But now we were come almost within view of the great City of which I had so many times dreamed, and so beyond limits had advanced its imagined glory, until it seemed to draw into itself all that was noble and rich and powerful in the world; being Rome and Carthage too, I thought, and the Indies added! nay, and only not Paris or Florence, because it scorned the comparison. In such an exaltation I sat my horse, looking to right and left as we rode through the lanes past Hammersmith and Kensington, all the way being still deep in snow; although hardened here by the traffic of country carts, or rather (I said) by great equipages of the Court and the Queen's troops. Mr. Jordan spoke twice or thrice upon indifferent matters, and chiefly, I remember, of Olympus; but I regarded him contemptuously, having come into a place where Olympus would be very cheaply esteemed as a hill, we having our own Ludgate Hill, which, if not so high, is in all other respects as good or better. But when he told me that we must soon each take our leave of the other, all that vain mood left me, and I wished him from my heart a thousand benefits and safety in his enterprise, in which I would have joined him willingly had I not been bound to this business of my uncle. He told me he should go to Moorfields, where he had heard there was frequent exercise of arms, and there learn how to set about his enrolment. About this time we came to Charing Cross, where no further speech was possible between us; such strangeness we met with, and unused fashion of things; and proceeding by way of the Strand, we noted an infinite succession of sights, of which the least elsewhere would have staggered me, but now giving place to others as marvellous, or more, they did but increase my appetite for amazement, which they alternately satisfied and renewed. Upon the clamour and the infinite throngs of the townsfolk, I but briefly touch, for they transcend all description, as do the palaces of the Savoy and Arundel House that we passed by; and the Earl of Essex his mansion, and other the inns of the great nobles which lie upon the right side of this famous street, and betwixt it and the Thames. Somerset House, moreover, that is still building, we saw, and artificers yet at work thereupon, which will be, I think, when builded, the finest palace of all. At Temple Bar a man leaves the liberty of the Duchy (as it is called) and enters within the liberty (albeit yet without the walls) of the City of London, and here, a little distance further on, I found Fetter Lane upon the left hand, where my lodging was, and so (having first learned where I should have word of him) sorrowfully parted with Mr. Jordan at the end of it, he going still eastward towards Paul's, and I up the lane, that is northward, to Mr. Malt's, where I was well received, and led to a clean and pleasant chamber in the gable, which he told me was to be mine. CHAPTER VII