LONDON BY NIGHT.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 572, 19 April 1876, Page 2

LONDON BY NIGHT.

There is a terrace under the eastern end of Highgate Church overlooking London. If the sight from hence is magnificent in the day time it is not less so, and still more impressive, on a clear night, for then the w hole valley is dotted with sparkling lights, which would seem, except for the difference of colour, to be almost like a reflection of the stars in the heavens. The lines appear interminable, and London might be com* pared to a vast and complicated gas illumination, laid out on the ground, with a dark country beyond for a background, In this quiet spot, remote from any other sound, the roar of London is most remarkable. It is a continuous muttering, rising and falling as the wind brings it to you or removes it from you, and in this respect it may be compared to the rushing of the sea on the shore, but that is more melancholy in its tone. Down there in that valley is fought every day the Great Battle of Life, in which the combatants may be counted by millions. There is the great camp of the living ; but immediately at our feet is another city—the city of the Silent -and every day the dead are carried out from the battle and laid here to rest, and many have never known rest before, but have died literally “ with harness on their backs.” The sound of the tumult of the battle rises up the hill; but the part they took in it is over.