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3, 1859.] eyes on canvas or ivory, as those of Hilliard, which Donne, the poet, extols to the skies; and the building of houses has kept pace with the multiplication and improvement of portraits, — the vanity of the people, whose love of display has greatly increased within the last dozen years, being, doubtless, at the bottom of both.

From the Postern Gate we may make the whole round of the city on foot easily within an hour and a half, giving us plenty of time to look about us; for the circuit of the city walls is less than three miles. Our track lies straight to the north as far as Aldgate, which is the first entrance to the city on this side; and, being without the walls, we may regale our eyes with the pleasant sight of fields and gardens as we go along, for there is scarcely a solitary gable or chimney visible upon the whole line. Turning off in a north-westerly direction, we follow the Great Wall, which in many places is nine feet thick, past Bedlam Gate, and All Hallows in the Wall, and Moorgate, until we come to Cripple Gate, so called because of the hospital for cripples, which the benevolence of the public formerly established here. The suburb of Houndsditch lies on our right as far as Bedlam Gate, exactly opposite to which the purlieu called Bishop’s Gate, and still more distant Shoreditch, indicated by straggling houses a long way off on each side, run, due north, into the open country. Not a house is to be seen between this spot and the remote village of St. Giles’s, on the extreme north-west. Archery fields, bleaching grounds and commons, intervene as far as the eye can reach; and three or four windmills, dropped here and there on the verge of the horizon, fill up the landscape, which is airy enough, but rather flat and unprofitable. Still keeping close to the city wall, we descend to the north as far as Noble Street, from whence, turning westward, we pass the Gray Friars, and, again descending south, we find ourselves at New Gate. This gate, on the west of the city, is exactly opposite to Aldgate, on the east. Their names suggest a clue to their history. The building of the Great Wall began, we may presume, with that part which abuts on the Postern Gate, from which spot the Tower flanks the city down to the river. If this supposition be correct, Aldgate was the first gate built, which will account for its name of Aid, Eld, or Old Gate; while the comparative lateness of the opposite structure is plainly recorded in its name of New Gate. The Wall continues in the same line to Lud Gate, from whence it again runs westward, till it is stopped by the Fleet river, upon the margin of which it finally shapes its course to the Thames, where it is terminated by a small fort.

We have now tracked the entire city round. It is hardly necessary to say that to the west of the Fleet river population is scant and capricious. There is a place called Fleet Street, but it has very few houses, and the few it has are uncomfortably scattered about, presenting the sort of aspect a new colonial settlement may be supposed to exhibit when the building lots are beginning to be taken up, with long intervals between them. From Fleet Street and the Strand, where the buildings are more commodious, fields and gardens stretch up to Holbom; and the adventurous horseman, who does not fear to trust himself in lonely places, may penetrate far beyond to the two great provincial roads, known as the Way to Uxbridge, and the Way to Reading, and destined, hereafter, to become populous thoroughfares under some such titles as Oxford Street and Piccadilly. But we have nothing to do with these outlying districts: our business takes us within the city walls; which enclose the whole of the living hive called London, in this year of grace 1575.

The figure of the city is that of an irregular arch, springing on the east from the Tower, and on the west from the embouchure of the Fleet river, at that point otherwise known as Blackfriars. This is the capital of Good Queen Bess, very thickly inhabited in many places, especially towards the water-side, and somewhat thinly as we approach the inland boundaries, which have been marked out with a view to afford room for the city to grow and spread. The vital statistics show a rapid advance of late. New streets have risen up in different quarters, and it is evident from the numbers of stalls which are beginning to infest the pavement, the increasing intrusion upon the footway of great sign-boards, with their iron scroll-work, and their preposterous gilding and painting, that the traffic of London is incalculably more active than it was in Henry the Eighth’s time, notwithstanding the magnificence of his Majesty’s pageants, abroad and at home. The contrast between the interior and the exterior of the city is as good as a homily upon the progress of man. Outside the walls all is as silent as a churchyard. The air is so still, that you may hear a stray bird chirping in the grass, or catch the idle note of a carman’s whistle, for which the Queen is said to have a special liking. There is hardly a stir, except in the archery fields or upon London Bridge. But London Bridge may be fairly considered a part of London itself. It is the only bridge over the river, and the only avenue to London from the south; and it is built over with houses pierced throughout for a causeway, which is often so marvellously crowded with waggons and cars, that the pedestrians are put to ingenious and dangerous straits to get out of the way. Within the walls, the hum and strife and bustle are loud. Yet this is tranquillity itself, in comparison with what one may imagine this great city will become, if it go forward at the same rate of increase during the next three hundred years. We have as yet little din of horses’ hoofs, or carriage wheels; no great clatter of wharves or factories; and our machinery is so trifling that it can scarcely be said to reach the public ear. It is terrible to look into the future, with the multiplication table in one’s thoughts.

Numbers and wealth bring luxury and fantastical living. Queen Elizabeth is fond of finery, and is reported to have some thousands of brave dresses in her wardrobe. The prints of her Majesty ’8 gracious person, which are sold profusely in the shops and stalls, and which are doubtless genuine, none being permitted to be vended without her Majesty’s sanction, — represent her labouring under a burden of jewels sufficient to weigh down an ox. Her subjects are loyal, and they