But the chief interest attached to this building is that it is
here the celebrated association known as 'Lloyd's' has its
offices--that Lloyd's, whose name is familiar as a household word in
every country the sea touches, and who underwrite the maritime
ventures of every commercial nation of the globe. Very marvellous
has been the rapid development of this gigantic institution, from
the small beginnings of a few persons meeting in a coffee-house,
till now, when it may be said well-nigh to monopolise the
maritime-assurance business of the world. Not even America has been
able to set up a rival to it at all worthy of the name; and hundreds
of the long-voyage vessels of the States, as well as of all European
powers, are insured here. There is, to be sure, a continental
association that has borrowed its name without leave, and dubbed
itself the 'Austrian Lloyd's'--a designation which forcibly reminds
one of the remark of Coleridge when told that Kotzebue assumed to be
the German Shakspeare: 'Quite so,' replied the author of the
_Ancient Mariner_, 'a very German Shakspeare indeed.' The
correspondence of the true Lloyd's is of course immense--enormous:
their agents are everywhere; and so admirably regulated does the
vast machine appear to be that litigation between owners and
underwriters is almost unknown. This is doubtless one of the causes
of the prodigious success of the institution.
There is little more to notice in the Royal Exchange, except that
the interior decorations are very tastefully executed; and therefore
turn we now to this leviathan Bank of England--to the long,
irregular, and by no means imposing line of building on our left.
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