old house is
slowly departing, and has chiefly become a fragrant memory.

[Illustration: LIBRARY, HOLLAND HOUSE.]

[Illustration: ROGERS' SEAT IN THE DUTCH GARDEN, HOLLAND HOUSE.]

Eastward from London is the great park which the queen in May opened
with much pomp as a breathing-ground for the masses of that
densely-populated region, the east end of the metropolis--Epping Forest.
This beautiful enclosure originally consisted of nine thousand acres,
but encroachments reduced it to about one-third that size. Reclamations
were made, however, and the park now opened covers five thousand six
hundred acres--a magnificent pleasure-ground.

GREENWICH.

The river Thames, steadily gathering force after sweeping through London
past the docks, and receiving upon its capacious bosom the vast commerce
of all the world, encircles the Isle of Dogs (where Henry VIII. kept his
hounds) below the city, and at the southern extremity of the reach we
come to Greenwich. Here go many holiday-parties to the famous inns,
where they get the Greenwich fish-dinners and can look back at the great
city they have left. Here the ministry at the close of the session has
its annual whitebait dinner. Greenwich was the Roman Grenovicum and the
Saxon Green Town. Here encamped the Danes when they overran England in
the eleventh century, and their fleet was anchored in the Thames. It
became a royal residence in Edward I.'s time, and Henry IV. dated his
will at the manor of Greenwich. In 1437, Greenwich Castle was built
within a park, and its tower is now used for the Observatory. Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester, then held Greenwich, and was the regent of England
during Henry VI.'s minority. He was assassinated by rivals in 1447, and
the manor reverted to the Crown. The palace was enlarged and
embellished, and Henry VIII. was born there in 1491. He greatly improved
the palace, and made it his favorite residence, Queen Elizabeth being
born there in 1533. King Edward VI. died at Greenwich in 1553, and
Elizabeth, enlarging the palace, kept a regular court there. It was her
favorite summer home, and the chronicler of the time, writing of a visit
to the place, says, in describing the ceremonial of Elizabeth's court,
that the presence-chamber was hung with rich tapestry, and the floor,
after the then fashion, was covered with rushes. At the door stood a
gentleman in velvet with a gold chain, who introduced persons of
distinction who came to wait upon the queen.