London,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark,  was  very  circumscribed
in  its  area  compared  to  its  overgrown  present  dimensions.  The
northern  bank  of  the  river  was  well  occupied  from  Shadwell  to
Westminster,  opposite  Lambeth.  On  the  west  the  houses  went
down  the  northern  side  of  Piccadilly,  as  far  as  Apsley  House;  but
Bond  Street  was  only  partially  built,  and  there  were  no  houses
>vestward  of  it.  The  Edgware  Road  and  Tottenham  (or,  as  it  was
then  called,  Hampstead)  Road  were  in  existence,  but  few  were  the
houses  in  either  of  them.  At  the  Back  of  Montague  and  South-
ampton Houses,  and  generally  north  of  Theobald's  Road  and
Clerkenwell,  there  was  nought  but  fields,  dotted  here  and  there
■     >  Trivioi


THE  STREETS.
363


with  farmhouses — with  the  hills  of  Hampstead  and  Highgate  for  a
background.  Houses  ceased,  on  the  eastern  side,  after  Shoreditch,
and  shortly  after  passing  Whitechapel  Church  ;  so  that  a  walk  all
round  inhabited  London — skirting  the  north  bank  of  the  river  to
begin  with — might  be  done  in  about  twelve  miles.
Covent  Garden  was  the  centre  of  social  life.  Soho  and  Leicester
Squares,  and  thence  westward,  comprised  the  limits  of  the  court
and  fashionable  society — that  land  of  luxury  for  which  Gay  sighed,
but  which  yet  was  not  perfect.
