"bauble" mace. When the author, for the last time, trod the floor of St. Stephen's, the fire was still partially issuing from beneath, and the walls were tottering above his head. The beautiful crypt, or under-chapel, still remains to us, but St. Stephen's itself has passed away for ever.

Old and New Palace Yards are not without their historical associations. In the former, Guy Fawkes, with his associates Thomas Winter, Ambrose Rookwood, and Robert Keyes, were hanged, drawn, and quartered; their heads being subsequently affixed to poles on London Bridge, and their quarters exposed on different gates of the city. The house occupied by the conspirators, in which, in darkness and stealth, they carried on their under-ground operations, was situated at the north-east corner of Old Palace Yard.

Perhaps the event which throws the deepest interest over Old Palace Yard, is its having been the scene of the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was brought here from the Tower, on the morning of the 29th of October, 1618; and, though suffering severely from illness, maintained his dignity and fortitude to the last. On ascending the scaffold, he observed to the bystanders, " I desire you will bear with me withal; and if I shew any weakness, I beseech you to attribute it to my malady, for this is the hour in which it is wont to come." Having concluded his well-known beautiful prayer, "Now," he said, "I am going to God." Taking up the axe, he felt its edge, and said smilingly, "This is a sharp

medicine, but it will cure all diseases." The executioner inquiring in what manner he proposed to lay his head upon the block? "So the heart be straight," he said, "it is no matter which way the head lieth." Having lain down, and the executioner shewing some hesitation in striking the blow, "What dost thou fear?" he said, "strike, man!" His head was then severed from his body at two blows.

In the time of the Commonwealth, there was a well known place of entertainment in Old Palace Yard, known by the singular denomination of "Heaven." Butler speaks of it in "Hudibras' as "false Heaven' at the end of the Hall;" and Pepys mentions his dining there in 1659-60. "I sent a porter," he says, "to my house for my best fur-cap, and so I returned and went to 'Heaven,' where Luellin and I dined." About the same time, a club, called the Rota, was founded by the celebrated James Harrington, at Miles's Coffee House, in Old Palace Yard. Pepys was a member of the Club, and more than once mentions the "admirable discourse" which he heard there.*

Before quitting Old Palace Yard, we must not omit to mention that when the celebrated poet Geoffrey Chaucer held the appointment of Clerk of the Works at Westminster, in the reign of Richard the Second, his residence stood on the spot where Henry the Seventh's Chapel now stands,

For an account of the "Rota" Club, see Biog. Brit. vol. v. p. 3345, and note.

and here apparently he died. By a curious writ, dated the 13th of July, 1389, the poet was appointed Clerk of the Works at the palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, the Mews near CharingCross, and other places, with a salary of two shillings a day.

In New Palace Yard anciently stood a handsome conduit or fountain, which, according to Stow, on the occasion of great triumphs, was "made to run with wine out of diverse spouts." And opposite the hall, on the site of the present passage into Bridge Street, was a lofty tower, called the Clock Tower.

In regard to this tower, the following rather curious story is related. In the reign of Henry the Third, a certain poor man having been fined the sum of thirteen and four-pence in an action for debt, Radulphus de Ingham, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, commiserating his case, caused the court roll to be erased, and the fine to be reduced to six shillings and eightpence; which, being soon afterwards discovered, the judge was sentenced to pay a fine of eight hundred marks. This sum, it is said, was expended on building the Clock Tower, in which there was a bell or clock, which, striking hourly, was intended to remind the judges in the hall of the fate of their brother. There seems to have been some truth in the story. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Catlyn, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, proposed to a brother judge to have a