Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers:
There whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride.”
In the poet’s time, and for nearly a hundred years after, brick edifices were very uncommon in London, and the Great Fire of 1666 would never have spread so rapidly, or extended so far, had not the majority of the houses been constructed of wood. It was the “bricky towers” of the Temple which at length stopped the westward march of the conflagration. The oldest parts of the two Inns seem almost as if they might be coeval with the days of Spenser; but the greater number of the buildings belong apparently to the latter part of the seventeenth century. Many alterations have of late taken place in the Temple, and the new work (if only for its newness) is out of harmony with the old. Could Charles Lamb revisit this beloved spot, it is to be feared that he would be much troubled by some of the recent innovations. Those who share Lamb’s appreciation of old London have certainly a good deal to put up with in these days. Perhaps the alterations are necessary and unavoidable; but they are often terribly jarring, though there are persons who will scarcely tolerate even a sigh over the departed or departing relics of an interesting past. A good deal of the old Temple, however, still remains, and may perhaps survive for another decade or two. In the Temple Church we have a striking relic of the Middle Ages, elaborately, but not always judiciously, restored between 1839 and 1842; and the Middle Temple Hall is thought to contain some of the best Elizabethan architecture in London.
BIT OF THE VICTORIA EMBANKMENT.
We are in modern times again when we come to Blackfriars Bridge; for not only is the structure one of yesterday, but that which preceded it dates back no farther than the second half of last century. The bridge erected by Robert Mylne was completed in 1769, and lasted for nearly a hundred years; but it shared the infirmity of Labelye’s work at Westminster, and the subsidence of the piers became so alarming that in 1864 the whole edifice was doomed to destruction. One of the finest views of St. Paul’s Cathedral, or, at any rate, of the dome, is obtainable from Blackfriars Bridge; but the appearance of the bridge itself on the eastern side is greatly marred by the railway viaduct of the London, Chatham, and Dover line. We have now passed the Thames Embankment, and the river begins to be bordered by wharves and warehouses, often black with the smoke of many years, yet not devoid of a certain rugged picturesqueness and gloomy state. Enormous cranes project from the walls; vast bales of goods dangle perilously in the air, and are lowered into the barges and other vessels which come up close to the landing-stages. Tier above tier of narrow, grimy windows rise into the sky; and gaunt openings in the walls, which seem as if they were intended for suicide, but are really meant for the reception and discharge of goods, reveal to the observant passer-by some dusky glimpses of that accumulated merchandise, the interchange of which has made London the greatest city in the world. In these sullen edifices, beetling over the water-side, you shall see nothing of beauty or of grandeur; but a man must be ignorant indeed, or grossly dull in his perceptions, if his mind do not discover, in the reaches of the Lower Thames, matter of the deepest interest, affecting not merely his own country, but her possessions in every part of the world, and to some extent the whole world itself. From this point, the wondrous city spreads around: the city with its roots in fable, and its branches in the living present; the city of commerce, of manufactures, of finance; the city of incalculable riches, and of that hopeless poverty which accompanies riches as the shadow accompanies the sun; the city which receives into its bosom the vessels and the wealth of all the globe, and which is in constant and electric sympathy with every part of Europe, with the teeming populations of the East, with the desert heart of Africa, with the young Republics of the Western Continent, and with the rising commonwealths of Australasian seas. Whence comes this marvellous power—this universality of influence? Partly from the genius and energy of the races which people Britain; but partly also from the opportunities presented by that deep and expanding stream which issues out into the German Ocean, and brings the fleets of nations to the walls of London. The greatness of England depends upon this liberal and majestic Thames—a fact so apparent, even in the time of Queen Mary, that an acute Alderman, hearing of the sovereign’s intention to remove with the Parliament and the Law Courts to Oxford, observed that they should do well enough, provided her Majesty left the river behind. Even in the time of the Roman occupation, London was a great commercial city; and since then, eighteen centuries of development have reared the mighty fabric of her trade.
