CHAPTER VI.
Hail! venerable pile! with awe I tread The sacred mansion of th' illustrious dead! Where rise, o'er forms now mould'ring into dust, The "storied urn" and "animated West."-- Beneath the fretted dome, aspiring high, Here monarchs, heroes, poets, sages, lie! "Deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue," Here sleeps the bard with those whom erst he sung; And all consigned to one impartial doom, Lo! kings and subjects levelled in the tomb! IN a perambulation westward, our friends shortly reached the precinct of Westminster Abbey, or the collegiate Church of Saint Peter; the most ancient religious structure in the metropolis.
Divested of fabulous narration, its history is briefly as follows.

Its name is obviously derived from its situation, in the west, and from its original destination as the church of a monastery.

It was founded by Sebert, king of the East Saxons; was destroyed afterwards by the Danes; was subsequently re-built by king Edgar in 958; the church was again re-built by Edward the Confessor in 1065; and by Pope Nicholas II.

it was constituted a place of inauguration of the English Monarchs.

Henry III.