Chapels,--Windsor, for instance, and King’s, Cambridge,--but it was beautiful exceedingly, and in its carved work and decorations perhaps more finished than any other Church or Chapel in the country. Details of the Chapel have been preserved for us by J. T. Smith (“Antiquities of Westminster”), and by Brayley and Britton’s “Houses of Parliament.” The beauty of the cloisters of the Chantry Chapel, and of the Chapel itself, makes the fire of 1834, on this account alone, a great national disaster. Such work can never again be equaled. At the same time, the Chapel had been so much altered and cut about for the accommodation of the Commons that it was irretrievably spoiled. The next of this group of ancient buildings was Westminster Hall. On this monument and its historical associations many have enlarged. Let it suffice in this place to remind ourselves that William Rufus built it, Richard II. enlarged it and strengthened it, and that George IV. repaired and new-fronted it. On the east side of the Hall was the Court of Exchequer, built by Edward II. This hall was seventy-four feet long and forty-five broad. The traditions of the chamber are full of curious stories. It was the breakfast room, it was said (one knows not why), of Queen Elizabeth; a chamber adjoining was her bedchamber. She at least reformed the Court of Exchequer. There were two cellars under the Court of Exchequer, called “Hell” and “Purgatory.” As their names denote, they were prisons. The former name was also applied to a tavern in the Palace precinct. The notorious Star Chamber was on the east side of New Palace Yard. The room was probably rebuilt in the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was used afterward as the Lottery office. One more “bit” of the Palace still remains. If you turn to the left on reaching the eastern end of Great College Street, after passing through stables and mews, [Illustration: WEST END OF THE PAINTED CHAMBER AS IT APPEARED AFTER THE FIRE OF 1834.] you will light upon a most venerable old Tower hidden away in this corner. It is the last of the many Towers which formed part of the Westminster Palace. It was always ascribed to the Confessor as part of his Abbey buildings. When antiquaries first considered it, they found that Edward I. bought the piece of ground on which it stands of the Abbey; so it was concluded that he bought the Tower upon the ground. Later antiquaries, however, on fresh investigations, made up their minds that there was no Tower when Edward took the ground; therefore--the logic of the antiquary is never his strongest point--Edward built this Tower. Again, other antiquaries examined further, and they have now decided that the Tower was built by Richard II. One would have preferred the Confessor as architect, but the end of the fourteenth century gives us a respectable antiquity. [Illustration: CURIOUS NEWEL STAIRCASE AT THE SOUTH-EAST ANGLE OF PAINTED CHAMBER.] Certain accounts of repairs,--carpenters’, masons’,