Southwark Bridge here spans the river. It consists of three cast-iron arches, the centre one wide enough for the Monument to float through cross-ways, and then leave a space of more than thirty feet. The weight of iron employed in its construction was nearly 6000 tons. To look up at the arches from the river, when underneath, recals the chambers built by the old enchanters; so many gloomy cells branch out and run into each other, that they appear marvellous, and compel you to respect the inventive genius of John Rennie, the architect of this wonderful structure, which was erected when railroads were unknown, and a tubular bridge across the Menai Straits undreamed of. These things ought to be borne in mind while looking at the cast-iron bridge of Southwark.
College-hill appears to have derived its name from a college founded on it by the famous Whittington, who lived in the time of Chaucer, and who was so many times Lord Mayor of London. The last Duke of Buckingham resided on this hill, but at what period we have not been able to discover. There does not appear to us the remains of any house sufficiently imposing enough to have been his residence, nor any thing extant beyond a court-yard, which is said to have belonged to his princely mansion. Strype says he resided here “upon a particular humour;” and we cannot contradict him, though to us it seems very strange, knowing that the City had at this time ceased, with but few exceptions, to be occupied by the nobility. We know that he sold his house in the Strand in 1672, and it is just probable that he may have resided here about this time; if so, it must then have been a new house, for the Great Fire occurred in 1666; and how such a mansion came to be taken down, and when and for what purpose, we cannot explain.
Here we have the Mercers’ School, which formerly stood beside the hall and chapel of this ancient company in Cheapside. It is said to be one of the oldest endowed schools in London, and to occupy the ground on which formerly stood “God’s Hospital,” founded by Whittington, now removed to Highgate, a great improvement on the original situation, considering that there is no longer any “flower-show” in Bucklesbury, and that the old Stocks Market has been removed to make room for the present Mansion House. St. Michael’s, College-hill, was rebuilt by Wren; it contains an altar-piece by Hilton, and is remarkable for nothing save that it was made a collegiate church by Whittington’s executors, and that the far-famed Lord Mayor is buried here—not forgetting an old poet (Cleveland), of whom we have in another work made honourable mention, for he was the first who called the bee “Nature’s confectioner.” His description of the ruins of “Old St. Paul’s” after the Fire ought to be better known. His hatred of the Roundheads was “right royal.”
Facing St. Pancras-lane, and running into Cheapside or the Poultry, is Bucklesbury, alluded to by Shakspeare, who makes Falstaff compare the dandies of his day to “lisping hawthorn buds, that come like women in men’s apparel, and smell like Bucklesbury in simple time.” It seems to have been principally inhabited by apothecaries in former times; and, as we know the faith our forefathers had in herbs, which they distilled and took in all kinds of forms as medicine, we can readily imagine what an aroma there was about the shops of these ancient herbalists.
Walbrook is so called from a brook which formerly flowed from the City wall into the Thames, but in Stowe’s time was built over and “hidden under ground, and thereby hardly known.” We have here the beautiful church of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook. “This church,” says Mr. Godwin in his work entitled The Churches of London, “is
certainly more worthy of admiration in respect to its general arrangement, which displays great skill, than of the details, for they are in many respects faulty. The body of the church, which is nearly a parallelogram, is divided into five unequal aisles (the centre being the largest, and those next the walls on either side the smallest,) by four rows of Corinthian columns. Within one intercolumniation from the east end, two columns from each of the two centre rows are omitted, and the area thus formed is covered by an enriched cupola supported on eight arches which rise from the entablature of the columns. By the distribution of the columns and their entablature (as may be observed in the engraving) a cruciform arrangement is given to this part of the church, and an effect of great elegance is produced, although marred in some degree by the want of connexion which exists between the square area formed by the columns and their entablature, and the cupola which covers it. The columns are raised on plinths of the same height as the pewing. The spandrils of the arches bearing the cupola present panels containing shields and foliage of uncertain and unmeaning form, perfectly French in style; and of the same character are the brackets against the side walls, in the shape of enriched capitals introduced to receive the ends of the entablature in the place of pilasters. At the chancel end pilasters are introduced, and serve to shew more plainly the impropriety of omitting them elsewhere. The enrichments of the entablature—itself meagre and imperfect—are clumsily executed. Above it is a clerestory, containing windows of mean form and construction. The cupola, around which runs a circular dentil cornice, just above the arches, is divided into panels ornamented with palm-branches and roses, and is terminated at the apex by a circular lantern light: the whole is elegant in outline, and is much more in design than are other portions of the church just now alluded to.” St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, is considered, in spite of Mr. Godwin’s architectural criticism, one of the most beautiful of all Wren’s churches, and for a comparatively modern building, is the gem of the City. Outside there is nothing to admire; but within it wears, in our eyes, a sweet cathedral-like look, so gracefully does the light stream down, so artistically do the shadows slumber. When the great architect planned this building, he must have been blessed with one of those happy thoughts which sometimes come upon a poet unaware, and for which he can no more account than he can for the fragrance that floats upon the summer breeze. The grace of those pillars, the beauty of that airy dome, haunt the memory long after they have been seen; and when far away, come upon the mind like pleasant recollections. The altar-piece by West finds many admirers; but the greatest charm is the eloquence of the rector, the Rev. Dr. Croly, whose literary works stand “second to none” of the many highly-gifted poets of the day; for the author of Salathiel has won himself a name which will never be forgotten while the language in which he clothed the “Angel of the World” is uttered.