GREENWICH-THE DREADNOUGHT.

REENWICH now forms a noble

picture before us. On the left rise

the regal towers of its naval palace-hospital-its base washed by the Thames, and its proportions thrown more prominently forward by a back-ground of wellwooded hills. The eye resting a moment upon the Observatory, which rears its vaned roofs above the trees, next trends to the right, where the town, with its churches, lies sheltered upon the river bank. But the houses are for a time almost shut out from sight by the huge bulk of that old ship of war-the DREADNOUGHT—which, with its hundred port-holes now changed to windows, looks like a floating street of houses, and frowns into insignificance our steamer and the other vessels around. Formerly a ship of war, she fought at Trafalgar, under Captain Conn: she captured the Spanish three-decker, the San Juan, which had previously been engaged by the Bellerophon and the Defiance, and did duty in battle and in storm as one of England's boasted wooden walls. For many years

"Her march was o'er the mountain waves,

Her home upon the deep :"

But her ninety-eight heavy guns are changed for feather-beds, to accommodate 400 suffering, destitute sailors--her decks have become wards-her captains, doctors-her crew, nurses-and now, like an aged warrior, she rests upon former exploits and glory; leaves battle and carnage for peace and benevolence; and in old age

GREENWICH-ITS ASSOCIATIONS.

to the sick seamen of all nations.

Should the outside of this

floating hospital suggest an inspection of the interior, a boat will, in a few minutes, place the visiter upon a staircase leading from the water's edge to the upper deck. A card sent to the officer in charge, with a civil request for leave to see the ship, will secure the required favour. The patients are ranged upon the lower decks the portholes affording the necessary ventilation. The cabins are converted into surgeries, and the whole arrangements are very complete and satisfactory. Whoever examines them, and reflects on the benefits they confer upon destitute seamen, will scarcely leave the Dreadnought without giving his mite towards its support.

Safely landed at Greenwich, let us take this first narrow turning on the left, between the old wooden-fronted houses, which give a good idea of the Greenwich streets and lanes of a century ago, and in three minutes we are at the Hospital-a stately palace reared for kings, but now appointed by a grateful nation as the home of aged seamen who have served the public in ships of war. The building is as noble as the purpose to which it is devoted, and its majestic proportions gave rise to the well-known remark of a shrewd foreigner, that "in England the hospitals are like palaces, and the palaces like hospitals." Let us first walk along the river terrace to examine the exterior of the present palace of Greenwich, and then, after seeing the Painted Hall, the Chapel, the Dining Hall, and the Dormitories, we may, during a ramble in the Park, let memory recall the Greenwich palace of old times, and the strange events of which it was the scene. Imagination shall breathe life again into the form of the good Duke Humphrey, who first made Greenwich a royal abode; of Henry the Seventh, who, with his usual shrewdness, saw the superiority of this river-side situation for a palace over the merely sylvan site of Eltham, where his predecessors had maintained their royal state; of Henry the Eighth, who was born here, and took pride in making his birthplace "a splendid and magnificent palace;" of Catherine of Arragon, of Anne Boleyn, of Anne of Cleves-all of whose nuptials with Henry the wifeslayer were here celebrated; of the jousts, and mummings, and customs, now long since extinct, which marked these royal cere

THE HOSPITAL.

monies; of Edward the Sixth, who, like his father, was born in Greenwich, and after a short, uncrowned reign, died here; of Mary and Elizabeth, whose blood-stained reigns were marked by the brutal and wholesale slaughter of their subjects for matters of belief; of James the First, who hunted in the Park, and took great delight in improving the palace; of Charles the First, whose good taste led him to regard Greenwich as a favourite abode; of Cromwell, to whom the palace was assigned by the Parliament, but who preferred abiding at Whitehall; of Charles the Second, whc pulled down the old palace and projected the present, but lived to complete only the west wing (the one we first arrived at and have just passed); of Inigo Jones, the adviser of his son-in-law, Webb, in the building this first portion; of Mary, the queenconsort of William the Third, whose kind and benevolent nature led her to give the palace of Greenwich "for the reliefe and support of seamen serving on board the ships or vessells belonging to the navy royall, who by reason of age, wounds, or other disabilities, shall be incapable of further service at sea, and be unable to maintain themselves: and also for the sustentation of the widows, and maintenance and education of the children of seamen happening to be slaine or disabled in such sea service." All these actors, long since gone from the living stage, shall in imagination exist again; and, if you please, good reader, the whole group,-King Hal, with his young son, his wives, and daughters; King Jamie, in his hunting gear, his book on witchcraft peeping from his breeks; Charles the First, with pointed beard and melancholy look, as in forecast of his troubles and his fate; the second Charles, the witty and the dissolute— shall to the mind's eye pace through the modern hospital in our company, and help us to form an estimate between times present and times gone by.

Turning our backs upon the river, the first wing on the right is that erected by Charles the Second; it now contains two libraries and the dormitory called King Charles's Ward. Next on the same side, with vestibule and cupola, is King William the Third's building, which forms the Painted Hall. Facing it, with corresponding dome, is Queen Mary's building, containing the Chapel; while on our left, and opposite to Charles the

KING CHARLES'S WARD.

Second's, we have the portion of the building named after Queen Anne. In the background we see the Naval Asylum, with the masts and spars of a ship planted in the grass plot-a small frigate on dry land, within a stone throw of the river-built for the purpose of familiarising the boys in the naval school with the various parts of a vessel of war; but why the boys should not have gone to the ship afloat, rather than have brought the frigate ashore to the boys, would puzzle a few pensioners to discover.

Crossing the broad walk of the central square, we pass a statue, which displays George the Second masquerading as a Roman emperor, with bare knees and laurelled brow. It is by Rysbrack, and sculptured from a block of marble taken from the French by Sir George Rooke. This statue was a present to the Hospital from Sir John Jennings, one of its governors.

Let us now enter through the doorway in the centre of the first building on our right, and ascend a broad staircase, which conducts us to a long gallery, filled with dormitories, called KING

THE PAINTED HALL.

CHARLES'S WARD. It has rather a sombre look; and despite the cleanly neatness of the sleeping places, which are something between ship's cabins and civilised bedchambers, the thought will force itself upon us, that the old men, after their lives of stirring danger, must find this place dull. The nooks vie with each other in decorations: one is gay in coloured prints; another has a model of a ship; a third, some books; a fourth, a collection of naval songs; while the end of the ward is marked by a piece of carving, which occupied the leisure of seven long years of an old pensioner!-who thus whiled away the tedium of age in this hospital. The hat worn by Nelson at Teneriffe -or rather so much of it as petty larceny has left is also here, in company with the silk stockings! worn on the same occasion. Another peculiarity of the room, is a story told about "the window from which King Charles escaped;" but as the window pointed out was built by King Charles's son, after his father's death, the visiter is at liberty to believe as much of this cherished legend as he can. Leaving the dormitories, we proceed to the right,.to King William's building, and enter THE PAINTED HALL, a noble naval gallery, now visited by more than a hundred thousand persons every year. In the vestibule, a collection of dingy, tattered flags, droop dull, motionless, and dusty over the marble statues of the men whose trophies they were; and in ragged decay they, the real relics of real war, form striking contrast with the neighbouring pictures, wherein art has placed, all glare and glitter, upon canvass, mimic representations of sea-fights. Standing upon the steps, the whole impression of the place is very fine. The eye takes in the painted ceiling; the pictorial walls-the quiet colouring of the older pictures mingled with, and sobering down, the brighter and more vivid contrasts of the later efforts of the pencil; while the marble floor is covered here and there by groups of figures-holiday-makers, and sight-seers, and old pensioners-whose moving forms add life and interest to the scene. Mounting the steps, and fairly in the hall itself, we find the series of pictures begin on the left, in the first compartment, with portraits of Sir Hugh Willoughby and the Earl of Nottingham. These must be regarded as No. 1; the picture below, with portraits of Hawkins, Drake, and Cavendish,