to some of the officers. Previously to the building of this edifice, the Mint establishment was in the Tower.

Bankrupt Court, Basinghall Street. This is a plain square edifice, erected in 1820, from designs by Mr. Fowler, on the site of a part of Blackwell Hall. It contains fourteen apartments, connected by galleries, for the accommodation of the respective lists of commissioners. There is also an office for the registry of all proceedings in bankrupt cases, which is constantly open to the public.

The Sessions' House, Old Bailey, is a handsome and convenient edifice of brick and stone, erected as a criminal court for trying offences committed in the city and county. At the back of the Sessions' House is an extensive colonnade intended for the accommodation of witnesses; and over it a new court was built in 1824, for the purpose of facilitating the despatch of business, when the prisoners are

very numerous.

Sessions' House, Clerkenwell Green. - A building called Hicks's Hall, standing in St. John's Street, was the original Sessions' House; but that having become ruinous, the present edifice was erected from the designs of Mr. Rogers, about 1780. The front is of stone, and consists of a rustic basement, supporting pillars, surmounted by an architrave and pediment. Over some of the windows are ornaments sculptured by Nollekens. The interior contains the court, the hall, and apartments for the magistrates and grand jury.

The Town Hall, Southwark, is a convenient brick building, with a stone front, having a rusticated basement, Ionic pilasters, and a balustrade.

The New Court House, or Westminster Guildhall, is situated on the south side of the precinct called the Sanctuary, near the Abbey church. It is a modern structure, of brick, of an octagonal form, with a vestibule supported by Doric columns.

The Insolvent Debtors' Court, in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, is a new edifice, erected from the designs of John Soane, Esq. R. A. in the year 1824. Like the general works of this artist, the building now noticed presents many novel features, picturesque forms, and combinations, with skilful adaptation of plan to the necessary purposes of the edifice.

CHAP. VI.

Particular

Architectural Ornaments:

The

Squares,

Statues, and most embellished Streets, Bridges, &c.

THE Monument, Fish Street Hill, was erected by Sir Christopher Wren, in memory of the great fire, which, in 1666, broke out at a house distant 202 feet (the height of the column) eastward from this spot, and destroyed nearly all the buildings of the metropolis from the Tower to the Temple Church.

It is a fluted column of the Doric order: the diameter at the base is 15 feet, and the height of the shaft 120 feet; the cone at the top, with its blazing urn of gilt brass, measures 42 feet; and the height of the massy pedestal is 40 feet. Within the column is a flight of 345 steps of black marble, and the iron balcony at the top commands, of course, a very extensive prospect of the metropolis and the adjacent country. The charge for admittance is sixpence. It is impossible not to lament the ill-chosen situation of this beautiful monument, which, on a better selected site, would form a striking object. The column occupies the spot where formerly stood the parish church of St. Margaret. It was begun in 1671, and completed in 1677. On the north and south sides of the pedestal are inscriptions in English and Latin, descriptive of the conflagration which consumed the city, and of its subsequent restoration. On the west side is an emblematical group of sculpture in alto and basso relievo executed by Caius Gabriel Cibber, representing Time raising London, (which is personified by a female figure, reclining on the ruins of

the city,) under the fostering patronage of Charles II. and his brother, the Duke of York, who are attended by three females representing Imagination, Ichnographia, and Liberty. Below the king is Envy, blowing flames from her mouth, and behind him, Mars and Fortitude. In the back ground, on the left, is the city in flames, and on the right, are labourers erecting new buildings. A short inscription in English goes round the pedestal, ascribing the conflagration to the treachery and malice of a popish faction. This immense column, which far exceeds in altitude the cele brated pillars of Trajan and Antoninus at Rome, contains upwards of 28,000 feet of solid Portland stone.*

Temple Bar, the only remaining City Gate, stands at the western extremity of the corporate jurisdiction. It was erected by Sir Christopher Wren, during the years 1670-1, and 2. It is a composition of the Corinthian order, of Portland stone, with a rusticated basement. Over the central arch, on the west side, are statues of Charles I. and II., in Roman habits; and to the east, on the city side, are those of Queen Elizabeth and James I. There is a narrow postern on each side for foot passengers.

Temple Bar is still formally closed on certain occasions, against the official agents of the Court, and it is reopened only by the special order of the lord mayor, who, as governor of the city of London, thus maintains his peculiar privileges. This gate was, in former ages, used for the disgusting exhibitions of the heads of persons executed upon charges of high treason.

St. John's Gate, St. John's Square, is a relic of the antient Priory of Clerkenwell. It consists of a large pointed-arch portal, with a window of three lights above it, and a low

* In September 1732, a sailor slid down a rope stretched from the gallery of the Monument to the Three Tuns Tavern in Gracechurch Street; and on the following day, a waterman's boy descended by the same rope into the street. Three persons have at different periods committed suicide, by casting them. selves from the gallery, viz. a weaver in 1750; John Craddock, a baker, in 1788; and Lyon Levy, a merchant, in 1810.