London: or, the progress of commerce

A poem by Richard Glover

This poem represents Commerce as the child of Neptune, and born on the coast of Libya in an island, celebrated in fabulous antiquity for its fruitfulness and plenty during the first uncultivated ages, whence the new divinity is supposed to convey these blessings round the world. Her birth is attended by many of the Gods, who endow her with their several gifts: among the rest Apollo appoints her to be the inventress of letters; Sir Isaac Newton's opinion being here alluded to, that merchandize gave rise to this wonderful discovery. Commerce is then described as making her first appearance to the world among the Phoenicians, the earliest people, who exercis'd an extensive trade. From thence she proceeds to visit other parts of the globe, and endeavours to erect her principal empire at Carthage, situated in Libya, the country assign'd for her nativity. Upon the destruction of that city she again removes from place to place; but at length, allured by the vigour and singular resolution of the Dutch in throwing off the Spanish yoke, she takes up her residence with that indefatigable people. Lastly, by the good laws, which have been made from time to time for the encouragement of trade among us, especially by the act of navigation, which has transferred a great part of the Dutch traffick to ourselves, she is suppos'd on our invitation to choose England for her chief abode, more particularly London, our principal emporium, as well as capital city.

The central topos of the civilizing benevolence of trade also informs Richard Glover's London, or The Progress of Commerce. The poem was written at another critical moment in Britain's history, the war with Spain in 1739, and makes the nexus between poetry and commerce explicit. The self-conscious speaker of this poem is a merchant who implores the winds to guide his vessels home safely so that his muse is at liberty to devote herself whole-heartedly to the real business, i.e. the praise of London, “Albion's pride, /Fair seat of wealth and freedom,. . . /lov'd abode of Commerce” (17). In making Britain the heir of the Phoenicians, “the originators of trade” (Weinbrot 262), Glover, son of a merchant and a merchant himself, is echoing Defoe in the History and repeating a widely current view. In Glover’s mythical version Neptune has fathered a child called “Commerce” on a Phoenician virgin. In a progress that takes her to Greece, Sicily, Portugal, Marseilles, the Hanseatic league, and Venice, Commerce ends up in “northern Albion's tin-embowel'd fields” (l. 190).6 That the goddess chooses to make England her ultimate residence is due to the decrees of Fate, which coincide with a historical telos: it means “perfecting at once/ What by Eliza was so well begun” (ll. 406- 7); but above all it is the beauty of the Thames valley and the virtue of its inhabitants, their “candid manners,” their “free/ Sagacious converse” and their “zeal for knowledge” (ll. 416-18) that determine the choice, make it seem inevitable and natural.