shape of an east wing, was commenced in 1846 from Mr. Blore's designs. This wing is 360 feet long and 77 feet high, and stands 70 feet in advance of the other wings. It cost £150,000. In 1851 the marble arch which stood on the east side of the palace, and formed its entrance gate, was removed to Hyde Park, and a state ball-room was afterwards erected on the south side.

This ball-room is 111 feet long by 60 wide. Here are hung Vandyck's portraits of Charles I. and his queen, and portraits of Queen Victoria and her husband. The adjoining supper room is 76 feet by 60. In the sculpture gallery are busts of the royal family and eminent statesmen. The library contains a valuable collection of books made by the present sovereign, for George III.'s valuable collection is now in the British Museum. The grand staircase is of marble, the ceiling ornamented with frescoes by Townsend. Tickets of admission to this hall to see the Queen pass in state on her way to open, prorogue, or dissolve Parliament, are issued by the Lord Chamberlain. The Green Drawing Room is in the middle of the east front, and opens on the upper portico. The Throne Room, 64 feet long, is gorgeously decorated with crimson satin, and gilding. The marble frieze, representing the wars of the Roses, was designed by Stothard-his last great design-and sculptured by Baily. In a recess is placed the royal throne, and here the Queen receives addresses, surrounded by her ministers and officers of state. Privy Councils are also held in this room.

The Picture Gallery, 180 feet long by 26 wide, is in the centre of the palace, and runs from north to south, forming a corridor, opening at each side into suites of apartments. The lighting is said not to be well contrived, and to be insufficient. Here are placed about 200 pictures, principally collected by George IV., whose taste led him to the selection of Dutch and Flemish paintings. He began to collect in 1802, and was assisted by Sir Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough. Sir Francis Baring's very select gallery was purchased for £24,000, although it is said to have been valued at £80,000. "On the whole (says Mrs. Jameson), this is certainly the finest gallery of this class of works in England." Of Berghem there are six examples :Cuyp 9, G. Douw 8, Karel du Jardin 5, de Hooghe 2, G. Metzu 6, Franz Mieris 4, Wilhelm Mieris 3, Adrian Ostade 9, Isaac Ostade 2, Paul Potter 4, Rembrandt 7, Rubens 7, Jan Steen 6, David Teniers 14, Terburg 2, Vandyck 4, Adrian van der Velde

7, W. van der Velde 4, Philip Wouvermans 9, Watteau 5. Here is also Wilkie's Blind Man's Buff. To see the pictures, an order must be obtained from the Lord Chamberlain when the Queen is not at the palace.

In the gardens, which are about 40 acres in extent, is a pavilion, the centre room of which is adorned with eight frescoes by eight painters, the subjects taken from Milton's Comus. Other rooms are beautifully embellished with paintings. The chapel where the court attends divine service is in the garden; it was formerly a conservatory.

The Queen's stables or mews are in Queen's Row, at the rear of the palace, from which they are concealed by a high mound. Here are the State Coach (designed by Sir. W. Chambers in 1762, painted by Cipriani, and built at a cost of £7600), and the ordinary carriages, of which there are houses for forty; a room for state harness; a riding house; and stables for the royal stud. To see the mews an order must be obtained from the Master of the Horse. There are other royal mews in Princes Street, Westminster, where the Speaker's state carriage, and the carriages and horses of other official persons are kept. The term "mews," now generally applied to a stable-yard in London, arose from the fact of some royal stables having been built upon the place where the king's hawks had been kept.

ST. JAMES' PALACE, Pall Mall, at the foot of St. James' Street, stands on the site of a lepers' hospital, dedicated to that saint. Henry VIII. obtained the hospital in exchange for some land, and having pulled it down, he erected a "faire mansion," and made a park out of the meadows round about. Holbein is thought to have designed the house. The gate-house and turrets facing St. James' Street belong to the original structure. Here Mary died; here Charles II., his nephew the old Pretender, and George IV. were born. Queen Anne, the four Georges, and William IV. resided in the palace, which has had many additions made to it since Henry VIII's time. In 1814 the Emperor of Russia, King of Prussia, and Marshal Blücher, were lodged in the palace. Queen Victoria only holds drawing-rooms and levees here, having always used Buckingham Palace as her residence. Some members of the royal family have apartments here; and part of the palace is used for the transaction of the business of the great officers of state.

Passing through the gate-way we enter the quadrangle, called

the Colour Court, from the colours of the household regiment on duty being placed in it. The band plays for a short time at eleven o'clock daily. The Ambassadors' Court is to the west, and beyond it is Stable Yard, where stands Stafford House, the Duke of Sutherland's residence. The State Rooms are in the south front, looking across the gardens into the park. They contain a few pictures, chiefly portraits. In the Chapel Royal divine service is performed at eight A.M. and twelve on Sundays by the gentlemen of the choir, and ten boy choristers. An admission fee of two shillings is charged. Several of the nobility have seats; the late Duke of Wellington regularly attended the early service. The Queen no longer comes here. Charles I. attended service in this chapel on the morning of his execution, and walked hence through the park to Whitehall guarded by soldiers. Many royal marriages have been celebrated in this chapel, including that of the Queen and Prince Albert.

With regard to presentations at Court, information may be obtained at the offices of the Lord Chamberlain in St. James' Palace, or of the Lord Steward at Buckingham Palace. The carriages freighted with beautiful and richly dressed women going to a drawing room, form one of the sights of London. On such occasions the Yeomen of the Guard, a body first instituted by Henry VII., line the Guard Chamber, carrying partisans, and dressed as they were in the time of Charles II. The Gentlemenat-Arms, another body that comes out on these days, wear a uniform of scarlet and gold, and carry small battle-axes, covered with crimson velvet. This body was first instituted by Henry VIII. A nobleman, with the title of captain, is at the head of each body, and these officers are usually changed when the ministry is changed.

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE, the town residence of the Prince of Wales, stands at the west end of Pall Mall, next to St. James' Palace. The garden front is cheerful, that towards Pall Mall is gloomy, and much concealed from public view by a wall. The house was built in 1710 for the first Duke of Marlborough, from Wren's designs. The duke and his duchess both died here. It was bought in 1817 for the Princess Charlotte and her husband, Prince Leopold. The latter lived in it for some years. After the death of William IV. his widow resided here. A new portico has been added, and other improvements have been made, to make it a fit residence for the young Prince, on whom the eyes

of the nation have been anxiously directed since the untimely death of his lamented father.

WHITEHALL PALACE has altogether disappeared, saving the Banqueting-House, to be described presently. This locality had been previously called York Place, from the residence of the Archbishops of York, which stood here. Cardinal Wolsey lived here in splendour until his fall, when the palace was taken from him by Henry VIII., and its name altered, as Shakspere tells us

You must no more call it York Place-that is past;

For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost,

Tis now the King's, and called WHITEHALL.

Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn were married and crowned here. The King made large additions, and in fact built a large palace. Holbein, when under the King's patronage, resided here, and designed a great gate-house. Henry died, and his eight successors resided at this palace. In the King's bed-chamber Guy Fawkes was examined, and when James was in Scotland Lord Bacon lived in the palace. It was during this reign that several masques, composed by Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson, were acted at Whitehall. Milton has alluded to the "quaint emblems and devices from the old pageantry of some Twelfth-night's entertainment at Whitehall." The architect designed a magnificent palace to cover 24 acres, which, if completed, would have been the glory of the metropolis; but only the existing banquettinghouse was erected, and, fragment as it is, this building is a master-piece in the Palladian style. Rubens was commissioned by Charles I. to paint pictures representing the apotheosis of his father for the ceiling. Here was brought together that splendid collection of 460 pictures, which, after the King's death, was so lamentably dispersed. Charles' execution took place in front of the banquetting-house, and he was led to the scaffold out of one of the windows. Cromwell lived and died at Whitehall, where Milton served him as Latin secretary. Here Charles II. revelled, and James II. confessed. Then came the Revolution, and the King left the palace, first secretly, and then in his state barge. In 1691 a fire consumed the greater part of the palace, and six years afterwards the rest (except the banquetting-house) was destroyed by a like cause. Various grants were made of portions of the site, which thenceforth became private property.

The Banquetting-House, 111 feet long by 55 feet deep and 55 feet high, was completed in 1622. It is of Portland stone, and cost £14,940. Rubens' paintings on canvas, for which he was paid £3000, are still on the ceiling, although the room was converted into a royal chapel by George I., and again altered in George IV.'s reign by Sir R. Smirke. Here one of the Queen's chaplains preaches every Sunday. The paintings commemorate events in the reign of James I., and in the centre-piece the King is seen on the clouds, with several allegorical figures. A bronze bust of James I., by Le Sueur, is over the door inside. The annual distribution of alms in the Queen's name takes place here on the day before Good Friday, Maunday Thursday. Behind the banquetting-house is a bronze statue of James II., the work of Grinling Gibbons, and executed at the cost of one Tobias Rustat. It was not disturbed at the Revolution, the peaceable character of which was thus indicated.

here.

KENSINGTON PALACE is a plain irregular structure of red brick, standing on the west side of Kensington Gardens. After William III. had purchased the house from the grandson of Finch, Lord Chancellor Nottingham, whose residence it had been, Wren was employed to enlarge it, and the whole upper story was designed by him. William and Mary, Anne and Prince George, all died George II. made additions to it, and also died here. Queen Victoria was born here, and here she held her first council. The collection of old German pictures which the late Prince Consort placed in this palace has been removed altogether, or in great part, so that there is nothing to repay the trouble of visiting the interior. On the old Kitchen Garden have been erected some spacious dwelling-houses, known as Palace Gardens. These are amongst the best private residences in London.