This account of the capital is useful, as indicating its extent and dimensions two centuries ago. Defoe was an accurate observer, and had noticed the rapid expansion which had taken place even during his own day. As trade and commerce increased, the boundaries of London were extended farther and farther, and it would appear that the questions with which this extract concludes are as far from being answered as they were when Defoe asked them. =Source.=—_A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain_, 1724-1727, vol. ii., pp. 94-97. _London_, as a City only, and as its Walls and Liberties live it out, might, indeed, be viewed in a small Compass; but, when I speak of _London_, now in the Modern Acceptation, you expect I shall take in all that vast Mass of Buildings, reaching from _Black Wall_ in the _East_ to _Tothill Fields_ in the _West_; and extended in an unequal Breadth, from the Bridge, or River, on the _South_, to _Islington North_; and from _Peterburgh House_ on the Bank Side in _Westminster_, to _Cavendish Square_, and all the new Buildings by, and beyond _Hanover Square_, by which the City of _London_, for so it is still to be called, is extended to _Hyde Park Corner_ in the _Brentford Road_, and almost to _Maribone_ in the _Acton Road_, and how much farther may it spread, who knows? New Squares, and new Streets rising up every Day to such a Prodigy of Buildings, that nothing in the world does, or ever did, equal it, except old _Rome_ in _Trajan's_ time, when the walls were Fifty Miles in Compass, and the Number of Inhabitants Six Millions Eight Hundred Thousand Souls. It is the Disaster of _London_, as to the Beauty of its Figure, that it is thus stretched out in Buildings, just at the pleasure of every Builder, or Undertaker of Buildings, and as the Convenience of the People directs, whether for Trade, or otherwise; and this has spread the Face of it in a most straggling, confus'd Manner, out of all Shape, uncompact, and unequal; neither long nor broad, round or square; whereas the City of _Rome_, though a monster for its Greatness, yet was, in a manner, round, with very few Irregularities in its Shape. At _London_, including the Buildings on both Sides the Water, one sees it, in some Places, Three Miles broad, as from _St. George's_ in _Southwark_, to _Shoreditch_ in _Middlesex_; or Two Miles, as from _Peterburgh House_ to _Montague House_; and in some Places, not half a Mile, as in _Wapping_; and much less, as in _Redriff_ [Rotherhithe].