this park, as you do the square miles of such territory already deep
within the metropolis.

London's jurisdiction, as marked by the Boundary Stone, extends much
farther up the river than we have as yet gone. Nor are the swans her
only vicegerents. The myrmidons of Inspector Bucket, foot and horse,
supplement those natatory representatives. So do the municipalities
encroach upon and overspread the country, as it is eminently proper
they should, seeing that to the charters so long ago exacted, and so
long and so jealously guarded, by the towns, so much of the liberty
enjoyed by English-speaking peoples is due. Large cities may be under
some circumstances, according to an often-quoted saying, plague-spots
on the body politic, but their growth has generally been commensurate
with that of knowledge and order, and indicative of anything but a
diseased condition of the national organism.

But here we are, under the shadow of the departed Nine Elms and of
the official palace of the Odos, deep enough in Lunnon to satisfy the
proudest Cockney, in less time than we have taken in getting off that
last commonplace on political economy. Adam Smith and Jefferson never
undertook to meditate at thirty-five miles an hour.

EDWARD C. BRUCE.




LINES WRITTEN AT VENICE IN OCTOBER, 1865.

Sleep, Venice, sleep! the evening gun resounds