onsenting to the act. But the glory of the
palace, once the scene of such regal splendour and magnificence, was not
of long duration. A dispute between the grandson of the Duke Henry and
the mayor of the city, concerning the entrance of some comedians into the
city, playing their trumpets, &c. on the way to the palace, caused its
owner, Thomas, then Duke, to destroy the greater portion of it, and leave
the remainder untenanted; and among divers transmutations of property
that characterized the era of Queen Anne, we find the appropriation of
its vestiges to the purpose of a workhouse, when those institutions first
sprang into existence--a fate shared at the same period by the cloisters
of the old Black Friars monastery.

The river, that once reflected the gorgeous displays of wealth that
glittered upon the margin of its waters, in the palace of the Dukes, now
flows darkly and silently on, through crowded thoroughfares and gloomy
wharfs, and staiths; corn and coal depots, red brick factories, with
their tiers of low window-ranges and tall chimneys, have usurped the
place of banquetting halls and palace gardens; a toll bridge adds silence
to the gloom, by its prohibitory tax on passers-by, a stillness,
oppressive by its sudden contrast to the activity of neighbouring
thoroughfares, pervades the whole region round about; and the spot that
once was the nucleus of wealth, riches, and grandeur, now seems the very
seat and throne of melancholy.

Coeval with the rise of workhouses, in the reign of Anne, is another
event of local history--the introduction of street-lighting. An act of
parliament of William III., confirmed in the 10th of Anne, enacted "that
every householder charged with 2_d._ a week to the poor, whose
dwelling-house adjoined any streets, market-places, public lanes, or
passages in the city, should every night, yearly, from Michaelmas to
Lady-day, as it should grow dark, hang out, on the outside of their
houses, _a candle_, _or visible and convenient lights_, and continue the
same until eleven o'clock at night, for enlightening the streets, and
convenience of passengers, under penalty of 2_s._ for every neglect."
Lamps, at the cost of the community in general, were soon afterwards
substituted, but their shape, and distance from each other, would seem to
have rendered them but indifferent substitutes for the illuminations that
preceded them; and if memory is faithful to us, in recalling the
progenitors of the g