All this applies to London, and gives interest to our survey of it as we pass through its numerous streets; it clothes it with a poetic character in the eyes of all gifted with creative fancy. The poetry of the city has its own charms as well as the poetry of the country. The history of London supplies abundant materials of the character now described; indeed, they are so numerous and diversified that it is difficult to deal with them. The memorials of the mother city are so intimately connected with the records of the empire, that to do justice to the former would be to sketch the outline, and to exhibit most of the stirring scenes and incidents of the latter. London, too, is associated closely with many of the distinguished individuals that England has produced, with the progress of arts, of commerce and literature, politics and law, religion and civilization; so that, as we walk about it, we tread on classic ground, rich in a thousand associations. Its history is the history of our architecture, both ecclesiastical and civil. The old names and descriptions of its streets, houses, churches, and other public edifices, aided by the few vestiges of ancient buildings which have escaped the ravages of fire, time, and ever-advancing alterations, bring before us a series of views, exhibiting each order of design, from the Norman to the Tudor era. In the streets of London, too, may be traced the progress of domestic building, from the plain single-storied house of the time of Fitzstephen, to the lofty and many-floored mansion of the fifteenth century, with its picturesque gables, ornamented front, and twisted chimneys. Then these melt away before other forms of taste and art. In the days of Elizabeth, churches and dwellings become Italianized. The architects under the Stuart dynasty make fresh innovation, till, during the last century, skill and genius in this department reached their culminating point. Since that period a recurrence to the study of old models has gradually been raising London to distinction, with regard to the elegance and beauty of its architectural appearance. The history of London is the history of our commerce. Here is seen gushing up, in very early times, that stream of industry, activity, and enterprise, which from a rill has swelled into a river, and has borne upon its bosom our wealth and our greatness, our civilization, and very much of our liberty.