There are now very few old street fronts of interest in London, one or two in the Strand, and some in the great roads out of London, but a few years ago there were many still remaining in the Whitechapel and Mile End Roads, and in Bishopsgate Street Without. In the latter street (No. 169) there was until lately the remains of the mansion of Sir Paul Pindar, an eminent English merchant (who died in 1650), distinguished for his love of architecture, and the magnificent sums he gave towards the restoration of old St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1617-1618 the house was occupied by the Venetian Embassy. In its last days it was used as a public-house, with the sign of “Sir Paul Pindar’s Head.” When it was pulled down the front was obtained for the South Kensington Museum, where it was re-erected.
The London of Johnson and Hogarth was not a handsome city, but it was a social one, and we owe to these two men many vivid pictures of the life lived in it. They were both true Londoners, but they were not alone in their love for their city, for a marked feature in the character of the eighteenth-century Londoner was his intense feeling that here only was life to be lived with true enjoyment. Much of the life was frivolous, and some of it worse than that, but among the respectable classes the opportunities for social intercourse were greater than now, when large numbers of the workers live out of London, some in the north, and some in the south, and it takes as long to get from Hampstead to Croydon as to travel a hundred miles into the country.
During the eighteenth century London continued to grow, but it became uglier every day. The original growth was along the course of the river, but near the middle of the century a little building was commenced to the north of Oxford Street, when Cavendish Square and the surrounding streets were laid out. Soon afterwards the New Road from the Angel at Islington to the Edgware Road (now re-named Pentonville, Euston, and Marylebone Roads) was planned. The opening of this road greatly facilitated the locomotion of the town, but it was disliked by the dwellers in what was then thought
