Stranica 137 [137]
OCR
THE CITY GOVERNMENT IIS style; and a great boon has been conferred on the public by the erection i ee ee ee szü i mteaai . ik Li a of the beautiful reading-room. To this is added a most interesting | museum, in which the curious may see various ancient remains and | relics of all the cities which have successively stood on this site. The late city architect, Sir Horace Jones, deserved great credit for the transformation of the Guildhall, and it _ forms his best monument; for, if he was also responsible for the meat markets, and for the rebuilt | Leadenhall, it will be seen that he was not always equally successful. At one side of the Guildhall entrance we may see some of the ancient buttressing of the fifteenth | century, partly concealed behind the curious building which Jarman, the city architect of the time of Charles II, thought to be Gothic, and which was not greatly amended by Dance in 1789. The old walls of the Guildhall have witnessed some very interesting historical events. Not to go back too far, we may remember that it was here, in the summer of 1483, that Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, assembled the citizens and persuaded them to pass over the children of Edward IV, and to elect Richard of Gloucester king. Shakespeare has made the most of the scene. No enthusiasm was shown for the usurper.
