r Thames, as he moved in
sluggish grandeur by Westminster, Blackfriars Bridge, the Tower, and to
Gravesend, on his way to the channel and the sea.

To get a grand view of the town, an old sexton advised us to climb the
steeple steps of crumbling Saint Mary's, that once felt the tread of the
Crusaders, and heard the chanting hymn of monks, nuns and friars five
hundred years before.

Standing on a broken column of the old steeple, three hundred feet above
Primrose Hill, William struck an attitude of theatrical fashion and uttered
the following oratorical flight:

_Glorious London! Leviathan of human greed;
Palpitating hot-bed of iniquity and joy,
Greek, Roman, Spanish, Saxon, Kelt, Scot,
Pict, Norman and Dane
Have swept over thee like winter storms;
And the mighty Caesar, Julius of old,
With a myriad of bucklered warriors
And one hundred galleons of sailors
Triple-oared mariners, defying wave and fate,
Have ploughed the placid face of Father Thames,
Startling the loud cry of hawk and bittern
As his royal prows grated on thy strand,
Or skimmed over the marshes of thy infancy.
Yet, amid all the wrecks of human ambition
Where Pagan, Jew, Buddhist, Turk and Christian
Struggled for the mastery of gold and power,
You still march forward, giant-like and brave,
Facing the morning of progress and liberty,
Carrying thy cross and crown to all lands--
And with thy grand flotilla, chartered by Neptune
Remain mistress of all the seas, defiant--
The roar of thy cannon and drum beats
Heard with pride and glory around the world!
Sad, how sad, to think that the day will come
When not a vestige of this wonderful mass
Of human energy shall remain;
Where the cry of the wolf, bat and bittern
Shall only be heard, and Nature again
Resume her rustic, splendid desolation!
Cities older and far greater than this,
Dreaming of everlasting endurance,
Have been long since buried in desert sands,
Or engulfed in the pitiless waves of ocean,
Lost forever from the rusty records
Of Time, the tyrant and tomb builder
Of man, vain insect of a moment,
Who promises himself immortality,
And then disappears like the mist of mountains,
Or wandering meteors that sparkle and darkle
In the midnight of oblivion!_

We quickly descended from the steeple, passed by Buckingham Palace, Regent
Park, B