PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. PRINTED BY HOBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN, Great New Street, Fetter Lane. *^9! (> PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON, fast attft Jrwnt. BY THOMAS MILLER, AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS/ "LADY JANE GREY," &C. Li O N D O N : 227 STRAND. PICTUEESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON BY THOMAS MILLER, AUTHOR OF A "HISTORY OP THE ANGLO-SAXONS," "LADY JANE GREY,' "FAIR ROSAMOND," "PICTURES OF COUNTRY LIFE/' &C. WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS OF CHURCHES, PUBLIC BUILDINGS, ANTIQUITIES, STREET VIEWS, Ac. LONDON: OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY, 227 STRAND. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGB ANCIENT LONDON the dawn of history Roman London Saxon Lon- don old London Bridge remains of ancient London old roads and streets ........... 17 CHAPTER II. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL Anniversary meeting of charity children in- terior of St. Paul's the Times' office Doctors Commons Prero- gative Court Examiners of wills Shakspeare's will Porters of the neighbourhood Paul's Wharf Knightrider-street Old London thieves Church of St. Mary Somerset Cromwell and the clergy Saracen's Head, Friday-street Baptism of John Milton Gerard's Hall Painter-stainers 1 Hall Queenhithe St. Mary, Alderman- bury Bow Church ......... 29 CHAPTER III. CHEAPSIDE London thoroughfares Southwark Bridge Whittington Bucklersbury Walbrook Roman remains found in Cannon- street London Stone The Mansion House Lombard-street London bankers Bankers' clerks The Monument . . .56 CHAPTER IV. LONDON BRIDGE WHARF Billingsgate Coal Exchange Custom House St. Dunstan's Church Mark-lane Church of Allhallows Barking East India House ........ 78 1616540 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE THE TOWER The White Tower Hentzner's description of the Tower in the reign of Queen Elizabeth Anecdotes of lions The Crown Jewels The Armoury Execution of Lady Jane Grey Prisoners in the Tower Regulations of the Tower 103 CHAPTER VI. LONDON DOCKS Emigrants Canterbury colonists London semps- tresses Emigration 126 CHAPTER VII. WHITECHAPEL Row of butchers' shops Articles sold in them Rag Fair Church of St. Catherine Cree Crosby Hall Four Swans' Inn 141 CHAPTER VIII GUILDHALL Lord Mayor's Banquet Lord Mayor's Show Description of, in time of Charles II. Duties of the Lord Mayor Gog and Magog The Sheriff's Court Monuments injGuildhall St. Giles's, Cripplegate . . . . . . . . . . .155 CHAPTER IX. CHRIST'S HOSPITAL Foundation of, by Edward VI. Description of supper in Description of Christ's Hospital as it was two hundred years ago Christ's Church . . . . . . . .166 CHAPTER X. SMITHFIELD MARKET Drovers and their dogs Smithfield butchers Countrymen in Smithfield . . . . . . . .174 I CHAPTER XI. NEWGATE Scenes at executions . . .183 CONTEXTS. CHAPTER XII. PAGE FLEET STREET Whitefriars St. Bride's Church Description of Lon- don Lodging-houses St. Dunstan's Church the Cock Tavern . 191 CHAPTER XIII. CHURCH OF ST. CLEMENT'S DANES The Strand May -pole Church of St. Mary-le-Strand Somerset House Church of the Savoy The Adelphi Arches at the Adelphi Covent-Garden Market Church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden . . . . . . . .201 CHAPTER XIV. WESTMINSTER ABBEY Monuments Horse-Guards St. James's Park Hyde Park Regent's Park New Parks 217 CHAPTER XV. ST. GILES'S The Rookery Church of St. Giles's Queen Anne's Bath 229 CHAPTER XVI. LONDON FOG 243 CHAPTER XVII,, THE OLD BOROUGH OF SOUTH WARK St. James's Church Tabard Inn 249 CHAPTER XVIII. STREET AMUSEMENTS Punch and Judy Organ-boys and monkeys Fat boys Tumblers Stilt-dancers Jack - in - the - green Guy Fawkes . . * 254 I CHAPTER XIX. SPRING-TIME IN LONDON 262 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. PAGE LONDON CEMETERIES Ancient mode of burying the dead Intramural interments Ravages of the cholera in 1849 ..... 269 CHAPTER XXI. GREENWICH PARK Old pensioners Telescopes Gipsies Blackheath 283 CHAPTER XXII. HOLIDAYS OF THE LONDON POOR ....... 293 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. Frontispiece. Vignette in Title. Roman Hypocaust, Thames-street 22 Roman Remains, found in Thames-street 23 St. Paul's Cathedral. Charity Children's Anniversary Festival . . .31 Prerogative Court. Doctors' Commons 39 Saracen's Head, Friday -street 48 Roman Lamp 49 Gerard the Giant 50 Gerard's Hall Crypt 52 Bow Church, Cheapside 54 St. Stephen's, Walbrook 61 Roman Vessels found in Cannon-street 63 The London Stone 64 Lord Mayor's Jewel 65 St. Michael's Church, Cornhill 68 Lombard Street 71 St. Mary's Woolnoth 73 Old Billingsgate 83 St. Dunstan's-in-the-East 92 Silver-gilt Shrine 95 Tippoo's Elephant Howdah 97 Ajunta Caves 99 Tower of London 107 Queen's Diadem, Queen's Coronation Bracelets, Prince of Wales' Crown, Old Imperial Crown, Queen's Crown, Spiritual Sceptre, and Temporal Sceptre 115 Imperial Orb, Ampulla, Golden Salt-Cellar of State, Anointing Spoon, and State Salt-Cellars 117 Mast-House, Blackwall 129 London Docks Outer Basin . ... . . . . . . 140 Butcher Row, Whitechapel . . 143 XIV LIST OF ENGEAVINGS. MM The Four Swans' Inn Yard 151 St. Giles's, Cripplegate 165 Old Staircase in Christ's Hospital 171 Christ's Church .172 Smithfield 179 Newgate 185 Somerset House 204 Church of St. Mary-le-Savoy 205 Interior of the Savoy Church 206 Westminster Abbey 218 Horse-Guards 222 The Eookery, St. Giles's 231 Queen Anne's Bath 241 Street Performers 258 Highgate Cemetery 271 One-Tree Hill, Greenwich Park 284 Old Pensioner, Greenwich Park 285 Telescopes, Greenwich Park 286 Gipsies, Greenwich Park 287 Greenwich Park . 289 ADVERTISEMENT. THE greater portion of the following work originally appeared in the columns of the Illustrated London News. The beauty of the sketches, and the permanent interest attached to them, led the proprietors of the National Illustrated Library to believe that a reprint of them would form a valuable and welcome addition to that series of illustrated works. The various articles have accord- ingly been carefully revised by the author ; many additions have been made, and curious extracts from rare old works have been introduced, more completely to illustrate the various scenes and objects described. The engravings, which consist chiefly of views of churches and other public buildings, of antiquities, views of streets and markets, sketches of street scenes, &c., have been carefully exe- cuted from original drawings. The work is not to be considered as a guide-book, but as a series of sketches in " poetic prose" of various parts of London, in which, while perfect accuracy is preserved, the dulness of a mere itinerary is avoided ; in which London of the present is sketched from constant personal observation, and London of the past from the rich historical and legendary lore that exists regarding it, and in which the thoughts that arise in "a free XVI ADVERTISEMENT. mind and loving heart," from a contemplation of the various objects and scenes described, are expressed in eloquent and for- cible language. Nor must the work be considered as exhaustive of the sub- ject. The places and scenes chosen for " Picturesque Sketches" are chiefly in the eastern or older part of London. To have in- cluded the whole of the metropolis would have required not one volume, but many. Nevertheless, it will be found that the sub- jects to which chapters are devoted are the most interesting in London, and that though the work is not complete as regards the whole of this mighty city, yet each chapter is complete as far as regards its individual subject. i 227 Strand, July 1, 1852. PICTUKESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. NSTEAD of wasting words on traditions which few can believe, or filling my pages with accounts of the fabulous kings who are said to have descended from JEneas, and to have reigned in Britain centuries before the Roman Invasion, I shall commence the present work by shewing that the remote past will ever remain a mystery which man is not permitted to penetrate. The following opening to my History of the Anglo-Saxons applies to the " unknown" origin of London the new Troy of ancient fiction the Augusta of the Romans for in it I have described my impression of the un- written History of the Past : " Almost every historian has set out by regret- ting how little is known of the early inhabitants of Great Britain and its metropolis a loss which only the lovers of hoar antiquity deplore, since, from all we can with certainty glean from the pages of contemporary history, we should find but little more to interest us than if we possessed written records of the remotest origin of the Red Indians ; for both would alike but be the history of an unlettered and uncivilised race. The same dim obscurity, with scarcely an exception, hangs over the primeval inhabitants of every other country : and if we lift up the mysterious curtain which has so long fallen over and concealed the past, we only obtain glimpses of obscure hiero- glyphics ; and, from the unmeaning fables of monsters and giants, to which the rudest nations trace their origin, we but glance backward and backward, to find that civilised Rome and classic Greece can 18 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. produce no better authorities than old undated traditions, teeming with fabulous accounts of heathen gods and goddesses. What we can see of the remote past through the half-darkened twilight of time, is as of a great and unknown sea, on which some solitary ship is afloat, whose course we cannot trace through the shadows which every where deepen around her, nor tell what strange land lies beyond the dun horizon to which she seems bound. The dark night of mystery has for ever settled down upon the early history of our island, and the first dawning which throws the shadow of man upon the scene, reveals a rude hunter clad in the skins of beasts of the chase, whose path is disputed by the maned and shaggy bison, whose rude hut in the forest fastnesses is pitched beside the lair of the hungry wolf, and whose first conquest is the extirpation of these formidable animals. And so, in as few words, might the early history of any other country be written. The shores of Time are thickly strewn with the remains of extinct animals, which, when living, the eye of man never looked upon, as if from the deep sea of Eternity had heaved up one wave, which washed over and blotted out for ever all that was coeval with her silent and ancient reign, leaving a monument upon the confines of this old and obliterated world, for man in a future day to read, on which stands ever engraven the solemn sentence, * Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther : beyond this boundary all is mine ! ' Neither does this mystery end here ; for around the monuments which were reared by the earliest inhabitants of Great Britain there still reigns a deep darkness; we know not what hands piled together the rude remains of Stonehenge; we have but few records of the manners, the customs, or the religion of the early Britons : here and there a colossal barrow heaves up above the dead ; we look within, and find a few bones, a few rude weapons, either used in war or the chase, and these are all ; and we linger in wonderment around such remains ! Who those ancient voyagers were that first called England the 'Country of Sea Cliffs,' we know not; and while we sit and brood over the rude fragments of the Welsh Triads, we become 1 so entangled in doubt and mystery as to look upon the son of Aedd the Great, and the Island of Honey to which he sailed, and wherein he found no man alive, as the pleasing dream of some old and forgotten poet ; and we set out again with no more success to discover who were the earliest inhabitants of England, leaving the ancient Cymri and the country of Summer behind, and the tall, silent cliffs to stand, as they had done for ages, looking over a wide and mastless sea. We then look among the ancient names of the headlands, and harbours, and mountains, and Chills, and valleys, and endeavour to trace a resemblance to the language spoken by some neighbouring THE DAWX Of HISTOKY. 19 nation j and we only glean up a few scattered words, which leave us still in doubt, like a confusion of echoes, one breaking in upon the other ; a miuglement of Celtic, Pictish, Gaulish, and Saxon sounds ; where, if for a moment but one is audible and distinct, it is drowned by other successive clamours which come panting up with a still louder claim ; and in very despair we are compelled to step back again into the old primeval silence. There we find geology looking daringly into the formation of the early world, and boldly proclaiming that there was a period of time when our island heaved up bare and desolate amid the silence of the surrounding ocean when on its ancient promontories and grey granite peaks not a green branch waved nor a blade of grass grew ; and no living thing, saving the tiny corals, as they piled dome upon dome above the naked foun- dations of this early world, stirred in the 'deep profound' which reigned over those sleeping seas. Onward they go, boldly discoursing of undated centuries that have passed away, during which they tell us the ocean swarmed with huge monstrous forms ; and that all those countless ages have left to record their flight are but the remains of a few extinct reptiles and fishes, whose living likenesses never again appeared in the world. To another measureless period are we fear- lessly carried so long as to be only numbered in the account of time which eternity keeps and other forms, we are told, moved over the floors of dried-up oceans vast animals which no human eye ever looked upon alive ; these, they say, also were swept away, and their ponderous remains had long mingled with and enriched the earth ; but man had not as yet appeared, nor in any corner of the whole wide world do they discover, in the deep-buried layers of the earth, a single vestige of the remains of the human race." What historian, then, while such proofs as these are before his eyes, will not hesitate ere he ventures to assert who were the first inhabitants of any country, whence they came, or at what period of time that countiy was first peopled ? As well might he attempt a description of the scenery over which the mornings of the early world first broke, of summit and peak which, ages ago, have been hurled down, and ground and powdered into atoms. What matters it about the date when such things once were, or at what time or place they first appeared ? We can gaze upon the gigantic remains of the mas- todon or mammoth, or on the grey silent ruins of Stonehenge ; but at what period of time the one roamed over our island, or in what year the other was first reared, will for ever remain a mystery. The earth beneath our feet is lettered over with proofs that there was an age in which these extinct monsters existed, and that period is un- marked by any proof of the existence of man in our isknd. And 20 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. during those not improbable periods, when oceans were emptied and dried amid the heaving up and burying of rocks and mountains, when volcanoes reddened the dark midnights of the world, when the " earth was without form and void," what mind can picture aught but His Spirit "moving upon the face of the waters?" what mortal eye could have looked upon the rocking and reeling of those chaotic ruins when their rude forms first heaved up into the light 1 Is not such a world stamped with the imprint of the Omnipotent from when He first paved its foundation with enduring granite, and roofed it over with the soft blue of heaven, and lighted it by day with the glorious sun, and hung out the moon and stars to gladden the night, until at last He fashioned a world beautiful enough for the abode of his " own image" to dwell in : then He created man. And what matters it whether or not we believe in all these mighty epochs ? Surely it is enough for us to discover throughout every change of time the loving-kindness of God for mankind : we see how fitting this globe was at last made for man's dwelling-place ; that before the great Architect had put his last finish to his mighty work, instead of leaving us to starve amid the Silurian sterility, He prepared the world for man, and in place of the naked granite, spread out a rich carpet of verdure for him to tread upon, then flung upon it a profusion of the sweetest flowers. Let us not, then, daringly stand by, and say thus it was fashioned, and so it was formed ; but by our silence acknow- ledge that it never yet entered the heart of man to conceive how the Almighty Creator laid the foundation of the world. To his great works must we ever come with reverential knee, and before them lowly bow ; for the grey rocks, and the high mountain summits, and the wide-spreading plains, and the ever-sounding seas, are stamped with the image of Eternity ; a mighty shadow ever hangs over them. The grey and weather-beaten headlands still look over the sea, and the solemn mountains still slumber under their old mid- night shadows ; but what human ear first heard the murmur of the waves upon the beaten beach, or what human foot first climbed up those high-piled summits, we can never know. What would it benefit us could we discover the date when our island was buried beneath the ocean ; when what was dry land in one age became the sea in another ; when volcanoes glowed angrily under the dark skies of the early world, and huge extinct monsters bellowed and roamed through the old forests and swam in the ancient rivers, which have perhaps ages ago been swept away ? What could we find more to interest us were we in possession of the names, the ages, and the numbers of the first adventurers who were perchance driven by some storm upon our sea-beaten coast, than what is said in the an- AXCIEXT LONDON. 21 cient Triad before alluded to ? " There were no more men alive, nor any thing but bears, wolves, beavers, and the oxen with the high pro- minence," when Aedd landed upon the shores of England. What few traces we have of the religious rites of the early inhabitants of Great Britain vary but little from such as have been brought to light by modern travellers who have landed in newly-discovered countries in our own age. They worshipped idols, and had no knowledge of the true God ; and, saving in those lands where the early patriarchs dwelt, the same Egyptian darkness settled over the whole world. The an- cient Greeks and Romans considered all nations, except themselves, barbarians ; nor do the Chinese of the present day look upon us in a more favourable light ; while we, acknowledging their antiquity as a nation, scarcely number them amongst such as are civilised. We have yet to learn by what hands the round towers of Ireland were reared, and by what race the few ancient British monuments that still remain were piled together, ere we can enter those mysterious gates which open upon the history of the past. We find the footprint of man there, but who he was, or whence he came, we know not ; he lived and died, and whether or not posterity would ever think of the rude monuments he left behind concerned him not ; whether the stones would mark the temple in which he worshipped, or tumble down and cover his grave, concerned not his creed ; with his hatchet of stone, and spear-head of flint, he hewed his way from the cradle to the tomb ; and under the steep barrow he knew that he should sleep his last sleep, and, with his arms folded upon his breast, he left the dead past to bury its dead : he lived not for us. At what remote period of time the spot on which London now stands was first peopled can never be known. A few rude huts peer- ing perchance through the forest - trees, with grassy openings that went sloping down wards to the edge of the Thames, where the ancient Briton embarked in his rude coracle, or boat made of wicker and covered with the hides of oxen, a pile of rugged stones on the sum- mit of the hill which marked the cromlech, or druidical altar, and probably stood on the spot now occupied by St. Paul's, and which nearly two thousand years ago was removed to make room for the Roman temple dedicated to Victory was, from all we know of other ancient British towns, the appearance of London soon after the period when the old Cymri first landed in Engknd, and called it the " Coun- try of Sea-Cliffs." We next see it through the dim twilight of time occupied by the Romans. Triumphal arches and pillared temples and obelisks look down upon the streets of the Roman city. Then comes Boadicea thundering at the head of her revengeful Britons in her war-chariot : 22 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. we hear the tramp of horses and the dealing of heavy blows ; see the tesselated pavement stained with blood ; behold pale faces upturned in the grim repose of death ; then many a night of darkness again settles upon the streets of the old city. But deep down it is rich in Roman remains ; far below the in- vading legions tramped, upheaving the victorious eagles above the dim old tesselated pavements ; for London has its Pompeii and Her- culaneum. Unnumbered generations have trampled into dust its splendour, even as our own glory may one day be mingled in the urn that holds the ashes of empires. Crushed Samian ware, a rusted demi-god, a headless hero, whose very memory has perished ; the coins of conquerors, whose features time and decay have corroded, and whose mere names (without a good or evil deed to tell how they came there,) are just catalogued in the " lots" of history ; these are the mouldering remains of conquest, lying as far beneath our feet as we in intellectual arts have towered above their former possessors. We belong to the future, as they do to the present ; and when we perish, our glory will be found lettered in every corner of the rounded globe. The finger of the shattered giant will be picked up in the re- motest continent, and unborn generations will sigh, as they exclaim, " Here lies a fragment of the once mighty England that gave us life." Westward of London we turn backward, and endeavour to obtain a view of that ancient neighbourhood as it looked when the Roman city stood upon the hill ; and the Strand, as it is still called, was a ANCIENT LONDON. 23 low, waste, and reedy shore, over which the tide came and went, and rocked the tufted reeds which waved over many a surrounding acre. Something like what it was in ancient days may yet be seen in those reedy and willowy inlets above the Red House at Battersea; and could we have stood and looked across the river while the spot on which Westminster now stands was an island, covered with thorns, and down to the water edged with green flags and rushes, we should have seen, far below what was called the Long Ditch (where the river ROMAN REMAINS, FOUND IN THAMES-STREET. divided, beside a low, lonely shore, on which the waves went lapping and surging, as they still do about those dreary bends that skirt the marshes of Woolwich), the fisherman in his coracle, the only figure that moved beside the sedgy margin of that mastless river, over which the piping of the tufted plover might then have been heard. Turning to the ancient city, Erkenwin the Saxon first appears with his boasted descent from Wodin, the terrible god of battle, conquers the remnant of the ancient Britons, tramples upon their standard of the red dragon, and plants the banner of the white horse upon the rude fortifications of their capital. After many convulsions 24 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. we see the kingdoms of the Octarchy overturned by Egbert, the first king of all the Saxons ; and in some old hall, with its low stunted pillars and heavy vaulted roof (centuries ago levelled to the earth), we behold him seated gravely with his witenagemot, or assembly of wise men, deliberating upon the best means of repelling the incur- sions of the Danes. Under the reign of Ethelwulf the city is plundered by the stormy sea-kings and their fearless followers. We next see the army of Alfred hovering between the outskirts of the city and the foot of Highgate-hill, and protecting the old Londoners while they gather in their harvest ; for Hastings, with his ivory horn swung to his baldric, was encamped with his Danish army beside the river Lea, and Alfred had thrown himself like a shield between the city and its enemies. We behold Etheldred the Unready escape into Nor- mandy, and Sweyn, king of Denmark, passes the low-browed archway which leads into the capital. The old grey wall which stretched beside the Thames, where wharves and warehouses now stand, is defended by Edmund Ironside and his followers against Canute the Dane, and ships bearing the banner of the black raven are moving below the rude bridge, which at that early period stretched over into Southwark. Harold, the last king of the Saxons, next crosses that old bridge, in the sunset of an autumnal evening, on his way to the fatal field of Hastings ; and when we again look upon those ancient streets they are filled with Norman soldiers, and echoing to the bi ay of Norman trumpets, for William the Conqueror is passing through the city to take possession of the remains of the old Roman Tower. We next glance at that ancient bridge, covered with houses, which spanned across the Thames, part of which stood even a few years ago, and had, after much patching and repairing, endured the wear and tear of time, with all the assaults of wind, water, war, and fire, for above six hundred years. Even until within the last half century the wheels of the great water- works first erected by Peter the Dutch- man continued to moan and groan, and splash and dash, just as they had done for many a weary year, for those ever-moving water-wheels seemed like the living spirit of the old bridge ; and when they stopped, the ancient fabric, which had so long tottered to its crazy founda- tions, was soon swept away and numbered amongst the things that have been. Narrow, dark, and dangerous was the gloomy old street that, hung between the water and the sky, went stretching across the broad bosom of the Thames. Great darksome gables spanned over- head every way ; and if you looked up in the twilight of those past days, you saw grinning above you, and looking down from the battle- ments, the ghastly and gory heads of murdered men, which were stuck upon spikes and left to bleach in the sun, wind, rain, and dark- OLD LONDON BRIDGE. 25 ness, day after day and night after night. When you looked down, you still seemed to see them, as if they moved side by side with you, past the windows of the old chapel, underneath the low-browed arches, beside the ancient shops ; and ever below went the mad waters, gibbering and groaning and hissing ; and in the deep mid- night, when the old piers echoed back every footfall, you almost fancied that all those bodiless heads had leaped off the battlements, and, with their gory locks streaming out, were at your heels, halloo- ing and shrieking above and below the bridge, and " mopping and mowing" from every overhanging gable you hurried under. When the wind was high, it ever went singing through those old houses and that silent chapel all nightlong ; and the crazy old water- works sent out a thousand strange supernatural sounds ; while all the rickety casements chattered again like a thousand teeth that have no power over the bitter blast which set them in motion. Then, too, the old swing-signs, which the least wind shook, swung and groaned upou their rusty hinges, one against the other ; and what with the creak- ing of the signs, the whistling and moaning of the wind, that went booming with a hollow and unearthly sound under and over the vaulted street, mingled with the rush of the waters, and the cries for help from those beneath, who had run foul against the jutting ster- lings, you wonder how any one could ever get a wink of sleep in those high old houses. That ancient bridge was the only highway into Kent and Surrey, and many a time had it been crossed by the con- queror and the conquered one day a kingly procession, the next a train of prisoners in chains. It was alternately shaken by the shouts of Wat Tyler and his rebels, then by the acclaim which greeted some heroic king from the throats of the assembled citizens. And some- times the drawbridge was raised, and the inhabitants of Southwark left to defend themselves as they could, while the citizens on the Middlesex side were safe, for between them there yawned an impass- able gulf. Below the Tower we find a few old churches and ancient mansions, which stood long before the Great Fire went reddening and blacken- ing through the streets of the old City. The row of picturesque shops at the entrance of Whitechapel will recall the period when this was the court end of London. The second house, with the projecting bay-windows, is rich in ornamental details. The Prince of Wales's feathers, the arms of Westminster, the f.eur de Us of France, and thistle of Scotland are still standing on the front of this ancient man- sion : and it is just possible that the house was once the residence of Prince Henry, son of James I., as the monogram, yet visible, bears the initials H. S., surmounted with plumes, which, very probably, 26 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. stand for Henry Stuart. The Earls of Northumberland, the Throg- mortons, and many noble families and wealthy merchants, in former days, resided in this neighbourhood ; for, beside the Tower, there was Crosby-place at no great distance, where the Protector, after- wards Richard III., held his court. How changed is this ancient neighbourhood ! The very house in which the Black Prince lodged when he resided in the City had long before Stowe's time been turned into an hostel, and the apartments in which grave councils were held, and where many a glorious victory was planned, even then echoed back the voice of some Francis, as, amid "the clinking of pewter," he exclaimed, "Anon, anon, sir;" or, "Score a pint of bastard in, the Half- Moon." The citizens had at that early period turned into bowling-alleys the quaintly laid- out gardens in which the Percies of old Northumbria "took their pleasure ;" and where some pretty Kate, shewing her pearly teeth, had no doubt threatened to " break the little finger" of her fiery Hotspur, who was too eager to leave her dainty bower and hasten to the wars. He also has long since vanished the haughty Prior of the Holy Trinity, who, with "jingling bridle" in hand, bestrode his prancing palfrey, and rode " second to none" amongst the rich aldermen of London, proud of his broad domains, which in those days extended to the margin of the Thames, and over many rich acres beside those on which Whitechapel now stands. No Earl of Salisbury now goes " sounding" through the City streets, with his long train of five hundred mounted followers, clad in his household livery, and causing the old shopkeepers to cease their cry of " What do you lack?" while they watched the gay cavalcade until it was lost under the low-browed archway that stood before his ancient City mansion by Dowgate. Baynard Castle, where Henry VII. received his ambassadors, and in which the crafty Cecil plotted against Lady Jane Grey, almost before the ink was dry with which he had solemnly registered his name to serve her, has long ago been numbered amongst the things that were ; and seldom do the " silver snarling trumpets," with their loud acclaim, disturb the deep sleep of the old City, to announce the in-coming or the out-going of royalty. The archers of Mile-end, with their chains of gold, have departed. The spot on which the tent stood where bluff Hal regaled himself after having witnessed their sports, is now covered with mean-looking houses: the poetry of ancient London is dead. The voice of the stream is for ever hushed that went mur- muring before the dwellings of our forefathers, along Aldgate and down Fenchurch-street, and past the door of Sir Thomas Gresharn's house in Lombard- street, until|it doubled round by the Mansion House and emptied itself into the river. There is still a sound of waters by REMAINS OF OLD LONDOX. 27 the wharf at London Bridge; but, oh, how different from the "brawl- ing brook" of former days is the evil odour that now arises from the poisonous sewer which there empties itself into the Thames ! Remains of ancient London are still to be found in the neigh- bourhood of Smithfield. The courts and alleys about Cloth Fair, and behind Long-lane, are perfect labyrinths, and so full of ins and outs, that they astonish the stranger who ventures to thread his way through them. Bartholomew's Church is also one of the very oldest in the City ; and we never look upon its weather-beaten tower with- out recalling the scenes which have taken place in the vast area which stretches out before it. There is no spot in London richer in historical associations than Smithfield. There the marshal of England presided over the lists ; and there also the mitred bishops congregated to gaze upon the poor martyr who was burnt at the stake : that old church-tower has many a time glared redly as it was lit up by the blaze of those con- suming fires; its vaulted roof has echoed back the clang of arms > when battle-axe and sword clashed against helmet and shield, while scarcely a murmur arose from the lips of the mighty multitude that stood silent and breathless around the combatants. Shakspeare and Ben Jonson have doubtless passed through those old narrow courts which still surround Bartholomew's Church. It was to Smithfield Bardolph went to buy a horse, which we know he would steal if once allowed to get astride, and that, if any inquiries were made after it at the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, Falstaff would avouch for Bardolph's honesty. To us the whole neighbourhood is hallowed by a thousand poetical associations, and we never journey through it without feeling as if we were living again amid the past. As for Bartholomew Fair, though it now only lives in name, it will be remembered for ever in the works of rare Ben Jonson. To the thoughtful man it is a land of pleasant and solemn memories. Then the streets of ancient London, what must they have been ? In the west the roads were in such a state that the king could not open parliament in wet weather, unless faggots were first thrown into the deep pits and ruts. Foot and carriage-way had no other distinc- tion than a row of posts ; and if the passenger missed running his head against the low pent-house-lids, which here and there projected over the way, ten to one he came to some opening where a grim- headed and grinning spout sent down its torrents of water from the old-fashioned gabled building, and drenched him to the very skin. If he rushed out into the road, there " Laden carts with thundering wagons meet, ' Wheels clash'd with wheels, and barr'd the narrow street." 28 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. The roads of London were full of pits and hollows even in William and Anne's time ; and the coach-box was then a box indeed a regular coach-repairer's shop on a small scale ; for to get through a long street in bad weather without either sticking fast, breaking down, turning over, or being turned over by some reckless carman, was something to boast about in those days. The coachman had then need to be a good hand at repairs, and was oftener seen tinker- ing up his vehicle than mounted on his box, which in time was covered with the hammer-cloth, to conceal the materials and imple- ments which almost every hour were called into use. What a night- journey was in those old unpaved streets may be readily imagined, when it is known that there were not more than a thousand lamps to light the whole City that these were only kept burning until mid- night during one-half of the year, and the remainder of the season were never once lighted. Such was the London we now live in, a hundred years ago. Little link- boys then generally lay in wait at the corner of every street, either ready for a few pence to light the benighted wanderer home, or more probably to lead him astray, and extinguish the light at some dangerous spot, where the thieves he was associated with were in waiting. Over thousands of troubles and trials rolled the rapid years ; then the "Great Fire" broke out, and nearly every ancient landmark was destroyed ; and now we have to grope our way through the twilight of dim records and a few rudely executed prints, to catch a glimpse of the old London in which our forefathers lived. This we shall endeavour to do as we thread our way through city and suburb ; now glancing at the London of the present day, then turning the eye of the imagination to the ancient metropolis, which Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Norman have in succession traversed. The old highway to London is that which the daring sea-kings poetically called " the road of the swans" the broad bosom of the sea, and then along the majestic river which leads to her grey old fortress, the Tower. But the railroad has ploughed up the country,- and this ancient "silver pathway" is abandoned to commerce and pleasure-parties ; so rapid is the transit from every point of the coast, that few care to thread the winding river when they can reach London by the railroads almost as direct as " the crow flies." Such remains of ancient London as fall in our way we shall again glance at ; and shall now commence our " Picturesque Sketches of London" by describing the most prominent landmark in the City St. Paul's Cathedral, together with a few of the most interesting objects in the neighbourhood. CHAPTER II. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL DOCTORS' COMMONS THE OLD CITY STBEETS. HE Cathedral of St. Paul's is the great landmark of London. Long before * the eye of the approaching stranger obtains a glimpse of the graceful spires, grey massy towers, and tall columns which ascend from every corner of the outstretched city, it rests upon that mighty dome, which looms through the misty sky, like some dim world hanging amid the immensity of space ; for so does it seem suspended when the smoke from ten thousand homes throws a vapoury veil over the lower portion of the invisible build- ing. From the long range of hills that overlook Surrey and Kent, from the opposite heights of Highgate and Hampstead, and for miles away in 1 the level valley through which the Thames ebbs and flows, that rounded dome is seen standing sentinel day and night over the two-million peopled city. Above the busy hum of the multitude it keeps watch by day, and through the hushed night it looks up amid the overhanging stars, and throws back from its golden cross (emblem of our salvation) the silvery rays of the bright moon, when all the miles of streets below are wrapt in drowsy silence. High up it towers, a tribute of man to his Maker, carrying our thoughts almost unconsciously to God while we gaze upon it, and pointing out to the unbelieving heathens who have crossed the great deep a Christian land : an image of religion reflected in the deep tide of our commerce, shadowing forth a haven beyond the grave, when the fever and the fret of this life will have died away like a forgotten dream. It stands like a calm bay amid the ever-heaving sea of restless London, into which the tempest -tost mariner may at any time enter and anchor his barque nearer the 30 shores of eternity; for while all around him the wild elements of worldly gain are raging, scarcely a sound from without falls upon his ear to break the solemn silence which reigns in that mighty fabric. Granger can say that he has seen the vastness of London until he has mounted the hundreds of steps which lead to the Golden Gallery, and looked out upon the outstretched city and suburbs below. It is a sight never to be forgotten ; the passengers underneath scarcely appear a foot high, and the omnibuses so diminished, that you fancy you could take one under your arm and walk off with it easily. But it is the immense range of country which the eye commands that astonishes the stranger. Here railroads branch out, there the noble river seems narrowed by distance to an insignificant brook; while weary miles of houses spread out every way, and the largest edifices of the metropolis are dwarfed beneath the lofty height from which you gaze. There are hills before and hills behind: to the right, a dim country, lost in purple haze ; to the left, thousands of masts, which look like reeds, while the hulls of the ships seem to have dwindled to the smallness of boats. Never did that cathedral appear to us more holy than when we visited it last summer during the Anniversary Meeting of the Charity Children ; never did the sunbeams which occasionally streamed through the vaulted dome seem so much like the golden ladder on which the ** angels of God ascended and descended " in the dream of the patriarch of old, as when they shone for a few moments upon the heads of those thousands of children who were congregated beneath. We seemed to picture Charity herself newly alighted from heaven, and standing in the midst overshadowing them with her white wings, while her angelic smile lighted up the holy fabric, as she stood with her finger pointing to the sky. It was a sight that went home to every heart, and made an Englishman proud of the land of his birth, to know that thousands of those children, who were fatherless and motherless, were watched over and tended by the angel of charity ; and that hundreds who waited to do her bidding, with willing hearts and open hands, were assembled in the temple which her overpowering presence then hallowed. Then to know that so vast a multitude formed but a portion of the numbers which English charity clothed, fed, and edu- cated ; and that, if all could have been assembled tier above tier, as they then sat, they would have reached to the very summit of the dome itself, extending, as it were, to heaven, and with folded hands and meek supplicating faces seeming to plead in our behalf before the footstool of God. It was a sight never to be forgotten, to see those thousands of clean and neatly clad children ranged one above another, to the height of ST. PAUL'S CATHEDEAL. 33 twenty feet, beneath the huge overshadowing dome ; to see the girls at the beginning or ending of a prayer (as if touched by the wand of some magician) raise or drop their thousands of snow-white aprons at the self-same instant of time, was like the sudden opening and folding of innumerable wings, which almost made the beholder start, as if he had stepped, suddenly upon the threshold of another world. The gaudiest gardens that figure in oriental romance, with all their ima- ginary colouring, never approached in beauty the rich and variegated hues which that great group of children presented. Here the eye rested upon thousands of little faces that peeped out from the pink trim- mings of their neat caps ; there the pretty head-gear was ornamented with blue ribands, looking like blue-bells and white lilies blended together; farther on the high range of heads stood like sheeted May- blossoms, while the crimson baise which covered the seats looked in the distance as if the roses of June were peeping in between the openings of the branches. The pale pearled lilac softened into a primrose-coloured border, which was overhung by the darker drapery of the boys, upon whom the shadows of the arches settled. Ever and anon there was a sparkling as of gold and silver, as the light fell upon the glittering badges which numbers of the children wore, or revealed the hundreds of nosegays which they held in their little hands, or wore proudly in their bosoms. High above this vast amphitheatre of youthful heads, the outspreading banners of blue, and crimson, and purple, emblazoned with gold, were ranged, all filled with " Stains and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings." And when the sunlight at intervals fell upon the hair or the inno- cent faces of some snow-white group of girls, they seemed surrounded with " A glory like a saint's. They look'd like splendid angels newly drest, Save wings, for heaven." KEATS. Eastward the organ rose with its sloping gallery of choristers, selected from Westminster, the Royal Chapel, and St. Mark's ; and from thence the full choir burst, and the sounds were caught up and joined by thousands of voices, until the huge building seemed to throb again beneath that mighty utterance. The eye fairly ached as it rested on the vast plane of human faces, which inclined from the west end of the cathedral, and came dipping down almost to the very foot of the choir, so chequered was the richly-coloured field it fell upon. As the anthem stole upon the ear, we seemed borne away to an- c 34 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. other state, to that heaven of which we catch glimpses in our sweetest dreams, when all those childish voices joined in the thrilling chorus ; when we beheld thousands of childish faces in the ever-shifting light, we could almost fancy that we stood amid those ranks "who veil their faces with their wings" before the blinding glory of heaven. Over all pealed the full-voiced organ, sounding like music that belongs not to earth, now high, now low, near or remote, as the reverberated sound rose to the dome or traversed the aisles, coming in and out like wavering light between the pillars and shadowy recesses, spots in which old echoes seem to sleep, old voices to linger, which only broke forth at intervals to join in the solemn anthem that rose up and floated away, and would only become indistinct when it reached the star-paved courts above. There was something pleasing in the countenances of many of the girls, something meek and patient in the expression they wore, espe- cially in the little ones. You could almost fancy you could distin- guish those who were orphans, by their looking timidly round, as if seeking among the spectators for some one to love them. Prom such a scene our mind naturally turned to the huge amphi- theatres of old, when the populace of ancient cities congregated to see some gladiator die, or to witness the struggle between man and the savage beast, while the air was rent with applauding shouts, as the combatants bled beneath each other's swords, or were torn by the tusks of infuriated animals. How great the contrast! Instead of the shouts of the heathen multitude, here the solemn anthem was chanted by thousands of childish voices, while every heart seemed up- lifted in silent prayer to God. Here we saw the youthful aspirants of heaven tuning their notes like young birds, dim, half-heard melodies, which can only burst forth in perfect music when they reach that immortal land where " one eternal summer ever reigns ;" and we sighed as we thought how many thousands still uncared for were scat- tered through the streets and alleys of London, and left to live as they best could amid ignorance, rags, and hunger, with no one to teach them that, outcasts as they are on earth, they have still a Father in heaven who careth for them. Charitably disposed as England is to her poor children, she has yet much to do before her great work is perfected ; she has yet to bring together her homeless thousands who have neither food nor raiment, nor any place at night where they can lay their weary and aching heads. The time will corne when she will be convinced that she must do more than save a remnant, when there will be none left in hunger and ignorance to hang about her great cathedral, as we saw them then, envying the thousands of clean and healthy-looking children, who, more fortunate than they, were under the care of charitable st ST. PAULS CATHEDRAL. 35 guardians. All these her protecting arms will in time encircle in one warm motherly embrace, without distinction. God send that the time may be near at hand ! Many a " rapt soul" looked out with moistened eyes from that assemblage, which, when this earthly pilgrimage is ended, shall hear the voice of the great Master whom they have served exclaim : " For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in." Such we could dis- tinguish, who felt no greater pleasure than in sharing their wealth amongst the poor and needy ; on whose brow benevolence had set her seal; who do good by stealth, and "blush to find it fame." Such 04 these feel an innate pleasure which the miser never expe- rienced while gloating over his hoarded gold ; and when the Angel of Death comes, he will bear them away gently ; and in the soft beating of his dark wings they will hear again the sweet voices of those dear children singing a little way before, as if they had but to shew their faces, when the gates of Paradise would " Wide on their golden hinges swing ;" while outstretched arms would be seen through the surrounding halo, holding forth the crowns of glory which had been prepared for them " from the foundation of the world." Glancing at the building, we must state that, from the base to the top of the cross, which overlooks the dome, the height is 400 feet ; and that of the campanile towers, which front Ludgate-hill, 220 feet ; the length of the building, from east to west, is 500 feet ; and the breadth 100 feet; while the ground enclosed by the palisade measures upwards of two acres. As all the world knows, the archi- tect was Sir Christopher Wren, whose grave is in the crypt below, and whose monument is the building itself; such a pile as no monarch ever erected to his own memory. The choir is enriched by the beau- tiful carving of Grinling Gibbons, who ought to have slept beside the great architect of St. Paul's in the vault beneath. The sculpture on the west front is by Bird, and the beholder will be struck by the colossal size of the figures, if he pauses to look out as he ascends the dome. They are, Paul preaching to the Romans, his Conversion, ancient lamp (which we have engraved), and which were discovered in Bread-street about five years ago, fully prove. Who can tell what foot, renowned in Roman history, may have trampled on the spot where the author of Paradise Lost was born ? Bread-street formerly contained a famous tavern and a prison. The Mermaid is mentioned by Ben Jonson. There seems to have been a celebrated tavern here long before the time of Stowe, for he mentions Gerrarde's Hall in his days as a hostelry for travellers, and, in his gossiping way, gives us an old-world story about the old building, which stood above the ancient crypt, which we have here engraved (as one of the vestiges of the London of our forefathers, doomed to be sacrificed to modern improvement), and in it he gives us a giant, and a long pole, which this son of Anak is said to have wielded in the D 50 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON*. wars. We have heard that this Gerrarde the giant was buried under the ancient crypt, which to this day sounds hollow to the tread. But the good old historian, with his simple and child-like belief, and love for all undated traditions, shall "tell the tale." " On the north side of Basing-lane is one great house of old time, built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Caen in Normandy, the same is now [about 1600] a common hostelry [inn] for receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde's Hall, of a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high- roofed hall of this house some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the wars to run with [away?]. There CKRAKD THE GIANT. stood also a ladder of the same length, which (as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later years this hall is altered, and divers rooms are made in it. [Alas, then, as now, they would im- prove; and cared not for their home antiquities even in good old GERARD'S HALL. 51 Stowe's time !] Notwithstanding, the pole is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house said to me, ' The pole lacketh half a foot of forty in length.' I measured the compass thereof, and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of the pole could the master of the hostelry give me none ; but bade me read the ' great' Chronicles, for there he heard of it. [Our hosts were reading men we see in the time of Elizabeth; and we love the epithet 'great' before Chronicles, for we believe it was the host's word and not Stowe's.] I will now note what myself have observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors, Mayor of London in the year 1245, was owner thereof [it might have been old then, for Stowe does not say that the mayor built it] ; and that Sir John Gisors, constable of the Tower, 1311, and divers others of that name and family since that time owned it. [The Gisors must have been men of eminence for one to have become constable of the Tower in that jealous age, when the Normans ruled with an iron hand.] So it appeareth that this Gisors' Hall of late time, by corruption, hath been called Gerrardes' Hall for Gisors' Hall. The pole in the hall might be used of old time [as then the custom was in every parish] to be set up in the summer, as a May-pole. The ladder served [serving ?] for the decking of the May-pole and roof of the hall." titowe, Surely this crypt ought to be spared for the sake of Stowe, and Gerard the giant, and the May -pole the compass of which the honest old historian measured. What a picture it would make Stowe, the host, and the ostler, with the old building and the broken ladder ! what rich material for a chapter in an historical romance ! If we live, we will do it some day. Of course the old hall was swept away in. the Great Fire, and Gerard the giant (which we have here engraved) grew up after the flames had died out ; though they went roaring and reddening above the ancient crypt, over which the generations of six centuries have trampled. The vaults are of great antiquity at least as old as the building mentioned by Stowe the date of which he does not give, although he mentions John Gisors, Mayor of London, as a resident there in 1245, that is, more than 600 years ago. In Little Trinity- street we have Painter- Stainers' Hall, well worth a visit, although it is so badly lighted, that it is difficult to see the portraits. The principal pictures it contains are, Camden, Charles II. and his queen, William of Orange, by Kneller, and Queen Anne. The company also possesses a curious cup left by the celebrated anti- quary Camden, and which is still used at their anniversary dinners. The church of the Holy Trinity was destroyed in the Great Fire, and 52 PICTUllESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. not rebuilt : a small chapel, of which we know nothing,, stands or* the site of the old church. The church of St. Michael, Queenhithe, is remarkable for nothing except some carving at the east end, and the vane, which resembles a ship, and is said to be large enough to hold a bushel of corn. The dues derived from the quay of Queenhithe belonged to the queens of England from a very early period, probably ever since the HALL. 53 Norman conquest. Mention is made of Eleanor, so famous in our old ballad lore as the rival and poisoner of Fair Rosamond, as pos- sessing all the dues obtained from this royal landing-place. Raising the old drawbridge of London Bridge every time a ship went under, with all the trouble and stoppage of vehicles, when this was the only bridge leading into London, did, no doubt, as much for increasing the traffic of Billingsgate as if a law had been passed to make it a royal quay. At the foot of Southwark Bridge stands Vintners' Hall. We can readily imagine that the old company of Vintners have ever been effect Cheapside produces a countryman when he first visits London. The whole street is alive with cabs, carts, chariots, omnibuses, drays, wagons, and trucks, the latter of which are often drawn by boys, and we marvel that they are not flattened up amid the crowded ranks of vehicles, which form one continuous chain as far as the eye can penetrate. The splendid shops must strike a stranger with amazement, although far inferior to *&* I I \ Id*^ manv which have lately been built at "the /I / ~/\ \ll\\ ^ es * End:" at every two or three strides c A e ^-' I/ / 1 k W e take along the frontage, we pass houses for which two or three hundred a year rent is paid ; half-a-dozen houses produce yearly nearly double the income of numbers of the foreign nobles, and many an old lady and gentleman live retired in the quiet suburbs on the rent derived from a single house which stands in this costly thoroughfare. Nearly every floor is a separate department of com- merce. Up every flight of stairs which you climb there are attendants in waiting to receive you. Temptation follows temptation each door but opens into richer scenes ; each room is hung with costlier articles ; and you stand bewildered, as if entangled amid the mazes of those splendid palaces which figure in the dreams of oriental romance. Silks from almost every land in the sunny south, shawjs woven in the rainbow looms of India, are mingled with the products of flowery Cashmere, and blended with the gaudy plumage of birds of paradise; and vases, emblazoned with the dazzling dyes of China, that glitter amid piles of purple and green and crimson velvets hemmed LONDON THOROUGHFARES. 57 with silver and gold, and hangings which might have swept their costly fringes upon the cedar floors of Haroun al Raschid, while the weight of gold and silver seems heavy enough to bow down the windows. Let the uninitiated be careful how they stand, whilst loitering and looking in through those costly plate-glass windows upon such gorgeous productions, for upward and downward, all day long, the rapid current of human life is ever rolling in living eddies, from east to west, and jostling, in its mighty strength, every idle object it meets with on its way ; and, in this ever-moving ocean, each human wave has its allotted mission, each tiny ripple " its destined end and aim." How different from the London of the present day from the splendid streets and shops which stretch from Temple-Bar to White- chapel, and westward from those ancient City gates to a land of theatres, squares, and palace-like buildings were the old narrow streets, with their high houses and overhanging gables, that rose tier above tier, their huge projecting signs, even at noon-day making a dim dreamy kind of twilight ; while the cry of " What do you lack ?" drawled forth by either master or apprentice, as they paced to and fro before their open-fronted and booth-like shops, gave a drowsy kind of murmur to the close ancient neighbourhood of the old City. How different from what we now see ! To the quays, stations, halls, houses of business, and courts of justice, which abound in this mighty city, are thousands by unfore- seen circumstances yearly driven ; and those who have never seen each other since the days of their youth, are sometimes jostled to- gether unexpectedly in this great human tide. The old citizen is suddenly summoned from the suburban retreat, where he had resolved quietly to spend the remainder of his days, and never again to " smell the smoke of London ;" for his house has been broken into, the pro- perty is discovered, the thief is in custody, and the old man once more elbows his way through the crowd of London, in wonderment at the many changes which have taken place since he first retired from business. Another hears that he has not been fairly dealt with, and has come many a long mile that he may with his own eyes examine the will which is deposited in the Court of Doctors' Commons. The invalid loiters with feeble step, halting every now and then to peep into the attractive windows, before he embarks in the vessel which lies in waiting to carry him to a more congenial climate. You see the ruddy-faced, top-booted countryman, who is either attending a committee, or summoned as a witness upon a trial, waiting patiently to cross the street, and marvelling in his own mind what strange 58 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON. procession it can be that is made up of such a long train of all varie- ties of vehicles ! You can at a glance detect the man of business from the man of pleasure, by the hurried and earnest manner of the one, and the idle and easy gait of the other. The down-looking thief is dragged along .by the policeman almost unheeded, except by the lazy rabble of boys who follow their heels, with the poor woman on whose features crime and anguish have placed their stamp, and who exchanges a few low words with the culprit as he is hurried onward to prison. The undertaker rushes past, wrapt up in calculating the profits he shall derive from the funeral he has just received the order " to perform ;" he sees not the sweet face of the intended bride, who, leaning upon her lover's arm, is gazing with smiling looks upon the richly-decorated window, and making choice of her wedding jewels. The porter, with his load, runs against the "exquisite" in full-dress, and disarranges either his carefully-twirled ringlets or jauntily-set hat ; a curse or a growl is exchanged on both sides, and they again pass on. The dandy goes by brandishing his light cane, followed by the stout and sturdy citizen, the very tapping of whose stick denotes him to be a man of substance ; Avhile the broad built country bumpkin, with a fair cousin on each arm, occupies the whole breadth of the footway, and seems astonished at the rudeness of the " Lunnuners," who jeer him as they pass. So rolls on this mighty river, with its six currents, bearing onwards those who pass and re-pass on each side of its shore- like pavement, and the rapid vehicles which glide swift as full-sailed vessels through its mid-channel. All at once there is a stoppage ; some heavily-laden wagon has broken down, and the long line of carriages of every description is suddenly brought to a stand-still all are motionless. You see the old thorough -bred London cabman who has promised to take his fare either east or west, as the case may be, in a given number of minutes dodge in and out for a few seconds, through such narrow openings as no one except a real Jehu born on the stand would ever venture to move in, until he comes to the entrance of some narrow street, the ins and outs of which are only known to a few like himself, when, crack, bang ! and he has vanished, giving one of his own peculiar leers at parting at the long line he has left stationary. Now there is a slow movement, and the procession proceeds at a funeral pace. The donkey-cart laden with firewood heralds the way, and is followed by the beautiful carriage with its armorial bearings. Behind comes the heavy dray with its load of beer-barrels ; the snail- paced omnibus follows ; the high-piled wagon that rocks and reels beneath its heavy load next succeeds, and you marvel that it does not topple over, extinguish some dozen or so of foot-passengers, and WH1TTIXGTOX. 59 smash in the gorgeous shop-front. The wreck which left the street so silent for a few minutes is now drawn aside, and all is again noise and motion. The police-van rolls on with its freight of crime, and is followed by the magistrate's cabriolet, as he hurries off to a West-end dinner ; " And all goes merry as a marriage-bell." Queen-street is in a direct line with Guildhall and Southwark Bridge, and is remarkable for the loftiness of many of the warehouses at the Thames-street end. It was formerly called Soper-lane, and is frequently mentioned in the old processions ; for, facing the end of Guildhall, no doubt some of the finest arches were erected there when royalty paraded the City. In an old pamphlet, printed by Richard Tothill about 1558, entitled " The Passage of our most drad Sovcraigne Ladye Queene Elyzabeth through the Citie of London to Westminster, the Day before her Coronation," we have the following allusion to Soper-laue, now Queen-street: "At Soper-lane end was another pageant of three open gates ; above the centre of which, on three stages, sat eight children, explained by this inscription :