may be judged from the fact that at the time
when "the sulphury fumes of the new fuel called
coal," first aroused their fears for their own
health, London contained no more than a
hundred and thirty thousand people.

By the end of the reign of Charles the
Second, nearly all the nobility had left the
City, and had taken up their abode along the
banks of the Thames, between Temple Bar
and Westminster, in the then rising
neighbourhood of St. James's, or in some of the
new and fashionable squares of Lincoln's
Inn, Covent Garden, Leicester, or Soho. The
first square known in this country was that
of Covent Garden, built by Inigo Jones; a
church and two piazzas forming three sides,
whilst the fourth was the wall of the Duke of
Bedford's garden, situated between Covent
Garden and the Strand. One or two others
followed; and after many years, Bloomsbury
Square was visited by strangers, as one of
the wonders of the day.

Before the Fire of London, Paternoster
Row, instead of being a great publishers'
mart, was the Regent Street of the
fashionable world; there the most costly
embroidery, the most delicate lace-work and
the richest silks were to be purchased; and
so thronged was this favoured spot with the
carriages and chairs of the nobility, that it
was often found a difficult matter to force a
way through the gay crowd. The tradesmen
of course followed the nobility in their migration
westward; and we find the great silk-
men, mercers, and lacemen of the day, soon
afterwards established in Ludgate Street, and
in Henrietta Street, and Bedford Street
adjoining Covent Garden.

After the aristocracy of rank was gone
westward, there was an aristocracy of wealth
which still clung to the City. The bankers,
merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen of
the east had it all to themselves within the
City walls, and how they were lodged, and
how they fared, may be gathered by a peep
at the stately red brick edifices, with massive
fronts, and capacious warm interiors which
still abound within the city. One has but to
look into one or two of these noble dwellings
long since converted to commercial uses, to
understand how grandly our City ancestors of
the eighteenth century maintained their state
whilst yet Clapham and Tulse Hill were not;
when Regent's Park existed but as an
extensive dairy farm, and Tyburn was a village
known best as Jack Ketch's place of business.

The reign of George the Third, extended over
half a century, may be named as a distinct
era in the great movement westward.
Oppressed by the growing population of the City
many of the upper rank of merchants
betook themselves to the spots chosen by
the aristocracy. The noblemen of Soho Square
or Bloomsbury—finding themselves cheek by
jowl with bankers, brewers, and African
merchants—took alarm, and began to move
still farther westward.

Then arose Portland Place, and Portland
Square, and indeed most of the streets and
places to the westward of Hanover Square,
as far as Hyde Park. The nobles of the City
rapidly filled up the vacant ground in Russell
and Bloomsbury Squares, and similar localities.
At this period the custom began of affixing
name-plates to house-doors, and the names
of streets to corners. These were improvements;
but streets were wretchedly paved,
with footways scarcely above the road: the
lighting was very bad; and, in some of the
best squares, which now are adorned with
gardens, there stood heaps of filth and rubbish.
The connections between the heart of London,
and the suburbs were of the worst kind, and
the roads to Hoxton, Clerkenwell, and the
Foundling Hospital, were impassable after
dusk—dangerous even in the daytime—on
account of the highwaymen by which they
were infested.

THE CRADLE SONG OF THE POOR.

HUSH! I cannot bear to see thee
Stretch thy tiny hands in vain;
I have got no bread to give thee,
Nothing, child, to ease thy pain.
When God sent thee first to bless me,
Proud, and thankful too, was I;
Now, my darling, I, thy mother,
Almost long to see thee die.
Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;
God is good, but life is dreary.

I have watched thy beauty fading,
And thy strength sink day by day;
Soon, I know, will Want and Fever
Take thy little life away.
Famine makes thy father reckless,
Hope has left both him and me;
We could suffer all, my baby,
Had we but a crust for thee.
Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;
God is good, but life is dreary.

Better thou shouldst perish early,
Starve so soon, my darling one,
Than live to want, to sin, to struggle
Vainly still, as I have done.
Better that thy angel spirit
With my joy, my peace were flown,
Ere thy heart grow cold and careless,
Reckless, hopeless, like my own.
Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;
God is good, but life is dreary.

I am wasted, dear, with hunger,
And my brain is all opprest,
I have scarcely strength to press thee,
Wan and feeble, to my breast.
Patience, baby, God will help us,
Death will come to thee and me,
He will take us to his Heaven,
Where no want or pain can be.
Sleep, my darling, thou art weary
God is good, but life is dreary.

Such the plaint, that late and early,
Did we listen, we might hear,