Such was the dictum of Dr. Johnson when he was seated with Boswell in the Mitre Tavern near , and how many thousands of people before and since have felt the same cat-like attachment as the old philosopher to the vast town of multitudinous life and ever-changing aspects? As Cowper says-

Macaulay had the reputation of having walked through every street in London, but if we consider the ever-growing size of the town we cannot believe that anyone else will ever do so: for more people live in London already than in the whole of Denmark or Switzerland, more than twice as many as in Saxony or Norway, and nearly as many as in Scotland. And, if we trust to old prophecies. London has still to be doubled in circumference, for Mother Shipton says that the day will come when Highgate Hill shall be in the middle of the town. Few indeed are the Londoners who see more than a small circuit around their homes, the main arteries of mercantile life, and some of the principal sights. It is very easy to live with eyes open, but it is more usual, and a great deal more fashionable, to live with eyes shut. Scarcely any man in what is usually called has the slightest idea of what there is to be seen in his own great metropolis, because he never looks, or still more perhaps, because he never inquires, and the architectural and historical treasures of the City are almost as unknown to the West End as the buried cities of Bashan or the lost tombs of Etruria. Strangers also, especially foreigners, who come perhaps with the very object of seeing London, are inclined to judge it by its general aspects, and do not stay long enough to find out its more hidden resources. They never find out that the London of and , still more the odious London of Tyburnia, Belgravia, and South Kensington, is as different to the London of our great-grandfathers as modernised Paris is to the oldest town in Brittany, and dwellers in the West End do not know that they might experience almost the refreshment and tonic of going abroad in the transition from straight streets and featureless houses to the crooked thoroughfares half-an-hour off, where every street has a reminiscence, and every turn is a picture. There is a passage in Heinrich Heine which says, But those who know London well will think that Heine must have stayed at an hotel in , and that his researches can never have taken him much beyond and its surroundings; and that a poet might find plenty of inspiration, if he would do what is so easy, and break the ice of custom, and see London as it really is--in its strange varieties of society, in its lights and shadows of working life, in its endless old buildings which must ever have a hold on the inmost sympathies of those who look upon them, and who, while learning the story they tell of many generations, seem to realise that they are

An artist, after a time, will find London more interesting than any other place, for nowhere are there such atmospheric effects on fine days, and nowhere is the enormous power of blue more felt in the picture; while the soot, which puts all the stones into mourning, makes everything look old. The detractors of the charms of London always lay their strongest emphasis upon its fogs-

But if the fogs are not too thick an artist will find an additional charm in them, and will remember with pleasure the beautiful effects upon the river, when only the grand features remain, and the ignominious details are blotted out; or when In fact, if the capitals of Europe are considered, London is of the most picturesque--far more so than Paris or Vienna; incomparably more so than St. Petersburg, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Brussels, or Madrid.

No town in Europe is better supplied with greenery than London: even in the City almost every street has its tree. And pity often is ill bestowed upon Londoners by dwellers in the country, for the fact is all the best attributes of the country are to be found in the town. The squares of the West End, with their high railings, and ill-kept gardens, are certainly ugly enough, but the parks are full of beauty, and there are walks in Kensington Gardens which in early spring present a maze of loveliness. Lately too, since window gardening has become the fashion, each house has its boxes of radiant flowers, enlivening the dusty stonework or smoke-blackened bricks, and seeming all the more cheerful from their contrast. Through the markets too all that is best in country produce flows into the town: the strawberries, the cherries, the vegetables, are always finer there than at the places where they are grown. Milton, who changed his house oftener than anyone else, and knew more parts of the metropolis intimately, thus apostrophizes it-

There is a certain class of minds, and a large , which stagnates in the country, and which finds the most luxurious stimulant in the ceaseless variety of London, where there is always so much to be seen and so much to be heard, and these make so much to be thought of.

Many derivations are given for the name London. Some derive it from Lhwn-dinas, the others from Llongdinas, the others from Llyndhn, the Geoffrey of Monmouth says that Brute about A.C. . From the time at which it is reported to have been founded by Brute, says Brayley, Then King Lud is said to have encircled it with walls, and adorned it The remains found certainly prove the existence of a British city on the site before the Londinium, or Colonia Augusta, spoken of by Tacitus and Ammianus Marcellinus, which must have been founded by the Roman expedition under Aulus Plautius in A.D. . Tacitus mentions that it was already the great and the when the revolt of the Iceni occurred under Boadicea in A.D. , in which it was laid waste with fire and sword. It had however risen from its ashes in the time of Severus (A.D. -), when Tacitus describes it as

Stow says that the walls of London were built by Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, at any rate there is little doubt that they were erected in the century. They were rather more than miles in circumference, defended by towers, and marked at the principal points by the great gates, , Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, and Ludgate. The best fragments of the old wall remaining are to be seen opposite Sion College, and in the churchyard of St. Giles, Cripplegate there is also a fragment in St. on . Quantities of Roman antiquities, tessellated pavements, urns, vases, &c., have been found from time to time within this circuit, especially in digging the foundations of the Goldsmiths' Hall, and of the Hall of Commerce in . For a long time these remains were carelessly kept or not kept at all, but latterly some of them have been collected in the admirable little museum under the . Several Roman cemeteries have been discovered, of them by Sir Christopher Wren when he was laying the foundation of the new . All the excavations show that modern London is at least feet higher than the London of the Romans, which has been buried by the same inexplicable process which entombed the Roman Forum, and covered many of its temples with earth up to the capitals of the columns.

Very little is known of London in Saxon times except that was founded by Ethelbert, in A.D. , in the time of King Sebert. Bede, who mentions this, describes London as an London was the stronghold of the Danes, but was successfully besieged by Alfred, and Athelstan had a palace here. His successor Ethelred the Unready was driven out again by the Danes under Sweyn. On the death of Sweyn, Ethelred returned, and his son Edmund Ironside was the monarch crowned in the capital. London grew greatly in importance under Edward the Confessor, who built the Palace and Abbey of , and it made a resistance to the Conqueror which was for some time effectual, though, on the submission of the clergy, he was presented with the keys of the City and crowned at the Confessor's tomb. He immediately tried to conciliate the citizens, by granting them the charter, which, written in the Saxon language, on a strip of vellum, is still preserved amongst the City archives.

The chief events in the after story of London, its insurrections, its pageants, its martyrdoms, its conspiracies, its pestilences, its Great Fire, its religious agitations, its political excitements, are all noticed in describing those parts of the town with which they are especially connected.

Fuller says that London Its chief officer under the Saxons was called the Portreeve. After the Conquest the French word Maire, from Major, was introduced. We hear of a of London in the reign of Henry II. His necessary qualifications are, that he shall be free of of the City Companies, have served as Sheriff, and be an Alderman at the time of his election. The name of is derived from the title of a Saxon noble, meaning old, elder. It is applied to the chief officer of a ward or guild and each Alderman of London takes his name from a ward. The or Merchant Guilds, though branches of the Corporation, have each a distinct government and peculiar liberties and immunities granted in special charters. Each Company has a Master and other officers, and separate for their business or banquets. The oldest of the Companies is the Weavers, with a charter of i . Then come the Parish Clerks, instituted in , and the Saddlers, in . The Bakers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Grocers, Carpenters, and Fishmongers, all date from the century. There are Companies, but of these are the most important, viz.-

In the year of Elizabeth the pictorial map of Ralph Aggas was published, which shows how little in those days London had increased beyond its early boundaries. Outside , Bishopsgate, and Cripplegate, all was still complete country. (Spitalfields) and were archery grounds: was a marsh. St. Giles, Cripplegate, was the church of a little hamlet beyond the walls. Farther west a few houses in and clustered around the open space of black with the fires of recent martyrdoms. A slender thread of humble dwellings straggled along the road which led by Holbourne Bridge across the Fleet to St. Andrew's Church and Ely Place, but ceased altogether after till the road reached the desolate village and leper-hospital of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. A wide expanse of open pasture-land, only broken by Drury House and the Convent Garden of , extended southwards from to , where the houses of the great nobles lined the passage of the sovereign from the City to the small royal city and great palace of . From , and the were hedge-girt roads leading into a solitude, and there was scarcely any house westwards except the Hospital of St. James, recently turned into a palace.

After the time of Elizabeth, London began to grow rapidly, though Elizabeth herself and her immediate successors, dreading the power of such multitudes in the neighbourhood of the Court, did all they could to check it. In , all persons were prohibited from building houses within miles of any of the City gates, and, in , a proclamation was made for and the in the cities of London and , and for miles round. But in spite of this, in spite of the Plague which destroyed people, and the Fire which destroyed houses, the great city continued to grow. Latterly it has increased so rapidly westwards, that it is impossible to define the limits of the town. It has been travelling west more or less ever since the time of the Plantagenets;--from the City to , and to Canonbury and Clerkenwell; then, under the Stuart kings, to the more northern parts of the parish of St. Clement Danes and to : then, under William III. and Anne, to Bloomsbury and Soho: under the early Georges, to the Portland and Portman estates, then to the Grosvenor estates, and lastly to South Kensington. By its later increase the town has enormously increased the wealth of peers, to whom the greater portion of the soil upon which it has been built belongs-i.e. the Dukes of Portland, Bedford, and ; the Marquises of Exeter, Salisbury, Northampton, and the Marquis Camden; the Earl Craven and Lord Portman. No can tell where the West End will be next year. It is always moving into the country and never arriving there. Generally Fashion but in this case it is also a perpetual flight before the smoke, which still always drives westwards, so that when the atmosphere is thickest in Brompton, the sky is often blue and the air pure in .

In all the changes of generations of men and manners in London, the truth of the proverb, has been attested by the way in which the members of the same nationalities and those who have followed the same occupations have inhabited the same district. Thus, French live in the neighbourhood of and Soho, Italians in , and Germans in the east of London. Thus, Lawyers live in and the Temple; Surgeons and Dentists in and ; Doctors in ; and retired Indians in and , with their adjoining streets, which have obtained the name of Little Bengal. Thus, too, you would go to look for Booksellers in , Clockmakers: in Clerkenwell, Butchers in Newgate and Smithfield, Furniture Dealers in , Hatmakers in , Tanners and Leather-dressers in , Bird and Bird-cage sellers near the Dials, Statuaries in the , and Artists at .

The poorest parts of London also have always been its eastern and north-eastern parishes, and the district about Soho and St. Giles-in-the-Fields. So much has been said and written of the appearance of poverty and crime which these streets present, that those who visit them will be surprised to find at least outward decency and a tolerably thriving population; though of course the words of Cowley are true-

The great landmarks are the same in London now that they were in the time of the Plantagenets: the Tower is still the great fortress; is still the great causeway for traffic across the river; and are still the great churches; and Palace is only transferred from the sovereign to the legislature. The City still shows by its hills-Ludgate Hill, , and Tower Hill-why it was chosen as the early capital. feature however of old London is annihilated-all the smaller brooks or rivers which fed the Thames are buried and lost to view. The Eye Bourne, the Old Bourne, and the Wall Brook, though they still burrow beneath the town, seem to have left nothing but their names. Even the Fleet, of which there are so many unflattering descriptions in the poets of the last century, is entirely arched over, and it is difficult to believe that there can ever have been a time when Londoners saw or ships at once sailing up to Bridge, or still more that they can have gone up as high as Baggnigge Wells Road, where the discovery of an anchor seems to testify to their presence. Where the aspect is entirely changed the former character of London sites is often pleasantly recorded for us in the names of the streets. and keep up a reminiscence of the rural nature of a now crowded district as late as the time of the Stuarts, though with and they have a satirical effect as applied to the places which now belong to them. In the West End, , , , , and , commemorate the time, years ago, when the Eye Bourne was a crystal rivulet running down-hill to through the green hay-fields of Miss Mary Davies.

Few would re-echo Malcolm's exclamation, even if it were quite true, which it is not. The Fire destroyed the greater part of London, but gave so much work to the builders that the small portion unburnt remained comparatively untouched till the tide of fashion had flowed too far westwards to make any systematic rebuilding worth while. It is over the of London, as the oldest part of the town, that its chief interest still hovers. Those who go there in search of its treasures will be stunned on week-days by the tourbillon of its movement, and the constant eddies at all the great crossings in the whirlpool of its business life, such as no other town in Europe can show. But this also has its charms, and no has seen London properly who has not watched the excited crowds at the Stock Exchange, threaded the labyrinth of the Bank, wondered at the intricate arrangements of the Post Office, attended a Charity Children's service at , beheld the Lord Mayor drive by in his coach; stood amid the wigged lawyers and whirling pigeons of the ; and struggled through , , and with the full tide of a weekday.

But no can see the City properly who does not walk in it, and.no can walk in it comfortably except on a Sunday. On that day it is thoroughly enjoyable. The great chimneys have ceased smoking, the sky is blue, the trees look green, but that which is most remarkable is, the streets are empty. What becomes of all the people it is impossible to imagine; there are not only no carriages, there are scarcely any foot-passengers: may saunter along the pavement with no chance of being jostled, and walk down the middle of the street without any fear of being run over. Then alone can the external features of the City be studied, and there is a great charm in the oddity of having it all to 's self, as well as in the quietude. Then we see how, even in the district which was devastated by the Fire, several important fragments escaped, and how the portion which was unburnt is filled with precious memorials of an earlier time. Scarcely less interesting also, and, though not always beautiful, of a character exceedingly unusual in England, are the numerous buildings erected immediately after the Fire in the reign of Charles II. The treasures which we have to look for are often very obscure --a sculptured gateway, a panelled room, a storm-beaten tower, or an incised stone-and in themselves might scarcely be worth a tour of inspection; but in a city where so many millions of inhabitants have lived and passed away, where so many great events of the world's history have occurred, there is scarcely of these long-lived remnants which has not some strange story to tell in which it bears the character of the only existing witness. The surroundings, too, are generally picturesque, and only those who study them and dwell upon them can realise the interest of the desolate tombs in the City churches, the loveliness of the plane-trees in their fresh spring green rising amid the smoky houses in those breathing spaces left by the Fire in the old City churchyards where the churches were never rebuilt, or the soft effects of aerial perspective from the wharfs of the Thames or amid the many-masted shipping in the still reaches of where the great White Tower of the Conqueror still frowns at the beautiful church built in honour of a poor ferry-woman,

churches were destroyed in the Fire, and only were preserved. Of these many have since been pulled down, and there are now only churches in existence which date before the time of Charles II. Those which were built immediately after the Fire; however, are scarcely less interesting, for though Wren had more work than he could possibly attend to properly, he never forgot that the greatest acquirement of architecture is the art of , and the inexhaustible power of his imagination displayed in his parish churches is not less astonishing than his genius evinced at . He built churches in London, mostly classic; in or , as St. Mary Aldermary and St. Alban, , he has attempted Gothic, and in these he has failed. Almost all the exteriors depend for ornament upon their towers, which are seldom well seen individually on account of their confined positions, but which are admirable in combination. The best is undoubtedly that of Bow Church; then St. Magnus, St. Bride, St. Vedast, and St. Martin deserve attention. The saints to whom the old City churches are dedicated are generally the old English saints honoured before the Reformation, whose comparative popularity may be gathered from the number of buildings placed under the protection of each. Thus there were churches dedicated to St. Botolph, to St. Benet, to St. Leonard, to St. Dunstan, and to St. Giles, while St. Ethelburga, St. Etheldreda, St. Alban, St. Vedast, St. Swithin, St. Edmund, and St. Bridget, had each their single church. of the City churches have been wantonly destroyed in our own time, and, though perhaps not beautiful in themselves, the thinning of the forest of towers and steeples, which was such a characteristic of ancient London, is greatly to be deplored. The interiors of the churches derive their chief interest from their monuments, but they are also often rich in Renaissance carvings and ironwork. They almost always have high pews, in which those who wish to attend the service may share the feelings of the little girl who, when taken to church for the time, complained that she had been shut up in a closet, and made to sit upon a shelf.

Interesting specimens of domestic architecture before the Fire are to be found in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, in Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and their surroundings. Crosby Hall and Sir Paul Pindar's House in the City; the Water Gate of York House; and Holland House in Kensington, are the most remarkable examples which come within the limits of our excursions.

When the new London--arose after the Fire, the persistence of the citizens who jealously clung to their old landmarks caused the configuration of the former city to be observed, to the destruction of the grand designs of renovation proposed by Evelyn and Wren, but to the preservation of many old associations, and the rescuing of much historic interest from oblivion. The domestic buildings which were then erected are no less interesting than the churches, including as they do many of the noble old Halls of the City Companies, and private houses built by Wren. With the landing of William III. the Dutch style of regular windows and flat-topped uniform brick fronts was introduced, which gradually deteriorated from the comfortable quaint houses of Anne's time with the carved wooden porches which may be seen in , to the hideous monotony of and . Under the brothers Adam and their followers there was a brief revival of good taste, and all their works are deserving of study-masterly alike in proportion and in delicacy of detail. In fact, though the buildings of the British Classical revival were often cold and formal, they were never bad.

Some people maintain that Art is dead in England, others that it lives and grows daily. Certainly street architecture appeared to be in a hopeless condition, featureless, colourless, almost formless, till a few years ago, but, since then, there has been an unexpected resurrection. is a noble example of the Florentine style, really grandiose and imposing, and the admirable work of Norman Shaw at Lowther Lodge seems to have given an impulse to brick and terra-cotta decoration, which has been capitally followed out in several new houses in , , , and , and which is the beginning of a school of architecture for the reign of Victoria, as distinctive as that of Inigo Jones and Wren was for the time of the Stuarts. The more English architects study the brick cities of Northern Italy and learn that the best results are brought about by the simplest means, and that the greatest charm of a street is its irregularity, the more beautiful and picturesque will our London become.

Besides the glorious collection in its , London possesses many magnificent pictures in the great houses of its nobles, though few of these are shown to the public with the liberality displayed in continental cities. In the West End, however, people are more worth seeing than pictures, and foreigners and Americans will find endless sources of amusement in Rotten Row--in the Exhibitions-and in a levée at St. James's.

If a stranger wishes at once to gain the most vivid impression of the wealth, the variety, and the splendour of London, he should follow the economical course of --embarking in a steamer-at , descend the Thames to , and ascend the Monument. The descent of the river through London will give a more powerful idea of its constant movement of life than anything else can: the water covered with heavily laden barges and churned by crowded steamboats: the trains hissing across the iron railway bridges: the numerous bridges of stone with their concourse of traffic: the tall chimneys: the hundreds of church towers with the great dome of dominating the whole: the magnificent embankment: the colossal : the palaces on the shores jostled by buildings of such a different nature, weather-stained wooden sheds, huge warehouses from whose chasm-like windows great cranes are discharging merchandise, or raising it from the boats beneath: and each side artery giving a fresh glimpse into the bustle of a street.

Throughout its long career, London has owed its chief prosperity, as it probably owed its existence, to the Thames, no longer here the of the old records, but ever the great inlet and outlet of the life of London,

The Thames is still the greatest highway in London, formerly it was the only highway; for even the best streets were comparatively mere bye-ways, where the men rode upon horseback, and the ladies were carried in horse litters. It is a proof of the constant use of the river even in the time of Charles II., that Pepys makes a point of mentioning in his whenever he went to a place . The Watermen then used to keep time with their oars to songs, with the chorus- like the gondoliers at Venice. Howell, writing in , says that the river Thames has not her fellow It is a proof of the little need there was to provide for any except water traffic, that except there was no bridge over the river in London until was built in the middle of the last century. the existing bridges date from the present century. Hackney coaches were not invented till the century, and these excited the utmost fury in the minds of the Watermen, who had hitherto had the monopoly of all means of public locomotion. Taylor, the Water Poet, who died in , writes-

The Hackney Coach stand, which existed till , was established in front of by Captain Baily in , in which year also Strafford's Letters relate that and that In the same year the Watermen complained vehemently to the king that the hackney coaches were In the hackney-coaches were limited. In the coachmen petitioned to be made into a corporation, so that might have coaches and pay the king a a year for the right. This number gradually increased, but has only been unlimited since .

In their early existence hackney-coaches had not only he Watermen to contend with. Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham had brought back with them from Spain several Sedan chairs, and, though these at excited the utmost contempt, people their comparative safety on such rugged pavements as the streets were afflicted with in those days soon made them popular, and they continued to be the fashion for a century and a half They were not, however, without their disadvantages. Swift describes the position of a London dandy in a shower-

The discomforts of the streets, however, then made all means of locomotion unpleasant: thus Gay says-

Not only are the pavements improved, and the streets lighted by gas, but we have now every facility of transport. Cabs are unlimited, and Hansom-cabs, so named from their inventor. Omnibuses, only introduced from Paris in , now run in every direction, and transport those who are not above using them, for immense distances and very small fares. More expensive, and more disagreeable, but still very convenient for those who are in a hurry, is the underground Metropolitan Railway, which makes a circle round London from (the ) to , with stations at all the principal points upon the way.

A pleasant way of learning 's London, as of seeing Rome, is to follow some consecutive guiding thread, such as the life of a particular person, and seeing what it shows us. The life of Milton, for example, would lead from his birthplace in and his school at , to the sites of his houses in Churchyard, , , , , , and , and so by the place of his death in Bunhill Fields to his grave at , Cripplegate.

No can consider the subject without regretting that no official care-taker is appointed for the historical memorials of London, without whose consent the house of Milton in could not have been swept away, and whose influence might be exerted to save at least the picturesque tower of the church which commemorates his baptism, with Dryden's inscription; who might have interposed to save the Tabard Inn, and have prevented the unnecessary destruction of St. Antholin's Tower: who, when a time-honoured burial-ground is turned into a recreation-ground, might suggest that, as in France, advantage should be taken of all the sinuosities and irregularities which gave the place its picturesqueness, instead of levelling them, and overlaying them with yellow gravel and imitation rockwork, ruthlessly tearing up tombstones from the graves to which they belong, and planting paltry flowers and stunted evergreens in their place, as in the historic though now ruined burial-ground of . is well said by Joubert in his .

Dwellers in the West End never cease to regret the need of the street scavengers, who in even the smaller towns of France and Germany would be employed daily to gather up and carry away the endless litter of orange-peel and paper which is allowed to lie neglected for months, hopelessly vulgarising the grass and flowers of London parks and squares,--a small but contemptible disgrace to our city, which is much commented upon by foreigners.

Another point which greatly requires a competent and well informed supervision is the nomenclature of the streets. Almost all the older blocks of houses have possessed an inmate or seen an event they might commemorate, and new streets are usually built on land connected with something which might give them a name; so that it is simply contemptible that there should be streets in London called King; Queen; Princes; George; John; Charles; James; Thomas; Henry; Alfred; William; Elizabeth; Church; Chapel; Union; New; go North and South; East and West; York; Gloucester; Cambridge; Brunswick; Devonshire; Norfolk; Richmond, &c.

The Artist in London will find much less difficulty than he anticipates in sketching in the streets, as people are generally too busy to stop to look at him. But, if accustomed to the facilities and liberality met with in Continental cities, he will be quite wearied out with the petty obstacles thrown in his way by every who can make an obstacle to throw. From the Benchers of the Temple to the humblest churchwarden, each official demands to the utmost, orders signed and countersigned, so that no jot of the little meed of homage to their individual self-importance can by any possibility be overlooked.

There are many who, amid the fatigues of society, might find the utmost refreshment of mind and body in mornings spent amid the tombs at ; the pictures of the City Companies, the Learned Societies or the great houses of the West End; but most of all in rambles through the ancient bye-ways of the City. There are many more, especially young men, for whom time in London hangs very heavy, and to whom the perpetual lounge in the Park must end by becoming wearisome and monotonous, and for these a new mine of interest and pleasure is only waiting to be worked. If they will take even the Walks indicated in these volumes, they can scarcely fail to end them by agreeing with Dr. Johnson that To them especially the author would say, in the words of Shakspeare--