--George Peabody, the philanthropist, and Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, the poet.

Come with me, in spirit, my American friends, and let us wander down to
Westminster on some warm June morning.

We will go down Parliament street from Trafalgar Square, along the road
that English kings took in old days from the Tower of London to their
coronations at the Abbey. Whitehall is on our left; and we remember with
a shudder that King Charles stepped out of that great middle window and
laid his unhappy head on the block prepared outside upon the scaffold.
On our right "The Horse Guards"--the headquarters of the English army,
with a couple of gorgeous lifeguardsmen in scarlet and white, and
shining cuirasses, sitting like statues on their great black horses.
Through the archway we catch a glimpse of the thorns in St. James' Park,
all white with blossom; and we wonder whether their remote ancestors
were the thorns of Edric's time. Next comes the mass of the Foreign
Office and all the government buildings, with footguards in scarlet
tunics and huge bearskin caps standing sentry at each door. Parliament
street narrows; and at the end of it we see the Clock Tower of the
Houses of Parliament high up in the air, and the still larger square
Victoria Tower. Then it opens out into a wide space of gardens and
roadways; and, across the bright flower beds, there stands Westminster
Abbey.

What would Edric, the poor fisherman, think if he could see the
Thames--silvery no longer--hurrying by the wide granite
embankments--past Doulton's gigantic Lambeth potteries and Lambeth
Palace and the River Terrace of the Houses of Parliament--covered with
panting steamboats and heavy barges--swirling brown and turbid under the
splendid bridges that span it, down to the Tower of London, and the
Pool, and the Docks, where the crossing lines of thousands of masts and
spars make a brown mist above the shipping from every quarter of the
globe? Poor Edric would look in vain for fish in that dirty river; and
full four hundred years have passed since "the Reverend Brother John
Wratting, Prior of Westminster," saw twenty-four salmon offered as tithe
at the High Altar of the Abbey.

What would King Sebert the Saxon think if we took him into the glorious
building that has risen upon the foundations of his little church in the
marshes?

[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.--NORTH ENTRANCE.]

At first sight Westminster Abbey is a little dwarfed by the enormous
pile