The streets of London through the centuries / Thomas Burke.

  • Thomas Burke
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The streets of London through the centuries / Thomas Burke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    through the medium of the life of its streets. This has always been a favourite subject of our writers and our artists, and the literature of this aspect of London alone makes a small library. I mean such works as Dekker’s Bell-man of London and Gull's Horn-book; the pamphlets of John Taylor, Tom Brown, and Ned Ward; Gay’s Lrivia; Malcolm’s Anecdotes; and the works of that host of nineteenth-century writers on our street-life—Pierce Egan, James Grant, Albert Smith. J. T. Smith, Mark Lemon, the Mayhews, G. A. Sala, Ewing Ritchie, James Green¬ wood, G. R. Sims, among a hundred more whose names are less familiar. These men did nothing profound, and in the literary sense their writings were minor journalism. But they did useful work. The tone and manners of a nation’s life are shown more sharply in the street than in the salon or the front parlour; and from their books, and the con¬ firmation given to them by contemporary artists, we can see and hear the London life of thirty decades. We can see where we have improved, and where we have fallen back. We can see how different we are from the people who walked the streets that we walk to-day, and how much we are just like them. And in this present year we can remember that our London ancestors had often to face, though in a different form, as much disturbance and sudden death as waits for us to-day. Londoners have never been quite so boastful of their city as the sons of some towns of the North. It wasn’t a Londoner who made that grand outburst on Cheapside—“that mighty thoroughfare—thou pride of London’s east—mighty mart of old renown—a place of gold and silver, perfumes and fine linen.” That was the East Anglian, George Borrow. It wasn’t a Londoner who cried: “London, thou art of townes A per se\ Sovereign of cities, seemliest in sight.” That was the Scot, William Dunbar. Most of the London writers just mentioned were indeed highly critical; even in their moments of appreciation, they went little farther than an approving nod. But in their devotion to London, they were all faithful. T. B. September 1940