Architecture of the Metropolis, 353 



ancient writers, the cities of Nineveh and Babylon were of a 

 magnitude to which nothing in subsequent ages will bear a com- 

 parison ; but even if their extent be admitted as described, 

 the manner in which they were built and inhabited would still 

 afford grounds for believing that their population did not equal 

 that of London. The pretensions of ancient Rome are some- 

 what more plausible. The development, however, of the ruins 

 of Herculaneum and Pompeii have afforded us an insight into 

 the comparative density of the inhabitants in ancient and 

 modem towns, which tends much to abate our estimate of the 

 eternal city ; so that, rejecting the extravagant notions of 

 Vossius, Lipsius, and other modern writers, we may, after a 

 careful comparison of circumstances, suppose with Hume, that 

 the population of ancient Rome may have reached somewhere 

 about a million. The other great cities of ancient times, such 

 as Ephesus, Agrigentum, Syracuse, Antioch, Alexandria, &c., 

 need not be mentioned, since no calculation that I have seen 

 raises their population to a million. With respect to modern 

 ages, it has been thought by some writers that two or three 

 cities of China and Japan exceed the limits of the British capi- 

 tal in size and population ; but in the first place, no accurate 

 census of these cities has ever been taken, and in the second, 

 it is believed that a considerable portion of their inhabitants 

 consists of hordes of Tartars or other migratory tribes ; so that 

 these places may safely be put out of the question in any 

 inquiry which respects the cities of the civilized world. Our 

 information concerning their detail is besides too imperfect to 

 be made the basis of any observations. 



This digression concerning the unexampled magnitude of 

 our metropolis is not wholly impertinent in estimating its phy- 

 sical properties as a city. Many of its peculiarities, and some 

 of its principal defects, arise necessarily from its enormous 

 extent. 



London owes its pre-eminent size to a conjunction of circum- 

 stances which have never concurred, in any other instance, to 

 the formation of a great capital : — 1. It is the greatest seaport 

 in the world; 2. It is the greatest manufacturing city ever 

 known ; 3. It is the seat of the most opulent government 

 that ever existed. The first of these assertions admits of no 



