ave our nearest English approach to architectural magnificence; on the other there is a long perspective of sq

in that sea

at the Taba

enden on m

y with ful d

come into t

nd-twenty i

olk, by adv

and pilgrims

Canterbury w

Canterbu

us of the "Monument," London Bridg

l, sure of food and welcome, filling grey sky and silvery river with an ever-changing constellation of white wings; "a blaze of comet splendour." Wild birds, like children, know their friends. The sea-gull's wide, downward swoop, so powerful and so graceful, may be watched here in January from early morn to dusk; the creatures, poised in serried ranks on the bar

the nave from Norman to Early English. Then, at the Dissolution, St. Mary Overy was made into a parish church by Henry VIII., and since 1540, it has been known as "St. Saviour's." The early Saxon dedication to "St. Mary Overy" commemorates the romantic story of the rich old ferryman's lovely daughter, of pre-Conquest times, who, losing her lover by a fall from his horse, retired into a cloister for life, devoting her paternal wealth to the founding of a priory. The story is charming, but somewhat misty; it

minster Abbey, spoiled by the introduction of ornate tombs and sprawling angels. The church, restored by Blomfield in 1890-96, is already a collegiate church, and is worthy to become, as it probably will, the cathedral for South London. Its level, as is the case with many ancient buildings, is now considerably lower than th

in inscription of 1626; a recumbent painted effigy, on a black-and-white marble tomb. This Lady Chapel has tragic associations; it was used in the time of "Bloody Mary" as the Consistorial Court of Gardiner, Bishop of Winch

ere, near the east end of the north wall of the nave, the effigy of the poet, painted, like that of Lancelot Andrew

ers but curling up, and a small forked beard; on his head a chaplet like a coronet of four roses; a habit of purple, damas

e sums in his time for the rebuilding of the c

rebuilt by John G

gay court was a f

rt, 'tis but right

a lawyer as we

head rests, are his Vox Clamantis, Spe

f the latter, a tablet to a little girl of ten, Susanna Barford,-a child the

King of Kings

ives with him a

ent could be strong even in death! Close to Lockyer's tomb are heaped up a number of strange wooden painted gargoyles or "bosses," preserved and brought here from the fallen-in fifteenth-century roof of the nave, some of them bearing most weird devices. One, conceived apparently in the Dantesque spirit, represents a giant, or devil, "champing" a half-eaten sinner,-the lower half of whom, dressed in gaudy c

r,-and Massinger,-are buried here; three stones in the choir

olution, the convent churches and others were left to the tender mercies of the parishioners, who, naturally, could not always afford to keep them in proper condition; then abuses crept in, thefts took place; and the disused churches, as St. Paul's itself, were often degraded to stables, or used as storage for litter. Then, after long years, the authorities, perhaps, came to the rescue, and, turning out the encroaching and invading devils,

y, even in Roman times, between the city and the southern counties. East of the Borough, the long, narrow, busy, dirty Tooley Street leads to Bermondsey; this street is famous for its "three tailors" of the political legend, according to which they addressed the House of Commons as "We, the People of England." Here, from medi?val days, was the only bridge; here, therefore, were, naturally, stationed all the medi?val inns and hostelries. This way did the "Canterbury Pilgrims" pass out of London; here they would stop and refresh themselves at the "Tabard," the "White Hart," and their compeers.... What now remains of these? The "Tabard," rebuilt in Charles II.'s time, and for long the finest old house of its kind in London, was burnt down in 1873; it now only exists in its name, still flaunted bravely above a commonplace modern inn. The "Queen's Head," the "White Hart," the "King's Head," exist now only as hideous railway-yards or equally hideous modern edifices; the only remaining relic of them all is the "George" Inn, where a solitary fragment, a long block of ancient buildings, with picturesque, sloping, dormer roofs,

he Street. T

e at any rate embodies a great

all portion of one. They have mostly vanished with the march of prog

nal features unchanged. Great rambling queer old places, with galleries and passages and sta

that is too crude for the superior taste of northern London. Yet here, in Shakespeare's day, were all the most fashionable theatres-theatres, too, frequented by all the literary and dramatic lights of the day. Here stood that small martello-tower-like theatre, the "Globe," the "round wooden 'O'" alluded to in Henry V., where Shakespeare and his companions played; here also were the "Rose," the "Hope," and the "Swan." And below St. Saviour's, and its neighbouring Bishops' Palace and park, were the localities known as "Bankside" and "Paris Garden," the former famous for its bull and bear-baiting ("a rude and nasty pleasure," says Pepys), the latter for its theatre, and also for its somewhat doubtful reputation. There were, of course, a few plague-spots, inseparable from places of public amusement; but the Southwark of Elizabeth's day was a centre of national jollity and merry-making. Open gardens fringed the river-bank

n her teens.'" Poor thing! in a short year or two her head was destined to fall, by the headsman's axe, within the precincts of the gloomy Tower, on the river's opposite bank! The extent of the old palace is uncertain; its remains are now nearly all destroyed, except an old window and arch, built up into the surrounding warehouses. The name, however, of the "Clink," the prison used by the Bishops for the punishment of

nty C

"and made up on the floor. The little window had a pleasant prospect of a timbe

Mr. Bob Sawyer), "are seldom collected in this happy valley; the rent

rst sins of the much-abused "East End," may here too be seen. "Is any one," asks a recent writer, "ever young in the Borough? Is not carking care their birthright?" In crowded Southwark and Walworth, round the "Elephant,"-the mysterious "Elephant," to which all roads lead,-"aflare, seething, roaring with multitudinous life," are miserable human rabbit-warrens, where they even live

the reality of life, and, like life itself, something between laughter and tears. Life has few mysteries for the Borough child, whose garments are strange and weird, whose voice "soon loses any infantine sweetness it may possess. Some of the ragged mites of girls of the Borough will even rap out an oath which would shock your ears who live over the water. But they mean nothing. It is like sailor

d (or words to this effect) in Charles Dickens's well-known novel, Little Dorrit.' The Farm House was once the town dwelling of the Earls of Winchester. It has an ancient time-worn front, a court, mysterious chambers, old oak panels upon which you can just make out some of the old Winchester ladies and gentlemen; a curious old staircase; and I daresay a ghost or two if one went into the matter. But for a long t

y Tennant's tender picture, A Load of Care ... that heavy, heavy baby, weighing down that tiny, tiny nurse.... Nota Bene: There always is a baby. By the time a little wool a

not only "the three R's," but also housewifery, house-cl

er of the steps. She probably lights the fire of a morning; it is her delight to go shopping to the remarkable establishment where most of the necessities of life are to be obtained by the farthing's-worth; and with the mysteries of marketing she is very well acquainted indeed. You should just see her in Bermondsey, the Walworth Road, the Dials, the New Cut, or Whitechapel on a Sunday morning, when these localities are alive with poor people buy

ortant. This Guy was in his way a miser, and his savings were vastly increased by dealings in South Sea stock,-showing that some good, at any rate, was wrought by the terrible "Bubble" that ruined so many thousands. Yet the hospital narrowly escaped losing the rich man's beques

ble for the fact that Dickens has here placed the marriage of his heroine, "Little Dorrit," the Child of the Marshalsea. This was always a district of prisons; the natural sequence, one would think, of Southwark merry-making. Of the two Marshalsea prisons established here at different times, the earlier, nearer to London Bridge,

s the great block of the former prison, but as preserving the rooms that arose to my mind's eye when I became Little Dorrit's biographer.... Whoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the ext

Grinby's," down by Hungerford Stairs. More wretched, indeed, far, than any modern Borough waif, was this neglected and sensitive child of genius. The intense torture of his degradation (as he thought it) was never wholly forgotten. In this connection he tells (

ess was deaf, shook hands with him on the steps of a house near Southwark-bridge on the Surrey side, making believe that I lived there. As a finishing pi

y did well enough at the Marshalsea: "The family," the son wrote, "lived more comfortably in prison than they had done for a long time out of it. They were waited on still by the maid-of-all-wo

earn. Here, amid the unsavoury purlieus of the prison, he unconsciously studied all the types and localities of which he was to make such wonderful use in after-life. The Marshalsea and its ways; Lant Street and Bob Sawyer

etchedness and squalor, who has glorified by his genius the place, the whole district, where he so suffered in early youth. Other and greater men have told London's history in the past; but Dickens, whose grave is still faithfully tended in Westminster Abbey while those of the mightier dead are long forg