Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/332

 ¬unwise in the individuals, soon return to it, and are sources of universal wealth. If London, "which God avert ! should decline in after-ages, and be visited like Rome in her declension, I would rather that the remains should be seen of an immense edifice where the sons and daugh- ters of England had rejoiced in the meridian of her glory, than the ruins of a disgusting Coli- seum for the savage combats of wild beasts. ¬I cannot, perhaps, find a better place for illus- trating the striking effects of public assemblies in apartments erected for the purpose, where every art is exerted to give splendour to the scene, than in what I saw at an entertainment of the Chief Magistrate of that great city. ¬We entered a magnificent hall, but which, in- stead of being lighted up, was in such a state of darkness that we could scarcely discern one another. — I was on the point of inquiring the cause of this, when in a second, and without a hand being stretched forth, I found myself in ¬the ¬