thousand things besides, move me to exclaim
in anger and bitterness of spirit, troppa scrit-
tura! troppa scrittura! too much writing!

I have before me a work written by Mr.
JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A., called Curiosities of
London. Before I commenced its perusal,
and glancing merely at its title, I found
myself sorely tempted (being perchance
somewhat bilious and hypochondriacal that
morning), to ask Mr. Timbs and myself the
question if we had not had troppa scrittura,
already about London, its curiosities, his
tory, antiquities, topography, and general
social aspect. London past, London present,
London even to come; lloman London, Saxon
London, Norman London; old London
Bridge; the Tower of London; Newgate,
Whitehall, Whitefriars and Whitechapel; the
Strand, the squares, the streets, the lanes,
the courts, the alleys, the suburbs and the
slums; London characters; the heads of its
people; the statistics of its trade, commerce,
shipping, consumption of provisions, crime,
population, births, deaths and marriages; the
inns of London, the clubs of London, the
theatres of London, and the dens of London;
the Silent Highway; Smithfield, the Parks,
Vauxhall Gardens, and Highbury Barn;
Sunday in London; Figaro in London; Bell's
Life in London, Giovanni in London; London
cries, London sights, London noise and
bustle; the tricks of London trade, would
all seem to have been written about up to the
troppa scrittura point. There is scarcely a
writer at the present day, I believe, connected
with the periodical press, but who has written
picturesque, humorous, or descriptive sketches
upon the sights, characters, and curiosities,
moral and physical, of the Great Metropolis,
the Great Wen, the Modern Babylon, the
World of London, the Giant City, the
Monster Metropolis, the Nineveh of the
nineteenth century, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. I even think that desultory
essays upon some London curiosities have
from time to time found their way into this
journal; and I am afraid I must myself plead
guilty spontaneously to having from time to
time had something to say in a garrulous,
discursive, rambling, digressive manner, about
the bricks and mortar, the men and women,
the ups and downs, the Lords and Commons,
of London.

The question is, whether we are yet arrived
at the troppa scrittura, or too much writing
stage; whether in the ponderous folios of
Stow, Camden, Pennant, Strype, Maitland,
and Burgess; the thousand and one guide-
books; the lucubrations of Ned Ward and
Pierce Egan; the charming sketches of
Addison, Steele, and Goldsmith; the stern
vigorous satire of Johnson; the elaborate
yet compendious handbook of Mr. Peter
Cunningham; the positively innumerable
sketches and essays upon London men,
London manners, and London things that
have poured unceasingly from the press
since the time of the Great Revolution, there
has been yet sufficient information
promulgated upon London topics; whether, in a
word, there was an inch of ground left to
stand upon in the field of London literature
when Mr. John Timbs, F.S.A., came forward
with more curiosities than Mr. Roach Smith
and Mr, Bernal ever possessed in their
collections.

After an amusing and instructive journey
through the book I incline to the opinion:
not only that the author of Curiosities
of London has done well, and deserves well
of his country in having said and written the
things therein set down, but also that not
half—nay, not one quarter—nay, not one
tithe enough has yet been written about
London; and that a legion of novelists,
essayists, humourists, artists, archaeologists
and antiquaries might forthwith sit down
and write volumes more on the subject of
London, and that without exhausting the
subject. This is said without the slightest
idea of disrespect or disparagement to the
labours of Mr. Timbs. What he has done he
has done excellently well. He has given us
much valuable information respecting the
monuments, public buildings, streets and
parks of London; much curious gossip about
old taverns and coffee-houses, odd characters
and customs. We live in half-a-dozen Londons
while strolling through Mr. Timbs's kindly,
chatting, shady-green-laue sort of a book,
We see the quaint Elizabethan London with
its peaked gables, diamond-latticed windows,
ruffs, farthingales, trunkhose, floors strewn
with rushes, streets infested by footpads,
cavalcades on horseback, clergymen with
beards and moustachios, twelve-oared
barges, carved ceilings, stately, formal
furniture, flat-capped 'prentices, and cozy
merchants in velvet doublets and golden chains.
We walk with Sir Thomas Gresham on the
Burse, or take oars at Essex House; or attend
a broad daylight performance at the Globe
Theatre; or go to the Bear Garden, hear bad
language and see Sackerson loose; or dine at
the French ordinary; or watch those hard-
featured country gentlemen going to the
Commons House at Westminster to pass that
famous statute of Elizabeth—the English
Poor Law. Or, by a great favour, and much
bribery of porters and guards, we are enabled
to penetrate to the sacred court itself, and see
a court masque, with moving towers, ships
sailing on dry land, dancing fawns and satyrs,
and fantastic masquers, addressing the court
in paraphrastic bombast from Chapman's
Homer, and bringing all the gods and
goddesses in Olympus to bear upon the
queen's highness, her virtues, beauty, and
awful might. It is very pleasant to think of
these things, cutting the leaves of this new
old book;—pleasant to glide from the London
of Elizabeth to the London of James—Ben
Jonson's masques, Inigo Jones's fine scene-
painting; the powder-plot; the suppers at