OLD LONDON.

(For the Mirror.)

In a collection of Epigrams written by Thomas Freeman, of Gloucestershire, and published in 1014, is the following, entitled "London's Progresse:"—

"Why, how nowe, Babell, whither wilt thou build?

I see old Holbourne, Charing Crosse, the Strand,

Are going to St. Giles's in-the-field,

Saint Katerne, she takes Wapping by the hand,

"And Hogsdon will to Hygate ere't be long,

London has got a great way from the streame,

I thinke she means to go to Islington,

To eate a dish of strawberries and creame.

The City's sure in progresse I surmise,

Or going to revell it in some disorder,

Without the Walls, without the Liberties,

Where she neede feare nor Mayor nor Recorder.

Well! say she do, 'twere pretty, yet 'tis pitty

A Middlesex Bailiff should arrest the Citty."