human
The Great Babylon, probably the Rev. Dr. Croly) is well chosen, being at a point where intelligence from the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and the different coffee-houses where private letters from abroad are received, may be obtained in a few minutes, and thus
gpt
may be very speedily manufactured with an air of authenticity. One wide portal gapes toward the Bank, in Bartholomew Lane; and there is a sally-port into Threadneedle Street, for those who do not wish to be seen entering or emerging the other way. From the dull and dingy aspect of these approaches, which, it seems, cannot be whitened, one could form no guess at the mighty deeds of the place; and when the hourly quotations of the price of stocks are the same, the place is silent, and only a few individuals, with faces which grin but cannot smile, are seen crawling in and out, or standing yawning in the court, with their hands in their breeches' pockets. If, however, the quotations fluctuate, and the Royal Exchange, where most of the leading men of the money market lounge, be full of bustling and rumours, and especially if characters, with eyes like basilisks, and faces lined and surfaced like an asparagus bed ere the plants come up, be ever and anon darting in at the north door of the Royal Exchange, bounding toward the chief priests of Mammon, like pith balls to the conductor of an electric machine, and, when they have