THREE -BOOKS ABOUT LONDON.*
THE sixth volume of Sir Walter Besant's " Survey of London " cannot 'be compared for literary value with its predecessors. It has more of the character of a catalogue and a chronicle. The facts and figures, we need hardly say, are highly interesting. The nineteenth century did more for the expansion -of London than all the centuries which went before. People still-.living—one need not be very old to remember the accession of Queen Victoria.—can recall a time when the city covered twenty-two square-miles only ; now its area must be sevenrtimes as large. Sir'Walter puts the figure at a hundred and twenty square miles, but then lie was writing of the year 1897. The ratio of increase in population is not so large. The-two millions have grown to .something less than six. That counts for much on• the right side in the Londoner's life He has more space wherein. to breathe and move. We pass on from these preliminary figures; themselves eloquent of progress and improvement, to other notable matters. There is a long list of buildings opened in the century, mostly in. Its second half, for that was far more full of movement than the first. Ho iv significant it is l Take the two great London sehools, St. Paul's and Merchant Taylors'. In 1850 -they numbered between them a little over four hundred scholars. That figure they have more than doubled, and- the space for their work and their play has been much more than doubled: As a whole the City has improved as much as it has grown. In beauty, in order, in decency the progress has been great, how great only those can realise who remember the London of the " fifties." This volume, with its, ample illustrations, worthily concludes an admirable
series. - - • -
• Mr. Ogilvy limits himself, as will be seen, to the City proper, but it is a limitation which tends to make his task easier rather than harder. One great source of interest is to be fomid in the very change which has turned a city of dwellings into a city''of warehouses and offices. -The copious records which still exist of the life which was once lived within the -City boundaries, together with the few visible remains which- still recall iki3upply a subject of which the reader will not soon weary. Relics.rrnd Memorials is the title of the book, and these are things which touch us in any case, and which are especially significant in a place which has been for so many centuries the centre --of our national life.- Open the book where we will, we• find a treasury of things which- move us because they are at bnce so near and so far. St. John's Gate„ Clerkenwell ; the Temple; Watling Street, taking us back taRoman times ; Austin Friars ; Smithfield,—all are rich is varied memories. The names are so familiar that it is only when we come to think that we see how full of meaning they are. Mr. Ogilvy,.who uses the pencil as well as the pen- with effect, has given •na a book worth having.
.There is yet another kind of interest in Mr. Chancellor's book on the Weateenalietrict of Belgravia and Knightsbridge. Here too there- is- history, but it seldom goes very far back. There is a certein flavour of antiquity in the name Knights- bridge. Is there not a doubt whether it ought not to be
..Lou dot ;if big 'Nineteenth' Centurg. By Sir Walter Besaat. -London: A. and:C:HlandE.:- .00..net.2) Relics and Memorials of London City. By J. Si ggil Lond9u: G. Roapedge and Sons. [25s. not.],--(3) Knightsbridge and 111-tAif Chilnielloi. London : Sir I, Pitman and Sons. [20s. net.) "Kingsbridge," and so take us back as far, it may be, as Edward the Confessor P But the early days do not bring before us any striking incidents. As for Belgravia, it is obviously and indisputably modern. Generally, it is when we coma to Georgian and post-Georgian days that the associations of the region become numerous. A bare catalogue of the great names to be found among the residents in the three chief squares, Belgra.ve, Eaton, and Chester, would be full of interest. Here are some of them : Lord Shaftesbury, Drouyn de Lhuys, Sir Roderick Murchison, Sidney Herbert, "Jacob Omnium," Lord Napier of. Magdala, Charles Buller, and Matthew Arnold. Knightsbridge can boast of. Gore House, associated with two very different names,—William Wilber- force and Lady Blesaington. The first occupied it for thirteen years, and Lady Blessington for exactly the same period, filling it with quite another set of guests, among whom Count D'Orsay was the first. Its splendours came to an abrupt end in 1849. Another interesting name is " Tattersall's." The institution, for it is nothing less, was founded in 1766, and still flourishes, though it has changed its local. Mr. Chancellor never fails to entertain, and sometimes, we- may say, instructs.
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