1. Countryman on a Stage Coach.
Here is Farmer Clodpole, who lives a hundred miles from London, coming to see it at last. They have just reached the top of a hill, and catch a fine view of the city.
“What! is that Lunnun, coachey? Well, I’m glad to see it at last; for I, that’s only used to jog along a few miles in our cart, don’t much fancy this jumbling and jolting. But what a smoke they are in, master coachman: I shall be glad enough to get back again, if I am always to be in such a puther. Pray, what’s that there great round thing in the midst of the housen? Oh! St. Paul’s: why that beats our parish church all to pieces. Well, drive away, coachey, that I may see all the fine things; and nobody shall laugh at me any more, because I have not seen Lunnun.”
2. The Monument.
There is the Monument: it is situated on the east side of Fish Street Hill, and is the highest column in the world. It was erected in remembrance of the great fire of London, which broke out in Pudding Lane, very near Fish-Street Hill, destroying all the buildings from Tower Wharf in the east, to Temple church in the west; and from the north end of Mincing Lane, to the west end of Leadenhall Street; passing to Threadneedle Street, thence in a direct line to Holborn Bridge, and extending northward to Smithfield, when, after having burnt down thirteen thousand and two hundred houses, it terminated.
At that time provisions were very cheap, and many people eat to the full; so that gluttony was alleged by some as the cause of the fire; it beginning, as they said, at Pudding Lane, and ending at Pie Corner, which was the case.
The Monument is a very fine pillar, 202 feet high, having a staircase leading to the gallery, from which, on a clear day, beautiful views of the city and surrounding country may be seen.
By the inscription on the Monument, the Roman Catholics are accused of “burning this Protestant city;” but Pope, the poet, was of a different opinion, for he says,