18 THE VARIETY OF THE STREETS CHAP. plan in his own mind of the special itinerary he wishes to adopt, be that itinerary Mr. Hare's, or any other man's,-and he should never allow himself to be drawn off from it to another tangent. Even this crowded highway of Oxford Street, "stony-hearted stepmother," old gallows-road, passing from Newgate Street to Tyburn Tree, and bearing so many different names in its course,-beginning, as "Holborn,” in City stress and turmoil, intersecting the very centre of fashion at the Marble Arch, and continuing as the "Uxbridge Road," to High Street, Notting Hill,-passes through all sorts and conditions of men and things. Tottenham Court Road, that glaring, fatiguing thoroughfare, which through all its phases ever "remains sordid, sunlight serving to reveal no fresh beauties in it, nor gaslight to glorify it," begins in comparative honour in New Oxford Street, to descend through bustle and racket to the noisy taverns and purlieus of the Euston Road. That sylvan village and manor of "Toten Court," where city folk repaired in old days for "cakes and creame," seems far enough away now! Fenchurch Street, or rather its continuation Aldgate Street,—as it merges into the long "Whitechapel Road," becomes more and more dreary; not even its soft-gliding, cushioned tram-cars lending enchantment to the depressing scene. Waterloo Road and Blackfriars Road, "over the water," as they trend southwards pass through strange and often unsavoury purlieus. Every district has its special idiosyncrasies. Piccadilly and St. James's are always aristocratic. Pall Mall has a severe and solid dignity; while the Strand and its continuation, the narrow and tortuous Fleet Street, are instinct with ancient honour and literary association. Yet, even here, if the visitor have not the "seeing eye" that discerns the past through the present, he may "walk from Dan to Beersheba and find all barren." The great charm, however, of London lies in its unsuspected courts and byways. From most of these big thoroughfares you may be transported, with hardly more than a step, into I SUGGESTED ITINERARIES 19 picturesque nooks of sudden and almost startling silence, or, rather, cessation from din. All who know and love London will recall this. From busy Holborn to the aloofness of quiet Staple Inn, with its still, collegiate air, what a change from the turmoil of Fleet Street to the closes of little Clifford Inn, with its old-world, forgotten air. From High Street, Kensington, too, that town with all the air of a smart suburb, how many charming excursions may not be made on Campden Hill and in Holland Park-a neighbourhood full of artistic and literary charm. In Westminster, what quiet, secluded nooks, and green closes, abound for the sketcher, and how lovely are the gardens of the Green Park and St. James's Park, bordered by the stately palaces of St. James's, and the picturesque houses of Queen Anne's Gate. And all along the river embankment, from Westminster to the Tower, are interesting streets and nooks full of historic and literary association. The embankment, running, at first, parallel with the noisy Strand; reaching classic ground in the quiet Temple, by that garden where the "red and white rose" first started their bloody rivalry, becomes then muddy and uncared for before the newspaper land of Whitefriars; beyond, again, are blackened wharves, which gradually degenerate into the terrible and utterly indescribable fishiness of Billingsgate, and unpoetic Thames Street! Then, the "Surrey side" of the river,Southwark and Chaucer's Inns, or what yet remains of them,would form several delightful excursions; to say nothing of the Tower, with its innumerable historic associations,--and, perhaps, a visit to Greenwich in summer time. The old churches of the City would, as I have hinted, take many days to explore thoroughly; the Holborn and Strand Inns of Court and of Chancery, especially the Temple and Staple Inn, should be known and studied well; nothing can exceed the charm of these quiet and secluded "haunts of ancient peace." Space, however, is limited; I have now said enough to give some idea, even to the uninitiated, of London's many 20 THE CULT OF LONDON СНАР. highways and byways, with their suggestions and associations. Yet one word of caution I would add: London must be approached with reverence; her cult is a growth of years, rather than a sudden acquisition. And the love of London stones, once acquired, never leaves the devotee. Whether he walk blissfully through Fleet Street with Johnson and Goldsmith, linger by the Temple fountain with Charles Lamb or Dickens, or traverse the glades of Kensington Gardens with Addison and Steele, "where'er he tread is haunted, holy ground." Here, on Tower Hill, once stood spikes supporting ghastly heads of so-called "traitors"; there, at Smithfield, were burned numberless martyrs. Even the London mud has its poetic associations. We may all tread the same road as that once trodden by Rossetti and Keats; strange road : "Miring his outward steps who inly trode The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep." Yes, the love of London grows on the constant Londoner. He will not be long happy away from the comforting hum of the busy streets, from the mighty pulse of the machine. In absence his heart will ever fondly turn to "streaming London's central roar," to the spot where, more than anywhere else, he may be at once the inheritor of all the ages. How interesting would it be if one could only-by the aid of some Mr. Wells's "Time Machine "-take a series of flying leaps backward into the abysm of time! Strange to imagine the experience! Beauty, one reflects, might be gained at nearly every step, at the expense, alas! of sanitary conditions, knowledge, and utility. Let us, for a moment, imagine how the thing would be. . . . First, in a few rapid revolutions of the wheel, would disappear the hideous criss-cross of electric wires overhead, the ugly tangle of suburban tram-lines, and the greater part of the hideous modern growth of suburbs. . . . Another whirl of the machine, and every sign of a railway station would disappear, every repulsive engine shed and siding ... I THE "TIME MACHINE" 21 vanish... while the dull present-day rumble of the metropolis would give place to a more indescribably acute and agonising medley of sound. . . . Again a little while, and the hideous early Victorian buildings would disappear, making way for white Stuart façades, or sober red-brick Dutch palaces. .. With yet a few more revolutions, the metropolis will shrink into inconceivably small dimensions, and the atmosphere of the city, losing its peculiar blue-grey mist, will gradually brighten and clear -a radiance, unknown to us children of a later day—diffusing itself over the glistening towers and domes, no longer blackened, but gleaming, Venetian-like, in the Tudor sunlight. . . . The aspect of the river too has changed ; no more ugly steamers, but an array of princely barges deck its waters, gay with the bright dresses of ladies and gallants. . . . Its solid embankments have crumbled to picturesque overgrown mud banks, its many bridges shrunk to one; the little separate towns of "London" and "Westminster" presenting now more the appearance of rambling villages, adorned by some palaces and churches. . . . Another turn of the machine, and lo! the imposing façades that adorned the Strand have in their turn given way to picturesque rows and streets of overhanging gabled houses with blackened cross-beams, their quaint projecting windows almost meeting over the narrow streets . . . stony streets with their crowds of noisy, jostling, foot-passengers. . . . Again a long pause... and now the scene changes to Roman London, the ancient "Augusta," with its powerful walls, its slave ships and pinnaces, its mailed warriors, ever in arms against the blueeyed Saxon marauders. Then—a final interval-and we see the primitive British village, its mud huts erected by the kindly shores of our "Father Thames," their smoke peacefully rising heavenwards above the surrounding marshes and forests. "Above the river in which the miserable perish and on which the fortunate grow rich, runs the other tide whose flood leads on to fortune, whose sources are in the sea empire, and which debouches in the lands of the little island; above the river of the painters and poets, winding through the downs and meadows of the rarest of cultivated landscape out to the reaches where the melancholy sea breeds its fogs and damp east winds, is that of the merchant and politician, having its springs in the uttermost parts of the earth, and pouring out its golden tribute on the lands whence the other steals its drift and ooze."-W. J. Stillman. "Above all rivers, thy river hath renowne. O! towne of townes, patrone and not compare, No one, be he very Londoner indeed, has ever seen the great city aright, or in the true spirit, if he have not made the |