energy in stone-masonry, and in pastrycook
shops kept by poor Italians who sell meringues
at two a penny,—the consequence of all this
perseverance and enterprise soon becomes
sufficiently obvious in the unprecedentedly flourishing
aspect taken next, by our friend's fortunes.
First of all, he builds another church, and then
he plunges at once into fashionable life. He
makes acquaintances of an aristocratic kind,
enlarges his sphere of action to the utmost
attainable amount, connects himself with a great
national property on the one side, and with the
mansions of the nobility (towards which he
advances with a graceful curve) on the other; he
becomes mixed up with the aristocratic families
of Portland, Harley, and Wimpole; and is
admitted to association on almost equal terms with
those great people; he offers entertainment to
the Duke of Brunswick, and then builds another
church, dedicated to St. Marie la Bonne, and
then a workhouse, with a drinking-fountain in
its central wall, to afford hospitality to the
paupers, and the relatives who come to visit
them. After this point, his long career again
gives symptoms of decline. For a time he
makes tremendous efforts at respectability
but his views are one-sided, and while his
right hand is extended towards the better
classes of society, his left is intimately clasped
by persons of a lower grade. Philanthropic to
the last, the subject of this brief memoir erects
an expensive establishment in the bath and wash
house department, a lying-in hospital, and a
dispensary, and then, retiring into a very quiet way
of life indeed, expires in the Edgeware-road:
having previously set up a son and daughter in
business on each side of his final resting-place:
the son in the shoemaking way on a very large scale
indeed: the daughter in the bonnet line, on a
scale of even greater splendour and magnificence.

Such is the history of a thoroughfare left to
itself. The experiment is hardly satisfactory. It
is not, however, contended that every street and
every row of houses should be the result of a
conceived plan, but only that some of our main and
principal thoroughfares should be. There if no
harm in occasional irregularity, if each item that
contributes to that irregularity be reasonably good
in itself. The irregularity of Park-lane constitutes
one of its greatest charms, and that of the
row of houses which forms the eastern boundary
of the Green Park, and one of which has
already been specially indicated, is very delightful.
Has the reader ever examined that range of buildings?
It is quite unique of its kind. One house,
set far back, and with an entrance in Albemarle-
street, is red-tiled, like an old manor house;
another is roofed with green slate, such as that
which covers Kensington Palace—the most
delightful of roofs. In fact, these old houses are
almost all different; alike, only in looking as
if they were far out of London, and in possessing
such terraced gardens as it delights one to
see, and in which ladies and children walk about
and amuse themselves, as if the clubs of St.
James's-street and the bustle of Piccadilly were
a hundred miles away.

It is true, then, that irregularity may be,
and is, most desirable, more especially in the
dwelling-house department of our domestic
architecture; but it is also desirable that in
the more central portion of our town, and in
some one part of it at least, we should have a
great show thoroughfare, characterised by a
certain degree of symmetry and uniformity of design.

An opportunity has arrived of reclaiming the
reputation of our town; such an opportunity as
we have, all things considered, never had before.
There is one feature of our capital—a natural,
not a made advantage—which might gain for
it a nobleness and splendour which would set
the rival city across the Channel at defiance. A
rushing whirl of mud and sewage, a great tide
of defilement and pestilence, the Thames is yet
the glory of our town: at once its main beauty
and its disfigurement. Who that stands one day
—as he may—on the Pont Neuf, and the next on
Blackfriars-bridge, will fail to see that, in the first
case, the town deserves a better river, and that, in
the second, the river deserves a better town?
London has grown up like a neglected child, much as
it liked, without plan, without restrictions; with
here and there (as will happen, too, with the
child) a fine quality, an agreeable characteristic,
and with one great and noble gift of nature.

A plan has been more than once urged upon the
notice of parliament, by Sir Joseph Paxton, for
the formation of a line of quays on either side of
the Thames, extending from the Houses of
Parliament to London-bridge; the requisite ground
for the purpose being redeemed from the river
by embankment. Here, in the very centre and
eye of our town, and in connexion with its
finest feature, is an opportunity of erecting a
thoroughfare which, in the relief it would afford
to the streets at present unendurably crowded,
would be eminently useful, and might be so
ornamental as to alter the whole character of
our town, and win for it, by one bold stroke, a
great name for something more than mere size,
among the cities of the world.

But, to attain this object, it is necessary to go
to work in no careless or slipshod way. It will
not do to give a bare permission that the thing
may be begun, and to leave it to various hands
to work the scheme out after their own plans
and in their own fashion. If we are to take the
improvement of our river in hand to any
purpose, we must do it as every successful thing
must be done, heartily: not leaving the elimination
of the bright gift—it is dull enough now—
to ignorance and carelessness, but looking to it,
with no half-attentive energies or sluggish
purpose, ourselves.

The Tenth Journey of
THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER,
A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL JOURNEYS,
BY CHARLES DICKENS,
Will appear Next Week.