Westminster Hall is second only to the Abbey in historic interest. It was originally built by William Rufus, and it is probable that some of his work still exists, though the bulk of what we see is due to Richard II. The magnificent timber roof—one of the finest in Europe—belongs undoubtedly to the period of Richard; and it is marvellous to think that this piece of wood-carving should have survived the wear of five centuries, and resisted without injury the dynamite explosion of 1885. A well-known tradition states that the roof is made of Irish oak, in which spiders cannot live; but it appears to be really constructed of chestnut. The place was intended as a banqueting-hall, and so used by King Richard; but some of our early Parliaments assembled there, and, at the very first meeting of the Houses in the new edifice, Richard himself was deposed. The Law Courts were likewise held in this building and its predecessor, from 1224 to 1882. Until a comparatively recent time, the judges sat in the main body of the Hall; and, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one side of the vast chamber was taken up by the judges, the lawyers, the juries, and the other persons concerned, while the opposite side was divided into a number of little shops or counters, where vociferous traders bawled their wares and solicited custom, until the Usher over the way commanded silence with a voice louder than their own. With one exception—the Hall of Justice at Padua—Westminster Hall is believed to be the largest chamber in the world not supported by pillars. Its aspect is indeed noble, and the recollections which crowd upon the mind on entering its walls are almost overwhelming in their historic and dramatic interest. In the Hall of Rufus, Sir William Wallace was condemned to death; while the very building that now stands has witnessed the trials of Sir Thomas More, the Protector Somerset, the Earl and Countess of Somerset, who contrived the assassination of Sir Thomas Overbury, the Earl of Strafford, King Charles I., the Seven Bishops who defied the power of James II., three of the rebel lords in 1745, Warren Hastings, and several other persons of less distinction, who still have made some mark in the political or social history of the land. Here Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated as Protector; and here, only a few years later, his head was set upon a pole, between the skulls of Ireton and Bradshaw. One could fancy ghosts flitting at night about this vast old Hall. It would be a strange gathering, drawn from the tragedies of five hundred years.
Returning to the river, we pass under new Westminster Bridge, but think rather of its predecessor, the work of Charles Labelye, a native of Switzerland, yet a naturalised British subject. This structure lasted from 1750, when it was completed, to 1853, when its destruction was commenced. Until the building of Labelye’s bridge, there was actually no way over the Thames, within the metropolis, but at London Bridge; and the proposal to execute this most necessary work encountered violent opposition in the City. Old Westminster Bridge was a ponderous erection, in which, if we may accept the statement of the architect, twice as many cubic feet of stone were employed as in St. Paul’s Cathedral. With its fifteen arches, diminishing in span from the centre, its lofty parapet and wide alcoves, it presented a rather handsome appearance, and many Londoners, not yet old, retain it in kindly memory. It was badly constructed, however, and several of the piers gave way in 1846. There was no alternative but to take the whole structure down; but it has an abiding place in literature, owing to the noble sonnet which Wordsworth composed there on the 3rd of September, 1803. Another literary association with the bridge is of a painful nature. When Crabbe the poet first came to London, in 1780, he was in such deep distress that, after appealing in vain to many persons of distinction, he delivered a letter at the door of Burke’s house—a letter to which the great orator and statesman afterwards replied with the utmost kindness; but, pending the answer, Crabbe was in such a state of agitation that, as he told Lockhart in later days, he walked Westminster Bridge backwards and forwards until daylight. It was by such experiences as this that Crabbe acquired his realistic power of delineating the sufferings of the poor, with whom the fear of hunger or the workhouse is one of the permanent facts of life.
YORK GATE.
It is on quitting Westminster Bridge that the Victoria Embankment begins—a magnificent work, containing the finest effects of architecture, mingled with trees and shrubbery, that are to be found in the metropolis. When one recollects the unsightly mud-banks that used to stretch along the shores of the Thames in this part of its course—the grim, dilapidated buildings that approached the water’s edge—the general appearance of ruin—the shiftless, disreputable air of the whole locality, save where some great building, such as Somerset House, broke the dull uniformity of dirt, decay, and neglect—it is impossible to be too grateful for what we now possess. The massive river-wall, with the bronze heads of lions starting out of every pier, the extended line of parapet, the artistic lamps reflected at night in the shining stream, the Cleopatra’s Needle, with Sphinxes round its base, the avenues of planes, the green and leafy gardens, the elevated terrace of the Adelphi, the stately river-front of Somerset House, and the splendid new buildings which have been erected at various points of the route, make up, together with the broad and flowing river, a picture which it would not be easy to surpass. At Charing Cross, unfortunately, there is an irremediable contradiction to this grandeur. The railway bridge which there crosses the Thames is one of the ugliest of an ugly family; and all we can do is to comfort ourselves with a sense of the convenience afforded by such structures, and with the impression of Titanic power always accompanying the transit of vast bodies through the air above our heads. As soon as our backs are turned upon the viaduct, it is forgotten; and close by, at the bottom of Buckingham Street, we come upon a decaying relic of old London, which is worth going to see. The Water Gate, formerly belonging to York House, and built by Inigo Jones for George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, still outlasts, in melancholy isolation, all the princely splendours that once distinguished this spot. York House was, for a short time, the London residence of the Archbishops of York, by whom it was afterwards let to the Lord Keepers of the Great Seal. It was here that no less a man than Francis Bacon was born, and he retained possession of the dwelling until his death. The next occupant was the famous Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I. and Charles I., who pulled down the old house, and erected a temporary mansion to supply its place. His intention was to build a more sumptuous palace on the site of Bacon’s town-house; but Inigo Jones’s Gate was the only portion ever erected. Of course, when originally made, it was on the absolute margin of the river, and here, at high tide, the Duke and his friends took the water in their barges, or landed after an excursion on the Thames. At the present day, owing to the formation of the Embankment, which covers the sloping shores of the river formerly left dry, or rather oozy, when the tide was out, the Water Gate of Inigo Jones is a long way inland, and looks forlornly across the intermediate gardens towards the stream from which it is permanently divorced. The edifice is a fine piece of Roman architecture, massive, rugged, yet ornamental, and admirably adapted, by the peculiarities of its structure, to serve as the approach to a mansion whose grounds came sweeping down to the edge of the waves. The house was afterwards sold by the second Duke of Buckingham, one of the profligate noblemen of Charles II.’s reign, illustrious by his own wit and spirit, and still more so by the masterly portraitures of Dryden and Pope; and a number of streets were built upon the site, some of which were called after the names and title of the Duke.
Waterloo Bridge—the grandest bridge in London, and perhaps in the world—admirably falls in with the architectural character of the Embankment and its surroundings. Nothing can exceed the magnificence of those nine broad arches, each one hundred and twenty feet in span, and thirty-five feet high; or of the columned piers from which they spring. The whole effect is colossal, yet graceful to the last degree of cultured power. Where the massive pillars meet the Embankment, they give an added grandeur to the work of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, and the triumphant arches, as they leap the channel of the river, display the happiest admixture of strength and suavity. The engineer who executed the works of Waterloo Bridge was the celebrated John Rennie; but the design was furnished by a somewhat obscure projector named George Dodd, who, in the first instance, was appointed to carry out his own conception, but who appears to have been discharged through inattention to his duties, and the lax habits which ultimately brought him to the prison where he died. The name of Rennie is so universally associated with the bridge, often to the exclusion of any other, that it seems but fair to give the credit of the plan to this forgotten and most unhappy genius.
Leaving Waterloo Bridge and Somerset House in our rear, the next object of note that we reach is the Temple, where we might linger a whole summer’s day, without exhausting all the interest that attaches to that memorable spot. What one chiefly sees from the river is the green and pleasant garden, where, according to Shakespeare, the partisans of the Houses of York and Lancaster plucked the white and red roses which served as the distinctive badges of their cause. Looking northward, however, we discern some of the new buildings which border the open ground; and we know that beyond these lie the wonderful courts and alleys—the mazy lanes and avenues of old houses—which, taken altogether, make the Temple one of the most fascinating spots in London. As he passes by on the smooth waves, the man familiar with books can hardly refrain from repeating to himself the murmuring lines of Spenser, in which the poet traces back the history of that cloistral retreat to the days when it was associated with a great military and ecclesiastical Order. Spenser was a thorough Londoner, and therefore well acquainted with
“Those bricky towers
The which on Thames’ broad, aged back doe ride,