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."
TILBURY FORT.
On the opposite bank of the Thames is Tilbury Fort, the noted fortress that commands the navigation of the river and protects the entrance to London. It dates from Charles II.'s time, fright from De Ruyter's Dutch incursion up the Thames in 1667 having led the government to convert Henry VIII.'s blockhouse that stood there into a strong fortification. It was to Tilbury that Queen Elizabeth went when she defied the Spanish Armada. Leicester put a bridge of boats across the river to obstruct the passage, and gathered an army of eighteen thousand men on shore. Here the queen made her bold speech of defiance, in which she said she knew she had the body of but a weak and feeble woman, but she also had the heart and stomach of a king, and rather than her realm should be invaded and dishonor grow by her, she herself would take up arms. She had then, all told, one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers and one hundred and eighty-one war-vessels, but the elements conquered the "Invincible Armada," barely one-third of it getting back to Spain.
Thus we have traced England's famous river from its source in the Cotswolds until it falls into the North Sea at the mouth of the broad estuary beyond Sheerness and the Nore. Knowing the tale of grandeur that its banks unfold, Wordsworth's feelings can be understood as he halted upon Westminster Bridge in the early morning and looked down the Thames upon London: its mighty heart was still and its houses seemed asleep as the tranquil scene inspired the great poet to write his sonnet:
"Earth has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This city now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still."