facturers in these rich articles one of the most opulent bodies of tradesmen in the kingdom. Long previously to this period, indeed, the goldsmiths of London had been an incorporated body. Edward the Third had granted them privileges, and Richard the Second had encouraged them with a charter; but as the activity of trade must depend on the quantity of the article in the market, there was not as yet a sufficiency of gold and silver introduced into the kingdom to afford the means of rapid or enormous fortunes to those who dealt in this precious ware.* The spirit of commerce and adventure, however, so ardent in the reign of Elizabeth, quickly availed itself of all the advantages to be derived from the new world, * The Goldsmiths, though not as yet swollen into the affluence of their successors in the trade, seem to have been very tenacious of their dignity. A strong dispute occurred between them and the Fishmongers Company, in the fourteenth century, for precedency; and in a prior age they fought a desperate conflict with the Tailors, in which many were slain on both sides, for the same important object: "Tantæne animis coelestibus iræ ?" -Stowe's Survey, b. v. p. 106, 184. and the more accessible eastern regions of the old one: the trade of the goldsmith rose into an importance, and was crowned with a success, hitherto unknown; and its followers, whose domestic habits, and rules of prudence, were rather more favourable to accumulation than the modes and principles of modern mercantile life; and who, for a time, were the bankers of the great, and supplied their expenses by large and profitable loans; were enabled, after a few years of attention to business, not only to leave, on their demise, competent fortunes to their immediate surviving relatives, but to dedicate, to the use of posterity, munificent institutions for the healing of the sick, the succour of the poor, and the instruction of the ignorant.* Such was the laudable conduct of George * The late amiable Mr. Pennant was collaterally descended in the eighth degree from William Pennant, the goldsmith, who, at his house, the Queen's Head, in Smithfield, acquired a considerable fortune, in the latter end of Elizabeth's, and the beginning of James the First's, reign. It appears by his will, dated May 4th, 1607, that he was employed by the court, for many legacies are to the royal servants. His Heriot: at his death he amply provided for all his kindred; and left the remainder of his wealth to "the ordinary Town Council of Edinburgh," to "found and charity to the poor of Whiteford, Flintshire, clothes, at this time, twenty poor people.-London, p. 177. The business of goldsmiths was confined to the buying and selling of the precious metals, and foreign coins of gold and silver, melting them, coining others at the Mint, and manufacturing articles of plate. The banking was accidental, and foreign to their original business, and arose from the general opinion of their good faith and responsibility. They were afterwards, for many years, the bankers of the capital. Regular banking by private people resulted in 1643, from the calamity of the time, when the seditious spirit was in action. The merchants and traders who trusted their cash to their servants and apprentices, found this mode to be no longer a safe one; neither did they dare to leave it in the Mint at the Tower, by reason of the distress of Majesty. In the year 1645, therefore, they began to place it in the hands of goldsmiths, who now publicly exercised both professions The first regular banker was Mr. Francis Child, goldsmith, who began business soon after the Restoration. He married, in 1665 or 67, Martha, the only daughter of Robert Blanchard, goldsmith, and had twelve children. He was afterwards knighted; and lived in Fleet-street, where his shop still remains. His books are preserved by the family. 1 erect, within the said town, in perpetuity, an hospital, to be employed for the maintenance, relief, bringing up, and educating, of so many poor fatherless boys, freemen's sons, of the town of Edinburgh, as the means which he gave" would afford.* Heriot's directions were honourably, and conscientiously, fulfilled; and Edinburgh boasts, among its many other fair pretensions to celebrity, a magnificent and commodious fabric for the education, provision, and settlement in life, of one hundred and eighty fatherless boys; the noble endow. ment of "gingling Geordie," the goldsmith of James the First. ARCHIBALD ARMSTRONG, OR ARCHY. Among the many disadvantages which the royal state is doomed to experience, through the wise arrangements of that Providence * See Memoirs of George Heriot, Edinburgh, 1822, for an ample account of this excellent charity. which equalizes the happiness of the different conditions of mankind, by subtracting from the pleasures of the higher classes, and opening additional sources of enjoyment to the lower ones, it is not the least, that those of kingly degree are generally dead to the perception of gratification from the common amusements of life, and the innocent enjoyments which invariably enliven and delight the unpalled taste of the subordinate ranks. The very command with which power, elevation, and wealth invest them, over every species of pleasure, and every modification of luxury, renders both luxury and pleasure insipid to them. The constant repetition of the same routine of diversions, instead of inspiring satisfaction, wearies and disgusts their minds: "The toiling pleasure sickens into pain:" And those gratifications, which, when they are of rare occurrence, exhilarate the heart, and animate the countenance; bring "no gale of pleasure on their wing," to the unfortunate great who reiterate them every day. We are much mistaken, if we may not account, upon this principle, for the origin of |