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,

including as they do many of the noble old Halls of the City Companies, and private houses built by Wren. With the landing of William III. the Dutch style of regular windows and flat-topped uniform brick fronts was introduced, which gradually deteriorated from the comfortable quaint houses of Anne's time with the carved wooden porches which may be seen in Queen Anne's Gate, to the hideous monotony of Wimpole Street and Baker Street. Under the brothers Adam and their followers there was a brief revival of good taste, and all their works are deserving of study-masterly alike in proportion and in delicacy of detail. In fact, though the buildings of the British Classical revival were often cold and formal, they were never bad.

Some people maintain that Art is dead in England, others that it lives and grows daily. Certainly street architecture appeared to be in a hopeless condition, featureless, colourless, almost formless, till a few years ago, but, since then, there has been an unexpected resurrection. Dorchester House is a noble example of the Florentine style, really grandiose and imposing, and the admirable. work of Norman Shaw at Lowther Lodge seems to have given an impulse to brick and terra-cotta decoration, which has been capitally followed out in several new houses in Cheapside, Oxford Street, Bond Street, and South Audley Street, and which is the beginning of a school of architecture for the reign of Victoria, as distinctive as that of Inigo Jones and Wren was for the time of the Stuarts. The more English architects study the brick cities of Northern Italy and learn that the best results are brought about by the simplest means, and that the greatest charm of a street

is its irregularity, the more beautiful and picturesque will our London become.

Besides the glorious collection in its National Gallery, London possesses many magnificent pictures in the great houses of its nobles, though few of these are shown to the public with the liberality displayed in continental cities. In the West End, however, people are more worth seeing than pictures, and foreigners and Americans will find endless sources of amusement in Rotten Row-in the Exhibitions— and in a levée at St. James's.

"The Courts of two countries do not so differ from one another, as the Court and the City, in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside."-Addison."

"In the wonderful extent and variety of London, men of curious inquiry may see such modes of life as very few could ever imagine. . . The intellectual man is struck with it as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible."-Boswell's Life of Johnson.

If a stranger wishes at once to gain the most vivid impression of the wealth, the variety, and the splendour of London, he should follow the economical course of "taking a penny boat "-embarking in a steamer-at Westminster Bridge, descend the Thames to London Bridge, and ascend the Monument. The descent of the river through London will give a more powerful idea of its constant movement of life than anything else can: the water covered with heavily laden barges and churned by crowded steamboats: the trains hissing across the iron railway bridges: the numerous bridges of stone with their concourse of traffic: the tall chimneys: the hundreds of church towers with the great