Rambles Round London Town Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from Walks and Talks About London London has so many aspects, that it has been well described as a subject always new. That hearty lover of our metropolis, Dr. Johnson, sitting in Bolt-court, said: "the happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom." Again, Johnson says: "how different a place London is to different people," each person viewing it through the medium of one particular pursuit: "but the intellectual man is struck with it as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible." The isolation of London is well conveyed in Horace Walpole's experience, that there is no being alone but in a metropolis; and it is said - the old Dramatist's truism - that "the next-door neighbours don't know each other." The immensity of London has led to its being termed a province covered with houses: or, as Burke phrased it, "an endless addition of littleness to littleness, extending itself over a great tract of land." Johnson's definition is still more to the point: "if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations whi6h are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists." And many years ago, when Southey began to study the Map of London, he was dismayed at the sight of its prodigious extent. To the man of a reflective turn of mind - to see the stir of the great Babel, And not feel the crowd, is endlessly suggestive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.