CHAPTER VII

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If there is any one exhibition that seems to possess interest to the inhabitants of the rural districts of both America and England, it is "wax works." Mrs. Jarley understood the taste of the English public in this direction, if we are to believe her celebrated chronicler. Artemus Ward commenced his career with his celebrated collection of "wax figgers;" and one of the sights of London, at the present day,--and a sight, let me assure the reader, that is well worth the seeing,--is Madame Tussaud's "exhibition of distinguished characters."

Let not the unsophisticated reader suppose that this is a collection of frightful caricatures, similar to those he has seen at travelling exhibitions or cheap shows, where one sees the same figure that has done duty as Semmes, the pirate, transformed, by change of costume, into the Duke of Wellington, or Jefferson Davis, or that it is one of those sets of figures with expressionless-looking faces, and great, staring glass eyes, dressed in cast-off theatrical wardrobes, or garments suggestive of an old-clothes shop. Nothing of the sort. Madame Tussaud's exhibition was first opened in the Palais Royal, Paris, in 1772, and in London 1802, and is the oldest exhibition of the kind known; and although the celebrated Madame is dead, her sons still keep up the exhibition, improving upon it each season, and display an imposing list of noble patrons upon their catalogue, among whom figure the names of Prince Albert, Louis XVIII., the late Duke of Wellington, &c.

The price of admission is a shilling; an additional sixpence is charged to visit the Chamber of Horrors; and a catalogue costs the visitor another sixpence, so that it is a two-shilling affair, but richly worth it. The exhibition consists of a series of rooms, in which the figures, three hundred in number, are classified and arranged. The first I sauntered into was designated the Hall of Kings, and contained fifty figures of kings and queens, from William the Conqueror to Victoria; they were all richly clad in appropriate costumes, some armed with mail and weapons, and with faces, limbs, and attitudes so artistically and strikingly natural, as to startle one by their marvellous semblance of reality; then the costumes, ornaments, and arms are exact copies of those worn at the different periods, and the catalogue asserts that the faces are carefully modelled from the best portraits and historical authorities.

Here are William the Conqueror and his Queen Matilda; here is William Rufus, with his red locks and covetous brow; here stands Richard I. (Coeur de Lion), his tall figure enclosed in shirt of chain-mail; and there sits King John, with dark frown and clinched hand, as if cursing the fate that compelled him to yield to the revolting barons, and sign Magna Charta; Edward III. and his Queen, Philippa, the latter wearing a girdle of the order of knighthood; and near at hand, Edward's noble, valiant son, the Black Prince--a magnificent figure, looking every inch a warrior, and noble gentleman. The artist had succeeded in face, costume, and attitude in representing in this work one of the most grand and chivalric-looking figures I ever looked upon, and which caused me, again and again, to turn and gaze at what appeared such an embodiment of nobleness and bravery as one might read of in poetry and romance, but never see in living person. Among others of great merit was the figure of Edward IV. in his coronation robes, who was considered the handsomest man of his time; and Richard III. in a splendid suit of armor of the period, and the face copied from an original portrait owned by the Duke of Norfolk; Henry VII. in the same splendid costume in which he figures on his monument in Westminster Abbey; and then bluff old Henry VIII., habited in a full suit of armor, as worn by him on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Queen Mary (Bloody Mary) in her rich costume; then comes Queen Elizabeth, dressed exactly as she is in Holbein's well-known picture at Hampton Court Palace; Charles I. in the splendid suit of chevalier armor of his time; and Oliver Cromwell in his russet boots, leather surcoat, steel gorget and breastplate, broad hat, and coarse, square features; George III. in the robes of the Order of St. Patrick; his majesty George IV. in that stunning costume of silk stockings, breeches, &c., and the robes of the Order of the Garter over it, in which he figures in the picture that we are all so familiar with.

Then we have Victoria and her whole family, a formidable group in point of numbers, very well executed figures, and clad in rich and fashionably-made costumes, some of which are veritable court dresses, which have been purchased after being cast aside by the wearers. Certainly the outfit of these figures must be a heavy expense, as is evident to the most casual observer.

So much for the hall of English sovereigns. The other statues embrace representations of other monarchs and celebrated personages. Nicholas I. of Russia's tall figure looms up in his uniform of Russian Guards; Napoleon III., Marshal St. Arnaud, and General Canrobert in their dresses of French generals; Abdul Medjid in full Turkish costume, and the Empress Eugenie in a splendid court dress.

A very fine figure of Charlemagne in full armor, equipped for battle, which was manufactured for the great exhibition of 1862, is a splendid specimen of figure-work and modern armor manufacture. Then we came to a fine figure of Wolsey in his cardinal's dress. Mrs. Siddons in the character of Queen Katherine, Macready as Coriolanus, and Charles Kean as Macbeth, are evidence that the theatrical profession is remembered, while Knox, Calvin, and Wesley indicate attention to the clergy.

The few American figures were for the most part cheaper affairs than the rest of the collection, and might be suspected, some of them, of being old ones altered to suit the times. For instance, that of General McClellan, President Lincoln and his Assassin, _George_ Wilkes Booth, as the catalogue has it, would hardly pass for likenesses.

There is a very natural, life-like-looking figure of Madame Tussaud herself, a little old lady in a large old-fashioned bonnet, looking at a couch upon which reposes a splendid figure of a Sleeping Beauty, so arranged with clock-work that the bosom rises and falls in regular pulsations, as if breathing and asleep. Madame Tussaud died in 1850, at the age of ninety years.

A very clever deception is that of an old gentleman, seated in the middle of a bench, holding a programme in his hand, and apparently studying a large group of figures. By an ingenious operation of machinery, he is made to occasionally raise his head from the paper he is so carefully perusing, and regard the group in the most natural manner possible, and afterwards resume his study. This figure is repeatedly taken by strangers to be a living person, and questions or observations are frequently addressed to it. One of my own party politely solicited the loan of the old gentleman's programme a moment, and only discovered from the wooden character of the shoulder he laid his hand on, why he was not answered. Ere long he had the satisfaction of witnessing another person ask the quiet old gentleman to "move along a bit," and repeat the request till the smothered laughter of the spectators revealed the deception.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Madame Tussaud's exhibition was the Napoleon rooms, containing an extensive collection of relics of Napoleon the Great. These relics are unquestionably authentic, and, of course, from their character, of great value. There is the camp bedstead upon which the great warrior rested during seven years of his weary exile at St. Helena, with the very mattresses and pillows upon which he died, and, in a glass case near by, the counterpane used upon the bed, and stained with his blood. This last, a relic, indeed, which the possessors might, as Mark Antony suggested of napkins dipped in dead Cæsar's wounds,

"Dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy, Unto their issue."

This bed was purchased of Prince Lucien, Napoleon's brother, for four hundred and fifty pounds. Then, as if in mockery of human greatness, there was hung close by this death-bed the coronation robe of Napoleon, sold at the restoration of Louis XVIII., from the Cathedral of Notre Dame; also the robe of the Empress Josephine, sold at the same time. Here, upon the bed, is a wax figure of the great emperor, partially enveloped in a cloak, the identical one he wore at the battle of Marengo, and which served as a pall when he was conveyed to the grave in his rocky prison.

In the room adjoining, the principal object of interest was the military carriage of the emperor, the same one in which he made the campaign of Russia, and which was captured by the Prussians on the evening of the battle of Waterloo. Here also is the carriage used by him during his exile at St. Helena. Near by is the sword worn during the campaign in Egypt, his gold repeating watch, cameo ring, tooth-brushes, coffee-pot, camp knife, fork, and spoon, gold snuff-box, &c.

But the most actual relic, perhaps, is a portion of the real corporeal Napoleon himself, being nothing more nor less than one of his teeth, which was drawn by Dr. O'Meara. These relics are of a description to gratify the taste of the most inveterate relic-hunter. I give a few more that are pencilled in my note-book as attracting my own attention; the atlas that Bonaparte used many years, and on which are the plans of several battles sketched by his own hand,--a most suggestive relic this of the anxious hours spent in poring over it by the great captain, who marked out on this little volume those plans which crumbled kingdoms and dissolved dynasties; simple sketches to look upon, but which were once fraught with the fate of nations,--his dessert services, locks of his hair, camp service, shirts, under-waistcoats, and linen handkerchiefs, pieces of furniture, &c. Besides this large collection of relics of the great emperor, there are a number of other interesting historical relics of undoubted authenticity, such as the ribbon of Lord Nelson, a lock of Wellington's hair, George IV.'s handkerchief, the shirt of Henry IV. of France, the very one worn by him when assassinated by Ravaillac, and stained with the blood which followed the murderous knife, Lord Nelson's coat, the shoe of Pius VI., a ribbon of the Legion of Honor worn by Louis Philippe, coat and waistcoat of the Duke of Wellington, and, in a glass case, the three great state robes of George IV. These are of purple and crimson velvet, lined with ermine, and richly embroidered, the "three together containing five hundred and sixty-seven feet of velvet and embroidery,"--so the catalogue tells you,--"and costing eighteen thousand pounds."

The last department of this exhibition is one the name of which is quite familiar, and often quoted by American readers, viz., the Chamber of Horrors. The collection here is of figures of noted murderers and criminals, said to be portraits of the originals, and various models and relics. Perhaps the most interesting of the latter to the spectator is the original knife of the guillotine, used during the Reign of Terror in Paris. This axe, the catalogue tells us, was bought by Madame Tussaud of Sanson, grandson of the original executioner; and the now harmless-looking iron blade, that the spectator may lay his hands upon, is the terrible instrument that decapitated over twenty thousand human victims. It has reeked with the blood of the good, the great, and the tyrannical--the proudest blood of France and the basest. The visitor may well be excused a shudder as his hand touches the cold steel that has been bathed in the blood of the unfortunate Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, the tyrant Robespierre, and the thousands of unhappy victims that yielded up their lives beneath its fatal stroke. I confess that this Chamber of Horrors is unpleasantly interesting even to the sight-seer. I felt uncomfortable the brief time I spent there, breathed freer as I emerged from it, and felt as if escaping pursuit from some of its ruffianly inmates as I dashed away through the throng of vehicles in a Hansom cab to my hotel.

Theatre-going in London is an expensive amusement. In the theatres--that is, the good and respectable ones--there is no chance for people of moderate means, except the undesirable places that cannot be filled in any other way than by selling the admission at a rate within their reach. There is no theatre in London in size, appointments, and conveniences equal in all respects to the great ones in some of our large cities, and nothing that can compare with Booth's, of New York, or the Globe, of Boston. It is impossible to get such an entertainment as you may have in America at Booth's, Wallack's, or the Globe at anything like the price.

For instance, at Drury Lane Theatre the prices are, stalls, one dollar and seventy-five cents, gold; dress circle, one dollar and twenty-eight cents; second ditto, one dollar; pit, fifty cents; gallery, twenty-five cents. It should be understood that "stalls" take in the whole of the desirable part of the parquet, and that some half dozen rows of extreme back seats, in the draught of the doors, and almost beyond hearing and sight of the stage, are denominated "the pit;" and in some theatres it is a "pit" indeed. The auditoriums of their theatres are in no way so clean, well kept, or bright looking as those of leading American theatres in New York and Boston. Even at the old dirty Princess's Theatre, where I saw Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra very handsomely put upon the stage, and Miss Glyn as Cleopatra, the orchestra stalls cost one dollar and fifty cents, gold, and the pit, which was way back under the boxes, was vocal between the acts with venders of oranges, nuts, and ginger beer.

The Lyceum Theatre, where I saw Fechter play, was a neat and well-ordered establishment, and stalls, one dollar and sixty cents; upper circle, one dollar; pit, fifty cents. I give the prices in American money, gold, that they may be compared with our own. There is not a theatre in London where a performance, and accommodation to the auditor equal to that at the Boston Museum, can be had for three times the price of admission to that establishment. The prices above given being about the average at the leading theatres, what does the reader expect he will have to pay for the opera? Let us see.

At Her Majesty's Theatre, where I had the pleasure of listening to Nilsson in Traviata and Titiens, in Oberon, Fidelio, &c., my play-bill informs me the prices are, pit stalls, fifteen shillings (about three dollars and forty cents in gold), boxes, two dollars and a half, and gallery, sixty cents. The pit, at this theatre, consists of four or five rows of narrow boards, at the extreme rear of the parquet, purposely made as narrow, uncomfortable, and inconvenient as can be, so that it is almost impossible to sit through a performance on them; yet, during the one act that I occupied a seat there, it was nearly filled with very respectable people, in full dress, no one being admitted who is not so costumed. I presume that the labor expended to render these seats disagreeable, is to force the public into the higher-priced ones, which are easy, comfortable, and even luxurious, and where one may be pretty sure that he is in the best society.

An American lady, who goes to the theatre or opera in London, must remember that she will not be permitted to enter the stalls or boxes with a bonnet on, no matter how infinitesimal, elegant, or expensive it may be. Full dress means, no bonnet for ladies, and dress coats, dark vests and pantaloons for gentlemen. A lady seen passing in with bonnet on is expected to leave it at the cloak-room, to be redeemed by payment of sixpence on coming out; and no amount of argument will admit an independent American voter, who comes in a frock coat and drab pantaloons. I saw an ingenious American once, who overcame the frock coat difficulty by stepping outside, and getting his companion to pin up the skirts of that offending garment at each side, so that it made an extemporaneous "claw hammer" that passed without question.

Bills of the play are not furnished by the theatre to its patrons. You buy a big one for a penny of a boy outside the theatre, as you arrive at the door, that will soil your kid gloves with printer's ink; or a small one, for two or three pence, of the usher inside, who shows you a seat, and "expects something," as everybody does, in England. At the opera your bill will cost you sixpence, for it is expected that "the nobs" who go there never carry anything so base as copper in their pouches. Indeed, I noticed that one of the aforesaid ushers, to whom I handed a shilling, stepped briskly away, and omitted to return me any change. I learned better than to hand ushers shillings, and expect change, after a few nights' experience, and had threepences ready, after the English style.

We need not go through a description of the theatres of London. There are as many varieties, and more, than in New York; and you may go from the grand opera, which is the best of that kind of entertainment, to the Alhambra, a grand variety affair, but most completely got up in all departments, or the cheaper theatres, where the blood-and-thunder drama is produced for a shilling or sixpence a ticket.

The appearance of the dress circle boxes at the opera is magnificent. The ladies fairly blaze with diamonds and jewels, while silks, luxurious laces, splendid fans, scarfs, shawls, and superb costumes, make a brilliant picture that it is interesting to look upon. The extreme _décolleté_ style of dress, however, was most remarkable. I have seen nothing to compare with it, even at the Jardin Mabille, or at the Cafés Chantants, in Paris, where the performers are wont to make so much display of their charms. Upon the stage, such undressing of the neck and bust would excite severe criticism, but in the fashionable boxes of the opera, it passes unchallenged.

The liberal encouragement which the opera receives in England enables the management to produce it in far more complete and perfect style than it is usually seen in America. Indeed, some of the wretched, slipshod performances that have been given under the name of grand opera in America, would be hissed from the stage in London, Paris, or Italy. In operatic performances in America, we have the parts of two or three principals well done, but all else slipshod and imperfect, and the effect of the opera itself too frequently marred by the outrageous cuttings, transpositions, and alterations made by managers to adapt it to their resources.

The production of the opera in London is made with an orchestra of nearly a hundred performers, a well-trained chorus of sixty voices, dresses of great elegance, and correct and appropriate costume and style, even to the humblest performer. The opera, in all its details, is well performed, and the music correctly given; the scenery and scenic effects excellent, the auxiliaries abundant, so that a stage army looks something like an army, and not a corporal's guard; a village festival something like that rustic celebration, and not like the caperings of a few Hibernians, who have plundered a pawnbroker's shop, and are dancing in the stolen clothes.

Apropos of amusements, a very pleasant excursion is it by rail to the Sydenham Crystal Palace, where great cheap concerts are given, and one of those places in England where the people can get so much amusement, entertainment, and recreation for so little money. A ticket, including admission to the palace and grounds, and passage to and from London on the railroad, is sold at a very low sum, the entertainment being generally on Saturdays, which, with many, is a half holiday. Two of the London railways unite in a large, handsome station at Sydenham, from which one may walk under a broad, covered passage directly into the palace, this covered way being a colonnade seven hundred and twenty feet long, seventeen feet wide, and twenty feet high, reaching one of the great wings of the palace.

And this magnificent structure, its splendid grounds and endless museum of novelties, is a monument of English public spirit and liberality; for it was planned, erected, and the whole enterprise carried out by a number of gentlemen, who believed that a permanent edifice, like the one which held the great exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851, would be of great benefit in furthering the education of the people, and affording sensible and innocent recreation at the cheapest possible rate. And right nobly have they performed their work in the production of this magnificent structure, which fairly staggers the American visitor by its beauty, as well as its vastness, and its wondrous grace and lightness. It is a great monument of graceful curves and flashing glass, situated upon the summit of a gradual slope, with superb broad terraces, adorned with statues, grand flights of steps descending to elegantly laid out grounds, with shrubs, flowers, trees, fountains, ponds, rustic arbors, and beautiful walks; and these front terraces and grounds commanding one of those splendid landscape pictures for which England is so celebrated.

There is no better way of giving the reader an idea of the size of this magnificent structure, than by means of a few figures. The palace was completed in 1854 by a joint-stock company of gentlemen. It occupies, with its gardens and grounds, about three hundred acres, and cost, when completed, with its gardens, nearly two million pounds sterling. Think of the public being able to visit this splendid place for one shilling!

The length of the main building of the palace is over sixteen hundred feet; the width throughout the nave, three hundred and twelve feet, which, at the grand centre, is increased to three hundred and eighty-four feet; in addition to which are two great wings, of five hundred and seventy-four feet each; the height, from floor to ceiling, one hundred and ten feet; twenty-five acres of glass, weighing five hundred tons, were used in the building, and nine thousand six hundred and forty-one tons of iron. Graceful galleries run around the sides, and grand mammoth concerts and other entertainments are given in the central transept, the arch of which rises in a graceful span to the height of one hundred and seventy-five feet: the whole of one end of this transept is occupied by seats, rising one above the other, for the accommodation of four thousand performers, who performed at the great Handel Festival. A great organ, built expressly for the place, occupies a position at the rear of these orchestra seats.

I was present at a grand musical performance in this transept, and, from an elevated seat in the orchestra, had a superb view of the whole audience below, which occupied chairs placed in the transept; these chairs which now faced the organ and orchestra, when turned directly about, would face the stage of a theatre, upon which other performances were given. The view of the crowd, from the elevated position I occupied, gave it the appearance of a huge variegated flower-bed, and its size may be realized when the reader is informed that there were _eight thousand_ people present; besides these, there were between three and four thousand more in different parts of the building and grounds. I obtained these figures from the official authorities, who informed me that on greater occasions, when the performance is more attractive, or upon whole holidays, the number is very much larger.

The nave is divided into sections, or courts; such as the Sheffield Court, Manufacturing Court, Glass and China Court, Stationary Court, Egyptian Court, Italian Court, Renaissance Court, &c. These courts are filled with the products of the industry or art of the periods for which they are named. Thus, in the English Mediæval Court are splendid reproductions of mediæval architecture, such as the elegant doorway of Rochester Cathedral, doorway of Worcester Cathedral, the splendid Easter sepulchre from Hawton Church, the monument of Humphrey do Bohun from Hereford Cathedral, with the effigy of the knight in complete armor, and various architectural specimens from the ancient churches and magnificent cathedrals of England, all exact counterfeit presentments, executed in a sort of composition in imitation of the original. The Renaissance Court contains elegant reproductions of celebrated specimens of architecture of that period, elaborate and profuse in decoration. Then we have the Elizabethan, Italian, and Greek Courts, each a complete museum in itself of reproductions of architecture, and celebrated monuments of their periods. The Sheffield, Manufacturers, Glass and China Courts, &c., contain splendid exhibitions of specimens of the leading manufacturers, of those species of goods, of some of the best products of their factories.

Stalls are prepared for the sales of the lighter articles, and attendants are present at the different show-cases, or departments to make explanations, or take orders from visitors who may be inclined. The display of English manufactures was a very good one, and the opportunity afforded them to display and advertise them, well improved by exhibitors. The interior of the palace contains also a great variety of statues, casts, models, artistic groups, and other works of art. The visitor need not leave for refreshments, as large and well-served restaurants for ladies and gentlemen are at either end of the building, beneath its roof.

Leaving the building for the grounds, we first step out upon a great terrace, fifteen hundred and seventy-six feet in length and fifty feet wide. Upon its parapet are twenty-six allegorical marble statues; and from this superb promenade the spectator has a fine view of the charming landscape, backed by blue hills in the distance, and the beautiful grounds, directly beneath the terrace, which are reached by a broad flight of steps, ninety-six feet wide, and are picturesquely laid out. A broad walk, nearly one hundred feet wide, six or eight fountains throwing up their sparkling streams, artificial lakes, beds of gay-colored flowers, curious ornamental temples and structures, tend to make the whole novel and attractive. After a stroll in this garden, visitors may saunter off to the other adjacent grounds at pleasure.

Leaving the gardens directly in front of the palace for the extensive pleasure-grounds connected with it, we passed through a beautiful shaded lane, and came first to the archery grounds, where groups were trying their skill in that old English pastime. Not far from here, a broad, level place, with close-cut, hard-rolled turf was kept for the cricketing grounds, where groups of players were scattered here and there, enjoying that game. Near by are rifle and pistol shooting galleries. In another portion of the grounds is an angling and boating lake, a maze, American swings, merry go-arounds, and other amusements for the people, the performances of those engaged in these games affording entertainment to hundreds of lookers-on.

A whole day may be very pleasantly and profitably spent at the Sydenham Palace, the attractions of which we have given but the merest sketch of; and that they are appreciated by the people is evidenced by the fact that the number of visitors are over a million and a half per annum. The railroad companies evidently make a good thing of it, and by means of very cheap excursion tickets, especially on holidays, induce immense numbers to come out from the city.

This Crystal Palace is the same one which stood in Hyde Park; only when it rose again at Sydenham, it was with many alterations and improvements. It was a sad sight to see, when we were there, large portions of the northern end, including that known as the tropical end,--the Assyrian and Byzantine Courts,--in ruins from the effects of the fire a few years ago; yet that destroyed seems small in comparison with the immense area still left.

The parks of London have been described so very often that we must pass them with brief allusion. Their vast extent is what first strikes the American visitor with astonishment, especially those who have moulded their ideas after Boston Common, or even Central Park of New York. Hyde Park, in London, contains three hundred and ninety acres; and we took a lounge in Rotten Row at the fashionable hour, between five and six in the afternoon, when the drive was crowded with stylish equipages; some with coroneted panels and liveried footmen, just such as we see in pictures. Then there were numerous equestrians, among whom were gentlemen mounted upon magnificent blood horses, followed at a respectful distance by their mounted grooms, and gracefully tipping their hats to the fair occupants of the carriages. Mounted policemen, along the whole length of the drive, prevented any carriage from getting out of line or creating confusion; and really the display of splendid equipages, fine horses, and beautiful women, in Hyde Park, of an afternoon, during the season, is one of the sights of London that no stranger should miss.

Every boy in America, who is old enough to read a story-book, has heard of the Zoölogical Gardens at Regent's Park, London; and it is one of the sights that the visitor, no matter how short his visit, classes among those he must see. This collection of natural history specimens was first opened to the public as long ago as 1828; it is one in which the Londoners take great pride, and the Zoölogical Society expend large sums of money in procuring rare and good living specimens. Improvements are also made every year in the grounds, and the exhibition is now a most superb and interesting one, and conducted in the most liberal manner.

Visitors are admitted on Mondays at sixpence each; on other days the price of admission is a shilling. Here one has an opportunity of seeing birds and animals with sufficient space to move about and stretch their limbs in, instead of the cruelly cramped quarters in which we have been accustomed to view them confined in travelling menageries, so cruelly small as to call for action of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to interfere in behalf of the poor brutes, who often have only space to stand up in, and none to move about in, although their nature be one requiring exercise; and they therefore become poor, spiritless specimens, dying by slow torture of close confinement.

Here, however, the visitor finds different specimens of eagles, vultures, and other huge birds, each in great cages twenty feet high, and nearly as many square; owls, hawks, and other birds of prey, with cages big enough to fly about in; ibis, elegant flamingoes, pelicans, and water birds, in large enclosures, with ponds for them to enjoy their favorite pursuits. For some of the smaller birds aviaries were arranged, the size of a large room, part of it out in the open air, with shrubs and trees, and the other half beneath shelter--a necessity for some species of tropical birds. One, therefore, might look upon the flashing plumage and curious shapes of tropical birds flitting among the trees, and see all colors and every variety at the different aviaries. I saw the sea birds in a place which, by artificial means, was made to represent the sea-shore; there were rocks, marine plants, sea shells, sand, and salt water; and ducks, sandpipers, and gulls dove, ran and flew about very much as if they were at home. Passing into a house devoted exclusively to parrots, we were almost deafened by the shrieking, cat-calls, whistling, and screaming of two or three hundred of every hue, size, kind, and variety of these birds; there were gorgeous fellows with crimson coronets, and tails a yard in length,--blue, green, yellow, crimson, variegated, black, white, in fact every known color: the din was terrific, and the shouting of all sorts of parrot expressions very funny.

The collection of birds is very large, from the little wren to great stalking ostriches, vultures, and bald eagles, and only lacked the great condor of South America.

The animals were well cared for. Here were a pair of huge rhinoceroses enjoying themselves in a large, muddy pond in the midst of their enclosure, a stable afforded them dry in-door quarters when they chose to go in, and a passage through these stables enabled visitors always to see the animals when they were in-doors. Two huge hippopotami were also similarly provided for. Next came several elephants, great and small, with outer enclosures, where they received donations of buns and fruit, and stables for private life; also a splendid specimen of the giraffe, &c.

There was a vast collection of different specimens of deer, from the huge antlered elk to the graceful little gazelle, the size of an English terrier.

Then we came to the bear-pits. Here sauntered a great polar bear in a large enclosure, in which a tank of water was provided for his bearship to disport himself; a long row of great roomy cages of lions, tigers, leopards, and panthers, with their supple limbs, sleek hides, and wicked eyes; a splendid collection of the wolf, fox, and raccoon tribe; specimens of different varieties of sheep; the alpaca, zebras, camels, elands, and bison; enclosed ponds, with magnificent specimens of water fowl from all parts of the world; then there was the beaver pond, with his wood, and his dam, and hut; the seal tank and otter pond, with their occupants not always in view, but watched for by a curious crowd; and, near by, a house full of specimens of armadillos, and other small and curious animals.

The reptile house, with its collection of different specimens of snakes, from the huge boa constrictor to the small, wicked-looking viper, was not a pleasant sight to look upon; but one of the most popular departments of the whole exhibition was the monkey house, a building with ample space for displaying all the different specimens of this mischievous little caricature of man. In the centre of the room was a very large cage, fitted up with rings, ladders, trapezes, bars, &c., like a gymnasium, and in this the antics of a score of natural acrobats kept the spectators, who are always numerous in this apartment, in a continued roar of laughter.

Not the least amusing performance here was that of a huge old monkey, the chief of the cage by common consent, who, after looking sleepily for some half hour at the performances of his lesser brethren from the door of his hut in a lofty corner, suddenly descended, and, as if to show what he could do, immediately went through the whole performances seriatim. He swung by the rings, leaped from trapeze to trapeze, swung from ladder to bar, leaped from shelf to shelf, sent small monkeys flying and screaming in every direction, and then, amid a general chattering and grinning, retired to his perch, and, drawing a piece of old blanket about his shoulders, looked calmly down upon the scene below, like a rheumatic old man at the antics of a party of boys.

The young visitors at the Zoölogical Gardens have opportunity afforded them to ride the elephants and camels, and a band plays in the gardens on Saturdays. Members of the society have access to a library, picture gallery, and enjoy various other advantages in assistance of the study and investigation of natural history.

The Tower of London! How the scenes of England's history rise before the imagination, in which this old fortress, palace and prison by turns, has figured! It is a structure of which every part seems replete with story, and every step the visitor makes brings him to some point that has an interest attached to it from its connection with the history of the past.

The Tower has witnessed some of the proudest pageants of England's glory, and some of the blackest deeds of her tyranny and shame. The names of fair women, brave men, soldiers, sages, monarchs, and nobles,--

"Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,"--

are twined within its chronicles, and its hard, pitiless stones have frozen hope into despair in some of the noblest hearts that ever beat on English soil.

Here Lady Jane Grey fell beneath the headsman's axe; Clarence was drowned in the butt of Malmsey; Anne Boleyn was imprisoned, and later her proud daughter, Princess, afterwards Queen, Elizabeth, passed a prisoner through the water-gate; Buckingham, Stafford, William Wallace, Essex, Elizabeth's favorite, Lord Bacon, Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley heard its gates clang behind them; King Henry VI. and the princes were murdered here by Richard III.'s orders. But why continue the catalogue of names, of deeds, and of scenes that come thronging into one's mind as we approach this ancient pile, that is invested with more historic interest than any other European palace or prison?

Its foundation dates back to the time of Cæsar, and one of the towers is called Cæsar's Tower to this day, though the buildings, as they now stand, were commenced in the time of William the Conqueror.

Shakespeare has made this grim fortress so prominent a picture in his plays, that, with the same fancy that one looks for Shylock to-day upon the crowded Rialto, does the visitor, on approaching the Tower, shudder as if he were to encounter the crooked form of Gloucester, or hear, in the dark passages, the mournful wail of the spirits of the two innocent princes, torn from their mother's arms, and dying by his cruel mandate.

We sought the Tower on foot, but soon becoming entangled in a maze of crooked, narrow, and dirty streets, which doubtless might be very interesting to the antiquarian, but rather disagreeable to the stranger, we were glad to hail a cab, and be driven down to it. Here we found that the Tower of London was a great fortress, with over thirteen acres enclosed within its outer wall and the principal citadel, or White Tower, as it is called, with its one round and three square steeples, the most prominent one in view on approaching, and in appearance that which many of us are familiar with from engravings.

There are no less than thirteen towers in the enclosure, viz.: the Bloody Tower, the Bell Tower, Beauchamp Tower, Devereux Tower, Flint Tower, Bowyer Tower, Brick Tower, Jewel Tower, Constable Tower, Salt Tower, Record Tower, and Broad Arrow Tower. We come to the entrance gate, where visitors are received, and wait in a little office until twelve are assembled, or a warder will take charge of a party every half hour to go the rounds. The site of this building was where the lions were formerly kept. The warders, in their costume of yeomen of the guard of Henry VIII.'s time, are among the curiosities of the place. Their uniform, consisting of a low-crowned velvet hat, surrounded by a sort of garland, a broad ruff about the neck, and dark-blue frock, or tunic, with the crown, rose, shamrock, and thistle on the breast, and other embroidery upon the skirts, flaps, and belts, with trunks gathered at the knee with a gay-colored rosette, tight silk stockings and rosetted shoes, looked oddly enough, and as if some company of supernumeraries, engaged for a grand theatrical spectacle, had come out in open daylight. These warders are principally old soldiers, who receive the position as a reward for bravery or faithful service.

The Tower is open to visitors from ten to four; the fee of admission sixpence, and sixpence more is charged for admission to the depository of the crown jewels; conspicuous placards inform the visitor that the warders have no right to demand or receive any further fee from visitors; but who has ever travelled in England, and gone sight-seeing there, but knows this to be, if he is posted, an invitation to try the power of an extra shilling when occasion occurs, and which he generally finds purchases a desirable addition to his comfort and enjoyment?

However, on we go, having purchased tickets and guide-books, following the warder, who repeats the set description, that he has recited so often, in a tedious, monotonous tone, from which he is only driven by the curious questions of eager Yankees, often far out of his depth in the way of knowledge of what certain rooms, towers, gates, and passages are noted for. We hurried on over the moat bridge, and halted to look at Traitor's Gate; and I even descended to stand upon the landing-steps where so many illustrious prisoners had stepped from the barge on their way to the prisons. Sidney, Russell, Cranmer, and More had landed here, and Anne Boleyn's dainty feet, and Elizabeth's high-heeled slippers pressed its damp stones. On we pass by the different towers, the warder desirous of our seeing what appears to him (an old soldier) the lion of the place--the armory of modern weapons, which we are straightway shown. Thousands and thousands of weapons--pistols, swords, cutlasses, and bayonets--are kept here, the small arms being arranged most ingeniously into a number of astonishing figures. Here were the Prince of Wales's triple feather in glittering bayonets, a great sunburst made wholly of ramrods, a huge crown of swords, and stars, and Maltese crosses of pistols and bayonets; the serried rows of muskets, rifles, and small arms in the great hall would have equipped an army of a hundred thousand.

But we at last got into the Beauchamp, or "Beechum" Tower, as our guide called it; and here we began to visit the prisons of the unhappy captives that have fretted their proud spirits in this gloomy fortress. Upon the walls of the guarded rooms they occupied they have left inscriptions and sculpture wrought with rude instruments and infinite toil, during the tedious hours of their imprisonment. Here is an elaborate carving, by Dudley, Earl of Warwick, brother to the Lord Dudley who married Lady Jane Grey. It is a shield, bearing the Lion, Bear, and Ragged Staff, and surrounded by a wreath of oak leaves, roses, and acorns, all cut in the stone, and underneath an inscription, in Old English letters, stating that his four brothers were imprisoned here. In another room is the word JANE cut, which is said to refer to Lady Jane Grey, and to have been cut by her husband. Marmaduke Neville has cut his name in the pitiless stone, and a cross, bleeding heart, skeleton, and the word Peverel, wrought under it, tell us that one of the Peverels of Devonshire has been confined here: over the fireplace the guide points us to the autograph of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was beheaded in 1572 for aspiring to the hand of Mary, Queen of Scots. Arthur Poole, who conspired to place Mary on the English throne, left an inscription "I.H.S. A passage perillus makethe a port pleasant." 1568. A. Poole. Numerous other similar mementos are shown, cut in the walls of the apartments of this tower, the work of the prisoners who formerly occupied them, and the names thus left are often those who figure in English history.

In the White Tower we were shown a room, ten by eight, receiving light only from the entrance, which, it is stated, was one of the rooms occupied by Sir Walter Raleigh, and that in it he wrote his History of the World. Right in front of this, in the centre of the room, stands the beheading block that has been used on Tower Hill, and the executioner's axe beside it, which, in Elizabeth's reign, severed Essex's head from his body. The block bears the marks of service in the shape of more than one dint from the weapon of death. Some idea of the strength of this tower, and its security as a prison, may be had from the walls, which are from twelve to fourteen feet in thickness. In this White Tower is the great Council Chamber of the early English kings, and here, beneath the great, massive-timbered roof, we stand where King Richard II. resigned his crown to Bolingbroke, in 1399. We pass on to the Brick Tower, another prison, where Raleigh was once confined--Raleigh, the friend of Bacon and Shakespeare, who here spent the last ten days of his life, and many a weary year before. But we found there was one tower, among others, that was not visited by the guide with our party; it was the one of all others we wished to see--the Bloody Tower.

"We are not hallowed to show that," said our guide, in response to our solicitations.

"Is it not possible?" said I, in a low tone, putting one hand into my pocket, jingling some loose silver, and looking the burly warder in the eye, as I fell back a little from the rest of the party.

"Hi couldn't say really, but (_sotto voce_, as a shilling dropped into his palm, that was conveniently open behind him) hif you'll lag be'ind the party when they go out, I'll see what can be done."

We took occasion to follow the warder's hint, and after he had conducted the others to the gate, he returned, and took us to the room over the entrance-gate in which the princes were lodged, and where, by their uncle's order, they were smothered. This little room--about twelve feet square--has an inner window, through which, it is said, Tyrell, the crook-back tyrant's instrument, looked, after the murder had been done by his hired ruffians, to be sure that his master's fell purpose was complete. This room, small as it was, had a pleasant outlook, commanding views of the interior of the Tower wards and gardens--in fact, it used to be called Garden Tower--and the Thames River. The stairs leading from this part of the Tower to the gateway were shown us, and the place, not far from their foot, where the supposed remains of these unfortunate princes were afterwards discovered, and removed and interred at Westminster Abbey.

After seeing various dismal vaults and cells, which our guide, desirous of showing his appreciation of our bounty, conducted us to beneath the towers, holding his candle to show the carving made by wretched prisoners by the dim light that struggled in when they were confined there, he took us to one, his description of which rather shook our faith in his veracity. It was a small, arched cell, about ten feet high, and not more than four feet deep, without grating, window, or aperture, except a door.

"This," said he, swinging open the huge iron-strapped and bolted door, "this was Guy Fawkes's dungeon; he was confined here three days, with no more light and h'air than he could get through the key-'ole."

"But," said I, "no man could live in that cell _half_ a day; he would die for lack of air."

"But," said our cicerone, depreciatingly, "your _h_onor doesn't consider the size of the key-'ole."

No, but we did the size of the story, and felt convinced that we were getting a full shilling's worth extra.

But if there were any doubt about the Guy Fawkes cell, there was none about many other points of historical interest, which, after learning the names of a few of the principal ones, could be easily located by those familiar with the history of the Tower, and even by those of us who only carried some of the leading events of England's history in mind. One of these points was a little enclosed square, in front of St. Peter's Chapel, in the open space formed by that edifice on one side, Beauchamp Tower on the other, and the White Tower on the third, in the place known as Tower Green. This little square, of scarce a dozen feet, railed with iron to guard the bright greensward from profane tread, is the spot on which stood the scaffold, where, on the 19th of May, 1536, Anne Boleyn bent her fair head to the block; the fall of which beneath one blow of the executioner's sword, was announced by the discharge of a gun from the Tower ramparts, so that her husband, that savage and brutal British king, who was hunting in Epping Forest, might be apprised that she had yielded up her life; and history tells us that this royal brute of the sixteenth century returned that very evening gayly from the chase, and on the following morning married Jane Seymour.

Here, also, upon the earth enclosed in the little square round which we were standing, poured forth the precious blood of Bloody Mary's victim, Lady Jane Grey; here is where, after saying to the executioner, "I pray you despatch me quickly," she knelt down, groped for the fatal block, bent her innocent neck, and passed, with holy words upon her lips, into that land where opposing creeds shall not harass, nor royal ambition persecute.

Here also was that murder (it could not be called execution) done by order of Henry VIII. on the Countess of Salisbury, a woman, seventy years of age, condemned to death without any form of trial whatever; who, conscious of her innocence, refused to place her head upon the block. "So traitors used to do, and I am no traitor," said the brave old countess, as she struggled fiercely with her murderers, till, weak and bleeding from the soldiers' pikes, she was dragged to the block by her gray hair, held down till the executioner performed his office, and the head of the last of the Plantagenets, the daughter of the murdered Clarence, fell; and another was added to the list of enormities committed by the bloated and sensual despot who wielded the sceptre of England.

The soil within this little enclosure is rich with the blood of the innocent victims of royal tyranny; and it was not astonishing that we lingered here beyond the patience of our guide.

The collection of ancient armor and arms at the Tower is one of great interest, especially that known as the Horse Armory, which contains, besides a large and curious collection of portions of armor and weapons, a great number of equestrian figures, fully armed and equipped in suits of armor of various periods between Edward I., 1272, and the death of James I., 1625. This building is over one hundred and fifty feet long, by about thirty-five wide, and is occupied by a double row of these figures, whose martial and life-like appearance almost startles the visitor as he steps in amid this warlike array of mailed knights, all in the different attitudes of the tilting-ground or battle-field, silent and immovable as if they had suddenly been checked in mid career by a touch from the wand of some powerful enchanter.

Here, in flexible chain-mail hood, shirt, and spurs, stands the effigy of Edward I. (1272), the king in the act of drawing his sword; and clad in this armor were the knights who were borne to the earth on the fields of Dunbar and Bannockburn. Next rides at full tilt, with lance in rest, and horse's head defended by spiked chanfron, and saddle decorated with the king's badges, Edward IV., 1483; then we have the armor worn in the Wars of the Roses, and at Bosworth Field; here a suit worn by a swordsman in Henry VII.'s time, about 1487; next, a powerful charger, upon the full leap, bears the burly figure of Henry VIII., in a splendid suit of tilting armor, inlaid with gold: this suit is one which is known to have belonged to the tyrant; a sword is at the side of the figure, and the right hand grasps an iron mace. A splendid suit of armor is that of a knight of Edward VI.'s time (1552), covered all with beautiful arabesque work, inlaid with gold, and a specimen of workmanship which, it seemed to me, any of our most skilful jewellers of the present day might be proud of.

Then we have the very suit of armor that was worn by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, which is profusely decorated with that oft-mentioned badge of the Dudleys, the Bear and Ragged Staff that they appeared to be so fond of cutting, carving, stamping, and engraving upon everything of theirs, movable and immovable. His initials, R. D., are also engraved on the knee-guards. The mounted figure of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, 1581, in his splendid suit of gilt armor; effigy of Henry, Prince of Wales, riding, rapier in hand, in the armor made for him in the year 1612--a splendid suit, engraved and adorned with representations of battle scenes; the armor made for King Charles I. when a youth; James II., 1685, in his own armor. Besides these were numerous other figures, clad in suits of various periods. One very curious was a suit wrought in Henry VIII.'s time, which was composed entirely of movable splints, and almost as flexible as an overcoat; a figure clad in splendid plated armor, time of Henry VII., with ancient sword in hand, battle-axe at the saddle-bow, and the horse protected by armor in front--the whole figure a perfect realization of the poet's and artist's idea of a brave knight sheathed in gleaming steel.

The curious old implements of war, from age to age, illustrate the progress that was made in means for destroying human life; and the period of the invention of gunpowder is marked by the change which takes place in the character of the weapons. Here we were shown the English "bill," which the sturdy soldiers used with such effect when they got within striking distance of the enemy; a ball armed with protruding iron spikes, and hitched by a chain to a long pole, and used flail-like, denominated the "morning star," we should think would have created as much damage among friends as foes on the battle-field; then there was a curious contrivance, called the catch-pole--a sort of iron fork, with springs, for pulling a man off his horse by the head; battle-axes, halberds, English pikes, partisans, cross-bows, with their iron bolts, long bows, a series of helmets from 1320 down to 1685--a very curious collection. Then we have the collection of early fire-arms, petronel, match-lock, wheel-lock, and, among others, a veritable revolver pistol of Henry VIII.'s time--an ancient, rude-looking affair, and from which, we were told by the guide, "Colonel Colt, of the American army," borrowed his idea.

"So you see, sir, the _H_american revolver is nothink new--_h_only a _h_old _H_english _h_idea, _h_arfter _h_all."

This prodigious broadside of h's was unanswerable. So we said nothing, and shall look for the English model from which the American sewing-machine was invented.

Of course, there is no one who will think of visiting the Tower without seeing the regalia of England, which are kept here in their own especial stronghold, entitled the Jewel Tower. It is astonishing to see the awe and wonder with which some of the common people look upon these glittering emblems of royalty, which they seem to regard with a veneration little short of the sovereign.

The royal crown is a cap of rich purple velvet, enclosed in hoops of silver, and surmounted by a ball and cross of splendid diamonds. The Prince of Wales's crown is a simple pure gold crown, without jewels. The queen's diadem, as it is called, is an elegant affair, rich in huge diamonds and pearls. This crown was made for the consort of James II. St. Edwards crown, shaped like the regular English crown,--with which we are all familiar, from seeing it represented in the arms of England, and upon British coin,--is of gold, and magnificent with diamonds, rubies, pearls, emeralds, and other precious stones. Here we also have sight of the other paraphernalia of royalty, which, to American visitors, looks somewhat theatrical and absurd, and continually suggest the thought of what empty pageants are the parade and mummeries of kings and princes. Here is the royal sceptre, a rod formed of gold, and richly adorned with jewels, surmounted by a cross, which is placed in the right hand of the sovereign at coronations; and the rod of equity, another sceptre, ornamented with diamonds, and surmounted with a dove with outstretched wings, which is placed in the left hand; a queen's sceptre, richly ornamented with jewels; the ivory sceptre of James II.'s queen; and the elegantly-wrought golden one made for Mary, queen of William III.; swords of Justice and Mercy, coronation bracelets, spurs, anointing vessels, baptismal font, spoons, salt-cellars, dishes, and numerous other--coronation tools, I must call them, reminding one, as they lay there spread out to view in their iron cage, of one of those displays of bridal presents at an American wedding, where the guest wonders at the ingenuity of the silversmith in producing so many articles for which, until he sees them, and is told what they are designed for, he could not imagine a used could be found.

From the blaze of diamonds and precious stones, and the yellow glitter of beaten gold, we turned away to once more walk through the historic old fortress, and examine the record that is left behind of the part it has played of palace, fortress, and prison.

The tourist gets but a confused idea of the Tower in one visit, hurried along as he is by the warder, who repeats his monotonous, set descriptions, with additions and emendations of his own, and if he be not "i' the vein," omitting, I fancy, some portion of the regular round, to save himself trouble, especially if an extra _douceur_ has not been dropped into his itching palm. Then there are walks, passages, windows, and apartments, all celebrated in one way or another, which are passed by without notice, from the fact that a full description would occupy far too much time, but which, if you should happen to have an old Londoner, with a liking for antiquity, with you, to point them out, and have read up pretty well the history of the Tower, you find are material enhancing the pleasure of the visit.

I suppose St. Paul's Church, in London, may be called the twin sight to the Tower; and so we will visit that noted old monument of Sir Christopher Wren's architectural skill next. In looking at London _en masse_, from any point,--that is, as much of it as one can see at once,--the great dome of St. Paul's stands out a most prominent landmark, its huge globe rising to the height of three hundred and sixty feet.

We used to read an imprint, in our young days, stamped upon a toy-book, containing wonderful colored pictures, which communicated the fact that it was sold by Blank & Blank, Stationers, St. Paul's Churchyard, London, and wondered why bookstores were kept in burial-grounds in London. We found, on coming to London, that St. Paul's stood in the midst of a cemetery, and that the street or square around and facing it--probably once a part of the old cemetery--is called St. Paul's Churchyard; a locality, we take occasion to mention, that is noted for its excellent shops for cheap dry goods and haberdashery, or such goods as ladies in America buy at thread stores, and which can generally be bought here a trifle cheaper than at other localities in London. St. Paul's Churchyard is also noted for several excellent lunch or refreshment rooms for ladies and gentlemen, similar, in some respects, to American confectionery shops, except that at these, which are designated "pastry-cooks," cakes, cold meats, tarts, sherry wine, and ale may be had; and I can bear witness, from personal experience, that the quality of the refreshment, and the prices charged at the well-kept pastry-cooks' shops of St. Paul's Churchyard, are such as will satisfy the most exacting taste.

The present St. Paul's, which was completed in 1710, can hardly be called _Old_ St. Paul's. The first one built on this site was that in 610, by Ethelbert, King of Kent, which was burned, as was also its successor, which received large estates from the Conqueror. But the Old St. Paul's we read so much about in novel and story, was the great cathedral immediately preceding this one, which was six hundred and ninety feet long, one hundred and thirty broad, was built in the form of a cross, and sent a spire up five hundred and twenty feet into the air, and a tower two hundred and sixty feet; which contained seventy-six chapels, and maintained two hundred priests; from which the pomp and ceremony of the Romish church vanished before the advance of the Reformation; which was desecrated by the soldiery in civil war, and finally went down into a heap of smouldering ruins in 1666, after an existence of two hundred and twenty years. That was the Old St. Paul's of ancient story, and of W. Harrison Ainsworth's interesting historical novel, which closes with an imaginative description of its final destruction by the great fire of London.

Sir Christopher Wren, the architect, and grand old Free and Accepted Mason, built the present St. Paul's, laying the corner-stone in 1675, and the cap-stone in the lantern in 1710--a thirty-five years' piece of work by one architect, and most ably and faithfully was it done. Appropriate, indeed, therefore, is the epitaph that is inscribed on the plain, broad slab that marks his last resting-place in the crypt on the spot where the high altar of the old cathedral once stood. Beneath this slab, we are told, rests the builder; but "if ye seek his monument, look around you." The corner-stone of St. Paul's was laid with masonic ceremonies, and the trowel and mallet used on the occasion are still reserved by the lodge whose members at that time officiated.

It is impossible to get a complete general view of the whole of St. Paul's at once, it is so hemmed in here in the oldest and most crowded part of London. Here, all around us were Streets whose very names had the ring of old English history. Watling Street, a narrow lane, but old as Anglo-Saxon times; Newgate, where the old walls of London stood, is near at hand, and Cannon Street, which runs into St. Paul's churchyard, contains the old London Stone, once called the central point of the city, from which distances were measured; Ludgate Hill, little narrow Paternoster Row, Cheapside, and Old Bailey are close by, and a few steps will take you into Fleet Street, St. Martins le Grand, or Bow Lane. You feel that here, in whatever direction you turn, you are in old London indeed, near one of the solid, old, historical, and curious parts of it, that figure in the novels and histories, and with which you mentally shake hands as with an old acquaintance whom you have long known by correspondence, but now meet face to face for the first time.

St. Paul's is built of what is called Portland stone; originally, I should suppose, rather light colored, but now grimed with the universal blacking of London smoke. The best view of the exterior is from Ludgate Hill, a street approaching its western front, from which a view of the steps leading to the grand entrance and the statues in front of it is obtained.

One does not realize the huge proportions of this great church till he walks about it. Its entire length, from east to west, is five hundred feet; the breadth at the great western entrance, above referred to, is one hundred and eighty feet, and at the transept two hundred and fifty feet. The entire circumference of the church, as I was told by the loquacious guide who accompanied me, was two thousand two hundred and ninety-five feet, and it covers two acres of ground. These figures will afford the reader opportunity for comparison, and give some idea of its immensity. The height of the cross on the dome is three hundred and sixty feet from the street, and the diameter of the great dome itself is one hundred and eighty feet.

There is ever so much that is curious and interesting to see in St. Paul's, and, like many other celebrated places, the visitor ascertains that it cannot be seen in the one, hurried, tourist visit that is generally given to them, especially if one wishes to give an intelligible description to friends, or convey his idea to those who have not had the opportunity of visiting it. For my own part, it was a second visit to these old churches I used most to enjoy, when, with local guide-book and pencil in hand, after perhaps refreshing memory by a peep the night before into English history, I took a two or three hours' quiet saunter among the aisles, the old crypts, or beneath the lofty, quiet old arches, or among the monuments, when I could have time to read the whole inscription, and pause, and think, and dream over the lives and career of those who slept beneath

"The storied urn and animated bust."

There are over fifty splendid monuments, chiefly to English naval and military heroes, in St. Paul's, many of them most elaborate, elegant, and costly groups of marble statuary; but I left those for the last, and set about seeing other sights within the old pile, and so first started for the Whispering Gallery. This is reached by a flight of two hundred and sixty steps from the transept, and about half way up to it we were shown the library belonging to the church, containing many rare and curious works, among them the first book of Common Prayer ever printed, and a set of old monastic manuscripts, said to have been preserved from the archives of the old St. Paul's, when it was a Roman cathedral. The floor of this library is pointed out as a curiosity, being composed of a mosaic of small pieces of oak wood. Next the visitor is shown the Geometrical Stairs, a flight of ninety steps, so ingeniously constructed that they all hang together without any visible means of support except the bottom step.

Up we go, upward and onward, stopping to see the big bell,--eleven thousand four hundred and seventy-four pounds,--which is never tolled except for a death in the royal family. The hour indicated by the big clock is struck on it by a hammer moved by clock-work; but the big clapper used in tolling weighs one hundred and eighty pounds. The clock of St. Paul's seems a gigantic timepiece indeed, when you get up to it; its faces are fifty-seven feet in circumference, and the minute-hand a huge bar of steel, weighing seventy-five pounds, and nearly ten feet in length; the hour or _little_ hand is another bar of about six feet long, weighing forty-four pounds. The figures on the dial are two feet three inches long, and the big pendulum, that sets the machinery of this great time-keeper in motion, is sixteen feet long, with a weight of one hundred and eight pounds at the end of it.

The Whispering Gallery is a gallery with a light ornamental iron railing, running entirely round the inside of the base of the cupola, a distance of one hundred and forty yards; and whispered conversation can be carried on with persons seated at the extreme opposite side of the space; the clapping of the hands gives out almost as sharp a report as the discharge of a rifle. This Whispering Gallery is a fine place to get a good view of the great paintings in the compartments of the dome, which represent leading events in the life of St. Paul. It was at the painting of these pictures that the occurrence took place, so familiar as a story, where the artist, gradually retiring a few steps backward to mark the effect of his work, and having unconsciously reached the edge of the scaffolding, would, by another step, have been precipitated to the pavement, hundreds of feet below, when a friend, seeing his peril, with great presence of mind, seized a brush and daubed some fresh paint upon the picture; the artist rushed forward to prevent the act, and saved his life. From this gallery we looked far down below to the tessellated pavement of black and white, the centre beneath the dome forming a complete mariner's compass, showing the thirty-two points.

Above this are two more galleries around the dome,--the Stone Gallery and Golden Gallery,--from which a fine view of London, its bridges and the Thames, can be had, if the day be clear. Above we come to the great stone lantern, as it is called, which crowns the cathedral, and bears up its huge ball and cross. Through the floor, in the centre of this lantern, a hole about the size of a large dinner-plate is cut, and as I stood there and looked straight down to the floor, over three hundred feet below, I will confess to a slight feeling of contraction in the soles of the feet, and after a glance or two at the people below, dwarfed by distance, I hastily retired with the suspicion of, what if the plank flooring about that aperture should be weak!

Next comes an ascent into the ball. A series of huge iron bars uphold the ball and cross; the spaces between them are open to the weather, but so narrow, that the climber, who makes his way by aid of steps notched into one of the bars, as he braces his body against the others, could not possibly get more than an arm out; so the ascent of ten feet or so is unattended with danger, and we found ourselves standing within this great globe, which from the streets below appears about the size of a large foot-ball, but which is of sufficient capacity to contain ten men. It was a novel experience to stand in that huge metallic sphere, which was strengthened by great straps of iron almost as big as railroad rails, and hear the wind, which was blowing freshly at the time, sound like a steamship's paddle-wheels above our head. Thirty feet above the globe rises the cross, which is fifteen feet high, and which the guide affirmed he really believed American visitors would climb and sit astride of, if there were any way of getting at it.

Having taken the reader to the highest accessible point, we will now descend to the lowest--the huge crypt, in which rest the last mortal remains of England's greatest naval and greatest military heroes,--Nelson and Wellington,--heroes whose pictures you see from one end of the island to the other, in every conceivable style--their portraits, naval and battle scenes in which they figured, busts, monuments, statues, engravings, and bronzes. No picture gallery seems complete without the death scene of Nelson upon his ship in the hour of victory; and one sees it so frequently, that he almost yields to the belief that the subject is as favorite a one with British artists, as certain scriptural ones used to be with the old Italian painters.

The crypt contains the immense pillars, forty feet square, which support the floor above, and in that part of it directly beneath the dome is the splendid black marble sarcophagus of Lord Nelson, surmounted by the cushion and coronet. This sarcophagus was originally prepared by Cardinal Wolsey for his own interment at Windsor, but now covers the remains of the naval hero, and bears upon its side the simple inscription "HORATIO, VISCOUNT NELSON." In another portion of the crypt is the large porphyry sarcophagus of the Duke of Wellington, the enclosure about it lighted with gas from granite candelabra, while all about in other parts of the crypt, beneath the feet of the visitor, are memorial slabs, that tell him that the ashes of some of England's most noted painters and architects rest below. Here lies Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's, and who lived to the good old age of ninety-one. Here sleeps Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and Benjamin West, painters; here Robert Mylne, who built Blackfriars' Bridge, and John Rennie, who built Southwark and Waterloo Bridges, besides many others of more or less note. In another part of the crypt is preserved the great funeral car, with all its trappings and decorations, which was used upon the occasion of the funeral ceremonies of the Duke of Wellington, and which the guide shows with great _empressement_, expecting an extra sixpence in addition to the three shillings and two pence you have already expended for tickets to different parts of the building.

The expenses of the whole sight are as follows: Whispering and other two galleries, sixpence; to the hall, one shilling and sixpence; library, geometrical staircase, and clock, eight-pence; crypts, sixpence. Total, three shillings and two-pence. And now, having seen all else, we take a saunter through the body of the church, and a glance at the monuments erected to the memory of those who have added to England's glory upon the sea and the field of battle.

One of the first monumental marble groups that the visitor observes on entering is that of Sir William Ponsonby, whose horse fell under him in the battle of Waterloo, leaving him to the lances of the French cuirassiers. It represents Ponsonby as a half-clad figure, slipping from his horse, that has fallen to its knees, and holding up his hand, as he dies, to receive a wreath from a rather stiff-looking marble angel, that has opportunely descended at that moment.

The statue of Dr. Samuel Johnson, represented with a scroll in his hand, and in the attitude of deep thought, stands upon a pedestal bearing a long Latin inscription.

The monument by Flaxman to Lord Nelson is quite an elaborate one. It represents him in his naval full dress, and a cloak falling from his shoulders, standing upon a pedestal, leaning upon an anchor and coil of rope. Upon the side of the pedestal are cut allegorical representations of the North Sea, the German Ocean, the Nile, and the Mediterranean, and the words Copenhagen--Nile--Trafalgar. At one side of the pedestal crouches a huge marble lion. At the other stands Britannia, with two young sailors, pointing out the hero to them for their imitation.

The statue of John Howard, the philanthropist, represents him in Roman costume, trampling upon some fetters, a key in his right hand, and a scroll in his left. A bass-relief on the pedestal represents the benevolent man entering a prison, and bringing food and clothing to prisoners. A very beautiful inscription tells of his many virtues, his modesty and worth; of his having received the thanks of both Houses of British and Irish Parliaments for his services rendered to his country and mankind, and that his modesty alone defeated various efforts which were made during his life to erect this statue.

There is a fine statue of Bishop Heber, who, half a century ago (May 15, 1819), wrote the beautiful missionary hymn, "From Greenland's icy mountains," which has since then been translated into foreign tongues at every missionary station, and sung all over the world. The statue, executed by Chantrey, represents the bishop kneeling, with his hand resting upon the Holy Bible.

There are two monuments that will attract the attention of Americans, from the fact of their being in memory of generals who gained their laurels in military operations in this country. The first is that of General Robert Ross, who, in 1814, "executed an enterprise against Washington, the capital of the United States of America, with complete success." Valor is represented as placing an American flag upon the general's tomb, over which Britannia is weeping,--maybe at the vandalism of the "enterprise." The other monument represents Generals Pakenham and Gibbs, in full uniform, who, as the inscription informs us, "fell gloriously, on the 8th of January, 1815, while leading the troops to an attack of the enemy's works in front of New Orleans."

Lord Collingwood, who was vice-admiral, and commanded the larboard division at the battle of Trafalgar, has a splendid monument, upon which a man-of-war is represented bringing home his remains, attended by Fame and other allegorical figures. That eminent surgeon, Sir Astley Cooper, who died in 1842, has a fine monument, erected by his contemporaries and pupils.

A splendid marble group, representing a war-horse bounding over a fallen soldier, while his rider is falling from the saddle into the arms of a Highlander, is erected to the memory of Sir Ralph Abercromby, who fell in Egypt in 1801. A marble figure of a sphinx reposes each side of the monument. The statue of Sir Joshua Reynolds is by Flaxman, and represents him clad in the robes of a doctor of law, with a volume in one hand, and the other resting upon a medallion of Michael Angelo. The inscription, in Latin, describes him as "prince of the painters of his age."

Numerous other groups of statuary from the monuments of naval and military heroes represent them surrounded by allegorical figures of History, Fame, Valor, &c., and inscriptions set forth their deeds of bravery, and their services to the nation for whom they poured out their blood and yielded up their lives.

Monuments to those whose names are well known in this country will also attract the attention of American visitors, such as that to Henry Hallam, the historian of the Middle Ages; Turner, the celebrated painter; Napier, the historian of the peninular war; Sir Henry Lawrence, who died defending Lucknow, in 1857; and Sir John Moore, who fell at Corunna, and was buried at midnight on the ramparts, as described in the well-known ode commencing,--

"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, As his corpse to the rampart we hurried."

Thus it is in the sculptured marble you may in Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's, and the old cathedrals of the country, read England's history again, and seem to approach nearer, and have a more realizing sense of her great men and their deeds, than from the pages of the printed volume.

In the rush of sight-seeing we had nigh forgotten Guildhall, the home of Gog and Magog, and the City Hall of London. And, in truth, it is really not much of a sight to see, in comparison with the many others that claim the visitor's attention; but we drifted down to the end of King Street one day, which carried us straight into the entrance of Guildhall, at the end of the street. The great entrance hall is quite imposing, being about one hundred and fifty feet long, fifty wide, and fifty high, lighted with windows of painted glass, while at one end, in a sort of raised gallery, stand the big wooden figures of the city giants, Gog and Magog. Around this great hall are several monuments and groups; among them, those to the Earl of Chatham, Wellington, and Nelson, and statues of Edward VI., Queen Elizabeth, and Charles I. The hall is used for elections, city meetings, and banquets--those noted feasts at which turtle soup is supposed to be so prominent a feature in the bill of fare.

There are in London quite a number of the buildings or halls of the guilds or trade associations of old times--nearly fifty, I believe. Many of the trades have ceased to exist--their very names almost obsolete. For instance, the association of loriners, united girdlers, and the bowyers. The members of some of these old corporations or guilds are by no means all artisans, and about all they have to do is to manage the charities and trust funds that have descended to them. They meet but once or twice a year, and then in the old hall, furbished up for the occasion. The very best of good eating and drinking is provided, and perhaps, on certain anniversaries, the curious records and annals of the old society are produced, and, perchance, some old anniversary ceremony gone through with.

Some of the societies have rare and curious relics, which are brought out on these occasions. For instance, the fish-mongers have the dagger with which Wat Tyler was stabbed by one of its members; the armorers and braziers some fine old silver work; and the barber surgeons a fine, large picture, by Holbein, representing Henry VIII. presenting the charter to their company. In Goldsmiths' Hall we saw a splendid specimen of the goldsmiths' work, in the shape of a gold chandelier, weighing over one thousand ounces. This hall was rebuilt in 1834, although the goldsmiths owned the site in 1323. By an act of Parliament, all articles of gold or silver must be assayed or stamped by this company before being sold.

In Threadneedle Street, appropriately placed, we saw Merchant Tailors' Hall, built about 1667; and in the old hall of this company James I., and his son Prince Henry, once dined with the company, when verses composed especially for the occasion by Ben Jonson were recited. Here, in Threadneedle Street, is the Bank of England, sometimes called the "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street," which is also one of the sights of the metropolis, and covers a quadrangular space of nearly four acres. Armed with a letter of introduction from one of the directors, or, more fortunate, in company with one of them, if you chance to enjoy the acquaintance of any of those worthies, you can make the tour of this wonderful establishment, finishing with the treasure vault, where you have the tantalizing privilege of holding a million or two dollars' worth of English bank notes in your hand, and "hefting" ingots of gold and bricks of silver.

Then there are twenty-four directors to this bank, and about a thousand persons employed in it: clerks commence at the age of seventeen, receiving fifty pounds per annum for their service, and the salary of a chief of department is twelve hundred pounds. Some old, gray-headed men that we saw, who had grown round-shouldered over their ledgers, we were informed had been in the employ of the bank for over forty years. The operation of collecting the specie for a bank note, which I tested, is one requiring considerable red tape and circumlocution. You go from clerk to clerk, registering your address and date of presentation of notes and their number, till finally you reach the individual who is weighing and shovelling out sovereigns, who passes out the specie for the paper. These notes, after being once presented, are never re-issued, but kept on hand, first having the signatures torn off, for seven years, and then burned. We visited the storehouse of these "relics of departed worth," in the bank, where millions of tatterdemalions were heaped up, awaiting their fiery doom.

That royal gift of Cardinal Wolsey to Henry VIII.--Hampton Court Palace--is not only noted for its associations of bluff King Hal and the ambitious cardinal, but as being the residence of several of the most celebrated of the British sovereigns. The estate went into the clutches of Henry in 1526. It is about twelve miles from Hyde Park, in London, and the palace covers about eight acres of ground. It was here that Edward VI. was born, and his mother, Jane Seymour, died a few days after; and it was here that Catharine Howard first appeared as Henry VIII.'s queen, in 1540; and in this palace the licentious brute married his sixth wife, Catherine Parr; here Edward VI. lived a portion of his short reign, Queen Mary spent her honeymoon, and Queen Elizabeth visited. Charles II. was here during the plague in London; and Oliver Cromwell saw one daughter married and another die beneath its roof; Charles II. and James II., William III. and George II., have all lived and held court in this famous old place, which figures so frequently in the pages of English history; and so short a distance is it from London, and so cheap are the excursion trains, that, on a pleasant day a mechanic, his wife, and child may go out, visit the magnificent old palace, all its rooms, see all its paintings, its superb acres of lawn, forests, garden, fountains, court-yards, and walks for two shillings (the railroad fare to go and return for the three). All at Hampton Court is open free to the public; they may even walk, run, and roll over on the grass, if they like, if not rude or misbehaved. Many spend a whole holiday in the palace and its delightful grounds, and on the pleasant Sunday afternoon I visited them, there were, at least, ten thousand persons present; yet, so vast is the estate, that, with the exception of the passage through the different rooms, which are noted as picture galleries, there was no feeling as of a crowd of visitors.

The guides, who went through the different apartments, explaining their history, and pointing out the celebrated and beautiful paintings, asked for no fee or reward, although many a visitor drops a few pence into their not unwilling hands.

Entering the palace, we went by way of the King's Grand Staircase, as it is called, the walls and ceilings covered with elegant allegorical frescoes, and representations of heathen deities--Pan, Ceres, Jupiter, Juno; Time surrounded by the signs of the zodiac, and Cupids with flowers; Fame blowing her trumpet, and Peace bearing the palm branch; Bacchus with his grapes, and Diana seated upon the half moon; Hercules with his lion skin and club, and Ganymede, on the eagle, presenting the cup to Jove. From this grand entrance, with necks aching from the upward gaze, we came to the Guard-room, a spacious hall, some sixty feet in length, with muskets, halberds, spears, and daggers disposed upon the walls, forming various fantastic figures.

From thence the visitor passes into the first of the series of state apartments, which is entitled the King's Presence Chamber, and, after looking up at the old chandelier, made in the reign of Queen Anne, suspended from the ceiling, the guide begins to point out and mention a few of the leading pictures in each room. As there are eighteen or twenty of these rooms, and over a thousand pictures suspended upon the walls, to say nothing of the florid and elaborate decorations of the ceilings by Verio, the number is far too great to be inspected satisfactorily at a single visit; and upon many scarce more than a passing glance can be bestowed as you pass along with the group of sight-seers. I jotted in my note-book several of those before which I halted longest, such as Charles I. by Vandyke, Ignatius Loyola by Titian, and the portraits of beauties of Charles II.'s gay court, which are one of the great attractions of the collection. These portraits were painted by Sir Peter Lely, and some of them very beautifully executed: here are the Princess Mary, as Diana; Anne Hyde, Duchess of York; the Duchess of Richmond, whom Charles wanted to marry, and, if she looked like her portrait, we applaud his taste in female beauty; the sprightly, laughing face of Nell Gwynne; Lady Middleton, another beauty, but a frail one; and the Countess of Ossory, a virtuous one amid the vice and licentiousness of the "merry monarch's" reign.

In the Queen's Gallery, which is about one hundred and seventy-five feet in length, there is a very interesting collection; and here the guide had some indulgence, and allowed us to tarry a little. Great tapestry hangings, with scenes from the life of Alexander the Great, beautifully executed, were suspended on the walls; here hung Raphael's portrait, painted by himself; here Henry VII.'s Children, by Mabeuse; and here old Holbein (to whose brush we owe all the pictorial representations we have of Henry VIII.) especially flourishes; for his portraits of Henry when young, of Erasmus, Will Somers, the king's jester, Francis I. of France, and others that I do not remember, hang here; there is a beautiful St. Catherine, by Correggio; a Jewish Rabbi, by Rembrandt; Boar's Head, by Snyders; Fruit, by Cuyp; a Boy and Fruit, by Murillo; besides scores of others by great artists. What a collection to be allowed thirty-five minutes to look at! It was little less than an aggravation.

Next came the Queen's Drawing-room, which contains many pictures from the pencil of Benjamin West; among them, that with which every one of us, who has studied an American geography or child's book of history, is so familiar--the death of General Wolfe at the storming of Quebec. From out the windows of this room is another of those superb English landscape views of which I have so often spoken, that we get from the castles and palaces of the country. A magnificent avenue of lime trees, nearly a mile in length, stretches out to view, and an artificial river, or canal, of the same length, shines between the greensward of the park, while an old English church tower, at the extreme background, fills out the charming picture of nature.

In the Queen's Audience Chamber we have old Holbein's works again. The curious old pictures from his brush here are, Henry VIII. embarking at Dover; the Battle of Spurs; Meeting of Henry VIII. and the Emperor Maximilian, and Meeting of Henry VIII. and Francis I. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. This last picture has a story, which is to the effect that in Cromwell's time the Parliament proposed to sell it to the King of France. The Earl of Pembroke, however, determined that such a treasure of art and historical memento should not leave England, and thereupon carefully and secretly cut off the head of Henry the Eighth from the canvas, so that the French king's agent, discovering the mutilation, refused to take the painting. When Charles the Second came to the throne, after the Restoration, Pembroke returned the head, which had been carefully preserved, and it was very skilfully replaced; so skilfully, that it was only by getting a view by a side light that we could discover that it had been disturbed.

In the Private Dining-room, as it is called, are shown three of the great couches of royalty, the state beds of William III. and his Queen Mary, and that of George II., and but few pictures of note; so we go on through other "halls," "writing closets," "audience chambers," &c., till we reach a fine, lofty gallery, built by Sir Christopher Wren; here we have more portraits by Holbein, one by Abert Dürer, one of Queen Elizabeth, in her vast and enormously built up and gaudy costume, Landscape by Rubens, Battle Piece by Wouvermans, Inside a Farm House by Teniers, and some two or three hundred others.

After this pictorial surfeit we passed into the magnificent great Gothic Hall, designed by Wolsey, and finished by Henry VIII., when Anne Boleyn was queen. This hall is pure Gothic, one hundred and six feet long, forty wide, and sixty high, the roof very elaborately carved oak, decorated, with great taste and splendor, with arms and badges of King Henry. It is somewhat singular that at this very place, which was the scene of Wolsey's magnificence and Henry's lordly splendor, there should have been acted, by King George I.'s command, in 1718, Shakespeare's play of "Henry VIII., or the Fall of Wolsey." The walls of this hall are hung with splendid arras tapestry, representing the history of Abraham; around the hall hung portraits of Henry VIII., Wolsey, Jane Seymour, and Queen Elizabeth; and at intervals are deers' heads, carved from wood, above which are banners and trophies. The notable feature of the hall, however, is its stained-glass windows, thirteen in number, besides the great one and the beautiful oriel window, splendid in its proportions, fine Gothic canopy, and rich in beautiful colored glass, bearing armorial devices of the King and Jane Seymour. The Great Window is divided off into fourteen compartments, one of which has a half-length portrait of King Henry, and the others are filled with armorial crests and devices. Six of the other windows bear the armorial pedigrees of the six wives of the king, and the others various heraldic designs. The architecture and decorations of this noble hall are very well managed, and the subdued and colored light, falling upon the rich carving and Gothic tracery, produces an imposing and strikingly beautiful effect.

After an inside view of the palace and its picture-galleries, the stroll through the great park is none the less delightful. This park, or rather the gardens, as they are called, are elegantly laid out with beds of brilliant-colored flowers, broad gravel walks, beautiful closely-clipped lawns, and groups of splendid oaks and elms; and, although the grounds are almost a dead level, with but little inequality, still they are so beautifully arranged as to present a charming and romantic appearance. Here crowds of people walked beneath the great trees in the broad shaded avenues, sat on the velvety turf at the foot of great oaks, or paused and admired the huge plats of flowers, of brilliant hues and delicious fragrance, arranged by the gardener's skill in beautiful combinations, or strolled into the conservatory to see the orange trees, or into the vinery to see that celebrated grape vine, which is said to be the largest in Europe; and a royal monster it is, indeed, stretching out its arms over one hundred and thirty feet, and having a stem that, at three feet from the ground, measures over thirty inches in circumference. It was planted in 1768. Its fruit is the richest black Hamburg variety, and from two thousand to two thousand five hundred bunches of the luscious spheroids are its annual yield. Not among the least of the attractions of the gardens is a maze, skilfully constructed of hedges about seven feet in height, and the walks to the centre, or from the centre to the outside, so skilfully contrived in labyrinthine passages of puzzling intricacy as to render it a matter of no ordinary difficulty to extricate one's self. A guide, however, stands upon an elevated platform outside, and assists those by his instructions who are unable to do so, and give up the trial. The shouts of laughter of those who were entangled in the deceitful avenues told of their enjoyment of the ingenious puzzle.

Near the maze is one of the large gates of the palace gardens, opening exactly opposite to Bushy Park; and here we passed out into a great avenue, a mile in length, of horse-chestnut trees, the air redolent with their red and white blossoms. In this park the parties who come from London to visit Hampton Court picnic, as no eatables or picknicking is permitted in the gardens of the latter. Hawkers and pedlers of eatables and drinkables, of all kinds and at all prices, were in every direction; groups under the trees were chatting, lunching, and lounging, and enjoying themselves.

The finest residence of English royalty, at the present time, is Windsor Castle; and a pleasant railway ride of twenty miles or so from London brought us in sight of the splendid great Round Tower, which is so notable a feature of the place. It crowns the apex of a hill, and is a conspicuous landmark. Edward III. was born here; Cromwell and Charles II. have lived here; and a statue of the latter is conspicuous in the great quadrangle of the castle, which you enter after mounting the hill. The towers around the walls bear such names as Edward III. Tower, Lancaster Tower, Brunswick Tower, Victoria Tower, &c.; but the noblest of all is the great Keep, or Round Tower, which rises to the height of one hundred and twenty-five feet above the pavement of the quadrangle; and up to the summit of this I toiled, to be repaid by the charming English landscape view spread out on every side. Twelve counties were within the range of vision; the square turrets of old English churches, arched-stone bridges, the beautiful park and grounds beneath, with cricketers at play, and the beautiful sheet of water ("Virginia water"), like a looking-glass beneath the sun, and the Thames winding away in the distance like a silver ribbon on the green landscape, which was dotted with villages, elegant country seats and castle-like dwellings of the aristocracy, formed a picture that it was a luxury to look upon.

Visitors are conducted through the state apartments, which contain many fine pictures, some magnificent tapestry, and which, of course, are furnished in regal style. The Gobelin tapestry, and a magnificent malachite vase,--the latter a gift to the queen from Nicholas, Emperor of Russia,--were in the Presence Chamber. The Waterloo Chamber contained many fine portraits of Waterloo heroes by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the Vandyke Room was hung only with pictures painted by that artist.

It will be recollected that Edward III. instituted the Order of the Garter at Windsor, in 1349, and in St. George's Hall, or the State Dining-room, as it is called, is where the queen confers the order. At the upper end of this hall, which is two hundred feet in length, is the throne upon its raised dais. Upon one side of the apartment are hung the portraits of England's sovereigns, while upon the other are the coats of arms of the original Knights of the Garter, elegantly emblazoned with their names and titles, and those of their successors. The ceiling is also elegantly ornamented. The most attractive apartment is the long gallery, about fifteen feet wide and four hundred and fifty long, which is rich in bronzes, busts, and pictures, although we looked with some interest at a shattered section of the mast of Lord Nelson's flag-ship, the Victory, which bears the mark of the enemy's cannon-shot, and is surmounted by a bust of Nelson, in a room called the Guard Chamber; and in the same room is a shield, inlaid with gold and silver-work, presented by Francis I. to Henry VIII. at their celebrated meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Next after the state apartments St. George's Chapel engaged our attention. This chapel was begun by Edward IV. in 1461, and not completed till early in the sixteenth century. The architectural beauty of the interior is indescribable. The richly-ornamented roof and the great east window are most exquisitely done, and it is a wonder that tourists, authors, and the guide-books do not say more than they do about it. Knights of the Garter are installed here. Their banners and escutcheons hang above their carved oaken stalls. A wrought steel screen, by that cunning artificer in iron, Quintin Matsys, stands above the last resting-place of Edward IV. Here, below the marble pavement, rests the gigantic frame of Henry VIII.; here slumber Charles I. and Henry VI, George III., IV., and William IV. The monument to the Princess Charlotte is a magnificent group, representing her upon a couch as if just expired, and a sheet thrown over the body, while her maids by its side, with mantles thrown over their heads, are bowed down with grief. Above, the spirit is represented as an angel soaring towards heaven--a figure exquisitely cut, and so gracefully poised that the spectator half expects to see it rise, float away into the air, and soar out of sight. The effect is much heightened by the admirable manner in which it has been managed to have the light fall upon this beautiful sculpture.

There is a home park to Windsor Castle; and how large, think you, American reader, is this home park for British royalty? Why, _only_ five hundred acres! This is connected with Windsor Great Park by the Long Walk, a splendid avenue lined with elms, which avenue is continued on for three miles. The Great Park has one thousand eight hundred acres within its area. Here was Windsor Forest, Herne's Oak, where Herne the Hunter was said to dash forth upon his steed, and where old Falstaff,--

"A Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i' the forest,"--

made his assignation with the merry wives of Windsor. Old Windsor itself is some little distance away, nestled down on the banks of the River Thames; and though we saw some ancient houses and an inn or two, there were none that, in our brief sojourn, we could conjure by imagination into such a one as fat Jack and his friends, Bardolph and Pistol, swilled sack in, nor anything that looked like the Garter Inn, or Mistress Quickly. One inn rejoices in the name of Star and Garter, but the briskness and modern style of it savored not of Jack Falstaff's time.

We closed our visit to Windsor with an inspection of the royal stables, or Queen's Mews, as they call them here. These stables were very well arranged and kept, and contain nearly a hundred horses when all are in. Many were away with the family, who were absent at the time of our visit; but there were the horses for park drives, the horses for road drives, &c., while there were also a dozen or more very handsome barouches, pony and basket carriages, and seven handsome carriages for the queen and suite to go to and from railway stations, Clarences, and various other vehicles, among them a large open-sided affair, with a white tent-like roof, a present from Louis Philippe. Considering that this is only one of the Queen's Mews, it seemed as if this part of her "establishment" was regal indeed. After patting the fat old white pony, which her majesty always uses in her morning drives in the park when at Windsor, we presented our cicerone with an English shilling, which, notwithstanding he wore the queen's livery, he did not scorn to receive, and, taking a glance at the interior of the Riding School, which is a handsomely-arranged room about two hundred feet long, where scions of royalty may be taught to

"Witch the world with noble horsemanship,"

we bade adieu to Windsor.

If there is any one thing aggravating to the American tourist, on his first trip to England, it is the supreme indifference of the English press to American affairs. Accustomed to the liberal enterprise of the press of his own country, which, with a prodigality of expenditure, stops at nothing when news is to be had, and which every morning actually gives him news from all parts of the world, in addition to copious extracts from foreign and domestic papers, he is struck with astonishment at the comparative lack of enterprise shown by the London papers.

The London Times, which for the past half century it has been the custom for American papers to gratuitously advertise in paragraphs about its wonderful system and enterprise, can no more compare with the New York Tribune and New York Herald in lateness of news, amount of news by telegraph, and correspondence, than a stage coach with a locomotive.

Marked features in the Times are the finished style of its editorials and correspondence, and its parliamentary reports, although the latter, I hardly think, are much better made up than the American Congressional reports in our own papers. But where the inferiority of the English, and the superiority of the American papers is most conspicuous, is in the matter of telegraphic despatches, the American papers using the telegraph without stint, and the English very sparingly. The New York Tribune will generally give its readers, every morning, from five to eight times as much by home lines of wire as the London Times. To be sure we have a much larger extent of territory, at home, that the wires go over; but then the American papers generally give more telegraphic news from the continent of Europe even, than the London papers.

The American, on his first visit to England, calls for the Times at his breakfast table, and if he is lucky enough to get one, turns eagerly to the telegraphic column to see what may be the latest news from America. He finds a despatch of from six to twelve lines, in which the quotations of the price of United States stocks, New York Central, Erie, Illinois Central, and some other railroad shares, are given, and, perhaps, a line or two saying that Honorable Thaddeus Stevens, member of Congress, died this morning, or the president has appointed George S. Boutwell secretary of the treasury department. A hundred other matters, which affect British and American commerce, are not reported; intelligence interesting to Americans, or any one who has _ever been_ to America, is not alluded to; extracts from American papers seldom given, and, when given, only such as will give a prejudiced impression. Accounts of the commercial, agricultural, and material progress of the country seem to be carefully and jealously excluded from their columns, and after a month's reading of English newspapers, your wonder that the English people are so ignorant of America will give place to astonishment that they should have any correct impression of it whatever.

Take, for example, the well-known speech of Senator Sumner upon the Alabama claims, which, day after day, the papers of London thundered, roared, and howled over, wrote against and commented on, and not one of them printed in its columns until an American publishing house, in London, in answer to the call for it, issued it in a pamphlet. Every American knows that had a speech of equal importance, relating to this country, been made in England, it would have been telegraphed to and have appeared in our journals, _entire_, within twenty-four hours after it had been made. Then, again, the enterprise of our own press is shown in its giving extracts, pro and con, of the opinions of the British press, so that the American reader feels that he is "posted," and may judge for himself; whereas, in the English papers, he gets only one side of the question, and a meagre allowance at that.

Murders, railroad accidents, steamboat explosions, riots, and suicides are the favorite extracts from the American press made by the London papers. The progress of great railroads, increase of great cities in size, and the progress of this country in industry, science, art, and manufactures, are only occasionally alluded to.

My national pride being touched at these omissions, I inquired the reason of them of a good-natured Englishman of my acquaintance one day.

"Well, the fact is, yah see, we don't care much about Americar h'yar, yah know--yah know--'cept when there's some deuced row, yah know, and then the Times tells us all about it, yah know."

And it is even so; the national pride is so intense, that the Englishman, as a general thing, seems to care very little for anything that is not English; his estimate of anything as good or bad is based upon its approach to or retreat from the British standard of excellence; his national vanity leads him to care very little about the progress or decline of any other country, so long as it does not immediately affect his own "tight little island." Many have, apparently, pictured in their minds a map of the world like that of the Chinese topographer, which gave their own country four fifths of the space, carefully drawn, leaving the remainder a blank, as occupied by outside barbarians.

"But why," asked I of my good-natured friend, "does the Times give two columns of bets and horse-race matter, and only a dozen lines about the great Pacific Railroad?"

"Yaas, ah! the Darby, yah know,--British national sport--every Englishman knows about the Darby--couldn't make up a book without the Times, yah know. The Darby's right h'yar, and yah Pacific railway's three thousand miles off, yah know."

It is to be acknowledged there was a certain degree of force in this reasoning, but our American newspaper readers, who, from appearances, number as five to one compared with Englishmen, have been educated up to such a point of news-getting, that such an argument would fail to satisfy them. To hear some Englishmen talk, you would think the Times had been their swaddling-clothes in infancy, was their book of laws in manhood, and would be their winding-sheet at death.

And yet the Times, despite its great influence, is far exceeded in circulation by other papers in London--the London Telegraph, for instance, which, to an American, will seem in its general characteristics and enterprise the most like an American paper. It takes more pains to make itself a sheet for popular reading. Its editorials are not so heavy, either in subject or matter, as the Times, but more off-hand and easier digested. It seems to be _the_ paper of the middling classes. In nearly every railroad station I stopped at in England a handsomely-painted sign-board, sometimes three and sometimes six feet square, informed me that the London Telegraph had the largest circulation in the world; and immediately under it we were informed, upon another sign of the same size, but another color, that the Evening Standard was the largest paper in the world. Besides these announcements on signs, we found them on posters of the same size all over London, wherever bills were posted, and also posted in other English cities--a style of advertising rather expensive, but hardly so efficacious as the columns of the newspaper.

One is struck by the difference between the American and English as a newspaper-reading people. In America, newspapers are seen everywhere; boys hawk them at every corner; they are sold at news-stands in the entrance hall of every hotel; newsmen pass through the cars with armfuls, at intervals, on every railroad line; half a dozen are taken in every hair-dresser's shop for the use of customers; and the great hotels have a reading-room with files from all the leading cities, so that a daily newspaper may be had in America, and is at hand at any and all times when the reader may wish it; but here in London I found it comparatively a matter of difficulty always to obtain a daily paper. The hotel where I lodged, which had some thirty or forty guests, "took in" _one_ London Daily Times, a Manchester paper, and one other weekly. Of course the first person who got the Times never resigned it until he had read it through, and exhausted the patience of anybody else who undertook to wait for it. There was no news-stand near, nor in the hotel--"the porter could horder me a Times of the newsman, reg'lar, when he came round, if I wished it, as would be ready at breakfast."

Some of my English friends smiled, almost incredulously, at my assertion that our American business men very generally subscribed for from three to five daily papers, besides weeklies, and wondered "why they wanted to read the news over so many times," and were also astonished to know that American coachmen read newspapers while waiting for a fare, a porter while waiting for a job, or a handcart-man at his cart-stand, that they were always a prime necessity to passengers in cars and omnibuses, and were studied, conned, and perused at almost every interval of business, and occupied no small portion of the leisure hours of all classes of American citizens. The railroad stations in London are provided with good news-stands, where the traveller may always obtain the daily and weekly papers, and also a good supply of excellent light literature. My foreign experience, thus far, however, has strengthened my conviction that America is the land of newspapers.

Trying to give the British Museum a thorough examination is somewhat of a formidable undertaking; for it requires several visits to get even a superficial view of its valuable contents. The space of seven acres of ground is occupied by the buildings, which cost over a million pounds sterling, while the curiosities, relics, antiquities, and library cannot be estimated in a money value. As an indication, however, of the value, I may enumerate some of its purchases of collections, &c.: the Charles Townley collection of Roman sculpture, purchased by government in 1805 for twenty thousand pounds, including Discobolus, noble busts of Homer, Pericles, Sophocles, &c.; the Elgin Marbles, purchased of Lord Elgin for thirty-five thousand pounds; the Phygalian Marbles, which cost nineteen thousand pounds; Portland Vase, eighteen hundred guineas; prints, in the collection of prints and engravings, costing from two hundred to five hundred guineas each. The enormous library has swallowed up vast private collections, besides the valuable ones that have been given to it, among them that of Sir Thomas Grenville, which cost fifty-four thousand pounds; George III.'s library, which was given to the government, and cost one hundred and thirty thousand pounds--an exceedingly rich and rare collection; the valuable collection of manuscripts--the Cottonian Harleian, cost ten thousand pounds; Lansdowne, five thousand pounds; Burney, thirteen thousand pounds, &c. These are only a few of the prices of leading collections that I find set down in the different hand-books of the museum; but, as is well known, there are other articles of antiquity, historical relics, bibliographical curiosities, &c., for which perfectly fabulous prices have been paid, especially for any well-authenticated relics or manuscripts relating to the early history of the country. Sometimes articles of this description find their way into a public auction sale, and there is a struggle between some wealthy virtuoso and the museum agent for its possession. But he must be a bold buyer, with a deep purse, to contend successfully against the British Museum, when it is decided that any article offered for sale ought to be added to its collection. The museum is divided into eleven different departments, viz.: printed books and manuscripts, Oriental antiquities, Greek and Roman antiquities, British mediæval antiquities, coins and medals, botany, prints and drawings, zoölogy, palæontology, and mineralogy.

The library is that portion of the museum most read about by strangers, and the least seen by visitors, as they are only admitted into a very few of the rooms in which this enormous collection is contained. There are now seven hundred thousand volumes, and the number increases at the rate of about twenty thousand a year; and among some of the curiosities and literary treasures in this department, I will mention a few, which will give a faint indication of its incalculable value. There are seventeen hundred different editions of the Bible, some very rare and curious; an Arabic edition of the Koran, written in gold, eight hundred and sixty years ago; a collection of block books, printed from carved blocks of wood on one side of the leaf only, which was a style of

## bookmaking immediately preceding the art of printing.

We were shown specimens of the earliest productions of the printing press, some of which, for clearness and beauty of execution, are most remarkable. The Mazarine Bible, 1455, is very fine. Then we saw a copy of Cicero, printed by Fust and Schoeffer, in 1465. The first edition of the first Latin classic printed, and one of the two books in which Greek type was used;--the press work of this was excellent. A Psalter, in Latin, in 1457, by Fust and Schoeffer, on vellum, and the first book printed in colors, the typography clear, and beautifully executed. The first edition of Reynard the Fox, printed 1479. A splendid copy of Livy, printed on vellum, in 1469, for Pope Alexander VI., and the only copy on vellum known to exist;--this volume cost nine hundred pounds in 1815. The first edition of the first book printed in Greek characters, being a Greek Grammar, printed in Milan, in 1475. The first book in which catch-words were used. The first book in which the attempt was made to produce cheap books by compressing the matter, and reducing the size of the page, was a little copy of Virgil, issued in Venice in 1501; and the present price would be far from cheap. The first book printed in France, the first in Vienna, &c. "The Game and Playe of Chess," printed by Caxton, in Westminster Abbey, in 1474, and which was the first edition of the first book printed in England. Then there was the first edition of old Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, printed in 1476, by Caxton. Cauntyrburye was the way they spelled it in his time. Æsop's Fables, with curious old wood-cuts, printed by Caxton, in 1484. The first printed document relative to America, Columbus's letter, written eight months after his discovery, and printed in Rome in 1493. The first edition of Paradise Lost, and of Robinson Crusoe. And our eyes were made to ache by trying to read a "microscopic" edition of Horace, printed in the smallest type ever produced, and undecipherable except with a magnifying glass.

Besides these, and hundreds of other old books, enough to drive a bibliomaniac out of his remaining senses, were specimens of fine and sumptuous printing, some of which, in the fifteenth century, on vellum, were a little short of marvellous in execution, and unsurpassed by anything I ever saw in modern printing. An allegorical poem, in German, printed on the occasion of the marriage of Maximilian I., at Nuremberg, in 1517, was a perfect wonder of typographic art and beauty, and challenges the attention of every one, more especially those versed in typography, as a marvel of the art. I have not space for enumeration of any of the wondrous specimens of beautiful illuminated works, printed on vellum and parchment, in colors undimmed by hundreds of years, and which the printer of to-day labors in vain to surpass. The purple and gold, the rich crimson and emerald green, that absolutely flash out on the pages of those exquisite volumes known as Books of Hours, printed in 1488, 1493, and thereabouts, are the most prodigal luxury of the art I ever laid my eyes upon; and the patience, labor, time, and care required to bring out lines, spaces, and letters to such perfection must have been very great, to say nothing of the quality of ink that has held its brilliancy for more than three centuries and a half.

Next we have books tracing the rise and progress of illustration, and then a collection of books with autographs. In these last are some autographs worth having, as, for instance, the autograph of Martin Luther, in the first volume of a copy of the German Bible, which Bible was afterwards in the possession of Melanchthon, who wrote a long note on the fly-leaf of the second volume, signing it with his autograph; an autograph of Charles I. in a volume of almanacs for the year 1624; an autograph of Milton on a copy of Aratus's Phænomena; that of Lord Bacon on a copy of Fulgentius; autograph of Katherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII., in a French volume; and that of Ben Jonson in a presentation copy of his Volpone.

The library has an extensive collection of newspapers, the oldest being a Venetian Gazette, bearing the date of 1570.

The great reading-room of the library, where free admission to read is granted to any person over eighteen years of age who can procure a recommendation from a person of respectability, is a magnificent apartment. It is a great circular space, containing forty-eight thousand superficial feet, covered by a dome one hundred and forty feet in diameter, and one hundred and six feet high. This room is open from nine A. M. to five or six P. M., and is always well lighted and warmed, and contains thirty-seven reading tables, with two or three exclusively for ladies. The floor is covered with a material which deadens the sound of footsteps, and no loud talking is permitted; so that every opportunity is afforded for quiet study. Quite a number were busily engaged, some with a large heap of volumes about them, evidently looking up authorities; others slowly and patiently transcribing or translating from some ancient black-letter volume before them; and still others quietly and comfortably enjoying the last new novel. There is space afforded for three hundred readers, and in the centre of the room, on shelves, are catalogues of the books and manuscripts contained in the library. Close at hand, running round the apartment, are shelves containing books of reference, or "lifts of the lazy," such as dictionaries, encyclopædias, &c., which readers are allowed to take from the shelves themselves. These form of themselves a library of twenty thousand volumes. For other books the reader fills out a card, and hands it to one of the attendants, who sends for it by others, who fetch it from its near or distant shelf.

The catalogue of the library is not finished, and there is a saying that the man is not living who will see it finished, the regular additions and occasional bequests serving to keep it in a perpetually unfinished condition. The most noted of the bequests are those presented by Right Hon. Thomas Grenville and George III. The former donor, whose gift was twenty thousand two hundred and forty volumes, worth over fifty thousand pounds, bequeathed his library to the nation as an act of justice, saying in his will that the greater part of it had been purchased from the profits of a sinecure office, and he acknowledged the obligation to the public by giving it to the museum for public use. The library of George III. contained eighty thousand volumes, and is kept in a gallery built expressly to hold it.

The Egyptian Galleries contain an endless collection of antiquities from that ancient land. From Memphis there are old monuments, fragments of statues, slabs with innumerable hieroglyphics, while old Thebes, the capital of ancient Egypt, seems to have been ransacked to have furnished slabs, stones, carvings, fragments of monuments, hieroglyphical inscriptions, and sarcophagi. In these galleries we saw the granite statue of Rameses II., the colossal granite head and shoulders from the Memnonium at Thebes; the head of a colossal ram from an avenue of them which leads up to the gateway of one of the great palaces at Karnak; here were two granite lions from Nubia; a colossal head brought from Karnak by Belzoni; and heaps of carved plunder stolen from old Egypt by British travellers and the British government; mummies, articles taken from mummy pits, ornaments, vases, Egyptian papyri, monuments cut by chisels two thousand years before Christ; implements the very use of which can now only be surmised; carvings of scenes in domestic life that are guessed at, and of battles, feasts, sieges, and triumphs, of which no other record exists--a wonder to the curious, and a not yet solved problem to the scholar.

The Assyrian Galleries, with their wealth of antiquities from ancient Nineveh, brought principally by Mr. Layard, are very interesting. Here we may study the bass-relief from Sennacherib's palace, and the hieroglyphics on a monument to Sardanapalus, and bass-reliefs of the battles and sieges of his reign; the best specimens of Assyrian sculpture, glass, ivory, and bronze ornaments, mosaics, seals, obelisks, and statues, the dates of which are from seven to eight hundred years before the Christian era. Think of being shown a fragment of an inscription relating to Nebuchadnezzar, and another of Darius I., a bass-relief of Sardanapalus the Great, the writing implements of the ancient Egyptians, the harps, flutes, and cymbals, and the very dolls with which their children played three thousand years ago!

The lover of Roman and Grecian antiquities may enjoy himself to his heart's content in the Roman and Grecian Galleries, where ancient sculptures by artists whose names have perished, though their works still challenge admiration, will attract the attention. In these galleries the gods and goddesses of mythology are liberally represented--the Townley Venus, Discobolus (quoit-thrower), elegant bust of Apollo, heads and busts of noble Greeks and Romans, and the celebrated marble bust, Clytie; that exquisitely-cut head rising above the bust, which springs from a half-unfolded flower.

The Elgin Marbles are in two rooms, known as the Elgin Rooms. These marble sculptures were obtained by the Earl of Elgin, in 1802, while he was the British ambassador at Constantinople, the sultan granting him a firman to remove from Athens whatever monuments he might wish. He accordingly stripped from the Parthenon huge slabs of bass-reliefs, marble figures, and ornamental portions of that noble building.

Whatever may be said of this desecration of the Athenian temple, it is altogether probable that these world-renowned sculptures and most splendid specimens of Grecian art are better preserved here, and of more service to the world, than they would have been if suffered to remain in the ruin of the temple. The beauty of these sculptures, notwithstanding the dilapidated and shattered condition of some of them, shows in what perfection the art flourished when they were executed, and the figures are models yet unsurpassed among artists of our own time.

Besides these galleries, there is also a gallery of Anglo-Roman antiquities, found in Britain, another of British antiquities anterior to the Romans, embracing such remains as have been found of the period previous to the Roman conquest, known as the stone and bronze period among the antiquaries; also a collection of Anglo-Saxon antiquities, including Saxon swords, spear-heads, bronze ornaments, coins, &c.; then comes a mediæval collection, a vast array of enamelled work, vases, jewelry, armor, mosaic work, seals, earthen ware, and weapons of the middle ages; two great Vase Rooms, filled with Grecian, Italian, Roman, and other antique vases, found principally in tombs and ancient monuments, from the rudest to the most graceful of forms; the Bronze Room, where we revelled amid ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan bronzes, and found that the Bacchus, Mercury, and Jupiter, and the lions, dolphins, satyrs, and vases of antiquity, are still the most beautiful and graceful works of art extant, and that a large portion of those of our own time are but reproductions of these great originals of a former age.

If the visitor have a zoölogical taste, the four great galleries of zoölogical specimens--beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes--will engage his attention, in which all sorts and every kind of stuffed specimens are displayed; and in another gallery a splendid collection of fossils may be inspected, where are the remains of the gigantic iguanodon and megalosaurus, skeleton portions of an enormous bird, ten feet high, from New Zealand,--the unpronounceable Latin name of which I forgot to note down,--a splendid entire skeleton of the great Irish deer, fossil fish, imprints of bird tracks found in rocks, of skeletons of antediluvian animals, plants, and shells, and huge skeletons of the megatherium and mastodon, skeletons and fragments of gigantic reindeer, elk, oxen, ibex, turtles, and huge lizards and crocodiles now extinct. There are also halls and departments for botany and mineralogy, coin and medal room, which, besides its splendid numismatical collection, contains the celebrated Portland Vase, and some curious historical relics.

Apropos of historical relics; in a room not far from the entrance hall there are some most interesting historical and literary curiosities, over and about which I loitered with unabated interest, for here I looked upon the original deed of a house in Blackfriars, dated March 11, 1612, and signed William Shakespeare. Here we saw the original Magna Charta, the very piece of parchment that had been thumbed by the rebellious barons, and to which King John affixed his unwilling signature at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. This piece of discolored parchment, with the quaint, regular, clerkly old English handwriting, and the fragment of the tyrant's great seal hanging to it, is the instrument that we have read so much of, as the chief foundation of the constitutional liberties of the people of England, first executed over six centuries and a half ago, and confirmed since then by no less than thirty-eight solemn ratifications. It is certainly one of the most interesting English documents in existence, and we looked upon it with feelings something akin to veneration.

Displayed in glass cases, we read the original draft of the will of Mary, Queen of Scots, in her own handwriting, the original manuscript of Kenilworth in Walter Scott's handwriting, the original manuscript of Pope's translation of the Iliad, a tragedy in the handwriting of Tasso, the original manuscript of Macaulay's England, Sterne's Sentimental Journey in the author's handwriting, Nelson's own pen sketch of the battle of the Nile, Milton's original agreement for the sale of Paradise Lost, which was completed April 27, 1667, the author being then fifty-eight years of age. The terms of the sale, which was made to Samuel Symons, a bookseller, was five pounds down, with a promise of five pounds more when thirteen hundred copies of the first edition should have been sold, another five pounds more when thirteen hundred copies of the second edition should be sold, and so on for successive editions. It was not, however, till 1674, the year of his death, that the second edition was published; and in December, 1680, Milton's widow sold all her interest in the work for eight pounds, paid by Symons.

We saw here the little prayer book used by Lady Jane Grey on the scaffold, with her name, Jane Dudley, in her own handwriting on the fly-leaf; autographic letters from British sovereigns, including those of Richard III., Henry IV., Prince Hal, Edward the Black Prince, Henry VIII., and Queen Elizabeth, Bloody Mary, Charles II., Mary, Queen of Scots, and Oliver Cromwell. Nor were these all. Here were Hogarth's receipted bills for some of his pictures, the original Bull of Pope Leo X., conferring on Henry VIII. the title of Defender of the Faith (and a precious bull he made of it), autographic letters of Peter the Great, Martin Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Cranmer, John Knox, Robert, Earl of Essex, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton; then a batch of literary names, letters from Addison, Dryden, Spenser, Moliere, Corneille; papers signed by George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Horatio Nelson, Napoleon Bonaparte, Francis I., Philip II., Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII. of Sweden, and so many fresh and interesting surprises greeted me that I verily believe that at last I should have copied down in the little note-book, from which I am writing out these memoranda, a despatch from Julius Cæsar, announcing that he yesterday passed the River Rubicon, or his "_Veni, Vidi, Vici_," with the feeling that it was quite correct that such a document should be there.

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