time, and made it so attractive to Jocelyn’s eyes.  The diversified and picturesque architecture of its ancient habitations, as yet undisturbed by the innovations of the Italian and Dutch schools, and brought to full perfection in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, gave the whole city a characteristic and fanciful appearance.  Old towers, old belfries, old crosses, slender spires innumerable, rose up amid a world of quaint gables and angular roofs.  Story above story sprang those curious dwellings; irregular yet homogeneous; dear to the painter’s and the poet’s eye; elaborate in ornament; grotesque in design; well suited to the climate, and admirably adapted to the wants and comforts of the inhabitants; picturesque like the age itself, like its costume, its manners, its literature.  All these characteristic beauties and peculiarities are now utterly gone.  All the old picturesque habitations have been devoured by fire, and a New City has risen in their stead;—­not to compare with the Old City, though—­and conveying no notion whatever of it—­any more than you or I, worthy reader, in our formal, and, I grieve to say it, ill-contrived attire, resemble the picturesque-looking denizens of London, clad in doublet, mantle, and hose, in the time of James the First.

Another advantage in those days must not be forgotten.  The canopy of smoke overhanging the vast Modern Babel, and oftentimes obscuring even the light of the sun itself, did not dim the beauties of the Ancient City,—­sea coal being but little used in comparison with wood, of which there was then abundance, as at this time in the capital of France.  Thus the atmosphere was clearer and lighter, and served as a finer medium to reveal objects which would now be lost at a quarter the distance.

Fair, sparkling, and clearly defined, then, rose up Old London before Jocelyn’s gaze.  Girded round with gray walls, defended by battlements, and approached by lofty gates, four of which—­to wit, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopgate, and Aldgate—­were visible from where he stood; it riveted attention from its immense congregation of roofs, spires, pinnacles, and vanes, all glittering in the sunshine; while in the midst of all, and pre-eminent above all, towered one gigantic pile—­the glorious Gothic cathedral.  Far on the east, and beyond the city walls, though surrounded by its own mural defences, was seen the frowning Tower of London—­part fortress and part prison—­a structure never viewed in those days without terror, being the scene of so many passing tragedies.  Looking westward, and rapidly surveying the gardens and pleasant suburban villages lying on the north of the Strand, the young man’s gaze settled for a moment on Charing Cross—­the elaborately-carved memorial to his Queen, Eleanor, erected by Edward I.—­and then ranging over the palace of Whitehall and its two gates, Westminster Abbey—­more beautiful without its towers than with them—­it became fixed upon Westminster Hall; for there, in one of its chambers, the ceiling of which was adorned with gilded stars, were held the councils of that terrible tribunal which had robbed him of his inheritance, and now threatened him with deprivation of liberty, and mutilation of person.  A shudder crossed him as he thought of the Star-Chamber, and he turned his gaze elsewhere, trying to bring the whole glorious city within his ken.