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out.

house at Whitehall, and private residences, Melborne house (Whitehall), and Burlington house (Piccadilly). St. James's palace, Pall mall, is an irregular brick building, originally built as an hospital for lepers. Though totally destitute of external beauty, its internal arrangements are well calculated for state purposes, and it contains many spacious and superb apartments, where the royal court levees and drawing-rooms are held. The archiepiscopal palace of Lambeth is a pile of great antiquity, forming the town residence of the archbishops of Canterbury, and at present being almost entirely rebuilt. The grounds are extensive and beautifully laid It contains, among other apartments, a chapel, gallery, library, containing 25,000 volumes, and the Lollards' tower, used in popish times as a prison for the reformers of that designation. The Admiralty is fronted by a lofty and most ill-proportioned Ionic portico, and separated from Whitehall by a light screen. It contains the offices and residences of the commissioners of the admiralty, and is near the Horse-guards, a hideous edifice, wherein the commander-in-chief holds his levees, and transacts military affairs. An arched gate-way communicates with St. James's park. The house of lords, in Old Palace yard, is not remarkable for architectural beauty. The peers assemble in a room, the walls of which are hung with tapestry representing the defeat of the Spanish armada. The house of commons holds its meetings in an ancient chapel, called St. Stephen's, adjoining Westminster hall, plainly fitted up, and affording but stinted accommodation for the 650 members of whom that body is composed. It was originally founded by king Stephen, and rebuilt by Edward III, in 1347. It communicates with the speaker's house, a commodious and handsome residence. The Tower of London is an extensive pile, situated on the northern bank of the Thames, below London bridge, separated from the river by a platform, and environed by a ditch of considerable depth and width. Its walls enclose an area of 12 acres, having the principal entrance on the west. (See Tower.) The general destination of the Tower was altered on the accession of queen Elizabeth, for it had been a royal palace during 500 years previous to that event. Another class of edifices, partaking somewhat of a public character, are the club-houses, situated, chiefly, within the precincts of St. James's street, Pall mall, and Regent street. Crockford's, in St. James's street, is unri

valled in the splendor of its internal decorations, and presents an external elevation of chaste architectural elegance; but its object is avowedly gambling, and its fascinations have been the ruin of many. The athenæum is a very beautiful structure, erected by Mr. Burton on part of the site of Carlton palace, and opposite to the senior united service club. The university, the union, the oriental, Brookes', and the junior united service club houses, are also handsome and commodious.-Ancient London. The origin of London is involved in deep obscurity; but it certainly was a strong-hold of the Britons before the Roman invasion. The etymology of its name is variously traced; the most probable supposition deriving it from two British words, llyn and din, signifying the town on the lake. Its Roman designation, Augusta, marks it as the capital of a province; and Tacitus speaks of Londinium, or Colonia Augusta, as a commercial mart of considerable celebrity in the year 61. It was subsequently noted as a large and wealthy city, in the time of the emperor Severus, and regarded as the metropolis of Great Britain. A few vestiges of the original walls are still discoverable in London wall, in the courts between Ludgate hill and the Broadway, Blackfriars, and in Cripplegate churchyard. It had four principal gates, opening to the four great military roads, and others were subsequently formed, but their names alone commemorate their existence. After the Roman forces had been withdrawn from Britain, in the fifth century, London fell successively under the dominion of the Britons, Saxons, and Danes. It was nominated a bishop's see, on the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity, in 604, and a cathedral church was erected in 610, where St. Paul's now stands. Its importance in the year 833, appears from a Wittenagemot having been held here; and under the reign of Alfred, who gained possession of it in 884, its municipal government was planned, which has since been gradually moulded into the form described in a preceding part of this notice. Its wealth seems to have rapidly increased during the reign of Edward the Confessor; and, on the conquest by William I, in 1066, it assumed that station which it has ever since retained, as the metropolis of the kingdom, having received from that monarch a charter, still preserved in the city archives, and beautifully written in Saxon characters. The privileges of the city were further extended by a charter of Henry I, in 1100; and,

early in the reign of Richard I, the title of mayor was substituted for that of bailiff, which had previously designated the chief magistrate of London. In the reign of Edward III (1348), it was ravaged by a pestilence, during which 50,000 bodies were interred in the ground now forming the precincts of the Charter house. The year 1380 was marked by the insurrection headed by Wat Tyler, and suppressed by the courage of sir William Walworth, mayor of London. A similar, but equally unsuccessful attempt, threatened the safety of the metropolis in the year 1450, when it was assailed by Jack Cade and a powerful body of malecontents. During the reign of Edward IV, we have the earliest notice of bricks being employed in the building of houses in London. Cisterns and conduits for water were constructed, and the city was generally lighted at night by lanterns. A dreadful visitation, called the sweating-sickness, desolated the city in 1485, soon after the accession of Henry VII, during whose reign the river Fleet was made navigable to Holborn bridge, and the splendid chapel, called after that monarch, was appended to Westminster abbey. Many valuable improvements in the municipal regulations of the city, its police, streets, markets, &c., were effected during the reign of his successor, Henry VIII. The reign of Edward VI witnessed the establishment of Christ's hospital, Bridewell, and St. Thomas's hospital; and, under the sway of Elizabeth, the metropolis increased, with surprising rapidity, in commercial enterprise and general prosperity. The plague renewed its ravages soon after the accession of James I, in 1603, when upwards of 30,000 persons fell victims to it. Sir Hugh Middleton, about that time also, commenced his great work of supplying the inhabitants with water from the New river; and the pavements were improved for the comfort of pedestrians. The reign of Charles I was marked by a recurrence of the plague, which carried off 35,000 of the inhabitants. It returned in the year 1665, with unparalleled fury. This awful visitation swept away 100,000 of the inhabitants within 13 months. It was shortly after followed by the great fire, which broke out on the 2d September, 1666, and raged with irresistible fury, until it consumed 89 churches, 13,200 dwellinghouses, and 400 streets, the city gates, Guildhall, numerous public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries and stately edifices, leaving a ruined space of 436 acres, from the Tower to the Temple

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church, and from the north-east gate, along the city wall, to Holborn bridge, and destroying property to the estimated amount of £10,000,000. Within less than five years after this terrible calamity, the city was almost wholly rebuilt, in a style of far greater regularity, security, commodiousness and salubrity. After the revolution of 1688, the metropolis rapidly expanded, and, in 1711, the population was found to have so greatly increased, that an act of parliament passed for the building of 50 new churches. The winter of 1739-40 is memorable for the occurrence of the most intense frost recorded in the annals of England; it continued for eight weeks, and the Thames, above London bridge, became a solid mass, on which thousands of the citizens assembled daily as to a fair. The reign of George III witnessed a great extension of the splendor, comforts and elegances of social life in London. The north of the metropolis became covered with spacious streets, squares, churches and public edifices. The thoroughfares were rendered safe and clean; the enormous signs and protruding incumbrances of the shops were removed. Blackfriars, Southwark and Waterloo bridges, Somerset house, Manchester, and other squares, at the West End, were erected, and the vast parish of Marylebone almost covered with buildings. In 1780, an insurrection, composed of the lowest rabble, threatened very alarming consequences to the peace of the city. The prisons of Newgate, the King's Bench and the Fleet were burned, and military interference was necessary to quell the disturbances. In 1794, a dreadful fire broke out in Ratcliffe highway, and consumed 700 houses. The jubilee of George III's accession was commemorated on the 25th October, 1809, and the grand civic festival to the emperor of Russia, king of Prussia, and other distinguished foreigners, was given, by the corporation of London, in Guildhall, at an expense of £20,000, in the year 1814, the winter of which was memorable for a frost of six weeks' continuance and extreme intensity. During the regency and reign of George IV, the grand avenue of Regent street, the unfinished palace of Buckingham house, the splendid terraces on the site of Carlton gardens, the widenings of Charing cross, Pall mall, and the Strand, wrought a great change in the West End of the metropolis. Much curious information upon the history, antiquities and progressive improvements of London will be found in the works of

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Stowe and Maitland, in Pennant's "Some Account of London,” and in the work of Brayley, Brewster and Nightingale, entitled "London, Westminster and Middlesex described," in 5 vols. 8vo.

LONDONDERRY, Robert Stewart, marquis of, the second son of the first marquis, was born in the north of Ireland, June 18, 1769, and was educated at Armagh, after which he became a commoner of St. John's college, Cambridge. On leaving the university, he made the tour of Europe, and, on his return, was chosen a member of the Irish parliament. He joined the opposition, in the first place, and declared himself an advocate for parliamentary reform; but, on obtaining a seat in the British parliament, he took his station on the ministerial benches. In 1797, having then become lord Castlereagh, he returned to the Irish parliament, and, the same year, became keeper of the privy seal for that kingdom, and was soon after appointed one of the lords of the treasury. The next year, he was nominated secretary to the lord-lieutenant, and, by his strenuous exertions, and abilities in the art of removing opposition, the union with Ireland was greatly facilitated. In the united parliament, he sat as member for the county of Down, and, in 1802, was made president of the board of control. In 1805, he was appointed secretary of war and the colonies; but, on the death of Mr. Pitt, he retired, until the dissolution of the brief administration of 1806 restored him to the same situation in 1807; and he held his office until the ill-fated expedition to Walcheren, and his duel with his colleague, Mr. Canning, produced his resignation. In 1812, he succeeded the marquis of Wellesley as foreign secretary, and the following year proceeded to the continent, to assist the coalesced powers in negotiating a general peace. His services after the capture of Napoleon, and in the general pacification and arrangements which have been usually designated by the phrase the settlement of Europe, form a part of history. It is sufficient to notice here, that he received the public thanks of parliament, and was honored with the order of the garter. On the death of his father, in April, 1821, he succeeded him in the Irish marquisate of Londonderry, but still retained his seat in the British house of commons, where he acted as leader. Af ter the arduous session of 1822, in which his labor was unremitting, his mind was observed to be much shattered; but, unhappily, although his physician was apprized of it, he was suffered to leave Lon

don for his seat at North Cray, in Kent, where, in August, 1822, he terminated his life by inflicting a wound in his neck, with a penknife, of which he died almost instantly. This statesman has been censured for a severe, rigid, and persecuting domestic government, and for an undue countenance of despotic encroachment and arrangement as regards the social progress of Europe. His party and supporters, in answer to these strictures, for the most part, plead political necessity and expediency, while no small portion of them defend his views on the ground of principle. He was an active man of business, and a ready, although not an elegant orator. His remains were interred, in Westminster abbey, with great ceremony, but not without an exhibition of popular ill-will. (See Mem. of the late Marquis of Londonderry, London, 1829.) He was succeeded in his title by his halfbrother, lieutenant-colonel lord Stewart, who was, for some time, ambassador to Prussia, and afterwards to Vienna. His lordship is author of a Narrative of the Peninsular War (second edition, London, 1828), and a Narrative of the War in Germany and France, in 1813 and 1814, and is a member of the British house of peers, as earl Vane.

LONGCHAMP; a promenade of the Parisian fashionables, on the right bank of the Seine, about four miles below the capital. It was once a convent, founded by Isabella, sister of St. Louis, where she spent her last years, and terminated her life, Feb. 22, 1269. The convent was then called the Abbaye de l'humilité de Notre Dame, and the credulity of the times ascribed to the bones of Isabella, who was buried there, such miraculous powers, that Leo X canonized her in 1521. 116 years after, the bones of Isabella, with the permission of Urban VIII, were collected in the presence of the archbishop of Paris, and, like other relics, set in gold and silver. Two other princesses of France also died there— Blanche, daughter of Philip the Long, who likewise ended his life at this place, Jan. 3, 1321, and Jeanne of Navarre. Previous to the revolution, Longchamp was a place of resort of the Parisian beau monde and of the English. It is still related, that on those days when it was a part of bon ton to repair thither (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Passion week), some of the English carried their luxury so far, as to make the shoes of their horses and the tires of their coach wheels of silver, on these promenades. In the beginning of the revolution, when the abbey of Longchamp, like the monasteries

of France in general, was abolished, and the buildings partially demolished, the splendor of this place was destroyed; but under the consulate, when wealth again dared to display itself openly, Longchamp recovered its ancient brilliancy, and again offered the Parisian ladies an opportunity of exhibiting their charms. Tallien and Recamier were then the stars in this firmament of fashion and beauty. Under the imperial government, the splendor of Longchamp was somewhat diminished, owing partly to Napoleon's contempt for frivolous exhibitions, partly to the continued wars, which withdrew great numbers of rich young men from the capital. After the restoration, the promenade of Longchamp was almost wholly neglected. But more recently, it has again recovered some of its former splendor.

LONGEVITY. The extreme limit of human life, and the means of attaining it, have been a subject of general interest, both in ancient and modern times, and the physiologist and political economist are alike attracted by the inquiry. It is for the student of biblical antiquities to decide in what sense we are to understand the word year in the scriptural accounts of the antediluvians; whether it signifies a revolution of the sun or of the moon, or whether their extreme longevity is only the creation of tradition. In the sense which we now give to the word year, the accounts would make the constitution of men at the period referred to, very different from what it is at present, or has been, at any period from which observations on the duration of human life have been transmitted to us. The results of all these observations, in regard to the length of life in given circumstances, do not essentially differ. Pliny affords some valuable statistical information, if accurate, regarding the period at which he lived, obtained from an official, and, apparently, authentic source, the census, directed by the emperor Vespasian, in the year 76 of the Christian era. From this we learn that, at the time of the computation, there were, in the part of Italy comprised between the Apennines and the Po, 124 individuals aged 100 years and upwards, viz. 54 of 100 years, 57 of 110, 2 of 125, 4 of 130, 4 of 135 to 137, and 3 of 140. At Parma, a man was living aged 120, and 2 aged 130; at Faenza, a female aged 132; and at a small town near Placentia, called Velleiacium, lived 6 persons aged 110 years each, and 4 of 120. These estimates, however, do not accord with those of Ulpian, who seems to have taken especial care to be

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come acquainted with the facts of the case. His researches prove that the expectation of life in Rome, at that time, was much less than it now is in London, or in any of our cities. Hufeland, indeed, in his Macrobiotics, asserts that the tables of Ulpian agree perfectly with those afforded by the great cities of Europe, and that they exhibit the probabilities of life in ancient Rome to have been the same as those of modern London. But doctor F. Bisset Hawkins, in his Elements of Medical Statistics (London, 1829), says that the tables, kept by the censors for 1000 years, and constituting registers of population, sex, age, disease, &c., according to Ulpian (who was a lawyer, and a minister of Alexander Severus), refer only to free citizens, and that, to draw a just comparison between Rome and London, it would be necessary to take, among the inhabitants of the latter city, only those who were similarly circumstanced, viz. those whose condition is easy; in which case, the balance would be greatly in favor of modern times. Mr. Finlayson has ascertained, from very extensive observation on the decrement of life prevailing among the nominees of the Tontines, and other life annuities, granted by the authority of parliament, during the last 40 years, that the expectation of life is above 50 years for persons thus situated, which affords the easy classes of England a superiority of 20 years above even the easy classes among the Romans. The mean term of life among the easy classes of Paris is, at present, 42 years, which gives them an advantage of 12 years above the Romans. In the third century of the Christian era, the expectation of life in Rome was as follows: From birth to 20, there was a probability of 30 years; from 20 to 25, of 28 years; from 25 to 30, 25 years; from 30 to 35, 22 years; from 35 to 40, 20 years; from 40 to 45, 18 years; from 45 to 50, 13 years; from 50 to 55, 9 years; from 55 to 60, 7 years; from 60 to 65, 5 years. Farther than this the computation did not extend. The census taken from time to time in England affords us information of an unquestionable character. The first actual enumeration of the inhabitants was made in 1801, and gave an annual mortality of 1 in 44.8. The third and last census was made in 1821, and showed a mortality of 1 to 58. (See Abstract of the Answers and Returns made pursuant to an Act passed in the Year of George IV, &c., by Rickman.) The mortality then had decreased considerably within 20 years. In France, the annual deaths were, in 1781, 1 in 29; in 1802, 1

in 30; in 1823, 1 in 40. In the Pays de Vaud, the mortality is 1 to 49; in Sweden and Holland, 1 to 48; in Russia, 1 to 41; in Austria, 1 to 38. Wherever records have been kept, we find that mortality has decreased with civilization. Perhaps a few more persons reach extreme old age among nations in a state of little cultivation; but it is certain that more children die, and the chance of life, in general, is much less. In Geneva, records of mortality have been kept since 1590, which show that a child born there has, at present, five times greater expectation of life than one born three centuries ago. A like improvement has taken place in the salubrity of large towns. The annual mortality of London, in 1700, was 1 in 25; in 1751, 1 in 21; in 1801, and the 4 years preceding, 1 in 35; in 1811, 1 in 38; and in 1821, 1 in 40; the value of life having thus doubled, in London, within the last 80 years. In Paris, about the middle of the last century, the mortality was 1 in 25; at present, it is about 1 in 32; and it has

Ages.

been calculated that, in the fourteenth century, it was one in 16 or 17. The annual mortality in Berlin has decreased during the last 50 or 60 years, from 1 in 28 to 1 in 34. The mortality in Manchester was, about the middle of the last century, 1 in 25; in 1770, 1 in 28: 40 years afterwards, in 1811, the annual deaths were diminished to 1 in 44; and, in 1821, they seem to have been still fewer. In the middle of the last century, the mortality of Vienna was 1 in 20; it has not, however, improved in the same proportion as some of the other European cities. According to recent calculation, it is, even now, 1 in 224, or about twice the proportion of Philadelphia, Manchester or Glasgow. Many years ago, Mr. Finlayson drew up the following table, to exhibit the difference in the value of life, at two periods of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Had it been calculated for 1830, the results would have been still more remarkable.

So that the Increase of Vitality is in the inverse Ratio of 100 to

1789.