THE RIVER THAMES AND ITS SIX MAGNIFICENT BRIDGES.

This far famed river, celebrated by historians and poets, and to which the English metropolis is chiefly indebted for its opulence and grandeur as a commercial city, takes its rise from a large spring called Thames Head, two miles south-west of Cirencester, in Gloucestershire. It is navigable by ships of 800 tons up to London Bridge, and by the largest ships to Deptford and Greenwich. The whole course of the Thames from its source till it falls into the sea, is 200 miles; at London it is about a quarter of a mile broad, and at Gravesend a mile.

The banks of the Thames, in the metropolis, are lined with large manufactories, such as iron founderies, glass-houses, &c.; and capacious warehouses, where merchandize is stored by the wharfingers. Wharfs are of two classes, one named Legal Quays, and the other Sufferance Wharfs, and certain goods are appropriated to each. The business of a wharfinger is of great importance, insomuch that their stores are the repositories of the principal wealth of this great metropolis; and they, with the lightermen, ticket porters, and other assistants, manage the whole of the water-side business-such as lightering,

landing, housing, unhousing, loading, and delivering every description of merchandize.

LONDON BRIDGE, the most ancient in this metropolis, was first built of wood, in the eleventh century. It was for ages encumbered with houses on each side, which overhung the arches, and leaned in a terrible manner. They were removed in 1756, when the upper part of the bridge was rebuilt in a very elegant modern' style. The water-works on the north-west side of the bridge supply a considerable part of the inhabitants of the city with water. There is also a water-wheel at the southern angle of this bridge, which throws up the water into a large pipe, and affords a supply of that element to Southwark.

SOUTHWARK BRIDGE is intended to form a communication from the bottom of Queen-street, Cheapside, to Bankside. It consists of three large arches of cast-iron, placed upon piers and abutments of stone.

- BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE is a most magnificent ornament to the metropolis. Its situation is admirably adapted to add to the effect of its beautiful architecture, being nearly in the central part of the capital, combining utility with elegance as a place of transit, and presenting a very general view of the greatest city in the world from its central elevation.

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This bridge has eight piers, adorned with Ionic pillars, which support nine elliptical arches. It is built of Portland stone; is 1,100 feet long, and 42 broad, with flagged foothpaths, and recesses for the accommodation of passengers. Its gradual elevation adds much to its picturesque and majestic beauty-especially when compared with the dull plane of Waterloo Bridge, which has been overpraised by the pretenders to a taste for architecture.

WATERLOO BRIDGE crosses the Thames from the western angle of Somerset House to Lambeth Marsh. It consists of nine regular arches, and is so flat that it reminds the traveller of the aqueduct which conveys the Lancaster canal over the river Lune, about half a mile from that town; with this difference, that the latter has only five, and the former nine arches. But, notwithstanding its dull flatness, it is a magnificent structure, erected by the subscription of a jointstock company, sanctioned by an act of Parlia ment. Their capital is one million sterling; but whether the tolls required of passengers will ever repay the interest of the money is very doubtful, when its comparatively remote situation, and the free passage over Blackfriars Bridge, in a much more populous and central part of the town, are considered.

WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. This beautiful ornament of the west end of the town is 1,223 feet long, 44 feet wide; it has thirteen large, and two small arches, and is adorned with twenty-eight semi-octangular towers.

VAUXHALL BRIDGE. This is the most unimportant structure of the kind in the metropolis. It crosses the river at Millbank, to the opposite vicinity of Vauxhall Gardens; consists of nine arches of cast-iron, supported by piers of stone, and is said to have cost 800,0001.

There are many other architectural ornaments in this great city, among which the MONUMENT, situated 200 yards north of London Bridge, is remarkable. It is a fluted column of the Doric order, 202 feet high. It was erected in memory of the great fire, which, in 1666, broke out at a house on the spot, and destroyed the metropolis from the Tower to Temple Bar. The inscription on the pedestal, imputing the calamity to Popish incendiaries, excited the indignation of Pope, who alludes to it in one of his satires in the following lines:

"London's column pointing to the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies."

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

ON THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF THE INHABITANTS OF LONDON.

Major famæ sitis est quam

Virtutis; quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam,

Præmia si tollas?

JUVENAL.

FROM the foregoing descriptive Sketch of the Topography of London, and of its principal edifices, the transition to strictures on the manners of the inhabitants, is obvious and natural. In this respect the metropolis is as unrivalled as it is in every other distinction, which marks it as the capital of the British Isles, and the first city on the habitable globe.

A classification of the population of London. might appear formal and absurd, if not impracticable; yet certain it is, that the different gradations of society are almost as distinctly perceptible, as if there had been a philosophical arrangement of this vast community.

Next to the Royal Family, our nobility are conspicuous, not only for their hereditary honours, immense revenues, and splendid establishments, but in numerous instances for their intellectual refinement, elevation of sentiment, be

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