GREENWICH.
The river Thames, steadily gathering force after sweeping through London past the docks, and receiving upon its capacious bosom the vast commerce of all the world, encircles the Isle of Dogs (where Henry VIII. kept his hounds) below the city, and at the southern extremity of the reach we come to Greenwich. Here go many holiday-parties to the famous inns, where they get the Greenwich fish-dinners and can look back at the great city they have left. Here the ministry at the close of the session has its annual whitebait dinner. Greenwich was the Roman Grenovicum and the Saxon Green Town. Here encamped the Danes when they overran England in the eleventh century, and their fleet was anchored in the Thames. It became a royal residence in Edward I.'s time, and Henry IV. dated his will at the manor of Greenwich. In 1437, Greenwich Castle was built within a park, and its tower is now used for the Observatory. Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, then held Greenwich, and was the regent of England during Henry VI.'s minority. He was assassinated by rivals in 1447, and the manor reverted to the Crown. The palace was enlarged and embellished, and Henry VIII. was born there in 1491. He greatly improved the palace, and made it his favorite residence, Queen Elizabeth being born there in 1533. King Edward VI. died at Greenwich in 1553, and Elizabeth, enlarging the palace, kept a regular court there. It was her favorite summer home, and the chronicler of the time, writing of a visit to the place, says, in describing the ceremonial of Elizabeth's court, that the presence-chamber was hung with rich tapestry, and the floor, after the then fashion, was covered with rushes. At the door stood a gentleman in velvet with a gold chain, who introduced persons of distinction who came to wait upon the queen. A large number of high officials waited for the queen to appear on her way to chapel. Ultimately she came out, attended by a gorgeous escort. She is described as sixty-five years old, very majestic, with an oblong face, fair but wrinkled, small black, pleasant eyes, nose a little hooked, narrow lips, and black teeth (caused by eating too much sugar). She wore false red hair, and had a small crown on her head and rich pearl drops in her ears, with a necklace of fine jewels falling upon her uncovered bosom. Her air was stately, and her manner of speech mild and obliging. She wore a white silk dress bordered with large pearls, and over it was a black silk mantle embroidered with silver thread. Her long train was borne by a marchioness. She spoke graciously to those whom she passed, occasionally giving her right hand to a favored one to kiss. Whenever she turned her face in going along everybody fell on their knees. The ladies of the court following her were mostly dressed in white. Reaching the ante-chapel, petitions were presented her, she receiving them graciously, which caused cries of "Long live Queen Elizabeth!" She answered, "I thank you, my good people," and then went into the service.
GREENWICH HOSPITAL, FROM THE RIVER.
King James I. put a new front in the palace, and his queen laid the foundation of the "House of Delight," which is now the central building of the Naval Asylum. King Charles I. resided much at Greenwich, and finished the "House of Delight," which was the most magnificently furnished mansion then in England. King Charles II., finding the palace decayed, for it had fallen into neglect during the Civil Wars, had it taken down, and began the erection of a new palace, built of freestone. In the time of William and Mary it became the Royal Naval Asylum, the magnificent group of buildings now there being extensions of Charles II.'s palace, while behind rises the Observatory, and beyond is the foliage of the park. The asylum was opened in 1705, and consists of quadrangular buildings enclosing a square. In the south-western building is the Painted Hall, adorned with portraits of British naval heroes and pictures of naval victories. The asylum supports about two thousand seven hundred in-pensioners and six thousand out-pensioners, while it has a school with eight hundred scholars. By a recent change the in-pensioners are permitted to reside where they please, and it has lately been converted into a medical hospital for wounded seamen. Its income is about $750,000 yearly. The Greenwich Observatory, besides being the centre whence longitude is reckoned, is also charged with the regulation of time throughout the kingdom.
LONDON, FROM GREENWICH PARK.
The Thames, which at London Bridge is eight hundred feet wide, becomes one thousand feet wide at Greenwich, and then it pursues its crooked course between uninteresting shores past Woolwich dockyard, where it is a quarter of a mile wide, and on to Gravesend, where the width is half a mile; then it broadens into an estuary which is eighteen miles wide at the mouth. Almost the only thing that relieves the dull prospect along the lower Thames is Shooter's Hill, behind Woolwich, which rises four hundred and twelve feet. Gravesend, twenty-six miles below London Bridge by the river, is the outer boundary of the port of London, and is the head-quarters of the Royal Thames Yacht Club. Its long piers are the first landing-place of foreign vessels. Gravesend is the head-quarters for shrimps, its fishermen taking them in vast numbers and London consuming a prodigious quantity. This fishing and custom-house town, for it is a combination of both, has its streets filled with "tea-and shrimp-houses."