The Tower of London is degraded by being put to commonplace uses and by being exhibited in a commonplace manner. They use the famous White Tower now as a store-house for arms, and it contains about one hundred thousand guns, besides a vast collection of old armour and weapons. The arrangement of the latter was made by J. R. Planché, the dramatic author,--famous as an antiquarian and a herald. [That learned, able, brilliant, and honoured gentleman died, May 29, 1880, aged 84.] Under his tasteful direction the effigies and gear of chivalry are displayed in such a way that the observer may trace the changes that war fashions have undergone, through the reigns of successive sovereigns of England, from the earliest period until now. A suit of mail worn by Henry the Eighth is shown, and also a suit worn by Charles the First. The suggestiveness of both figures is remarkable. In a room on the second floor of the White Tower they keep many gorgeous oriental weapons, and they show the cloak in which General Wolfe died, on the Plains of Abraham. It is a gray garment, to which the active moth has given a share of his assiduous attention. The most impressive objects to be seen there, however, are the block and axe that were used in beheading the Scotch lords, Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Lovat, after the defeat of the pretender, in 1746. The block is of ash, and there are big and cruel dents upon it, showing that it was made for use rather than ornament. It is harmless enough now, and this writer was allowed to place his head upon it, in the manner prescribed for the victims of decapitation. The door of Raleigh's bedroom is opposite to these baleful relics, and it is said that his _History of the World _was written in the room in which these implements are now such conspicuous objects of gloom.¹ The place is gloomy and cheerless beyond expression, and great must have been the fortitude of the man who bore, in that grim solitude, a captivity of thirteen years--not failing to improve it by producing a book so excellent for quaintness, philosophy, and eloquence. A "beef-eater," arrayed in a dark tunic, trousers trimmed with red, and a black velvet hat adorned with bows of blue and red ribbon, precedes each group of visitors, and drops information and the letter h, from point to point. The centre of what was once the Tower green is marked with a brass plate, naming Anne Boleyn and giving the date when she was there beheaded. They found her body in an elm-wood box, made to hold arrows, and it now rests, with the ashes of other noble sufferers, under the stones of the church of St. Peter, about fifty feet from the place of execution. The ghost of Anne Boleyn is said to haunt that part of the Tower where she lived, and it is likewise whispered that the spectre of Lady Jane Grey was seen, not long ago, on the anniversary of the day of her execution [Obiit February 12, 1554], to glide out upon a balcony