Dickens' London

by M. F. Mansfield

From Park Land to Wapping, by day and by night, I've many a year been a roamer, And find that no Lawyer can London indite, Each street, every Lane's a misnomer. I find Broad Street, St. Giles, a poor narrow nook, Battle Bridge is unconscious of slaughter, Duke's Place can not muster the ghost of a Duke, And Brook Street is wanting in water. James Smith, Comic Miscellanies.

It is not easy to delimit the territorial confines of a great and growing city like London. The most that the most sanguine writer could hope to do would be to devote himself to recounting the facts and features, with more or less completeness, of an era, or an epoch, if the word be thought to confine the period of time more definitely.

There is no London of to-day; like "unborn to-morrow" and "dead yesterday," it does not exist. Some remains there may be of a former condition, and signs there assuredly are of still greater things to come, but the very face of the earth in the great world of London is constantly changing and being improved or disimproved, accordingly as its makers have acted wisely or not.

Billingsgate and the Custom House.		The Bank, Royal Exchange, and Mansion House.
General Post-Office.		King William Street and Gracechurch Street.
St. Paul's, Cheapside, and Paternoster Row.		Fleet Street at Temple Bar.
"The City"—London.

The London of Dickens' time—the middle Victorian period—was undergoing, in some degree, at least, the rapid changes which were making themselves felt throughout the civilized world. New streets were being put through, old landmarks were being removed, and new and greater ones rising in their stead; roadways were being levelled, and hills were disappearing where they were previously known. How curious it is that this one topographical detail effects so great a change in the aspect of the buildings which border upon the streets. Take for instance the Strand as it exists to-day. Dickens might have to think twice before he would know which way to turn to reach the Good Words offices. This former narrow thoroughfare has been straightened, widened, and graded until about the only recognizable feature of a quarter of a century ago is the sky-line. Again, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, a noble and imposing church, is manifestly made insignificant by the cutting down of the grade, and even removing the broad and gentle rising flight of steps which once graced its façade. Generally speaking, the reverse is the case, the level of the roadway being immeasurably raised, so that one actually steps down into a building which formerly was elevated a few steps. All this and much more is a condition which has worked a wondrous change in the topography of London, and doubtless many another great city.

As for grandeur and splendour, that can hardly be claimed for any city which does not make use of the natural features to heighten the effect of the embellishments which the hand of man has added to what nature has already given. London possesses these features to a remarkable degree, and she should make the best of them, even if to go so far as to form one of those twentieth-century innovations, known as an "Art Commission," which she lacks. Such an institution might cause an occasional "deadlock," but it would save a vast deal of disfigurement; for London, be it said, has no streets to rank among those of the world which are truly great, such as High Street at Oxford, and Prince's Street in Edinburgh, to confine the comparison to Great Britain.

The author of this book has never had the least thought of projecting "a new work on London," as the industrious author or compiler of Knight's "Old and New London" put it in 1843, when he undertook to produce a monumental work which he declared should be neither a "survey nor a history." The fact is, however, that not even the most sanguine of those writers who may hope to say a new word about any subject so vast as that comprehended by the single word, London, could even in a small measure feel sure that he has actually discovered any new or hitherto unknown fact. In short, one may say that this would be impossible.

London's written history is very extensive and complete, and it is reasonable to suppose that most everything of moment has at one time or another been written down, but there are constantly varying conditions and aspects which do present an occasional new view of things, even if it be taken from an old standpoint; hence even within the limits of which this section treats it is possible to give something of an impression which once and again may strike even a supercritical reader as being timely and pertinent, at least to the purport of the volume.

The latter-day City and County of London, including the metropolitan and suburban area, literally "Greater London," has within the last few years grown to huge proportions. From being a city hemmed within a wall, London has expanded in all directions, gradually forming a connection with various clusters of dwellings in the neighbourhood. It has, in fact, absorbed towns and villages to a considerable distance around: the chief of these once detached seats of population being the city of Westminster. By means of its bridges, it has also absorbed Southwark, Bermondsey, Lambeth, and Vauxhall, besides many hamlets and villages beyond.