despaired of the Banqueting House. The flames broke in on the
south of that beautiful hall, and were with great difficulty
extinguished by the exertions of the guards, to whom Cutts,
mindful of his honourable nickname of the Salamander, set as good
an example on this night of terror as he had set in the breach of
Namur. Many lives were lost, and many grievous wounds were
inflicted by the falling masses of stone and timber, before the
fire was effectually subdued. When day broke, the heaps of
smoking ruins spread from Scotland Yard to the Bowling Green,
where the mansion of the Duke of Buccleuch now stands. The
Banqueting House was safe; but the graceful columns and festoons
designed by Inigo were so much defaced and blackened that their
form could hardly be discerned. There had been time to move the
most valuable effects which were moveable. Unfortunately some of
Holbein's finest pictures were painted on the walls, and are
consequently known to us only by copies and engravings. The books
of the Treasury and of the Privy Council were rescued, and are
still preserved. The Ministers whose offices had been burned down
were provided with new offices in the neighbourhood. Henry the
Eighth had built, close to St. James's Park, two appendages to
the Palace of Whitehall, a cockpit and a tennis court. The
Treasury now occupies the site of the cockpit, the Privy Council
Office the site of the tennis court.

Notwithstanding the many associations which make the name of
Whitehall still interesting to an Englishman, the old building
was little regretted. It was spacious indeed and commodious, but
mean and inelegant. The people of the capital had been annoyed by
the scoffing way in which foreigners spoke of the principal
residence of our sovereigns, and often said that it was a pity