is banner. All the sides
of the apartment are decorated with trophies and figures in armor. I was
much gratified with the beautiful taste displayed in the arrangement of
the arms upon the walls and ceiling. Some of the suits of armor were
very rich, and answered exactly to my notions of such matters. Here I
saw, for the first time, the coat of mail; and I think the men of that
day must have been stronger than those of our time, or they never could
have endured such trappings. I was much pleased with the real armor of
Henry VIII. This suit was very rich, and damasked. And here, too, was
the very armor of Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who figured at the court
of Elizabeth. It weighs eighty-seven pounds; and close by it is the
martial suit of the unfortunate Essex. He was executed, you know, at
this place, 1601. Among the most beautiful armors we saw were the suits
of Charles I. and a small one which belonged to his younger brother when
a lad. I think one suit made for Charles when a boy of twelve would have
fitted me exactly; and wouldn't I have liked to become its owner! King
Charles's armor was a present from the city of London, and was one of
the latest manufactured in England.

I do not think I ever was in a place that so delighted me. I cannot tell
you a hundredth part of the curiosities that are to be seen s all sorts
of rude ancient weapons; several instruments of torture prepared by the
Roman Catholics, at the time of the Spanish Armada, for the conversion
of the English heretics. One of these was the Iron Collar, which weighs
about fifteen pounds, and has a rim of inward spikes; and besides, we
saw a barbarous instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter, which
packed up the body and limbs into an inconceivably small space. We
looked with deep interest, you may imagine, Charley, on the block on
which the Scotch lords, Balmerino, Kilmarnook, and Lovat, were beheaded
in 1746. The fatal marks upon the wood are deeply cut; and we had in our
hands the axe which was used at the execution of the Earl of Essex. I
shall read the history of this country, I am sure, with more pleasure
than ever, after walking over the yard and Tower Hill, where so many
great and good, as well as so many infamous, persons have suffered
death. Only think what a list of names to be connected with the
block--Fisher, More, Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard,
Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, Cromwell and Devereux, both Earls of
Essex, the Duke