plices, were chanting sweetly; a
dull-looking clergyman read the service indifferently; and a score of
poor people, with one or two well-dressed persons, formed the
congregation. We then departed for Westminster Abbey, which must form
the subject of another letter.

Yours affectionately,

WELD.

Letter 21.

LONDON.

DEAR CHARLEY:--

What shall I tell you about Westminster Abbey? I hope I may be able to
say enough to make you long to see it, and determine you to read all you
can about it. By the way, I have satisfied myself that I can learn the
best things about such places by carefully reading good histories and
examining the best engravings. This abbey claims to have been built, in
616, by a Saxon king. It was enlarged by Edgar and Edward the Confessor,
and was rebuilt as it now appears by Henry III. and Edward I. In this
church all the sovereigns of England have been crowned, from Edward the
Confessor down to Victoria; and not a few of them have been buried here.
The architecture, excepting Henry VII.'s Chapel; is of the early
English school. Henry's chapel is of the perpendicular Gothic. The
western towers were built by Sir Christopher Wren.

We entered at the door leading to the Poet's Corner. We gazed with
interest on the monuments of Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning, Prince
Rupert, Monk, Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Cowley,
Dryden, Dr. Watts, Addison, Gay, Sheridan, and Campbell. Here, too, are
tablets to Barrow, South, Garrick, Handel, Clarendon, Bishop Atterbury,
Sir Isaac Newton, and old Parr, who died at the age of one hundred and
fifty-two.

[Illustration: Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.]

The associations of this building are every thing to the stranger. I
will just give you a list of names of the kings and queens buried
here--Sebert, Edward the Confessor, Henry III., Edward I., Queen
Eleanor, Edward III. and his queen, Philippa, Richard II. and his queen,
Henry V., Henry VII. and his queen, Ann of Cleves, queen of Henry VIII.,
Edward VI., Bloody Mary, Mary, Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth, James I.
and his queen, Queen of Bohemia, Charles II., William III. and Mary,
Queen Anne, George II. and Queen Caroline.

We took the circuit of the chapels, beginning with St. Benedict. Here
many eminent churchmen have been interred. The next is St. Edmond's,
which contains twenty monuments; the monument of the Earl of Pembroke,
brother of Henry III.; he died 1298. Here, too, a