_Foreign Guide-books._--The samples of foreign English preserved in your
pages are nearly equalled in ludicrous effect by the novel information
often found in guide-books and manuals published on the continent for
the use of strangers in England. Our metropolis is an inexhaustible
subject of blunders on the part of the compilers of these works, of whom
not a few deserve to rank with the Frenchman who, having heard something
of a coal duty in connexion with St. Paul's, gravely told his readers
that the cathedral was built on _sea-coal_.
The following extract is from a work entitled _Londres et ses Environs_,
Paris, 2 vols. with plates: the compiler states that, having resided
fifteen years in London, "il est, plus que tout autre, en état d'en
parler avec certitude."
"Ce gouffre majestueux a englouti la ville de Westminster, le
bourg de Southwark, et quarante-cinq villages, dont les noms,
conservés dans les différens quartiers qu'ils occupaient, sont--
Mora
Islington
Falgate
Mile End New Town
Ratcliffe
The Hermitage
The Strand
Shoreditch
White Chapel
Stepney
Wapping
The Minories
S. James
Bloomsbury
Soho
Saffron Hill
Lambeth math
The Grange
Finsbury
Hoxton
The Spital
Poplar
Shadwell
S. Catherine's
Charing Cross
S. Giles in the Fields
Holborn
Kennington
Horsley Down
Wenlaxbarn
Wauxhall
Newington Butts
Rotherhite
Clerkenwell
Norton
Mile End Old Town
Limehouse
East Smith Field
S. Clement Danes
Knightsbridge
Portpool
Lambeth
Bermondsey
Paddington, et
Mary-le-Bone."
Vol. i. pp. 39, 40.
We have here a strange admixture of the names of parishes, streets, and
prebends; amongst the last are Portpool, Mora, and Wenlake's Barn, the
precise locality of which many old Londoners would be puzzled to state.
I think the following specimen of foreigners' English, which appeared as
the address of a huge package received at the Exhibition, is worth
adding to your collection:--
"Sir Vyat and Sir Fox Henderson Esqvire
Grate Exposition
Parc of Hide
at London.
"Glace
to be posid upright."