Miscellaneous Illustrations.

LONDON IN THE TIME OF JAMES I.

Could any grave and goodly citizen of the English Metropolis, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, revisit, in the present day, the place of his former abode, (married, as it has since been, to Westminster and Southwark,) it certainly would be a most difficult matter to persuade him, that he again trod on the spot which he had quitted two hundred years ago. Fashions, indeed, change with every successive age; and cities improve and expand with the progress of civilization, and the increase of national wealth; but the map of men and things now spread before him would be so completely different to, and so

immeasurably extended beyond, that which had been wont to meet his eye, as must necessarily lead him to the same conclusion with which the little woman, in the old song, terminated her reasoning on her own identity:

"Oh! says the little woman, this is none of I!"

To say nothing of the odd figures by which this staid and sober personage would find himself to be surrounded,-men clad in swallow-tailed coasts, instead of ample doublets; heads covered with hats, instead of flat caps, or conical bonnets; necks embraced by close cravats, in the room of strutting ruffs; and chins naked as the palm of the hand, which were formerly hidden by a forest of beardhis mind would be altogether overwhelmed, by a population swollen from three hundred thousand to a million and a quarter, and filling up a circumferential line of twenty-seven miles by a countless succession of streets, where, in his day, the ox fattened, or the waters stagnated-by granite bridges, half-amile in length; and cupolas and steeples, three hundred feet in height-by groups of splendid

fabrics, thrown into all the various forms of Euclid's diagrams, squares and thombs, and curves and parallels-and by long lines of stately mansions, the residences of untitled subjects, compared with which, the palaces of his cotemporary princes and nobles were little better than incommodious hovels. Soon, however, as he had recovered from the unspeakable surprise, occasioned by a scene so vast and new, and had leisure to look round for his old haunts, and to bring to mind his former habits; it is much to be questioned, whether he would consider himself as remunerated by this magnitude of place, and novelty in appearances, for what London had been in his own good old times. He would in vain search for his Tabarde hostelries, and Boar's-head taverns, pouring out their "rich canary," and “sugared sack"-for the social ordinary, steaming with "larded capon," piping-hot dishes of "leathern coats, and the crab laid upon the fire"*-for the morning lounge in

* See the oldest drinking song in the English language, introduced into "Gammer Gurton's Needle," published in 1551, Dodsley's Old Plays. It begins,

"I cannot eat but little meat, my stomach is not good."

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"Paul's," the resort of newsmongers, knaves, and dandies-for the afternoon amusements of the bear-gardens, the feats of bruin, or the antics of "outlandish beasts"-for the archery-grounds, where he strung his muscles by shooting at the buttes"-and, for the fifleeen theatres, open to the population of London, in which he might alternately, like "laughter holding both his sides," give vent to the impulse of honest mirth in convulsive roars, or indulge in what has been called, (but strange must be the epicure who deems it so,) "the luxury of grief." To a venerable cockney of the olden time thus circumstanced, disappointed in his enquiries after the places, and customs, and enjoyments, with which he had been so familiar, and despairing of the return of what was gone for ever, it would be no small satisfaction to meet with such a volume as "The Fortunes of Nigel ;" where, as in a well-executed Panorama, he would again behold the spot of his ancient dwelling, laid down with all the accuracy of a good survey; and all its concomitants of manners, sports, and costume, exhibited with a vividness, which,

for a moment, might "lap" him in his former " elysium."

It was not till long after the exit of this, our imaginary citizen, indeed, that London changed, materially, in the appearance which it had worn for ages; for, previously to the great fire which consumed so large a portion of it in 1666, no encouragement had been held out by our monarchs for its improvement; and, even then, its re-edification, and not its extension, was directed. The noble and the great, till the sixteenth century, lived almost entirely at their castles or mansions in the country, among their tenants and retainers. The policy of this system is obvious. These adherents formed the basis of their personal power and respectability; and it was only by closely cementing the interest of this body with their own, that the superstructure of their independence and dignity could be supported. They occasionally visited the metropolis, indeed, to attend a parliament, or renew their oath of allegiance; but, disliking the restraint of a court life, and the deprivation of their rural sports, which it involved, they