e grateful character than as
mere assessors of taxes, and as organs of legal coercion.

At Pimlico, the name of Stafford-Row reminded me of the ancient
distinction of Tart-Hall, once the rival in size and splendour of its
more fortunate neighbour, Buckingham-House, and long the depository of
the Arundelian Tablets and Statues. It faced the Park, on the present
scite of James-Street; its garden-wall standing where Stafford-Row is
now built, and the extensive livery-stables being once the stables of
its residents.

I turned aside on the left, to view the river Tye, or _Ty-bourn_,
which runs from the top of Oxford-street, under May-Fair, across
Piccadilly, south-east of Buckingham-House, under the pavement of
Stafford-Row, and across Tothill-Fields, into the Thames. It is a
fact, equally lost, that the creeks which run from the Thames, in the
swamps, opposite Belgrave-Place, once joined the canal in St.
James's-Park, and, passing through White-Hall, formed, by their
circuit, the ancient isle of St. Peter's. Their course has been filled
up between the wharf of the water-works and the end of the canal in
St. James's-Park; and the Isle of St. Peter's is no longer to be
traced. It is singular that such a marsh should have become the focus
of the government, jurisprudence, and power, of this great empire!
Yet, so it is, the offices of Government, the Houses of Parliament,
and the Supreme Courts of Law, stand on the lowest ground in or near
the metropolis; the greater part of which is still the swamp of
Tothill and Milbank-Fields; and the whole is exposed to the
inundations of land-floods or extraordinary tides. A moralist would
say, that such bulwarks of a nation ought to have been seated on a
rock--a wit would refer to the nature of the soil, the notorious
corruptions of the body-politic--and a votary of superstition would
ascribe the splendid fortunes of the scite to the favour of heaven, as
announced in the vision to the monks who, eleven hundred years since,
built Westminster-Abbey, in so unpromising a situation!

The wall of what are called the Gardens of Buckingham House, form one
side of the main street of Pimlico; but these gardens consist merely
of a gravel walk, shaded by trees, with a spacious and unadorned area
in the centre. The whole, is the property of Queen Charlotte, and is
inaccessible to a visit of mere curiosity.

The water-works, to the left of the road, supply Pimlico and part of
Westminster with wate