attended by much slaughter; triumphal processions of conquering kings; splendid pageantries of the great and noble; the mournful pomp of royal funerals; the sumptuous entry of foreign princesses; Wolsey in his grandeur, Wyatt and his insurgents, Charles II. on his return from the Continent, when he at length succeeded to the throne; knights, citizens, men-at-arms, priests, 'prentices, beggars, ruffians, fugitives; the rich, the poor, the mighty, the humble, the downcast, and the prosperous--all this wealth of human action, suffering, despair, and hope, gives an enduring charm to the memory of Peter of Colechurch's structure, and furnishes such a record as few other buildings can parallel. The story of London Bridge is a romance of the deepest interest, of the most gorgeous and the most gloomy colours. But we touch only on its more salient points, and, passing on along the eternal river, leave the shadow of this English _Ponte Vecchio_ behind us like a dream. [Illustration: BATTERSEA TO LONDON BRIDGE.] /Edmund Ollier/. [Illustration: IN THE POOL.] CHAPTER XI. LONDON BRIDGE TO GRAVESEND. Hogarth's Water Frolic--Billingsgate--Salesmen's Cries--The Custom House--Queen Elizabeth and the Customs--The Tower, and Tower Hill--The Pool--The Docks--Ratcliff Highway--The Thames Tunnel--In Rotherhithe--The Isle of Dogs--The Dock Labourer--Deptford and Greenwich--Woolwich Reach and Dockyard--The _Warspite_. There is a mighty change in the river after it has passed Fishmonger's Hall. When the tide is running out it races through the arches of London Bridge, and swirls round the buttresses, and eddies to right and to left in such manner that the Thames waterman, having remembrance of many disasters brought about by absence of knowledge or want of care, amazes his passenger by his singular method of progression, rowing round a clump of barges, getting under the hull of a steamer, shooting across the river with the current, creeping slowly along by the wharves, and otherwise man[oe]uvring as if he were a general preparing to take a town. It requires a long pull and a strong pull to shoot the bridge against the tide, and often has it happened to the idler, leaning over the buttresses, to behold an upturned boat floating below him, and behind it the boatman and his passenger sustaining themselves above water by clinging to the oars. [Illustration: ST. MAGNUS' CHURCH AND THE MONUMENT.]