s yet undisturbed
by the innovations of the Italian and Dutch schools, and brought to full
perfection in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, gave the whole
city a characteristic and fanciful appearance. Old towers, old belfries,
old crosses, slender spires innumerable, rose up amid a world of quaint
gables and angular roofs. Story above story sprang those curious
dwellings; irregular yet homogeneous; dear to the painter's and the
poet's eye; elaborate in ornament; grotesque in design; well suited to
the climate, and admirably adapted to the wants and comforts of the
inhabitants; picturesque like the age itself, like its costume, its
manners, its literature. All these characteristic beauties and
peculiarities are now utterly gone. All the old picturesque habitations
have been devoured by fire, and a New City has risen in their
stead;--not to compare with the Old City, though--and conveying no
notion whatever of it--any more than you or I, worthy reader, in our
formal, and, I grieve to say it, ill-contrived attire, resemble the
picturesque-looking denizens of London, clad in doublet, mantle, and
hose, in the time of James the First.

Another advantage in those days must not be forgotten. The canopy of
smoke overhanging the vast Modern Babel, and oftentimes obscuring even
the light of the sun itself, did not dim the beauties of the Ancient
City,--sea coal being but little used in comparison with wood, of which
there was then abundance, as at this time in the capital of France. Thus
the atmosphere was clearer and lighter, and served as a finer medium to
reveal objects which would now be lost at a quarter the distance.

Fair, sparkling, and clearly defined, then, rose up Old London before
Jocelyn's gaze. Girded round with gray walls, defended by battlements,
and approached by lofty gates, four of which--to wit, Cripplegate,
Moorgate, Bishopgate, and Aldgate--were visible from where he stood; it
riveted attention from its immense congregation of roofs, spires,
pinnacles, and vanes, all glittering in the sunshine; while in the midst
of all, and pre-eminent above all, towered one gigantic pile--the
glorious Gothic cathedral. Far on the east, and beyond the city walls,
though surrounded by its own mural defences, was seen the frowning Tower
of London--part fortress and part prison--a structure never viewed in
those days without terror, being the scene of so many passing tragedies.
Looking westward, and rapidly surveying