Gog and Magog

Gog and Magog -- or, to give them their proper titles, Gogmagog and Corinoeus, were both born in the year 1707; their wicker-work predecessors, formerly carried in procession on grand City occasions, having escaped the GreatFire^? only to succumb eventually to the combined assaults of old age and the City rats. At what period they agreed to drop the high-sounding name of Corinoeus and to divide that of Gogmagog between them, even the "Gigantic Historie of ye two famous giants of ye Guildhall" does not record. But Gog and Magog they have been for more years at all events than the memory of living Cockney runneth to the contrary. The present monsters, who are too substantially built for travelling, were carved by one Richard Saunders, to whom the City paid £70 for the job, and are permanentlly stationed in TheGuildhall."

• Dickens's Dictionary of London 1888 (see LondonGuidesAndMaps).

-- ChrisLehrich^? - 22 Jan 2005