THE METROPOLIS. XV 750,000l. is distributed annually for the divine pur poses of CHARITY! amusement. Here are likewise a magnificent Opera House, two spacious Theatres, Drury-lane and Coventgarden, open in the winter season; with the Haymarket and Surrey and Lyceum Theatres, open during the summer season, as are also Sadler's Wells, Astley's Amphitheatre, and other places of The Panoramas (one of the most pleasing of modern inventions) at Leicester-square and in the Strand are well worth attention. There are likewise Museums, both private and public, abounding with every article that can be called curious in the mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms. The British Museum, in Russel Street, recently enriched with the choicest monuments of antiquity, is the great NATIONAL REPOSITORY. Bullock's Museum is an elegant collection, as well as the European, with models and paintings—the latter in St. James's Square, and the former in an appropriate mansion, in Piccadilly. An intelligent Magistrate assures us, that the subsequent melancholy statement may be relied on, but there must be some degree of exaggeration. There are about 2000 persons in LONDON committed for trial during the short period of twelve months, and about 200,000l. lost by annual depredations; that there are 18 prisons, and upwards of 5000 alehouses, within the bills of mortality; that the counterfeited coin amounts every year to 200,000l.; that there are about 3000 receivers of stolen goods; that about 10,000 servants are at all times out of place; and that in this great metro xvi MINIATURE SKETCH OF polis no less than 20,000 individuals rise every morning without knowing how they are to subsist during the day! As to the character of the metropolis, it is, like other congregated masses of people, a strange mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of wealth and poverty, of vice and virtue, of happiness and misery. Cowley, the father of English poetry, preferring the country to the town, has some singular stanzas depreciating its moral condition And Dr. Samuel Johnson is not less severe when he exclaims LONDON, the needy villain's general home, and commends a withdrawment into the country:: At length awaking with contemptuous frown, THE METROPOLIS. Graut me, kind Heaven, to find some happier place Some pleasing bank where verdant osiers play, xvii But making due allowance for the indignant strains of the satirist, LONDON, amidst all her deformities, hath blessings innumerable to recommend it. Here originate Societies whose object is to extend the boundaries of science, multiply the resources of commerce, relieve the distresses of humanity, augment the triumphs of virtue, and will, I trust, one day succeed in conveying the treasures of an enlightened piety to the remotest regions of the earth. It is curious that Johnson, who thus abuses London, could (according to Boswell) never endure to live long out of London, and thought the social literary circles of the metropolis the consummation of luxury. Indeed, to men of learning and science it has powerful recommendations. The literary works annually published in London, together with its immense number of periodical publications, is a subject of just astonishment. Like a resplendent sun, THE PARENT METROPOLIS is ever sending forth its rays to illuminate and cheer, by its dissemination of wholesome knowledge, the most distant extremities of the British Empire! Let not, then, its fame be obscured, or its real glory concealed, from the admiration of mankind. The population of LONDON and its vicinity is reckoned at a MILLION of souls; and when we consider its over-grown extent, the circumstance xviii MINIATURE SKETCH OF does not exceed the bounds of credibility. The streets are so well lighted up both in the City and its environs, that an ambassador from the continent, upon entering London, thought they were illuminated by way of compliment to his appearance amongst them; an idea no doubt pleasing to his vanity. Its present irradiation by gas would only heighten his amazement. The City contains 200 inns, 400 taverns, 500 coffee-houses, 1200 hackney coaches, 400 chairs, 7000 streets, lanes, courts, and alleys, and 130,000 dwelling houses. The inhabitants annually consume 100,000 black cattle, 700,000 sheep, 190,000 calves, 240,000 swine, 1,172,500 barrels of strong beer, 3000 tuns of foreign wine, 11 millions of gallons of rum, brandy, and other distilled liquors, with 500,000 chaldrons of coals for fuel ! As to the City of LONDON, it is in general well built, and owes its present improved state to its re-erection after the dreadful fire of 1666, which laid the largest and fairest portion in ruins. Its PUBLIC BUILDINGS are the Mint, the Tower, the Custom House, St. Paul's, the Monument, the India House, the Exchange, the Bank, the Mansion House, Guildhall, London Institution Moorfields, Somerset House, Buckingham House, Carlton House, and Westminster Abbey. The TOWER affords an entertaining employment by the inspection of the armory, in which arms for 50,000 men are curiously arranged, and kept in excellent order. The MONUMENT commemorates the above conflagration, and is a stately pillar, of the Tuscan THE METROPOLIS. xix order, 202 feet in height!* ST. PAUL'S is reckoned one of the most august pieces of architecture which modern times have produced. Built in the form of a cross, it was completed in thirty-five years, by one architect, and one master mason, one bishop filling during the whole period the see of London. Standing beneath the dome, it is impossible to look up and view its interior, painted by Sir James Thornhill, without admiration. Including the Whispering Gallery, it exhibits a spectacle of consummate beauty and sublimity. Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's after the great fire, wished to have placed it in a large area, whence all the leading streets should be made to diverge with a beautiful uniformity. This and similar plans of improvement, which that great man suggested, had they been followed, would have rendered London the finest City on earth. Under the dome of ST. PAUL's the mutilated remains of Lord Nelson were placed on the 9th of January, 1806, with a solemnity worthy of the occasion. The procession hither exceeded every thing of the kind that had before taken place in this country. The coffin of the Hero lies beneath the pavement, and near the spot a monument has been raised to his memory. ST. JAMES's, the royal palace, at the west end of the town, has not an interesting appearance. It possesses convenient apartments, in which the forms of the Court are attended to; but viewing the exterior, * See Reflections from off the Monument in THE JUVENILE PIECES, by J. Evans. Sixth Edition. |