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INTRODUCTION.

AMONG those cities celebrated in history for extent, magnificence, and population, London has for ages been conspicuous. The very name of this renowned capital excites a sublime emotion in the youthful and adventurous individual who, emulous of distinction, pants to realize the expectations inspired by the fame of London. Nor is this ambition peculiar to the inhabitants of the British isles; adventurers from every civilized nation have also aspired to eminence in the English metropolis, where public patronage is impartially conferred on every meritorious candidate.

Paris has indeed disputed the pre-eminence of London, but the pretensions of those rival cities to distinction are very different: for while the French capital is enriched by the plunder of surrounding nations, and even tyranny itself derives a temporary lustre from martial achievement, the English metropolis supports her opulence, dignity, and glory, by commercial enterprize.

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In this immense capital, including a circumference of twenty-six miles, and containing many myriads of human beings, the observant mind is gratified with an inexhaustible variety of interesting objects. Society, in all its gradations, from regal dignity to the depression of indigence, affords a rich fund of amusement and instruction. The enjoyments and the evils of life exist in this great city in all their varieties; and the pursuits and manners of the busy, the gay, and the dissipated, who successively appear in this world in miniature, present complex views of human nature which puzzle the speculative philosopher, and afford ample gratification to curiosity.

Admiration is the first emotion which arises in the mind of a stranger on his arrival in London. The extent of the squares, the residence of wealth and grandeur ; the magnificence of the bridges, unequalled by any other effort of human labour; and the splendour of the principal streets, with shops and warehouses overflowing with every necessary of life, every elegance of inventive. genius, and every production of nature and art for the gratification of luxury; overwhelm the imagination. A healthy and active population crowd the streets; the footways present an animated scene of passengers, moving along the same pavement like two different streams;

the air is filled with the noise, and the earth trembles beneath the pressure of various carriages, some for the accommodation of the opulent, drawn by fleet horses with the velocity of the wind, and others conveying articles of commerce, with a slow and regular motion, to the place of their destination.

A general and cursory survey of the streets of London might induce the stranger to imagine that he had arrived in a perfect paradise. The beauty of elegant women moving with graceful ease in the public streets, the air of satisfaction with which numbers of tradesmen hasten along, eager for the completion of some important transaction, and the complacent smile of groups of young gentlemen sauntering arm in arm, might mislead the visitor into an opinion that London was the spot which happiness had chosen for a perpetual residence.

The experience of a few days will, however, effectually remove the illusion; all the false lustre diffused by novelty will vanish, and London and its inhabitants appear as they are. Then will the visitor, no longer the dupe of his own good-nature, be ready to exclaim with the poet

“Oh thou resort and mart of all the earth,
Chequer`d with all complexions of mankind,
And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see
Much that I love, and more that I admire,
And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair,
That pleasest and yet shock'st me; I can laugh,
And I can weep, can hope, and can despond,
Feel wrath and pity, when I think on thee!"

London has, indeed, since the revival of letters, been an inexhaustible theme, on which panegyric and censure have equally been employed, according to the views of the describer; for while the man of warm imagination expatiated with rapture on the delights of life which abound in this vast capital, the moralist discovered so much of error and depravity, that his picture of the English metropolis was a picture of deformity. Perhaps a medium between these extremes would present a more accurate portraiture of the manners and characters most notorious in London, a city which is in the most extensive sense of the word the capital of the united kingdom. It is, indeed, the attractive centre of science, intelligence, and opulence; the important spot where legislators enact, and sovereigns give activity to the laws; the depositary of the national wealth, and the citadel of national glory; the school of genius, and the temple of intellectual refinement.

Whatever can amuse the fancy or improve the taste in the most finished productions of human ingenuity, may be found in this emporium of commerce, knowledge, and elegance. In London the intellectual powers of man are excited by the animating motives of competition, emolument, and reputation, to a degree of energetic vigour unattainable in the seclusion of retirement.Hence, whatever is excellent in those polished arts which contribute to refinement, is to be found in this celebrated city-a city more worthy of the attention of the philosopher than ancient Rome in the zenith of her glory.

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It may be asserted, that a publication like the present is superfluous, because morality has been recommended by the elegant essays of Addison and others; but every age has its peculiar follies and fashions, which require the correction of the satirist, nor is the present day deficient in subjects of animadversion. Though the liveliest exertions of intellect are incompetent to depict the ever-varying lights and shades that form a picture of London, yet the attempt may afford an agreeable amusement both to the writer and the reader. To combine cheerfulness with reflection, and candour with satire, has been the design of the Author, and the public patronage has crowned his efforts with success.

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