LONDON (1590) IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

THE STRAND, FLEET STREET, AND ST. PAUL'S (LOOKING EASTWARD), With Old London Bridge and the Church of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, in the distance.

London as it Was:

BEING A CONCISE SKETCH OF THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE METROPOLIS, FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE PRESENT TIME.

ITHOUT inflicting a long historical account upon the reader, which can be found in larger works, and which would be out of place in a pocket volume like the present, it is yet necessary to preface our description of "London as it Is" with a brief sketch of the gradual growth of this mammoth city, and which, as marking its successive stages of development, will prove an interesting prelude to an examination of its modern condition.

In accordance with that careful system of historical inquiry which rejects everything that cannot be proved, and which resolves the most eminent heroes of antiquity into "myths," or fabulous creations of the past ages, we no longer believe in its foundation by Brute, an alleged lineal descendant from Æneas, and treat the elaborates deductions of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who dates the first building of the walls earlier than the days of Romulus and Remus, as a pleasant fiction. We have learned to doubt the assertion of its having been called "New Troy," and place no faith in the tradition of its having been the capital and sepulchre of numerous races of kings long prior to the Christian era. There can be no doubt, however, of its existence as a place of trade long before the invasion of the Romans. It stood in precisely that situa

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tion which the Britons would have selected according to their established rule. An immense forest extended to the river side, and even as late as the reign of Henry II., covered the northern neighbourhood of the city. It was defended naturally by fosses; one formed by the creek, which ran along Fleet Ditch, the other afterwards known by that of Walbrook; the south side was guarded by the Thames, and the north was fenced round by a belt of wood, filled with various species of wild animals and beasts of chase. The earliest mention made of it, is by Tacitus, who speaks of LONDINIUM as being even then famous for its vast commerce. When the Romans became masters of London, it extended in length from Ludgate Hill to a spot a little beyond the Tower. The breadth was not more than half equal to the length, and at each end grew considerably narrower. Soon after this period it was fully Romanised, and the customs, manners, buildings, and arts of the conqueror adopted. Walls were erected, upwards of three miles in circumference, and were guarded at proper distances on the land side by fifteen lofty towers, some of them remaining even towards the close of the last century. The gates which received the great military roads were four. The Prætorian Way, the Saxon Watling Street, passed under one on the site of the ancient Newgate, thence it turned down to Dowgate or Water-gate, where there was a trajectus or ferry to join it to the Watling Street, which was continued to Dover; the Hermin Street, that passed under Cripplegate; and a vicinal way that went under Aldgate by Bethnal Green towards Old Ford, where there was a pass over the River Lea to the modern Leyton in Essex. After the Romans in the decay of their empire relinquished Britain, London continued in possession of the Britons for about ninety years, when it fell into the hands of the Saxons. In

833, during the existence of the Heptarchy, it was considered of so much importance as to be the place chosen for the Wittenagemot, the assembly of the great men of the nation, who there deliberated on the best measures for repelling the Danes. From that time it underwent various mutations, until at the period of the conquest it was acknowledged to be a place of great wealth and power, and its civil government and privileges as they existed under the Saxons were confirmed by a charter of the invading Norman. The immediate successors of William the Conqueror alternately harassed the city with their usurpations and lawless acts, and pacified it with new charters to confirm old privileges or invest it with new ones, until at length the civil government of London took a form very little different from that by which it is at present distinguished.

It would be at once tedious and unsatisfactory, within the limited space to which we are necessarily restricted, if we attempted to follow through the successive reigns the different changes by which the metropolis was affected. The massacre of the Jews in the reign of Richard I.; the election of Henry Fitz Alwyn as Mayor in the reign of King John; the rebellion of Wat Tyler in the fifth year of the reign of Richard II.; the continuous wars, alternating with the ravages of famine and pestilence, and the institution of various offices which arose out of the granting of additional privileges, are all amply recorded in the larger histories of the metropolis, but can here be little more than referred to. It will be a far pleasanter task to the reader than wading through the dry details of antiquity-which would be little more than a mere string of dates as we should be compelled to present them-if we glance instead at the city under its more graphic aspects, and by that means contrive to in