WATERLOO BRIDGE.
| SCHOMBERG HOUSE. | STATUE OF SIDNEY HERBERT. |
Let us now take a brief glance at some well-known London sights. The two great heroes who are commemorated in modern London are Wellington and Nelson. Trafalgar Square commemorates Nelson's death and greatest victory, the Nelson Column standing in the centre, with Landseer's colossal lions reposing at its base. Passing eastward along the Strand, beyond Charing Cross and Somerset House, we come to Wellington Street, which leads to Waterloo Bridge across the Thames. This admirable structure, the masterpiece of John Rennie, cost $5,000,000, and was opened on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo in 1817. It is of granite, and with the approaches nearly a half mile long, crossing the river upon nine arches, each of one hundred and twenty feet span. Passing westward from Trafalgar Square, we enter Pall Mall, perhaps the most striking of the London streets in point of architecture. Here are club-houses and theatres, statues and columns, and the street swarms with historical associations. On the south side are the Reform and Carlton Clubs, the headquarters respectively of the Liberal and Conservative parties, and a little beyond, on the same side, the row of buildings of all sizes and shapes making up the War Office. Among them is a quaint old Queen-Anne mansion of brick, with a curious pediment and having many windows. This is Schomberg House, shorn of one wing, but still retained among so much that is grand around it. Also in Pall Mall is Foley's celebrated statue of Sidney Herbert, one of the most impressive in London—the head drooped sadly and reflectively, indicating that it is the image of a conscientious war-minister, who, overweighted with the responsibility of his office, was cut off prematurely. Although not one of the greatest men of England, Herbert's fame will be better preserved by his finer statue than that of many men who have filled a much larger space in her history. Marlborough House has an entrance on Pall Mall, and adjoining its gate is the curious and elaborately decorated building of the Beaconsfield Club. Over the doorway the semicircular cornice does duty for a balcony for the drawing-room windows above. The doorway itself is an imposing archway strangely cut into segments, one forming a window and the other the door.
DOORWAY BEACONSFIELD CLUB.