NEW PICTURE OF LONDON: OR, A VIEW OF THE POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS, MEDICAL, LITERARY, MORAL STATE OF The British Metropolis: PRESENTING A BRIEF AND LUMINOUS GUIDE TO THE STRANGER, ON ALL SUBJECTS CONNECTED WIT GENERAL INFORMATION, BUSINESS, OR AMUSEMENT. EmbeHished with upwards of One Hundred Elegant Engravings A CORRECT PLAN OF LONDON LONDON: PRINTED FOR SAMUEL LEIGH, No. STRAND PREFACE. THE Editor of the following Work has been anxious to substantiate and justify the Title by which he has chosen to introduce it to the Public. As it is called a "Picture of London," he has been solicitous to present such a View of the distinguished Metropolis of the British Empire, as may be calculated to secure the approbation of the judicious and the well-informed. And for this purpose, he has endeavoured to group his materials according to their relative importance; to give them their proper stations, their proportionate magnitude, and their appropriate colours, or shade, as they connect themselves with the object for which the painting is designed. The multiplicity of these materials, and the limited canvass allowed for their display, have rendered the task more difficult of execution than he at first calculated: and as he believes it will be conceded by artists, that miniature requires more talent, and less frequently succeeds, than works which include the same number of objects, but for which a more extended field is allowed, he conceives he is entitled to less censure, if he fail, and to greater applause, if successful in his 1. efforts. To the latter meed he is by no means insensible; for he frankly acknowledges, that he has much of that material in his composition, which, by evolving the activities of the human mind through the medium of personal gratification, produces perhaps more social and general good, than any principle of action, which may be supposed to rest its foundation in a more dignified feeling.*** 3 To lay aside, however, all figurative and technical allusions, and to speak of plain things in a plain way, the Editor has endeavoured to collect, from the most authentic sources, every material which is essential to the object he had in view, and to make such an arrangement as he conceives best calculated to give the visitor of the metropolis a clear conception of the work, as a whole; and to furnish him with a safe and intelligent guide to the interesting objects with which he may desire to become familiar in this extended magazine of human art, human intellect, and human character. He has endeavoured to give him a compendious and correct view of that justly valued and highly famed political constitution, which is the 66 primum mobile" of all the wonders which are exhibited in this great city, and which displays itself through the medium of the animated and dignified proceedings which mark the Sessions of the British Legislature; which, in a due degree, also, animates our courts of law, our medical theatres, our philoso |