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book_n	great_a	time_n	write_v	6,271	5	5.2850	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30880	An apology for the builder, or, A discourse shewing the cause and effects of the increase of building	Barbon, Nicholas, d. 1698.	1685 (1685)	Wing B704; ESTC R12425	15,212	39

AN APOLOGY FOR THE BUILDER OR A DISCOURSE SHEWING THE Cause and Effects OF THE INCREASE OF Building LONDON Printed for Cave Pullen at the Angel in St. Pauls-Church-yard 1685. AN APOLOGY FOR THE BUILDER TO write of Architecture and its several parts of Situation Platforms of Building and the quality of Materials with their Dimensions and Ornaments To discourse of the several Orders of Columns of the Tuscan Dorick Ionick Corinthian and composit with the proper inrichments of their Capitals Freete and Cornish were to transcribe a Folio from Vitruvius and others and but mispend the Readers and Writers time since we live in an Age and Country where all the Arts belonging to Architecture are so well known and practised And yet at the same time and place to write an Apology for the Artist may seem a greater trifling In a time when since the Grecian Greatness their Arts were never better performed In a place where Buildings are generally so well finish'd that almost every House is a little Book of Architecture and as the ancient Artists made Athens and the rest of their Cities famous by their Buildings and still preserve the memory of the places by the ruins of their excellent Arts so the Artists of this Age have already made the City of London the Metropolis of Europe and if it be compared for the number of good Houses for its many and large Piazzas for its richness of Inhabitants it must be allowed the largest best built and richest City in the world But such is the misfortune of Greatness to be envied The Citizens nay the whole Nation is astonished at the flourishing condition of this Metropolis to see every year a new Town added to the old one and like men affrighted are troubled with misapprehensions and easily imposed on by the false suggestions of those that envy her Grandeur and are angry with the Builders for making her so great The Citizens are afraid that the Building of new Houses will lessen the Rent and Trade of the old ones and fancy the Inhabitants will remove on a sudden like Rats that they say run away from old Houses before they tumble The Country Gentleman is troubled at the new Buildings for fear they should draw away their Inhabitants and depopulate the Country and they want Tenants for their Land And both agree that the increase of Building is prejudicial to the Government and use for Argument a simile from those that have the Rickets fansying the City to be the Head of the Nation and that it will grow too big for the Body This is the Charge that is laid on the Builders Therefore the design of this Discourse is to answer these aspersions to remove these fears and false conceptions by confuting these Popular Errors and shewing that the Builder ought to be encouraged in all Nations as the chief promoter of their Welfare This is done by shewing the Cause of the increase of Building and the Effects as they relate to the City to the Country and to the Government Of the Cause THE Cause of the Increase of Building is from the natural increase of Mankind that there is more born than die From the first blessing of the Creation Increase and multiply joined to the good Government of a Gracious King There are three things that man by nature is under a necessity to take care of to provide food for himself Clothes and a House For the first all the rest of Creation as well as man is under that necessity to take care of For life cannot be maintained without food The second belongs only to man and it is a question by some whether it is required of him by nature or custom because in some Countries and those cold men go naked But as to the last it is most certain that Man is forced to build by nature as all those Creatures are whose young are born so weak like the off-spring of Mankind that they require some time for strength after their birth to follow their Parents or feed themselves Thus the Rabbit the Fox and Lion make themselves Burrows Kennels and Dens to bring forth and shelter their young but the Mare Cow Sheep c. bring forth in the open field because their young are able to follow them as soon as folded So that the natural cause of Building a House is to provide a shelter for their young and if we examine man in his Natural condition without Arts his Tenement differs little from the rest of Nature's Herd The Fox's Kennel though not so large being a lesser creature may yet for its contrivance in its several apartments be compared with any of his Cottages Earthen walls and covering are the manner of both their Buildings and the Furniture of both their Houses alike Now as the Rabbits increase new Burrows are made and the Boundaries of the Warren are enlarged So it is with Man as he increaseth new Houses are built and his Town made bigger When Mankind is civilized instructed with Arts and under good Government every man doth not dress his own meat make his own Clothes nor build his own House He enjoys property of Land and Goods which he or his Ancestors by their Arts and industry gained These Possessions make the difference among men of rich and poor The rich are fed clothed and housed by the labour of other men but the poor by their own and the Goods made by this labour are the rents of the rich mens Land for to be well fed well clothed and well lodged without labour either of body or mind is the true definition of a rich man Now as men differ in Estates so they differ in their manner of living The rich have variety of Dishes several suits of Clothes and larger Houses and as their riches increase so doth their wants as Sir William Temple hath observed men are better distinguished by what they want than by what they injoy And the chief business of Trade is the making and selling all sorts of Commodities to supply their occasions For there are more hands imployed to provide things necessary to make up the several distinctions of men Things that promote the ease pleasure and pomp of life than to supply the first natural necessities from hunger cold and a house only to shelter their young Now the Trader takes care from time to time to provide a sufficient quantity of all sorts of Goods for mans occasions which he finds out by the Market That is By the quick selling of the Commodities that are made ready to be sold And as there are Butchers Brewers and Cooks Drapers Mercers and Taylors and a hundred more that furnish him with food and clothes so there are Bricklayers Carpenters Playsterers and many more Traders that build houses for him and they make houses of the first second and third rate of building in proportion to the increase of the several degrees of men which they find out by the Market that is by letting of Houses

and reaped every year as there is occasion for and sometimes more For the Crown in some years hath been at charge to Export it And there is as much Wooll provided and made into Clothes and Stuffs as the Market can take off and so for all other Commodities of the Country Nay there are more of all the Country Commodities every year made than formerly There are more Stuffs more Clothes sent up to Gerard's and Blackwell-Hall as appears by the Entries of those Halls and more Sheep and Oxen sent to London and eaten than formerly For there are more people in the City to be fed so that there must be more hands in the Country to provide this greater quantity of Commodities And the Country does increase as well as the City as hath been already observed from the doomsday-Doomsday-Book Therefore if the Rents of the Lands fall in the Country it must not be ascrib'd to the New-Buildings draining their Inhabitants but to some other occasions Which probably may be from the great improvements that are made upon the Land in the Country either by draining of Fens improving of Land by Zanfoin or other profitable Seeds inclosing of grounds or disparking and plowing of Parks by which means the Markets are over stock'd and furnished at a cheaper rate than those Lands can affford who have had no advantage from improvements Or else the Market is removed at a greater distance and the Lands are forced to abate in their price for the carriage The Town perhaps is decayed that they used to furnish and the Trade removed to some other flourishing place at a greater distance occasioned some times by the death or removal of some great Clothier or Trader or some other natural obstruction of the place as the choaking up of some Haven and the forsaking of the Sea which is the reason of the decay of the Cinque-Ports These or some other occasions may make some particular mens Farms fall in value but there is never a County in England where the Land of the whole County doth not produce a third part more in value than it did within a 100 years and whosoever will compare these present Rents with what they were then will find them generally increased Therefore the New Buildings of this City cannot prejudice the Country but are greatly advantageous to it Of the Effects of the New Buildings as they relate to the Government 1. NEW Buildings are advantageous to the King and Government They are instrumental to the preserving and increasing of the number of the Subjects And numbers of Subjects is the strength of a Prince for Houses are Hives for the People to breed and swarm in without which they cannot increase And unless they are provided for them from time to time in proportion to their increase they would be forced to go into the Plantations and other Countries for habitations and so many times become the Subjects of other Princes but at the best the Country loseth the profit of feeding them for they that live in a City are unskilful and unfit for Country-life and this is the reason why so many Scotch Citizens are wandring Pedlers and that every Town in Europe hath a Scotchman for an Inhabitant And that this will be the Effects will appear plainly by examining the growth of the City of London since the Buildings have flourished with its condition when the Buildings were prohibited And we cannot make a better discovery of it than by the Bills of Mortality for it is reasonable among such a number of Mankind such a number should die and whether it be in such a proportion as one in three and thirty as Mr. Grant and Sir William Petit have observed is not not so material to this purpose but it is a certain demonstration That if the Burials have increased the number of Citizens hath increased though the proportion may be uncertain Now to begin the Observation from the first Bills that were Printed which was in the year 1606 for the space of six and seven and twenty years we shall find very little increase in the City for in 1606 and 1607 there died between six and seven thousand a year and in the years 1632 and 1633 there died betwixt eight and nine thousand Now the reason of this was the People of England were a little before that time under the same mistake as they are generally now and cried out against the Builders that the City would grow too big and therefore in the 38 of Queen Elizabeth they made a Law to prohibit Buildings in the City of London which though it was but a probationary Act to continue only to the next Sessions of Parliament which was but a short time yet its effects were long For it frighted the Builders and obstructed the growth of the City and none built for thirty years after all King James his Reign without his Majesties License But for want of Houses the increase of the People went into other parts of the world For within this space of time were those great Plantations of New England Virginia Mariland and Burmudas began and that this want of Houses was the occasion is plain For they could not build in the Country because of the Law against Cottages For people may get children and so increase that had not four Acres of ground to Build on But the People of England at last were convinced of this popular error and petitioned in Parliament his Majesties K. Charles the Martyr that he would take his restraint from the Builders and if the next period of seven and twenty years be examined wherein there was a greater liberty of Building though in this space there was a great Rebellion and Civil Wars which is a great allay to the growth of the People yet there appeareth a much greater increase of the City of London For in the years 1656 and 1657 the Burials were twelve and thirteen thousand But the flourishing condition of the City of Londen raised a new clamour against the Builders and Oliver the Usurper glad of any pretence to raise a Tax made use of this clamor and laid it upon the new Foundations but though it was an heavy and unjust Tax upon the Builders yet he got little by it for the whole Summ collected was but Twenty thousand Pounds clear of all charges as appears by the Records of the Exchequer however it had the same ill effects to stop the Builders and growth of the City for the People for want of Houses in that time began that great and flourishing Plantation of Jamaica Now if the last Period since his Majesties happy Restauration be examined wherein the Builders have had the greatest liberty it will appear that the Inhabitants of the City have increased more than in both of the former Periods for the yearly Bills of Mortality are now betwixt two and three and twenty thousands so that the City is since increased one third and as much as in sixty years before This is