=Greenwich Park=, 1. This spot has been long celebrated as the favourite residence of several of our sovereigns, having a magnificent palace, on the site of which is now erected that most splendid monument of national glory, =Greenwich Hospital=; the prudence and humanity of which institution confers an immortality of renown on its royal founders, William the Third and Queen Mary. The architect was Sir Christopher Wren, who, after having adapted to his plan the wing of a palace, erected by Charles the Second, in 1696, laid the foundation of the first new building, and the superstructure was completed in two years afterwards. From this period the Hospital has been gradually enlarged and improved, till it has arrived at its present height of splendour and magnificence. Greenwich Hospital is principally built of Portland stone, and consists, in its present state, of four distinct quadrangular piles of building, distinguished by the names of the respective monarchs in whose reigns they were founded or built. The grand front opens on a terrace, skirting the southern bank of the Thames, and extending to the length of 865 feet, in the centre of which is a descent to the river, by a double flight of steps. The ground plot of the whole edifice forms nearly a square, of which King Charles’s building occupies the north-west angle; Queen Ann’s, the north-east; King William’s, the south-west; and Queen Mary’s, the south-east. The interval between the two former buildings forms a square, 270 feet wide, in the middle of which is the statue of George the Second, sculptured by Rysbrach, out of a single block of white marble, weighing eleven tons, which was taken from the French by Admiral Sir George Rooke, and given to the Hospital by Sir John Jennings, governor.