The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-17 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS.

This House was originally the old Court of Requests, in
which the Masters of the Court received the petitions of
the subjects to the King. The Court or Hall was fitted
up in its recent manner on the occasion of the Union of
Great Britain and Ireland.
The House in which the Peers carried on the business of
the nation was not the whole of the old Court of Requests,
for part of the north end was formed into a lobby, by which
the Commons passed into the Upper House.
The Throne was new on the accession of his late Majesty
George IV.
The House of Lords was a very handsome, if not a splen-
did room. It was of an oblong description, rather smaller
than that of the Commons. In the front next to Abingdon-
street it was decorated with pinnacles.
The celebrated tapestry of the old House of Lords, re-
qresenting the defeat of the Spanish Armada, after being
taken down and cleaned, was used to decorate the walls of
the one which has unfortunately fallen a prey to fire. The
tapestry was greatly admired. It was divided into compart-
ments by frames of brown stained wood ; each compartment
containing a portion of the story. The heads which formed
the border to these compartments, were portraits of the se-
veral gallant Officers who commanded in the English fleet
on that memorable occasion.
The Throne was a large armed chair, beautifully carved
and richly gilt. It was ornamented with crimson velvet and
embroidery. It was always kept covered except when the
King came down, or when there was a Commission to give
assent to Bills.
Between the House of Lords and Commons was the
Painted Chamber, where all the conferences between the
two Houses were held. The room is said to have been Ed-
ward the Confessor's bed-chamber.
The mass of buildings in the Old and New Falace-YarclB,

which constituted the ancient Palace of the Monarchs of
England, erected by Edward the Confessor, were mostly
consumed by fire in the year 1512. The Court afterwards
removed to Whitehall and St. James's.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
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This House was originally a chapel built by King
Stephen, and dedicated to St. Stephen ; hence the name of
St. Stephen's Chapel, so frequently applied to this building.
It was rebuilt in 1347, by Edward 111., and created by
that Monarch into a Collegiate Church, under the Govern-
ment of a Dean and twelve secular priests. Being sur-
rendered to Edward VI., he gave it to the Commons for
their sittings, and it has been applied to that use ever since.
The old House of Commons was formed within the
chapel, chiefly by a floor raised above the pavement, and an
inner roof, considerably below the ancient one. On the
Union with Ireland the House was enlarged by taking
down the entire side walls, except the buttresses which sup-
ported the original roofs, and erecting others beyond, so as
to give one seat in each of the recesses thus formed, by
throwing back part of the walls. A gallery ran along the
west end, and the north and south sides were supported by
slender iron pillars, crowned with gilt Corinthian capitals.
The whole house was lined with oak.
The Speaker's chair stood at some distance from the
wall, towards the upper end of the room : it was slightly
ornamented with gilding, having the King's Arms at the top.
Before the Speaker's chair, with a small interval, was a
table, at which three clerks of the House sat, when Parlia-
ment was sitting, their business being to take minutes of
the proceedings, to read the bills, and petitions, &c.
On the table the Speaker's mace was placed, unless the
House was in Committee. In that case it was put under
the table; and the Speaker then left the chair.
Between the table and the bar was an area, in which a
temporary bar was placed, where witnesses were examined.
There were five rows of seats on each side and at both ends,
upon which Members sat. The seat on the floor on the
Speaker's right hand, was called the Treasury Bench, on
which the chief Members of the Administration sat ; and
the opposite seat was occupied by the leading Members of
the Opposition. The gallery on each side was appropriated
also for the Members, and the front gallery for strangers—
the last scat being devoted to reporters.
The chapel, as finished by Edward 111., is represented as
being of such beauty that antiquaries have again and again
regretted it should have undergone any alteration to form it
into a House of Commons. When the inner walls were
unmasked at the period of the Union with Ireland, by re-
moving the wainscoat to make the alterations, a great part
of the decorations remained. The interior of the walls and
roof of the chapel were curiously wrought and ornamented
with a profusion of gildings and paintings. It appears to
have been divided into compartments of gothic shapes,
each having a border of small gilt roses. At the
east end, including about a third of the length of the
whole chapel, which part was most likely enclosed for
the altar, the entire walls and roof were covered
with gilding and paintings, and presented in the muti-
lated state in which they were seen during the alterations
above alluded to, a superb and beautiful remnant of the fine
arts as they existed in the reign of Edward 111. This,
however, as respected the paintings, could not be very ad-
vanced, for according to the authority of Lord Orford, no
mean writer upon the subject of the fine arts, in his highly
entertaining work " Anecdotes of Painting," the arts had
made but little progress in this country at that remote pe-
riod. The gilding was remarkably solid and highly bur-
nished, and the colours of the paintings vivid, both being
nearly as fresh as when they were executed. One of the
paintings is represented as possessing merit even in the com-
position ; the subject was, " the Adoration of the Shep-
herds." The Virgin was not devoid of beauty or dignity.
The west front of the chapel was to be seen until the de-
structivi of last night, and it. had a fine Gothic window.
Beneath the house, in passages or apartments appro-
priated to various uses, were to be seen considerable re-
mains, in great perfection, of an under chapel of curious
workmanship, and the entire side of a cloister, the roof be-
ing of great beauty. A small court of the palace was not
disturbed at the Union ; and it, with other buildings, formed
part of the dwelling of the Speaker. Between the House
and the Thames the Speaker's garden is situated. Within
the House were a great many rooms for the Officers of
State, clerks, &c., besides numerous committee-rooms. In
the year 1816 the floor was newly laid.
THE LIBRARIES.

The libraries, especially that of the House of Lords,
were exceedingly extensive, consisting not only of books
connected with legislation and public records, but uponsg,e-
neral literature. Many of the books were superbly bound.
During the Session, Peers frequently came to read in the
library in a morning. It was only in the course of last
Session, or the Session before, when Lord Ellenborough,
having occasion to refer to a volume in the library durittg-43..
discussion, passed an eulogium on the excellent collection df
books which their Lordships possessed.
Besides the loss of so many valuable volumes, there must

have been destroyed a vast mass of documents, such as
Parliamentary rolls and writs of summonses, which can
never be supplied. ?The early Acts of Parliament, we be-
lieve, were all recently printed in a valuable collection of
records belonging to both Houses of Parliament, so that, as
regards the matter, that will not be lost.