Or who that rugged Street would traverse o'er,
That stretches, O Fleet Ditch, from thy black Shore.[577]
and—
If where Fleet Ditch with Muddy Current flows.
Ward says, 'from thence we took a turn down by the Ditch side, I desiring my friend to inform me what great advantages this Costly Brook contributed to the Town, to Countervail the Expence of Seventy four Thousand Pounds, which I read in a very Credible Author was the Charge of its making; He told me he was wholly unacquainted with any, unless it was now and then to bring up a few Chaldron of Coles to 2 or 3 pedling Fewel Merchants, who sell them never the cheaper to the poor for such Conveniency: And as for those Cellers you see on each side, design'd for Warehouses, they are rendered by their dampness so unfit for that purpose, that they are wholly useless, except for Lightermen to lay themselves in, or to harbour Frogs, Toads and other Vermin. The greatest good that ever I heard it did, was to the undertaker, who is bound to acknowledge he has found better Fishing in a muddy Stream, than ever he did in clear Water.'
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE STREETS.
Size of London — Pall Mall — London in wet weather — Early morning — Street cries: a list of them — Roguery in the streets — Orderly regulations — State of the roads — Rule of the road — Street signs — Description of the streets — Milkmaids on May Day — Hyde Park; its regulations — Lighting the streets — The streets at night.
London, it is scarcely necessary to remark, was very circumscribed in its area compared to its overgrown present dimensions. The northern bank of the river was well occupied from Shadwell to Westminster, opposite Lambeth. On the west the houses went down the northern side of Piccadilly, as far as Apsley House; but Bond Street was only partially built, and there were no houses westward of it. The Edgware Road and Tottenham (or, as it was then called, Hampstead) Road were in existence, but few were the houses in either of them. At the Back of Montague and Southampton Houses, and generally north of Theobald's Road and Clerkenwell, there was nought but fields, dotted here and there with farmhouses—with the hills of Hampstead and Highgate for a background. Houses ceased, on the eastern side, after Shoreditch, and shortly after passing Whitechapel Church; so that a walk all round inhabited London—skirting the north bank of the river to begin with—might be done in about twelve miles.
Covent Garden was the centre of social life. Soho and Leicester Squares, and thence westward, comprised the limits of the court and fashionable society—that land of luxury for which Gay sighed, but which yet was not perfect.
O bear me to the Paths of fair Pell Mell,
Safe are thy Pavements, grateful is thy Smell!
At distance, rolls along the gilded Coach,
Nor sturdy Carmen on thy Walks encroach;
No Less would bar thy Ways, were Chairs deny'd,
The soft Supports of Laziness and Pride;
Shops breathe Perfumes, thro' Sashes Ribbons glow,
The Mutual Arms of Ladies, and the Beau.—
Yet still ev'n Here, when Rains the Passage hide
Oft' the loose Stone spirts up a Muddy Tide,
Beneath thy careless Foot; and from on high,
Where Masons mount the Ladder, Fragments fly;
Mortar, and crumbled Lime in Show'rs descend,
And o'er thy Head destructive Tiles impend.
