Highways and Byways in London. Emily Constance Baird Cook
Street; on the other, the yet slummier purlieus of busy, often-burned-down Tooley Street. Thames Street, like its adjoining Billingsgate, is, I may remark, nearly always muddy, whatever the time of year. On rainy days, it is like a Slough of Despond. If by chance you wish to land at All Hallows or London Bridge Piers, you must first climb endless wooden and slippery steps, then wend your way carefully, past threatening cranes, and along narrow alleys between high houses, alleys blocked by heavy waggons, from which tremendous packages ascend, by rope, to top stories; alleys where there is barely room for a solitary pedestrian to wedge himself past the obstruction. Barrels of the delicious oyster, the obnoxious "cockle," the humble "winkle"; loud scents that suggest the immediate neighbourhood of the ubiquitous "kipper"; these, mingled with the shouts of fish-wives and porters, greet you near that Temple of the Fisheries, Billingsgate. The enormous Monument, which stands close by, may be said to be in the dirtiest, dingiest portion of this dingy region. "Fish Street Hill" the locality is called; and it certainly is no misnomer.
London Bridge must have been wonderfully picturesque in old days; it seems to have looked then very much as the Florentine "Ponte Vecchio" does now, with, outside, its quaint overhanging timbered houses, balconies, roof-gardens, and, inside, its narrow street of shops. The sixth picture in the "Marriage à la Mode" series at the National Gallery gives us an idea of what it was like. The present bridge, opened in 1831, at a cost of two millions, is the last of many on or near this site. For there has been a bridge here of some kind ever since we know anything of London; no other bridge, indeed, existed at all in old days. By old London Bridge Wat Tyler entered with his rebels; by it Jack Cade invaded the city (though his head, for that matter, soon adorned its gate-house), and here London was wont, with pageant and ceremonial, to welcome her kings. The picturesque old stone bridge was demolished in 1832; its narrow arches hindered traffic, and gave undue help, besides, to that total freezing of the river that occasionally happened, as the ancient "Frost Fairs" record, in old days; yet one cannot help regretting the necessity for its removal. The present London Bridge, though said to be "unrivalled in the world in the perfection of proportion and the true greatness of simplicity," is, perhaps, more practical than æsthetically beautiful. The tide ebbs strongly against its massive piers; the last roadway across the river, it is also the boundary line for big ships and sailing boats; below here the river assumes more and more the look of a sea-port; it becomes "the Pool of London." From this bridge are to be seen some of the finest London views. The lace-like structure of the unique Tower Bridge, the most extraordinary monument of the century, rising, between its huge watch-towers, like a white wraith behind the more prosaic stone of London Bridge, is here very telling. And, looking towards the City, the brilliant tower of St. Magnus gleams with quite Venetian-like brightness against the blackened medley of its background.
The Tower Bridge, on a first sight, is infinitely more astonishing to the sightseer than any other London monument. It has also a mediæval look, as of some gigantic fortress of the sixteenth century. With regard to the two great towers, flanked on either side by their graceful suspension chains, "spanned high overhead as with a lintel, and holding apart the great twin bascules, like a portcullis raised to give entry to a castle, there is no denying that all this must loom as an impressive watergate upon ships coming from overseas to the Port of London." M. Gabriel Mourey thus describes it:
"The Tower Bridge, the water-gate of the Capital, is a colossal symbol of the British genius. Like that genius, the Bridge struck me as built on lines of severe simplicity, harmonious, superbly balanced, without exaggeration or emphasis; sober architecture, yet with reasonable audacities, signifying its end with that clearness which is the hall-mark of everything English. It wonderfully completes the seething landscape of quays and docks, and the infernal activity of the greatest port in the world. No waters in the world better reflect without deforming than the muddy waters of the Thames; never blue even under the blue skies of summer. Throw this bridge across the Seine or the Loire, and it would spoil the view, like a false note of colour. But here, on the contrary, its effect is prodigiously imposing. Look at its two towers, how square and solid they are. Their tips are crowned by steeples, the roofs are pointed, the windows straight, with pointed arches. It looks like the gate to some strong tower of the middle ages. The combinations of lines composing the bridge call up the idea of some heroic past time. They lift themselves above the river like some massive efflorescence of the past. But look again, and the impression becomes more complex. Light and airy, like clear lace, an iron foot-bridge joins the two towers, across the abyss. Another, lower down, on the level of the banks, lifts up to let big ships pass as under a triumphal arch. And all the audacity of the modern architects, which is to create the works of the future, here bursts forth, suspended on the heavy foundations of the past; with so much measure and proportion that nothing offends in the medly of archaism and modernity. There are few countries able to carry off such contrasts. But this country adjusts itself to them in perfection. It is because no other people know how to unite with the same harmonious force the cult of the past, the religion of tradition, to an unchecked love of progress, and a lively and insatiable passion for the future."
The Tower Bridge, as compared with other great engineering works of the kind, labours under the disadvantage of not being seen properly from anywhere as a whole, taking in, that is, both abutment towers with their pendant suspension chains, which add so much to the general effect. Nevertheless, even viewed from close by, it is very telling, and dwarfs immeasurably any other building near it; see, for instance, how the little Tower of London, that ancient and most historic fortress, loses its size from its close juxtaposition to those supporting towers! The "bascules," or drawbridges, are worked by hydraulic power, and it is a curious and interesting sight to see them raised to allow tall vessels to pass. Below the Tower Bridge, the broad river seems to extend in a sea of masts, the city to become a world of wharves and docks. To quote, once more, an "impression" of M. Gabriel Mourey:
"Once past the London Tower Bridge, and its two enormous towers, which rise like a triumphal arch with an air of calm victory at the entrance to the great metropolis, the seaport aspect of London becomes very apparent. The immense traffic on the river is evident from the constant passage of steamers, no less than by their frequent calls at the wharves whose blackened walls, deep in water, receive the riches of the entire world. A whole people toil at the unloading of the enormous ships; swarming on the barges, dark figures, dimly outlined, moving rhythmically, fill in and give life to the picture. In the far distance, behind the interminable lines of sheds and warehouses, masts bound the horizon, masts like a bare forest in winter, finely branched, exaggerated, aerial trees grown in all the climates of the globe. Steam-tugs whistle, pant, and hurry; ships with great red sails descend the river towards the sea. An enormous steamer advances majestically; she seems as tall as a five-storied house and her masts are lost in the mist. The river suddenly widens, the thick smoke of the atmosphere almost prevents one from seeing the other side; it might almost be an immense lake. Rain, steam, and speed;—Turner's chef d'oeuvre evoked before my eyes. The ever-changing sky is a continual wonder. A while ago the sun, like a disc of melting cream, disappeared in yellowish mists, scattering reflections like dirty snow. Now, through a clearing, he appears like the altar-glory of a Jesuit church; raining waves of golden light; the surrounding cloud-flocks are in a moment tinged with brilliance. And again, he is suddenly eclipsed; all returns to dulness and gloom: it might be the sad dawn of a rainy day."
It is, above all, this vast and eternally busy "Pool of London" that is, and ever has been, the key to her greatness, her wealth, her power. Even the distant church bells of London, clanging fitfully through the "swish" of the wavelets and the eternal muffled roar of the City, recall to the true Londoner the commercial spirit of his ancestors. Does not the children's rhyme (there is ever deep reason in childish rhymes) run thus?
"Oranges and Lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement's;
You owe me ten shillings,
Say the bells of St. Helen's;
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey;
When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch."
The bells, be it observed, are nothing if not business-like, and seem to be more nearly concerned with our temporal than with our spiritual welfare. But here everything tells of work, of traffic,