LONDON STREETS. 465 



Loosed to the world's wide range enjoin'd no aim, 

 Prescribed no duty, and assign'd no name. 

 Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, 

 His heart unbiass'd, and his mind his own.' " 



" Savage is but one of a long list of talented men, who accuse 

 fortune for sufferings which are of their own creation. Sedgemoor 

 and Soho ! How few, on entering the precincts of this business 

 Square, are aware of the origin of its name! In the Duke of Mon- 

 mouth's time it was the centre of fashion ; and he occupied the 

 large house opposite the statue when it was first built. Monmouth 

 is a splendid example of how powerful and enduring are the im- 

 pressions produced by personal beauties and graceful manners; and 

 Dryden has immortalized him in his unimitated and inimitable satire 

 of Absalom and Achitophel the finest politico-moral compo- 

 sition in our own or in any other language 



* There was none 



So beautiful, so brave as Absalom : 

 For him, his conscious destiny made way 

 By manly beauty, to imperial sway. 

 Early in foreign fields he won renown 

 With kings and states allied to Israel's crown. 

 In peace, the thoughts of war he could remove, 

 And seem'd as he were only born for love. 

 Whate'er he did, was done with so much ease ; 

 In him alone 'twas natural to please ; 

 His motions all accompanied with grace ; 

 And Paradise was open'd in his face/ " 



" What a strange tale is that of his Ladye-love, Harriet Went- 

 worth, sitting in an open window to greet him as he passed to the 

 scaffold ! I am an old bachelor, partly by choice, and partly by 

 necessity ; and my communications with the sex have been limited ; 

 therefore it appears to me to be impossible that such an occurrence 

 could happen." 



" It is true, notwithstanding, and to a woman of impassioned tem- 

 perament, a transient view, at so awful a moment, must have been a 

 volume of fadeless interest. Well has it been written, ' that no 

 grave becomes the love of woman, but the heart of man ;' and 

 Harriet Wentworth had a splendid mausoleum in Monmouth. 



" Monmouth Street and St. Giles' ' decensus Averni.' Two 

 centuries have sufficed to convert a suburb into the heart of this 

 overgrown nuisance, London. It seems almost singular that St. 

 Giles' from its first occupation to the present time, should have re- 

 tained one and the same character, the kingdom of beggars. There 

 are no traces either in its buildings or its traditions which raise any 

 curiosity. 



" It is certainly singular, for whilst most of the other outskirts of 

 the metropolis have been seriatim invaded and evacuated by the 

 nobility retreating from the thickening population, the patron saint 

 of beggars, St. Egidius, has preserved his shrine inviolate. Yet 



