The Sun.
London, England, 1867-05-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TI3IES.—It appears, after all, that Paris is not to
have the monopoly of Crowned Heads for this sea-
son. Rather more than the crumbs from the rich
feast from our neighbours will fall to our share.
The Sultan is expected to visit London immediately
on leaving the French capital, and there is every
probability that the Emperor Alexander of Russia
will also be our guest. We say, advisedly, that
these great monarchs are coming to MI ; for it is on
ourselves, on all of us, on the whole English nation,
that the duties of hospitality will devolve. Buck-
ingham Palace, we understand, is to be placed at
the disposal of Abdul-Aziz, but the gracious lady
of the mansion will not be there to du the honours
to the Sublime stranger; and, although full reli-
ance may be placed on the courtesy and attention
with which the heir to the throne will dedicate
himself to the entertainment of so exalted a per-
sonage, it will be London that be comes .to see, and
London that the Prince will have to show him.
Our great city will not show to the best advan-
tage before eyes dazzled by Parisian glitter, but,
after all, there is not a little that is remarkable
in this old London of ours. It is not " a Court"
as 'Madrid is said to be ; not a capital in the sense
that the term is applied to Paris. It is not by
Kings or by Governments that it is made. It
is the nation's direct and spontaneous produc-
tion. London is intensely English, yet it is by
no means England ; it is hardly the home of
English choice. To be a native or an inhabitant
of London is no man's peculiar gratification. Nu
one was ever beard to 'boast of the purity of his
London accent. So far as addiction to the at-
mosphere of a city can be accounted civilization,
the English can hardly yet be said to 1)3 civilized.
The Englishman's habits are rural, his genius rustic;
London is to him a workshop, a bazaar, an exchange,
Government offices, Houses- of Parliainent. Few
live in London except on business, or beyond the

immediate requirements of business. Yet the we!e
fact that three millions of souls have business in it
is sufficient to make London unlike any other place
in the world. No other town is so thoroughly
subsistent. _ The bees make up the hive, and eau
well dispense with the presence of the drones. The
" upper ten thousand," who come to make liar'
work of their pleasures for three or four mouths in
the year, enliven, indeed, but do not support, then
town. They create a pleasant stir in their ow
quarters, but are hardly recognised elsewhere;
Islington and Southwark know little of and care
less for them. The tide that goes down Holborn
and the Strand ebbs and flows no fuller and faster
on their account. Wemay grieve for the causes that
estrange the Court from the Capital, but its alseeee
is accounted no material loss beyond the immediate
Irecincts of the Palace. And if London is indepen-
dent of Royal patronage, she is even more above
any alvantage derivable from the influx of foreign
visitors. To such cities as Turin or Florence, or
even Naples or Paris, the concourse of strangers Is
the very breeth of their nostrils. Without
it they
die. The beauty in which they are perpetually
arraying themselves, the charms of their sites, their
museums, their galleries, and their monuments, ar°
hardly their own. 'Their most eligible quart`rs'
their Rue Rivolis, their Lung' Arnos, their Chia'a;s,'
are abandoned to the thrice welcome invaders. Their
theatres, their promenades, their social circles, open
and close with the arrival and departure of the but-
terfly guests. Nay, the very Courts, on which so
much stress is laid, are chiefly valuable as decoys fe:
birds of passage. In Florence or Dresden such good-
natured Sovereigns as King John of Saxony or the
Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany used to give
balls
and hold levees and reviewson speculation. Init°l
Christmas itself and the, Holy Week would fall
with the crowds of strangers, and chiefly of here-
tics. But in London who everreekons on foreigners,
or who is even aware of their presence ? In what
State measure, or in what act of Parliament, are
the interests of our hotel and lodging-house keepers,
ever-
ever considered? It was as a stimulus to the Work
of the nation, not as mere custom to the trade e'
the capital, that the first Crystal Palace was thrown
open in Hyde-park. Even in 1851, or in 186-1'
the English aspect of our streets was not so pereelr
tibly altered, nor the economy of our life so grentl,?:
disturbed, by the thousands who flocked to us 7,
people anticipated. Away from Leicester-square
our ears are seldom jarred by a Babel of tongues'
The " illustrious guests" admitted to our clubs rn3l
be counted on a man's fingers ; all this, not because
England is inhospitable, or foreign visitors unfre-
quent, but simply because thousands of theca are
,
lost in the millions of our dense multitude ; because
more idlers are absorbed in the incessant whirl of
our uniform activity ; because England is not wholly
in London as France is in Paris, nor Loll
a
wholly in Pall-mall as Paris is in the-BAleveswiel
because, scattered in our various centres, and ase°;
ciated with our different classes, foreigners have.,
here those rendezvous, those special quarters Win"
make their presence conspicuous elsewhere. Ohec
ing centrifugal and centripetal forces perpetually in
conflict, with business constantly converging °,
Lombard-street, and life no less incessantly diverf,
ing upon every line of road and railroad, it .inaY re,
' said of London that it is everywhere and llowile.
We have every one of us a London of our ovlolo
house, perhaps, or a shop or an office, with our e";,
friends, our own acquaintance ; the rest is cots
,
paratively a blank—a wilderness of strefe 3
squares, and crescents, without nothing but 3
number to every door we pass, nothing hilv„,t,
physiognomical index to every face we
It is less, perhaps, owing to its vastness than
to this strangeness of its people to one anet to
that London owes the effect it has the poiverhao
create on the minds of its own citizens no less t"
on those of its foreign visitors, whenever auY es.tieit
ordinary occurrence calls its masses toaethere,o
takes nothing less than the entrance of a Tur'i 3
Padishah or of a Czar of All the Russian or Ogee
Garibaldi to reveal London to itself ; but, unuot
any such cause of excitement, the awe inspired, 11_,
by a crowd, but by a whole nation of s
scarcely allows room for wonder at any object eller
bited before them. To the brighter skies and un
time
climates, to the
,lofty- edifices which constitute
boast of other cities our own London has onlY For
advantage of overwhelming numbers to oppose', 01
a first impression this is all-sufficient; but
of our guests will allow himself leisure to 100/A
little closer into the causes which assemble SO O'er,
family of mankind in so small a place, he maYl,Pthe
haps form such an opinion of the character, of le
institutions, of the tastes and habits of the Ple
who have made London what it is, as may'
him take it for what it is, and like it as it is. the
pectatoreih
don is not the city of Caesars ; it does not bear
ore
mark of the Napoleous; but no other place In le.
fitrribly erubodie the whole genius of a r 7.;tir
There is no other such representative place. „,ct
love of work, our instincts of freedom, our restoter
far the law, our regard for our fellow-beings' -er
worship of wealth and rank, our independence, "ur
exclusiveness—all the lights awl shades of °e,
national character are apparent in the veil sall'of
ness of our rectilinear streets, in the broad flage„o
our footpaths, in the very railings of our ar"-ery.
However tame and unpretending, our town is veiog
unlike all other towns. It may be worth se. to,
• even when all else has been seen. And, at all o'l'oo
we must set it off to the best of our abilities, ~na
our exalted guests—the Czars and the Sultans, ao
the other great ones of the earth—may find, that
the world does not end at the Channel, anuoo3
fr
' there may be something essentially different to
anything in the power of Caesars or Napoleons
produce.