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ON DUST. 



^ Dust long outlasts the storied stone; 

 But Thou thy very dust is gone!" 



LORD BYRON. 



Such, and so many, have been the changes in the heart and suburbs of 

 this great metropolis, within the last quarter of a century aye, within the 

 last five years that if the entombed dust of the greatest peripatetic that 

 ever perambulated it, could be revivified, and that, in the shape of Mr. 

 Mogg, who, while the great destroyer levels cities with the dust, is still 

 adding his parallelograms to the Chart of London I say even with such 

 an advantage, I think [he would be at a loss to find his anterior locality. 

 In every direction the wand of the enchanter has been extended. Tunnels 

 and aqueducts, roads, bridges, and canals, have started into existence, 

 presenting objects of novelty in themselves, and connecting situations, 

 previously remote; while the magnificence of rising temples, palaces, 

 and gardens, obliterate the impressions of the past by their more beautiful 

 and grand associations. Leaving these loftier mutations, let us descend to 

 the detail of the more humble metamorphosis in the vicinage of Gray's-Inn- 

 lane. Nay, check your smile deem it not vulgar for, know, it once had 

 pretensions to a mineral conduit, under the patronage of no less a person 

 than St. Schads! where, for the consideration of sixpence, journeymen 

 tailors, and other such Athenians, used to take their draughts of chalybeate 

 on Sunday mornings ; until a rise in the article, or, rather, a rise in the 

 price of admission, tended at once to cut off all further communication be- 

 tween the saint and his votaries ; and he now remains in the situation of 

 most of his fraternity, well nigh forgotten. 



Nearly opposite to St. Schads' Wells stood not Troy, but what might 

 have given a faithful representation of its ill-fated humiliation Smith's 

 Dust Hilll " Black it stood as night," an accumulated mass, unutterable, 

 undistinguishable the combination of a city's waste and refuse an amal- 

 gamation too baffling to analyse, although an attempt may not be alto- 

 gether useless or unamusing ; for, however dry it may appear, I hope it 

 will not be found dull. To begin with the beginning : as Rome was not 

 built in a day, so neither was this sable Olympus raised in so ephemeral 

 a period, but required years to complete its elevation. 



Dust, than which nothing can, upon a superficial view, be considered 

 more insignificant, was, a few years back, of very considerable value, far 

 surpassing the value of many things acquired by difficulty and danger, and 

 for which the breadth of oceans are traversed, through storms and tempests. 

 Perhaps a cruize to the Gold Coast, with all its drawbacks and contin- 

 gencies, is scarcely so profitable as the returns on the quantity of dust 

 collected in the city of London, during the time necessary for the voyage, 

 and its accomplished return. About the period I allude to, the parish of 

 St. Luke received no less a sum than between one and two thousand 

 pounds a-year for dust collected, which, being placed to the parish 

 account, tended in a great measure to keep down the poors' rates. In 

 addition to its value, no kind of property is better secured ; as will be 

 evinced, when the reader is informed that his present Majesty, George 

 IV., whou he was Prince Regent, lost an action for the recovery of the 

 value of dust, carried away from the palace, by his servants, to be used 

 as manure. In order to a further illustration of the subject, it is neces- 

 sary to inform the reader, that what has hitherto been considered is but a 



