Carlton Ride was, originally, the Riding-House of the Prince of Wales’s residence, Carlton House. Under it are arched storehouses for carriages and horse furniture; and these were used for the carriages and horses of the late good Queen Dowager. When a question was raised as to the capability of the structure to support the thousands of tons of records which were to be treasured therein, the district Clerk of the Works satisfied all enquiries by noticing the fact, that the strength of the building had been tested to the utmost during the Spa Fields riots, when it was occupied by the horses and ammunition-waggons of the Royal Artillery, packed together as close as they could stand. To adapt the interior of this place for the public archives, the first process of building, and that only, was resorted to;—scaffolding was put up, so that, on entering this receptacle of the national records of Great Britain, the visitor finds himself in one of a series of gloomy, dimly-lighted, mouldy-smelling alleys, or stacks, of wooden scaffolding, the sides of which are faced with records, reaching to some thirty feet high. At first sight it reminds him of an immense mediæval timber-yard, in which no business has been done since the time of the Tudors. Here two-thirds of our country’s public and private history are huddled together; not with the systematic red tapery of a public office, but,—to use an expressive vulgarism—“anyhow.” Whichever way the eye turns, it meets reams of portfolios, piles of boxes, stacks of wills—rolls of every imaginable shape, like those of a baker—square, round, flat, oblong, short, and squat; some plaited like twopenny twists, others upright as rolls of tobacco; a few in thick convolutions, jammed together as if they were double Gloucester cheeses; there are heaps laid lengthwise, like mouldering coffins; some stacked up on end, like bundles of firewood, and others laid down, like the bottles in a wine-bin. The hay-loft which extends over the riding-school is similarly occupied, and all the racks, presses, shelves, boxes, beams, and scaffolding, being of wood, Mr. Braidwood has good right for estimating that a fire would burn it up “like matches” in less than twenty minutes. That, however, there should be no accidental deficiency of combustibles, the riding-school was partitioned into two divisions, one side for the records of the Courts of Common Pleas and Exchequer, and the other for the domestic furniture, china, paintings, weapons of warfare of all kinds, books, prints, &c., belonging to Carlton House. It is evident that in the estimation of the powers that were, the records were classed with the other lumber. But this store of second-hand furniture could not take fire of itself; and that no chance might be lost, the functionary in charge of it, finding his half of the “ride” a dreary, comfortless, and cold place, even for a lumber store, warmed it by means of a large