid business. Their ships went all over
the world: they traded with India, not yet part of the Empire: with
China, and the Far East: with the West Indies, with the Levant. They had
Companies for carrying on trade in every part of the globe. The South
Sea Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Turkey Company, the African
Company, the Russian Company, the East India Company--are some. The
ships lay moored below the Bridge in rows that reached a mile down the
river.

[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR, LONDON.

(_Built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1670; taken down in 1878 and since
rebuilt at Waltham Cross._)]

All this prosperity grew in spite of the wars which we carried on during
the whole of the last century. These wars, though they covered the
Channel and the Bay of Biscay with privateers, had little effect to stay
the increase of London trade. And as the merchants lived within the
City, in sight of each other, their wealth was observed and known by
all. At the present day, when London from nightfall till morning is a
dead city, no one knows the wealth of the merchants and it is only by
considering the extent of the suburbs that one can understand the
enormous wealth possessed by those men who come up by train every day
and without ostentation walk among their clerks to their offices in the
City. A hundred and fifty years ago, one saw the rich men: sat in church
with them: sat at dinner with them on Company feast days: knew them. The
visible presence of so much wealth helped to make London great and
proud. It would be interesting, if it were possible, to discover how
many families now noble or gentle--county families--derive their origin
or their wealth from the City merchants of the last century.

In one thing there is a great change. Till the middle of the seventeenth
century it was customary for the rank of trade to be recruited--in
London, at least--from the younger sons. This fashion was now changed.
The continual wars gave the younger sons another career: they entered
the army and the navy. Hence arose the contempt for trade which existed
in the country for about a hundred and fifty years. It is now fast dying
out, but it is not yet dead. Younger sons are now going into the City
again.

[Illustration: FLEET STREET AND TEMPLE BAR.]

The old exclusiveness was kept up jealously. No