OF LONDON: EXHIBITING THE MOST RARE AND REMARKABLE OBJECTS OF INTEREST WITH Nearly Fifty Years' Personal Recollections. BY JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A. AUTHOR OF A PICTURESQUE PROMENADE ROUND DORKING; AND EDITOR OF Sapeople be gyepepan on eddneydes dægekynger pylle bazale eÿld boo his beode, god cop Jehealde. Charter granted by William the Conqueror to the City of London, LONDON: DAVID BOGUE, 86 FLEET STREET. MDCCCLV. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF JAMES MELVILLE HUNNEWELL N LONDON: PRINTED BY LEVEY, ROBSON, AND FRANKLYN, Great New Street and Fetter Lane. PREFACE. LITTLE need be said to bespeak the interest of readers in the staple of the present work—the Notable Things in the History of London through its Nineteen Centuries of accredited antiquity. Still, I am anxious to offer a few words upon the origin and growth of this volume; and the means by which I have striven to render it as complete as the extent and ever-varying nature of the subject will allow. Twenty-seven years since (in 1828), I wrote in the parlour of the house No. 3 Charing Cross (then a publisher's), the title and plan of a volume to be called "CURIOSITIES OF LONDON;" and the work here submitted to the public is the realisation of that design. I then proposed to note the most memorable points in the annals of the Metropolis, and to describe its most remarkable objects of interest, from the earliest period to my own time,-for the Present has its "Curiosities" as well as the Past. Since the commencement of this design in 1828,-precisely midway in my lifetime,—I have scarcely for a day or hour lost sight of the subject; but, through a long course of literary activity,* have endeavoured to profit by every fair opportunity to increase my stock of materials; and by constant comparison, "not to take for granted, but to weigh and consider," in turning such materials to account. In this labour I have been greatly aided by the communications of obliging friends, as well as by my own recollection of nearly Fifty Years' Changes in the aspects of "enlarged and still increasing London." “Thinking how different a place London is to different people," I have, in this volume, studied many tastes; but its leading cha * WORKS BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRESENT VOLUME: A Picturesque Promenade round Dorking in Surrey, 1822. The same, 2d edit., 1823.-Laconics; er, the Best Words of the Best Authors, 3 vols. 1826.-Mirror, edited, 1827-1838 (Twenty-two vols.)-Signs before Death, 1828.-Cameleon Sketches, 1828.Companion to the Theatres, 1829.- Arcana of Science and Art, 1828-1838 (Eleven vols.).—Wine-drinker's Manual, 1830.--Family Manual, 1831.-Knowedge for the People; or, the Plain Why and Because, 4 vols. 1831-2.-Popular Zoology, 1834.-Domestic Life in England, 1835.-The Instructor, Vol. 2 (written for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), 1835.-Family Handbook, 1837.-Literary World, 3 vols. 1839, 1840.-London Anecdotes, 2 vols. 1848.Illustrated Year-book, 2 vols. 1850, 1851.-Wellingtoniana, 1852.-Year-book of Facts, 1839-1855. (Seventeen vols.) |