of black marble, consisting of three
hundred and forty-five steps, winding like a cork-screw, to the summit,
our aspirants reached their aerial station in the gallery of this lofty
edifice, and enjoyed one of the most variegated and extensively ~173~~
interesting prospects of any in the metropolis. Far as the eye could
reach, skirting itself down the river, a forest of tall masts appeared,
and the colours of all nations, waving gaily in the breeze, gave a
splendid idea of the opulence and industry of the first commercial city
in the universe. The moving panorama, far beneath the giddy height,
resembled the flitting figures of a _camera obscura_; the spacious
Thames was reduced to a brook; the stately vessels riding on its
undulating wave seemed the dwarfish boats of the school-boy navigator;
and glancing on the streets and along London Bridge, horses dwindled
in appearance to mice, and carriages to children's toys! after having
enjoyed, during several minutes, the prospects afforded by their
elevated position, the two friends descended, and with a feeling of
relief again trod the safer and less difficult path of _terra firma_.

Our observers now turned their direction westward, and passed into
Lombard Street, chiefly formed of banking-houses and other public
edifices. "This street," said Dashall, "is noted as the focus of wealth,
the point of convergence of civic riches, and its respectable bankers
are not more dignified by the possession of superabundant property
than enhanced in the estimation of their fellow-citizens by strictly
conscientious honour and integrity.

"And of these not the least important in self-consequence is the jolly
civic Baronet," continued Dashall, "who has already come more than once
within the scope of our observation."

"Ecce homo! behold the man!" responded the Squire, and the Baronet
was descried rolling his ponderous form from the opposite alley to his
banking-house.

"It is rather unfortunate," observed Dashall, "that nature has not kept
pace with fortune, in liberality to the Baronet. Profuse in giving him
a colossal magnitude of person, he exhibits a most disproportionable
endowment of intellect. Unlike his great prototype Sir John, in one
sense, but yet resembling him in another, 'He is not witty himself, but
he occasions wit in others.'"

"You are very fond of making a butt of me," observed the Baronet to a
brother Alderman.--"By no means," rejoined the latter, "I never was fond