14 TRE MOB EL MERCHANT 



!N'ow in those days there were few or no professions for the junior 

 branches of the noble and gentle families. There were but few 

 government offices, few lawyers' clerks, no situations under the post- 

 office, " which was not then established ; few custom-house officers, " 

 no standing army ^ or navy. The soldier's life was one of great fatigue 

 and hardship; they generally followed some noble master or knight, who 

 engaged to serve his sovereign for certain wars, and dispersed again 

 as soon as their sei'vices could be dispensed with. The pay, though 

 comparatively large, being as much as twopence or threepence a day, 

 failed to make the service very attractive, and whatever distinction their 

 chivalrous masters might obtain, there were then none of these 

 decorations which adorn the breasts of our gallant soldiers and act 

 as an encouragement to select the path of gloiy. The profession of 

 physician ' was almost unknown ; surgery,*" combined with the trade 

 of a gossiping barber, was limited almost to shaving and bleeding. 

 Bankers' there were none. The clergy absorbed every situation in 

 which much of reading and writing was concerned. Trade was the 

 only resource for the junior members of the higher families, unless 

 the youthful scion of a gentle house should happen to possess certain 

 graces of form and feature which should recommend him as page to 



n Post-offices were not introduccfl into England till A.D. 1581. 



Customs ■vvero collected at a very early date, but the first custom-house in 

 London was not established till 1559. 



p Armies were so suddenly raised, and after such short service as suddenly 

 dismissed, that they could not be well disciplined. Henry V. was the first of oiu- 

 kings who was sensible of this defect. — Henry's Sist. Great Brit. vol. 10. p. 192. 



q Dr. Friend, the learned historian of physic, could not find so much as one 

 physician in England, in those times, who deserved to be remembered. — Henry's 

 mst. Great Brit. vol. 10, p. 121. 



r When Henry V. invaded France, A.D. 1415, " with a great fleet and army, he 

 carried with him only one surgeon. The same prince found it still more difficult 

 to procure a competent number of siirgeons to attend his army in his second 

 expedition. That heroic Prince Henry V. himself, it is highly prob.ible, fell a 

 sacrifice to the ignorance of his medical attendants.'" — Hcmy's Hist. Great Brit. 

 vol. 10, p. 123. 



s Banks did not commence in England tiU 1 645. See a rare and curious pamphlet, 

 called " The Mystery of the Netvfashioned Goldsmitlis or Bankers Discovered," 

 printed in 1676, mentioned in the Loudon and Middlesex vols, of Tltc Beauties of 

 England and Wales. 



