the richest fighting element in the British army and navy is British
native,--that is to say, Highlander, Irish, Welsh, and Cornish.

Content, therefore, (means being now given you for filling gaps,)
with the estimates given you in the preceding lecture of the sources
of instruction possessed by the Saxon capital, I pursue to-day our
question originally proposed, what London might have been by this
time, if the nature of the flowers, trees, and children, born at the
Thames-side, had been rightly understood and cultivated.

Many of my hearers can imagine far better than I, the look that London
must have had in Alfred's and Canute's days.[3] I have not, indeed,
the least idea myself what its buildings were like, but certainly
the groups of its shipping must have been superb; small, but
entirely seaworthy vessels, manned by the best seamen in the then
world. Of course, now, at Chatham and Portsmouth we have our
ironclads,--extremely beautiful and beautifully manageable things, no
doubt--to set against this Saxon and Danish shipping; but the Saxon
war-ships lay here at London shore--bright with banner and shield
and dragon prow,--instead of these you may be happier, but are not
handsomer, in having, now, the coal-barge, the penny steamer, and the
wherry full of shop boys and girls. I dwell however for a moment only
on the naval aspect of the tidal waters in the days of Alfred, because
I can refer you for all detail on this part of our subject to the
wonderful opening chapter of Dean Stanley's History of Westminster
Abbey, where you will find the origin of the name of London given as
"The City of Ships." He does not, however, tell you, that there were
built, then and there, the biggest war-ships in the world. I have
often said to friends who praised my own books that I would rather
have written that chapter than any one of them; yet if I _had_ been