velvet, trimmed with gold lace: under the canopy is an embroidered star in gold. The ascent is by three steps, and there is a footstool to correspond with the chair. Behind this chamber is the King's Closet and his Dressingroom. In the former, which is splendidly ornamented, his Majesty gives audience to his ministers, the foreign ambassadors, and the members of his own family.

The old Ball-room has been recently new modelled upon the French plan, and formed into a supper-room. Ornamental compartments of various kinds, richly gilt, diversify the walls; and from the ceiling five or-moulu lustres are pendant. The fittings up and furniture are very elegant.

The other parts of St. James's Palace are very irregular in their form, consisting chiefly of connecting courts. Select portions were formerly in the occupation of their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York and Clarence. Near the apartinents of the former, is a handsome room called the Queen's library; in which Queen Caroline, the consort of George II., often held learned disputations with the most eminent philosophers and literati of her day.

On the 21st of January, 1809, the south-eastern wing of this palace was destroyed by fire, and only a small part has been since rebuilt; but nearly the whole of the palace was repaired during the years 1821, 2, and 3.

Carlton Palace, Pall Mall.-On the northern side of St. James's Park, and fronting the grand line of improvements recently commenced from Pall Mall, is Carlton Palace, the town-residence of his present Majesty. It was originally the property of the Earl of Burlington, who gave it to his mother, from whom it was purchased, in 1732, by Frederic, Prince of Wales, father of George III. The alterations made on that occasion were neither numerous nor important; but, on its becoming the abode of its present illustrious occupant, in 1788, it was almost entirely rebuilt, at a great expense, from the designs of Mr. Holland. The screen in front, though in itself a very handsome Ionic colonnade, is so contrived as to screen a very large portion of the main building from the spectator. The Corinthian portico in the centre of the principal building, is an elaborate imitation of the temple of Jupiter Stator, at Rome.

The principal of the apartments on the ground-floor are devoted to purposes of state; and consist chiefly of the Great Hall, a fine room of the purest Ionic order, which leads to the octagon Vestibule, decorated with marble busts of the late Francis, Duke of Bedford, the Right Honourable Charles James Fox, Lord Lake, and the late Duke of Devonshire, by Nollekins; the Great Staircase, with its unique gallery; the West Ante-room, containing numerous whole-length portraits, by Reynolds, and other eminent artists; the Crimson Drawing-room, one of the most tastefully splendid apartments in London, and in which Prince Leopold was married to the late Princess Charlotte, embellished with the most valuable pictures of the ancient and modern schools, bronzes, ormoulu furniture, &c. of English workmanship; the Circular Cupola Room, of the Ionic order; the Throne Room of the Corinthian order; the beautiful Ante-chamber; the Rosesatin Drawing-room; and many other splendid apartments, all embellished with the richest satins, carvings, cut-glass, and other furniture, of British manufacture.

On a lower level, towards the gardens and St. James's Park, is another suite of apartments, used by his Majesty for domestic purposes, and for his more familiar parties. Most of these were designed by Mr. Nash. They consist of a Grand Vestibule of the Corinthian order, the shafts of the columns being of verd antique, and the bases and capitals richly gilt; the Golden Drawing-room with many columns of the Corinthian order, entirely gilt ; the Gothic Dining-room; the Ionic Dining-room; and the splendid Gothic Conservatory, in which there is a fine statue by Canova: nor must we forget the Library, in this story, filled with a choice collection of the most valuable books.. Here is also a valuable collection of cabinet pictures, of the Flemish, Dutch, and Italian schools.

The Plate Room contains a splendid assemblage of fine and costly articles, and is viewed by strangers with avidity and astonishment. Here is also one of the choicest armouries in Europe, occupying and adorning four large rooms. The golden throne of the late King of Candy is preserved here, as is also the splendid horse armour and trappings of Tippoo Saib, and of the

celebrated Murad Bey. Among the curiosities is a very peculiar suit of mail and plate armour, the links and plates of which are inscribed with numerous verses from the Koran.

The above account of Carlton House is preserved in this volume, merely to convey some idea of it to the stranger: but at present (Nov. 1826.), the pictures, furniture, &c., have been all removed, and the house is pulling down Its site will be appropriated to extend the buildings of Wellington Square on the south of Pall Mall. A handsome terrace is to bound the south side of the square, in the centre of which is to be a building resembling an open temple, containing fountains, &c. The whole from the designs of John Nash, Esq.

Connected with these improvements are others now (1826) carrying into effect, at Charing Cross, where the King's Mews formerly stood. Here the king's hawks and falcons were kept in days when hawking was a royal sport, whence the name of mews; and here, afterwards, Henry VIII. kept the royal stud of horses. His late Majesty used it for his celebrated cream-coloured horses, and for the royal carriages. Many shops, inns, and small houses were built around the mews, but the whole are to be rased to the ground, and in their place is to be a spacious square, with splendid public edifices around it. A sumptuous national gallery is to occupy the north side, and wide streets branch from it to the Strand, up St. Martin's Lane, &c.

At the western extremity of St. James's Park on the site of the queen's palace, called Buckingham House, a spacious and magnificent New Palace is now erecting from the designs of John Nash, Esq. Though not sufficiently advanced to exhibit its decided forms and character, it may be noticed as exhibiting an imposing and elegant façade towards the park. A large and lofty portico occupies and projects before the centre, two wings in the form of antient temples advance before the ends, and are united by a semicircular railing of gilt bars, in

the centre of which is to be a very splendid triumphal arch of marble, and adorned with sculpture in basso relievo, and by statues. Internally, the vestibules, staircases, halls, galleries, audience-rooms, and the king's private apartments are all to be on a grand scale, and to be splendidly adorned with marble, paintings, sculpture, and other palatial decorations. Thus, whilst the castle of Windsor is undergoing great and appropriate improvements, adapted for an English monarch and his court, a new and noble palace is erecting for the sovereign in the metropolis. The estimated amount of this edifice, with the improvements of the grounds around it, is £252,690, of which £90,571 were expended in April, 1826, when the architect made a report to the Commissioners.

3

Whitehall.-The old Palace of this name occupied a space on the bank of the river, a little to the north of Westminster Bridge, commencing where Privy Gardens begin, and ending near Scotland-yard. Westward, it extended from the river to St. James's Park, along the eastern boundary of which many of its various buildings lay, from the Cockpit, which it included, to Spring Gardens. It was originally the property of Hubert de Burgh, Justiciary of England under Henry III., from whom it passed to the Archbishops of York, and was from them long called York House. Henry VIII. seized it on the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, then Archbishop of York, and from that time it became the residence of the kings of England, till the reign of Queen Anne, who held her court at St. James's Palace, in consequence of this vast pile of buildings having been burnt down in 1695. On that calamitous occasion, the Banqueting-house, which had been added by James I., in lieu of the old building that, in Elizabeth's time had been used for public entertainments, alone escaped the general destruction, and remains a monument of the classic architecture introduced into this country by Inigo Jones.*

* Plan, elevation, section, and account of this building are given in the second volume of "Illustrations of the Public Buildings of London,"