* * * * * 

Pride in their port, defiance in their eye,
I see the lords of human kind pass by,
Intent on high designs."-GOLDSMITH. 

I HAVE no respect for the Englishman who re-enters London after long
residence abroad without a pulse that beats quick and a heart that
heaves high.  The public buildings are few, and, for the most part,
mean; the monuments of antiquity not comparable to those which the
pettiest town in Italy can boast of; the palaces are sad rubbish; the
houses of our peers and princes are shabby and shapeless heaps of brick.
But what of all this? the spirit of London is in her thoroughfares--her
population! What wealth--what cleanliness--what order--what animation!
How majestic, and yet how vivid, is the life that runs through her
myriad veins! How, as the lamps blaze upon you at night, and street
after street glides by your wheels, each so regular in its symmetry, so
equal in its civilization--how all speak of the CITY OF FREEMEN. 

Yes, Maltravers felt his heart swell within him as the post-horses