It is only second to the suspension bridge at Fribourg, in Switzerland; and the total cost, including the purchase of property, law, parliamentary, and other expenses, was £110,000. The quantity of iron employed is estimated at 11,000 tons. A toll of one halfpenny is paid on crossing the bridge. length of the footway is 1,440 feet.

The

Nearly opposite the entrance to the Market is the LOWTHER ARCADE, a bazaar-like avenue, where the shops seem to be turned inside out, and the stalls are crammed with French and German goods, interspersed with a prodigal display of Mosaic finery. It is 245 feet in length, and 35 feet in height, and was built in 1831. The improvements that took place at the same time in this part of the West Strand have given a modern aspect of magnificence to the adjacent thoroughfares. CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL, at the corner of King William Street, was built in 1833, by Decimus Burton. The annual revenue is about £2,500; and in 1849, 9,000 necessitous patients were relieved through its agency.

We now arrive at TRAFALGAR SQUARE, occupying the site of the old Royal Mews, and a nest of wretched courts, that were all cleared away in 1829. The fine portico and Church of St. Martin's forms a conspicuous object on the eastern side. The original Church of St. Martin's-no longer meriting its parochial addition of "in-the-Fields"-was erected in 1535. The first stone of the existing building was laid down in 1721, and it was completed by Gibbs in 1726, at the cost of £36,891 10s. 4d. The portico has eight Corinthian columns, and supports a pediment in which are the royal arms. The interior is richly decorated. The present burial-ground is at Pratt Street, Camden Town; but in the old burying-ground, now covered by the pavement along the side of the church, was interred, among many celebrated personages, the notorious housebreaker Jack Sheppard.

NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE, seen at the south-west corner, by Charing Cross, was built in the reign of James I., and is the town residence of the Duke of Northumberland. The

front is surmounted by a lion, the crest of the Percys; and in the magnificent apartments within are many valuable paintings by the old masters. The grounds at the back reach to the very verge of the river.

THE NELSON COLUMN, designed by Mr. William Railton, afforded an opportunity to both architect and sculptor to combine their efforts in perpetuating the memory of Trafalgar's hero. Baily's statue on the summit is eighteen feet high, and was set up November 4, 1843. The column is built on clay; the granite was brought from the coast of Devon; the figure is of Craigleith stone; and the entire cost of the monument was £28,000. The height is nearly 177 feet, and the pedestal alone has an altitude of thirty-six feet. On the four sides of the pedestal, represented in bronze bas relief, are sculptures of "The Death of Nelson," by Carew; "The Battle of the Nile," by Woodington; "St. Vincent," by Watson; and "Copenhagen," by Ternouth. The relievo was cast in five pieces, and the thickness of the metal is about three-eighths of an inch.

The equestrian statue of George IV., at the angle of the square, is by Chantrey, and was originally intended to surmount the marble arch in front of Buckingham Palace. The cost was 9,000 guineas. The fountains, with their granite basins, have been made the subject of much ridicule. They are supplied by an artesian well, sunk to a considerable depth at the back of the National Gallery.

THE NATIONAL GALLERY extends along the whole of the north side of the square, and originated in the purchase by Government of the Angerstein collection of pictures for the sum of £40,000. The present structure appropriated to their reception was designed by Wilkins, and finished in 1838. The length is 461 feet, and the greatest width is 56 feet. The central portico is the main feature of the building, and the Corinthian columns are the same which used to support the portico of old Carlton House. The Gallery is open without charge to the public every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

and Thursday; and on Friday and Saturday to artists. The hours are from ten till five. During the last two weeks of September and the month of October the Gallery is wholly closed. Although inferior to the great continental galleries, this is still a highly valuable collection. Independent of the late Mr. Vernon's munificent presentation of 162 pictures of the modern school, there are 215 works of the ancient masters, with some fine specimens of our own Hogarth, Wilkie, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Lawrence. As there are so many cheap catalogues, from one penny upwards, to be had at the doors, we consider an elaborate enumeration of the pictures to be quite unnecessary. We must call the visitor's attention, however, as he passes through the hall, to the fine colossal Waterloo vase, by Sir Richard Westmacott, the material of which was captured from a French vessel that was taking it to France to be converted into a vase to celebrate the victories of Napoleon.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY occupies the eastern end. It was constituted, December, 1768; opened its first exhibition in Somerset House, May, 1780; and removed from Somerset House, and opened its first exhibition in Trafalgar Square, May, 1838. Its principal objects are set forth as being the establishment of a well-regulated school of design for students in the arts, and of an exhibition open to all artists of distinguished merit, where they might offer their performances to public inspection, and acquire that degree of reputation and encouragement which they should be deemed to deserve. The Society consists of forty royal academicians, including a president, twenty associates, and six associate engravers. The whole of the funds are derived from the produce of its annual exhibition, which always opens on the first Monday in May. The receipts amount now to nearly £6,000. The average number of paintings and pieces of sculpture is 1,500.

DISTRICT 2.

CHARING CROSS-THE ADMIRALTY-HORSE GUARDS-WHITEHALLTHE TREASURY-GOVERNMENT OFFICES-WESTMINSTER BRIDGE -PALACE YARD-WESTMINSTER HALL-ST. MARGARET'S-WESTMINSTER ABBEY-POET'S CORNER-THE CHAPELS-DEAN'S YARD -THE CLOISTERS-THE CHAPTER HOUSE-WESTMINSTER SCHOOL -THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS-THE NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT-THE ROYAL ENTRANCE-THE VICTORIA TOWER-THE HOUSE OF LORDS-THE HOUSE OF COMMONS-MILLBANK-THE PENITENTIARY-VAUXHALL BRIDGE-PIMLICO.

HARING CROSS, though now one of the busiest

scenes in the metropolis, was, not more than two centuries and a half ago, within bowshot of the open country, all the way to Hampstead and Highgate. The Haymarket was a country road, with hedges on each side, running between pastures; and from old St. Martin's Church there was a quiet country lane, leading to St. Giles's, then a pleasant village sheltered by clumps of fine trees. The place exhibits at the present time far different features. On the site now occupied by the statue stood one of the numerous memorials of the affection of Edward I. for his beloved Queen Eleanor, the cross pointing out the last spot on which her body rested. It was destroyed by the Puritans in 1647. The equestrian statue of Charles I. was cast by Hubert le Sœur in 1633, but it was not placed in its present situation until 1674. The pedestal is the work of Grinling Gibbons. Everybody remembers the story, how the statue was condemned by Parliament to be sold, and how John Rivet, the brazier, bought it and buried it underground, making for his own profit a vast number of handles of knives and forks in brass, which he sold as made of the supposed broken statue, and which were eagerly bought by the Royalists from affection to their monarch, and by the Roundheads as a mark of triumph. It is not, however, so well known that the horse is without a girth, and that

the king's sword was stolen by some felonious madcap when Queen Victoria went to open the Royal Exchange in 1844.

At the entrance to Craig's Court is Cox and Greenwood's, the largest army agency office in Great Britain. At the back of the buildings at this part is SCOTLAND YARD, so called from the kings of Scotland having been formerly lodged here. It is the head-quarters of the metropolitan police, and was also the site of the PALACE COURT, removed here from the Marshalsea in 1801, and finally abolished on the 1st of January, 1850. On the opposite side is a range of public buildings of considerable importance, which we shall notice successively.

THE ADMIRALTY, built in 1726, contains the house and offices of those who superintend the marine department, and here a vast amount of correspondence connected with our naval affairs is received and directed. The two telegraphs that stood at the summit of the building, one communicating with Deal, and the other with Portsmouth, have been quite superseded by the quicker agency of the electric telegraph. Adjoining are the offices of the Paymaster-General.

THE HORSE GUARDS, a fine spacious stone building, with an arched opening into St. James's Park, is easily recognised by the two mounted sentinels that do duty in the small recesses on the side. Here are the offices of the Commander-in-Chief, the Military Secretary, the Quarter-Master-General, and the Secretary of War. The War Office is also here situated, and from this source all army intelligence can be obtained. (For St. James's Park, see next district.)

WHITEHALL, nearly opposite the Horse Guards, is merely the vestige of a royal palace, in existence from the days of Henry VIII. to William III., and of which the present building was the banqueting hall, built by Inigo Jones in 1622. It was on the scaffold erected in front of Whitehall, facing the park, that Charles I. was executed. In the reign of George I., it was converted into a chapel, which it still is, though never consecrated; and on every Maunday Thursday the distribution of the Queen's bounty-money to poor aged men and women,