“Even such is Time that takes on trust,
    Our youth, our joy, our all we have,
    And pays us but with age and dust;
    Who in the dark and silent grave,
    When we have wandered all our ways,
    Shuts up the story of our days.”

Spears, battle-axes, pikes, helmets, targets, bows and arrows, and many instruments of torture, whose names I did not learn, grace the walls of this room.  The block on which the Earl of Essex and Anne Boleyn were beheaded, was shown among other objects of interest.  A view of the “Queen’s Jewels” closed our visit to the Tower.  The Gold Staff of St. Edward, and the Baptismal Font used at the Royal christenings, made of solid silver, and more than four feet high, were among the jewels here exhibited.  The Sword of Justice was there, as if to watch the rest of the valuables.  However, this was not the sword that Peter used.  Our acquaintance with De Foe, Sir Walter Raleigh, Chaucer, and James Montgomery, through their writings, and the knowledge that they had been incarcerated within the walls of the bastile that we were just leaving, caused us to look back again and again upon its dark grey turrets.

I closed the day with a look at the interior of St. Paul’s Cathedral.  A service was just over, and we met a crowd coming out as we entered the great building.  “Service is over, and two pence for all that wants to stay,” was the first sound that caught our ears.  In the Burlesque of “Esmeralda,” a man is met in the belfry of the Notre Dame at Paris, and being asked for money by one of the vergers says:—­

   “I paid three pence at the door,
    And since I came in a great deal more: 
    Upon my honour you have emptied my purse,
    St. Paul’s Cathedral could not do worse.”

I felt inclined to join in this sentiment before I left the church.  A fine statue of “Surly Sam” Johnson was one of the first things that caught our eyes on looking around.  A statue of Sir Edward Packenham, who fell at the Battle of New Orleans, was on the opposite side of the great hall.  As we had walked over the ground where this General fell, we viewed his statue with more than ordinary interest.  We were taken from one scene of interest to another, until we found ourselves in the “Whispering Gallery.”  From the dome we had a splendid view of the Metropolis of the world.  A scaffold was erected up here to enable an artist to take sketches from which a panorama of London was painted.  The artist was three years at work.  The painting is now exhibited at the Colosseum; but the brain of the artist was turned, and he died insane!  Indeed, one can scarcely conceive how it could be otherwise.  You in America have no idea of the immensity of this building.  Pile together half-a-dozen of the largest churches in New York or Boston, and you will have but a faint representation of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

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