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HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

cju p . Great as has been the change in the rural life of England

■—~—. since the Revolution, the change which has come to pass in

Growth of ... *

ihoiowns. the cities is still more amazing. At present a sixth part of thenation is crowded into provincial towns of more than thirty-thousand inhabitants. In the reign of Charles the Second noprovincial town in the kingdom contained thirty thousandinhabitants; and only four provincial towns contained so manyas ten thousand inhabitants.

Bristol. Next to the capital, but next at an immense distance,stood Bristol, then the first English seaport, and Norwich,then the first English manufacturing town. Both have sincethat time been far outstripped by younger rivals; yet bothhave made great positive advances. The population ofBristol has quadrupled. The population of Norwich has morethan doubled.

Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the Restora-tion, was struck by the splendour of the city. But his standardwas not high; for he noted down as a wonder the circumstancethat, in Bristol, a man might look round him and see nothingbut houses. It seems that, in no other place with which hewas acquainted, except London, did the buildings completelyshut out the woods and fields. Large as Bristol might thenappear, it occupied but a very small portion of the area onwhich it now stands. A few churches of eminent beauty roseout of a labyrinth of narrow lanes built upon vaults of no greatsolidity. If a coach or a cart entered those alleys, there wasdanger that it would be wedged between the houses, anddanger also that it would break in the cellars. Goods weretherefore conveyed about the town almost exclusively intrucks drawn by dogs; and the richest inhabitants exhibitedtheir wealth, not by riding in gilded carriages, but by walkingthe streets with trains of servants in rich liveries, and bykeeping tables loaded with good cheer. The pomp of thechristenings and burials far exceeded what was seen at any