is afforded by the Metropolitan, and Metropolitan District, railways. These lines run mostly in tunnels under ground, and for a considerable part of the distance under the cellars of the houses and under the sewers. The system may be said to begin near the Mansion House, in the city, and what is called "the inner circle" line has stations at Blackfriars; CHARING CROSS, for Charing Cross, Trafalgar Square, and the West Strand; WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, for the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey; St James' Park; VICTORIA, close to the station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway and the Brighton Railway; Sloane Square; SOUTH KENSINGTON, for the South Kensington Museum, Albert Hall and Memorial; GLOUCESTER ROAD, where a branch goes off to West Brompton and Addison Road, also to West Kensington, Hammersmith, Kew, and Richmond; Kensington High Street, Notting Hill Gate; Queen's Road (Bayswater), near Kensington Gardens; PRAED STREET (Paddington), opposite the station of the Great Western Railway; EDGEWARE ROAD (where a branch line goes off to Bishop's Road, Royal Oak, Westbourne Park, Notting Hill, Latimer Road, Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith, Keir, and Richmond); BAKER STREET, for Tussaud's wax work (a branch line goes off to Swiss Cottage and Kilburn stations); PORTLAND ROAD, close to Regent Park. (Omnibuses in connection with all trains run from this station to Oxford Circus and down Regent Street to Piccadilly Circus); GOWER STREET, a convenient station to Euston, the terminus of the London and NorthWestern Railway; KING'S CROSs, a convenient station for the Midland and Great Northern Railway stations; Farringdon Street, where

a line goes off to Holborn Viaduct and Ludgate Hill stations; ALDERSGATE STREET, near the General Post-Office; MOORGATE STREET, the chief station for the city, Bank, &c.; BISHOPGATE, close to the station of the Great Eastern Railway; ALDGATE, city terminus, nearest station to the TOWER and Docks.

The speed on these lines is very great, and the fares are low. In 1877 the Metropolitan Railway carried 56 millions of passengers at the average rate of twopence per journey. It is said that on that part of the line between Farringdon and Moorgate Street there are 568 trains every week day.

LONDON.

It would be impossible, in a work like the present, to give a full description of the many oljects of interest to the tourist to be found in London. Nor has it been deemed advisable to dictate to the reader the order in which objects should be visited. The annexed plan will indicate their localities, and the descriptions, which follow, as nearly as may be, the order of their interest, will at least inform the reader correctly as to the leading and most interesting facts in relation to them.

As it may be fairly presumed that every person who visits this city must have some knowledge of its previous history, it will be unnecessary here to do more than briefly allude to it.

It was a place of commerce between the Britons and their kindred Gallic neighbours at the time of Julius Cæsar's invasion of the country, and has flourished ever since. From the number and extent of the remains found, it seems to have been an important Roman station; and, in the great insurrection under Boadicea, the

Roman garrison and inhabitants were put to the sword. It subsequently, having been devastated and ruined by the Picts and Scots during the confusion which succeeded the departure of the Roman legions, became the capital of the Kingdom of Wessex; but under the Heptarchy, and until the final abandonment of Winchester by the Norman Sovereigns, seems to have been a place of minor importance; it then became, as it has remained, the capital of the kingdom. The City of London, properly so called, is of moderate extent, and is probably circumscribed by the old Roman walls; the eleven parishes, now described as "without the walls," having been added at a later period. To show how rapidly the vast agglomeration of dwellings, which now constitutes the Metropolis, has taken place, we cannot do better than recall the fact, that in the reign of Elizabeth, as shown by maps of the period, to the north and westward of the Strand, and on the south bank of the river, were fields and open country. On the Strand, at that time, were principally the dwellings of the great nobility, the localities of which are still preserved in the names of streets leading towards the river, such as Arundel and Surrey. Until old Westminster Bridge was built, commenced in 1739, London Bridge served as the only stable communication between the inhabitants of the north and south banks of the river. Modern London doubtless owes its present arrangement of streets, and the permanent character of its dwellings, to its greatest calamity, the fire of 1666, in which 13,000 houses were consumed, and of which the Monument on Fish street Hill, near London Bridge, marks the limit in one direction. The fact mentioned

serves to show of what light and combustible materials the houses, up to that time, were constructed; and to the event, which must have been followed by a long period of suspense and confusion, may be attributed, in great measure, the extension of the suburbs. Subsequent fires have much contributed to further improvements. The burning of the Royal Exchange in 1838, and of St Stephen's Chapel, the old House of Commons, in 1834, for example, have given occasion for the erection of two of the finest buildings of which the metropolis can now boast.

At the commencement of the present century, the squares of which the British Museum may be considered the nucleus were not in existence; Belgravia was undreamt of, and there are numberless persons in existence, by no means aged, who state that they can recollect snipes being shot in the marshes which are now the sites of the monotonous, densely populated districts of Pimlico. As we shall have to visit many such districts in detail, we forbear further mention of them here, and will proceed to call the attention of the stranger to what we consider the best modes of seeing London, as briefly, and at the same time, as thoroughly as possible.

CHURCHES.

The first place usually visited by the tourist is WESTMINSTER ABBEY, the shrine of the ashes of some of the most illustrious and greatest of England's dead, "in arms, in arts, in song," in rank of nobility, and in statesmanship. A church was first built here by Sebert, King of the East Saxons, or Essex, between 604 and 616, in which he and his queen were buried. This was destroyed by the Danes in the time of Alfred,

and rebuilt by Edgar, who made it an abbey for twelve monks of the Benedictine order. It was again rebuilt in a style of greater magnificence by Edward the Confessor, who resided at Westminster, and who was buried here with his wife. This, no longer decisively traceable, was doubtless the kernel of the present building, which assumed its present outline under Henry III., and exhibits traces of additions at various times, until the erection of the superb chapel of Henry VII., and the western towers by Sir Christopher Wren, the renowned architect of St Paul's.

As the interior is the most impressive and interesting part, to that we shall confine ourselves. In the parts of the Abbey around which the visitor is allowed to stroll (except during the hours of service) without an attendant, are the monuments of men whose exploits are recorded at sufficient length upon their memorials, erected, for the most part, by the

nation. To the mind which wanders into the past, the eastern end is the most interesting. In "Poets' Corner," and in other parts of the building, will be found the memorials of many of the men whose names will ever be associated with the English language as a vehicle for poetic thought: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Drayton, "Rare Ben Jonson," Sir William Davenant, Prior, Gray, Gay, Dryden, Rowe, Addison, Cowley, Mason, Southey, Sheridan, Campbell, Macaulay, Dickens, and others of minor note. Many of these are simply honorary, as the reader will see from the memorials themselves. There are inscribed gravestones over David Garrick, Macpherson, the translator of Ossian, Samuel Johnson, "Old Parr," who lived 152 years, Mac

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aulay, Dickens, Bulwer, Dr Livingstone, and numberless persons of greater or less celebrity. All the monuments are open to the. public except those in the chapels. These are shown by an attendant. One of them starts every few minutes during the day, his starting on the tour of the chapels being announced in the Abbey. Fee 6d. Whilst here, the Chapter House, lately restored, should be visited. It was for 300 years the House of Commons, until the reign of Edward VI., when it was made a receptacle for records, and so remained until 1860. (Entrance to the Chapter House is through a small door in the south aisle, usually marked, "To the Chapter House.") The beautiful CLOISTERS are reached through the same door in the south aisle. They are in an excellent state of preservation, and date from the 11th to the 14th century. No specimen of mediæval architecture will impress the stranger more than the Chapel of Henry VII. The uniformity of its design, and the delicacy of the tracery overspreading it in every part, are nowhere equalled in any existing building." latten screen around the tomb of Henry and his queen is an exquisite piece of metal work; and their effigies, and the designs with which their tomb was adorned, also of metal gilt, have been lately restored from their former blackened state to their original glow. In the mortuary chapels, or chantries lying round this are some of the most interesting monuments within the edifice. (These are to be seen only in company with the official attendant, as above stated.) Amongst them may be named the tombs of Edward the Confessor, Henry III., Edward 1. and Queen Eleanor, Edward III. and Queen Philippa, Richard II. and his queen, Henry V., Ed.

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