At the close of the eighteenth century, the proceedings of revolutionary France sent a fresh stream of excitement through the public mind of England. On one side or the other, in sympathy with or in aversion to the measures adopted on the opposite side of the channel, most politicians, high and low, eagerly ranged themselves. The efforts of Mr. Pitt to prevent anything like the enactment here of what our neighbours were doing, were condemned or applauded by the two parties according to the principles they espoused. "The trials of Hardy, Tooke, Thelwall, and others," says a minister, then a student near the metropolis, "which took place not long after my entrance on college life, agitated London to an extent which I have never seen equaled, though my life has fallen on times and events of the most prodigious and portentous character."--_Autobiography of the Rev. W. Walford_. Clubs were formed of a more than questionable description, of which we remember to have received an illustrative anecdote from a citizen of London, now gray-headed, but then in the flower of his youth. Invited by a person of about his own age to attend a meeting, held in some obscure street, he was surprised on entrance to find a number of men, ranged on either side a room, sitting beside long tables, with one at the upper end, where sat the president for the evening. Several foaming tankards were brought in, when the president calling on the company to rise, took up one of the vessels, and striking off with his hand the foam that crested the porter, gave as a toast, "So let all ---- perish." The blank was left to be filled up as each drinker pleased. The avowed dislike to kings, entertained by the boon companions there assembled, suggested to the visitor the word intended for insertion, and he gladly left the place, not a little alarmed lest he should be suspected of sympathy in treasonable designs. Following political excitement came a monetary crisis, which struck a panic through the body of London merchants; for, in 1797, the Bank of England suspended its cash payments. But after all these storms, which severely tested its strength, the vessel of the state, under the blessing of the Almighty, righted itself, and scenes of political calm again smiled, and tides of commercial prosperity flowed upon old London.