Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

es, on the right of which an archway opens into Clement's Inn; beyond that is the old Angel Inn, f

s his back turned than Falstaff says: "I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-p

n than a poor cobbler for his father. Harold was buried at Westminster; but when Hardicanute (the legitimate son of Canute) came to England, he ordered the body of Harold to be disinterred, decapitated, and thrown into the Thames. The body was taken out of the river by some Danish fishermen, and again interred in a cemetery in London, where only the Danes buried their dead. We have not entered into the reign of Harold at all; these few facts are all that history records

that branch out of this busy neighbourhood, though many, whic

"Watercresses," though no longer borne by a nymph, who paused every now and then to throw aside the long hair which fell over her nut-brown and weather-stained cheeks, is a cry we still hear; but the figure that conjured up Sabrina and the "glassy cool translucent wave" has long since departed. Lemons and oranges are cried by the wandering race, whose dark-haired mothers, in ancient days, poured forth their songs in the land of Israel. The primroses and violets of spring are still sold in these streets, but the cry of "Come buy my pretty bow-pots" is now rarely heard. The apple-stall, with its roasted chestnuts, the oyster-stall (a simple tres

no more, there is still many a poetical assoc

-sounding music, and the cheers of assembled thousands, who were weary of the puritanic gloom which had so long hung over merry England? What a buzzing there would be in that neighbourhood on the occasion, while May-garl

, entitled, The Citie's Loyalty displayed, we find the f

ole then being joined together, and hooped about with bands of iron, the crown and vane, with the king's arms richly gilded, was placed on the head of it, [and] a large top like a balcony was about the middle of it; this being done, the trumpets did sound, and in four hours space it was advanced upright." [Four hours to draw up a May-pole! a slow age, my masters; they could not have built Hungerford Suspension-Bridge in those days, which is a toy compared to that now stretched across the Menai Straits. But to proceed with our extract.] "After which, being established fast in the ground, six drums did beat, and the trumpets did s

ted lines on the May-pole, but which are scarcely quotable, so hard do

e a pole pain

han from the wo

idol-maker's

e bird, toweri

calf in Horeb

outh doth exe

*

chuse, but, see

rshipp'd in hi

bs (1717), whose portico of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields remains unrivalled for its beauty. The old church stood nearer the river, and was pulled down by the Duke of Somerset, 1549, who used the materials for building Somerset-place

SET H

left and glance at the old church of St. Mary-le-Savoy, which is all that now remains of the once famous Savoy Palace, first built above six hundred years ago, but destroyed by Wat Tyler and his rebels; after which i

ST. MARY

houses, built by the brothers Adam about 1770, on such a labyrinth

to the scaffold. The ground itself on which she walked, and meditated, and saw her garden-flowers blow, is at noonday overhung with midnight darkness, excepting where, here and there, a gaslight throws its dim rays, and feebly illumines the cavernous gloom: where her youth and beauty once threw their suns

OF THE SA

the entrance of which the wind only seems to howl and whine, as if afraid of venturing farther into the darkness. Many of our readers will no doubt conclude that such a dreary place as this must be deserted and tenantless: such is not the case. Here many of those stro

, and finding its way into our houses, without our once inquiring how. We have often pitied the London cows, which we have seen driven up one street and down another, and have fancied that what little milk they had must have been churned into indifferent butter, as they ran on, to escape the stones thrown after them by boys, while mongrels were ever sally

lds and pa

d blackguards who come with a butt and a "a boo" at us as they return from Smithfield, and, before we have t

r hand houses stand looking at one another in the openings between the darkness. There is a dismal and solitary look about these tall imprisoned houses; you cannot conceive how they are entered, for there appears to be no way to them, and you conclude that they are empty. Or, if they are inhabited, you wonder if the people ever look out of these dim, dirt-ditched windows at the dead-looking walls opposite. We have turned back, and hunted up and down looking from below, but nowhere could

sent their sailing foam-bells into the bosom of the Thames. Ivy Bridge-lane and Strand Bridge-lane still mark the sites of two of these old bridges. The third was only discovered a few years ago; and, as it was but eleven feet long, every ancient stone might have been preserved and built up again over the Lee or some narrow water-course, so that we might have had another relic of bygone days to have looked upon, a bridge over which conqueror and captive had passed-tears and triumphs-from the Tower to Westminster, and from thence to the Tower again. Bolingbroke weeping-the hero of Agincourt-what a chapter could we have

thought nothing of striking a nobleman, as she did the Earl of Essex, when not in a loving mood. In her endearing moments, we often picture her like a grim lioness at play with the king of the forest. We often wonder where Shakspeare was during the Sunday Essex broke out,

gh which they could see yet with the bars so tempered as to resist the point of a lance, were considered as the greatest wonders of art! How they would rub their dim old eyes at the sight of an express-train; stare at a steamer, and think what a smash and crash a couple would have made, to have run into each other at their water-quintains! Then, to send a message from Tilbury Fort to Kenilworth by the electric telegraph, where the amorous ol

n he emerges suddenly from that great, crowded, and noisy thoroughfare, the Strand, and finds himself all at once in this little world of flowers. In this spot are to be found the first offerings of spring; the snow-drop that comes "like an unbidden guest," violets and primroses which have been gathered in many a far-off dell and sunny dingle, come to tell us the progress that Nature is making in the green and out-of-door world. Many a sad and many a pleasing thought must have been awakened in the bosoms of thousands who have long been in-dwellers in this mighty city, by walking through

but be

ic-summer's e

iking the el

wn at the feet of our favourite actresses; and here also affection comes for its last tribute to place beside the pale face of the beloved dead, or plant around the grave in th

ansies-"that's for thoughts;" the red-streaked woodbine, which denotes devoted affection; the lily, that ancient representative of purity of heart; the rose,

thing too difficult for your forcing-gardeners to accomplish. New potatoes, peas, and fruit of almost every description, are here to be found, fresh gathered, before spring has hung out a single leaf upon the oak. Green April is made to produce green gooseberries; and marrow-fats

en thing had ever grown for years near such a neighbourhood; yet in the rear they contain choice wall-flowers, sweet-williams, carnations, Canterbury-bells, hollyhocks, sun-flowers, and fancy dahlias, which have been grown within a mile or so of the bridges, and have been sent forth to "dispute the prize" at a flower-show. Many a poor man has often expended his shilling when he could ill spare it, to purchase a choice tulip or dahlia, which he treasured as the pride of his garden; and this is one amongst other pleasing sights

faithfulness and honesty are deserving of the highest praise: no matter how valuable the load may be that you purchase, or how great the distance it has to be borne into the suburbs, you have but to pay the trifle agreed upon, furnish the right address, and when you return home, there you will find every bud and blossom uninjured, for Biddy may be trusted with uncounted gold. They are

early, if our dinner-table is to be supplied with first-rate vegetables; and from the most remote street of the suburbs the greengrocers are compelled to come either to the Borough, to Farringdon, or Covent-Garden markets, for their stock; for these, with the exceptio

ks lying prostrate beside a dish of green peas-run streaks of fanciful pastry between the rich lines of raspberries-thrust bundles of sage and onions inside some stubble-fed goose, or call up the plump leg of mutton that is to be boiled along with those lily-whit

her blowed;" or the golden fields of Enna and Proserpina, and her nymphs; and the wheels of that gloomy chariot, which ploughed up the waving flowers,-of Cu

." Within the last three hundred years it was walled round, and covered with trees, whose blossoms waved white and beautiful in the breezes of spring, and in summer displayed a rich array of trembling green; while half a dozen thatched cottages and a convent were the only habitations that then heaved up in this small neighbourhood. A few noblemen's mansions were all that at this time stood beside the river from Temple Bar to the Abbey; and these, with their beautiful gardens, sloped down by the edge of the water. Only a few years ago Covent Garden consisted of a mass of unsightly wooden sheds and open standing-places, inferior to the market of many a common country town; and it was not until about 1828 that this mass of rubbish

with the first advances architecture made in this direction, through the spirited exertions of the fourth Earl of Bedford. A few of the pr

d, and with only one bridge leading into this large London, which was then rapidly bursting its ancient barriers and shooting out far beyond its weather-beaten walls, while all propos

e fruit-trees appear to have been grown in England from time immemorial; even as far back as the days of the Saxons, we find the vine cultivated in the gardens of the monasteries, and that the monks made their own wine. Their vegetable diet was very limited; and we need no further proof than the quantity of cattle slaughtered for the winter consumption, and salted for the sole purpose of saving the food they would require. Indeed, with the exception of beans,

e early and wash her face in May-dew; and bluff Hal, attended by his queen and nobles, went out to "do observance to the May" at Shooter's Hill. We cannot help marvelling, while such a love for the beauties of nature prevailed, that no such thing as a regular flower-market should exist. It is true the dramatists mention the smell that pervaded Bucklersbury; and no doubt a few cen

all his knights, squires, and gentlemen clothed in white satin; his guards and yeomen of the crown in white sarsenet. And so went every man with his bow and arrows, shooting to the wood; and s

ame a street-ea

and trimm'

each house a b

orch a

thorn neatl

e the cooler s

don News we find the following description

ose, in 1640, the Palladian structure of which we now behold a duplicate; the original building having been destroyed in 1795, through the carelessness of some workmen engaged in its repair. The contemplation of this edifice has given rise to a shrewd suspicion in our mind, that the above venerable anecdote relating to its origin may have been the after-thought of some architectural critic, whose admiration for the designer o

thousand fights,' by here fixing the polling-place for the return of members to represent it in Parliament. Here, then, were the tag-rag and bob-tail of this ancient and radical borough wont to disport themselves in fighting, roaring, drinking, and swearing, during the fourteen days saturnalia of each contested election. But these scenes are no more; the Reform bill, by dividing the constituencies and the erection of district polling-booths, has destroyed the glorious anarchy, the rude liberty of the Westminster canaille; and we may look with equal success for the May-pole in the Strand or the Standard on Cornhill, as for an election-mob, such as in the days of Fox, Burdett, Hobhouse,

picture an uneven space divided by posts and chains, with a pump in its centre. Here and there a market-woman, with looped-up petticoats and exposed neck, presides over heaps of vegetables scattered on the ground, while among mounds of turnips, carrots, and cabbages, strut several formal figures in the uncouth head-dresses, pinched stomachers, and stiff diamond-quilted skirts of a century ago, accompanied by puppy-dogs, and beaux as precise and quaint in attire as themselves. But to re