Place a Forum5 or an Acropolis in its centre, and the effect of the metropolitan6 mass, which now has neither head nor heart, instead of being stupefying, would be ennobling. Nothing more completely represents a nation than a public building. A member of Parliament only represents, at the most, the united constituencies: but the Palace of the Sovereign, a National Gallery, or a Museum baptised with the name of the country, these are monuments to which all should be able to look up with pride, and which should exercise an elevating influence upon the spirit of the humblest. What is their influence in London? Let us not criticise7 what all condemn8. But how remedy the evil? What is wanted in architecture, as in so many things, is a man. Shall we find a refuge in a Committee of Taste? Escape from the mediocrity of one to the mediocrity of many? We only multiply our feebleness, and aggravate9 our deficiencies. But one suggestion might be made. No profession in England has done its duty until it has furnished its victim. The pure administration of justice dates from the deposition10 of Macclesfield. Even our boasted navy never achieved a great victory until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged? Terror has its inspiration as well as competition.
Though London is vast, it is very monotonous11. All those new districts that have sprung up within the last half-century, the creatures of our commercial and colonial wealth, it is impossible to conceive anything more tame, more insipid12, more uniform. Pancras is like Mary-le-bone, Mary-le-bone is like Paddington; all the streets resemble each other, you must read the names of the squares before you venture to knock at a door. This amount of building capital ought to have produced a great city. What an opportunity for architecture suddenly summoned to furnish habitations for a population equal to that of the city of Bruxelles, and a population, too, of great wealth. Mary-le-bone alone ought to have produced a revolution in our domestic architecture. It did nothing. It was built by Act of Parliament. Parliament prescribed even a fa?ade. It is Parliament to whom we are indebted for your Gloucester Places, and Baker13 Streets, and Harley Streets, and Wimpole Streets, and all those flat, dull, spiritless streets, resembling each other like a large family of plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for their respectable parents. The influence of our Parliamentary Government upon the fine arts is a subject worth pursuing. The power that produced Baker Street as a model for street architecture in its celebrated14 Building Act, is the power that prevented Whitehall from being completed, and which sold to foreigners all the pictures which the King of England had collected to civilise his people.
In our own days we have witnessed the rapid creation of a new metropolitan quarter, built solely15 for the aristocracy by an aristocrat16. The Belgrave district is as monotonous as Mary-le-bone; and is so contrived17 as to be at the same time insipid and tawdry.
Where London becomes more interesting is Charing18 Cross. Looking to Northumberland House, and turning your back upon Trafalgar Square, the Strand19 is perhaps the finest street in Europe, blending the architecture of many periods; and its river ways are a peculiar20 feature and rich with associations. Fleet Street, with its Temple, is not unworthy of being contiguous to the Strand. The fire of London has deprived us of the delight of a real old quarter of the city; but some bits remain, and everywhere there is a stirring multitude, and a great crush and crash of carts and wains. The Inns of Court, and the quarters in the vicinity of the port, Thames Street, Tower Hill, Billingsgate, Wapping, Rotherhithe, are the best parts of London; they are full of character: the buildings bear a nearer relation to what the people are doing than in the more polished quarters.
The old merchants of the times of the first Georges were a fine race. They knew their position, and built up to it. While the territorial22 aristocracy, pulling down their family hotels, were raising vulgar streets and squares upon their site, and occupying themselves one of the new tenements23, the old merchants filled the straggling lanes, which connected the Royal Exchange with the port of London, with mansions24 which, if not exactly equal to the palaces of stately Venice, might at least vie with many of the hotels of old Paris. Some of these, though the great majority have been broken up into chambers26 and counting-houses, still remain intact.
In a long, dark, narrow, crooked27 street, which is still called a lane, and which runs from the south side of the street of the Lombards towards the river, there is one of these old houses of a century past, and which, both in its original design and present condition, is a noble specimen28 of its order. A pair of massy iron gates, of elaborate workmanship, separate the street from its spacious29 and airy court-yard, which is formed on either side by a wing of the mansion25, itself a building of deep red brick, with a pediment, and pilasters, and copings of stone. A flight of steps leads to the lofty and central doorway30; in the middle of the court there is a garden plot, inclosing a fountain, and a fine plane tree.
The stillness, doubly effective after the tumult31 just quitted, the lulling32 voice of the water, the soothing33 aspect of the quivering foliage34, the noble building, and the cool and capacious quadrangle, the aspect even of those who enter, and frequently enter, the precinct, and who are generally young men, gliding35 in and out, earnest and full of thought, all contribute to give to this locality something of the classic repose36 of a college, instead of a place agitated37 with the most urgent interests of the current hour; a place that deals with the fortunes of kings and empires, and regulates the most important affairs of nations, for it is the counting-house in the greatest of modern cities of the most celebrated of modern financiers.
It was the visit of Tancred to the City, on the Wednesday morning after he had met Lord Eskdale, that occasions me to touch on some of the characteristics of our capital. It was the first time that Tancred had ever been in the City proper, and it greatly interested him. His visit was prompted by receiving, early on Wednesday morning, the following letter:
‘Dear Tancred: I saw Sidonia yesterday, and spoke38 to him of what you want. He is much occupied just now, as his uncle, who attended to affairs here, is dead, and, until he can import another uncle or cousin, he must steer39 the ship, as times are critical. But he bade me say you might call upon him in the City today, at two o’clock. He lives in Sequin Court, near the Bank. You will have no difficulty in finding it. I recommend you to go, as he is the sort of man who will really understand what you mean, which neither your father nor myself do exactly; and, besides, he is a person to know.
‘I enclose a line which you will send in, that there may be no mistake. I should tell you, as you are very fresh, that he is of the Hebrew race; so don’t go on too much about the Holy Sepulchre.
‘Yours faithfully,
‘ESKDALE.
‘Spring Gardens, Wednesday morning.’
It is just where the street is most crowded, where it narrows, and losing the name of Cheapside, takes that of the Poultry40, that the last of a series of stoppages occurred; a stoppage which, at the end of ten minutes, lost its inert41 character of mere42 obstruction43, and developed into the livelier qualities of the row. There were oaths, contradictions, menaces: ‘No, you sha’n’t; Yes, I will; No, I didn’t; Yes, you did; No, you haven’t; Yes, I have;’ the lashing44 of a whip, the interference of a policeman, a crash, a scream. Tan-cred looked out of the window of his brougham. He saw a chariot in distress45, a chariot such as would have become an Ondine by the waters of the Serpentine46, and the very last sort of equipage that you could expect to see smashed in the Poultry. It was really breaking a butterfly upon a wheel to crush its delicate springs, and crack its dark brown panels, soil its dainty hammer-cloth, and endanger the lives of its young coachman in a flaxen wig47, and its two tall footmen in short coats, worthy21 of Cinderella.
The scream, too, came from a fair owner, who was surrounded by clamorous48 carmen and city marshals, and who, in an unknown land, was afraid she might be put in a city compter, because the people in the city had destroyed her beautiful chariot. Tan-cred let himself out of his brougham, and not without difficulty contrived, through the narrow and crowded passage formed by the two lines, to reach the chariot, which was coming the contrary way to him. Some ruthless officials were persuading a beautiful woman to leave her carriage, the wheel of which was broken. ‘But where am I to go?’ she exclaimed. ‘Icannot walk. I will not leave my carriage until you bring me some conveyance49. You ought to punish these people, who have quite ruined my chariot.’
‘They say it was your coachman’s fault; we have nothing to do with that; besides, you know who they are. Their employers’ name is on the cart, Brown, Bugsby, and Co., Limehouse. You can have your redress50 against Brown, Bugsby, and Co., Lime-house, if your coachman is not in fault; but you cannot stop up the way, and you had better get out, and let the carriage be removed to the Steel-yard.’
‘What am I to do?’ exclaimed the lady with a tearful eye and agitated face.
‘I have a carriage at hand,’ said Tancred, who at this moment reached her, ‘and it is quite at your service.’
The lady cast her beautiful eyes, with an expression of astonishment51 she could not conceal52, at the distinguished53 youth who thus suddenly appeared in the midst of insolent54 carmen, brutal55 policemen, and all the cynical56 amateurs of a mob. Public opinion in the Poultry was against her; her coachman’s wig had excited derision; the footmen had given themselves airs; there was a strong feeling against the shortcoats. As for the lady, though at first awed57 by her beauty and magnificence, they rebelled against the authority of her manner. Besides, she was not alone. There was a gentleman with her, who wore moustaches, and had taken a part in the proceedings58 at first, by addressing the carmen in French. This was too much, and the mob declared he was Don Carlos.
‘You are too good,’ said the lady, with a sweet expression.
[Illustration: page152]
Tancred opened the door of the chariot, the policemen pulled down the steps, the servants were told to do the best they could with the wrecked59 equipage; in a second the lady and her companion were in Tancred’s brougham, who, desiring his servants to obey all their orders, disappeared, for the stoppage at this moment began to move, and there was no time for bandying compliments.
He had gained the pavement, and had made his way as far as the Mansion House, when, finding a group of public buildings, he thought it prudent60 to inquire which was the Bank.
‘That is the Bank,’ said a good-natured man, in a bustle61, but taken by Tancred’s unusual appearance. ‘What do you want? I am going there.’
‘I do not want exactly the Bank,’ replied Tancred, ‘but a place somewhere near it. Do you happen to know, sir, a place called Sequin Court?’
‘I should think I did,’ said the man, smiling. ‘So you are going to Sidonia’s?’
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1
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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forum
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| n.论坛，讨论会 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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aggravate
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| vt.加重(剧)，使恶化；激怒，使恼火 | |
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deposition
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| n.免职，罢官；作证；沉淀；沉淀物 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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insipid
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| adj.无味的，枯燥乏味的，单调的 | |
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baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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territorial
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| adj.领土的，领地的 | |
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tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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lulling
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的现在分词形式） | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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steer
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| vt.驾驶，为…操舵；引导；vi.驾驶 | |
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poultry
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| n.家禽，禽肉 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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serpentine
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| adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的 | |
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wig
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| n.假发 | |
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clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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50
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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51
astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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52
conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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53
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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54
insolent
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| adj.傲慢的，无理的 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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56
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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