The Embankment Gardens, between Westminster and Blackfriars, are much frequented. At all seasons of the year the seats are crowded, and now, with the statues, bands playing in summer, refreshment buffet, and newspaper kiosk, they look more like a foreign garden than the usual solemn squares of London. During the dinner-hour they are filled with the printers from the many newspaper offices near, and the band was in the first instance paid for by the Press. They are divided into three sections, and measure ten acres in all, not including the garden beyond the Victoria Tower. The peace has been utterly destroyed by the din of trams, which are for ever passing and re-passing, and it is much to be feared that the trees next the river, which were growing so well, will not withstand the ill-treatment they have received--the cutting of roots and depriving them of moisture. The Gardens are entirely on the ground made up when the Embankment was formed, between 1864 and 1870. The Gardens were opened in 1870, but many improvements have since been made in the design, and various statues put up to famous men. One is to John Stuart Mill, and at the Westminster end, one of William Tyndall, the translator of the New Testament and Pentateuch, to which translation is due much of the beautiful language of the Authorised Version of the Bible. Of the old gardens and entrances to the great houses which stretched the whole length of the river bank, from Westminster and Whitehall to the City, only one trace remains. It is the Water Gate of York House. The low level on which it stands, below the terrace end of Buckingham Street, shows to what point the river rose. York House was so called as it was the town house of the Archbishops of York, but none of them ever lived there except Heath, in Queen Mary’s time, who was the first to possess it. It was let, as a rule, to the Keepers of the Great Seal, and Bacon lived there. George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, pulled down most of the old house, and commenced rebuilding. Nothing now remains but the Water Gate, supposed to be by Inigo Jones, although the design is also attributed to Nicholas Stone, who built it. The house and gardens were sold and divided in 1672. Buckingham Street and the streets adjoining are built on the site, and all that is left is the fine old gateway, with most modern-looking gardens between it and the river, which once flowed up to its arches.