standing out massive and stately above the surrounding buildings. The atmosphere was clear and bright, and only now and then some fitful sound borne on the wind informed the travellers that they were near the metropolis of England. But now, in 1870, we find ourselves surrounded by endless streets of houses, deafened by every conceivable noise; no more able to see the Tower or St. Paul's through the yellow fog that hangs upon the river, than to see the dome of St. Peter's at Rome, and without the remotest shadow of a doubt as to our being, not only near, but in the very heart of England's capital. The old cross, of which we have been speaking, was pulled down in 1647, and part of its stones formed the pavement before Whitehall. On its site, some of the regicides were executed in 1660: Major-General Harrison, Thomas Scott, Gregory Clement, John Jones, and Robert Scrope.

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On our left we see the name Spring Gardens." Here, in the reign of Charles I., a garden was laid out and used as a bowlinggreen. The name is derived from a jet or spring of water, which sprung up with the pressure of the foot. The following description, from the Strafford Papers, shows us what kind of place it was in those days: "The bowling-green in the Spring Gardens was put down one day by the king's command, but by the intercession of the queen it was reprieved for the year; but hereafter it shall be no common bowling-place. There was kept in it an ordinary of six shillings a meal (when the king's proclamation allows but two elsewhere), continual bibbing and drinking wine all day under the trees; two or three quarrels every week. It was grown scandalous and insufferable; besides my Lord Digby, being reprehended for striking in the king's garden, he said he took it for a common bowling-place, where all paid money for their coming in."

We are now in the Strand, and on our right is Northumberland House, built in 1605 by the Earl of Northampton. A few years later it passed into the hands of the Earl of Suffolk, and was called Suffolk House. In 1642 the Earl of Northumberland married the daughter of the second Earl of Suffolk, and came into possession of the house, from whence its present name.

The Strand used to be the old highway between the cities of Westminster and London. Along the river-side in old days were built the bishops' inns or hostels, as the names we meet with at every corner remind us. Cunningham tells us that as many as nine bishops, at the period of the Reformation, had their dwellings here; and Selden, in his Table-Talk, declares that "the noblemen lay within the city for safety and security; but the bishops' houses were by the river's side, because they were held sacred persons whom nobody would hurt." Here is Exeter-street, named after the bishop of Exeter; Durham-street, where lived the bishop of Durham. On the site of the present Somerset House stood three inns,

belonging respectively to the bishops of Llandaff, Chester, and Worcester. Arundel House occupied the spot now called Arundel-street, and Beaufort-street takes its name from Worcester House, Henry Marquis of Worcester, afterwards Duke of Beaufort, having, in 1682, bought the ground on which it stands. Old York House used to stand on the site of Buckingham-street. When Wolsey was expelled from Whitehall, the archbishops of York remained without a town residence until Queen Mary gave Archbishop Heath, her lord chancellor, Suffolk House, in Southwark, which he sold, and bought in its place Norwich Inn, near to Charing-cross, called henceforth York House. In 1624 it was assigned by Parliament to the king, who made it over to the duke of Buckingham; hence Buckingham-street. The duke erected other buildings on the spot, more especially the water-gate which now stands at the bottom of the street, the work of Inigo Jones. In 1649 York House was given to Lord Fairfax, captain-general of the army. The various streets that here run into the Strand all derive their names from King Charles's pampered favourite. Villiers-street, Chandos-street, Duke-street, and Buckingham-street, all recall to our memories a page in history not the most pleasing or the most edifying. On our left we see Burleigh-street. Here stood Burleigh House, the residence of the great minister, Sir William Cecil, afterwards made Lord Burleigh. In 1598 he died here, and his son and successor changed the name to Exeter House. Here once stood Exeter Change, and here now stands Exeter Hall.

We are now approaching the Savoy, which lies on our right, between us and the river. In 1245, the uncle of Henry III., Peter of Savoy, obtained possession of many houses and much land in this part of the Strand, and erected on the site of the present chapelroyal a spacious mansion. Here, after the famous battle of Poictiers had been fought and won, the ill-fated King John was confined; and here too, after his release, the unhappy monarch died, when on a visit to this country. In 1381, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, lived here; and the famous Wat Tyler, when in possession of London, from some special feeling of animosity against the duke, burnt the palace to the ground. From that day to Henry the Seventh's reign it appears to have remained a ruin. In 1505 a hospital, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, was established here by the king for the relief of the poor. Edward VI. suppressed it, but it was again revived by Queen Mary and continued by Queen Elizabeth, and became in her reign the resort of the worst characters in London. At the Restoration in 1661 the great Savoy conference was held here on the revision of the Liturgy. The church of St. Mary-le-Savoy was originally a chapel to the hospital, but was made parochial on the destruction of St. Mary-le-Strand by the Duke of Somerset.

And now we have arrived at Somerset House, the destined end of our half-mile walk. Let us turn into the large quadrangle, and, shutting our eyes to the more modern associations that surround us, endeavour to recall the past. Here, on this spot, the great but unfortunate protector, Somerset, in the reign of his nephew Edward VI., raised a sumptuous palace, the completion of which he was never destined to see. In the height of his power and the zenith of his fame, when his will was law and his enemies trembled before him, he determined to raise a mansion worthy of his name. The inns belonging to the bishops of Chester and of Worcester were seized and levelled to the ground to make room for it. The great cloister on the north side of St. Paul's, containing the "Dance of Death," and the church of St. John of Jerusalem, were blown up and demolished to find the materials wherewith to erect it. And for the same purpose the charnel-house attached to the cathedral was destroyed, and the bones impiously flung into Finsbury-fields. Nothing was spared that could insure the success of the undertaking; but Fortune, as usual, proved but a fickle mistress, and ere the great builder could enter upon the scene of his triumph his head rolled on the block, and his palace was confiscated to the crown. The old story, so often repeated in the pages of history, the story of favourites basking for a while in the sunny smile of their sovereign, rising step by step up the ladder of success, and then, when the highest point is gained, hurled to sudden destruction by the caprice of a master or the jealousy of a rival.

In 1596 Lord Hunsdon was appointed keeper of Somerset House by Queen Elizabeth; and twenty years later the name was changed for a time to Denmark House, by order of King James I. Here Anne of Denmark kept her court, which was, as Wilson says, "a continued masquerade, where she and her ladies, like so many sea-nymphs or nereïds, appeared in various costumes, to the ravishment of the beholders."

Here, in the following reign, the fair Queen of Charles I., Henrietta Maria, had a chapel built for the free use of the RomanCatholic religion. The French priests and attendants who were thrust out of the royal palace at Whitehall, found at Somerset House a place of refuge until the wrath of the king was blown over. Underneath the stones on which we are now standing may be seen to this day the old tombs of those Frenchmen who died during their sojourn here. The palace appears to have been assigned to the queen for her particular use; for in 1632 we find her majesty taking part in a royal masquerade within its still unfinished apartments. Prynne, the sturdy Puritan, owed the loss of his ears to this masquerade, for his Histriomastix appeared the following day, and a certain sentence not very complimentary to female actors appearing in it, he was condemned to lose the above-named useful appendages. Here,

in 1652, the great architect Inigo Jones breathed his last; and here, six years later, the body of the arch-regicide, Oliver Cromwell, lay in state. When the happy monarch, who "never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one," once more regained his throne, his mother, the dowager queen, returned to her old palace at Somerset House, and for five years kept court there. During this period she made great alterations and improvements, which Waller, the celebrated poet, commemorated in these lines:

"Constant to England in your love

As birds are to their wonted grove;

Though by rude hands their nests are spoil'd,
There the next spring again they build."

In 1665 the ill-used Catherine of Braganza resided here until she returned to her native country after the death of her faithless husband.

In October 1678 Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey, the great Protestant martyr, so the story goes, was murdered within these walls. The witnesses against his supposed murderers declared that he was waylaid and inveigled into the palace under the pretence of keeping the peace between two servants that were fighting; that he was strangled, his neck broke, and his own sword run through his body, and that he was kept four days before they ventured to remove him, and was then taken in a sedan chair to Primrose-hill. Popular fury ran high against the suspected murderers, and the men were executed, asserting their innocence to the moment of death.

From this period to 1763 the palace was used for the entertainment of foreign envoys. French, Dutch, Russian, and Venetian ambassadors followed each other in rapid succession, and held high revel in these stately halls.

And here the history of the old building ends, and with it the interest of the spot. The modern building, though a handsome pile, has no great or romantic association connected with it. It was erected in 1776 by Sir William Chambers, and has been used ever since for public offices. Perhaps the most interesting incident connected with it is the fact that here, from 1780 to 1830, the Royal Academy of Arts displayed its treasures, and Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered his last and best lecture.

I must now conclude. What I have written has been but a sketchy and incomplete outline of certain historical events connected with our walk up the Strand. It is but one page out of thousands that might be written upon the ruins of old London; but yet, though sketchy and incomplete, I hope I have succeeded in pointing out clearly to my readers the rich mine of gold that lies at our feet, only waiting to be explored.

FREDERICK T. MONRO.