Countess of Dorchester. Here it was, on each anniversary of the execution of her grandfather, Charles the First, that she was accustomed to hold a solemn fast day; when, surrounded by a theatrical display of mournful grandeur, she received her guests in the great drawing-room of Buckingham House; the Duchess herself being seated in a chair of state, clad in the deepest mourning, surrounded by her women, as black and dismal-looking as herself. Here, too, it was, that this eccentric lady breathed her last. Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, the day following her death; "Princess Buckingham is dead or dying: she has sent for Mr. Anstis, and settled the ceremonial of her burial. On Saturday she was so ill that she feared dying before the pomp was come home. She said, 'Why don't they send the canopy for me to see? Let them send it though all the tassels are not finished.' But yesterday was the greatest stroke of all. She made her ladies vow to her, that if she should lie senseless, they would not sit down in the room before she was dead." By her own directions she was buried with great pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, where there was formerly a waxen figure of her, adorned with jewels, prepared in her life-time by her own hands. In 1761, Buckingham House was purchased by the Crown for twenty-one thousand pounds, and was settled upon Queen Charlotte for her life.

James Street, Buckingham Gate, overlooking St. James's Park, is not without interest. It was in

one of the houses in this street, that the well-known historian, Bishop Kennett, expired; and it was in another that the secret interview took place between the great Duke of Marlborough, and the celebrated Harley, Earl of Oxford, when the discovery of the disgraceful negotiations between the Duke and the French King placed the life of the former in the hands of the English minister. The curious fact of their secret interview was related by Erasmus Lewis, the faithful secretary of Lord Oxford, to Carte, the historian. 66 They had a meeting," says the latter, "at Thomas Harley's house, in James Street, Westminster; Oxford coming to the street door in his coach, the Duke of Marlborough in a chair to the garden door opening into the Park. It was then resolved that the Duke of Marlborough should go abroad." The truth of this story is corroborated by Dalrymple, on the authority of Gordon, the principal of the Scots College at Paris, who asserted that the Earl of Oxford,-under pretence of being in the interests of the exiled family,-got possession of the original letter addressed by Marlborough to the ex-king, James the Second, in which he traitorously communicated the expedition projected by the English government against Brest. "It is known,"

writes Dalrymple, "that there was a private meeting between the Duke and Lord Oxford, at Mr. Thomas Harley's house, to which the Duke came by a backdoor; immediately after which, he quitted England." Such is a part of the secret history of the circumstances which led to the memorable exile of

the great Duke of Marlborough, at the close of the reign of Queen Anne.

At No. 2, James Street, lived Glover, the author of "Leonidas," and I believe this is the same house which was afterwards occupied by Gifford, the translator of "Juvenal," and editor of the "Quarterly Review."

The ground between James Street and Tothill Street, Westminster, was formerly known as Petty France. Here it was, on quitting his residence in Scotland Yard, that Milton removed to a "garden house," opening into St. James's Park, next door to the Lord Scudamore's; here it was that he lost his second wife, who died in childbed, and to whose death we owe one of the most beautiful of his sonnets;

Methought I saw my late espoused saint,

Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, &c. and here it was that the great poet became totally blind. Milton resided in Petty France, from 1652, till within a short time before the Restoration of Charles the Second, in 1660; when, foreseeing the danger which awaited him in the event of a change of dynasty, he sought refuge in the house of a friend in Bartholomew Close. Here he remained concealed till he found himself included in the general amnesty, when he removed to a house in Holborn, near Red Lion Square, and shortly afterwards to Jewin Street.

Close to the spot which must have been the site of Milton's residence is Queen's Square, where the

celebrated Jeremy Bentham lived and died; and a little to the east is Storey's Gate, formerly called Storehouse Gate, from a storehouse of the ordnance having formerly stood here. Almost immediately facing Buckingham Palace, and adjoining Storey's Gate, the houses on the western side of Duke Street, Westminster, look into the Park. The Chapel, a conspicuous object as we pass from the Birdcage Walk,-was originally a wing of the mansion of the infamous Judge Jeffries, and it was by the particular favour of his sovereign, James the Second, that he was allowed to construct the flight of steps, which still lead into the Park. The house in Duke Street was afterwards purchased by the Government from the son of Lord Jeffries, and was used as the Admiralty Office, till the erection of the present unsightly building in Whitehall.

Let us pass from the Park through Storey's Gate into Westminster.

KING STREET, WESTMINSTER,-ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH.

WESTMINSTER, KING STREET.-RESIDENCE OF SPENSER, CAREW, LORD DORSET, CROMWELL.—GREAT PLAGUE.-MRS. OLDFIELD.-DOWNING STREET.-GARDINER'S LANE.-CANNON ROW.-ST. MARGARET'S

CHURCH.-THE SANCTUARY.

THE old city of Westminster,-with its venerable Abbey, its remains of the ancient palace of the Saxon Kings, and its gloomy and narrow streets, once the residence of peers, courtiers, and poets,

-constitutes, perhaps, the most interesting district of the great metropolis. We have the Sanctuary, too, famous in history,―the beautiful but mouldering cloisters of the old Abbey,—the Almonry, anciently called the Eleemosynary, where the monks distributed alms to the poor, and where Caxton, under the auspices of Bishop Islip, established the first printing-press in England; and, lastly, we have still left to us Westminster Hall, with all its host of historical associations.

Fashion, or rather an entire change in the rank and character of its inhabitants, has revolutionized the aspect of the streets of Westminster far more than time. It was only yesterday that the author made a pilgrimage through its confined streets and