affic as far as I could see. Dustmen, and sweeps, and even
beggars, jostled you on the corners, bullies tried to push you against
the posts or into the kennels; and once, in Butchers' Row, I was stopped
by a flashy, soft-tongued fellow who would have lured me into a tavern
near by.

The noises were bedlam ten times over. Shopmen stood at their doors and
cried, "Rally up, rally up, buy, buy, buy!" venders shouted saloop
and barley, furmity, Shrewsbury cakes and hot peascods, rosemary
and lavender, small coal and sealing-wax, and others bawled "Pots to
solder!" and "Knives to grind!" Then there was the incessant roar of
the heavy wheels over the rough stones, and the rasp and shriek of the
brewers' sledges as they moved clumsily along. As for the odours, from
that of the roasted coffee and food of the taverns, to the stale fish on
the stalls, and worse, I can say nothing. They surpassed imagination.

At length, upon emerging from Butchers' Row, I came upon some stocks
standing in the street, and beheld ahead of me a great gateway
stretching across the Strand from house to house.

Its stone was stained with age, and the stern front of it seemed to mock
the unseemly and impetuous haste of the tide rushing through its arches.
I stood and gazed, nor needed one to tell me that those two grinning
skulls above it, swinging to the wind on the pikes, were rebel heads.
Bare and bleached now, and exposed to a cruel view, but once caressed
by loving hands, was the last of those whose devotion to the house of
Stuart had brought from their homes to Temple Bar.

I halted by the Fleet Market, nor could I resist the desire to go into
St. Paul's, to feel like a pebble in a bell under its mighty dome; and
it lacked but half an hour of noon when I had come out at the Poultry
and finished gaping at the Mansion House. I missed Threadneedle Street
and went down Cornhill, in my ignorance mistaking the Royal Exchange,
with its long piazza and high tower, for the coffeehouse I sought: in
the great hall I begged a gentleman to direct me to Mr. Dix, if he knew
such a person. He shrugged his shoulders, which mystified me somewhat,
but answered with a ready good-nature that he was likely to be found at
that time at Tom's Coffee House, in Birchin Lane near by, whither I went
with him. He climbed the stairs ahead of me and directed me, puffing, to
the news room, which I found filled with men, some writing, some talking
eagerly, and others turning ove