The chief apartments in the suite are the Throne Room, sixty-six feet long, in which the Queen receives her subjects, the Ball Room, one hundred and ten feet long and sixty broad, and the Picture Gallery, one hundred and eighty feet long. This contains a small but in many respects a choice collection of paintings, mainly of the Dutch School. There are very fine examples of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Terburg, and many other masters of this school.

It was in Buckingham Palace that the Queen passed some of the happy early years of her married life. Here the Princess Royal was born in 1840, and the Prince of Wales in 1841. Since the great shadow and permanent sorrow of the loss of her beloved husband came upon her life nearly a generation ago, influenced by feelings so natural and womanly that all her subjects can deeply sympathise with her, the Queen has lived much away from London, at Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral. Many have wished that she could have been seen more in public, and could have felt equal to undertaking more of the ceremonial duties of her high office. And this she has done to some extent in recent years. But by her constitutional and wise and pure reign of over half a century, she has firmly established herself in the affections of her people, and the wish expressed by the Poet Laureate long years ago, and written before her great sorrow, still finds an echo in their hearts :

'May children of our children say,
She wrought her people lasting good;
Her court was pure, her life serene :

God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed

In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen;

And statesmen at her council met,

Who knew the seasons, when to take

Occasion by the hand, and make

The bounds of freedom wider yet

By shaping some august decree,

Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people's will,

And compassed by the inviolate sea.'

WE

CHAPTER VI.

LEGAL AND LITERARY LONDON.

E have referred in the last chapter to the connection that existed for centuries between the Courts of Law and Westminster Hall. For many years prior to 1870 it had been felt that Westminster was an inconvenient situation for the Courts, and that the old buildings were unequal to the constantly growing requirements of the day. As the outcome of much discussion, and after considerable delay, it was finally decided to erect a magnificent pile of buildings fronting upon the Strand, just to the west of Chancery Lane, and almost opposite the entrance to the Temple. The plans of the late Mr. G. E. Street were accepted, but he died shortly before the completion of his great work. The Royal Courts of Justice, as they are formally designated, comprise an enormous pile of Gothic buildings, with a frontage on the Strand of four hundred and eighty-three feet. To obtain the site a network of squalid courts and alleys was cleared away, and the building, begun in 1879, was opened by Queen Victoria on December 4th, 1882. The total cost of the structure was three quarters of a million sterling. The chief feature of the interior is the great central hall, two hundred and sixty-eight feet long, forty-eight feet wide, and eighty feet high,

with a handsome mosaic floor. The building contains no less than nineteen different Courts, together with all the various apartments necessary for the judges, counsel, clerks, and attendants of all kinds. There have, however, been many complaints by those whose business calls them thither, from the judges downwards, that, admirable as the Courts may be from the architectural point of view, they are yet capable of great improvement as regards the comfort of those called there by duty. Already the Royal Courts have been the scene of a great historic trial, three of Her Majesty's judges and the foremost advocates of the English Bar having been engaged for over fifteen months, 1888-90, in what is known as the Parnell Commission.

The Royal Courts of Justice fitly stand in the very centre of legal London. They are within a few minutes' walk of the four great Inns of Court, and Chancery Lane is barely a stone's throw distant. Immediately opposite is the Temple, a region famous not only for the natural beauty which in a marvellous degree it has managed to retain in the heart of London, but also for its architecture, the great lawyers who have here carried on their practice, for the part it has played in the history of London and of England, and for the many men of letters who have lived within its boundaries.

Let us glance for a moment at the history of the Temple. The very name takes us back away beyond Stuart, Tudor, and Plantagenet times, to the height of the great Crusade movement in Western Europe. In 1118, Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, founded a religious and military Order of Knights, originally known as 'poor soldiers of the Temple of Solomon,' and hence called Templars, whose duty it was to guard the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which had been won from the Saracens, and to protect pilgrims on their way thither. Gradually the Order grew in wealth and fame, and established houses in many parts of Europe. In 1128 they established themselves in London, in the first instance near the spot where Southampton Buildings now stand. Towards the close of the twelfth century they purchased an estate extending from Fleet Street to the Thames, and from Whitefriars to Essex House, Strand. Here they founded their great monastery. The Templars rendered very important military services to that most mistaken of all enterprises, the Crusades, but degenerated very rapidly in morals and in faith, and the Order was finally abolished by Pope Clement V. in the year 1312. The London Preceptory became Crown property in 1313, and Edward II. gave it to Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. At his death it became the property of the Knights of St. John, and in 1346 they leased it to the students of Common Law. From that day to this it has been devoted to legal and literary pursuits.

The only portion remaining of the original cluster of buildings is the magnificent church. This is dedicated to St. Mary, and is divided into two parts, the Round Church and the choir. The former, which is fifty-eight feet in diameter, and a beautiful specimen of the late Norman or transitional