ploys a young
lady who wears pockets in her apron; and the tailor informs the public
that gentlemen may have their own materials made up.

Amidst all this change, and restlessness, and innovation, there remains
but one old man, who seems to mourn the downfall of this ancient place.
He holds no converse with human kind, but, seated on a wooden bench at
the angle of the wall which fronts the crossing from Whitehall-place,
watches in silence the gambols of his sleek and well-fed dogs. He is the
presiding genius of Scotland-yard. Years and years have rolled over his
head; but, in fine weather or in foul, hot or cold, wet or dry, hail,
rain, or snow, he is still in his accustomed spot. Misery and want are
depicted in his countenance; his form is bent by age, his head is grey
with length of trial, but there he sits from day to day, brooding over
the past; and thither he will continue to drag his feeble limbs, until
his eyes have closed upon Scotland-yard, and upon the world together.

A few years hence, and the antiquary of another generation looking into
some mouldy record of the strife and passions that agitated the world in
these times, may glance his eye over the pages we have just filled: and
not all his knowledge of the history of the past, not all his
black-letter lore, or his skill in book-collecting, not all the dry
studies of a long life, or the dusty volumes that have cost him a
fortune, may help him to the whereabouts, either of Scotland-yard, or of
any one of the landmarks we have mentioned in describing it.

CHAPTER V--SEVEN DIALS

We have always been of opinion that if Tom King and the Frenchman had not
immortalised Seven Dials, Seven Dials would have immortalised itself.
Seven Dials! the region of song and poetry--first effusions, and last
dying speeches: hallowed by the names of Catnach and of Pitts--names that
will entwine themselves with costermongers, and barrel-organs, when penny
magazines shall have superseded penny yards of song, and capital
punishment be unknown!

Look at the construction of the place. The Gordian knot was all very
well in its way: so was the maze of Hampton Court: so is the maze at the
Beulah Spa: so were the ties of stiff white neckcloths, when the
difficulty of getting one on, was only to be equalled by the apparent
impossibility of ever getting it off again. But what involutions can
compare with those of Seven Dials? Where is there such another maze of
streets, cou