clearly intended that the night should be
dark, that there lies against gas the same
objection that I have always urged against
the use of chloroform; that it is a flying in
the face of Providence. If a bright light were
wanted longer than we have it naturally, the
sun would not leave us when it does. If we
ought to have more than a glimmer after
sunset, we should have more than glimmer from
the moon and stars. I consider rushlights
most in harmony with Nature, and much less
uncongenial than gas is, to the habits and
opinions of antiquity. I was not sorry,
therefore, when I found that the gentleman
who opened this debate was the advocate of
a company for supplying London with cheap
gas; I say I was not sorry to perceive that
he was heard unwillingly. I need not detail
the particulars of that debate, one of the
hottest I have ever heard; I need say only
that it was heated by gas: gas was the
matter that inflamed all minds, upon that
memorable afternoon.

The storm of opinion beat most decidedly
against the honourable gentleman who
introduced the question, until the rising of an
incautious opponent— although incautious,
certainly not incorrect; for he assured the
honourable House that "'e never in his life
'ad stated anything he couldn't prove." A
second Euclid! I have made note of his
name, and will supply it with much pleasure,
should the University of Cambridge feel
disposed to enter into treaty with him for the
valuable service he could render. This civic
Euclid, who appeared at the same time to be
the civic Cicero, entreated honourable gentlemen
frequently in the course of his address,
"not to swaller an Act of Parliament," as it
appeared they must needs do, if they voted
for his honourable friend. The suggestion
was, perhaps, not quite judicious. Perhaps
the Corporation of London— being told that
there was anything to swallow, and knowing,
as it does know, that the stomach is an
institution which began with Adam, and which for
its antiquity deserves to be substantially
supported— was prepared, if there was something
to swallow, certainly to swallow it, even
though it might be no more than a dry husk
of an Act of Parliament. From that point
the tide of eloquence appeared to have turned,
and to be closing in upon the motion of the
honourable member who first spoke. I was
not quite sure how the debate would end;
and, unfortunately, did not remain in the
august assembly after three o'clock; that
being the dinner hour at Hackney, I was
than admonished to proceed upon my road.

Since the winter, I have run over to Thebes
with a few friends, not without some annoyance
at experiencing the indecent haste with
which the solemn act of travelling is now
slurred over. I was unable, therefore, for
some months to revisit King Street. Thebes
did me good. From among its ruins I looked
back upon the puny pomps of London; which
is called, forsooth, a large town in these
degenerate days. Thebes, in the good old
times, with its included gardens, was a town
indeed. Thirty-six English miles in
circumference! Its great temple might have the
whole of Winchester set down upon the space
it covered. Even near Rome, it is well
known that the little town of Palestrina
stands upon the area of an old temple of
Fortune. Those were great times indeed.

Nevertheless, even while in Thebes, I
remembered that there was an ancient fane in
London wherein once I had been privileged to
wonder. While the Corporation of London
shall meet under the shadow of Gog and
Magog, to resist the pressure of the present
on the past, there remains for men like me,
at least one straw at which to grasp in the
great flood of innovation. When I came back
to London recently, I said within myself,
There yet remain giants for reverence. I will
seek out King Street, I will pass again under
the shadow of the idols; and, in the
penetralia of their temple, will behold again
the solemn gathering of the andr?n ?r??n
theion genos, which I translate for a perverse
age that speaks no longer Greek, as meaning
the divine race of heroes.

So I went. I heard again the rustling of
the papers, and the humming of the members,
and the drumming of the hammer. Bills
were being read second and third times,
money was being voted, and a screw press
was biting constantly upon the ends of
documents presented to it, and leaving the mark
of its teeth upon them in the shape of the
City seal.

Among other things, money was asked and
granted to complete a purchase of some land
in Copenhagen Fields for a new market; a
home for the flocks and herds torn from their
heritage in Smithfield, and about to be
transferred to other regions. There appeared
to exist out of doors some little unwillingness,
in men living about those fields, to fraternise
with the poor anastatoi; to a perverse age
that has ceased to speak Greek, I explain
that anastatoi was the name given technically,
in the fine old times, to races carried, as the
Jews were, out of their own proper country
and set down in a new place— it might be in
Babylon, or it might be in Copenhagen Fields.
The money was voted, but inquiry was made
of the honourable mover of the vote, whether
it was intended to proceed at once with the
erection of the new market, in spite of the
opinion of authorities that the bill for removal
could not be left in its existing state, and the
feeling of the public that the choice of the
new site was an aggravation of the old offence.
The public! Oioi nun brotoi eisin, they are
brutes, as Homer says. If one could only get
them well under a drover's stick!

The honourable mover of the vote answered
with the calmness of a hero who disdains the
voices of the present; who knows no voice but
the voices of his brothers in Guildhall. As