covered with signs, yards in length, generally gilt, and in relief, this characteristic uniformity is less striking—­the less so, indeed, because the eye of the stranger is incessantly caught by the new and brilliant wares exposed for sale in the windows.  And these articles do not merely produce an effect, because the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which he manufactures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp and every boot, every teakettle and every woman’s dress, shines out so invitingly and so finished.  There is also a peculiar charm in the art of arrangement, in the contrast of colors, and in the variety of the English shops; even the most commonplace necessities of life appear in a startling magic light through this artistic power of setting forth everything to advantage.  Ordinary articles of food attract us by the new light in which they are placed; even uncooked fish lie so delightfully dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales attracts us; raw meat lies, as if painted, on neat and many-colored porcelain plates, garlanded about with parsley—­yes, everything seems painted, reminding us of the highly polished yet modest pictures of Franz Mieris.  But the human beings whom we see are not so cheerful as in the Dutch paintings, for they sell the jolliest wares with the most serious faces, and the cut and color of their clothes is as uniform as that of their houses.

On the opposite side of the town, which they call the West End—­“the west end of the town”—­and where the more aristocratic and less occupied world lives, the uniformity spoken of is still more dominant; yet here there are very long and very broad streets, where all the houses are large as palaces, though anything but remarkable as regards their exterior, unless we except the fact that in these, as in all the better class of houses in London, the windows of the first etage (or second story) are adorned with iron-barred balconies, and also on the rez de chaussee there is a black railing protecting the entrance to certain subterranean apartments.  In this part of the city there are also great “squares,” where rows of houses like those already described form a quadrangle, in whose centre there is a garden, inclosed by an iron railing and containing some statue or other.  In all of these places and streets the eye is never shocked by the dilapidated huts of misery.  Everywhere we are stared down on by wealth and respectability, while, crammed away in retired lanes and dark, damp alleys, Poverty dwells with her rags and her tears.

The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, and does not chance right into the regular quarters of the multitude, sees little or nothing of the fearful misery existing there.  Only here and there at the mouth of some dark alley stands a ragged woman with a suckling babe at her weak breast, and begs with her eyes.  Perhaps, if those eyes are still beautiful, we glance into them, and are