never been consecrated, and the
aspect of a hall is retained by the ugly false red curtains which surround
the interior of the building. It is called the Chapel Royal of Whitehall,
is served by the chaplains of the sovereign, and is one of the dreariest
places of worship in London. The ceiling is still decorated with canvas
pictures by Rubens (1635) representing the apotheosis of James I. The
painter received L3,000 for these works. The walls were to have been
painted by Vandyke with the History of the Order of the Garter. "What,"
says Walpole, "had the Banqueting-House been if completed?" Over the
entrance is a bronze bust of James I. attributed to Le Soeur.

THE TOWER [Footnote: From "Her Majesty's Tower."]

BY W. HEPWORTH DIXON

Half-a-mile below London Bridge, on ground which was once a bluff,
commanding the Thames from St. Saviour's Creek to St. Olave's Wharf,
stands the Tower; a mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient
and most poetic pile in Europe.... The Tower has an attraction for us akin
to that of the house in which we were born, the school in which we were
trained. Go where we may, that grim old edifice on the Pool goes with us;
a part of all we know, and of all we are. Put seas between us and the
Thames, this Tower will cling to us, like a thing of life. It colors
Shakespeare's page. It casts a momentary gloom over Bacon's story. Many of
our books were written in its vaults; the Duke of Orleans's "Poesies,"
Raleigh's "Historie of the World," Eliot's "Monarchy of Man," and Penn's
"No Cross, No Crown."

Even as to length of days, the Tower has no rival among places and
prisons, its origin, like that of the Iliad, that of the Sphinx, that of
the Newton Stone, being lost in the nebulous ages, long before our
definite history took shape. Old writers date it from the days of Caesar;
a legend taken up by Shakespeare and the poets in favor of which the name
of Caesar's tower remains in popular use to this very day. A Roman wall
can even yet be traced near some parts of the ditch. The Tower is
mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle in a way not incompatible with the fact
of a Saxon stronghold having stood upon this spot. The buildings as we
have them now in block and plan were commenced by William the Conqueror;
and the series of apartments in Caesar's tower--hall, gallery,
council-chamber, chapel--were built in the early Norman reigns, and used
as a royal residence by all our Norman kings. What can