To the Reader.
Streets should be so narrow and incommodious in the very Center, and busiest places of Intercourse: That there should be so ill and uneasie a form of Paving under foot, so troublesome and malicious a disposure of the Spouts and Gutters overhead, are particulars worthy of Reproof and Reformation; because it is hereby rendred a Labyrinth in its principal passages, and a continual Wet-day after the Storm is over. Add to this the Deformity of so frequent Wharfes and Magazines of Wood, Coale, Boards, and other course Materials, most of them imploying the Places of the Noblest aspect for the situation of Palaces towards the goodly River, when they might with far lesse Disgrace, be removed to the Bank-side, and afterwards disposed with as much facility where the Consumption of these Commodities lyes; a Key in the mean time so contrived on London-side, as might render it lesse sensible of the Reciprocation of the Waters, for Use and Health infinitely superiour to what it now enjoys. These are the Desiderata which this great City labours under, and which we so much deplore. But I see the Dawning of a brighter day approach; We have a Prince who is Resolv'd to be a Father to his Country; and a Parliament whose Decrees and Resentiments take their Impression from his Majesties great Genius, which studies only the
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