Sir Richard Fanshawe, in an elegant and elaborate poem,--an evidence that the subject occupied public attention,--asks, “Who would pursue The smoky glory of the town, That may go till his native earth, And by the shining fire sit down On his own hearth, “Free from the griping scrivener’s hands And the more biting mercer’s books, Free from the bait of oiled hands And painted looks?” It is clear, from these and other facts, and from the circumstance that it would be very difficult to separate the casual visitors from the fixed inhabitants of London, that up to the year 1700 there was little information on which to found an argument. All that we possess is vague and desultory. Lord Salisbury, in a letter written to Prince Henry prior to 1612, says, “Be wary of Londoners, for there died here 123 last week.” On the 1st of May, 1619, we learn by another source that the number of deaths in London was from 200 to 300 weekly. At the accession of James I., London was said to contain little more than 150,000 inhabitants; and at the restoration of Charles II., 120,000 families were said to be within the walls of London. “Before the Restoration,” said Sir William Petty, “the people of Paris were more than those of London and Dublin put together; whereas, in 1687, the people of London were more than those of Paris and Rome.” Evelyn, again, says, in his Diary, in 1684, that he had seen London almost as large again as it was at that time. Judging from various independent sources, however, the population of England at the time of the Revolution may be fairly estimated as ranging from 5,000,000 to 5,500,000. That the tables of Graunt and Petty had produced small practical effect, and that little or nothing was known as to the chances of life, may be gathered from a pamphlet printed in 1680, in which the whole doctrine of the value of life as then understood and acted on is affirmed: the utmost value allotted to the best life was 7 years, at which the life of a “healthful man,” at any age between 20 and 40, was estimated; while that of an aged or sickly person was from 5 to 6 years, the various limits between these two extremes constituting the whole range of difference in value. Such was the limited nature of the statistics of life when the Astronomer Royal Halley compiled those calculations which make his name honoured by directors and actuaries. To him we owe the germ of all subsequent developments of this science, in that general formula for calculating the value of annuities which is yet regarded with so much respect.