the accession of George the Third, and the court was held here during his whole reign, although his domestic residence was at Buckingham House.* His present Majesty was born at St. James's, on the 12th of August 1761, and shortly afterwards the Queen's bed was removed to the Great Drawing Room, and company were admitted to see the Prince on Drawing-room days, which were every Thursday. The last Drawing Room held in that reign was on the 18th of January 1809, three days after which a fire broke out in the east wing of the Palace, and totally destroyed their Majesties' private apartments, together with those of the Duke of Cambridge.

After the general peace in 1814, the State Apartments, which form a large and important division of the building, were fitted up for the reception of the Emperor of Russia, who received the Lord Mayor, with the congratulations of the City, on the 11th of June. The King of Prussia and Marshal Blucher were inmates of the palace at the same time.

In 1822, a general alteration and repair was made in this edifice, by T. F. Hunt, Esq., the resident architect, under the direction of the Board of Works; and a new banquetting-room, of magnificent dimensions, decorated in the style of Louis the Fourteenth's time, was then added to the suite.

The Royal Library at St. James's, was originally

*The centre part of Buckingham House now forms the nucleus of a large Palace, which has been in progress about three years, but is still unfinished.

founded by Edward the Sixth, who appointed Bartholomew Trahuon, keeper, with a salary of £20. It was enriched by the collections of the celebrated antiquary, Leland. James the First refounded this library, and, among other gifts, added the collection of the learned Isaac Casaubon.*

St. James's Palace is a very extensive and irregular pile, principally of brick, incorporated with the stone remains of the ancient hospital. The principal entrance, which fronts St. James's Street, (and is shewn in the annexed print, copied from a large engraving by Edward Rooker), is by a lofty gate-house, opening into a quadrangular court, having a colonnade on the west side. It was at the garden entrance, opposite

The Queen's Library, at St. James's, was built for Caroline, consort of George the Second, by the celebrated Kent. It occupied the site of the noble mansion erected for the late Duke of York, on the west side of the Stable Yard, now the property of the Marquis of Stafford. Within it were two finelyexecuted marble busts of George II. and Queen Caroline, by Rysbrack; these have been recently conveyed to Windsor Castle, by command of His present Majesty ; who has likewise directed the removal to the same place of the three noble Pictures which belonged to King Henry the Eighth, and were suspended in the meeting room of the Society of Antiquaries, by direction of George the Third. With praise-worthy liberality, however, he has, in return, commanded a donation of two annual Medals, of fifty guineas value, each, to be bestowed, under certain conditions, on the Members of that Society. The pictures were removed from the Society's apartments on the 2d of December, 1828.

Marlborough House, that, on August the 14th, 1786, an attempt was made on the life of his late Majesty, by an insane woman, named Margaret Nicholson, who struck at him with a knife, which she had concealed behind a pretended petition, but the blow was warded off by a page.*

There are many excellent Pictures in the various apartments of this palace. In the Gallery is a series of Royal Portraits, from Henry the Eighth to King William, except Edward the Sixth. Henry VIII. by Holbein, and Charles I., by Vandyke, are particularly fine. In the Ball Room (where the corpse of his late Royal Highness, Frederick, Duke of York, laid in state, in January 1827), are portraits of Queen Anne, George I. and George II.; together with two large pieces of the Battles of Lisle and Tournay. The Ante-Room contains a portrait of George III.; with the Naval Battles of the first of June and Trafalgar, the former by Loutherbourg, the latter, by Turner. In the Throne Room, is a portrait of George IV., by Lawrence, and pictures of the Battles of Vittoria and Waterloo, by Jones. The King's Closet contains a fine portrait of Philip the Second, of Spain, and St. Martin dividing his Cloak, by Rubens. In the rooms on the ground floor, which include the private apartments of his Majesty, there is also a very fine collection of pictures, among which

Margaret Nicholson was afterwards confined as a maniac, and after a captivity of forty-two years, she died in New Bethlem, in May 1828. She was between eighty and ninety years old at the time of her decease.

is the celebrated composition, by Haydon, of the Mock Election for the Borough of Tenterden, a scene that actually took place within the walls of the King's Bench Prison, in July 1827.

The Yeomen of the King's Guard are considered to be constantly on duty in this Palace. The muster roll is called at 12 o'clock every morning, in the Guard Chamber which is their regular station; the ceremony paid to all the Royal Family, and the most distinguished personages, termed "The Honours of the Guard Chamber," on the Levee and Drawing Room Days, is well known to the frequenters of the Court. When the King dines in state, the duty of the Yeomen is to bring up the dishes, as well as to keep order in the Presence Chamber.

St. James's Palace is a garrison, constantly protected by a military guard of honour; one of the three regiments of Foot Guards is relieved alternately in the principal court of the Palace, every morning at eleven o'clock, when the ceremony of delivering the keys, and exchanging the regimental standard, takes place, during the performance of the bands of music, who always attend on those occasions.*

The house in Cleveland Row, represented in the annexed print, opposite the Palace, is now down; it

* The King's Guard consists of a captain's guard; and there are also officer's guards at Buckingham House and the Tiltyard all other guards are under non-commissioned officers. A table is kept in the Palace for the Officers of the Foot and Life Guards, on duty; the latter are stationed at the HorseGuards, and patrol the Park during the night.

has been replaced by the St. James's hotel. The house on the right of the view is the Suttling-house of the garrison that beyond the gate is occupied by the Board of Green Cloth.

LONDON, IN THE INTERREGNUM.

DURING the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James the First the metropolis was very much enlarged, notwithstanding the several restrictive proclamations issued by those sovereigns. In July 1530, all persons were prohibited from building houses within three miles of any of the city gates of London; and in June 1602, another proclamation was made, both for "restraining the increase of buildings," and the " voyding of inmates" in the cities of London and Westminster, and for the space of three miles distant. These mandates, however, were comparatively inefficacious; and Stow informs us, by a particular detail of the increase in his own time, that there was not only a great augmentation of buildings in every part of the vicinity, but likewise within the walls of London itself, where the sites of many large mansions had been covered with lesser edifices.

On the accession of King James, and particularly after the Union of the two Kingdoms in 1605, a considerable number of his countrymen settled in the metropolis, which was partly the cause of the great extension of the city in his reign. At that period the streets were so extremely narrow, that " opposite neighbours," says D'Avenant, "might shake hands without stirring from home."