The Delaware ledger., 1883-08-25
The Tower of London.
Its Exceptional Place Among the
Great Edlfloes ofthe World.

hOuuOu ID plOWlJ dWdhtulllB W ste
that it is not only the biggest and the
richest city in the world but in many
ways the grandest and the most his
toric. Rome has her ruins Paris has
her boulevards, palaces and quays !;
Moscow has her Kremlin, and Constanti-
nople her minarets and domes. Each
of these, and, perhaps, some famous
cities in Italy or Spain, are superior to
London in the single element of beauty,
of magnihcence or age. But the great
ness of London lies in its historic con-
tinuity, in the survival of its true Or
ganic centres in all their essential
character. 1t possesses in the Abbey,
in Westminster Hall, and in the Tower
three of the noblest buildings in the
world all of them have an unbroken
history of eight centuries all are still
devoted to the uses for which they were
designed, and for 800 years they have
all been the local seats of our national
existence. These three great monu-
ments are bound up with each other as
well as bound up with the history of
England. AS cathedral, hall and castle
no one of them has any superior in Eu-
rope. But, in the way that they are
inwoven with the greatness, the genius,
the poetry, the destinies of the country,
as also in length and continuity of ser
vice, no one has its equal in Europe.
The city which possesses all three has
at once dignity of her own nor need
we think of st. Paul's and the Temple,
the Guildhall and the Palace of West
minister, the Parks, the bridges and
the docks, to believe that we are truly
citizens of no mean city. Neither mud,
nor smoke, nor stucco-neither vest
ries nor railways can make London
mean. For in the mass, in the anti
guilty, in the historic splendor of her
national monument, in the halo which
the heroism, the crimes and the imagi-
nation of eight centuries have shed over
them London remains to the thought
full spirit the most eL'rahle city of the
modern world.
And now, it seems, London has an
Edile. We have now Minister OF
the Crown who conceives it to be part
of his duty to preserve, cherish and
open to the public our great public
monuments. 1t belongs to our nation
al habits that an English Minister of
Public Works should regard his office
as a sort of society for the preservation
of ancient buildings rather than as a
syndicate for the destruction and trans
formation of ancient cities, which is
the fixed idea of the Continental Hauss-
mann. These Attilas and Genghis
Khans Of modern society, with the aid
of the railway and building companies
who form their natural allies, are
rapidly achieving the Haussmanniza.
tion, and not only of Paris, but of Rome,
Vienna, Milan, Florence and every
medieval city of Europe. 1t is a com
fort to think that, where Projects
Mayors and Town Councils everywhere
on the Continent are seeking to make
their cities fair imitation of New
York, our First Commissioner of Works
is occupied in preserving to us our anci
ent monuments in the form in which
they were built. And it is not little
curious that at the present moment he
is busy about the preservation of al
three of our great monuments. HI
has just revealed to us what West
minister Hall was in the days of th,
Normans. He has still before him th,
cruel problem of refacing the Abbey
And now he is showing us the Tower
not alas as it was when it still served
the Tudor Kings as a palace, but freeC
from the eyesore with which the stupit
vandalism of the last hundred years ha,
loaded it.
The Tower is the Oldest of the thre
great monuments of London, an,
assuredly it stands at the head Of al
buildings of its order in the world. l
is the most perfect extant example of
feudal castle of the first class, contin
uously used as fortress by the sam
dynasty, and as seat of the sam
Government since the times of tn
Crusades. 1t is, in fact, the civil build
ing in the world which can show tn
longest and most splendid history. TIL
Pantheon at Rome, few of the grea
Basilicas, the Byzantine Church of th
Holy Wisdom, and few religion
! buildings on the Continent, can show
: longer life but there is no civic built
ing, being neither a ruin nor restore
ruin, but still great seat of govern
: ment, which can show so vast r
cord.
The Tower of London has entert
d upon the ninth century of its continI
Il Gus life in the service of the Engli,
= Crown. When the White Tower fir
rose beside the Thames, as the buttre
and symbol of the Conquest, the natio
we call France, Germany and Spain d
not exist. 1t had already seen cent
n ries of great and memorable things /
u fore the oldest of the palaces and ha
l. of Europe had their foundations lai
Men talk of the traditions of the Krel
= lin, the Vatican and the Escurial b
the first balf of the wild history of
D. Tower was over before a stone "
d laid of these vast piles. The races W
Is raised the fantastic domes of Mosc'
al or the minarets of Constantinople w
10 wandering herdsmen and robber tril
y in Asia. when the Tower WAS The hol