death-bed. Cromwell had then his moments of misgiving, and asked of Goodwin, who was standing by, if the elect could never finally fall. "Nothing could be more true," was Goodwin's answer. "Then am I safe," said Cromwell: "for I am sure that once I was in a state of grace."-Dr. John Owen (d. 1683), Dean of Christ Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford when Cromwell was Chancellor. He was much in favour with his party, and preached the first sermon before the Parliament, after the execution of Charles I.- John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress, died 1688, at the house of his friend Mr. Strudwick, a grocer, at the Star on Snow-hill, and was buried in that friend's vault in Bunhill Fields Burial-ground. Modern curiosity has marked the place of his interment with a brief inscription, but his name is not recorded in the Register, and there was no inscription upon his grave when Curll published his Bunhill Field Inscriptions, in 1717, or Strype his edition of Stow, in 1720. It is said that many have made it their desire to be interred as near as possible to the spot where his remains are deposited. -George Fox (d. 1690), the founder of the sect of Quakers; there is no memorial to his memory.-Lieut.-Gen. Fleetwood (d. 1692), Lord Deputy Fleetwood of the Civil Wars, Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law, and husband of the widow of the gloomy Ireton; there was a monument to his memory in Strype's time, since obliterated or removed.-John Dunton, bookseller, author of his own Life and Errors.-George Whitehead, author of The Christian Progress of George Whitehead, 1725.-Daniel de Foe (d. 1731), author of Robinson Crusoe. He was born (1661) in the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and was buried in the great pit of Finsbury, which he has described in his "Plague Year" with such terrific reality. His second wife was interred in the same grave (spot unknown) in 1732.Susannah Wesley (d. 1742), wife of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, and mother of John Wesley, founder of the people called Methodists, and of Charles Wesley, the first person who was called a Methodist. There is a head-stone to her memory.— Dr. Isaac Watts (d. 1748). There is a monument to his memory, near the centre of the ground.-Dr. James Foster, Pope's "modest Foster" (d. 1753). There is a monument to his memory.-Joseph Ritson, the antiquary (d. 1803), buried near his friend Baynes; the spot unmarked.-William Blake, painter and poet (d. 1828); at the distance of about 25 feet from the north wall in the grave numbered 80; no monument.-Thomas Stothard, R.A. (d. 1834), best known by his "Canterbury Pilgrimage," his "Robinson Crusoe," and his illustrations to the Italy and smaller poems of Rogers. In

this cemetery, consisting of less than 4 acres, there have been interred from April, 1713, to August, 1832, according to the registry, in the earlier years, however, very imperfectly kept, -107,416 dead bodies. And this too is festering in the very heart of London !

[See Places of Burial of Eminent Persons, p. 240.]

COURTS OF LAW AND JUSTICE.

WESTMINSTER HALL. The old Hall of the Palace of our Kings at Westminster, well and wisely incorporated by Mr. Barry into his new Houses of Parliament, to serve as their vestibule. It was originally built in the reign of William Rufus (Pope calls it "Rufus' roaring Hall"); and during the recent refacing of the outer walls, a Norman arcade of the time of Rufus was uncovered, but has, I believe, been since destroyed. The present Hall was built, or rather repaired, 1397-99 (in the last three years of Richard II.), when the walls were carried up two feet higher; the windows altered; and a stately porch and new roof constructed ac cording to the design of Master Henry Zenely. The stone moulding or string-course that runs round the Hall preserves the white hart couchant, the favourite device of Richard II. The roof, with its hammer beams (carved with angels), to diminish the lateral pressure that falls upon the walls, is of chesnut, and very fine; the finest of its kind in this country. Fuller speaks of its "cobwebless beams," alluding to the vulgar belief that it was built of a particular kind of wood (Irish oak) in which spiders cannot live. It is more curious, because true, that our early Parliaments were held in this Hall, and that the first meeting of Parliament in the new edifice was for deposing the very King by whom it had been built. The Law Courts of England, four in number, and of which Sir Edward Coke observed that no man can tell which of them is most ancient, were permanently established in Westminster Hall in the year 1224 (the 9th of King Henry III.); and here, in certain courts abutting from the Hall, they are still held. These courts are called the Court of Chancery, in which the Lord Chancellor sits, with a salary of 14,000l. a year (hereafter to be 10,000l.); the Court of Queen's Bench, in which the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench sits, with a salary of 8000l. a year; the Court of Common Pleas, presided over by a Chief Justice,

with a salary of 7000l. a year and the Court of Exchequer. The courts were originally within the Hall itself, and the name Westminster Hall is not unfrequently used for the law itself. The highest Court of Appeal in the Kingdom is the House of Lords, presided over by the Lord Chancellor; and it sometimes happens that the judgments of the Law Courts in Westminster Hall are reversed in the Lords.

That the law is not very rapid in its course, is well illustrated by an anecdote told by the present Lord Chief Justice in his Lives of the Lord Chancellors :-"The late Mr. Jekyll told me," says his lordship, "that, soon after he was called to the bar, a strange solicitor, coming up to him in Westminster Hall, begged him to step into the Court of Chancery to make a motion of course, and gave him a fee. The young barrister looking pleased but a little surprised, the solicitor said to him, I thought you had a sort of right, sir, to this motion, for the bill was drawn by Sir Joseph Jekyll, your great grand-uncle, in the reign of Queen Anne."" Now, however, Government has taken up the serious delays occasioned to suitors, and the Court of Chancery, with its two Judges of Appeal, is likely to become a Pie Powder Court where justice is administered as soon as it is sought.

The revenue of the Court of Chancery is derived from a Fee Fund yielding about 180,000l. a year, and a Suitor's Fund being the interest on about 3,800,000l., the property of suitors (standing in the name of the Accountant General of the Court of Chancery), and yielding about 112,000l. a year.

When Peter the Great was taken into Westminster Hall, he inquired who those busy people were in wigs and black gowns. He was answered they are lawyers. "Lawyers!" said he, with a face of astonishment: "why I have but two in my whole dominions, and I believe I shall hang one of them the moment I get home."

Let the spectator picture to himself the appearance which this venerable Hall has presented on many occasions. Here were hung the banners taken from Charles I. at the battle of Naseby; from Charles II. at the battle of Worcester; at Preston and Dunbar; and, somewhat later, those taken at the battle of Blenheim. Here, at the upper end of the Hall, Oliver Cromwell was inaugurated as Lord Protector, sitting in a robe of purple velvet lined with ermine, on a rich cloth of state, with the gold sceptre in one hand, the Bible richly gilt and bossed in the other, and his sword at his side; and here, four years later, at the top of the Hall fronting Palaceyard, his head was set on a pole, with the skull of Ireton on one side of it and the skull of Bradshaw on the other. Here

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shameless ruffians sought employment as hired witnesses, and walked openly in the Hall with a straw in the shoe to denote their quality; and here the good, the great, the brave, the wise, and the abandoned have been brought to trial. Here (in the Hall of Rufus) Sir William Wallace was tried and condemned; here, in this very Hall, Sir Thomas More and the Protector Somerset were doomed to the scaffold. Here, in Henry VIII.'s reign (1517), entered the City apprentices, implicated in the murders on "Evil May Day" of the aliens settled in London, each with a halter round his neck, and crying "Mercy, gracious Lord, mercy," while Wolsey stood by, and the King, beneath his cloth of state, heard their defence and pronounced their pardon-the prisoners shouting with delight and casting up their halters to the Hall roof, 66 'so that the King," as the chroniclers observe, might perceive they were none of the descreetest sort." Here the notorious Earl and Countess of Somerset were tried in the reign of James I. for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Here the great Earl of Strafford was condemned; the King being present, and the Commons sitting bareheaded all the time. Here the High Court of Justice sat which condemned King Charles I., the upper part of the Hall hung with scarlet cloth, and the King sitting covered, with the Naseby banners above his head; here Lily, the astrologer, who was present, saw the silver top fall from the King's staff, and others heard Lady Fairfax exclaim, when her husband's name was called over, "He has more wit than to be here." Here, in the reign of James II., the seven bishops were acquitted. Here Dr. Sacheverel was tried and pronounced guilty by a majority of 17. Here the rebel Lords of 1745, Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Lovat, were heard and condemned. Here Lord Byron was tried for killing Mr. Chaworth; Lord Ferrers for murdering his steward; and the Duchess of Kingston, a few years later, for bigamy. Here Warren Hastings was tried, and Burke and Sheridan grew eloquent and impassioned, while senators by birth and election, and the beauty and rank of Great Britain, sat earnest spectators and listeners of the extraordinary scene. The last public trial in the Hall itself was Lord Melville's in 1806; and the last coronation dinner in the Hall was that of George IV., when, according to the custom maintained for ages, and for the last time probably, the King's champion (young Dymocke) rode into the Hall in full armour, and threw down the gauntlet, challenging the world in a King's behalf. Silver plates were laid, on the same occasion, for 334 guests.

This noble Hall is 290 feet long, by 68 feet wide, and 110

feet high. It is said to be the largest apartment not supported by pillars in the world-save one-the Hall of Justice, at Padua. The next largest Hall in London is the Hall at Christ's Hospital. The floor has recently been restored to something like its original elevation in relation to the height of the building; but a still greater change is contemplated by Mr. Barry-the elevation of the roof without disturbing a single joint in its structure, unconnected with the walls it rests on.

THE OLD BAILEY SESSIONS HOUSE, or CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT, in the Old Bailey, adjoining Newgate, for the trial and conviction of prisoners for offences committed within 10 miles of St. Paul's, is regulated by Act of Parliament, 4 & 5 Will. IV., c. 36. In the "Old Court" sit one or more of the judges in Westminster Hall. In the New Court the presiding judges are the Recorder and Common Serjeant of the Corporation of London. Upwards of 2000 persons, annually, are placed at the bar of the Old Bailey for trial; about one third are acquitted, one third are first offences, and the remaining portion have been convicted before. The stranger is admitted on payment of at least 1s. to the officer whose perquisite it is, but this perquisite is regulated by the officer himself, according to the importance of the trials that are on. Over the Court-room is a Dining-room, where the judges dine when the Court is over-a practice commemorated by a well-known line

"And wretches hang that jurymen may dine."

The dinners are pleasant, speedy, and well attended. Adjoining the Sessions House is the prison called "Newgate." [See p. 145.]

The METROPOLITAN COUNTY COURTS, holding a summary jurisdiction over debts and demands not exceeding 50%., are eleven in number. The judges are barristers appointed by the Crown. The Bankruptcy Court is in Basinghall-street, in the City; the Insolvent Debtors Court in Portugal-street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.

CLERKENWELL SESSIONS HOUSE, the next in importance to the Old Bailey, was originally Hicks's Hall, and was removed hither in 1782. A fine James I. chimney-piece from the old Hall is one of the interior decorations of the House.

The CITY POLICE COURTS are at the Mansion House and Guildhall, where the Lord Mayor, or the sitting Alderman, are the magistrates who decide cases or send them for trial.