ommission, and the second, its
detection. Mrs. Bryce would have done better to confine herself to the
former, since she has an exciting tale to tell of _Mrs. Vanderstein's
Jewels_ (Lane) and shows herself well able to curdle the blood in the
telling of it. But, lacking that gift of logic which is essential to the
stating and the solving of detective problems, she endeavours to achieve
her ends by keeping back what are admitted, and not discovered, facts.
She is reduced to telling the same story twice, and I cannot say that I
was nearly as excited the second time as I was the first.

Once upon a time King James, being annoyed with the City because it
wouldn't lend him money, summoned the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to his
presence and, "being somewhat transported," threatened to remove his
Court to some other place. To this the Lord Mayor very politely but
readily retorted, "Your Majesty hath power to do what you please and
your City of London will obey accordingly: but she humbly desires that
when your Majesty shall remove your Court you would please to leave the
Thames behind you." I think this single instance from the history of the
City goes far to explain that peculiar pride in it which the Londoner
instinctively feels without exactly knowing why. I have not space to
argue with Sir Laurence Gomme upon his main point, its continuity of
policy and purpose from the Roman Empire till to-day, shown by the
records of London's past. I leave it to the scholar and antiquary. It is
my purpose to persuade the man in the street, to whom the names of
Palgrave, Freeman and Stubbs are not household words, to buy a copy of
_London_ (Williams and Norgate) for inclusion in his permanent library.
If I should insist upon his reading it then and there he would reply, as
one ignorant fellow to another, that he had not the necessary
understanding of the remote past and was too preoccupied with the
affairs of the present. Be it so, but none the less let him buy it and
at any rate glance at its many curious and admirable illustrations.
Later he will dip into it in search of further episodes after the manner
of that I quote, and lastly he will do the thing thoroughly, to find
that he is much more concerned with the past than ever he supposed; that
now he understands that "greatness which is London," and that he is
infinitely obliged for the recommendation of a not-too-learned clerk who
shared his own diffidence, even reluctance, in approaching