tminster, shift the bank of the river so as to make it flow along
Abingdon Street, draw a stream running down College Street into the
Thames; another running into the Thames across King Street, and draw a
ditch or moat connecting the two streams along Delahaye Street and
Princes Street you will have Thorney, about a quarter of a mile long,
and not quite so much broad, standing just above high water level. This
was the original Precinct of Westminster.

[Illustration: TOMB OF EDWARD III. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

The Abbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, is said to have been founded on
the first conversion of the East Saxons, and at the same time as the
Foundation of St. Paul's. We know nothing about the foundation of the
church. During the Danish troubles the Abbey was deserted. It was
refounded by Dunstan. It was, however, rebuilt in much greater splendour
by Edward the Confessor. Of his work something still remains, and can be
pointed out to the visitor. But the present Abbey contains work by Henry
III., Edward I., Richard II.--Whittington being commissioner for the
work--Henry VII. and Wren, Hawksmoor and Gilbert Scott the architects.

There is no monument on British soil more venerable than Westminster
Abbey. You must not think that you know the place when you have visited
it once or twice. You must go there again and again. Every visit should
teach you something of your country and its history. The building itself
betraying to those who can read architecture the various periods at
which its builders lived: the beauty of the building, the solemnity of
the services--these are things which one must visit the Abbey often in
order to understand. Then there are the associations of the Abbey; the
things that have been done in the Abbey: the crowning of the Kings, in a
long line from Edward the Confessor downwards. Here Edward the Fourth's
Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, took sanctuary when her husband suffered
reverse: here the unfortunate Edward V. was born. Here the same unhappy
Queen brought her two boys when her husband died. Here Caxton set up his
first printing press: here is the coronation chair. Here is the shrine
of the sainted Edward the Confessor. It is robbed of its precious stones
and its gold: but the shrine is the same as that before which for five
hundred years people knelt as to the protector saint of England. This is
the burial-place of no fewer than twenty-six of our Kings and their
Queens. This is the sacred s