LETTER XXV.

TO A FRIEND IN AMERICA.

EVER DEAR SIR,

London, September, 1844.

IN company with my much esteemed friend Mr. John Unwin, I left Sheffield one day last week for this city, where we arrived the same evening, and put up at Providence House, Falcon Square. Since then, we have visited most of those objects of interest usually termed, "The sights of London." Were I to enter into details, and expatiate upon all we have seen, I could very soon present you with manuscript sufficient for a considerable volume. To-day we have

been to,

"Where stands that monument of ancient power,
Named, with emphatic dignity, the TOWER ;"-

The Tower of London-England's First Book of Chronicles-or England's History in miniature. With its history and associations you are well acquainted; they are indeed" dark and gloomy;" traced in characters of blood. As a palace and prison of ancient royalty, replete with incidents, contemporary with the darkest, and dreariest, and most stirring periods of the nation's history, it cannot fail to be an object of interest to all intelligent travellers. That was a worthy remark of an English writer: "To those who remember the annals of their country, that dark and gloomy pile affords associations, not quite so numerous and recent as the Bastile, yet enough to excite our hatred and horror. But standing, as it does, in such striking contrast to the fresh and flourishing construc

tions of modern wealth, the proofs and the rewards of civil and religious liberty, it seems like a captive tyrant, reserved to grace the triumph of a victorious republic, and should teach us to reflect, in thankfulness, how highly we have been elevated in virtue and happiness above our forefathers." The Tower is a confused mass of irregular towers and turreted. buildings, encompassed by walls, ramparts, and bastions. It is approached through three or four gateways, guarded by armed sentinels. Outside some of the buildings, we noticed a large assemblage of cannon of all sizes; many of them are trophies from all nations:

"These huge artillery perish in their crust
Of still increasing and consuming rust."

We spent a couple of hours agreeably in walking through apartments, some of which stand mournfully connected with characters who figure largely in English history. The Armories contain a fearful array of weapons fitted for human butchery, extending from the earliest ages of English warfare, to the present time:

"From battle-fields where millions met

To murder each his fellow, and make sport

For kings and heroes."

I was amazed at the vastness of the collection. And belonging, as they do, to all periods of the nation's history; and obtained, as many of the weapons were, in the heat and desperation of the battle, or gathered from the hands of the dead and the dying upon "the conquered field," one cannot look upon them with other than solemn feelings. They are suspended and arranged along the walls, and formed into tasteful figures and devices. Excuse poetry, but it describes such

matters better than I can find language to do just now; for, "to tell you the truth," London, and its scenes, have quite dissipated my mind, so that I can scarcely put half-a-dozen sentences together, without a mistake of some kind or other :

"Guns, halberts, swords, and pistols, great and small,

In starry forms disposed upon the wall;

We wonder, as we gazing stand below,
That brass and steel should make so fine a show;
But though we praise the exact designer's skill,
Account them implements of mischief still."

War has been fitly termed, man's self-inflicted scourge. These instruments of destruction illustrate the sentiment. Besides, their number, variety, the time necessary to invent and make them, as well as the necessary disposition to wield them, all show how thickly the seeds of war, rather, "the sparks of fiery war," are deposited in the human heart; "occasion need but fan them and they blaze;-red battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock." Here may these "implements of mischief," these instruments of torture and destruction, ever remain. What a spectacle these, we thought, for the happy and peaceful millennial inhabitants to behold; when war shall only be known in history; when swords, long since, shall have been beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks, and war is learned no more; when the holy and wondering multitude shall visit the museum, and learn, from its testimony, the truth of battle's story, the barbarity and bloody ferocity of their forefathers! And how they will wonder that by-gone generations, who also heard and received the gospel of peace, could so far disengage themselves from its spirit and power, as to murder each other by thousands on the field,—and, afterwards, receive the plaudits of Church and State, as they

returned with garments rolled in blood!—and all this so late as the latter part of the eighteenth, and till nearly the middle of the nineteenth century! Would to God the trade of blood might here end ;-that the days of slaughter were overpast! Alas! the world has yet to learn the song that angels sang at the advent of the Prince of Peace: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will to men!" Why, O why, has it been so long in learning this song,- -so much in harmony with the gospel message, the spirit and design of Christianity, and so inseparably connected with the best interests of the universal brotherhood of man? Ah! no. "Ambition stalks like a demon over the earth, crushing the grass and the grain, and blighting the bud and the blossom." The yells of war, and cries of havoc, still ring out upon the air of our planet. There are fields yet wet with blood, and the fetlocks of many a war-horse are dripping with human gore. POWER has not done building thrones of skulls nor does it seem likely there will be an end, while it can procure blood and tears to cement the horrid fabric ;-unless that power of the gospel which has revolutionised many an individual character, and turned the lion into a lamb, effects the same mighty change, spiritual and moral, in the hundreds of millions, who now walk the surface of our globe. Hasten the

time, O Lord God of hosts! A friend at my left hand says, he believes the tide of human blood is yet to flow, till it reaches, as the Apocalypse expresses it, to the bridle-bits of warriors' horses, and carnage, drunk with blood, shall yet stagger over the crimsoned earth; for,

"Already the earth waxeth old in its sin,

And the fires of destruction burn deeply within."

What a history I could write, were each weapon to speak out from its place, and tell its own story,-of

all the preliminaries and circumstances of "battle's red array," when army faced army, front to front,-“ a living wall, a human wood,-a wall of fire beneath a hedge of spears," when life or death hung upon the word of a mortal,—when a fire like hell burned in ten thousand breasts, "and the battle trembled to begin," and then,

"The shock of shields, and clash of swords,

The whirlwind gusts, the din of battle rose."

The Horse Armoury is an equestrian museum. Here we were presented with a fierce line of horses and riders, clad in the identical suits of armour in use from the time of William the Conqueror down to the reign of George the Second. The devices, legends of saints, mottos and arms, engraved thereon, afford an instructive lesson upon the costumes, manners, tastes, and religion of those dark and tempestuous ages to which they belong. Most of the figures upon horseback, if I rightly remember, represent the kings of England, through a long succession of centuries. Some of the coats of armour, which encase these effigies, are the identical suits worn by these monarchs in their life-time.

Shortly after my arrival in this country, October 30th, 1841, occurred that unfortunate fire which destroyed the Grand Storehouse, with a vast collection of arms and military curiosities. The site, and part of the foundations, are all that remains of an edifice which was the pride and glory of England.

To-day, also, we visited Westminster Abbey. All is bustle and tumult without, while all within is solemn,

and silent as eternity. We spent an hour or two there;—I don't know but it might be more, for time passes away so rapidly in such places that one forgets to take note of it. It is, indeed, a grand and wonderful pile; and I hope, before I finally leave England, to