Pennant says the Mews was so called from having been used for the King's falcons--at least, from the time of Richard III. to Henry VIII. In the latter King's reign the royal horses were stabled here, but the name Mews was retained, and has come to be applied to any town range of stabling. The mews were removed to make way for the National Gallery about 1834. Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, was Clerk of the King's Works, and of the Mews at Charing about the end of Richard II.'s reign. During the Commonwealth Colonel Joyce was imprisoned in the Mews by order of Oliver Cromwell. It is supposed that we are indebted to William IV. for the idea of a square to be called Trafalgar in honour of Nelson, and to contain some worthy memorial of the hero. The total height of the monument, designed by Railton, is 193 feet, and its design is from that of one of the columns of the Temple of Mars at Rome. The statue, which looks so small from the ground, is really 17 feet high, nearly three times the height of a man; it was the work of E. H. Baily, R.A. The pedestal has bronze bas-reliefs on its four sides, representing the four greatest of Nelson's battles, Trafalgar, St. Vincent, Aboukir, and Copenhagen. The massive lions on the extended pedestal were designed by Sir Edwin Landseer. Of the other statues, that of George IV. is by Sir Francis Chantrey, and was originally intended for the top of the Marble Arch, and that of General Gordon was designed by Hamo Thorneycroft. Bronze blocks let into the north wall of the square contain the measures of the secondary standards of length, and were inserted here in 1876 by the Standards Department of the Board of Trade. The Union Club and College of Physicians are on the west side of the square. The latter was founded by Dr. Linacre, physician to King Henry VIII. The National Gallery was not designed as it now stands, but grew gradually. The idea of a collection of national pictures began in 1824, when the Angerstein Collection of thirty-eight pictures was purchased. The building began in 1832, and was opened six years later, but there were then only six rooms devoted to the national collection, the remainder being used by the Royal Academy of Arts. The Academy, however, betook itself to Burlington House in 1869, and subsequently the National Gallery was enlarged, and is now well worthy of its name. The English are taunted with not being an artistic nation; this may be, but they recognise merit when they see it, and the national collection need fear comparison with no other in the world. The sections of the gallery include Italian schools, schools of the Netherlands and Germany, Spanish, French, and British schools; in the last named the Turner Collection claims two rooms.