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because we desired to walk in a wood. Burnham Beeches would serve the purpose equally well. But we go to the Tower because we have some vague idea that in our school-days we remember it having been mentioned, during the history lesson, as a place where men were put into dungeons, sometimes tortured, frequently beheaded. We have some indistinct notion, too, that our earlier kings lived there, but whether they lived there at the same time as the men of State they had imprisoned, executed, or burnt, we should not like to say off-hand. And if the Court was held here in the Tower, we have never tried to imagine in what part of the building it could have been properly accommodated. We can accept Whitehall and Windsor without a murmur, for the very names suggest kingliness and ample space. But-the Tower! It seems too grim and grimy,{3} too insignificant in position, too circumscribed to conjure up visions of olden pageantries of State. It is just here that the master-h

ried two of his young men under the archway of the Bloody Tower that he cuts off his chapter with the words, "But the thoughts and occurrences of a prison are too uniform for a narrative, and we must now convey our readers into a more bustling scene." Really, Sir Walter, this is too scant an exc

e Thames afforded a secret and silent mode of conveyance for transporting thither such whose fallen fortunes might move the commiseration, or whose popular qualities might excite the sympathy, of the public; and even where no cause for especial secrecy existed, the peace of the city was undisturbed by the tumult attending the passage of the prisoner and his guards through the most frequented streets." Here we have the beginning of quite an admirable Tower romance. Our hero lands at the fatal steps, and

it with invisible ink,'

with tears,'{6} answered the senior. 'I

of reproach, 'you would have been wearing a better coat t

is true to my King, what I feel in discharging my duty,

g words of love into the ear of a maid who was born and has grown up within the battlements that bound us on all sides, and we see some boys at play round the spot where to-morrow a human being may suffer death. And over all this little world within the walls, where comedy and tragedy sh

by Gloucester, and with the words, "O, God forgive my sins, and pardon thee!" dies. In Richard III. when, in the first act, we are taken into the "room in the Tower" in which Clarence is murdered, and see the evil deed performed as, later in the play, we are again in the Tower at the smothering of the sleeping Princes, we feel that Shakespeare has in these moving scenes brought{8} before our eyes the grim reality of two evil deeds done in secret within the prison-house set up by William the Norman and Henry III. But here, again, our dramatist is only telling over again the story told in England's records, and it is all a tale of unrelieved gloom. That is why we have come to associate the Tower with murder, torture,

"deep drinking" at the Boar's Head Tavern, we feel we have the E

TOWERS, WITH THE KING'S HOUSE ON THE

H THE KING'S HOUSE ON THE RIGHT

other places, will give us names of famous men and the numbering of years in plenty, but of the inner everyday life of some early century there-nothing. It is only the skilful in stagecraft and romance that dare touch the Tower to turn its records to such uses; men of less skill fail, and give us novels and plays that make weary reading and

it mingles men and women known to tradition and history with fictitious heroes and heroines and minor characters. Then life is large and important; we learn what it is to be of some service to the State; we feel the fascination of great causes and great leaders, the reviving influence of the lib

ee the gable-end of St. Peter's Church, and have the{11} huge bulk of the central keep reaching up toward the blue heaven. And the little comedy brings the old Tower nearer to our hearts, and, perhaps, to our understanding. We see it is quite possible for men to love and laugh and dance even if to-morrow they see a comrade meet death on the very spot where they had held merriment with the strolling players. It is all very human, very full of life's sunshine, though it is felt and known that behind it all there is suffering bravely borne and deeper

jostling crowd, to get a glimpse of. A benevolent warder will hurry the family party through the dungeons, and keep up a running commentary of dates and names of statesmen, traitors, and kings, covering vast spaces of English history in a single breath. The White Tower will, that night, re-appear in the child's dreams as a branch of the Army and Navy Stores, where they have nicely polished armour on view; where there is a wonderful collection of swords and bayonets displayed on the walls in imitation of sunflowers; where policemen will allow you to move in one

er towers, and these, though full of historic interest, are closed to the public. For the convenience of the garrison a paternal War Office has caused to be erected, on the ground where the old Coldharbour Tower stood, the most unsightly building it is possible to conceive within Tower walls. But the putting-up of such a monstrosity convinces one that the g

sions may be on their minds when they have "done" the building, these impressions are rudely brushed away in the subsequent excitement at Sydenham. It would be interesting to hear their reply to the question, "And what did you think of the Tower of London?" when they returned to their friends and relations in the North-coun

where the present is quelled in its noise, and stayed in its hurry, to contemplate the past. These buildings might well be revered by those who are hardly yet conscious of their value; they, at least, might be spared the impertinent aggressions of to-day. A commercial age has committed one unforgivable crime in pulling down Crosby Hall to erect a bank, and we may well ask ourselves if the Tower itsel

bequeathed to us from earliest times. Little by little the boys of to-day, who will be the citizens of the day after to-morrow, will come to look at the Tower as a very ill-painted showroom, or as none too spacious a place to accommodate a garrison. It must, w

ld no longer repeat the irritating cry, "Get your tickets! Get your tickets!" at the foot of Tower Hill; the wretched refreshment shed, which all visitors are compelled to pass through, should no longer assail us on our entry with its close atmosphere savouring of stale buns. Even on "free days" this "ticket" procedure has to be gone through solemnly, and the turnstiles to be pushed round to satisfy some mystic regulation. It is all very suggestive of a circus, and reminds us that, as a nation, we are singularly lacking in the sense of humour. The stage-lighting effects in connection with the Crown Jewels in the Wakefield Tower certainly charm the glitter-lo

walk hurriedly in one specified direction, and illusion is destroyed at every point. I should like, however, to say, lest I may be misunderstood, that from the Tower officials one receives nothing but courtesy. They are not to blame. They are performing the duties imposed on them from without. The pity is that the restless spirit of the age should have found its way within walls hallowed to memories of

written. It does not attempt within its narrow limits to give a detailed and exhaustive account of occurrences; that has been admirably done by others before now. But it does attempt, by the aid o

d not convey to the mind of one who has never seen the Tower, a really adequate conception of its past and present. This book may fail to bring the Tower in all its strange charm to the heart an

in the garden, wherein is set the stone that records the last execution in 1747 on that blood-stained spot, one cannot but contemplate the possibility of even this solemn place being some day violated by the hands of those who scheme out city "improvements." Still, one may hope that England in her heart will

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