The City seems so much more in earnest: its business, its rush, its roar are such serious things, sights and sounds. The City is getting its living – the West-End but enjoying its pleasure.

Charlotte Brontë (1815-18560) Vilette, 1853

I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing whichever comes between us.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1900), A Duet with an Occasional Chorus, 1899

London is the epitome of our times, and Rome of to-day.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

You are now / In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow / At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore / Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more / Yet in its depth what treasures!

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), letter to Maria Gisborne, 1820

High Lords, deep Statesmen, / Duchesses, and Whores, / All ranks and stations, Publicans and Peers, / Grooms, Lawyers, / Fiddlers, Bawds, and Auctioneers; / Prudes and Coquettes, the Ugly and the Fair, / The Pert, the Prim, the Dull, the Debonair; / The Weak, the Strong, the Humble and the Proud, / All help’d to form the motley, mingled Crowd.

Count William Combe (1741-1823)