introduced to quite a distinguished artistic set.

It was great. It was glorious. At last we were in London--the dream of my
literary ambitions. I have since lived much in this wondrous city and in
many parts of it between Hyde Park Corner, the heart of May Fair, to the
east end of Bloomsbury under the very sound of Bow Bells. All the way as
it were from Tyburn Tree that was, and the Marble Arch that is, to Charing
Cross and the Hay Market. This were not to mention casual sojourns along
Piccadilly and the Strand.

In childhood I was obsessed by the immensity, the atmosphere and the
mystery of London. Its nomenclature embedded itself in my fancy; Hounsditch
and Shoreditch, Billingsgate and Blackfriars; Bishopgate, within, and
Bishopgate, without; Threadneedle Street and Wapping-Old-Stairs; the Inns
of Court where Jarndyce struggled with Jarndyce, and the taverns where the
Mark Tapleys, the Captain Costigans and the Dolly Vardens consorted.

Alike in winter fog and summer haze, I grew to know and love it, and those
that may be called its dramatis personae, especially its tatterdemalions,
the long procession led by Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin and Jonathan Wild
the Great. Inevitably I sought their haunts--and they were not all gone in
those days; the Bull-and-Gate in Holborn, whither Mr. Tom Jones repaired on
his arrival in town, and the White Hart Tavern, where Mr. Pickwick fell in
with Mr. Sam Weller; the regions about Leicester Fields and Russell Square
sacred to the memory of Captain Booth and the lovely Amelia and Becky
Sharp; where Garrick drank tea with Dr. Johnson and Henry Esmond tippled
with Sir Richard Steele. There was yet a Pump Court, and many places along
Oxford Street where Mantalini and De Quincy loitered: and Covent Garden and
Drury Lane. Evans' Coffee House, or shall I say the Cave of Harmony, and
The Cock and the Cheshire Cheese were near at hand for refreshment in the