And then so alter’d is the town, As well as Gotham’s people; That not a building here’s the same, Except Saint Nich’las steeple. Fam’d steeple! Gotham’s greatest boast, Long may you here remain, Whilst other churches are pull’d down, And built ’gain and again. The streets are now so num’rous grown,[81] E’en Gothamites don’t know them; So signs they’ve painted ’gainst the walls, In every nook to shew them.[82] And such the rage, for naming streets, That gaps made in th’ Old Wall; They Heron Street and Forster Street, Unwittingly do call. Th’ old streets were next, not wide enough, So th’ pants they took away,[83] To place them in some corner dark, Where th’ girls could wanton play. Yet for themselves, they have such fears, Their road, they ne’er can see; So they want lamps, from th’ Barras Bridge, E’en to Saint Peter’s Quay.[84] The Crosses too, they’ve taken down,[85] Tho’ built the other day; They too, I fancy, did impede, The great folks in their way. And next their nostrils delicate, Can’t bear the smell of meat; And straight the Butcher’s shops and stalls,[86] Fly quickly from the street. Their foolish pride there’s nought can stop, Improvement’s _all the go_; Unseemly’s every thing that’s old, So all that’s old’s laid low. Each relique of their sires is gone, Or got a modern face on: The poor old Castle,[87]--Gotham’s pride, A modern cap they place on. The Bridge is widen’d,[88] the Quay enlarg’d,[89] The old Moothall laid low;[90] And other Court’s,[91] like all their works, They’ve built here all for show. Show, show’s the word in Gotham now, And ev’ry thing that’s new; From th’ Infirmary,[92] to th’ Children’s School,[93] A palace is to view. The Westgate boasts its palace now,[94] On the Moor another’s seen;[95] And (to please the nabobs of the east) A Bridge has Pandon Dean:[96] To see their Church, see they’ve pull’d down, Many a good and bad house;[97] There’s one thing more, howe’er, they want, And that’s a spacious _Mad House_! For, when these alterations end, To tell I’ve not the pow’r; E’en now their quarreling about, Th’ improvement of the moor[98] Yet like the Roman, who for want Of worlds--from war refrain’d; Gotham’s changes and improvements, Will with th’ world’s limits end. [80] Exchange steeple taken down, and the Exchange new fronted, 1794. [81] Dean Street and Mosley Street formed 1789, Blackett Street, Albion Street and Albion Place, Collingwood Street, 1809-10, _Forth Street, Orchard Street, Castle Street, &c. &c. 1811-12_. [82] Names of the streets first painted against the walls of each end of the Streets, 1786. [83] The pants in Pilgrim Street removed, 1(Transcriber’s Note: the rest of the digits of the year are missing from the original printing.). [84] A new act proposed for lighting the suburbs, 1811-12.