The Hours of the Day and Night are taken up in the Cities of London and Westminster by Peoples as different from each other as those who are born in different parts centuries.

Richard Steele (1672-1729)

Then as to Bankruptcies, and other Villanies of that Nature, the City of London is so full of privileg’d Places, where such Thieves may take Shelter, that upon the whole it must be Confess’d there is much less Danger in being wicked at London than at Paris.

Henri Misson (c.1650-1722)

So all that great foul city of London there, – rattling, growling, smoking, stinking, – a ghastly heap of fermenting brickwork pouring out poison at every pore . . . you fancy it is a city of work? Not a street of it! It is a great city of play; very nasty play and very hard play, but still play.

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

London; a nation, not a city.

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Gin . . . is the principal Sustenance (if it may be so called) of more than an hundred thousand People in this Metropolis.

Henry Fielding (1708-1754)