ground till the Restoration. There is a story that the brazier made handsome profits by selling to both Royalists and Parliamentarians a number of brazen handles of knives and forks, asserting that they were made out of the metal of the statue. After the Restoration, legal proceedings were taken against Rivet to compel him to deliver up the statue, which was set up in 1674. For many years it was customary to decorate the statue with oak boughs on the 29th of May. It measures 9 feet 2 inches in height, and the horse is 7 feet 9 inches from head to tail. The pedestal is 13 feet 9 inches high. The sculptures on the pedestal were not by Gibbons, as was long thought, but by Joshua Marshall, master mason to the crown. At Charing Cross formerly stood one of the highly decorated stone crosses erected by Edward I. (1291), on the spots where the corpse of his Queen Eleanor rested on its way to Westminster Abbey. It was removed by the Parliament in 1647. The site was afterwards used as a place for the execution of capital punishments, and here some of the regicides suffered. It has been customary for many years past to read royal proclamations here.

On the west side of Charing Cross are Spring Gardens, through which there is a foot road to St. James' Park. In years gone by, there was a garden here attached to the palace of Whitehall, which was thrown open to the public as a bowling green and place of diversion. Here John Evelyn "treated divers ladies of my relations." "The enclosure is not disagreeable," says a writer in 1659; for the solemness of the grove, the warbling of the birds, etc., as it opens into the spacious walks of St. James'." After it was built over, Prince Rupert had a house in Spring Gardens, and died here in 1682.

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THE STRAND, an ancient thoroughfare connecting the City with Westminster, and deriving its name from lying on the bank of the river, from which it is now separated by houses. The river side came to be occupied by the houses of the nobility and bishops, which have entirely disappeared, but the names of the streets record their situations. On the south side lay the gardens of the convent of Westminster, and some fields.

The first street east of Northumberland House is Northumberland Street. In a house in this street occurred the murderous rencontre which excited so much sensation in London in the summer of 1861. In the same street Ben Jonson lived when a boy. Benjamin Franklin lived at No. 7 Craven Street for

several years, and many of his published letters were dated from this street. Hungerford Market is to be diverted from its. original purpose, and made into a railway station. At the corner

of Adelaide Street (N.) is an office of the Electric Telegraph Company, marked by a ball at the top, which drops at one o'clock every day. Villiers and Buckingham Streets (S.) were built on the site of York House, where Lord Bacon and then the Duke of Buckingham lived. The water gate, at the foot of the latter Street, is the only relic of the edifice. Opposite the same street is the Lowther Arcade (N.), a popular place for cheap toys, etc. Charing Cross Hospital is in Agar Street (N.) Coutts' Bank is at 59 Strand; and behind are the streets of the Adelphi, built by the brothers Adam, of which Adam Street forms the main communication with the Strand. In John Street is the house of the Society of Arts. The mansion of the Bishops of Durham stood at this place. After it went from them, Lady Jane Grey was married in it; and Raleigh had it for twenty years. The Adelphi Theatre (N.) is opposite Adam Street. Salisbury and Cecil Streets occupy the site of Cecil House, built in 1662 by Lord Treasurer Cecil. Southampton Street (N.) leads to Covent Garden Market. Beaufort Buildings (S.) stand on the site of a mansion inhabited by Bishops of Carlisle, Earls of Bedford, and the first Duke of Beaufort; also by Lord Chancellor Clarendon, at the time his daughter Anne was married to the Duke of York. Exeter Hall (N.) is marked by a Greek inscription over the portico. Savoy Street (S.) leads to the old church of St. Mary-le-Savoy. We now arrive at Wellington Street, which leads (S.) to Waterloo Bridge, passing the new wing of Somerset House, and (N.) to Bow Street, passing the Lyceum Theatre. Jacob Tonson, Dryden's publisher, lived "at Shakpere's Head, over against Catherine Street, in the Strand." No. 141 has been built upon the site. Catherine Street leads to Drury Lane Theatre.

Nearly in front of SOMERSET HOUSE (S.) is the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, the earliest built of Queen Anne's fifty churches (1714-17). It was erected from the design of Gibbs on the site of the old Maypole

"Where the tall Maypole once o'erlooked the Strand;

But now, so Anne and Piety ordain,

A church collects the saints of Dury Lane."

Superabundance of ornament is said to be the fault of this

church, but it certainly looks handsome at a distance, in walking eastward up the Strand, with its steeple of three receding storeys.

KING'S COLLEGE adjoins Somerset House on the east. In the next narrow alley, called Strand Lane, is an old Roman bathvaulted chamber with clear, cold water. Between this alley and Surrey Street is the Strand Theatre. In Surrey Street (N.) lived and died William Congreve the dramatist, and here he received a visit from Voltaire, to whom he expressed a wish to be considered only "as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity." In Norfolk Street, Peter the Great, when lodging there, received a visit from William III. Here too dwelt William Penn, and Ireland the forger of Shaksperean manuscripts, which Dr. Parr kissed on his knees. Arundel Street (S.) stands on the site of a mansion belonging to the Howards, in which the Arundel marbles, now in the British Museum, were deposited for some years. It had been originally the town house of the bishops of Bath. Here is the Whittington Club. St. Clement's Dane's church stands in the middle of the Strand; the body was designed by Wren, the tower, 116 feet high, by Gibbs, the latter built in 1719. Otway and Lee, the play writers, were buried here. A brass tablet, placed against a column, records that Dr. Johnson was in the habit of attending divine service at St. Clement's. From the east end of St. Mary's to the west end of St. Clement's runs an old alley called Holywell Street, filled with dirty, unwholesome shops. In Wych Street, a nearly parallel street to the north, are several old house fronts. Here is a cluster of four of the minor inns-Lyon's Inn, New Inn, Dane's Inn, and Clement's Inn. At the west end of Wych Street stands the Olympic Theatre. Godwin, the author of Caleb Williams, had a bookseller's shop at 191 Strand. Essex Street is so called from a house belonging to Queen Elizabeth's rebellious Earl, which stood here, and where he was besieged. At the bottom is the Temple pier. There are two entrances to the Middle Temple from this street. The Strand terminates at Temple Bar, which is 1370 yards distant from Charing Cross. The shortest way for persons on foot from Temple Bar to Lincoln's-Inn is through Bell Yard. LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, one of the largest squares in London, was formerly the resort of the idle and vicious, dangerous to be encountered after dark had set in. The fields were not enclosed with railings until about 130 years ago. Previous to that time

Babington

they had been used as a place of capital punishment. and his accomplices were hanged here in 1586; and in July 1683 Lord William Russell was beheaded here. Two narrow passages, called Great and Little Turnstile, communicate with Holborn. Lincoln's-Inn Hall and Library that stand on the east side, the College of Surgeons, a conspicuous edifice on the south side, and Sir John Soane's Museum, on the north side, have been described elsewhere in this volume. On the west side, an archway, built by Inigo Jones, leads into Duke Street, which connects the Fields with Drury Lane. About the middle of the same side is a house built by Inigo Jones for an Earl of Lindsay, and it was afterwards the residence of the proud Duke of Somerset. At the S.W. angle of the Fields is another of Inigo Jones's houses, built for an Earl of Portsmouth. At the corner of Queen Street is a large house built for a Marquis of Powis, and afterwards inhabited by Lord Chancellor Somers, and the Duke of Newcastle, the leader of the Pelham administration under George II. Several curious anec

dotes are told of the Duke whilst living here. In Queen Street, Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Sir Godfrey Kneller lived at a time when it was a fashionable locality.

LEICESTER SQUARE, formerly Leicester Fields, was so called from a house built for an Earl of Leicester (d. 1677), which stood at the north-east corner. In that house lived Elizabeth, the unfortunate queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., Colbert, and two Princes of Wales, after they had quarrelled with their fathers, George I. and George II. The square was enclosed about 1738; the houses around were built between 1630 and 1670. They, as well as those in the neighbourhood, are chiefly inhabited by foreigners. For ten years, 1851-61, a large building 90 feet across covered the enclosure, containing a model of the earth, erected by Mr. Wyld the map-seller. At No. 47, on the west side, is the house Sir Joshua Reynolds lived in ; it has been turned into bookauction rooms. At the opposite side of the square stands the Alhambra, a building in the Moorish style, where musical performances, rope-walking, etc., take place. In the northern wing of the Sablonière Hotel, Hogarth the painter lived and died. Sir Isaac Newton had a house in St. Martin's Street, on the south side of the square. The house was afterwards inhabited by Dr. Burney and his daughter, the authoress of "Evelina." In the north-east corner of the square is Burford's Panorama; and at the middle of the north side is Savile House, at which exhibitions of

various kinds have taken place, including Miss Linwood's curious needlework, imitating pictures that pleased our mothers and grandmothers so much. It had been the residence of Sir George Savile, whose books, paintings, and furniture were burned in the square by the rioters of 1780.

WHITEHALL is a part of Westminster, extending from Scotland Yard to Downing Street, and from the river to St. James' Park. It is so called from a royal palace of that name which stood here, and of which there only remains the banqueting house. Advancing from Charing Cross towards Westminster, the Admiralty is seen on the west, and on the opposite side is Great Scotland Yard, where are the head-quarters of the metropolitan police. Here the chief commissioner, Sir Richard Mayne, sits, and here application must be made for articles inadvertently left in cabs and omnibuses. The place is said to obtain its name from being the site of a residence for the Scottish kings, when they came to the Parliament of England. Here lived the crown surveyors, Inigo Jones and Wren; also Milton, when acting as Cromwell's Latin Secretary. Here Vanbrugh, the architect and play wright, built a house for himself out of the ruins of Whitehall, in which he died in 1726. Swift bantered "brother Van " in verse about his mansion, declaring it was a thing resembling a goose pie," and that when harnessed to a horse, he might "take journeys in it like a chaise."

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Opposite the Horse Guards (W.) is Whitehall Yard, where stand the United Service Institution, and Fife House now the India Museum. The noble Banqueting House will receive due attention as we proceed southward. Nearly opposite is Dover House (Viscount Clifden), where Lord Melbourne and the last Duke of York have resided. The handsome front of the Treasury Buildings, at the corner of Downing Street (W.), is opposite Montague House, the Duke of Buccleuch's new mansion, designed by William Burn. Close by are Priory Gardens, where at No. 4, Sir Robert Peel, the eminent statesman, lived and died. There is a very good collection of paintings here.

WESTMINSTER.-Passing through Parliament Street, we reach the turning which will take us to Westminster Bridge, and a few steps more bring us to the quadrangle called New Palace Yard, over which soars the lofty Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament. The north end of Westminster Hall abuts on this quadrangle, which has been frequently used as a place of punishment.