eriments in his cell; he began to write a wonderful History of
the World; and I think he thought and dreamed much about Manoa, his
Golden City, and the riches which lay hidden in South America. The
Spanish said these riches were {54} all theirs; but Raleigh did not
believe this, and he thought Englishmen could so easily get possession
of some of them. After many years he tried to persuade King James to
let him cross the Atlantic and sail up the Orinoco to find a gold-mine
he had heard of there; he said if only he might go and open it up, it
would bring great wealth to the King. Had he another hope, I wonder,
hidden away in his heart, of which he did not speak--that he might also
search for and find his Golden City? However this may be, he certainly
tried to persuade the King, and he succeeded, for James said, "Yes, you
may go," though he well knew that Raleigh could not go to South America
and bring home gold without offending the Spanish, and England was then
at peace with Spain. So Raleigh sailed away. After fifteen months he
came home with a sad tale to tell;--everything had gone wrong, the
Spanish had killed many of his men, and he had found no gold. James
sent him back to the Tower; and four months later, in the year 1618, he
was beheaded, because (so he was told,) he had once plotted against the
King. Thus died the last of the great men of Queen Elizabeth's Court
who had done so much for England.

How different London is now from the London of Queen Elizabeth's reign!
Old St. Paul's and its high tower,--I will tell you in the next story
what became of them. The Globe Theatre, too, has quite disappeared.
Busy shops have taken the places of the beautiful old houses in the
Strand; nothing now reminds us of them except the names of some of the
streets which turn off it; and Somerset House, the great building where
{55} now some of the business of the nation is carried on, is so called
because it stands on the place where the Duke of Somerset, who lived in
Edward VI.'s reign, began to build a palace for himself.

If you go down the river to Greenwich, will you see Queen Elizabeth's
pleasant palace? Ah, no. Sixty years after she died it was so out of
repair that Charles II. ordered it to be pulled down and a new one
built in its place. This new palace was not finished until William and
Mary's reign. Then there was a great war with France, and the Queen
begged the King to finish the palace and to turn it int