of the Monument was no proper place to play at leap-frog, and that London had no end. There are plenty of societies, theatres, and club-houses; and scores of public schools, hospitals, penitentiaries, and charitable institutions. The fine folks would delight you in summer, and the fogs would frighten you in the winter. There are air-balloons and steam-carriages, ironworks, gas-works, water-works, and all kinds of works; and libraries, and statues, and paintings without end. There are markets every day in the week, and houses on fire every week in the year. By the shops, you might suppose that silks and satins were to be had for nothing, and that gold and silver were as plentiful as sawdust. Covent Garden is the place for vegetables and fruit, where, at one time, they sell a pound of cherries for a copper penny, and, at another, for a golden sovereign. There are eating-houses without number, where you see young men sitting in the same posture, eating of the same dishes, asking the same questions, giving the same answers, wearing a ring on the same finger, their hair cut by the same barber, their clothes made by the same tailor; and you would think, by their look, dress, language, and behaviour, that they all belonged to the same family. The king has a palace, and the nobles of the land have mansions in London. The parliament houses, the government offices, and courts of law are there also; and the ships in the river cannot be counted. Livery servants are innumerable, and many of them trustworthy; but where you meet one sober, steady, upright, faithful domestic, R you see two tall fellows of an opposite character, clad in gold lace, cocked-hats, and white cotton stockings. If you have one thing in London, and that is money, you may soon have everything else, except happiness; and this, money can never buy. If you once get into a London crowd, you will not easily get out of it again: here are soldiers and sailors, tradesmen, tinkers and tailors, butchers and bakers, packmen, pedlars, porters, and pickpockets, rushing, crushing, and cramming all together, till there is no room to thrust a walking-stick between them. Oh! it is a strange place, and strange are the people who inhabit it; it is a general rendezvous for the bad, and a point of attraction for the good; it is stained with every vice, and yet, for all this, it has more liberty, more loyalty, more |