having, now, the coal-barge, the penny steamer, and the
wherry full of shop boys and girls. I dwell however for a moment only
on the naval aspect of the tidal waters in the days of Alfred, because
I can refer you for all detail on this part of our subject to the
wonderful opening chapter of Dean Stanley's History of Westminster
Abbey, where you will find the origin of the name of London given as
"The City of Ships." He does not, however, tell you, that there were
built, then and there, the biggest war-ships in the world. I have
often said to friends who praised my own books that I would rather
have written that chapter than any one of them; yet if I _had_ been
able to write the historical part of it, the conclusions drawn would
have been extremely different. The Dean indeed describes with a
poet's joy the River of wells, which rose from those "once consecrated
springs which now lie choked in Holywell and Clerkenwell, and the
rivulet of Ulebrig which crossed the Strand under the Ivy bridge";
but it is only in the spirit of a modern citizen of Belgravia that he
exults in the fact that "the great arteries of our crowded streets,
the vast sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed by the
life-blood of those old and living streams; that underneath our tread
the Tyburn, and the Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wall Brook, are
still pursuing their ceaseless course, still ministering to the good
of man, though in a far different fashion than when Druids drank
of their sacred springs, and Saxons were baptized in their rushing
waters, ages ago."

[Footnote 3: Here Alfred's Silver Penny was shown and commented on,
thus:--Of what London was like in the days of faith, I can show you
one piece of artistic evidence. It is Alfred's silver penny struck in
London mint. The character of a coinage is quite conclusive evidence
in national history, and there is no great empire in progress, but
tells its story in beautiful coins. Here in Alfred's penny, a round
coin with L.O.N.D.I.N.I.A. struck on it, you have just the same
beauty of design, the same enigmatical arrangement of letters, as in
the early inscription, which it is "the pride of my life" to have
discovered at Venice. This inscription ("the first words that Venice
ever speaks aloud") is, it will be remembered, on the Church of St.
Giacomo di Rialto, and runs, being interpreted--"Around this temple,
let the merchant's law be just, his weights true, and his covenants
faithful."]