’Tis a pretty while since I received another part of your observations about London, together with some fragments and books, and a copy of Leland’s ‘Encomia illustrorum virorum.’ The gentleman who lent this copy is a person for whom I have a great honour, and I desire you would return him my service and thanks, altho’ I have already done this myself in a letter I writ to him. I should be glad to know whether he be Esq., or what other title I may call him by, if I should have occasion to make public mention of his name. I am extremely obliged to you for your care and trouble, and for your readiness to assist me. As for what Leland says about London Bridge, ’tis in the word Pontifices in his Com. upon the ‘Cygnea Cantio.’ Some ignorant persons, and particularly one, had found fault with his making only nineteen arches, in London Bridge, when, as they alleged, there were twenty. Mr. Leland acknowledges there were twenty cataracts, or passages, but observes that one of them was only a sluice, or Draw-Bridge, and that there were only nineteen stone arches. Upon this he takes occasion to animadvert in short upon the aforesaid person, who had been so pert, and promises to take more notice of him afterwards, and at the same time to expose him according to his deserts. He tells us he had survey’d the whole City, and took notes of every thing of consequence in it, and insinuates that he would publish a most full and exact account of its History and Antiquities. ’Twas in this work the remarks of the aforesaid Observator were to be fully considered; but Mr. Leland dying before he could finish either this, or divers other undertakings, his papers came into other hands, and those about London (which were considerable) coming to Mr. Stowe, many of them are published in the Survey of London as Mr. Stowe’s own, and others are entirely lost, or, at least, ’tis not at present known who has the possession of them.’
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‘For Mr. John Bagford, at the
Charter House, London.’
“After this flourish of trumpets, concerning Leland and London Bridge, I proceed to translate for you the very amusing passage itself, premising only that you will find it on page 133, in that edition of the work which I have already cited.—‘Pontifices: Bridge Masters, officers who derive their name from the nature of their employment, namely, the constructing of Bridges, or the keeping of them in order; of whom also are the two Governors charged with the care of London Bridge. These officers have an excellent house in the suburb of Southwark, as well as a storehouse containing every thing belonging to their occupation. Rodolphus à Diceto relates in his History, that Peter of Colechurch, a Priest, laid the foundations of a new Bridge: but though it was at first very inconsiderable, Royal and Civic munificence afterwards brought it to be the edifice which it now appears. Upon this subject, Courteous Reader, I am assailed by a whole herd of blustering smatterers, of whom there is one more insignificant than even the rest; a fellow more notorious for loquacity than eloquence, and prodigiously self-conceited; he, truly, shamelessly asserts me to have mistaken in my enumeration of the Arches of London Bridge. And he being, I warrant you, a critic of rare sagacity, plucks up by the roots, rends, and mangles, all by his own mighty authority, an’t please you, the pretended oversight on my part. But no more at present; for upon another opportunity I am about to overwhelm his intolerable stupidity, and trample down his arrogance: I merely then reply to him, that one eye-witness is of more value than ten hearsays. I am a Citizen of London, nor do I repent me of my country; and I hope also that she may never have any reason to repent her of her son. To thee then, thou vile companion, Geta,’—the name, you may remember, of a very knavish servant in Terence’s ‘Phormio,’—‘to thee I say
To none the City better known can be,
All London is a monument to me!
Suppose thou wert to try thy skill at searching into that antiquity which involves this wonder of our City? Perchance thou mayest learn something, unless thou art half-ashamed to learn under my tuition. But why should we not now return to the matter of the Bridge? London Bridge then, as it extends itself from North to South, has twenty cataracts; but of arches, incurvated passages formed of solid stone, there are no more than nineteen. That platform, having the figure of a Bridge, made of level wooden planks, capable of being raised or lowered by machines, that an enemy may not find an open passage, I neither can, nor will, nor ought reasonably to call an arch. And yet thou wert greatly in hope of a mighty triumph over me in this matter; but by these words thus easily do I snatch away from thee thine air-built castles.
For though Antæus thou should’st be, or Polyphemus vast,
Or Atlas, on whose shoulders broad the world itself was cast,
To hope to triumph o’er me were but labour spent in vain,
And thou, I deem, wilt wiser be if e’er we meet again.
‘And now, get thee hence, thou Geta, and fail not to proclaim to all your pot-companions, your notable discovery of twenty arches in London Bridge!’
“I have next, Mr. Barbican, to commend to your notice the account of London Bridge and the Thames, given to us by that most learned man and voluminous writer, Paulus Jovius, Bishop of Nocera, an historian who was born at Como, in Italy, in 1483, and died in 1552. The passage to which I allude, is in his ‘Descriptio Britanniæ, Scotiæ, Hyberniæ, et Orchadum,’ Venice, 1548, small quarto, or octavo, page 12 a, beginning ‘Sed harum et denique omnium et famam Londinum penitus obscurat;’ but I shall here again take the freedom to anticipate time a little, and give you under one year a translation of Paulus Jovius, and Sir Paul Hentzner’s description of the same object; since the former is cited by the latter, and both are excellently well rendered into English in that very curious and rare production of the Strawberry-Hill press, entitled ‘A Journey into England, by Paul Hentzner, in the Year M.D.XC.VIII.,’ printed in 1757, octavo; on page 4 of which the passage thus commences. ‘On the South is a Bridge of stone, 800 feet in length, of wonderful work; it is supported upon 20 piers of square stone, 60 feet high, and 30 broad, joined by arches of about 20 feet diameter. The whole is covered on each side with houses, so disposed as to have the appearance of a continued street, not at all of a Bridge. Upon this is built a tower, on whose top the heads of such as have been executed for high treason are placed upon iron spikes: we counted above thirty. Paulus Jovius, in his description of the most remarkable towns of England, says, ‘All are obscured by London; which, in the estimation of many, is Cæsar’s City of the Trinobantes, the capital of all Britain, famous for the commerce of many nations; its houses are elegantly built, its churches fine, its towers strong, and its riches and abundance surprising. The wealth of the world is wafted to it by the Thames, swelled by the tide, and navigable to merchant ships, through a safe and deep channel for 60 miles, from its mouth to the City. Its banks are every where beautified with fine country seats, woods, and farms; below, is the Royal Palace of Greenwich; above, that of Richmond; and between both, on the West of London, rise the noble buildings of Westminster, most remarkable for the Courts of Justice, the Parliament, and St. Peter’s Church, enriched with the Royal tombs. At the distance of 20 miles from London, is the Castle of Windsor, a most delightful retreat of the Kings of England, as well as famous for several of their tombs, and for the most renowned ceremonial of the Order of the Garter. This river abounds in swans, swimming in flocks; the sight of them, and their noise, are vastly agreeable to the fleets that meet them in their course. It is joined to the City by a Bridge of stone wonderfully built; is never encreased by any rains, rising only with the tide, and is every where spread with nets, for the taking of salmon and shad.’ Thus far Paulus Jovius.’