The College of Physicians would be in one of the best parts of the town, encircled with an handsome Piazza for the dwelling of those learned persons, with the Chirurgeons, Apothecaries and Druggists in the streets about them; for I am greatly inclined to wish, that all of a mystery should be destined to their several quarters: those of the better sort of shop-keepers, who sell by retail, might be allotted to the sweetest and most eminent streets and piazzas: the artificers to the more ordinary houses, intermediate and narrower passages (for such will hardly be avoided) that the noise and tintamar of their instruments may be the less importunate: the taverns and victualling houses sprinkled amongst them, and built accordingly: but all these too, even the very meanest, should exactly respect uniformity, and be more substantially built than those in Covent-Garden, and other places; where once in twenty or thirty years they had need be built again, and therefore to be indulged a longer term. Spaces for ample courts, yards and gardens, even in the heart of the City there may be some to the principal houses, for state and refreshment; but with great reservation, because of the fractions they will make; and therefore rarely towards any principal street: and I hope it will please his Majesty to prescribe by a public and irreversible edict, that no houses whatsoever, may for the future presume to be erected, not only about this City, but all the Nation besides, within such a distance from magazines, places of public records and Churches, which should be preserved as sanctuaries. The gates and entries of the City, which are to be rebuilt, might be the subjects of handsome architecture, in form of triumphal arches, adorned with statues, relievo's and apposite inscriptions, as prefaces to the rest within, and should therefore by no means be obstructed by sheds, and ugly shops, or houses adhering to them: and I wish this reformation, and the infinite danger of their being continued, might extend to the demolishing those deformed buildings on London-Bridge; which not only endanger all the rest, but take away from the beauty of it, and indeed of the whole City near the Thames: instead of them, if there went a substantial baluster of iron, decorated with statues upon their pedestals at convenient distances, and the footway on each side, it would be exceedingly convenient; whilst, to secure the passengers by night, it might be guarded by responsible house-keepers in their turns: or, if they will need have shops, let them be built of solid stone, made narrow and very low, like to those upon the Rialto at Venice; but it were far better without them. AN ACT CONCERNING THE STREETS (1671).