YORK HOUSE-FRANCIS BACON.

lined by the mansions of the nobles; when the Strand, from Temple Bar to Westminster, was an open road; when Saint Giles's "in the Fields" was a small out-of-town village, lying off to the right; and a convent, where Covent Garden now stands, was the only building of note on that side between the city and the old cross in the village of Charing: to those days when this same road, the Strand, was so rude as to be almost impassable, and the river was "the king's highway" between the Tower and the palace of Westminster: when each house fronting the stream boasted its water-gate, where the gilded and gaily caparisoned barge floated on the tide, and the boatmen, clad in rich liveries, waited their lord's pleasure at the stairs.

There are some fine associations connected with this portion of the Thames. York House, which fronted the river at almost the very point whence the steam-boat started, offers its share of storied recollections. The first breath of Francis Bacon was drawn within its walls, and through its garden's alleyed walks ranged the infant feet of the great philosopher. In York House he passed his boyhood's happy days, and, ere manhood's sorrows had thrown their shadow o'er his brow, he quitted it to engage in the strife for intellectual supremacy, and a vain worldly renown. Both were acquired and built up by the splendour of his achievements, he returned, to sacrifice to false ambition, alas! all his

vaunted nobleness of purpose. "After five-and-forty years of struggles against poverty, depreciation, rivalry, envy, and the baseness of his own moral nature-after nearly half a century spent in enduring duns and arrests for debt-in being outwitted in the attempt to win an heiress-in suffering insult from Coke, his successful rival both in love and law-and in being libelled by general rumour, and frowned down by Queen Elizabeth; knowing all the while that the good shunned him by instinct, and that the clear-sighted saw through all his glozes and eloquence, his genius and magnificence, the small and base heart in his breast-Francis Bacon came back to the house of his birth and his boyhood, crowned with the glory of success respecting both the objects of his ambition, with the seals of the Chancellorship of England in his hand, and with his 'Organon' in the press, which he had

DURHAM HOUSE-THE ADELPHI.

proudly called, 'Partis Temporis Maximus,' the Greatest Birth of Time.' But under what different circumstances did he for the second time quit York House. Guarded on all sides, he was marshalled thence a prisoner to the Tower. His domestics rose as he passed. 'Sit down, my masters," he exclaimed; "your rise has been my fall!" Doubly bitter, at this moment, must his great mind have felt its degradation.

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Next down the stream stood Durham House, the abode of John Dudley of Northumberland; a place most closely linked with the sad history of the fair and luckless Lady Jane Grey. Here she lived; here she married: from hence was she tempted to the Tower to assume a crown she was destined but a short time to wear. From Durham House, accompanied by her young and handsome husband, surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance of royalty (the ambitious Dudley of Northumberland, who had brought it all about, attending to herald the occasion), did she take water in a gilded barge decked with banners; and, moving to music, and floating down the then clear and unencumbered stream, pass under the old bridge of London, to be received in state at the Tower. It is said, that as the barge neared the bridge, Northumberland gazed thoughtfully at the array of human heads, which in those days constantly surmounted its towers; and that, even as he looked, one head fell from the spear on which it was impaled," an omen, which after events led to be regarded as a warning to the ambitious earl." Sorrow he did not so regard it. "In eight short months," says Pennant, "did his ambition lead this gentle lady to the nuptial bed, the throne, and the scaffold."

Where Durham House stood, and where this eight months' drama of real life was chiefly played, we now see the Adelphi, a noble pile of building, raised upon foundations of immense depth and thickness; massive piers of brickwork forming subterranean roads, arcades, and vaults, and supporting whole streets of stately houses above. The casual passenger along the above-ground Adelphi has little conception of its subterranean wonders. When first proposed, it was regarded as a magnificent project; and the two brothers, Adam, who completed so well the design they had conceived, left, in the name

SOCIETY OF ARTS-THE SAVOY.

of their work, a pleasant recollection of fraternity. They chose the word "Adelphi," to explain, in aftertimes, the story of the brethren-builders. One of the houses, in the centre of the river-terrace, was bought by Garrick; and one immediately behind it, in the main street, the Society of Arts, was the scene of the labours of the art-enthusiast, Barry. Day by day, month by month, and year by year, he wrought, to fix upon the walls of what was then expected to be a national institution, his ideas of the proper aim of painting. Suffering from penury himself, he lavished upon art and a thankless posterity, time and talent which would have given him riches. But he loved his art with a deep devotedness, and in his heaviest labours had his greatest happiness, his richest rewards.

But our boat moves on, and leaving the Adelphi we pass the openings of Salisbury and Cecil Streets, both sites of former noble mansions ;-the houses of York and Durham being succeeded on the river bank by those of Suffolk, Worcester, and Salisbury. Waterloo Bridge, declared by Canova (and who, were he willing, could gainsay such authority?) to be, beyond all compare, the finest in Europe, and well worthy a journey from Rome to London to see, is now in all its beauty of proportion before us. But, on the left bank, a few traces of ruined walls call attention from the triumphs of modern time to the memory of the splendours of the past. Where those coal-barges and coalheavers fulfil their dingy but comfort-creating duty, the ancient palace of the Savoy once reared its dark towers in all the pride of feudal magnificence. There the Earls of Salisbury, in the time of the early Henries, raised themselves a dwelling, which was afterwards to become the abode of royalty. There the unfortunate John of France, taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers by the Black Prince, was held in gentle yet secure duresse. There the monarch-prisoner enjoyed the plenteous hospitality of his island captors, and was thence delivered only upon promise of large ransom to be paid, of towns to be rendered up to the crown of England, and with hostage of his two sons. Failing in fulfilment of these conditions, John determined upon returning to his prison: “And when," says Clarendon, “his ministers endeavoured to dissuade him from this resolution, he told them, 'That

SOMERSET HOUSE.

though faith was banished from the rest of the earth, it ought ever to be found in the breasts of kings;'" a noble precept, which his descendant, Francis, forgot to observe, under similar circumstances, with Charles the Fifth. John returned to sicken and die in this Savoy. About this same period, John of Gaunt, "time honoured Lancaster," made the palace of the Savoy a residence, with the poet Chaucer as one of his retinue. Whilst the duke was here located, a body of Londoners attacked the building, and murdered a poor priest, whom they thought to be the Lord Percy in disguise. This nobleman had taken part with the Duke of Lancaster in some obnoxious proceedings against the citizens, and at the time this tragedy was enacting, escaped by rowing up the river in company with John, to seek a hiding-place at Lambeth.

Clearing the bridge, Somerset House displays an imposing façade to the river passenger. Originally founded by the Protector Somerset, its princely magnificence aided the current of popular outcry against him, and before he had completed the palaee he proposed for himself, he was led to the scaffold. Elizabeth; Katharine, the queen of "the Merry Monarch;" and Anne of Denmark, afterwards occupied the house of Somerset: but some sixty years since, on the site of the old mansion, the present building was reared, upon the plan of Sir William Chambers, to be used for the official purposes of government. A curious tale of providential escape is told, in connection with the present Somerset House. A man, engaged upon the roof of the building, missed his footing, and toppled headlong down. His fellowworkmen, aghast at the sight, listened in horror for the dull heavy sound of his body, as it fell crushed upon the stone pavement below; when-the man was suddenly arrested in his fall. There he hung, as though a miracle had been exerted in his favour, midway between the roof and the ground, until ladders were reared to save him. His watch-chain had, as he fell, been caught in the crevice between two blocks of the stone wall, suspending him securely until help arrived. The watch was afterwards fixed in the mortar on the front of the building, in token of the miraculous escape, and there the curious in such relics may still see it.

EARL OF ESSEX-THE GRECIAN-THE TEMPLE.

Quickly we pass the opening of Strand Lane, a dirty court of doubtful character, which contains a very perfect Roman bath; and a little further on reach Essex Street, the site of the house where lived Robert Devereux, the handsome, the courtly, the brave, yet rash and headstrong Earl of Essex-the Earl. Here audience was sought with him by princes, nobles, and ambassadors, while the sunlight of Elizabeth's favour was turned full

upon his fortunes. Here the gallant court-favourite wore the signet-token of his royal mistress's love; and from hence he madly issued with an armed band to attack the city,-the wild enterprise which changed his abode from Essex House to the Tower; and ended, for Essex on the scaffold, and for his queen,

it is said, in a broken heart. In Devereux Court, fixed high in the wall of a tavern-the Grecian-may yet be seen a stone bust of the earl, the only token, beyond the names of the street and court, of the spot where Essex House once stood. It was from the Grecian Coffee House, that Steele, when "The Tatler" first appeared, announced his intention of dating all subsequent articles which might have learning for their theme; and where, doubtless, that good-tempered, but improvident wit, emptied many a bottle with Addison, with Colonel Brett, the Colonel Ramble of the "The Tatler," and with Colonel Cleland, the Will Honeycomb of "The Spectator."

Next Essex House we have the Temple, with its memories of those martial gatherings of Europe's early chivalry, to bear the banner of the Cross to the Holy Sepulchre. Its circular church, built in imitation of the fane which, in Jerusalemn, covers the tomb of Christ, was consecrated more than six centuries ago by the Patriarch Heraclius. Upon the floor of the tower even now rest the sepulchral effigies of some Knights Templars-their bodies clad in armour of the time, their hands folded piously over their breasts, and legs crossed, in token of their pilgrimage to the Holy City. This chief memorial of the by-gone brotherhood of soldier - monks lies beyond the trim - kept Temple Gardens-an oasis in the desert