EVERT VAN MUYDEN, AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-SEVEN 214 From the original drawing by William Strang. JOSEPH PENNELL 223 CLASSIC LONDON: ST. MARTIN'S-IN-THE-FIELDS 227 ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S, THE FOUNDER'S TOMB ENTRANCE TO HENRY THE SEVENTH'S CHAPEL ST. PAUL'S, THE WEST DOOR WESTMINSTER ABBEY ST. PAUL'S LEADENHALL MARKET 234 THA INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER CHIEFLY PERSONAL HAT sturdy old British dogmatist, Dr. Samuel Johnson, used to maintain stoutly that no man in his senses ever read a book through from beginning to end. His own method was to glance rapidly through the pages, read only the parts that interested him, and "skip" all the rest. Dr. Johnson's plan might be wisely followed in the case of this introductory chapter of mine, for it contains very little about Engravings and Etchings, and, I fear, far too much about the present writer. But at the age of sixty-five an old campaigner like myself may be pardoned if he is, at times, a little garrulous, seeing that he began his campaigning at the age of thirteen; and so I feel somewhat like Oliver Goldsmith's old soldier, who "shouldered his crutch and showed how Fields were won," although I shall pass very gently over the occasions when some of my own "fields" were lost. A kindly English cynic has said that before an old man actually falls into his dotage there intervenes a sort of mellow Indian Summer which may be called his anec-dotage, and this I take to be хіх |