The great landmarks are the same in London now that they were in the time of the Plantagenets: the Tower is still the great fortress; London Bridge is still the great causeway for traffic across the river; St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey are still the great churches; and Westminster Palace is only transferred from the sovereign to the legislature. The City still shows by its hills-Ludgate Hill, Cornhill, and Tower Hill-why it was chosen as the early capital. One feature however of old London is annihilated-all the smaller brooks or rivers which fed the Thames are buried and lost to view. The Eye Bourne, the Old Bourne, and the Wall Brook, though they still burrow beneath the town, seem to have left nothing but their names. Even the Fleet, of which there are so many unflattering descriptions in the poets of the last century, is entirely arched over, and it is difficult to believe that there can ever have been a time when Londoners saw ten or twelve ships at once sailing up to Holborn Bridge, or still more that they can have gone up as high as Baggnigge Wells Road, where the discovery of an anchor seems to testify to their presence. Where the aspect is entirely changed the former character of London sites is often pleasantly recorded for us in the names of the streets. "Hatton Garden," " Baldwin's Gardens," and "Whetstone Park" keep up a reminiscence of the rural nature of a now crowded district as late as the time of the Stuarts, though

with "Lincoln's Inn Fields," and "Great and Little Turnstile," they have a satirical effect as applied to the places which now belong to them. In the West End, Brook Street, Green Street, Farm Street, Hill Street, and Hay Hill, commemorate the time, two hundred years ago, when the Eye Bourne was a crystal rivulet running down-hill to Westminster through the green hay-fields of Miss Mary Davies.

Few would re-echo Malcolm's exclamation, "Thank God, old London was burnt," even if it were quite true, which it is not. The Fire destroyed the greater part of London, but gave so much work to the builders that the small portion unburnt remained comparatively untouched till the tide of fashion had flowed too far westwards to make any systematic rebuilding worth while. It is over the City of London, as the oldest part of the town, that its chief interest still hovers. Those who go there in search of its treasures will be stunned on week-days by the tourbillon of its movement, and the constant eddies at all the great crossings in the whirlpool of its business life, such as no other town in Europe can show. But this also has its charms, and no one has seen London properly who has not watched the excited crowds at the Stock Exchange, threaded the labyrinth of the Bank, wondered at the intricate arrangements of the Post Office, attended a Charity Children's service at St. Paul's, beheld the Lord Mayor drive by in his coach; stood amid the wigged lawyers and whirling pigeons of the Guildhall; and struggled through Cheapside, Cornhill, and Great Tower Street with the full tide of a weekday.

But no one can see the City properly who does not walk in it, and no one can walk in it comfortably except on a

Sunday. On that day it is thoroughly enjoyable. The great chimneys have ceased smoking, the sky is blue, the trees look green, but that which is most remarkable is, the streets are empty. What becomes of all the people it is impossible to imagine; there are not only no carriages, there are scarcely any foot-passengers: one may saunter along the pavement with no chance of being jostled, and walk down the middle of the street without any fear of being run over. Then alone can the external features of the City be studied, and there is a great charm in the oddity of having it all to one's self, as well as in the quietude. Then we see how, even in the district which was devastated by the Fire, several important fragments escaped, and how the portion which was unburnt is filled with precious memorials of an earlier time. Scarcely less interesting also, and, though not always beautiful, of a character exceedingly unusual in England, are the numerous buildings erected immediately after the Fire in the reign of Charles II. The treasures which we have to look for are often very obscure -a sculptured gateway, a panelled room, a storm-beaten tower, or an incised stone-and in themselves might scarcely be worth a tour of inspection; but in a city where so many millions of inhabitants have lived and passed away, where so many great events of the world's history have occurred, there is scarcely one of these long-lived remnants which has not some strange story to tell in which it bears the character of the only existing witness. The surroundings, too, are generally picturesque, and only those who study them and dwell upon them can realise the interest of the desolate tombs in the City churches, the loveliness of the planetrees in their fresh spring green rising amid the smoky

houses in those breathing spaces left by the Fire in the old City churchyards where the churches were never rebuilt, or the soft effects of aerial perspective from the wharfs of the Thames or amid the many-masted shipping in the still reaches of "the Pool," where the great White Tower of the Conqueror still frowns at the beautiful church built in honour of a poor ferry-woman,

One hundred and seven churches were destroyed in the Fire, and only twenty-two were preserved. Of these many have since been pulled down, and there are now only thirteen churches in existence which date before the time of Charles II. Those which were built immediately after the Fire, however, are scarcely less interesting, for though Wren had more work than he could possibly attend to properly, he never forgot that the greatest acquirement of architecture is the art of interesting, and the inexhaustible power of his imagination displayed in his parish churches is not less astonishing than his genius evinced at St. Paul's. He built fifty-three churches in London, mostly classic; in one or two, as St. Mary Aldermary and St. Alban, Wood Street, he has attempted Gothic, and in these he has failed. Almost all the exteriors depend for ornament upon their towers, which are seldom well seen individually on account of their confined positions, but which are admirable in combination. The best is undoubtedly that of Bow Church; then St. Magnus, St. Bride, St. Vedast, and St. Martin deserve attention. The saints to whom the old City churches are dedicated are generally the old English saints honoured before the Reformation, whose comparative popularity may be gathered from the number of buildings placed under the protection of each.

Thus there were four churches dedi

cated to St. Botolph, four to St. Benet, three to St. Leonard, three to St. Dunstan, and two to St. Giles, while St. Ethelburga, St. Etheldreda, St. Alban, St. Vedast, St. Swithin, St. Edmund, and St. Bridget, had each their single church. Twelve of the City churches have been wantonly destroyed in our own time, and, though perhaps not beautiful in themselves, the thinning of the forest of towers and steeples, which was such a characteristic of ancient London, is greatly to be deplored. The interiors of the churches derive their chief interest from their monuments, but they are also often rich in Renaissance carvings and ironwork. They almost always have high pews, in which those who wish to attend the service may share the feelings of the little girl who, when taken to church for the first time, complained that she had been shut up in a closet, and made to sit upon a shelf.

Interesting specimens of domestic architecture before the Fire are to be found in the neighbourhood of Smithfield, in Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and their surroundings. Crosby Hall and Sir Paul Pindar's House in the City; the Water Gate of York House; and Holland House in Kensington, are the most remarkable examples which come within the limits of our excursions.

When the new London arose after the Fire, the persistence of the citizens who jealously clung to their old landmarks caused the configuration of the former city to be observed, to the destruction of the grand designs of renovation proposed by Evelyn and Wren, but to the preservation of many old associations, and the rescuing of much historic interest from oblivion. The domestic buildings which were then erected are no less interesting than the churches,