Beyond the Banqueting Hall and the Gate House there is a broad street, now Parliament Street, then a portion of the Palace. On the other side, where in King Henry’s reign were the Tilt Yard and the Cockpit, are the old Horse Guards and Wallingford House, afterward the Admiralty. Beyond these buildings is St. James’s Park, with fine broad roads, which remain to the present day; on the left is Rosamond’s Pond in its setting of trees, to which reference is constantly made in the literature of the seventeenth century. At the south end of the open space stood the beautiful gate erected by Holbein. It was removed in 1759. The appearance of the Palace from the river has been preserved in several views, in none of which do the details all agree. The one produced here is taken from Wilkinson’s “Londina Illustrata,” and shows the Palace in the time of James II. The general aspect of [Illustration: ST. JAMES’S PALACE.] the Palace is that of a great collection of chambers and offices built as they were required, for convenience and comfort, rather than for beauty or picturesqueness. There are no towers, cloisters, gables, or carved work. It is essentially--like St. James’s, like Hampton--a palace of brick. The greater part of Whitehall Palace was destroyed by fire in 1691 and 1697. After the deposition of James II. it ceased to be a royal residence. Then the site of the Palace was gradually built over by private persons. The Banqueting Hall was for a long time a Chapel Royal; it has now become the house for the collections of the United Service Institute. One could wish that some of the Palace had been preserved: from the marriage of Anne Boleyn to the deposition of James II. is a period which contains a great many events of interest and importance, all of which are associated with this Palace. The destruction of the ancient Faith, the dissolution of the Religious Houses, the re-birth of Classical learning, the vast development of trade, the widening of the world, the beginning of the Empire _outre mer_, the humbling of Spain, the successful resistance of the nation against the king, the growth of a most glorious literature, the revival of the national spirit--all these things belong to Whitehall Palace. Other memories it had, not so pleasing: the self-will of Henry, the misery of his elder daughter, the execution of Charles I., the licentious Court of Charles II.--one wishes that the place had been spared.