now. It is early morn and we stand on London Bridge, green are the distant Surrey hills, clear the blue sky, stately the public buildings far and near. Beneath us what fleets in a few hours about to sail, with passengers and merchandize to almost every continental port. Surely Wordsworth’s Ode written on Westminster Bridge is not inapplicable:—
“Earth has not anything to show more fair.
Dull would he be of sense who could pass by,
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Shops, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air;
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, arch, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt a calm so deep,
The river glideth at his own sweet will,
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep
And all that mighty heart is lying still!”
Of the traffic by water visible from London Bridge as you look towards Greenwich, the best idea may be gathered by a few figures. A Parliamentary Return has been issued, showing that the amount of tonnage cleared from the port of London was in 1750, 796,632 tons, in 1800 the tonnage entered was 796,632; and that cleared was 729,554. In 1857 the tonnage entered had risen to 2,834,107, and that cleared to 2,143,884.
The traffic on London Bridge may be considered as one of the sights of London. A costermonger’s cart, laden with cabbages for Camberwell, breaks down, and there is a block extending back almost all the way to the Mansion House. Walk back and look at the passengers thus suddenly checked in their gay career. Omnibuses are laden with pleasure seekers on their way to the Crystal Palace. Look, there is “affliction sore” displayed on many a countenance and felt in many a heart. Mary Anne, who knows she is undeniably late, and deserves to be left behind, thinks that her young man won’t wait for her. Little Mrs. B. sits trembling with a dark cloud upon her brow, for she knows Mr. B. has been at the station since one, and it is now past two. Look at the pale, wan girl in the corner, asking if they will be in time to catch the train for Hastings. You may well ask, poor girl. Haste is vain now. Your hours are numbered—the sands of your little life are just run—your bloodless lip, your sunken eye, with its light not of this world—your hectic cheek, from which the soft bloom of youth has been rudely driven, make one feel emphatically in your case that “no medicine, though it oft’ can cure, can always balk the tomb.” What have you been—a dressmaker, stitching fashionable silks for beauty, and at the same time a plain shroud for yourself? What have you been—a governess, rearing young lives at the sacrifice of your own? What have you been—a daughter of sin and shame? Ah, well, it is not for me to cast a stone at you. Hasten on, every moment now
is worth a king’s ransom, and may He who never turned a daughter away soften your pillow and sustain your heart in the dark hour I see too plainly about to come. What is this, a chaise and four greys. So young Jones has done it at last. Is he happy, or has he already found his Laura slow, and has she already begun to suspect that her Jones may turn out “a wretch” after all. I know not yet has the sound of his slightly vinous and foggy eloquence died away; still ring in his ears the applause which greeted his announcement that “the present is the proudest of my life,” and his resolution, in all time to come, in sunshine and in storm, to cherish in his heart of hearts the lovely being whom he now calls his bride; but as he leans back there think you that already he sees another face—for Jones has been a man-about-town, and sometimes such as he get touched. This I know—
“Feebly must they have felt
Who in old time attired with snakes and whips
The vengeful furies.”
And even Jones may regret he married Laura and quarrelled with Rose,
“A rosebud set with little wilful thorns
And sweet as English air could make her.”
What a wonderful thing it is when a man finds himself married, all the excitement of the chase over. Let all Jones’ and Laura’s and persons about to marry see well that they are really in love before they take the final plunge. But hear that big party behind in a
Hansom, using most improper language. Take it easy, my dear sir, you may catch the Dover train, you may cross to Calais, you may rush on to Paris, but the electric telegraph has already told your crime, and described your person. Therefore be calm, there is no police officer dogging you, you are free for a few hours yet. And now come our sleek city men, to Clapham and Norwood, to dine greatly in their pleasant homes. The world goes well with them, and indeed it ought, for they are honest as the times go: are they slightly impatient, we cannot wonder at it, the salmon may be overboiled, just because of that infernal old coster’s cart. Hurra! it moves, and away go busses, and carriages, and broughams, and hansoms, and a thousand of Her Majesty’s subjects, rich and poor, old and young, saint and sinner, are in a good temper again, and cease to break the commandments. Stand here of a morning while London yet slumbers; what waggons and carts laden with provisions from the rich gardens of Surrey and Kent, come over London Bridge. Later, see how the clerks, and shopmen, and shopwomen, hurry. Later still, and what trains full of stockbrokers, and commission agents, and city merchants, from a circle extending as far as Brighton, daily are landed at the London Bridge Stations, and cross over. Later still, and what crowds of ladies from the suburbs come shopping, or to visit London exhibitions. If we were inclined to be uncharitable, we might question some of these fair dames; I dare say people connected with