deserted, as if it were Plague-time. The lamps flicker feebly, and we might without stretch of imagination conceive it was now the middle of the night. Heavy shadows hang over the corners. The church towers loom out at the corners of the ascending alleys; but the doors are closed and their bells are silent. We hear the sound of foot-falls echoing loudly as some one draws near--a solitary policeman, who continues his patrol sadly. We are separated by but a row of houses from the great river, but that highway is really silent. The steamers are at rest. The lamp-light here and there flashes feebly on the names of the great dealers and middle-men, set up over their mean and tottering shops, where thousands of pounds are “turned over” in a day. Billingsgate is fast closed, not an oath nor a word of its famous vocabulary is in the air. This air of solitude and desertion is one of the most extraordinary sensations associated with the City, and the impression is worth experiencing. We ascend by one of the alleys, and come once more into something like life and motion and see the clattering cabs and omnibuses hurrying by. Again, what can be better than the view as you walk towards Cripplegate, through winding streets, and begin to see the old gaunt, quaint, weather-beaten tower of St. Giles’s Church rising above the houses? There is nothing in London better than this solemn tower, formed of old stones half the way up, the other half of grimed, caked brick, the whole surmounted by an odd and quaint belfry. We might think we were in some Belgian town. Then, the old churchyard behind, with the path winding round by a short cut to other streets; the old wooden houses that adjoin it, overhanging the street, and that seem “caked” to it; and, finally, the strange doorway of the church, decorated with its significant supporters--a skull on one side and an hour-glass on the other--wrought in the spirited fashion of Cibber.