INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
CHAPEL OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE TOWER OF LONDON
CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL
TINTERN ABBEY
DRYEURGH ABBEY
WINDSOR CASTLE

FOLLOWING PAGE 95
THE ALBERT MEMORIAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR
THE THRONE ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE
POETS' CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY
THE GREAT HALL AT PENSHURST
THE ENTRANCE HALL OF BLENHEIM PALACE
GUY'S TOWER AND THE CLOCK TOWER, WARWICK CASTLE
WARWICK CASTLE
THE BEAUCHAMP CHAPEL, WARWICK
THE RUINS OF KENILWORTH CASTLE CHATSWORTH
ALNWICK CASTLE
HOLLAND HOUSE
EATON HALL

I

LONDON

A GENERAL SKETCH [Footnote: From articles written for the Toronto "Week."
Afterward (1888) issued by The Macmillan Company in the volume entitled
"The Trip to England."]

BY GOLDWIN SMITH

The huge city perhaps never imprest the imagination more than when
approaching it by night on the top of a coach you saw its numberless
lights flaring, as Tennyson says, "like a dreary dawn." The most
impressive approach is now by the river through the infinitude of docks,
quays, and shipping. London is not a city, but a province of brick and
stone. Hardly even from the top of St. Paul's or of the Monument can
anything like a view of the city as a whole be obtained.

It is indispensable, however, to make one or the other of these ascents
when a clear day can be found, not so much because the view is fine, as
because you will get a sensation of vastness and multitude not easily to
be forgotten. There is, or was not long ago, a point on the ridge which
connects Hampstead with Highgate from which, as you looked over London to
the Surrey Hills beyond, the modern Babylon presented something like the
aspect of a city. The ancient Babylon may have vied with London in
circumference, but the greater part of its area was occupied by open
spaces; the modern Babylon is a dense mass of humanity....

The Empire and the commercial relations of England draw representatives of
trading committees or subject races from all parts of the globe, and the
faces and costumes of the Hindu, the Parsee, the Lascar and the ubiquitous
Chinaman mingle in the motley crowd with the merchants of Europe and
America. The streets of London are, in this respect, to the modern what
the great Palace of Tyre must have been to the ancient world. But pile
Carthage on Tyre, Venice on Carthage, Amsterdam on Venice, and you will
not make the equal, or anything near t