[Illustration: Cover art] [Frontispiece: A YOUNG PRINCE WATCHING THE SCOTS GUARDS FROM MARLBOROUGH HOUSE] PEEPS AT MANY LANDS ENGLAND BY JOHN FINNEMORE CONTAINING TWELVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1908 CONTENTS I. IN LONDON TOWN--I. II. IN LONDON TOWN--II. III. IN LONDON TOWN--III. IV. OLD FATHER THAMES--I. V. OLD FATHER THAMES--II. VI. IN A CATHEDRAL CITY VII. THROUGH WESSEX--I. VIII. THROUGH WESSEX--II. IX. THROUGH WESSEX--III. X. ROUND THE TORS XI. THE LAND OF SAINTS XII. IN SHAKESPEARE'S COUNTRY XIII. AN OLD ENGLISH HOUSE XIV. BY FEN AND BROAD XV. BY DALE AND FELL XVI. THE PLAYGROUND OF ENGLAND--I. XVII. THE PLAYGROUND OF ENGLAND--II. XVIII. HEROES OF THE STORM LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LOI A YOUNG PRINCE WATCHING THE SCOTS GUARDS FROM MARLBOROUGH HOUSE . . . _Rose Barton_ . _Frontispiece_ LONDON: ST. PAUL'S AND LUDGATE HILL . . . _Herbert Marshall_ BY AN ENGLISH RIVER . . . _Birket Foster_ TOMB OF THE BLACK PRINCE IN CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL . . . _W. Biscombe Gardner_ IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY TOWN . . . _Walter Tyndale_ IN AN ENGLISH LANE . . . _Birket Foster_ SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE . . . _Fred Whitehead_ AN ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE . . . _Walter Tyndale_ IN AN ENGLISH VILLAGE . . . _W. Biscombe Gardner_ AN ENGLISH COTTAGE . . . _Mrs. Allingham_ IN AN ENGLISH WOOD . . . _Stilton Palmer_ ON AN ENGLISH COMMON . . . _Birket Foster_ ELOI [Illustration: SKETCH-MAP OF ENGLAND.] ENGLAND IN LONDON TOWN--I. London is the greatest city in the world. How easy it is to say that or read it! How very, very hard it is to get the least idea of what it means! We may talk of millions of people, of thousands of streets, of hundreds of thousands of houses, but words will give us little grasp of what London means. And if we go to see for ourselves, we may travel up and down its highways and byways until we are dizzy with the rush of its hurrying crowds, its streams of close-packed vehicles, its rows upon rows of houses, shops, banks, churches, museums, halls, theatres, and begin to think that at last we have seen London. But alas for our fancy! We find that all the time we have only been in one small corner of it, and the great city spreads far and wide around the district we have learned to know, just as a sea spreads around an islet on its broad surface.