LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
[Introduction of Randolph to Ben Jonson (Frontispiece)]
[The Old Wooden Temple Bar]
[Burning the Pope in Effigy at Temple Bar]
[Bridewell in 1666]
[Part of Modern London, showing the Ancient Wall]
[Plan of Roman London]
[Ancient Roman Pavement]
[Part of Old London Wall, near Falcon Square]
[Proclamation of Charles II. at Temple Bar]
[Penance of the Duchess of Gloucester]
[The Room over Temple Bar]
[Titus Oates in the Pillory]
[Dr. Titus Oates]
[Temple Bar and the "Devil Tavern"]
[Temple Bar in Dr. Johnson's Time]
[Mull Sack and Lady Fairfax]
[Mrs. Salmon's Waxwork, Fleet Street]
[St. Dunstan's Clock]
[An Evening with Dr. Johnson at the "Mitre"]
[Old Houses (still standing) in Fleet Street]
[St. Bride's Church, Fleet Street, after the Fire, 1824]
[Waithman's Shop]
[Alderman Waithman, from an Authentic Portrait]
[Group at Hardham's Tobacco Shop]
[Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Kit-Kats]
[Bishop Butler ]
[Wolsey in Chancery Lane]
[Izaak Walton's House]
[Old Serjeants' Inn]
[Hazlitt]
[Clifford's Inn]
[Execution of Tomkins and Challoner]
[Roasting the Rumps in Fleet Street (from an old Print)]
[Interior of the Moravian Chapel in Fetter Lane]
[House said to have been occupied by Dryden in Fetter Lane]
[A Meeting of the Royal Society in Crane Court]
[The Royal Society's House in Crane Court]
[Theodore E. Hook]
[Dr. Johnson's House in Bolt Court]
[A Tea Party at Dr. Johnson's]
[Gough Square]
[Wine Office Court and the "Cheshire Cheese"]
[Cogers' Hall ]
[Lovelace in Prison]
[Bangor House, 1818]
[Old St. Dunstan's Church]
[The Dorset Gardens Theatre, Whitefriars]
[Attack on a Whig Mug-house]
[Fleet Street, the Temple, &c., 1563]
[Fleet Street, the Temple, &c., 1720]
[A Knight Templar]
[Interior of the Temple Church]
[Tombs of Knights Templars]
[The Temple in 1671]
[The Old Hall of the Inner Temple]
[Antiquities of the Temple]
[Oliver Goldsmith]
[Goldsmith's Tomb in 1860]
[The Temple Fountain, from an Old Print]
[A Scuffle between Templars and Alsatians]
[Sun-dial in the Temple]
[The Temple Stairs]
[The Murder of Turner]
[Bridewell, as Rebuilt after the Fire, from an Old Print]
[Beating Hemp in Bridewell, after Hogarth]
[Interior of the Duke's Theatre]
[Baynard's Castle, from a View published in 1790]
[Falling-in of the Chapel at Blackfriars]
[Richard Burbage, from an Original Portrait]
[Laying the Foundation-stone of Blackfriars Bridge]
[Printing House Square and the "Times" Office]
[Blackfriars Old Bridge during its Construction, 1775]
[The College of Physicians, Warwick Lane]
[Outer Court of La Belle Sauvage in 1828]
[The Inner Court of the Belle Sauvage]
[The Mutilated Statues from Lud Gate, 1798]
[Old Lud Gate, from a Print published about 1750]
[Ruins of the Barbican on Ludgate Hill]
[Interior of Stationers' Hall]
[Old St. Paul's, from a View by Hollar]
[Old St. Paul's—the Interior, looking East]
[The Church of St. Faith, the Crypt of Old St. Paul's]
[St. Paul's after the Fall of the Spire]
[The Chapter House of Old St. Paul's]
[Dr. Bourne preaching at Paul's Cross]
[The Rebuilding of St. Paul's]
[The Choir of St. Paul's]
[The Scaffolding and Observatory on St. Paul's in 1848]
[St. Paul's and the Neighbourhood in 1540]
[The Library of St. Paul's]
[The "Face in the Straw," 1613]
[Execution of Father Garnet]
[Old St. Paul's School]
[Richard Tarleton, the Actor]
[Dolly's Coffee House]
[The Figure in Panier Alley]
[The Church of St. Michael ad Bladum]
[The Prerogative Office, Doctors' Commons]
[St. Paul's and Neighbourhood, from Aggas' Plan, 1563]
[Heralds' College (from an Old Print)]
[The Last Heraldic Court (from an Old Picture)]
[Sword, Dagger, and Ring of King James of Scotland ]
[Linacre's House ]
[Ancient View of Cheapside]
[Beginning of the Riot in Cheapside]
[Cheapside Cross, as it appeared in 1547]
[The Lord Mayor's Procession, from Hogarth]
[The Marriage Procession of Anne Boleyn]
[Figures of Gog and Magog set up in Guildhall]
[The Royal Banquet in Guildhall in 1761]
[The Lord Mayor's Coach]
[The Demolition of Cheapside Cross]
[Old Map of the Ward of Cheap—about 1750]
[The Seal of Bow Church ]
[Bow Church, Cheapside, from a View taken about 1750]
[No. 73, Cheapside, from an Old View]
[The Door of Saddlers' Hall]
[Milton's House and Milton's Burial-place]
[Interior of Goldsmiths' Hall]
[Trial of the Pix]
[Exterior of Goldsmiths' Hall]
[Altar of Diana ]
[Wood Street Compter, from a View published in 1793]
[The Tree at the Corner of Wood Street]
[Pulpit Hour-glass]
[Interior of St. Michael's, Wood Street]
[Interior of Haberdashers' Hall]
[The "Swan with Two Necks," Lad Lane]
[City of London School]
[Mercers' Chapel, as Rebuilt after the Fire]
[The Crypt of Guildhall]
[The Court of Aldermen, Guildhall]
[Old Front of Guildhall]
[The New Library, Guildhall]
[Sir Richard Whittington]
[Whittington's Almshouses, College Hill]
[Osborne's Leap]
[A Lord Mayor and his Lady]
[Wilkes on his Trial]
[Birch's Shop, Cornhill]
[The Stocks' Market, Site of the Mansion House]
[John Wilkes]
[The Poultry Compter]
[Richard Porson]
[Sir R. Clayton's House, Garden Front]
[Exterior of Grocers' Hall]
[Interior of Grocers' Hall]
[The Mansion House Kitchen]
[The Mansion House in 1750]
[Interior of the Egyptian Hall]
[The "Maria Wood"]
[Broad Street and Cornhill Wards ]
[Lord Mayor's Water Procession]
[The Old Bank, looking from the Mansion House]
[Old Patch]
[The Bank Parlour, Exterior View]
[Dividend Day at the Bank]
[The Church of St. Benet Fink ]
[Court of the Bank of England]
["Jonathan's," from an Old Sketch]
[Capel Court]
[The Clearing House]
[The Present Stock Exchange]
[On Change (from an Old Print, about 1800)]
[Inner Court of the First Royal Exchange]
[Sir Thomas Gresham]
[Wren's Plan for Rebuilding London]
[Plan of the Exchange in 1837]
[The First Royal Exchange]
[The Second Royal Exchange, Cornhill]
[The Present Royal Exchange]
[Blackwell Hall in 1812]
[Interior of Lloyd's]
[The Subscription Room at "Lloyd's"]
[Interior of Drapers' Hall]
[Drapers' Hall Garden]
[Cromwell's House, from Aggas's Map]
[Pope's House, Plough Court, Lombard Street]
[St. Mary Woolnoth]
[Interior of Merchant Taylors' Hall]
[Ground Plan of the Church of St. Martin Outwich]
[March of the Archers]
[The Old South Sea House]
[London Stone]
[The Fourth Salters' Hall]
[Cordwainers' Hall]
[St. Antholin's Church, Watling Street]
[The Crypt of Gerard's Hall]
[Old Sign of the "Boar's Head"]
[Exterior of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, in 1700]
[The Weigh-house Chapel]
[Miles Coverdale]
[Wren's Original Design for the Summit of the Monument]
[The Monument and the Church of St. Magnus, 1800]
[LONDON AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS.]
Writing the history of a vast city like London is like writing a history of the ocean—the area is so vast, its inhabitants are so multifarious, the treasures that lie in its depths so countless. What aspect of the great chameleon city should one select? for, as Boswell, with more than his usual sense, once remarked, "London is to the politician merely a seat of government, to the grazier a cattle market, to the merchant a huge exchange, to the dramatic enthusiast a congeries of theatres, to the man of pleasure an assemblage of taverns." If we follow one path alone, we must neglect other roads equally important; let us, then, consider the metropolis as a whole, for, as Johnson's friend well says, "the intellectual man is struck with London as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible." In histories, in biographies, in scientific records, and in chronicles of the past, however humble, let us gather materials for a record of the great and the wise, the base and the noble, the odd and the witty, who have inhabited London and left their names upon its walls. Wherever the glimmer of the cross of St. Paul's can be seen we shall wander from street to alley, from alley to street, noting almost every event of interest that has taken place there since London was a city.
Had it been our lot to write of London before the Great Fire, we should have only had to visit 65,000 houses. If in Dr. Johnson's time, we might have done like energetic Dr. Birch, and have perambulated the twenty-mile circuit of London in six hours' hard walking; but who now could put a girdle round the metropolis in less than double that time? The houses now grow by streets at a time, and the nearly four million inhabitants would take a lifetime to study. Addison probably knew something of London when he called it "an aggregate of various nations, distinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interests—the St. James's courtiers from the Cheapside citizens, the Temple lawyers from the Smithfield drovers;" but what would the Spectator say now to the 168,701 domestic servants, the 23,517 tailors, the 18,321 carpenters, the 29,780 dressmakers, the 7,002 seamen, the 4,861 publicans, the 6,716 blacksmiths, &c., to which the population returns of thirty years ago depose, whom he would have to observe and visit before he could say he knew all the ways, oddities, humours—the joys and sorrows, in fact—of this great centre of civilisation?
The houses of old London are incrusted as thick with anecdotes, legends, and traditions as an old ship is with barnacles. Strange stories about strange men grow like moss in every crevice of the bricks. Let us, then, roll together like a great snowball the mass of information that time and our predecessors have accumulated, and reduce it to some shape and form. Old London is passing away even as we dip our pen in the ink, and we would fain erect quickly our itinerant photographic machine, and secure some views of it before it passes. Roman London, Saxon London, Norman London, Elizabethan London, Stuart London, Queen Anne's London, we shall in turn rifle to fill our museum, on whose shelves the Roman lamp and the vessel full of tears will stand side by side with Vanessas' fan; the sword-knot of Rochester by the note-book of Goldsmith. The history of London is an epitome of the history of England. Few great men indeed that England has produced but have some associations that connect them with London. To be able to recall these associations in a London walk is a pleasure perpetually renewing, and to all intents inexhaustible.
Let us, then, at once, without longer halting at the gate, seize the pilgrim staff and start upon our voyage of discovery, through a dreamland that will be now Goldsmith's, now Gower's, now Shakespeare's, now Pope's, London. In Cannon Street, by the old central milestone of London, grave Romans will meet us and talk of Cæsar and his legions. In Fleet Street we shall come upon Chaucer beating the malapert Franciscan friar; at Temple Bar, stare upwards at the ghastly Jacobite heads. In Smithfield we shall meet Froissart's knights riding to the tournament; in the Strand see the misguided Earl of Essex defending his house against Queen Elizabeth's troops, who are turning towards him the cannon on the roof of St. Clement's church.