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been so arranged as to admit of all its parts being prepared and delivered ready for fixing in place, and being put together and taken down far more easily than an ordinary brick building, which will greatly reduce all constructive operations on the ground, lessen the number of labourers employed, and any amount of possible inconvenience to the neighbourhood.

The central entrance will be exactly opposite to the Prince of Wales's Gate, in the Kensington Road, which is obviously desirable. But as this gate is not exactly in the centre of the plot of ground to be covered, the building will not be of the same length on each side of the entrance.

The western half of the building will be devoted to machinery and raw materials; the eastern portion to manufactures and the plastic arts; to which latter also the great hall is to be appropriated. The refreshment places are amidst clumps of trees.

In connection with this magnificent building, and the purpose for which it is erected-the great gathering of the peoples and the staples of the world-we must omit not to observe that the universality, in regard to contributors, and completeness in regard to the objects to be contributed, are striking characteristics in the plan of the Exhibition of 1851. Men, and women too, from ALL nations are invited to it. Specimens of all the valuable products of their industry will be seen in it. The entire series of their works, from raw materials to finished fabrics-from the first germ of ingenuity in a rude, simple tool, to the perfect complex machine-will be found there. The history of the arts of life, and the progress of mankind will be traceable there; from the lonely cave, still inhabited by the African bushmen, to the crowded city, where these multitudinous objects are collected from the stern and shapeless trunk of a tree, to the symmetrical winged ship-from the detection of

steam in the hollow iron balls of Hiero and Solomon Caus, to its first application, by the Marquis of Worcester, by Denis Papin, and by Captain Savory, and to its wonderful development in the almost intellectual machinery of James Watt.

The records of all time will be consulted, and the secrets of every region searched out, to enrich this peaceful gathering together of the fruits of human perseverence.

This brilliant display of science and art-this glorious triumph of industry and commerce, will illustrate the tendency of our times to "unity "of feeling, without needing the old delusion of the unity of empire. In principle nothing is wanting to it. Even the despised savage is to be called on for his mite on this occasion, to prove his community of origin with ours, and to support his claim to a common destiny.

The amount of the contract by Messrs. Fox and Henderson, for the use and waste of the materials employed in the building, is £79,800, the whole building to become the property of the contractors, and to be removed by them. If, on the contrary, the building be permanently retained, the cost of it will be £150,000.

LONDON.

CHAPTER I.

BRIEF ACCOUNT OF LONDON.

LONDON, the metropolis of Britain, in the county of Middlesex, now one of the largest and most opulent cities in the world, and mentioned by Tacitus as a considerable commercial place in the reign of Nero. This distinguished city has experienced many calamities. About the year 477, it was taken from the Britons by the Saxons, under Hengist, but on his death, in 498, it was retaken by Ambrosius. In 664 it was ravaged by the plague. Destructive fires happened in 764, 798, 801, 1077, and 1135. In 1090, a hurricane overthrew 500 houses, with several churches, and damaged the Tower of London. On the coronation of Richard I., a drealful massacre of the Jews was made by the ignorant and ferocious populace. In 1196, William Fitz Osbet, called Longbeard, Lord of London, excited a sedition, and was joined by 50,000 men; but he being taken and executed, his adherents dispersed. A tremendous fire occurred in 1212, wherein, according to Stowe 3000 persons perished; and the famine in 1258

swept off 20,000. Another massacre of the Jews happened in 1264. In 1348, the terrible pestilence, which spread from India nearly over the whole earth, commenced its destructive ravages in London, and did not entirely subside till 1357. Four years afterwards, a similar calamity again occurred. A most destructive rebellion was raised in 1381, by Wat Tyler, who was killed in Smithfield, by Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor, at a parley to which he was invited by the king. The rebellion of Jack Cade, in 1450, was more formidable, when he defeated the king's forces, and was in possession of London for some time. In 1485, the city was visited by an extraordinary epidemic disease, called "the sweating sickness," which proved extremely fatal. The plague carried off 30,000 persons in the year 1500; and in the beginning of the reign of Charles I. another visitation swept off 35,000 more. In 1665, the Great Plague, as it is called, from its extent and fatality, nearly depopulated the metropolis, carrying off 68,596 persons. This was followed by the Fire of London, which broke out on Sunday, the 2d of September, 1666, at the house of a baker, in Pudding-lane, near Thamesstreet, and was not extinguished till the following Thursday. Most of the churches and corporation halls, and 13,200 houses, were consumed. The value of property destroyed was computed to be little short of ten millions. In 1780, the Petition of the Protestant Association to Parliament, occasioned an insurrection among the populace, known as the Gordon Riots, who burnt the prisons of Newgate, the King's Bench, ard the Fleet; the Roman Catholic chapels, and many private houses of persons of that persuasion.

London was first walled round with hewn stones and British bricks, by Constantine the Great; and the walls formed an oblong square, about three miles in circumference, with seven principal gates; but these lave long since disappeared, except a few scattered fragments of

the wall. London, in its most extensive view, consists of the city, properly so called, the city of Westminster, and the borough of Southwark, with the suburbs in Middlesex and Surrey, within what are called the Bills of Mortality; including an area of eight miles in length, averaging upwards of five miles in width, and more than thirty miles in circumference. It stretches itself along the river Thames, which, rising in Gloucestershire, is here not quite a quarter of a mile in breadth, falling into the German Ocean at the mouth of the Medway, about forty miles below the city. But of such immense importance is this vast metropolis in all that relates to the commerce, wealth, and power of the United Kingdom and its dependencies; so greatly has it increased in extent and magnificence; and so truly may it be regarded as the emporium of the arts and liberal sciences, that in noting down a few of its distinguishing features, in this limited space, we feel it necessary to impress on the mind of a stranger in London, that any slight particularization of its parts can scarcely fail to detract from the grand comprehensiveness of the whole. Among the churches in the metropolis, the cathedral of St. Paul is the most conspicuous, and is a noble fabric. Next to which is Westminster Abbey, where the ashes of kings and heroes, of sages and legislators, philoso phers and poets, rest together; and where the sculptured marble perpetuates their memory on a mass of ornamental grandeur not to be equalled in any metropolis of the world. St. Saviour, Southwark, and the lodge chapel; St. Dunstan, in the east; St. Michael, in Cornhill; St. Stephen, in Walbrook; St. Aldermary, in Bow-lane; St. Mary, in Cheapside; St. Bride, in Fleet-street; St. Martin, in the Fields; and St. George, Hanover-square, are some of the other churches most distinguished for fine architecture. There are likewise a great number of chapels for the established church, foreign Protestant churches, Roman Catholic chapels, meetings for dissenters

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