Looking across the Thames, from Lambeth Palace, we get the best view of the Houses of Parliament, which gain rather than lose by the absorption of detail into the general mass. We have now passed the dull and shabby part of the river, and are surrounded by grand and august memories. The stream itself is a highway of empire; the shores are peopled with stately, with noble, or with interesting shapes. The suburbs are behind us; the ancient city of Westminster rises with its towers and steeples on the left bank. Along this channel have passed the Briton in his coracle, the Roman in his war-ship, the Anglo-Saxon and the Dane in their galleys, the Norman, the Plantagenet, the Tudor, and the Stuart, in their resplendent barges. Youth, beauty, and gallantry, genius and learning, the courtier and the soldier, the prelate and the poet, the merchant and the 'prentice, have taken their pleasure on these waters through a succession of ages which form no mean portion of the world's history. Patriots and traitors have gone this way to their death in the sullen Tower. Kings and princesses have proceeded by this silver path, amidst the flaunting of streamers and the music of clarions, to bridal pomp or festal banquet. The pride of mayors, of aldermen, of sheriffs, has glassed itself in these waves. Here, in the days of Henry II., the adventurous young men of London played at water-quintain, to the infinite delight of the spectators; here, somewhere between Westminster and London Bridge, King Richard II. met the poet Gower, and commanded him to write a book for his special reading--whence arose the "Confessio Amantis;" and here Taylor, the Water Poet, once saw the Muses sitting in a rank, who gave him a draught of Helicon, which had the unfortunate effect (not unknown in other instances) of emptying his purse. [Illustration: LAMBETH PALACE AND CHURCH.]