who, before that time, usually assembled in the chapter-house
belonging to the Abbey, when the Parliament met at Westminster. The
Painted Chamber lies between the House of Lords and the House of
Commons, and here the committees of both houses usually meet at a
conference; but neither this nor the other remaining apartments of
this Palace of Westminster have anything in them that merit a
particular description.

The open place usually called Charing Cross, from a fine cross which
stood there before the grand rebellion, is of a triangular form,
having the Pall Mall and the Haymarket on the north-west, the Strand
on the east, and the street before Whitehall on the south. In the
middle of this space is erected a brazen equestrian statue of King
Charles I., looking towards the place where that prince was murdered
by the rebels, who had erected a scaffold for that purpose before
the gates of his own palace. This statue is erected on a stone
pedestal seventeen feet high, enriched with his Majesty's arms,
trophy-work, palm-branches, &c., enclosed with an iron palisade, and
was erected by King Charles II. after his restoration. The brick
buildings south-east of Charing Cross are mostly beautiful and
uniform, and the King's stables in the Mews, which lie north of it,
and are now magnificently rebuilding of hewn stone, will probably
make Charing Cross as fine a place as any we have in town;
especially as it stands upon an eminence overlooking Whitehall.

The Banqueting-house stands on the east side of the street adjoining
to the great gate of Whitehall on the south. This edifice is built
of hewn stone, and consists of one stately room, of an oblong form,
upwards of forty feet in height, the length and breadth
proportionable, having galleries round it on the inside, the ceiling