“Hitherto, Mr. Geoffrey Barbican, I have quoted you an abundance of authorities which make mention of the history, or appearance, of London Bridge, but notwithstanding my researches I find only a very few ancient representations of it. If, however, you would see an interesting and sweetly-touched portraiture of it about the year 1500, look into that stout roan-coated folio, marked 16 F. ii. xv. in the Royal Library of Manuscripts in the British Museum, and you will be enraptured. The volume professes to treat of ‘_Grace entiére sur le gouvernement du Prince_,’ and it is written in prose and verse, in the common large black script of the fifteenth century, on vellum, with most noble illuminations, executed in the best style of the best period of the art in England, and by one of the most gifted of the Brethren of St. Luke. The Author of the poems was Charles, Duke of Orleans, father of Louis XII.; and this particular copy of his works seems to have been illuminated for Henry the Eighth, when Prince of Wales; for it not only contains numerous initial letters and borders richly coloured and embossed with gold; but in the frontispiece, on the first page, are his father’s well known badges of the red and white roses; the former of which are supported by the white hound, and red dragon: with glorified white roses in the margin. The poems are divided into several books of various amatory subjects, as ‘_Venus et Cupidon_,’--‘_Epitres d’Abelard et Eloise_,’--‘_Les Demandes d’Amours_;’ and the second division of the volume is adorned with a large and beautiful illumination representing the Duke of Orleans in the Tower, sending despatches to his friends abroad. The Tower, wharf, and river before them, occupy the whole foreground of the painting; and in the back appears the East side of London Bridge, with numerous houses standing upon it, the Chapel of St. Thomas reaching down to the sterlings, and the violent fall of the river through the different arches; whilst, beyond it, rise the spires of several Churches, especially the very high one of old St. Paul’s, and the other buildings of London erected along the banks of the Thames. It is, indeed, hardly possible to give you an adequate idea of the spirit and beauty of this view of LONDON BRIDGE IN THE YEAR 1500, [Illustration] the colouring is so vivid and harmonious: a sky of ultra-marine blue is spread over the whole of the back-ground, against which the distant buildings appear in white, the nearer ones being touched with different shades of brown. You will, however, find a fair copy of this noble painting, engraved by Basire, in Gough’s ‘_History of Pleshy_,’ which I have already cited, page 193; and the _same plate_ has also been published as an additional illustration to the Rev. T. D. Fosbrooke’s ‘_Encyclopædia of Antiquities_,’ London, 1825, volume ii., page 923.