No living being has ever computed the cost of the Abbey itself, but the sum, altogether, since the foundations were built, must be very great. The "Lord Abbot of Westminster" was one of the most powerful barons in England, and sat in Parliament as a great spiritual peer. The Abbey Church, formerly arose a magnificent apex to a Royal palace, surrounded on all sides by its greater and lesser sanctuaries, (where no criminal could be arrested,) and its almonries, where a profusion of food was daily delivered to the poor, and raiment to the naked. It had its bell-towers, the principal one being 72 feet 6 inches square, with walls 20 feet thick; chapel, gate towers, boundary walls, and a train of other buildings, of which we can at the present day scarcely form an idea. [Sidenote: A WEALTHY SOCIETY.] In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames to Oxford Street, and from Vauxhall bridge to the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, in a demesne of three square miles, on what is now the most valuable part of London, the Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, possessed besides, _ninety-seven towns and villages, seventeen hamlets, and two hundred and sixteen manors_. Its officers fed hundreds of persons daily, and one of its priests, who was not an Abbot, entertained at his Pavillion at Tothill, a King and Queen of England, with so large a retinue that seven hundred dishes did not suffice for the first table, and the Abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III, rebuilt, at his own expense, the stately gate-house which gave entrance to Tothill Street, and a portion of the wall remains to this day.