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    London is one of the largest cities in the world ; it is also one of the most important ; and recently it has aspired to b ^ one among the magnificent .

    And there is a real magnificence in its profusion of splendid lamps , its convenient trottoir , the wealth displayed in its shop windows , its carriages , and its crowd of well ordered public servants ; in its

    vast extent , its vaster resources , and still vaster commerce . But in architecture—the tangible and apparent beauty and grandeur of cities—it is grievously deficient ; and it does not make the most of what it

    h £ s . St Paul ' s , for instance , though not so fine a building as the occasion demanded , is a fine building . But its dignity is rather to be guessed at , or deduced by logic , than seen by the eyes . Its dome may be

    seen in the distance , forming a half-length view of the building : its foot may be seen in the cnurch-yard ; an imperfect glimpse of a fulllength , yirtth the wings hidden ,

    lnaV be caught on Ludgate Hifl ; but a fair view of the whole , mass is only to be obtained by means of pictures , in little , drawn by the rules 0 > f pieriipective from some station inaccessible to the actual

    spectator . 1 K ^ A ^ bbey is rather more exposed ; but it stands leering down Tothill Street , while one may whiten one ' s shoulders in vain against the courts of law

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    240

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    TRAFALGAR SQUARE .

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    in coquetting for a look at the venerable beauties of Henry VlFs chapel ; and St Margaret ' s comes to help it still better to conceal itself

    from the lawyers as they pass into the Hall . St Margaret ' s looks like a stunted and useless campanile , for the minster has two towers already . The new Post-office is in a

    wide street , but still it is a street , and the angle at which it must be viewed is consequently of the most obtuse . Hoare ' s bank , the handsomest house in London , is in a narrower street . On the other

    hand , one gets a tolerable view of Nash's needle , and the circumjacent beauties of Regent Street . It is pbvious , however that a really fine building can rarely

    be placed in view just at the end of a street , even if that site would suffice to display it . It must stand in an open space , lik § Buckingham

    Palace , —only that is not . a fine building . The College of Surgeons , which has a handsome front , is half hidden by the shrubs before it . Besides .

    though that building does stand in a square , there is no choice in the point of , view ; it must either be close , or distant . Now such an open

    space as we require Vve do not possess in all London * Our great city has its broad streets , its nightly JlluiiQ | inations , its fine buildings , ( though not many , ) its

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 1, 1837, page 240, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1836/page/16/