Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
London
As I came down the Highgate Hill,
The Highgate Hill, the Highgate Hill,
As I came down the Highgate Hill
I met the sun’s bravado,
And saw below me, fold on fold,
Grey to pearl and pearl to gold,
This London like a land of old,
The land of Eldorado.
Henry Bashford—Romances.
Veni Gotham, ubi multos,
Si non omnes, vidi stultos.
I came to Gotham, where I saw many who were fools, if not all.
Richard Brathwait—Drunken Barnaby’s Journal.
A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool’s head—and there is London Town.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto X. St. 82.
London is the clearing-house of the world.
Jos. Chamberlain—Speech, Guildhall, London. Jan. 19, 1904.
If the parks be “the lungs of London” we wonder what Greenwich Fair is—a periodical breaking out, we suppose—a sort of spring rash.
Dickens—Greenwich Fair.
London is a roost for every bird.
Benj. Disraeli—Lothair. Ch. XI.
London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of to-day.
Emerson—English Traits. Result.
He was born within the sound of Bow-bell.
Fuller—Gnomologia.
London! the needy villain’s general home,
The common sewer of Paris and of Rome!
With eager thirst, by folly or by fate,
Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
Samuel Johnson—London. L. 93.
Then in town let me live, and in town let me die
For I own I can’t relish the country, not I.
If I must have a villa in summer to dwell,
Oh give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall.
Captain Morris—The Contrast.
The way was long and weary,
But gallantly they strode,
A country lad and lassie,
Along the heavy road.
The night was dark and stormy,
But blithe of heart were they,
For shining in the distance
The lights of London lay.
O gleaming lights of London, that gem of the city’s crown;
What fortunes be within you, O Lights of London Town!
George R. Sims. Song in Lights of London.
The lungs of London. (Parks)
Windham. Debate in House of Commons. June 30, 1808, attributes it to Lord Chatham.