brother, the slayer sharing, in his turn, the fate of the slain; and these, with Monmouth, mercilessly condemned by his uncle, and the two Queens murdered by their own husband, seem to accomplish the melancholy record with associations of crime the most complicate, and of accountability the most dreadful that can well be imagined. Oh, God! what reckonings yet to be settled by Thee alone, are laid up against that day, even in the little compass of these walls. I made a parting circuit to survey the Bloody Tower and its sharp-toothed portcullis—the only one in England that still rises and falls in a gate-way, and refuses not its office; the Bowyer’s Tower, in which poor Clarence was drowned in Malmsey; the Brick Tower, said to have been the prison of Lady Jane Grey; and the Salt Tower, which, with its adjoining wall, I found nearly demolished, and in process of restoration. Finally, I went round upon the water-side and surveyed the Traitor’s Gate, so called. Here, then, are the jaws of this devouring monster, sated at last, apparently; but who knows? Under that arch have passed, one after another, those great historic characters, whose names we have already reviewed. They abandoned hope when they entered here; and almost always with good reason. One alone on whom, in youthful sorrow, and by a sister’s cruel injunction, these massive gates yawned and closed, became, in turn, their mistress; and—alas! for human nature—made them often gape for others. Think of Elizabeth Tudor passing under this arch, the captive of the Bloody Mary! Who then could have foreseen the days of Hooker, and of Burleigh, and of Shakspeare? Think of old Laud in his barge, day after day, returning through this arch from his trial, to his prison, exhausted and panting like a hart pierced by the archers, from the cruel shafts of Prynne and his confederates, but accompanied, perhaps, by his noble defender, Sir Matthew Hale. Oh! could he but have seen the Anglican Church of the nineteenth century, how thin would have seemed the clouds which were gathering around her at that awful period, and which he feared, no doubt, were to overwhelm her forever. Such were some of the thoughts, partly sad, but largely grateful, with which I found myself chained to the place; and even when it was time to go, still disposed to linger about the spot, and bend musingly above the Traitors’ Gate of the Tower. CHAPTER XII. _Two Nights in the House of Commons._