Temple Bar-with Townley and Fletcher's
skulls there, grinning on spikes far into
George the Third's reign. Farewell to the
blood-stained meadows—the "Field of Forty
Footsteps." Farewell to the Strand, Charing
Cross, Whitehall, the Haymarket, Pall Mall,
and St. James's Street. Much, and much
that is interesting, Mr. Timbs has told us
about these familiar haunts; the old mansions,
old legends and traditions, old denizens
and frequenters. More, however, much more
remains to be said; and legions of
Cunninghams and Timbs's yet unborn may write
octavo volumes, thick and closely printed, as
useful and entertaining as their predecessors,
before the great well of London curiosity and
London anecdote can be dried up. Even as
there are more fish in the sea than ever came
out of it, so there are more wonders in London
than the most patient searcher for curiosities
has yet been enabled to discover.

I know a few of the curiosities of London,
which I shall be happy to catalogue for the
behoof of some future museum of metropolitan
antiquities. I think I have seen London
under as many aspects as most men, and
know it tolerably well: its stony streets, its
heart of marble, and its entrails of brass. I
have seen London from the windows of a gilded
carriage (not my own though). I have seen it
from the kerb where on cold days I have been
standing shivering: I have looked at London
through the doors of mean coffee-shops, and
through bars and gratings. The doors of
London have been shut in my face, and then,
after a season, they have been opened to me
with great pomp and ceremony, and I have
passed into Dives' house as a guest. I have
seen London asleep and awake in the early
morning, and in the dead night; in rags,
and in state liveries, in sickness and in
health, in murder and sudden death. I have
gone up the Grand Staircase, and have
taken an ice from John the footman's tray,
and I have gone down into the cellar in Low
Lane, and slept there among the rags and
bones. I have ridden a tall horse in the park,
and drawn up at Achilles' statue among the
dandy horsemen, and taken off my hat as the
Queen went. by. And I have gone up Hoiborn
Hill—in a cart—though I have not yet
exactly taken my gill at St. Giles's, or made
my will at Tyburn. For I have had the key
of the street, and have known the secrets of
the gas, and have communed with the paving-
stones. And, perhaps with some fifty thousand
others, I may be a curiosity of London myself.

Of men and women who are curiosities of
London there are thousands. To my mind,
a certain worthy, honourable, and gallant
member of parliament, colonel of militia, and
extensive landowner, is to the full as curious
as any of the odds and ends of antiquarianism;
as London Stone, as St. John's Gate;
as Padlock House, at Knightsbridge; as
old Bartlemy Fair—shows, sausages, sweeps
and all; as a "Wardour Street man-in-armour,
or as (the hirsute appearance of our dear
colonel being taken into consideration) one of
the by-gone lions in the Tower. Old people
down in Lincolnshire, too, will, in after years,
relate how the gallant colonel, disdaining and
denouncing bribery and treating at elections,
nevertheless gave each voter's wife a pound
of green tea on his own septennial return to
Parliament, and how he boldly avowed the
fragrant gift in Mr. Speaker's presence, and
announced his intention of repeating it at
every general election until his (the colonel's)
dissolution, an event that may be expected at
about the same time as the Greek Calends.
Veterans in Chelsea and Kilmainham—
veterans in large cuffed greatcoats, with
wooden legs, with patches over their eyes—
"shouldering their crutches and showing how
fields were won"—will tell how their first
essays at soldiering were made in the gallant
colonel's own regiment of militia, and how,
after arduous field-days, he was wont to treat
each rank and file, down to the very drummers,
to a pint of strong ale. Parliament and
Palace Yard will tell how the colonel strode
over its broad pavement, his umbrella under
his arm, his wide-hemmed trousers flapping
over his Wellingtons, his unbrushed hat at
the back of his head, his huge shirt collars so
stiff and sharp and pointed en avant, that they
seemed couched like lances, and ready to charge
any number of windmills; his eye-glass, with
its broad black ribbon fluttering in the
breeze; his eyes wild staring; his marvellous
unkempt locks tangling, flying, eddying over
his face. His praises will be sung in the
Grand Avenue of Covent Garden Market,
and fruiterers and florists will tell how he
smelt melons, and tasted grapes, and bought
bouquets of their grandsires. White-headed
auctioneers will recount how he bought
ancient weapons and armour, strange curiosities
and knicknacks at public sales. Ah!
could he but have sold, could he but sell
himself as a curiosity! What Bernal, what
Hope, what Soane, what Roach Smith
collection could vie with the Museum where he
was placed!

It is strictly in accordance with our
colonel's being a curiosity of London that he
is strictly indigenous to it, and is not known
abroad. Every Frenchman is familiar with
the names of Sir Peel and Lord Russell.
Wellington's name is known all over the
world. Balmerson (vide Mr. Borrow), and
Palmerstoni (vide Mr. Lear), both familiar
corruptions of a certain old joker in a high
place are yet affectionately remembered in
Spain and Italy. But I question if a hundred
educated foreigners, abroad, ever heard of our
colonel.

The man and woman curiosities of London
are not all public property, like our gallant
friend just dismissed. There are some human
curiosities of London, however, whom I may
allude to without ofience. There is the
wonderful old gentleman who, in the present