466 LONDON STREETS. 



St. Giles' is associated with one memorable event, second only to the 

 great fire in the History of London. This is the destructive plague, 

 which ravaged the town in 1665 ; than which, nothing more appall- 

 ing ever fell upon humanity. How few of those who traverse 

 Regent Street think that they are trampling over the pestilential 

 dust of thousands who perished during this awful calamity ! There 

 is one point connected with the improvements which are daily taking 

 place in London, which must reconcile even you to them. This is, 

 the salvation of human life, and exemption from the scourges of 

 former times, plagues and pestilences." 



" I do not deny the force of the argument, but in improving I would 

 not destroy. If the lives of multitudes are saved by these changes, 

 there needs not, at the same time, that all monumental reliquiae of 

 such men as Archbishop Sheldon and Sir John Lawrence should 

 be utterly overthrown men worthy to stand in one niche with 

 Cardinal Borromeo of Milan. In improving our thoroughfares, I 

 would religiously preserve every fragment which had linked with 

 it the memories of noble and pious men. You say these are already 

 embalmed in our histories. Be it so ; but I would people our 

 streets with tangible objects. I would bring the footsteps of an- 

 cient nobleness as it were before the popular eye, and not with 

 sacrilegious hand tear down the fragments memorised by great his- 

 torical events. Besides, I am, with Pope and Cowper, a hater of 

 alteration. Pope, you know, said, ' that he could not bear to have 

 even an old post removed out of the way, with which his eyes had 

 been familiar from his youth :' and Cowper, ' that the very stones in 

 his garden wall were his intimate acquaintance.' I love these local 

 associations ; and though a multitude of things exist in London con- 

 nected with its history, of which I know nothing, save from reading, 

 I reckon them my acquaintances ; and when I fall in with one of 

 them, I welcome it as an old friend, and straightway it carries me 

 some centuries back, reminding me strongly of old age in the midst 

 of youth, the mind of which is untouched by passing events, but is 

 filled to overflowing with by-gone stories and traditions. I would 

 have the streets records of past scenes : I would preserve every 

 trace of feudal and monastic grandeur, whilst the improvers of the 

 day will, if allowed to proceed unheeded, make London a vast his- 

 torical desert ; and a man may travel from side to side, and from end 

 to end, and say, ' it is all barren.' " 



" To you, a scholar and antiquary, this might be well ; but of the 

 many hundreds who have passed us whilst we have stood before the 

 Church, how many are there, think you, who know any thing on 

 these subjects, or who have thought, or who ever will think upon 

 them ? perhaps not one. The multitude are reckless of all but the 

 present and the future ; and it is upon the multitude that the public 

 health and the moral safety of the state depend : and in clearing our 

 streets, and thus removing sources of physical and moral infection, 

 the reliques of our forefathers must yield before the wants of the 

 present generation. But I would reserve, wherever reservation was 

 compatible with the object in view." 



'* Well, I shall find but few supporters, I fear. One glance at 



