f the moment. But such popular excesses end themselves;
and the royal author might have left the subject to the town-satirists of
the day, who found the theme inexhaustible for ridicule or invective.

Coal.--The established use of our ordinary fuel, coal, may be ascribed to
the scarcity of wood in the environs of the metropolis. Its recommendation
was its cheapness, however it destroys everything about us. It has formed
an artificial atmosphere which envelopes the great capital, and it is
acknowledged that a purer air has often proved fatal to him who, from
early life, has only breathed in sulphur and smoke. Charles Fox once said
to a friend, "I cannot live in the country; my constitution is not strong
enough." Evelyn poured out a famous invective against "London Smoke."
"Imagine," he cries, "a solid tentorium or canopy over London, what a mass
of smoke would then stick to it! This fuliginous crust now comes down
every night on the streets, on our houses, the waters, and is taken into
our bodies. On the water it leaves a thin web or pellicle of dust dancing
upon the surface of it, as those who bath in the Thames discern, and bring
home on their bodies." Evelyn has detailed the gradual destruction it
effects on every article of ornament and price; and "he heard in France,
that those parts lying south-west of England, complain of being infected
with smoke from our coasts, which injured their vines in flower." I have
myself observed at Paris, that the books exposed to sale on stalls,
however old they might be, retained their freshness, and were in no
instance like our own, corroded and blackened, which our coal-smoke never
fails to produce. There was a proclamation, so far back as Edward the
First, forbidding the use of sea-coal in the suburbs, on a complaint of
the nobility and gentry, that they could not go to London on account of
the noisome smell and thick air. About 1550, Hollingshed foresaw the
general use of sea-coal from the neglect of cultivating timber. Coal fires
have now been in general use for three centuries. In the country they
persevered in using wood and peat. Those who were accustomed to this
sweeter smell declared that they always knew a Londoner, by the smell of
his clothes, to have come from coal-fires. It must be acknowledged that
our custom of using coal for our fuel has prevailed over good reasons why
we ought not to have preferred it. But man accommodates himself even to an
offensive thing whenever h