ABSTRACT

If, at any time, you should pass of an evening the Royal Palace of Pimlico, down the long line of pillared palaces, and thence diverge by the stately piles of governmental craft, the temples of brute force by land and sea, the pinnacles beneath which class legislates against class — the hall where justice darkles in its sideling nooks, or the proud pile where Mammon stands based upon the graves of buried fame — if you should pass down between the long lines of this stately but unequal epic of stone, and brick, and marble, interspersed with its episodes of gleaming water, and green trees, exotic birds and flowers, statues, arches and columns, fountains of crystal and jets of thrice filtered flame dotted on the margins, prosaic and yet brilliant notes! with its innumerable shops, and flooded with the long current of carriage, horse and foot; take but one step, and side by side with all this gaud and glory, you pass into the regions of darkness and dismay. Behind you lies the greatness of the present in light, and voice, and life; the glory of the past in pillar, arch, and statue; and before you, between two tall houses, opens a narrow, deep ravine, winding on in gloomy sightless lengths, a thin strip of murky sky stretched overhead between the reeking house-tops, like dirty calico across a broken roof. The windows of Downing-street overlook the contrast!