PREFATORY.

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T is hoped that in the voluminous literature which London has gathered around it this Book about London, in its two parts, may find a place of its own.

It is not intended as a guide-book, nor as a topographical indicator. It is narrative rather than descriptive. As a rule, people do not care much for minute descriptions of places or buildings; what they chiefly want to know is, the special interest that attaches to them-historical, romantic, literary, or artistic.

This I have endeavoured to put forward. From all sources it has been my aim to collect, in the volume entitled "London Streets," the more interesting associations of London,-its traditions that still possess a lingering life, its memories of notable persons and notable events. Much will be found in this division that former writers have overlooked. The references to the localities where

great men, or men worthy to be remembered, have lived and died, are particularly numerous, and generally accompanied with some illustrative anecdote or detail.

Narratives of remarkable scenes, events, and incidents are given in the present volume, under the title of "London Stories;" each of which is distinct in itself, and has been selected with a view to the illustration of different aspects of London life and history. The two volumes form "A Book about London:" not about commercial, or financial, or fashionable, or architectural London; but about the London of remarkable men and women, the London of history, the London of romance and legend.

I can honestly say that I have spared no pains to ensure accuracy by reference to primary authorities, and by careful study of the results of the latest research. Necessarily I owe no inconsiderable debt to my predecessors, from some hundred of whom I have borrowed more or less, though not without condensation, abridgement, adaptation, and addition. The arrangement of materials is, of course, my own; and as to the general conception of the book, I may say, in conclusion, that it is intended to be read, and not shelved among those most useful, but very dreary, Works of Reference," which are the joy of the librarian and the despair of "the general reader."