Tower of Babylon. and Westminster Abbey. We are told that the late Daniel Webster, upon arrival at the British Capitol, refused to take a meal till he had seen the Tower. With so eminent an example it is safe to begin with this famous structure. Driving to the keeper's lodge, you find a Guide in gay and antique attire, who, for a trifling consideration, will act as cicerone upon the eventful occasion. Passing through. heavy gateways, you are ushered into an oblong room, devoted to equestrian figures in the armory of various periods, from Edward the First (1272) to James the Second (1685.) Then follows Queen Elizabeth's Armory, so named from an effigy of the maiden Queen, which graces one end of the apartment. "This," says the Guide, "is the room where Sir Walter Raleigh was so long confined. Yonder is the reputed bed-room allotted to that great man. While here are objects of painful interest:—a thumb screw; a collar of torment taken from the Spaniards in 1588; the 'scavenger's daughter'; an engine for locking together hands, feet, and neck, and the axe with which Lady Jane Grey was beheaded, and the block upon which her fair neck was placed; as she said, 'Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit.'" But we must pass on to the Beauchamp or Wakefield Tower, memorable as the room in which Anne Boleyn was incarcerated, and from thence led forth to execution, and then buried with Queens Catharine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Thomas More, Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and a multitude of others, rendering this cemetery in the language of the Historian Macauley, "The saddest spot on earth," associated as it is, "with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny-with the savage triumph of implacable enemies-with the inconstancy—the Tower-Continued. ingratitude and the cowardice of friends, and with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame." In the regalia room, we find crowns, diadems, and sceptres, orbs of gold, and all the paraphernalia of coronation, baptismal and other fete days, the entire value of which exceeds three millions of pounds sterling. The last spot to which our rapid footsteps bring us, is an underground cell, called the "RAT'S DUNGEON." At high water, numberless rats sought shelter in this hideous cavern till the tide had subsided, and here hundreds of prisoners were thrust when the rack was unavailing to extort a confession, and where their shrieks and struggles would avail not to release them from this bloodstained dungeon, and where scenes were enacted, the mention of which illustrates the possible extent of "man's inhu manity to man." The door will be shown to you, lately restored from long buried oblivion, which divided the apartments of Queen Elizabeth and her Courtier, the Earl of Essex, when they were incarcerated in this national prison. Her present majesty, upon seeing this door, remarked playfully that it was the greatest curiosity in the establishment, because it had accomplished the wonderful feat of keeping two lovers apart. Who can look with other than deeply moved emotions upon that central citadel with its surrounding towers, the theatre of events-the imperfect knowledge of which coming to us through the lapse of three centuries, causes the heart to beat with emotions of liveliest sorrow; but of principal interest now as a memento of conflicts which resulted in the establishment of civil and religious freedom, and of storms which have yielded to a sky beauteous with heaven's sunlight of peace and hope! CHAPTER V. LONDON. "The high-embowered roof With antique pillars, massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light."-MILTON. LEAVING the Tower, we take a steamer at the neighboring river-pier, and after a twenty minutes rapid sail up the stream, are landed within a few paces of the second among London notables-WESTMINSTER ABBEY! Like the spot just left, this also claims respect on account of its antiquity, and as being the mausoleum of Kings and Queens-Statesmen and Poets during centuries past. A few sentences upon its history. Toward the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century, and after the Saxons had been established in Britain for upwards of a hundred years, Pope Gregory the First despatched Augustine and Mellitus from Rome to carry Christianity to these benighted Pagans. Ethelbert, King of Kent, and soon afterwards Sebert, his nephew, publicly renounced the errors of Paganism and to manifest the sincerity of his piety, the latter founded the two magnificent cathedrals of St. Paul's, London, and St. Peter's, Westminster. These two churches stood upon the site of the present venerable structures-one from its position being called East, and the other West-MINSTER (church of a monastery.) During the occupancy of London by the Danes, this Abbey Church (built in 610) was wautonly destroyed; but in the year 958 King Edgar set about re Entrance. Poet's Corner. building it on a scale of increased magnificence, which was completed by Edward the Confessor, whose tomb, as it is the oldest, (bearing date twelve hundred and sixty-nine,) is one of the most interesting in the vast collection. The jewels once belonging to this shrine, erected by Henry the Third and valued at two and a-half millions of pounds sterling, have long since disappeared. Let us now pass within and examine the monuments of those who have found that quiet in the grave to which many of them were strangers while on earth. "After life's fitful fever they sleep well." The first room into which we are ushered is the Poet's Corner, where are various monuments to deceased masters in science, poetry and song, from Chaucer, the "Morning Star" of English poetry, who died in the year 1400, to the author of the "Pleasures of Hope," whose funeral garlands have hardly yet withered. The monument of Gray is immediately under that of Milton, while, upon the former, the lyric muse in alto-relievo points to the tablet above, and says: "No more the Grecian muse unrivalled sings; Of sixty names recorded in this memorable room, it must Putting ourselves now under a guide, we passed through C Chapels. Monuments. Royalty. time-honored and weather-worn apartments of various size and form named after some royal personage, under whose auspices it was built, or after an Evangelist or canonized Saint, whose intercession was secured in behalf of the living worshipers, or the buried dead. These were the chapels of St. Benedict, St. Edmund, St. Nicholas, Henry the Seventh, St. Erasmus, St. Edward, Abbot Islop, Sts. John, Andrew and Michael, united in one. In these are found monumental effigies of the deceased; some erect, others kneeling, others reclining, others on their back, with hands placed palm to palm in the act of supplicating mercy from heaven. In addition to which were tablets, medallions, niches filled with angels, escutcheons, and various heraldic devices in memory of Kings, Queens, Earls, Baronets, Military and Naval Commanders, Inventors, Statesmen, and Musicians. Of Royalty, we find the names of Edwards I., III., V., and VI.; Henrys III., V., and VII.; Queens Mary of Scots, Elizabeth and Mary, Anne, Eleanor, and Philippa; James I. and his son Henry, Prince of Wales; Richard II., with the Earl and Countess of Stafford, Lady Jane Seymour, Lord and Lady Russell, Duke and Dutchess of Richmond, Generals Monk and Wolfe, Admiral Kemperfelt, Fox, Canning, Mansfield, Warren Hastings, William Wilberforce, Pitt, Major Andre, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Watts, and Dr. Bell, founder of a once very popular system of education. The monument which excites more general attention than any other in the Abbey, is that of Joseph Nightingale and Lady. Its lower portion appears as throwing open the marble doors, and a shrouded skeleton as of death is seen starting forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless |