A VIEW OF LONDON.
The finest view in London is from the top of Whitehall Place, looking towards the river; but then you must see it as I did, at the same hour, and under similar circumstances.
It was about a fortnight since I beheld that memorable spectacle. I was on my way home, having dined with a friend, who, though not an habitual votary of Bacchus, occasionally sacrifices to the god with intense and absorbing zeal. After dinner we adjourned to the Opera, having only determined to renew at supper our intimacy with certain flasks of Champagne, which lay in their icy baths coolly expecting our return. We carried our determination into effect to the fullest extent; and at half-past three o'clock we parted, deeply impressed with a sense of each other's good qualities, and with as keen and lively an appetite for the sublime and beautiful as an X of Champagne[2] usually imparts to its warm-hearted admirers. My way led me through Whitehall, at least I found myself there, as "Charles," the guardian of the night, was announcing the fourth hour. As my good fortune would have it, I happened to look towards the river, and never, while memory holds her seat, shall I forget the sight which presented itself. Six distinct St. Pauls lifted themselves through the cloudless morning air (so pure, that the smoke of a single cigar would defile it: I extinguished mine in awe) towards the blue transparent sky; nearer, and beneath this stately city of temples, were four Waterloo Bridges, piling their long arcades in graceful and harmonious regularity one above the other, with the chaste and lofty symmetry of a mighty aqueduct; while far away, in the dim distance, a dome of gigantic dimensions was faintly visible, as if presiding over the scene, linking shadow and substance, uniting the material with the intellectual world, like the realization of a grand architectural dream. Talk not to me of the Eternal City—in her proudest days of imperial magnificence she could not furnish such a view—thrice be that Champagne lauded!—Monthly Magazine.