Page:Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London, with some contemporary furniture (1920).djvu/16

 edition of the "Cronycle of Englonde" (1510), what is probably the earliest engraved view which has any claim to represent London, shows no pretence of accuracy. With an effort of faith we may believe that we are looking at representations of old St. Paul's, the Tower, London Bridge, Ludgate, and the church of the Black Friars, but the design is symbolic rather than imitative.

Illuminations in manuscripts of the previous century in one or two instances give us clearer topographical hints. A volume of the English poems of Charles, Duke of Orleans, among the royal manuscripts at the British Museum, shows the duke, who was captured at the battle of Agincourt, as a prisoner in the Tower of London, where he was kept for many years. The river side of the keep has been opened, and he appears seated within. Portions of the Tower and old London Bridge with its chapel are well portrayed, while other buildings, although incorrectly placed, add a little to our knowledge. Another of the royal manuscripts in the British Museum shows Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims starting on their journey, with London in the background, the most interesting feature of this topographically being the old city wall, with its bastions at regular intervals. Something more may be learnt from the engraving (after a picture at Cowdray, destroyed by fire long ago) of the procession of Edward VI through London in 1547. The artist, however, is still not imitating nature directly, but introduces conventional renderings of the more important buildings with which he was familiar, without troubling himself much about their relative positions.

Two fine representations of Tudor London deserve special mention. The first of them as regards time is a view of London, not from Suffolk House as is generally supposed, but from the tower of the church of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, with Suffolk House, or part of it, in the foreground. It is a pen drawing, ten feet long or more, and is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Although the various important buildings are brought somewhat together in order to include them all,