of Lely’s pictures, and among them, if I remember rightly, that of Catharine of Braganza. Queen Anne also looked on us, from the walls, and her Majesty’s odious old great-great-grandfather, George the Second. As I fell into the line which moved toward the throne-room, I came to a window looking over the park and private garden of the Palace. Oh! what tales of Caroline, and Hanoverian, gossip and scandal, the sight recalled. There was her Majesty’s state carriage, awaiting the conclusion of the ceremonies, to convey her back to Buckingham Palace. The squab of a driver was sleeping on his box—a mere mortal in spite of his livery, his hair-powder, and the nosegay in his bosom. In my turn, I passed before her Majesty, much as before. I hardly saw, in full, the ceremony of a female presentation, although there were several just before and after me, for the crowd was intolerable, and my escape from the presence of royalty into the freer apartments beyond, was truly refreshing. I passed into an armory, or room ornamented with such old weapons and defences as one sees at the Tower. Finally, as before, I left the Palace through a long corridor, ornamented with portraits of the Kings of England, down to Charles the First. This portrait reminded me of the last night on earth of that sovereign, which he passed beneath this roof: and of the last sacrament which he received, in the chapel of St. James. This is the most sacred association with the Old Palace, and it is the only one that is enough sacred, to sink the ill memories of its Georgian traditions. The English underestimate Charles the First, and do not seem to reflect that many of those elements of their Constitution, on which they are most wont to value themselves, have been bequeathed to them by the spirit in which he maintained the royalty, and suffered for the Church. If the brutal Cromwell is remembered with commendation, because of some liberties which were the secondary results of his usurpation, why should not the failings of Charles be forgotten, in gratitude for the great conservative principles which he taught the English people, by the signal ability with which he baulked his adversaries in debate, and by his truly sublime behaviour in the last stages of his reign? Say what they will, thought I, as I looked at his portrait—had Charles the First been a Louis the Sixteenth, I should not, to-day, have seen a descendant of Alfred on the Throne of Great Britain. CHAPTER XXI. _Harrow—Coventry—Warwickshire._