class, has been steadily proceeding. By Act of Parliament, 23 Geo. II., A.D. 1750, Bridge-street, Great George-street, and Parliament-street (the last the approach for Members to the House, instead of the narrow King and Union Streets, and St. Margaret's-lane,) were formed upon the site of many small and wretched lanes and courts,-a tract hitherto known by the ominous name of the "desert of Westminster." The space in front of St. Margaret's Church was increased by pulling down about sixty feet of the Tudor buildings; the small buildings Heaven and Purgatory in Old Palace-yard, and Lindsay House, were removed; and in place of Dirty-lane-no inapt designation—was built the present broad Abingdon-street. By other Acts in the early part of this century, 41 Geo. III., c. 13; 44 Geo. III., c. 61; 45 Geo. III., c. 115, and 46 Geo. III., c. 89, Commissioners, being empowered to improve the approaches to the Houses of Parliament, and other offices of state, cleared away several taverns and low buildings from the north of Westminster Hall, the houses which stood on either side of St. Margaret's Church, and others which extended southward to the Lady Chapel of the Abbey, and northward as far as Bridge-street; part of Long Ditch or Princes-street, Bridgestreet; Little George-street, and King-street; the whole of the Broad and Little Sanctuary, Union-street, Love-lane, Bowstreet or Thieving-lane, with numerous alleys. A portion of this ground was then enclosed with iron railings, and planted with trees, and laid out with grass-plats. Upon the site of the former Westminster Market, the Guildhall was about the same time erected. The cost of these improvements amounted to about £230,000.

At the present time, the august towers and splendid portions of the New Palace, even yet scarcely finished, give presages of a structure striking and imposing in one massive whole, superb and elegant in each delicate detail, which will at length exceed in size and grandeur every other Gothic secular edifice in the world. From the western towers of the Abbey, and opposite to the principal entrance of the Hospital,—that house of the Church appropriately near,-the welcome addition of later years, wherein the poor of Westminster are received and con

soled in their hours of sorrow and bodily ailment,—a broad street, intended to bear the name of Her Most Gracious Majesty, is about to be made, in almost a semi-circular form, to the neighbourhood of Buckingham Palace. This, when complete, and adorned with handsome residences, we trust, will not be built merely upon the ruins of the melancholy homes of squalid misery and bygone haunts of sin, or to serve as the mask of a dreary background, but become the centre of the improved houses and wider by-streets of an industrious and happy poor.

CHAPTER II.

"I can repeople with the Past; and of
The Present there is still, for eye and thought,

And meditation chasten'd down, enough."-CHILDE HAROLD.

ESTMINSTER, unlike the sister cities eminent in mediæval or ancient history, "Niobes of nations," contains no streets of tombs, no decayed churches and desolate buildings, silent but expressive witnesses of a gradual decline and ultimate impoverishment, the solitary relics and landmarks of a splendid but vanished past. Beneath the ancestral shadows of her old grey Abbey has sprung up a younger city, attesting by a daily growth in size and affluence that-now in her prime-it is in the future we yet must look for the zenith of her greatness. In narrating, therefore, the chief incidents connected with ancient and modern Westminster, our object will be to avoid a dry and meagre outline of facts, as well as a tediousness and minuteness of detail, while, in fancy rebuilding once more the picturesque homes in their pomp of old, and repeopling them with mimic life, we map out as for a holiday walk amid the hum of their busy crowds-the streets and houses which were the scenes of events, or places of resort for men, recorded in the annals of the chronicler or the pages of later history.

The boundary line of St. Margaret's Parish commences at Whitehall-stairs, takes a western course on the north side of the Banqueting House, through the carriage entrance of the Horse Guards, across the Park to the vicinity of Cumberlandgate; thence on the west side of Stafford-place, by Mr. Elliot's

brewery, along the common sewer behind Bedford-place, Trelleck-terrace, Pembroke-place, and Vauxhall-bridge-road, to a point near the turnpike, where it turns to the north-east, behind the Military Hospital and Rochester-row, to the east side of St. Margaret's Hospital, down Artillery-place and Old Pye-street, up New Pye-street, along Orchard-street and part of Great Smith-street, to the south side of Dean's-yard, along College-street, up Abingdon-street, and then finally along the east side of the same street to Parliament-stairs.

At Whitehall is the northern boundary of the parish of St. Margaret. Upon the site of the present buildings was the residence of Hugo or Hubert de Burgh, Prime Minister of King Henry III., the Earl of Kent, Chief Justiciary of England, and a very celebrated soldier as well as lawyer. For the consideration of 140 marks of silver, he purchased from the monks of Westminster the inheritance of several houses,-once inhabited by William of Ely, Treasurer to King John,-with a Court and Free Chapel, wherein to celebrate mass for himself and family, paying yearly to them and their successors a wax taper upon the Festival of St. Edward. His only child married an ancestor of Sir John Guise of Gloucestershire, who adopted the Burgh Arms. At one time he made a vow to go to the wars in Holy Land, and recover from the unbeliever the precious tomb wherein the LORD lay, unless he had some lawful impediment. He found it more pleasant far to bask in courtly favour, and live in his splendid home, than to do battle with the Saracen under the burning sun of Galilee, in the sandy desert or plague-stricken citadel. In order, therefore, to satisfy his conscience for forsaking the Crusade, he conveyed his property to trustees for the use of the Black or Dominican Friars of Holborn, in Chancery-lane. Within their Conventual Church he was buried, A.D. 1242.

These trustees sold the Palace, in 1248, for 400 marks to Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York, for his own private and individual right; and he conveyed the property, 29 Hen. III., for the benefit of his successors in the see for ever after his death, which occurred A. D. 1255: they retained and inhabited the mansion until the attainder of Wolsey, primate of that

province. At Easter 1360 the King and his Parliament assembled here; and twice York-place was the lodging of King Edward L. and his Queen.

The princely Cardinal appears to have indulged here all his love of display and power "in great wealth, joie, triumph, and glorie." Here, as Minister of England, Legates and Cardinals held their councils with him often upon that fatal subject "the Divorce" of Katharine of Arragon. As he was possessed of unbounded influence with his King, who often repaired hither for his recreation, crowds of courtiers, ambassadors, and nobles waited in his vestibules and ante-chambers. As a generous patron of learning, foreign scholars were invited over hither to be supported by his bounty. Eight hundred servants, lords, and knights swelled his lordly train. “Banquets were set forth with maskes and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort and costly maner that it was an heaven to behold. There wanted no dames or damosels meete or apte to daunce with the maskers, or to garnish the place for the time. Then was there all kinde of musicke and harmony, with fine voices both of men and children. One time the King came sodainely thither in a maske, with a dozen maskers all in garments like sheepeheardes . . . . having sixteene torch-bearers.

.. Before his entering into the hall, he came by water to the water-gate, without anie noise, where were laid divers chambers, and guns charged with shot, and at his landing they were shot off; ... it made all the noblemen, gentlemen, ladies, and gentlewomen to muse what it should meane. . . . Then the Great Chamberlaine and the Comptroller, looking out of the windowes into the Thames, returned again, and shewed the Cardinall that it seemed they were noblemen and straungers, arrived at his bridge, comming as ambassadors from some foreine prince. With that quothe the Cardinall, 'I desire you, because you can speake French, to conduct them to this chamber, where they shall see us, and all these noble personages, being merrie at our banquet.' Then went he incontinent downe into the hall, whereat they receyved them with twentie newe torches, and conveyed them uppe into the chamber, with such a noise of drummes and flutes as seldom had been hearde