Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/239

 THE TOWER.

��THE Tower, more than any other locality, seems the historic embodiment of England, in its majesty and its mystery, its glories, its treasons, and its mistakes. From the time of the fierce Norman conqueror, the sighing of the prisoner, and the voice of the oppressor, like the wailing dirge and the shriek of the trumpet, have discordantly mingled within its walls.

Covering an area of twelve acres, with massive and irregular fortifications, its principal modern uses are as an arsenal, a fastness for the regalia, and a reposi tory for the memorial of things that were. Its objects of interest in these different departments are almost without number. Still to me, from a deficiency of mil itary impulse, some that were the most zealously ex hibited, proved the least congenial ; and I gazed with more of surprise than exultation, on two hundred thou sand stand of arms, arranged in an imposing manner, and quantities of cannon, the captured treasures of many lands. The corroded guns of the Royal George, drawn by the diving-bell from their long sojourn in the deep, awakened recollections of the plaintive poem of Cowper,

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