lying round about it, with the principal river running hard by, bringing in from all parts of the world great variety of wares and merchandise of all sorts to the city adj

y by the westering Th

which surpass it in beauty or grandeur; there are others, certainly, which surpass it in depth and sublimity of ass

nd delve for it, study and reconstruct; here, you have it all together, a chain in a manner unbroken, from Edward the

-god, said to exist here in Roman times. At any rate, it is clear that on this favoured spot, once the little sandy peninsula of "Thorney Island," was an early sanctuary and settlement, both Roman and Briton. In King Sebert's time the mists of antiquity lift, but still slightly. Sebert, King of the East-Saxons, was, early in the seventh century, the traditionary founder of a church here, dedicated to St. Peter. According to the story, Sebert, just returned from a Roman pilgrimage, was about to ha

l again

he fishe

assenger retu

r! thou hast

rom the Lake

essing him with

but speaks

to King Seber

ter's Church i

nd, with light

e relates th

thee that thou tell these things to the Bishop, who will find a sign and token in the church of my hallowing. And for another token, put forth again upon the ri

aring Edric's miraculous tale, changed the name

f its erection. Through all the vicissitudes of the Abbey, its many alterations and restorations, this early relic has always been treated carefully and with

f Thorney. Edward rebuilt it, laying the foundation stone in 1049, and naming it "the Collegiate Church of St. Peter of Westminster." It was the work of the King's life, and it was only consecrated eight days before his death. Of the Confessor's chapel and monastery all that now remains is the present "Chapel of the Pyx," with portions of the Westminster School Buildings and of the walls of the South Cloister. For Henry III., the Abbey's second founder, who had "a rare taste for building" pulled down, in 1245, most of his predecessor's work, and made the splendid miracle-working shrine that contains the relics of the royal saint.

, an ever-renewed joy and wonder? To Henry Tudor we owe the union of the houses of York and Lancaster; yet we remember him far more by this, the chapel that he has given us

s sacrificed, has passed away-all their living interests, and aims, and achievements. We know not for what they laboured, and we see no evidence of their reward. Victory, wealth, authority, happiness-all have departed, though bought by many a bitter sacrifice. Bu

honour as the place of coronations, the feeling that every true Englishman has for the Abbey of Westminster must necessarily be

ce of

mighty bones o

" is his true fatherland. This, he may say, is

Traüme wan

Todten au

also the great and mighty in art, science, literature, are buried within this narrow space. It is England's Temple of Fame, her crowing glory of a life of honou

, the features of their effigies composed in an eternal calm. They sleep well, after life's fitful fever! In Henry VIIth's chapel, Mary and Elizabeth, sisters of bitter hate and strange destiny, rest together in a contracted sepulchre, admitting of none other occupant but they two. "The sisters are at one; the daughter of Catherine of Aragon and the daughter of Anne Boleyn repose in peace at last." On their

thought to

hiefs sleep

Fox's grav

kle to his

he mournful r

hall the no

n echo se

ir discord wi

liamentary robes, his arm outstretched as if spe

am, and from above, his effigy, graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face a

acaulay describes the later bu

e, who carried the banner before the hearse, described the awful ceremony with deep feeling. As the coffin descended into the earth, he said, the eagle

, "breathes here the lesson which the tum

ity of former ages, as the laudatory epitaphs differ from the simplicity and humility of the early inscriptions. Justice and Mercy, Neptune and Britannia, cherubs and clouds, are generally very painfully in evidence, and in their vast size and depressing ubiquity testify to the false taste of their day. Nor are the monuments always deserved. "Some day," said Carlyle, cynically, "there will be a terrible gaol-delivery in Westminster Abbey!" The worst of such theatrical sculpture is, also, that it always takes up so much room; we

autiful chapel behind it, have, after the crude monuments of the Nave

ely "bits" in the church is that furnished by the three canopied tombs of Henry III.'s family,-the tombs of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, Countess Aveline, his wife, and Aymer de Valence. These three tombs make a charming picture from the Sacrarium, where they stand; viewed, too, from the aisle just beneath them, two of them tower up grandly, to their full height; the third, however, that of Aveline, is hidden from the aisle by an ugly eighteenth-century monument. (Truly, the eighteenth century has much to answer for!) The lofty pinnacles of these tombs, the richness of their sculptured foliage and

did affright the

of the dimly-seen chapel beyond, hanging so long in their lofty position as to seem a part of the Abbey itself. Have they not, before now, appealed to the imagination of many a Westminster

ural to the juvenile mind; on sixpenny days, you go in and out with the crowd in a depressing "queue," while each chapel in turn is unlocked and its monuments explained in a sad monotone. No other arrangement, no doubt, is possible; yet, who could penetrate to the soul of the Abbey under such conditions as these? It is perhaps not unnatural that the vergers, who have performed the office so often, should feel a certain satiety in the process, and that they should wish to hurry the visitor through the chapels as quickly and perfunctorily as may be; and yet, how charming would it be to spend a long afternoon here, in study or enjoyment, undisturbed! In an unwashed and noisy crowd, a crowd w

ad, at least something of the feeling that clings round their memorial chapels. It is this feeling that Froude has so well described: "Between us and the old English," he says in an eloquent passage, "there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can but feebly

three days old,-Princess Sophia,-and pondering over that strange curse of Stuarts and Tudors, when up came a couple, 'Arry and 'Arriet, of the usual cockney honey-mooning type. Th

Then they turned to Queen Elizabeth's effigy: "I don't like the looks of 'er," said the lady, with something between a shudder and a giggle: "I come over jes' now so faint," she continued, her pink colour fading: "it's 'ardly' 'elthy in 'ere with a

ult, close to the unhappy Queen of Scots, is buried Lady Arabella Stuart, "childe of woe"; that poor prisoner of the Tower, separated from her loved and just-wedded husband and kept by her cousin James I. in durance vile, till "her reason left her," and she died. Even in death her disgrace followed her, when,

he centre of the chapel is the magnificent tomb of Henry VII., the third founder of the Abbey, who, with much of the feeling of the men who built the Pyramids, determined this as the splendid mausoleum of his race. The monument, enclosed by a screen, or "closure," of gilt copper, is by Torregiano. Here, with H

lory of his race, had only been laid a month when his wife, Elizabeth of York, died. She lies in i

eart! my littl

eet babe, such

ever know; f

, that costly

lord, I now sh

sixteen, "flower of the Tudor name"; a small portion of the frieze of his ancient monument, al

judgment day. The Duke of Buckingham's huge tomb, that almost blocks another of these small chapels, is picturesque: and near it, on the floor of the main building, is a blue slab simply inscribed with the name of "Elizabeth Claypole." Close to the great shrine of Henry and Elizabeth rests pe

e, unsounde and

," that had condoned so many even greater wrong

rly bi-weekly services for the deanery and its precincts, &c. Its banners are decaying, its stalls are no longe

memory" who accompanied her lord to the Crusades, and in honour to whom nine monumental crosses were erected in London, still, however, remains intact. "The beautiful features of the dead queen are expressed in the most serene quietude; her long hair waves from beneath the circlet on her brow." Edward I, the greatest of the Plantagenets, lies near on a bare altar-tomb of grey marble; a plain monument for so great and glorious a being. On the north side are the words: "Scotorum Malleus" (the Hammer of the Scots). At the head o

ncerning which the Scots believed, that wherever it was carried the supreme power would go with it. Edward I. brought it from Scotland in 1297, in token of the complete subjugation of that country. Every English monarch since then has been crowned in this chai

erable state of preservation; they suggest a very grimy and antiquated Chamber of Horrors. Presumably taken from life, or, in some cases, from a cast after death, they are invaluable as contemporary likenesses. Charles II., an unpleasantly yellow, ogling creature in wig and feathered hat, a ghoulish dandy with the well-known "drop" in his cheeks, confronts us at the top of a narrow wooden stair. If it be difficult to imagine his fascinations,-those of his neighbour, "La Belle Stuart," are a trifle more suggestive; yet here the lady is, surely, no longer very young; and we can hardly connect her with the figure of "Britannia" on our pence, for which it is said she consented to sit as model. Queen Anne's effigy (she died at fifty

h not to

great orb o

l figure carried at her funeral, which had by then fallen to pieces). The portrait is evidently from a cast taken after death, for it suggests the wasting of disease, the anguish of suffering. The Queen seems haunted and hag-ridden; the wizened and weird appe

, by Roubiliac, so popular among the Abbey sightseers. This theatrical figure of the skeleton Death hurling a dart at the dying lady, so affrighted, says tradition, an intending robber, that he fled in terror, leaving his crowbar behind. And I

which date from the early conventual buildings here, (a Benedictine house connected with the foundation of the first minster), may be reached, either through a door from the South Aisle, or through the neighbouring "Dean's Yard," a pleasant square of old-fashioned houses, where from time immemorial the merry Westminster boys have played. If the visitor be of an antiquarian, or historical, turn of mind, he may now penetrate to the old "Chapel of the Pyx," a remnant of the earliest times, and the ancient treasure-house of England's Kings; or to the Chapter-House, an octagonal chamber, now restored to its pristine beauty by judicious restoration. If, on the contrary, he merely prefer to wander vaguely, every turn of the cloisters will present to him a new and charming picture. Especially in spring are these cloisters delightful, when the old trees of the courts and closes put on their early g

oth any name p

ng where I fir

alled Jerusalem,

e to God! even ther

prophesied to

t die but i

I supposed

that chamber;

usalem shal

th, Act

clergy of the Abbey live. Here is a curious tablet that records the death of a poor sufferer "who through ye spotted veil of ye smallpox rendered up his pure an

ons. One in particular, "Jane Lister, dear childe, 1688" charmed Dean Stan

of the square is now occupied by "Church House," a kind of large ecclesiastical club and office. Its

ntial neighbourhood; building is increasing there, and rents are proportionately rising. The houses are often much shadowed and built up to, yet, here and there, charming views of the Abbey and its precincts almost compensate for want of light. The too ubiquitous "flats" and "mansions

i?val times was a square Norman tower, containing two cruciform chapels. Here did that poor Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV., seek refuge twice in her chequered and mournful life; it

nument, deserved of England a better fate. This Hall, which has witnessed more tragedies than any other London building, is principally famous to us as the place of trial of Charles Stuart, King of

ust sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers; the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party i

Tower, We

e. Its galleries and courts, almost as labyrinthine as the Westminster cloisters, require a long experience to understand and unravel. That Sir Charles Barry has worked Westminster Hall into his newer palace, entitles him to our respect and gratitude. In Old Palace Yard is that equestrian statue of Richard C?ur-de-Lion that has won so much

the Painted Chamber, St. Stephen's Chapel, were parts of the old building made familiar to us by association and by history. The ancient palace was safe under the shadow of its abbey and sanctuary, till Henry VIII., who defied both abbey and sanctuary, actuated by Nabot

ed red sun was going down in splendour behind a galaxy of pink and golden clouds. Insensibly, as the light faded, and the mist rose, I seemed to lose the forms of the modern buildings, and to s

ster's ou

from th

rimitive boats of the Saxon fisher-folk, "moored among the bulrush stems"? The clamour yonder,-was it the shouting of drunken bargees, or merely the voices of simple peasants, busy with their nets, singing the evening hymn?... And was that a

, half expecting to see a Saxon hind in leather jerkin and thonged sa

the professional beggar, breaking the spell, and disclosing an unhappy, shawled, and cro

arker archway, "would not you, and such as you, have found better shrift in old days?-There was the convent;-there the sanctuary; there the gracious, unquestioning succour; there the majestic houses of the Father of Mankind and His special servants.... And ever at the sacred gates sat Mercy, pouring out relief from a never-failing store to the poor and the suffering; ever within the sacred aisles the voices of

r.... Then, gradually the "nocturne" changes its key; the darkness deepens, and the Westminster towers begin to loom up blackly against the lurid sky.... Big Ben booms solemnly through the invading mist.... For how many centuries, I wondered, has the evening bell resounded over the marshes of Thorney? Only in the lapse of time it has somewhat changed its note.... Convent bell,-churc

, evidently suspecting my motives, and accrediting me with

river-mist, between them envelop,