Southwark, as all remember who are at all acquainted with history, beside containing Shakspeare's Theatre, at Bankside, was, in former days, famous for its Bear-garden; which, we fear, was often more crowded than the spot where the author of "Hamlet" so frequently played. What a different feature does the Southwark entrance to London Bridge present to what it did only a few brief years ago! Every few minutes omnibuses are now thundering to and from the railway terminus; while passengers think no more of journeying to Brighton and back, and remaining eight or ten hours there, on a long summer's-day, than they formerly did of travelling to Greenwich; for it took the old slow stage-wagons as long to traverse the five miles to the latter as our iron-footed and fire-fed steed can with ease drag the five hundred passengers at his heels, and land them within sight of the wide, refreshing sea. Were it possible to revive again the forms of those old Canterbury Pilgrims, and, instead of sending them out of the Tabard-yard on horseback, to place them in an express train, then start them off with all the quaint, queer notions which haunted their living brains, what strange conclusions they would come to. Even the "perfect knight," who had fought in "fifteen battles," and seen many a strange sight in heathen lands, would, with all his wisdom, think he had at last fallen into the hands of the evil one, while gentle Chaucer would renounce his disbelief in fairy lore, and be ready to admit that the land was now filled with greater wonders than "In old days of the King Arthur, Of which the Britons speak great wonder; When all the land was filled full of faery-- The Elf-Queen, with her jolly company, That danced full oft in many a green mead." _Wife of Bath's Tale._ What a change! to look up the ascent which led to that old London-bridge, with its Traitor's-gate and ghastly heads grinning above the vaulted gateway, and the scene that now meets the eye! Living heads piled high on moving omnibuses, and journeying in every direction, for twopenny or threepenny fares; steamboats passing from east to west, and carrying passengers for one halfpenny per head; such changes has the old square tower of St. Saviour's overlooked--such things has the wonder-working hand of man accomplished. And yet the world is believed by many to be still in its infancy; that two more centuries will see mankind as far advanced and improved as the last two have placed us in the lead of our forefathers. That the London of the present day will then be as great a matter of curiosity to some future antiquary as old London-bridge and the ancient borough of Southwark is to us; that others will follow and exclaim as we do now: