ent has a singular
fascination for most minds--I have thought it may not be
uninteresting to glance briefly at a few of the more salient features
of the metropolitan mammoth markets.

Standing, then, by the statue of the Iron Duke, we have the Royal
Exchange directly in front, Princes Street and the Poultry
immediately behind, Lombard Street and Cornhill on the right,
Threadneedle Street and Lothbury on the left hand. What an Aladin
glitter seems to dance upon the paper as the names of these
remarkable localities are jotted down, containing as they do so
large a number of world-famous banking and commercial establishments
whose operations and influence are limited only by the boundaries of
civilisation! Let us look closely at one or two of the chief
potentates, principalities, and powers which are there enthroned.

The Royal Exchange, it is well known, owes its origin to the public
spirit of Sir Thomas Gresham, who, close upon three centuries ago,
built the first Exchange upon the spot now before us. It was
destroyed by fire in 1666; the next more costly erection met the
same fate in 1838, and has been replaced by the present very
handsome edifice. On the entablature is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,
who inaugurated Sir Richard Gresham's structure--the centre figure
of a number of others emblematic of the all-embracing commerce of
this country, and surmounted by the words: 'The earth is the Lord's,
and the fulness thereof.' If you ascend the steps of the Royal
Exchange, and pass into the body of the building, you will find a
considerable number of business-looking, sleek, earnest men there,
eagerly engaged in canvassing the general affairs of the world, and
more especially their own particular ventures, hopes, anticipations,
investments therein. If you are an artist, or indeed at all
impressionable in matters of taste, you will, I fear, be painfully
affected by a marble figure near the centre of the hall, which many
persons assert to be a statue of the Queen of these realms--a
calumny which I, as a loyal subject, feel bound most emphatically to
deny. But the chief interest attached to this building is that it is
here the celebrated association known as 'Lloyd's' has its
offices--that Lloyd's, whose name is familiar as a household word in
every country the sea touches, and who underwrite the maritime
ventures of every commercial nation of the globe. Very marvellous
has been the rapid development of this gigantic institu