on's stories may {4} do for
the London child. The natural beginning of interest in
history--including the literature that collects around it--arises out
of interest in the story of the place in which we live. We walk about
the place and picture the events of which we read as happening within
it. The place is transfigured, is filled with life; and the story is
transfigured too as seen against the background to which it really
belongs. In the case of London, moreover, there is a good deal of
useful work for the imagination to do in sufficiently restoring that
background to its primitive simplicity. So the London child who knows
the London stories thoroughly--so thoroughly as to be able to see them
in their real setting, as they happened in that city by the river on
the marshes in the olden time--has learnt to know how every other
story, including the history proper of any other town or country,
should be known. Thus, the study of the home story is for each of us
the true beginning of our education in that exercise of historical
imagination on which our appreciation of history largely depends.

It is hoped that these _Stories of London_ will be specially
interesting to the London child, but not to him alone. The story of
London is central in the story of England, and appeals to the interest
of every English-speaking child.

SOPHIE BRYANT.

{5}

CONTENTS

I. SOME VERY OLD STORIES
II. WESTMINSTER ABBEY
III. THE CHARTER HOUSE
IV. TWO FAMOUS CHARITIES
V. THE STORY AND THE HISTORY OF DICK WHITTINGTON
VI. WHEN ELIZABETH WAS QUEEN
VII. THE STORY OF ST. PAUL'S

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. AN OLD RIVER-WALL OR EMBANKMENT (CHELSEA) . . . . . . _Frontispiece_

2. PART OF THE OLD BUILDINGS OF THE CHARTER HOUSE SCHOOL,
ITS CHAPEL AND PLAYGROUND

3. WESTMINSTER ABBEY, THE TOMB OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR

4. THE FIRST CORONATION IN THE ABBEY

5. A ROOM IN THE TOWER WHERE STATE PRISONERS WERE LODGED

6. SIR THOMAS MORE AND HIS DAUGHTER WATCH THE CARTHUSIAN
PRIORS GOING AWAY TO DIE

7. OLD PENSIONERS AND SCHOOLBOYS IN THE CHARTER HOUSE CHAPEL

8. ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH BEFORE IT WAS RESTORED

9. AN EXCITING GAME; OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL, LONDON

10. ENTRANCES OF THE OLD CHRIST'S HOSPITAL AND OF CHRIST'S
CHURCH, LONDON

11. AN ARCH OF LONDON BRIDGE, TOWER BRIDGE IN THE DISTANCE

12. WHITTINGTON SETTING THE KING FREE FROM HIS GREAT DEBT

13. GREENWICH AS IT IS NOW

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