weight and fineness; the other, that the very best and fiercest
discourse I ever heard fulminated against the debasing love of gold,
especially characteristic, it is said, of these degenerate days, was
delivered by a gentleman who, having lived some seventy useful and
eloquent years at the rate of about three hundred a year or
thereabout, was found to have died worth upwards of L.60,000, all
secured by mortgages bearing 7 per cent interest on the Brazilian
slave-estates of a relative by marriage. But as an illustration of
power--and power under any form of development has a singular
fascination for most minds--I have thought it may not be
uninteresting to glance briefly at a few of the more salient features
of the metropolitan mammoth markets.

Standing, then, by the statue of the Iron Duke, we have the Royal
Exchange directly in front, Princes Street and the Poultry
immediately behind, Lombard Street and Cornhill on the right,
Threadneedle Street and Lothbury on the left hand. What an Aladin
glitter seems to dance upon the paper as the names of these
remarkable localities are jotted down, containing as they do so
large a number of world-famous banking and commercial establishments
whose operations and influence are limited only by the boundaries of
civilisation! Let us look closely at one or two of the chief
potentates, principalities, and powers which are there enthroned.

The Royal Exchange, it is well known, owes its origin to the public
spirit of Sir Thomas Gresham, who, close upon three centuries ago,
built the first Exchange upon the spot now before us. It was
destroyed by fire in 1666; the next more costly erection met the
same fate in 1838, and has been replaced by the present very
handsome edifice. On the entablature is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,