London, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint) [Paperback]

Thames, when it was flowing, As I by boate came rowing, So as fortune her time set, My liege lord perchance I met, And so befel, as I came nigh, Out of my boat, when he me sygh, He bade me come into his barge :A nd when I was with him at large, A mong other thinges said He hath this charge upon me laid, And bade me do my business, That to his high worthiness Some new thinge I should book, That he himself it might look, After the form of my writing. And thus upon his commanding. Mine hearte is well the more glad To write so as he me bade. Nothing can be more picturesque than this description, and nothing can more forcibly carry us into the very heart of the past. With the exception of some of the oldest portions of the Tower of London, there is scarcely a brick or a stone left standing that may present to us a memorial of the kings chamber fof four hundred and fifty years ago. There, indeed, is the river, still flowing and still ebbing, the most ancient thing we can look upon, which made London what it was and what it is. Nearly all that then adorned its banks has perished; and many of the stirring histories of the busy life that moved upon its waters have become to us as obscure as the legend of New Troy. But the poet calls upon our imagination to fill up the void. One of the most ancient pictorial representations of London which exists is of a date some fifty years later than the poem we have quoted. It is found in a manuscript preserved in the British Museum, and represents the captivity of the Duke of Orleans in the Tower. The manuscript itself, which consists of the poems of the royal captive, was probably copied in the time of Henry VI.; but the illumination purports to represent the London of an earlier date, with its bridge, its lofty-spired cathedral, its numerous churches, its gabled houses. Under these walls we may imagine the poet and his patron t
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)