Martin's Church, which was erected about 1721, and has a beautiful portico which is an object of universal admiration. The interior of the church is very splendid, and is admirably constructed, both as to convenience and adaptation for sound.

In the churchyard of St. Martin's the following eminent persons have been buried: Sir John Davys, the poet; Dobson, called the English Van Dyck; Stanley, the editor of Eschylus; Nell Gwynne; Hon. Robert Boyle, the philosopher; Roubiliac, the sculptor; John Hunter, the surgeon ; James Smith, one of the authors of the "Rejected Addresses." The register records the baptism of Lord Bacon, who was born, in 1561, in York House, in the Strand, on the site of Buckinghamstreet.

British Institution, No. 33 Pall Mall, established in 1805, on a plan formed by Sir Thomas Bernard, for the purpose of encouraging British Artists, and affording opportunities of exhibiting historical subjects to a greater advantage than in the rooms of the Royal Academy, then exhibited at Somerset House. The gallery purchased for its use was erected by Alderman Boydell, for the exhibition of paintings for his edition of Shakspeare, and it is well suited for its present purpose. Over the entrance is a piece of sculpture, by Banks, rẹ

presenting Shakspeare accompanied by Painting and Poetry.

The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, was erected in 1837, from designs by Mr. Wilkins. The gallery, which is nearly five hundred feet in length, consists of a central portico of eight Corinthian columns in front and two in depth, ascended by steps at each end at an elevation of eighteen feet from the ground, and two wings, each ornamented with four Corinthian columns. The portico is surmounted by a dome, and the whole range of edifice by a balustrade. The portion of the building to the right side of the pórtico is devoted to the Royal Academy, and that to the left to the National Gallery, the two being connected by the grand staircase and vestibule, divid*ing it into two equal parts. The Gallery originated in the purchase by Government, in 1824, of Mr. Angerstein's collection of thirty-eight pictures for £57,000. In 1826, Sir George Beaumont made a formal gift of sixteen pictures, valued at the time at 7500 guineas. Important bequests by the Rev. W. Holwell Carr, Lord Farnborough and others, and additional purchases by Government, have brought the collection, in less than a quarter of a century, to two hundred and twenty-eight pictures, independently of Vernon's noble gift of one hundred and

sixty works of the English school.

Paintings by

most of the great names in art grace this superb collection.

This celebrated donation is placed in a suite of rooms in Marlborough House, Pall Mall. These pictures, which are exclusively of the English school, are to be hereafter assigned a suitable position in some of the apartments of the National Gallery. By the way, a new Gallery of Art is being projected. Hyde Park is suggested as its locale.

From Morley's Hotel, Trafalgar Square, may be seen the Nelson Monument, the statues, fountains, the fine portico of the National Gallery, St. Martin's Church, Northumberland House, etc.

The north side of the entrance to the Strand lay open to the fields, to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, and Covent Garden, as late as the reign of Charles I.

Northumberland House, Charing Cross, is one of the most magnificent town mansions of the nobility, and is a fine specimen of the architecture of the time of James I.; it was built by Bernard Jansen, a Flemish architect. The lion on the central parapet is the crest of the Percies. This magnificent edifice contains one hundred and fifty apartments, and a spacious gallery of rare paintings. All that is old of the present building is the portal towards the

Strand; but even of this there is a good deal that is new. The house is massively furnished and in good taste. The staircase is stately; the Pompeian) room most elegant, and the state Drawing-room, with its ten lights to the east, and its noble copies after Raphael, very magnificent—a room, it is said, not to be matched in London. Many of the fireplaces, fenders, and fire-irons are of silver. The large Sèvres vase in the centre of the great room was presented by Charles X., at his coronation in 1825, to the Duke of Northumberland, then representative of Great Britain at the French court.

We now leave Northumberland House, and wend our course eastward, through what old Stowe calls "a way or street of shops, theatres and insurance offices," the Strand. The thoroughfare is singularly rich in memories of the past. This was, in Elizabethan days, a suburban and somewhat aristocratic retreat. "Anciently," says Selden, "the noblemen lay within the city for safety and security, but the Bishops' houses were by the water side, because they were sacred persons whom nobody would hurt." As many as nine of these priestly dignitaries possessed "inns" or "hostels " on the Strand, near the banks of the river, at the time of the Reformation. Passing Hungerford-Market we approach the site of old York

House: the spot is now known by the name In 1698 Peter the Great

of York-buildings.

lived in a large house at the bottom of Yorkbuildings:" and 1708 the Earl of Oxford. Samuel Pepys, brother of the historian, also resided here. The great Lord Bacon, the son of the Archbishop of York, was born at this house. York House and estate were assured by Act of Parliament, in 1624, to the Crown, and subsequently granted to the Duke of Buckingham. The Duke employed Inigo Jones to rebuild a great part of it in a style of much magnificence. The Duke lived here in the most expensive manner, till his assassination by Felton, when it became the property of his son. The York Stairs, or Water Gate, at the bottom of Buckingham-street, will give some idea of the beauty of the building, of which this is now the sole remnant. This gate has been universally admired, and pronounced to be the most perfect piece of building that does honor to the name of Inigo Jones. It is planned in so exquisite a taste, formed of such equal and harmonious parts, and adorned with such appropriate decorations, that nothing seems to be required.

Here resided Sir Harry Vane, Lilly the astrologer, and Jacob Tonson and Andrew Millar, the booksellers and publishers.