THE subject of London, old and new, has ever offered a charm and even fascination, attested by the countless works which crowd the shelves of the library. The entries under the word “London” fill nearly a volume of the British Museum catalogue. These old folios and quartos, grey and rusted like the churches and halls they celebrate, have a dilapidated, decayed tone, as though they also wanted “restoring”; and there is a welcome quaintness and sincerity in the style of such antiquaries as Northuck, Strype, Stowe, Pennant, and others, which contrast with the more prosaic tone of the modern handbooks. These old scribes belonged to that amazing and unrequited class, “the county historian”: such were honest, laborious Whitaker and Plot. There is nothing more pathetic than the record of these unselfish enthusiasts, who, after collecting subscriptions and devoting their lives and life-blood to these huge quartos, generally ruined themselves by the venture. Now, long after they have mouldered away, their huge tomes fetch large prices at auction; or some dapper editor of our day re-issues them, with airy notes of his own, taking care to point out the various “blunders” of the poor departed Dryasdust who laboured so faithfully and so modestly.

An interesting speculation might be found in considering the different ways persons have looked on the great aggregate of London. For those of fashion it is little more than an enlarged Grosvenor or Belgrave Square: it has few associations, historical or otherwise; while its “curios” may be useful as a sort of raree-show for the crowd. As the excellent Boswell put it, “I have often amused myself with thinking how different a place London is to different people. They whose narrow minds are contracted to the consideration of some one particular pursuit, view it only through that medium. A politician thinks of it merely as the seat of government in its different departments; a grazier as a vast market for cattle; a mercantile man as a place where a prodigious deal of business is done upon ’Change; a dramatic enthusiast as the grand scene of theatrical entertainments; a man of pleasure as an assemblage of taverns, etc., etc.; but the intellectual man is struck with it as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible.”

Stowe, Maitland, Grose, Pennant, Brayley, Leigh Hunt, with J. T. Smith, the author of “Walks in London,” the invaluable Peter Cunningham, and other “guides and friends,” in their dealings with London town seem to have been fascinated by one particular mode of treatment, viz.: the tracking out of all the personages and the social and historical incidents that are connected with particular spots. So diligently has this sort of investigation been pursued that some sort of connection has been established between every modern spot and corner and some great memory. Old houses, old inns, old streets and chambers, have all been thus registered and illustrated by quotations from books of their time. As Leigh Hunt says, “Nor perhaps is there a single spot in London in which the past is not visibly present to us, either in the shape of some old buildings, or at least in the names of the streets, or in which the absence of more tangible memorials may not be supplied by the antiquary. In some parts of it we may go back through the whole English history, perhaps through the history of man, as when we speak of St. Paul’s Churchyard, a place in which you may get the last new novel, and find remains of the ancient Britons and of the sea. There also, in the Cathedral, lie painters, patriots, humorists, the greatest warriors and some of the best men; and there, in St. Paul’s School, was educated England’s epic poet, who hoped that his native country would never forget her privilege of ‘teaching the nations how to live.’”

Elia seems to touch a more sympathetic note. He was, indeed, an idolater of the city. “London,” he cried, “whose dirtiest Arab-frequented alley, and her lowest-bowing tradesman I would not exchange for Skiddaw, Helvellyn, James, Walter, and the parson into the bargain. Oh! her lamps of a night, her rich goldsmiths, print shops, toy shops, mercers, hardwaremen, pastrycooks, St. Paul’s Churchyard, the Strand, Exeter Change, Charing Cross, and the man upon a black horse. These are thy gods, O London! All her streets and pavements are pure gold, I warrant you. At least I know an alchemist that turns her mud into that metal—a mind that loves to be at home in crowds.” This is pleasant rapture. In another place he grows almost wanton over what he calls “the furniture of his world,” that is, “streets, streets, streets, markets, theatres, churches, Covent Gardens, shops sparkling with pretty faces of industrious milliners, neat seamstresses, ladies cheapening, gentlemen behind counters lying, authors in the streets with spectacles ... lamps lit at night, pastrycooks’ and silversmiths’ shops, beautiful Quakers of Pentonville, noise of coaches, drowsy cry of mechanic watchmen at night, with bucks reeling home drunk. If you happen to wake at midnight, cries of ‘Fire!’ and ‘Stop thief!’ Inns of Court with their learned air, and halls and butteries, just like Cambridge colleges; old bookstalls ‘Jeremy Taylors,’ ‘Burtons on Melancholy,’ on every stall. These are the pleasures of London ... for these may Keswick and the giant brood go hang.” And his humorous penchant for the city was so strong that he would call aloud, “Give me Old London at fire and plague times,” rather than “healthy country air” and “purposeless exercise.”

The mutations in the aspect of London are taking place with an almost alarming rapidity, so that it becomes difficult even to note them. Hardly a week passes without some old street or mansion being menaced, and marked for destruction. Of a morning we see the new and significant “hoarding” set up: in a week or two we pass again, and the “housebreakers,” as they are called, are hard at work with their pickaxes, shovelling down the old Queen Anne bricks in showers of dust. From year’s end to year’s end this goes on. The hungry eyes of the speculator, or of the thriving man of business, are often fixed upon the old Wren churches, which, in his view, so idly cumber space that might be covered with useful warehouses at enormous rents. It is sad to think that eventually it will be found impossible to resist this never-relaxing pressure, and that within a few years the clearing away of these venerable memorials will have set in. The recent clamour about St. Mary’s in the Strand is truly significant, the spoilers knowing well that if they can insert their wedge or pickaxe here, a happy beginning will have been made. These old buildings have few authorized friends or guardians beyond the amiable amateur.

“London,” as a writer in The Builder says, “is still, in spite of all pullings down, and removals of the so-called worn-out and out of date buildings, full every here and there of quaint spots, and bits of architecture, and even of poetic remembrances in dreary nooks and corners. Many of the antique streets are yet in existence, as far as the plans of them go; and the irregularity of house pulling down and improvement necessitates differences in the size and height of the houses, which make up the crooked street, and leave the idea of it, as it was, almost intact.”

It is fashionable to abuse the old city, to be ashamed of it, when comparing it with foreign towns. Dr. Waagen, who was in London in 1838, took away a not very favourable impression of London architecture. “The outside of the brick houses,” he says, “in London is very plain, and has nothing agreeable in the architecture, unless it be the neat and well-defined joints of the brick-work. On the other hand, many of the great palace-like buildings are furnished with architectural decorations of all kinds, with pillars and pilasters. There are two reasons why most of them have a rather disagreeable effect. They are destitute of continuous simple main lines, which are indispensable in architecture to produce a grand effect, and the decorative members are introduced in a manner entirely arbitrary, without any regard to their original meaning. This absurdity is carried to the greatest excess in the case of columns, ranged here, as wholly unprofitable servants, directly before a wall. This censure applies in an especial manner to most of the works of the deceased architect, Nash. In truth, he had a peculiar knack of depriving masses of considerable dimensions of all meaning, by breaking them into a number of little projecting and receding parts.”

He is even more severe on some of the churches; for instance, All Souls, in Langham Place, “a circular building in two stories, with Ionic and Corinthian columns, surmounted by a pointed sugar-loaf.”

“If the immense sums expended in architectural abnormities had always been applied in a proper manner, London must have been the handsomest city in the world.” Exceptions, however, to this general blame, he admits, are Somerset House, which has the air of a regal palace, and the “new Post Office,” which has quite “a noble effect.”

It is interesting to reflect how the thoroughfares have affected eminent persons. When Leigh Hunt saw a house with flowers in the balcony, or otherwise prettily disposed or arranged with taste, he was seized with an irresistible longing to knock at the door, ask for the proprietor, and formally thank him for the pleasure he had given to a careless passer-by! It might be curious to see this graceful appreciation pass from theory to action; and conjure up the face of, say, some retired cheesemonger as he came down to receive the compliment. His natural sense would be—and would be in the case not merely of a retired cheesemonger, but of an average person—an idea of affront. Johnson, as we have been told again and again, enjoyed Fleet Street, though it must be confessed the removal of Temple Bar has somewhat spoiled this association. There was the idea of formal entrance to the City—much as one would pass under the portals of an old castle to gain the courtyard. The not unpicturesque oval where the Law Courts stand has gained, but Fleet Street has lost. Nay, there was a pleasure, when vulgarly reared aloft on an omnibus, in rumbling under that archway. It was like entering an old fortified town.

One might be inclined to think that a few reflections, new or old, could be suggested by the streets, where custom has so much staled any variety that existed. Leigh Hunt again declares that there is not a single London street—that endless world of flagging, stone, and brick—from which the pleasant vision of a tree is not to be seen. I believe the fact to be true in the main—certainly was true in his day. What curious survivals still remain to us—such as would make the foreigner stop and look back at long and eagerly, and go unheeded by the careless resident! To give an instance or two: On a Sunday morning the early promenader is likely to meet a little procession passing through the Mall of ten or a dozen boys, gorgeously clad in scarlet coats of antique cut, richly and profusely laced with gold, with black hose and shoes with buckles, college caps with gold tassels. Few even in London have encountered these little gentry, and if they did would wonder exceedingly. They belong to the Court, and are the singing boys of the Royal Choir. Again, to pass by Newgate Street and look in between the railings at the boys of the old foundation of “Christ’s” busily engaged enjoying football—what a quaint costume, the orange stockings, the monastic gown confined with a leather strap—like a “Frere”—and the curious rule which interdicts wearing hat or cap, apparently without injury. And we have still left the “Beefeaters” or Yeomen of the Guard.

Indeed, few can conceive how many interesting streets, houses, corners, churches, and general “surprises” are to be found by those who know where to look for them. There are people who have been brought up, “man and boy,” as it is called, in London, and lived there all their life long, and who think it is little more than a repetition of the Strand and Fleet Street, and that the City is all like Lombard Street. What London abounds in is the picturesque and the poetical: there is really an abundance of charming “bits,” of artistic buildings, and of relics as noteworthy as any in a foreign town. Some of them we pass every day, but familiarity obscures their merit. Others, too, we pass every day, but they are hid behind screens and walls, or locked in behind old rusty gates. Often thinking of these ignored treasures, I determined to explore for myself, and see if I could do something in a humble way to introduce to better notice this “Picturesque London,” or the picturesqueness of London. Prompted by this sympathetic impulse, I have for years made regular, diligent “travels in London” as an explorer, and have been astonished at all I saw. It was true, no doubt, that many of these things were described in the official guide-books, but after the appraising, registering fashion of such works. What one has looked for was some one with sympathy to point out the merits and beauties. I pursued my new calling with a growing relish, often directed to inspect curiosities by a friendly counsellor, more often stumbling on them by accident. In time it was amazing what a number of old houses, old doorways, old churches, old corners, I was thus introduced to, what unsuspected treasures were laid open, and above all what a new fund of entertainment was provided for a simple street promenader.

I shall now proceed to share my enjoyment with the courteous reader, and we shall make our wanderings in rather a fitful way, chiefly as the explorer made them, almost without system, dealing with these objects as they lie grouped together within compass of a day’s travelling.