Chapter 3

Opposite the superb terrace of the Hospital gardens, stands a tea-drinking house, called _the Red House_; and about fifty yards on the western side of it is the place at which Caesar crossed the Thames. The reader who has read Stukeley's reasons for fixing on Chertsey as the place of this celebrated passage, may startle at the positive affirmation here made. Stukeley says that the name of Chertsey is all Caesar; so also is Chelsea, by analogies equally natural. London, or Lyn-dyn, was then the chief town in South Britain, and would, as matter of course, be the place towards which the Britons would retreat and the Romans advance. Landing near Deal, they would cross the river at the ford nearest their place of landing, and would not be likely to march to Chertsey, if they could cross at Chelsea; and the marshes of the Thames, to which the Britons retreated, would correspond better with the marshes of Lambeth and Battersea than with the low lands near Chertsey, where the river is inconsiderable, and where there is no tide to confer strength and military character on the marshes. This ford, from the Red House to the Bank, near the scite of Ranelagh, still remains; and I have surveyed it more than once. At ordinary low water, a shoal of gravel, not three feet deep, and broad enough for ten men to walk abreast, extends across the river, except on the Surrey side, where it has been deepened by raising ballast. Indeed, the causeway from the south bank may yet be traced at low water; so that this was doubtless a ford to the peaceful Britons, across which the British army retreated before the Romans, and across which they were doubtless followed by Caesar and the Roman legions. The event was pregnant with such consequences to the fortunes of these islands, that the spot deserves the record of a monument, which ought to be preserved from age to age, as long as the veneration due to antiquity is cherished among us. Who could then have contemplated that the folly of Roman ambition would be the means of introducing arts among the semi-barbarous Britons, which, in eighteen hundred and forty years, or after the lapse of nearly sixty generations, would qualify Britain to become mistress of Imperial Rome; while one country would become so exalted, and the other be so debased, that the event would excite little attention, and be deemed but of secondary importance? Possibly after another sixty generations, the posterity of the savage tribes near Sierra Leone, or New Holland, may arbitrate the fate of London, or of Britain, as an affair of equal indifference!

I passed a few minutes in the famous Botanic Garden of the Apothecaries' Company, founded at Chelsea by #Sir Hans Sloane#. It was the first establishment of the kind in England, but has now for some years been superseded in fame and variety by the Royal Gardens at Kew. It still however merits notice, as containing specimens of all the plants recognized in the _Materia Medica_, and with that view is maintained, at a heavy expence to the company, for the use of medical students. The company's Professor of Botany annually gives lectures at this institution to the apprentices of the members, and accompanies them in _simpling_ excursions in the country round the metropolis. The statue of the public spirited founder still adorns the garden; and the famous cedars of Lebanon add an air of solemn grandeur to the whole, which could be conferred by no other objects of nature or art. The conservatories are on a grand scale; and so many interesting exotics claimed my notice, that I could have passed a week or a month in contemplating them.

In Cheyne Walk, facing the Thames, I sought for the Museum and Coffee-house of Don Saltero, renowned in the swimming exploits of Franklin. Here stands the same house, and it is still a place of entertainment; but, about ten years ago, the lease expired, when the rarities, presented by so many collectors, to the spirited Barber Salter, (nicknamed, Don Saltero,) were sold by public auction.

A little farther stands the ancient and unostentatious palace of the Bishops of Winchester, and here has resided the venerable Brownlow North, during the thirty-three years that he has filled that wealthy see; and, a hundred yards to the west, I surveyed, with becoming interest, the decayed premises, now a paper-hanging manufactory, which once was the residence of the witty Sir Thomas More, and where, as it is recorded, he entertained Erasmus. I was, therefore, on classic ground; though Faulkner, in his amusing History of Chelsea, ascribes the residence of the Chancellor to another situation. The men who adorned the era of the revival of learning, and, as its patrons, furnished us with weapons by which to deprive imposition of its powers, are well entitled to our esteem; but many of them were entangled in the bridle, by whose means more crafty persons had long rode on the backs of mankind. Thus the friendship and intercourse of sir Thomas More and Erasmus were founded on their mutual zeal in behalf of those ecclesiastical frauds which for so many ages had subdued every scintillation of reason. They were, in their days, among the adherents of Popish superstition, what Symmachus had been to the Roman polytheists in the age of Theodosius--what Peter the Hermit was to the fanatics of the darker ages--and what Burke was to the bigotted politicians at the dawn of liberty in France. Erasmus, it is true, exposed, with great ability much priestcraft and statecraft, yet his learning and labours were, for the chief part, devoted to the support of certain irrational points of theological faith; and poor Sir Thomas More lost his head on the scaffold rather than aid his less fastidious sovereign in overturning the spiritual supremacy of the bishops of Rome. We may honour the conscientious scruples of such men; but, enabled, as we now are, to view their errors at a proper focal distance, we are warranted, by their example, in drawing the inference that the highest human authorities are no tests of truth, and that great energies of intellect often serve but to strengthen prejudices, and give mischievous force to aberrations of reason.

The tomb of Sir Hans Sloane caught my eye as I passed the corner of the church-yard, but not in so good a condition as the improved value of his estates might warrant one to expect. It is surmounted by the mystic symbols of the _egg_ and _serpent_, in a good style of sculpture. Part of the church is precisely what it was when the Chancellor More regularly formed part of its congregation.

In crossing the bridge to Battersea, I was called upon to pay toll, and was informed, that this bridge is _private_ property.--A bridge across a great river, in a _civilized_ country, _private_ property!--Is not this monstrous, thought I, in a country in which seventy millions of taxes are collected per annum, and which has accumulated a debt of nine hundred millions since the accession of the house of Guelph? Yet, if bridges remain private property, #FOR WHAT BENEFIT# has so much money been expended? Have bridges, or hospitals, or schools, or houses for the poor, been built with the money?--It seems not!--Have roads been made--canals cut--rivers widened--harbours improved?--No, these are private and interested speculations! What then, I exclaimed, has been done with it?

If this bridge cost twenty thousand pounds, one million of the nine hundred would have built fifty such bridges!--Yet, the war in the Peninsula, for the purpose of setting up the bigotted Ferdinand in place of the liberal Joseph, costs the country three millions per month; or as much as would build a hundred and fifty fine bridges over the principal rivers of the empire! Another three millions would build a hundred and fifty great public hospitals for the incurable poor! A third such sum would make fifty thousand miles of good roads! And a fourth would construct three thousand miles of canal, or ten or twelve such as the Grand Junction Canal! That is to say, all these _substantial_ benefits might be produced to the country by a few weeks' cost of the war in the Peninsula; a war of such doubtful benefit, either to England, to Spain, or to humanity!

At the distance of a hundred yards from Battersea Bridge, an extensive pile of massy brickwork, for the manufactory of Soap, has recently been erected, at a cost, it is said, of sixty thousand pounds. I was told it was inaccessible to strangers, and therefore was obliged to content myself with viewing it at a distance. Such vast piles are not uncommon in and near London; yet how great and certain must be the profits of a commodity to warrant the expenditure of such large capitals before there can be any return! It might seem too that a man possessed of sixty thousand pounds, or of as much as, at the present value of money, would purchase for ever the constant labour of from above sixty to eighty men, would have avoided the hazards of trade.--Yet in England it is not so--the avaricious spirit of commerce despises all mediocrity--care is preferred to enjoyment--and the ends of life are sacrificed to the means! It has always been the foible of man not to be contented with the good he possesses, but to look forward to happiness in the anticipation of something which he hopes to attain. Thus, few congratulate themselves on the comforts they enjoy, or consider the consequences of losing them; but, neglectful of blessings in hand, rush forward in quest of others which they may never be able to obtain, and which, when possessed, are again as little enjoyed.

Poets, divines, and moralists, have asserted this important truth in all ages; but have failed to cure the delusion, though it is at once the cause of the greater part of the miseries of individuals, and of the mischievous errors of governments. Moses guarded against it by new subdivisions of property in every year of jubilee; but the fraternal regulations of the family of Abraham are not conceived to be applicable to the whole family of man, as blended in modern nations; and statesmen and economists now think it better that endless competitions should be encouraged, and indefinite accumulations tolerated, than that industry should be checked by any regard to the personal happiness which might result from moderated and bounded wealth. Hence, he that has health and strength to labour for his own subsistence is not contented unless he can accumulate enough to purchase the labour of others--and he who has enough to purchase the labours of fifty, is miserable if another can purchase the labours of sixty--while he who can purchase the labours of a thousand is still wretched if some other can purchase the labours of two thousand. In the wilds of Africa and America, men suffer every species of misery for want of the impulse created by the reward of labour; whereas the suffering is little less, though varied in kind, from the gradations created in long-established societies by the insatiable cravings of avarice! I am aware that it is hazardous to discuss a subject which probes to the quick the sensibility of pride; yet this is a social problem which merits the consideration of all statesmen who are anxious to promote the happiness of communities; and it ought not to be lost sight of by any future Solon who may be called upon to ameliorate the condition of his country.

At a few yards from the toll-gate of the bridge, on the Western side of the road, stand the work-shops of that eminent, modest, and persevering mechanic, Mr. #Brunel#; a gentleman of the rarest genius, who has effected as much for the Mechanic Arts as any man of his time. The wonderful apparatus in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, by which he cuts blocks for the navy, with a precision and expedition that astonish every beholder, secures him a monument of fame, and eclipses all rivalry. In a small building on the left, I was attracted by the solemn action of a steam-engine of a sixteen-horse or eighty-men power, and was ushered into a room, where it turned, by means of bands, four wheels fringed with fine saws, two of eighteen feet in diameter, and two of them nine feet. These circular saws were used for the purpose of separating veneers, and a more perfect operation was never performed. I beheld planks of mahogany and rose-wood sawed into veneers the sixteenth of an inch thick, with a precision and grandeur of action which really was sublime! The same power at once turned these tremendous saws, and drew their work upon them. A large sheet of veneer, nine or ten feet long by two feet broad, was thus separated in about ten minutes, so even, and so uniform, that it appeared more like a perfect work of Nature than one of human art! The force of these saws may be conceived when it is known that the large ones revolve sixty-five times in a minute; hence, 18 × 3,14 = 56,5 × 65 gives 3672 feet, or two-thirds of a mile in a minute; whereas, if a sawyer's tool give thirty strokes of three feet in a minute, it is but ninety feet, or only the fortieth part of the steady force of Mr. Brunel's saws!

In another building, I was shewn his manufactory of shoes, which, like the other, is full of ingenuity, and, in regard to subdivision of labour, brings this fabric on a level with the oft-admired manufactory of pins. Every step in it is effected by the most elegant and precise machinery; while as each operation is performed by one hand, so each shoe passes through twenty-five hands, who complete from the hide, as supplied by the currier, a hundred pair of strong and well-finished shoes per day. All the details are performed by ingenious applications of the mechanic powers, and all the parts are characterized by precision, uniformity, and accuracy. As each man performs but one step in the process, which implies no knowledge of what is done by those who go before or follow him, so the persons employed are not shoemakers, but wounded soldiers, who are able to learn their respective duties in a few hours. The contract at which these shoes are delivered to government is 6_s._ 6_d._ per pair, being at least 2_s._ less than what was paid previously for an unequal and cobbled article.

While, however, we admire these triumphs of mechanics, and congratulate society on the prospect of enjoying more luxuries at less cost of human labour, it ought not to be forgotten, that the general good in such cases is productive of great partial evils, against which a paternal government ought to provide. No race of workmen being proverbially more industrious than shoemakers, it is altogether unreasonable, that so large a portion of valuable members of society should be injured by improvements which have the ultimate effect of benefitting the whole.

The low price of labour deprives these classes of the power of accumulating any private fund, on which to subsist while they are learning new trades; it seems therefore incumbent on governments to make sufficient provision, from the public stock, for all cases of distress, which arise out of changes of this kind. If governments were benevolent, and vigilant in their benevolence, no members of the community would, under any circumstances, suffer from causes which are productive, or supposed to be productive, of general benefit. I qualify the position by the word _supposed_, because, owing to social monopolies, and to the advantages taken of poverty by the habits of wealth, the mass of the people are less benefited by the introduction of machinery than they ought to be. If a population have been drawn or driven from agriculture to manufactures, and the lands which maintained in humble independance the ancestors of the manufacturers are, in consequence, united into single farms, the manufacturers should not be left without resource, if their trade fails, or their labour is superseded by machinery. Against the ill effects of such changes, paternal governments should provide means of relief, so as to render them as little prejudicial to individuals as possible; and no transitions in the productive value of various labour, should be allowed to destroy the industrious part of the population, or force them to seek subsistence in foreign climes. It being the object of all machinery to save human labour, of course society at large ought to enjoy the benefit; and all who are in danger of suffering for a benefit to be enjoyed by the whole, should be liberally indemnified out of the common stock. Nothing could be more easy than for a board of commissioners or arbitrators to assess on the public such individual losses; and, in cases of great transitions, imposts should be so levied on monopoly as to restore the equilibrium of great branches of industry. For what but for such purposes of equalizing happiness are governments constituted and maintained?

I passed from the premises of Mr. Brunel, to the nearly adjoining ones of Mr. Hodgson, an intelligent maltster and distiller, and the proprietor of the elevated horizontal air-mill, which serves as a landmark for many miles round. But his mill, its elevated shaft, its vanes, and weather or wind boards, curious as they would have been on any other scite, lost their interest on premises once the residence of the illustrious Bolingbroke, and the resort of the philosophers of his day. In ascending the winding flights of its tottering galleries, I could not help wondering at the caprice of events which had converted the dwelling of Bolingbroke into a malting-house and a mill. This house, once sacred to philosophy and poetry, long sanctified by the residence of the noblest genius of his age, honoured by the frequent visits of Pope, and the birthplace of the immortal Essay on Man, is now appropriated to the lowest uses! The house of Bolingbroke become a windmill! The spot on which the Essay on Man was concocted and produced, converted into a distillery of pernicious spirits! Such are the lessons of time! Such are the means by which an eternal agency sets at nought the ephemeral importance of man! But yesterday, this spot was the resort, the hope, and the seat of enjoyment of Bolingbroke, Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Thomson, Mallet, and all the contemporary genius of England--yet a few whirls of the earth round the sun, the change of a figure in the date of the year, and the groupe have vanished; while in their place I behold hogs and horses, malt-bags and barrels, stills and machinery!

Alas, said I, to the occupier, and have these things become the representatives of more human genius than England may ever witness on one spot again--have you thus satirized the transitory fate of humanity,--do you thus become a party with the bigotted enemies of that philosophy which was personified in a Bolingbroke and a Pope? No, he rejoined, I love the name and character of Bolingbroke, and I preserve the house as well as I can with religious veneration; I often smoke my pipe in Mr. Pope's parlour, and think of him with due respect as I walk the part of the terrace opposite his room. He then conducted me to this interesting parlour, which is of brown polished oak, with a grate and ornaments of the age of George the First; and before its window stood the portion of the terrace upon which the malt-house had not encroached, with the Thames moving majestically under its wall. I was on holy ground!--I did not take off my shoes--but I doubtless felt what pilgrims feel as they approach the temples of Jerusalem, Mecca, or Jaggernaut! Of all poems, and of all codes of wisdom, I admire the Essay on Man, and its doctrines, the most; and in this room, I exclaimed, it was probably planned, discussed, and written!

Mr. Hodgson assured me, this had always been called "Pope's room," and he had no doubt it was the apartment usually occupied by that great poet, in his visits to his friend Bolingbroke. Other parts of the original house remain, and are occupied and kept in good order. He told me, however, that this is but a wing of the mansion, which extended in Lord Bolingbroke's time to the church-yard, and is now appropriated to the malting-house and its warehouses.

The church itself is a new and elegant structure, but chiefly interesting to me, as containing the vault of the St. John family, in which lies the great Lord, at whose elegant monument, by Roubilliac, I lingered some minutes.

On inquiring for an ancient inhabitant of Battersea, I was introduced to a Mrs. Gilliard, a pleasant and intelligent woman, who told me, she well remembered Lord Bolingbroke; that he used to ride out every day in his chariot, and had a black patch on his cheek, with a large wart over his eye-brows. She was then but a girl, but she was taught to look upon him with veneration as a great man. As, however, he spent little in the place, and gave little away, he was not much regarded by the people of Battersea. I mentioned to her the names of several of his contemporaries, but she recollected none, except that of Mallet, who, she said, she had often seen walking about in the village, while he was visiting at Bolingbroke House. The unassuming dwelling of this gentlewoman affords another proof of the scattered and unrecorded wealth of Britain, in works of superior art. I found in her retired parlour, a fine historical picture, by Vandyke, for which she said she had been offered 500l. but which she refused to part with, not less from a spirit of independence, than from a tasteful estimate of the beauties of the picture.

It was in the warm alluvial plain adjoining this village, the very swamp into which the Britons retreated before Caesar, that the first asparagus was cultivated in England. I could learn no particulars of this circumstance, but such vast quantities are still grown here, that one gardener has fifty acres engaged in the production of this vegetable, and there are above two hundred acres of it within a mile of Battersea church.

Proceeding onward between some ancient walls which bound the grounds of various market gardeners, I was told that here resided the father of Queen Anne Boleyn; but I could not fix any thing with precision on the subject, though it appears from the monument of Queen Elizabeth, in Battersea church, that the Boleyns were related to the St. John's.

A manufacturer of pitch and turpentine politely shewed me over his works. I trembled as I passed among his combustible cauldrons, and not without cause, for the place had recently been burnt to the ground, and it experienced the same fate a second time, but a few weeks after my visit. May we not hope that the applicable powers of heated gas will enable such manufactories to be carried on without the inevitable recurrence of such conflagrations.