The London of Shakespeare

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 6866, 24 May 1932, Page 3

The London of Shakespeare

Perhaps in no time in tho history of London did tho City present so attractive, so picturesque, so fascinating an aspect as in tho ago of Shakespeare. It still retained the quaint unarm of Chaucer’s time, but the vitalising influence of tho Renaissance had intensified its beauty, according it a largev and deeper life. Certainly she was pleasing enough to tho eye both of tho artist and the man of business. The latter saw in her black-fronted taverns, places where he could hire seamen for adventuring on the Spanish Alain, his eye was taken with the big shops of King Street; and he coveted, mayhap, one of the spacious mansions with comfortable gardens which looked into tho water souvh of tho Strand. The artist would turn instinctively to the ancient walls, that flung around the city, and his gaze would roam over the undulating coun. try flecked with quaint windmills to the north; . . . Tho Londoner of to-day would rub his eyes with surprise if suddenly placed in the midst of his familiar haunts. Piccadilly, a pretty country road, lush with flowers; Charing, a quiet hamlet; the Strand, with its picturesque houses and leisurely gardens; Southwark,-a village with its old Tabard Inn and rustic surroundings. Suburban London had reached Whitechapel. "Both sides of the street,” said the chronicler, Stow —"bepcstered with cottages and alleys, even up to Whitechapel Church, and almost half a mile beyond it into the common fields; all which ought to bo open and -free for all men.” From Temple Bar to Westminster the way was gorgeous with palaces and stately mansions. Westminster, of course, was a city in itself, with its great Hall, its Almonery, its noble Abbey. But the traveller who struck up Northwards would find himself iu open country whore now curves Shaftesbury Avenue. And St. Pancras and King’s Cross were well out- of earshot of London; quiet, secluded and rural.

When to all this we add tho Thames, gay with silkcn-covcred tiltboats, bearing chattering crowds of gallants and ladies —the Thames, with its swans and its salmon and its bright clear waters, it is not hard to realise how picturesque was Shakespeare’s London.—From “London Life of Yesterday.” by Arthur Compton-Rickctt.