of seventeen.  Here the rebel Lords of 1745, Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Lovat, were heard and condemned.  Here, Warren Hastings was tried, and Burke and Sheridan grew eloquent and impassioned, while Senators by birth and election, and the beauty and rank of Great Britain, sat earnest spectators and listeners of the extraordinary scene.  The last public trial in the Hall was Lord Melville’s in 1806; and the last coronation dinner in the Hall was that of George IV., when, according to the custom maintained for ages, and for the last time probably, the King’s champion (Dymocke) rode into the Hall in full armor, and threw down the gauntlet, challenging the world in a King’s behalf.  Silver plates were laid, on the same occasion, for 334 guests,”—­Murray.

The Central or Octagon Hall is an elegant and well lighted apartment eighty feet in height.  It is covered by a groined roof ornamented with 250 bosses.

The Clock Tower is forty feet square and 320 feet high.  The Palace Clock in this tower is an eighty-day clock, striking the hours and chiming the quarters upon eight bells.  Its four dials on the tower are each thirty feet in diameter.

From the Houses of Parliament we went over to see Westminster Abbey, which is on the opposite side of the street.  The contrast between those buildings is so striking, that old Westminster seemed to be quite an ordinary edifice.  As I looked at its weather-beaten and moss-covered walls, and its small proportions as compared with the grand edifice which we had just left; I speculated what the old stable-like building might look like on the inside.  We had not entered long before I observed that it was somewhat larger than I had imagined.  It is 416 feet long, 203 feet across the transepts, and 101 feet 8 inches to the roof.

Back of the high altar is Edward the Confessor’s Chapel containing the graves and monuments of nine kings and queens.  In this chapel are the two Coronation Chairs upon which all the sovereigns of Great Britain have been crowned since the death of Henry III., (by whom Westminster Abbey was built), beginning with the coronation of his son?  Edward I., and Queen Eleanor, October 19th, 1274.  One of these chairs has for a seat the venerable stone on which the Scottish kings had been crowned at Scone from time immemorial; but which together with the regalia of Scotland, Edward I. brought with him as trophies in 1296.  “This stone is 26 inches long, 16 inches wide, and 11 inches thick.”

In the “Poet’s Corner” we joined a party and were guided through the chapels.

In Henry VII.’s Chapel we found a very beautiful effigy of the Princess Sophia lying in an alabaster cradle.  This infant princess was the daughter of James I., and is not mentioned by some historians, having died at a very tender age.