commanding the Thames from St. Saviour's Creek to St. Olave's Wharf,
stands the Tower; a mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient
and most poetic pile in Europe.... The Tower has an attraction for us akin
to that of the house in which we were born, the school in which we were
trained. Go where we may, that grim old edifice on the Pool goes with us;
a part of all we know, and of all we are. Put seas between us and the
Thames, this Tower will cling to us, like a thing of life. It colors
Shakespeare's page. It casts a momentary gloom over Bacon's story. Many of
our books were written in its vaults; the Duke of Orleans's "Poesies,"
Raleigh's "Historie of the World," Eliot's "Monarchy of Man," and Penn's
"No Cross, No Crown."

Even as to length of days, the Tower has no rival among places and
prisons, its origin, like that of the Iliad, that of the Sphinx, that of
the Newton Stone, being lost in the nebulous ages, long before our
definite history took shape. Old writers date it from the days of Caesar;
a legend taken up by Shakespeare and the poets in favor of which the name
of Caesar's tower remains in popular use to this very day. A Roman wall
can even yet be traced near some parts of the ditch. The Tower is
mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle in a way not incompatible with the fact
of a Saxon stronghold having stood upon this spot. The buildings as we
have them now in block and plan were commenced by William the Conqueror;
and the series of apartments in Caesar's tower--hall, gallery,
council-chamber, chapel--were built in the early Norman reigns, and used
as a royal residence by all our Norman kings. What can Europe show to
compare against such a tale?

Set against the Tower of London--with its 800 years of historic life, its
1,900 prisons of traditional fame--all other palaces and prisons appear
like things of an hour. The oldest bit of palace in Europe, that of the