“What do I think of it?” returned I: “Why, as _Captain Ironside_ says in the Play, ‘that it’s a lie, to be sure!’ You very well know, Mr. Postern, that a great part of the seventeenth century was quite an age for seeing wonders in the air: for they were continually being exhibited to all sorts and conditions of men; whilst, ever and anon, came forth a pamphlet full of marvel and trumpery, detailing the last revelation, occasionally ornamented ‘with a type of the vision curiously engraven on copper.’ You may remember how the Author of ‘_The History of the Great Plague_,’ tells you that he was in some danger from a crowd in St. Giles’s, because he could not discern an Angel in the air holding a drawn sword in his hand. Believe me, good Mr. Barnaby, such visions are extremely rare; and, when they _do_ appear, they come not in the uncertain forms of that which you have now referred to. Minds of more weakness than piety gave a ready faith to them, and in convulsed or sorrowful times, were often hearing voices which spake not, and seeing signs which were never visible: willing to deceive, or be deceived, they saw, like _Polonius_, clouds ‘backed like an ousel,’ or, ‘very like a whale;’ ‘So hypochondriac fancies represent Ships, Armies, Battles, in the firmament; Till steadier eyes the exhalations solve, And all to its first matter, clouds, resolve!’” “Truly, Mr. Barbican,” answered the Antiquary, as I concluded, “truly, Sir, I should never have divined that you had any dislike to dull reflections, had you not yourself assured me so; but now if you will pledge me in another draught of sack, I’ll furnish you with a new scene of London Bridge, from the pencil of an eminent foreigner, as it appeared in May, 1663. This is selected from the very amusing ‘_Voyages de Mons. de Monconys_,’ and the best edition of his book is that bearing the imprint of Paris, though it was in reality published at Lyons, in 1695, duodecimo. In the second volume of this work, and on page 14 of the part relating to England, he thus speaks of London Bridge. ‘After having passed this place,’--that is Greenwich, which the Author calls _Grenuche_,--‘we soon came to London, of which the length is truly incredible; but more than two thirds of the River sides are occupied by warehouses and very small buildings of wood, even upon the Bridge, at the foot of which, on the City side, is a large edifice erected wholly of wood, without any iron, which seems to be of hewn stone it is so regularly built. At the other extremity of the Bridge, above the towers of a castle, are many of the heads of the murderers of King Charles.’ On page 21, M. Monconys is speaking of the ‘_bots_’--boats,--which formerly plied on the Thames to carry persons to the City, or Westminster, by way of avoiding the rude English coaches, and the ruder paved streets of London: ‘They never,’ says he, ‘go below the Bridge; although there is not any place to which they