We
left the park by another gate, and walked homeward, till we came to
Tyburnia, and saw the iron memorial which marks where the gallows used to
stand. Thence we turned into Park Lane, then into Upper Grosvenor
Street, and reached Hanover Square sooner than we expected.
In the evening I walked forth to Charing Cross, and thence along the
Strand and Fleet Street, where I made no new discoveries, unless it were
the Mitre Tavern. I mean to go into it some day. The streets were much
thronged, and there seemed to be a good many young people,--lovers, it is
to be hoped,--who had spent the day together, and were going innocently
home. Perhaps so,--perhaps not.
September 25th.--Yesterday forenoon J----- and I walked out, with no very
definite purpose; but, seeing a narrow passageway from the Strand down to
the river, we went through it, and gained access to a steamboat, plying
thence to London Bridge. The fare was a halfpenny apiece, and the boat
almost too much crowded for standing-room. This part of the river
presents the water-side of London in a rather pleasanter aspect than
below London Bridge,--the Temple, with its garden, Somerset House,--and
generally, a less tumble-down and neglected look about the buildings;
although, after all, the metropolis does not see a very stately face in
its mirror. I saw Alsatia betwixt the Temple and Blackfriar's Bridge.
Its precincts looked very narrow, and not particularly distinguishable,
at this day, from the portions of the city on either side of it.
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