The _Central_ or _Octagon Hall_ is an elegant and well lighted apartment eighty feet in height. It is covered by a groined roof ornamented with 250 bosses.
The _Clock Tower_ is forty feet square and 320 feet high. The Palace Clock in this tower is an eighty-day clock, striking the hours and chiming the quarters upon eight bells. Its four dials on the tower are each thirty feet in diameter.
From the Houses of Parliament we went over to see Westminster Abbey, which is on the opposite side of the street. The contrast between those buildings is so striking, that old Westminster seemed to be quite an ordinary edifice. As I looked at its weather-beaten and moss-covered walls, and its small proportions as compared with the grand edifice which we had just left; I speculated what the old stable-like building might look like on the inside. We had not entered long before I observed that it was somewhat larger than I had imagined. It is 416 feet long, 203 feet across the transepts, and 101 feet 8 inches to the roof.
Back of the high altar is Edward the Confessor's Chapel containing the graves and monuments of nine kings and queens. In this chapel are the two _Coronation Chairs_ upon which all the sovereigns of Great Britain have been crowned since the death of Henry III., (by whom Westminster Abbey was built), beginning with the coronation of his son? Edward I., and Queen Eleanor, October 19th, 1274. One of these chairs has for a seat the venerable stone on which the Scottish kings had been crowned at Scone from time immemorial; but which together with the regalia of Scotland, Edward I. brought with him as trophies in 1296. "This stone is 26 inches long, 16 inches wide, and 11 inches thick."
In the "Poet's Corner" we joined a party and were guided through the chapels.
In Henry VII.'s Chapel we found a very beautiful effigy of the Princess Sophia lying in an alabaster cradle. This infant princess was the daughter of James I., and is not mentioned by some historians, having died at a very tender age.
This chapel contains many royal tombs. Among others are the altar-tomb, with effigy of the mother of Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots; tomb, with effigy of Queen Elizabeth (her sister, Mary, being buried in the same grave); and the tomb, with a fine effigy of Mary, Queen of Scots, erected by her son, King James IV., of Scotland, (being James I. of England). The face of this image is very beautiful, and generally recognized as a genuine likeness of the Queen. Oliver Cromwell's bones were speedily ejected from this chapel at the Restoration.