The great city is always changing its appearance, and travellers who have not seen it for several years scarcely know where they are when visiting some of the transformed localities. But however great the change, the city still exercises its powerful fascination on all who have once felt its strangely magnetic force, its singular attractiveness. Though the London County Council have effected amazing "improvements," constructing a street which nobody wants and nobody uses, and spending millions in widening Piccadilly; though private enterprise pulls down ancient dwellings and rears huge hotels and business premises in their places--it is still possible to conjure up the memories of the past, and to picture to ourselves the multitudinous scenes of historic interest which Old London has witnessed. Learned writers have already in these volumes enabled us to transport ourselves at will to the London of bygone times--to the mediæval city, with its monasteries, its churches, its palaces, its tragedies; to Elizabethan London, bright and gay, with young life pulsing through its veins; to the London of Pepys, with its merry-makings, its coarseness, and its vice. In this concluding chapter we will recall some other memories, and try to fill the background to the picture. Westminster, the rival city, the city of the court, with its abbey and its hall, we have not attempted to include in our survey. She must be left in solitary state until, perhaps, a new volume of this series may presume to describe her graces and perfections. The ever-growing suburbs of the great city, the West End, the fashionable quarter, Southern London across the river, with Lambeth and its memories of archbishops--all this, and much else that deserves an honoured place in the chronicles of the metropolis, we must perforce omit in our survey. Some of the stories are too modern to please the taste of those who revel in the past; and if the curious reader detects omissions, he may console himself by referring to some of the countless other books and guides which the attractions of London are ever forcing industrious scribes to produce. Christ's Hospital Many regrets were expressed when it was found necessary to remove this ancient school from London, and to destroy the old buildings. Of course, "everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds." Boys, like plants, thrive better in the open country, and London fogs are apt to becloud the brain as well as injure health. But the antiquary may be allowed to utter his plaint over the demolition of the old features of London life. The memorials of this ancient school cannot be omitted from our collection. [Illustration: CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.]