Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

is startling, and the sound of a falling footstep seems to awaken a thousand sleeping echoes that were mute and voiceless as the surrounding tombs. We feel that we are in the pres

lengthened shadows which those high-piled pillars throw over aisle and choir! the christenings, coronations, marriages, and funerals of departed monarchs, who have returned to the dust from whence they came. Light and darkness, summer and winter, have brightened and deepened thou

at lies before the altar in the choir, was brought from Rome by the good old Abbot Ware, about the close of the reign of the third Henry-a king to whose liberality we are indebted for a great portion of the erection of the Abbey: for the completion of the whole was the work of many eventful years; and before its towers rose, as they do no

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unceasing prayer, as it has done through the grey old years of departed centuries. How beautiful is the figure which graces the tomb of Queen Eleanor! Gaze on the calm loveliness of that matchless countenance, and you will fancy that a sweet sleep has stolen over it-that it has but laid down to rest awhile, and while dreaming, its beauty burst forth and dispelled every shade of sorrow, as if Time himself had kept watch over it, and sheltered it from dust and ruin with his wings, and guarded it with his scythe, allowing no mortal finger to touch the hallowed shrine over which he has long kept jealous watch. Death seems never to have entered that cold grey marble palace of beauty. Here lie the remains of Richard II. and his Queen; and while we gaze upon his monument, and recal his "sad, eventful history," we think of the undying poetry in which Shakspeare has enshrined him, and feel as if we could sit for hours upon the pavement and tell "sad stories about the death of kings." Bolingbroke ought to have been buried by his side; and for the sake of Shakspeare there would be no feeling outraged, nor no disrespect shewn to the dead, if

le the additions made during the last two centuries are, with a few exceptions, sadly misplaced. We look around, and feel as if, while in the midst of some impressive ceremony, a group of strange maskers had suddenly broken in, snapped the train of our thoughts, and by their antics diverted both mind and eye from the imposing subjects with which they were before so earnestly engrossed. Statues or monuments, that would look well in open squares or spacious halls, startle us by their very nakedness, when they step out between the shadowy and solemn crypts, where death itself is ro

of modern innovations. Turn to the monument of Sir Francis Vere, in the ea

the dead. "Rare Ben Jonson" soon followed; but he was buried in the northern aisle of the nave-it is supposed, very near to Killigrew's monument. Cowley, Dryden, Gay, Prior, and Addison, although the latter was buried in another part of the Abbey, may be numbered among the illustrious dead who sleep their long sleep within those ancient walls. Many other monuments stand here erected to the memory of our celebrated poets, whose remains lie far and wide apart-some in the beautiful churches of London, others in the quiet seclusion of the country. The author of the "Pleasures of Hope," whose mortal part we followed to the shallow grave which was opened near the front of Chaucer's tomb, was the last true poet consigned to his "narrow cell" in this great graveyard of genius. Grand and solemn were the tones which th

ble wings, netted and open like those which the gaudy dragon-fly displays, seem as if they were frozen while fluttering over an endless succession of flowers. On each side hang the banners of the Knights of the Bath, drooping without motion over the monuments of the dead, above the head of the once haughty Queen Elizabeth, who sleeps beside her sister Mary in the northern aisle. The brass screen which encloses the tomb of Henry VII. is of exquisite workmanship, and speaks much for the adv

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humble pedestrian-the nursery-maid, with her children, walking within the Enclosure-the man-about-town, fashionably dressed, and who may either be taken for a member of the swell mob or a marquis,-the ranks ascend to celebrated statesmen, soldiers of renown, and lords and ladies, whose titles have figured for centuries in the pages of history, and who all appear to have no other object than that of inhaling the fresh air, and enjoying the

nd Hornsey, Hampstead Heath, and back again to St. Giles and Westminster; and all subjects of every degree were forbidden either to hawk or hunt within these boundaries. Only three centuries have passed away since this proclamation was issued. Old Death himself, with dart in hand, hunted down Henry soon after he had taken possession of his new chase; and, after the leading hart of the herd had fallen, the whole chase was soon disafforested. Edward VI. possessed not his fathe

ipples, which have been raised by the paddles of some strange-looking duck, or thrown up by the silver-breasted swans. We have seen little morsels mirrored in these "cool translucent waves" of the richest colour and beauty-the drooping gold of the laburnum, and the pearly white of the hawthorn, dangled amid moving shadows of green; while deep down, the blue sky lay sleeping, like another heaven, motionless, and without a cloud. This is the favourite haunt of children and nursery-maids; and few fowls are better fed in summer-time than those which skim about the water in the Park, for the handfuls of bread and biscuit which are thrown in by the "little dears" for the little ducks, and often gobbled up by the larger ones, would almost feed a workhouse. It has been a celebrated spot for love-making ever since the days of Charles II.,

Scott, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and Campbell have many a time discoursed with the venerable poet. What a rich volume would that be, were it possible to write it, that contained all the good sayings which have been uttered beneath that roof! Here we first sat a guest, roaring with laughter at the wit of the late Sydney Smith; and here also we have listened with "bated breath" to the music murmured by the lips of Moore. Within those walls we first saw that true poetess a

art and more of nature in its appearance, and this is increased by the beauty of the Serpentine river. Then, be it remembered, we are in the vicinity of "Tyburn Tree," the history of which has yet to be written. We have often pictured, while wandering here in the deepening twilight, the mouldering bodies of the stern Protector, Ireton, and Bradshaw, dangling upon that "triple-tree" in the sunset of a winter's evening, after they had been dragged out of their graves in Westminster Abbey. This was indeed carrying revenge beyond the grave, and is one of the blackest blots that

Protector was thrown off the box, and falling on the pole, while his feet were entangled in the harness, h

ain! away! '

t lash with whip-c

o fancy how t

chmen sneer at

offing concours

ds must go when t

ter cries, ''T

t to put himsel

ercy, horses

d turn'd him ou

behind him wi

faith you were

to rule, beca

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there's differe

with oats and

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oach-horses can

e a fall,' such the

hree realms can't

ampled thousand

by a party

one with 't,

Jehu, Phaeton

for these three

t the whip, had

had to petition the Protector for his deliverance from Yarmouth gaol. The letter he sent (now before us

ued at near upon a thousand pounds. At that period it extended to the Acton-road one way, and to Knightsbridge the other; the boundary citywards being, as now, near Park-lane, while the distance it extended westwa

r the "dappled lawns;" of "snow-white milk-maids crowned with garlands;" of the youths and maidens tumbling and rolling upon the grass, and of revelling in the luxuries of "curds and cream." Even Cromwell, with all his gloomy Puritanism, went to witness the wrestling in Hyde Park, little dreaming th

which there is an opening commanding an extensive view of the Park. To the right you have the domestic aviaries, well worth visiting, as they contain some fine specimens of the fowls of Peru and Mexico. To the left of the terrace there is a little morsel of real Watteau-like scenery, with its smooth lawn and clear pond, near to which are placed the gorgeous macaws, whose hues out-rival the colours of the rainbow. Further on there is another "green nestling spot," adjoining a sheet of water, which, with its fountain and variety of aquatic fowls and beautifu

ylebone stood within its boundaries in former days, and had in the time of Elizabeth its park a

ross over London Bridge, and turn up by St. George's Church in the Borough, along the Old Kent Road, and as far as New Cross, he will find it one continuous and unbroken chain of buildings. Yet here is space ample enough, and grounds of but little value, that might be formed into a spacious park. If this is not done, those who twenty years hence live in this neighb

Park is in any street which the conductor of the Islington omnibus may please to set you down at; while Islington, Highbury, Pentonville, and King's Cross are all so jostled together, that you cannot tell which is the beginning or the end of either the one or the other. We have heard of a neighbourhood that stretches somewhere behind Houndsditch and Bishopsgate, and seen something of it while gazing from the dome of St. Paul's; but from the view thus obtained of it, we should as soon

solitude of

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with notes more

ly open thei

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ofty fountain

nches, and the

thought of be