reverse of fortune naturally awakened a crowd of interesting ideas. The comparison of the present with the past reminded him of the pleasures of his boyish years, which he regretted the more deeply since Richmond had ceased to live. The loss of his friend occasioned an irreparable void in his affections, and drew from him the following beautiful apostrophe.

"O, place of bliss! renewer of my woes!
Give me account, where is my noble fere?

Whom in thy walls thou did'st each night enclose;

To other lief; but unto me most dear."

These elegiac stanzas close with a touching sentiment, quite in the taste of Petrarch.

"Echo, alas! that doth my sorrow rue,
Returns thereto a hollow sound of plaint.
Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew,
In prison pine, with bondage and restraint:
And with remembrance of the greater grief,
To banish the less, I find my chief relief."

LETTER XXIV.

TO M. B

Ir must always be recollected, that the inhabitants of the different districts of London are no more to be confounded one with another, than

our good citizen of the Marais and the tradesman of the Rue St. Denis are to be ranked with the elegant inhabitants of the Chaussée-d'Antin. London, as I have already observed,* is divided into two distinct towns; the first, called the city, or east end, is the seat of English trade, while the west end is occupied by the court and fashionable world. The English merchants, who are the richest in the world, have not adopted the plan of our bankers, in building a Chaussée d'Antin; but those among them who have amassed sufficient wealth, desert the neighbourhood of the Exchange, and remove to the west end of the town, to rival the magnificence of the nobility. The greater part repair in the morning to their countinghouses, in the dark and narrow lanes in which the foundation of their fortunes was laid, and return in the evening to their elegant mansions, to join the circles which the luxuries of their table collect around them. In London, as in Paris, the Amphitryon, who gives good dinners, is never at a loss for agreeable company, whether he be a nobleman or a banker.

But there are many wealthy families who are content to reside in the city, and among them we must look for specimens of the true English character. The bustle which prevails in the city exceeds description. The foot pavements, which

* See Letter VI. I consider Westminster as a third town by itself. It contains the two houses of parliament and the principal courts of law.

are narrower here than at the west end of the town, are insufficient to accommodate the crowd of passengers who are continually moving to and fro. One is often compelled to abandon the foot pavement for a moment and walk in the horse road, a thing which never happens, the English politely say, but to dogs and Frenchmen. Cheapside and Fleet-street are described by Sir W. Scott, in his novel of the "Fortunes of Nigel;" but the citizens of the time of good King James would be mightily astonished at the present splendor and magnificence of the shops in those streets. Cheapside and Fleet-street are like our Rue St. Denis and Rue Vivienne combined.

We shall find still handsomer streets in the west end of the town; but before we proceed to join the fashionables in the bazaars or in Bond-street, let us station ourselves on London-bridge, and look down the river, where a forest of masts extends for the space of four miles. Here, I confess, London is the finest of capitals, and the Seine is but a streamlet in comparison with the Thames. We must next pay a visit to Blackfriars-bridge, which has not yet received its new name of Pitt'sbridge, which some persons proposed giving it in honour of the illustrious rival of Fox.

From Blackfriars Bridge we have a view of St. Paul's, the Tower, the Monument, Somerset House, Westminster Abbey, and more than thirty churches. Westminster Bridge, which was the handsomest in London before the construction of

Waterloo Bridge, was the work of a Frenchman. But Waterloo Bridge is not only the finest in London, it may be called the most magnificent in the world.* At sight of its elliptical arches, suspended so lightly and elegantly from one bank of the river to the other, one cannot feel astonished at Canova having said, that he would willingly resign all his glory for the honour of having created tha master-piece of Rennie's genius.

erected to him the The pedestal bears name, and his title

But we are now beyond the boundaries of the city, and have reached Charing-Cross, in the centre of which stands the equestrian statue of the unfortunate Charles I. Further on, in a sort of court-yard behind Whitehall, the palace from which the monarch was conducted to the scaffold, is the statue of the last king of the house of Stuart, James II., which was year before his abdication. simply the inscription of his of king, which the new dynasty did not efface. Proceeding westward from Charing-Cross, we enter the new part of London. In Pall Mall, the Haymarket, and Piccadilly, we meet with nearly as much noise and bustle as in the trading streets of the City; but the appearance of the houses is different, they are not so black as those in the east of London. The pavements, too, are wider, and

* Waterloo Bridge is 2890 feet long. It was completed in six years, and cost thirty-six million”.

there is less elbowing among the foot passengers. In the middle of Piccadilly, there is a passage called the Burlington Arcade, which is similar to that of the Panorama or of the Galarie Delorme, and in Bond-street, from three to five o'clock every day, the prettiest women in London are to be seen visiting the shops, not so much, it appears for the purpose of making purchases, as to try the patience of the shopkeepers. The adjacent streets, up to Grosvenor-square, and on the other side of the wide and busy street called Oxford-street, are filled with the houses of persons of fashion. The hotels of our nobility and gentry have uniformly a porte-cachère in front, but in London, where there are no such things, the coach-houses and stables are built in mews or blind lanes, running behind the principal streets.

I have fixed my abode neither in the fashionable districts nor in the city, but in a central situation, in the neighbourhood of the theatres, which I am in the habit of frequenting. I am for the present in a furnished house, kept by a maiden lady of a certain age, which leaves you full liberty to ascribe to her any amount of years from thirty to forty. She keeps a boarding-house, which is occupied by young men, of whose professions I have hitherto been unable to form any conjecture. I have not been troubled with questions myself, and a stranger should be at least as discreet as those among whom he may be placed. Our meals are of a nature to satisfy the heartiest