Fire in the City of London. London, Printed by Robert White, for Henry Mortlock, and are to be sold at his shop, at the sign of the White Hart, in Westminster Hall, 1666."

Several old prints represent the four sides of the Hall as entirely covered with shops, and the barristers walking about among them, and making purchases. The outside of the Hall was in like manner almost hidden from view by the number of petty coffeehouses stuck against it. These were all removed about the year

1810.

The

Leading from the Hall are the four principal courts of law, which are dignified in Term by the daily presence of the judgethe Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Queen's Bench, with the three courts, adjuncts to the Chancery and the Queen's Bench,—the Vice-Chancellor's and the Rolls Court, and the Bail Court. most ancient of these is the Court of Chancery, where, from the Conquest until the middle of the sixteenth century, some dignitary of the Church has usually sat to perform the high duties of Lord Chancellor. Among eminent churchmen who have filled the office might be enumerated half the prelates who have held the see of Canterbury, including Thomas à Becket and Cardinal Wolsey. After the reign of Henry VIII. this high office was no more bestowed upon ecclesiastics. The names of the eminent men who have since that time sat on the honoured bench of the Court of Chancery, include many which will live in the affection and admiration of posterity, as long as England remains a nation, or its language endures upon the globe.

The next court in point of antiquity is the Court of King's or Queen's Bench, so called as the sex of the sovereign may happen. Here the early Saxon, and after them some of the Norman monarchs, sat in person to hear the complaints of their subjects; and hence the name by which it is still known, although no king since Edward IV. has continued the practice.

The Court of Common Pleas was established in the year 1215, and the Court of Exchequer 1079. The Court of Exchequer Chamber, generally used as the place where all the judges deliberate together upon important and questionable points of law, was instituted by Edward III. in the year 1359, and improved by Elizabeth in 1584. The actual halls where these courts now sit are of comparatively recent erection. The former courts were built from the designs of Kent, the architect surveyor-general of Public Works in the reign of George II. Great alterations were inade in these courts in 1813, under the superintendence of Mr.

James Wyatt, and in 1824 they were rebuilt as they now stand by Sir John Soane.

Adjoining to the courts of law is the site of the Houses of Lords and Commons, which were accidentally burned down in 1834, and where a new and splendid edifice from the plans of Mr. Barry is in course of erection.

The House of Lords, of which at the present time a gateway is the only remains, was formed of a spacious apartment formerly used as a court of requests, and at the union of Great Britain and Ireland was hung with some landscape tapestry, representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the gift of the States of Holland to Queen Elizabeth.

Between the House of Lords and the House of Commons was an apartment called the Painted Chamber, said to have been the bedroom of Edward the Confessor, but on insufficient authority, there being no good grounds for believing it to have been of an antiquity so venerable. In this room Parliaments were often summoned to attend, and in it was signed the death-warrant of Charles I. It was also used as the place of conference of the two Houses on their committees.

The destruction of the House of Commons, of the very walls and floor that Harley, Walpole, Pitt, Fox, Canning, and other illustrious men, trod upon and looked on, was justly regarded as a national calamity-far more serious than the mere loss of the buildings and their contents.

A pile more commodious and more magnificent now stands near the site of the old one, but future orators and patriots will not be able to say, "Here, in this very room-here, upon these benches, sat the great men whose names shine in the page of English history-here, they resisted tyranny-here, they established and maintained the constitution-and here, they rendered the name of a Briton synonymous over the globe with the liberator of the slave-the friend of freedom and the civilizer of mankind." There is, however, this hope, and almost certainty, that new patriots, new orators, new statesmen will arise, as illustrious as the old, in time, to shed a lustre upon their modern place of meeting, and enact deeds within it, which, after years have passed, will render its reminiscences as dear as any that hallowed the old spot.

St. Stephen's Chapel, the original name of the building in which for many generations the Commons of England assembled, was first established by King Stephen in honour of the saint of the same name. It was rebuilt by King Edward III., in

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1347, and dedicated "to the honour of Almighty God, and especially of the blessed Virgin and of the martyr St. Stephen." He ordained it to be collegiate under the government of a dean, twelve canons secular, vicars, choristers, and subordinate officers, and endowed it liberally with lands in Yorkshire and Berkshire, and with his inn, situate in Lombard Street, London, and his tower in Bucklersbury. He also built for the use of the chapel in the little sanctuary westward, a bell tower, covered with lead, in which were placed three very large bells, which were generally rung at coronations or at the funerals of royal personages. The dismal sound of these bells was popularly said to turn all the beer sour in the vicinity.

This monastery was not surrendered during the life of Henry VIII. It was not, however, allowed to escape, but was summoned to surrender under Edward VI. Its revenues at that time was calculated at £1085 10s. 5d. The building was then granted by Edward to be used as the permanent chamber of Parliament, which body before that time had no settled place of meeting. Various alterations and additions were made to the chapel at successive periods, to render it more convenient for the members.

On the Union with Ireland, when the Commons received so large an accession to their numbers, the entire side walls were taken down, except the buttresses that supported the ancient roof, and thrown several feet back, by which more seats were procured.

large

The fire which caused the destruction both of this and the other House of Parliament, broke out in the library of the House of Lords, at half-past six o'clock in the evening of the 16th of October, 1834. The persons employed to burn a large 'quantity of wooden tallies, formerly used in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's office, instead of burning them in the open space between the Speaker's house and the river, put them into a stove in one of the rooms in the House of Lords. The flues, in consequence, became over-heated, and set fire to the wood-work of the library. The flames spread with great rapidity, and although they were immediately discovered, and every exertion made by the firemen, the police, the military, and the people, who assembled in great crowds, to subdue them, it soon became but too apparent that all their efforts would be unavailing. The efforts of the firemen were then directed to the preservation of Westminster Hall, and that structure was happily saved, with some slight damage to the upper wall immediately opposite to

the entrance. Fears were entertained for the safety of the venerable Abbey, but, happily, it escaped without injury. The flames were not subdued till a late hour. A great quantity of valuable records perished, together with the libraries of both Houses. The total loss to the nation was estimated at upwards of £200,000. It was resolved that a temporary building should be erected, at the expense of about £20,000, in which the Lords and Commons now carry on their deliberations. Architects were then invited to send in plans for the new buildings, and ultimately that of Mr. Barry was adopted. Several years ago, as we learn from the notes to Dr. Hughson's description of Westminster, it was suggested by Mr. Malton, author of a "Picturesque Tour through London," "that Westminster Hall, with its surrounding buildings, which are inconvenient and insufficient for the various purposes to which they are appropriated, might give way to the noble idea of forming the whole of this heterogeneous mass into one grand design, which would extend from Margaret Street to the river side, and from thence return by a spacious embankment by the House of Commons into the Old Palace Yard. In such a magnificent plan the different departments of the Legislature might be accommodated in a manner suitable to their respective dignities." The expense of such an undertaking was long the only obstacle, and the fire having rendered this a matter of necessity, the improvement is carrying out upon the plan recommended.

The Star-Chamber formed a part of the mass of buildings included in Westminster Hall and the Houses of the Legislature. "The name of this court of justice," says Pennant, “so tremendous in the Tudor and part of the Stuart reign, was not taken from the stars with which its roof is said to have been painted (which were obliterated even before the reign of Queen Elizabeth), but from the Starra, or Jewish covenants, which were deposited there by order of Richard I., in chests under three locks. No starr was allowed to be valid except found in those repositories, where they remained till the banishment of the Jews by Edward I. In the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., a new-modelled court was erected here, consisting of divers lords, spiritual and temporal, with two judges of the courts of Common Law, without the intervention of a jury." The powers of this court were so abused, that it was abolished altogether by the House of Commons in the 16th of Charles I., under circumstances familiar to every reader of English history.

The New Houses of Parliament are from the designs of Mr. Barry, and are, perhaps, unrivalled for magnificence by any European edifices.

CHAPTER IX.

The Strand in 1560-St. Catharine's Chapel-St. Mary Ronceval, the site of Suffolk House, afterwards Northumberland House-Important events connected with-Whimsical occurrence there-Benjamin Franklin - James Smith, one of the authors of " Rejected Addresses "-Hungerford Market and Suspension Bridge-York House; Lord Bacon and its other celebrated occupants-York or Buckingham Stairs -York Buildings - Peter the Great resided here-Durham House (site now the Adelphi)-Sumptuous repast given at, by Henry VIII.-Residence of Lady Jane Grey-Given to Toby Matthew, Bishop of Durham-Millinery Exchange, then "Britain's Bourse"-Murder committed there-The White Milliner-Anecdote of Mrs. Garrick-The King of the Sandwich Islands (the King of the Cannibal Islands) resident in the Adelphi-Society of Arts-Salisbury House -Partridge, the almanack maker-The Middle Exchange, the resort of abandoned characters-Ivy Bridge, the boundary between the Duchy of Lancaster and the City of Westminster-Old, Old Parr-Exeter Change, site of Exeter House-Cecil House-Anecdote of Queen Elizabeth-Lord Burleigh's household-Exeter Hall-Worcester House and its destruction by fire-The Savoy Palace, successive possessors of it-Anecdote of John of Gaunt-Chaucer composed some of his poems here-Wat TylerPalace destroyed by the rebels-Hospital built on its site-Cowley's complaint-Church of St. John the Baptist-Monuments in-Clandestine marriages in the Savoy.

FROM CHARING CROSS TO WATERLOO BRIDGE.

ONCE more making Charing Cross our point of departure, we proceed downwards through the busiest thoroughfares of London where money-making multitudes continually pass to and fro, and where, as Dr. Johnson remarked to Boswell, the full tide of human existence is to be seen. The Strand and Fleet Street, from Charing Cross to St. Paul's, are not only the busiest places in London, but among the richest in memories of the past. The road formed, in early ages, the connecting link between the city of London and the village of Charing and city of Westminster, and in more modern times has become a component part of the latter city. Up to the year 1353," says Pennant, "the Strand was an open highway, with here and there a great man's house. with gardens to the water-side. In that year it was so impass

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