3.R.
i., iſ: i: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
- ºr
--
*
º
É
i
| i , , ; ; ; ; , ;
|-}}, eiº, ºil.’’
itſN
&e
ERSÍTY OFMiſhits, sº
rºmºtº
& YººHº
- ſily |IIIITITIE
7 of THE
AN
Sºº ( ))
- Žº
... ºn
cº-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-º-
Tſūrmīrūmmºn
r rºl,
ºš.
ſº
º
#
#
E.
–
-
iſº
~

T) A
(, Y 5
. A
H & 6
THE
NORTHERN HEIGHTS OF LONDON
O R.
Þigtorical ?iggotiations
() tº
HAMPSTEAD HIGHGATE, MUSWELL HILL
HORNSEY. AND ISLINGTON,
13Y.
WILLIAM HowITT,
AU'I'll Olt () tº
* VISITS TO REMAIRRAPLE PLACES.”
LONDON :
LONG MANS, G REEN, A N D C O.
1869.
PREFA CE.
THE OUTSKIRTS OF LONDON, in almost all directions, are rich
in historical and biographical reminiscences. The Northern
suburbs are amongst the most affluent in this respect.
Before the aristocratic class acquired the tendency to spread
itself over the flats of the West, the City itself and the hills
which arose on its northern confines were the chosen abodes
of its nobles and wealthy merchants. Hampstead and High-
gate bear even to-day, amid all the changes of the last two
centuries, the traces of this former predilection of the affluent
dwellers in and frequenters of the metropolis; and Islington,
if possessing fewer of the residences of the nobles of secular
rank, is still more abounding in the memories of the intel-
lectual heads of society. Its easy approach at all times from
the City had made it at Once the resort and the abode of a
great number and a great variety of those who lived and
worked there. These facts being pressed on my attention
by my own residence for some years on these ‘ Northern
Heights of London, have led me to the attempt to bring the
most prominent of the historicºincidents and characters into
wi PR.EFACE.
one connected view, freed from much of the mere topographi-
cal matter which, in the local records, envelopes them. In
fact, my intention has been to introduce them to the public
as a third series of my ‘Visits to Remarkable Places.”
In carrying out this plan I have, of course, availed myself
of all existing authorities within reach, local and general;
and therefore, to prevent the necessity of continual reference,
here state that I have made as free use of the local historians
as of the national ones, as they have made of those who went
before them. I have drawn from Maitland, Norden, Stow,
Bark, Prickett, Nelson, Lewes, Tomlin, Lysons, etc., what
was necessary for my purpose. Besides these sources, those
of private societies and individuals have been very kindly
opened to me. To many gentlemen, and ladies too, of the in-
cluded neighbourhoods, I beg to express my grateful sense of
the ready kindness with which they have responded to my en-
quiries, and by which they have so greatly enriched the con-
tents of this volume. To John E. Gardner, Esq., of St. John’s
Wood Park, I must, in a more particular manner, express my
thanks for the great trouble he has taken in searching out
and selecting subjects of illustration from his most magni-
ficent collection of Original drawings, old and new prints,
and photographs of the most remarkable buildings, past and
present, views of streets and localities, customs and characters,
of London and its neighbourhood. The use made of this
most liberal and friendly opportunity will be seen in the list
of the illustrations of this volume.
*
PR.EFACE. vii
After all, there must be many imperfections and little in-
accuracies in a first impression of a work of this nature.
The local memories of things and persons on the Outlying
shores of such a vast ocean of life as London, fade out of the
general mind with a rapidity only equalled by that of the
spread of population into the suburbs, and the consequent
metamorphoses of their surface. By any correction of such
accidental errors, and by any information calculated to render
this work more valuable to the public, I need scarcely say
that I shall be greatly obliged.
W. H.
ESHER, SURREY, February, 1869.
C O N T E N T S.
is . . . PAGE
THE MANOR OF HAMPSTEAD.—History of the grant of this Manor—Given to
, the Convent of Westminster—Account of it in Doomsday Book—Manor
of Belsize granted to the Monks of Westminster by Sir Roger Brabazon
in Edward III.'s reign—A right of lodging his retainers in Hampstead
and Hendon granted by Henry IV. to Lord Scrope of Masham—Wolsey
resting at Hendon Place on his way to York—Hendon Place pulled down
in 1756–Eſampstead Manor since the Reformation—Granted to Sir
Thomas Wroth by Edward VI. – Lady Wroth, niece of Sir Philip
Sidney, and author of ‘Urania’—Sold to Sir Baptist Hickes, Wiscount
Campden, in 1620–Transferred to the Noels by marriage—The Noels
Earls of Gainsborough—The Hon. Mrs. Baptist Noel establishes The
Wells—The Manor of Hampstead sold to Sir William Langhorne—
descends to Margaret Maryon, and again to Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson,
IBart.—Procession of Horns at Charlton Manor—The old Manor House
at Hampstead . ge tº º * . . , 3–9
MANOR OF BELSIZE.—Granted to the Waads (or Wades) after the dissolution of
Monasteries—Sir Armigell Wade, Clerk of the Council to Henry VIII.
and Edward VI.-sailed to America in 1536—Sir William Wade, Ambas-
sador from Queen Elizabeth to Spain—his independent conduct—
employed at the Courts of France, Portugal, and Denmark, and in
treating with the Queen of Scots—Lieutenant of the Tower, &c.—super-
seded by Carr, Earl of Somerset, in order to the murder of Sir Thomas
Overbury—his epitaph—The Manor passed from the widow of Sir
William Wade, Lady Anne Wade, to the son of Lord Hemfleet—Lord
Wotton of Wotton—Desperate attack on Belsize House by robbers in
Lord Wotton's time—Visit of Pepys to Belsize House in 1668–The
Manor devolved to the Earl of Chesterfield—House rebuilt—The Estate
sold by Lord Chesterfield, and divided—House pulled down in 1852–
In 1718 occupied by Mr. Povey, a singular character and writer
—his proceedings towards the French Ambassador and the Prince of
Wales . 10–16
BELSIZE As A PLACE OF AMUSEMENT.-Hampstead formerly inhabited chiefly
by washerwomen—Became a watering-place at the commencement of
the eighteenth century—Dissipation at the Wells, the Heath Races, and
at Belsize House—Ben Jonson’s ‘Tale of a Tub’—The Comedy of
‘Hampstead Heath'—extract from it—Gardens and sports at Belsize—
X CONTENTS,
PACH]?
Howell, called the ‘Welsh Ambassador,’ the landlord of Belsize—
Gambling and immorality there—Deer-hunt in the Park—Satiric poem
on Belsize House quoted—Folly houses—Belsize one of them—Vauxhall
Gardens an imitation of Belsize—Troop of armed men to resist the
bighwaymen haunting the road—Reconverted to a private house—
Murder of Mr. Delarue—House demolished about 1852 . g 16–24
THE WELLS AT HAMPSTEAD.—The Wells in Well Walk—recommended as
medicinal—the water sold in London—Dr. Gibbons, the advocate of
Hampstead water, satirized by Garth, in his ‘Dispensary’—Musical
entertainments at the Wells—The Long Room—Chapel, and cheap
weddings—Races and fairs on the Heath—put down for their immo-
rality—Raffling shop denounced by the ‘Tatler’—The Hon. Susanna
Noel grants six acres to the poor of Hampstead lying around the Wells
—The Long Room converted into a chapel in 1733 e * 24–29
THE MINERAL WELLs NORTH OF LONDON.—Music-houses—Coleman's Music-
house in Lamb's Conduit Street—Miles's Music-house at Sadler's Wells—
Islington Spa-account of it by Sir John Hawkins, etc.—Beer brewed from
Sadler's Wells water recommended by the doctors—The ‘Weekly Comedy”
—A monstrous eater—Character of the frequenters of the Wells—
Murder of Lieutenant Waite at Sadler's Wells—Francis Forcer, occu-
pier of the Wells—these described by William Garbott in his ‘New
River, a Poem’—Old view of Sadler's Wells—description of it in
“ Universal Harmony, or, The Gentlemen and Ladies' Campaign,’ 1745—
The old house pulled down and rebuilt in 1765–Liquors served during
the performance in the Theatre—Further history of Sadler's Wells—
husband of Mrs. Siddons a proprietor—purchased by Charles Dibdin
and a company in 1802—‘Naumachia’acted there, 1804 . & 29–36
ISLINGTON SPA—The Clerks’ Well—Bagnigge Wells—House inhabited by
Nell Gwynne — Kilburn Wells — St. Chad's Well — The River of
Wells, &c. & * & * e e 36–38
RILBURN PRIORY-originally a Hermitage—made over to the Abbey of West-
minster—a nunnery for ladies of rank—Superintendence usurped by the
Bishops of London—The numnery falls into destitution—its condition at
the dissolution—made over by Henry VIII. to the Knights of St. John
of Jerusalem—granted to the Earl of Sussex—Manor of Shuttup Hill
granted to Sir Roger Cholmeley—Subsequent changes . & 38–42
HAMPSTEAD HEATH AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.—Attempts of Lords of Manors to
claim the feesimple of commons—More recent doctrine—Rights of the
public asserted—Contest of the people of Hampstead with Sir Thomas
Wilson—Hampstead Heath a resort of wolves in the twelfth century—
Frequent highway robberies on it at the beginning of this century—
Brave resistance of a London tradesman in 1803—The Hampstead Coach
robbed at the same time—A Bill filed by a highwayman against his accom-
plice for division of profits—specimen of the Bill—the fate of both the
CONTENTS. Xi
PAGE
robbers, and of their lawyer—Robberies on Finchley Common—
Townsend the Bow-street officer's evidence on the decrease of highway
robberies . © g º . g * tº 42–52
THE GROVES of HAMPSTEAD–Well Walk—John Keats there seen by Hone
—House of Mary Ann Clarke . g • t e 53–55
LorºD ERSKINE AT EVERGREEN HILL.—Biographical account of him—his late
entry into the legal profession—his sudden and permanent triumph before
Lord Mansfield—pronounced the most eloquent pleader at the Bar—
defends Admiral Keppel and Lord George Gordon—enters the House of
Commons—contest for the Rights of Juries with Mr. Justice Buller—Case
similar to that of William Penn and William Mead—Erskine's noble stand
occasions the Parliamentary settlement of the Rights of Juries—his defence
of Stockdale—of Thomas Paine—of Perry and Gray, of the ‘Morning
Chronicle’—of Hardy, Thelwall, and Tooke—Lord Campbell's opinion of
Erskine's position at the English bar— his account of his private life
—his assertions of public liberty in Parliament—defence of William Stone
and the Bishop of Bangor—of Thomas Paine again—noble eulogium on
the Christian religion—defence of Hatfield, who shot at the King, as insane
—made Lord Chancellor in 1806—lost the Great Seal again in 1807–
advocates concessions to the Catholics—brings in a Bill for Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals—the cause taken up by Martin, and a Bill passed
—is invested with the Scottish Order of the Thistle—opposes the despo-
tism of the Ministers of the Prince Regent, and Lord Castlereagh’s “Six
Acts'—defends Queen Caroline in his place in the Peers——his formation
of his house and grounds at Evergreen Hill—his great parties—noblemen
who were entertained by him—fondness for animals, and defence of
them—thrashes a man on Hampstead Heath for cruelty to a dog—his
witty Sallies—the elephant and his trunk—six-and-thirty editions of
his ‘Causes and Consequences of War’—writes a romance called
‘Armata, '-Lord Brougham's estimate of Lord Erskine—Last scene with
Burke—Lord Erskine's children . * e & e 56–82
NoFTII END, HAMPSTEAD HEATH-Retreat of Lord Chatham—his strange
ailment—disastrous consequences of it—Aikenside at North-End—
Modern authors resident there—Sir Fowell Buxton º e 82–94.
HAMPSTEAD HEATH CONTINUED : THE WALE or HEALTH–Its quietness broken
up–great hotel there—vast resort of holiday people to the Heath—the
old tea-drinkings—Mr. Davenport Hill, late Recorder of Birmingham,
resided there—Leigh Hunt once resided in the Vale of Health—visited
by Shelley and Keats there—unhappy fates of Shelley and Keats—harsh.
treatment of Shelley—extraordinary scene on , the Heath through
Shelley's benevolence—Heath Lodge: Mrs. Lessingham . * 94–110
HAMPSTEAD HEATH: MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JOHN SADLEIR e 110–119
THE PONDs gº * e sº g g e 119–121
THE VILLAGE OF HAMPSTEAD.—Origin of the name of Hampstead—Fine
views from the neighbourhood—Old houses and gardens . 121, 122
xii CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE UPPER FLASK–formerly a publichouse—Clarissa Harlowe represented
by Richardson as entertained there—The Kit-cat Club held there—The
old mulberry-tree—the property of the Countess of Warwick—Steevens,
the annotator of Shakspeare, lived there—singular biography of George
Steevens—miserable end—Miss Hawkins's account of him—fact men-
tioned in the ‘Universal Museum ' of 1764 * te . 122–135
CELEBRATED MEN MENTIONED BY LYsons AS ONCE RESIDENT AT HAMPSTEAD–
JUDGE's AvKNUE—BRANCH HILL LODGE, residence of Lord Loughborough
—ancient painted glass once there—Grove LoDGE—MoNTAGU GROVE,
once residence of Edward Montagu, and of Richard Richards, Chief
Justice' of Chester.—THE OLD WorkHousm, once residence of Booth,
Wilks, and Colley Cibber * * > e. & e 135–140
THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD–Originally a Chapel-of-ease to the Church of
Hendon—became a separate Church in 1561—rebuilt in 1747—one of its
most remarkable incumbents, the Rev. Dr. Warren of Charlton—succeed-
ing incumbents—the present incumbent, the Rev. Charlton Lane. In the
Church are monuments or memorial tablets of Dr. Anthony Askew—the
wife of Lord Erskine—the mother of Mr. Tierney, M.P. In the Church-
yard are memorials of Daniel Bedingfield, Clerk of Parliament in 1637
—Lady Elizabeth Norton—Lord and Lady Delamere—Hon. Elizabeth
Booth—John Harrison the chronometer-maker—Miss Joanna Baillie, her
mother and sister—Sir James Mackintosh—Henry Cort—Constable the
artist. In the Register are the names of Sir Arthur Athye—a son of
Sir William Jones—Tyke Marrow—Thomas Jewon, actor—John Pate,
actor—a Countess of Pembroke—Christopher Bullock, actor, &c.—Dr.
George Sewell—the Earl of Buchan (1745)—the Countess of Buchan
— Joseph Dorman, dramatic writer — James Pitt — William Popple,
—James MacArdell and Charles Spooner, mezzotinto engravers—Henry
Barnes, legal author — Sir William Duncan, physician to George III.
—James Pettit Andrew, historian, and advocate of chimney-sweep reform
—Remarkable cases of longevity. BENEFACTORS OF HAMPSTEAD–
John Stock leaves money to educate and apprentice orphans—Elizabeth,
Wiscountess Campden, leaves money for the poor, and for apprenticing
children—An unknown benefactress—The Hon. Susanna Noel and her
son, the Earl of Gainsborough, gave the site of Hampstead Wells and
six acres of land—Robinson, Bishop of London, leaves 100%. , 140–151
THE OLD MANOR HousB–Henry Bradshaw Fearon , * . 151–153
FROGNAL HALL–Its successive inhabitants—FROGNAL PRIORY-Mr. Memory-
Corner Thompson — Gregory, “the Satirist’—present condition—OLD
WEST-END–Anecdotes of the Fair there—INDEPENDENT CHAPEL–The
Countess of Huntingdom--THE LOWER FLASK AND FLASK WALK–for-
merly a Fair there—The Chicken-House—formerly resembling a farm-
house—curious painted glass formerly in the windows—portraits and
memorandum regarding James I, and the Duke of Buckingham there—
CONTENTS. xiii
PAGE
frequented by Lord Mansfield and his legal friends at one time—becomes
a resort of thieves—Gale, the antiquary, died there—remains of the house.
— OLD PRESBYTERIAN CHAPEL — Mr. Barbauld once minister — NEW
UNITARIAN CHAPEL–NEW PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH-CATHOLIC CHAPEL–
The Morell family—French refugees—CHRIST CHURCH-Origin of the
Sunday School at Hampstead . e * º º 153–166
THE AIKIN FAMILY AND MRs. BARBAULD–Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld—Sir
Walter Scott at Hampstead—Dr. Beddoe's cure of disease by the breath
of cows—Cows taken into bedrooms—The Barbaulds' astonishment at
the sight of cigars—Mrs. Barbauld and Wedgwood—Dr. Aikin and Miss
Lucy Aikin º - e * e - ... 167–175
ARTISTS RESIDENT AT HAMPSTEAD–Miss Margaret Gillies—Mr. Clarkson
Stanfield — Mr. Herbert — House formerly occupied by the Messrs.
Longman . * e & © t - . 175—178
House of SIR HARRY WANE AND BISHOP BUTLER—now the Soldiers' Orphan
Asylum—Memoir of Sir Harry Vane—his noble character—his defence
of the British Constitution, and of religious liberty-–his trial and exe-
cution—Bishop Butler afterwards occupied this house—stained-glass in
the windows in his time—house pulled down, and rebuilt as the Soldiers'
Orphan Asylum . e e • º - . 179–191
RossLYN HousL AND LORD ROSSLYN-formerly Shelford Lodge—purchased
by Wedderburn, Lord Rosslyn, and named Rosslyn Lodge — since
inhabited by Sir Francis Freeling—School for Soldiers' Daughters—
Memoir and character of Lord Rosslyn — his violent attack on
Dr. Franklin— a ruthless tool of a despotic government—the first to
deny the right of the poor to glean in harvest-fields—his ostentatious
style of living—Violent opponent of peace with the Americans—also
with France--thorough opponent of Reform—his strenuous endeavours to
condemn Horne Tooke, Hardy, and Thelwall—estimates of his character
by George III., and Lords Camden and Brougham—Other old Houses at
Eſampstead—Queen Elizabeth's House . * º . 191–211
THE CONDUIT, SHEPHERDs' FIELDs — The old water-carriers — HAMPSTEAD
GREEN-Collins, the painter, lived on Hampstead Green for a time—
House of Sir Rowland Hill—Grose, the antiquary, killed on Haverstock
|Hill—Moll King, celebrated by Hogarth, resident at Hampstead—Dick
Turpin practised there . t º e º 211–213
SIR RICHARD STEELE's CoTTAGE-once occupied by Sir Charles Sedley—Notice
of Sir Charles—his profligacy—companion of Charles II.-his reform,
and admirable speech in Parliament—his satirical poems and dramas—
his descendants some time ago living in Nottinghamshire—Sir Richard
Steele's letter from this cottage regarding Sir Charles Sedley—Many of
the papers of the ‘Spectator’ written by Steele hero—Steele the father of
our periodical literature—his labours associated with those of Addison—
beneficial influence of his writings in the ‘Spectator,’ ‘Tatler,' etc.—
*
xiv
CONTENTS.
denounces the barbarities of his time—prosecuted by Government for his
plain speaking—expelled from his seat in Parliament—married a Welsh
lady—his struggles and necessities—retired to his wife's estate in Wales,
PAGE
and died there—The cottage on Haverstock Hill pulled down in 1867. 213–227
DRIMROSE HILL — Primrose Lane—Murder of Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey
—a great mystery mever cleared up—Primrose Hill formerly called Bar-
row Hill, supposed to be the scene of a battle—Chalk Farm, adjoining it,
famous for duels—Singular occurrence in 1805, near Primrose Hill. 227–23
Biograph.ICAL NOTICES-In 1664 only one family in Hampstead who gave in
DR.
a pedigree–Lord Chief Baron Wylde, who drew up the impeachment
against the Bishops, resident at Hampstead—Sir Geoffrey Palmer, mana-
ger of the evidence against the Earl of Strafford, died at Hampstead in
1670–IIenry Millar murdered on the Heath— the murderer gibbeted
on the spot in 1672—one gibbet-tree remaining—The Right Hon.
Lord Wharton, father of the motorious Duke of Wharton, died here in
1695–96–Dr. Sherlock died here, 1707—Joseph Keble, an eccentric law-
reporter, lived here—William Popple, Esq., Secretary of the Board of
Trade, etc., and a dramatic author, died here in 1722 —Dame Julia
Blackett, a lady of much note, died here—Christopher Bullock, an actor,
died here, 1722—Robert Millingen—Sir George Sewell, translator of
Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses,' etc., died here in 1725—John Gay, the poet, at
Hampstead—John Merry, governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, died
here—Dr. Arbuthnot at Hampstead for his health—Mr. Andrew Pitt
—his curious interview with the Prince of Wales in 1736—received a
letter from Voltaire — Mark Akenside — introduced to Hampstead by
the Hon. Jeremiah Dyson — Dyson and Akenside fellow-students at
Leyden—settled together at North-End—haughty conduct of Akenside
—removes to Bloomsbury Square—Bucke's account of Akenside—great
success of his ‘Pleasures of Imagination’—want of success in practice
at Northampton — generous conduct of Mr. Dyson — Akenside in-
troduced at Court—Miss Hawkins's account of Akenside—his personal
appearance — his treatment of patients in the Hospital of St. Thomas—
•)
*
The Lords Delamere e º e * º & 232–242
Johnson AT HAMPSTEAD–visits his wife at Hampstead — James Pitt
buried here — mentioned in the “Dunciad’— James MacArdell and
Charles Spooner, mezzotinto engravers, buried here—Richard Cromwell,
a descendant of the Protector — his daughters possessed portraits and
other valuables inherited from their great ancestor—James Newnham,
lieutenant in Marlborough's army—fought at Blenheim – died here,
1773—I)r. Anthony Askew, collector of classical works, died hero in
1774 * tº tº º º e * * 242–245
John HARRISON, THE CHRONOMETER MAICER—buried here, 1776—Mr. Isaac
Ware—lived at Hampstead—translator of Palladio’s ‘Architecture,' etc.
—Lady Janetta de Conti died here in 1784—Jenny Diver, the pick-
pocket, died here in 1783—an accomplice of Barrington—her legacy—
CONTENTS. - XV
PAGE
Mr. Thomas Longman, publisher, lived at Hampstead, and died there in
1797—his son, Thomas Longman, killed by a fall from his horse—Admiral.
Barton—his singular history—Dr. George Armstrong, the poet, practised
medicine at Hampstead—his writings—Mrs. Mary Green—Richardlºepper
Arden, Lord Alvanley, resident at Hampstead—Sir Francis Delaval resi-
dent at Hampstead—Lovell Edgeworth's telegraph—Thomas Day, author
of ‘Sandford and Merton,’ resident at Hampstead—Romney, the painter,
at Hampstead—his house and gallery there—died in 1802 at Kendal—
character of his works—Mrs. Tierney, mother of the M.P.-Mrs. Dorothea
Baillie, mother of Dr. Matthew Baillie and Joanna Baillie, died here,
1806 — Dame Joanna Watson and Chief Justice Watson — William
Collins, the painter—his cottage at Hampstead—his rambles in early life
about Hampstead with Morland — anecdotes of Morland—Collins and
Rirton at Highgate and Willesden—Collins settles at Hampstead—visits
Coleridge——Edward Irving—Collins at North-End and Hampstead Green
—removes nearer to the Heath—incidents at Hampstead—removes to
Bayswater—pictures painted and money made by him—Sir David Wilkie
at Hampstead—John Constable—fond of painting Hampstead Heath—
lived in Well Walk—character of his paintings—his tomb in Hampstead
Churchyard—Sir William Beechey resident at Hampstead—Crabbe the
poet—his visits to the Hoares of Hampstead—distinguished people met
there—anecdote of the ‘Black-cock’—Haydon, Leigh Hunt, and Words-
worth—Haydon's fondness for the Heath tº e , 245–271
JoANNA BAILLIE—her good and retiring character—her long life at Hampstead
—Wedgwood's views of Hampstead and Highgate—Fossils, etc. in pos-
session of Mr. Dutton & g g º . te 271-277
HISTORICAL Associations OF HIGHGATE —All-devouring London— its aston-
ishing spread—view of it from Highgate—ancient Forest of Middlesex
—wild cattle—famous for yew-trees—disafforested in 1218–popula-
tion of London at various eras—Henry VIII. prohibits sporting over his
preserves at Westminster—Elizabeth's visits to Highgate—endeavours
of successive monarchs to check the growth of London—similar endea-
vours by Cromwell—war upon hawkers and street-stalls—Sir Matthew
Pſale's calculation of the population of England and Wales—the popula-
tion of London in 1697 and 1801—a Census unknown till the reign of
Elizabeth—progressive growth since—causes of it * . 279–291
OLD AND NEW ASPECTS-For ages Highgate a mere hamlet in the forest—In
the fourteenth century a highway made by the Bishop of London
— placed a toll-gate there, whence High-gate — Bishop's Palace at
Lodge Hill — Remains of episcopal property about Highgate—The
Hermit's Cell—this granted (in 1565) to the new Grammar School en-
dowed by Sir Roger Cholmeley–Pool and road attributed to the Hermit
—The old Chapel-yard—Coleridge's tomb © © . .291–294
HIGHGATE GRAMMAR SCHOOL–founded in 1562 –Charters of the School—the
Original Governors—rule for the appointment of Masters—the ordinances
&l
xvi CONTENTS.
PAGE
regarding the Schoolmaster — charge for admission and books—the
Master's original salary—his house, garden, and land—different advance-
ments of salary—income of property at different periods—number of
scholars on the foundation—improvement of the School under Dr. Dyne
—the poor and retail tradesmen's children shut out of the benefit in-
tended for them—rebuilt in 1866 . g * gº . 294–299
THE OLD CHAPEL–Memorials of persons of distinction—Dr. Lewis Atterbury
—Sir Francis Pemberton, Chief Justice in Charles II.'s reign—Nathaniel
IHobart, son of Chief Justice Hobart—Lady Judith Platt, relict of Sir
Hugh Platt, author of ‘The Garden of Eden, etc.—Members of the
Sprigmell, De la Warre, Mainwaring, and other families—Robert Earl of
Warwick and Ellenor Countess of Sussex—The Blounts of Holloway—
Sir Henry Blount, author of ‘Travels in Turkey,' etc.—fought at Edge-
hill—Thomas Pope Blount, author of ‘Censura celebriorum auctorum,'
etc. — Charles Blount, deistical writer, committed suicide — Sir John
Wollaston, commissioner for the sale of Church lands, and also founder
of Almshouses at Highgate, buried hère, 1658–Lady Ann Peerpoint,
daughter of the Marquis of Dorchester, married here to John La Rosse,
son of the Earl of Rutland—Sir John Pettus, cupbearer to Charles II.-
Charlotte, his daughter—Sir Francis Pemberton and Dame Anne, his
widow— Mr. John Shower, Dissenting minister, author of a work on
Earthquakes—Curious memorial of Christopher Wilkinson, merchant
adventurer—Sir Jeremy Topp--Rev. Edward Yardley, author of ‘Genea-
logy of Christ,' etc.—Richard Browne, citizen and macon of London 299–303
HIGHGATE CHURCH-built in 1832—memorial tablets brought from the old
chapel . § † & . 303, 304
HISTORICAL EVENTS AT HIGHGATE — Duke of Gloucester and other nobles
meet in Hornsey Park in opposition to Richard II.-these nobles ar-
raigned for high treason—Richard II, in 1898, brought prisoner through
Highgate—Henry V. met here by the Lord Mayor of London—Henry VII.
met also by the Lord Mayor returning from the capture of Lambert
Simnel—Thomas Thorpe, Baron of the Exchequer, beheaded in Highgate
in 1461—Queen Elizabeth met at Highgate on her accession by the Lord
Mayor–Wenner and the “Fifth Monarchy Men’ retreat to Caen Wood in
1661—General Monk encamped on Finchley Common—Trainbands en-
camped on Finchley Common to resist the Pretender—Hogarth's ‘March
to Finchley’—Rebel lords brought through Highgate seen by Miss Haw-
kins's mother—Lord Lovat taking refreshment at the inn at the corner—
The author sees an old man who was at the Battles of Prestonpans and
Culloden—General Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, shot woodcocks where
Regent Street now is—The ‘Fox Inn' on Highgate Hill—Rescue of the
present Queen by the landlord—Remarks of passers-by-Fine views
from Highgate–Distinguished men once resident in this vicinity—Aris-
tocratic families who have lived in and around Highgate—John, Lord
Tussell, died there in 1584 — Sir Richard Baker, author of ‘Baker’s
CONTENTS. . xvii
Chronicle,' resided there—I)r. Sacheverel died there, 1724 — Nicholas
IRowe, dramatist—Mrs. Barbauld—Countess of Huntingdon—Dr. Isaac
Watts—General Wade–Hogarth—Morland's visits to Highgate—Cole-
ridge at Mr. Gilman's . º & tº tº . 304–310
CoLERIDGE AT HIGHGATE–Biographical notice of him — settled in 1810 in
Highgate—works produced there—his wonderful powers of conversation
—many celebrated visitors—Edward Irving—Coleridge as a philosopher
—the house in which he lived—his great estimation in America—last
days—John Taylor—Thomas Pringle—Mr. MacDowell, the sculptor 310–319
CEREMONIES of THE Horns AT HIGHGATE–Similar ones at other places 319, 320
FITzRoy PARK–Severance of the Southampton property from the Deanery of
St. Paul's—Dr. Southwood Smith resident in Fitzroy Park—his public
services—bequest of the body of Jeremy Bentham—singular preservation
of the skeleton—Dufferin Lodge, the residence of Lord Dufferin . 320–326
CAEN WooD AND LORD MANSFIELD–House and Park of Caen Wood—hiding
of the “Fifth Monarchy Men’ there—Traitor's Hill—the ancient mound
near it—Paterson, founder of the Bank of England—originator of the
Hampstead and Highgate Ponds—Successive proprietors of Caen Wood
—John Bill, Esq.—Duke of Argyll — Lord Bute—Lord Mansfield—
Formerly spelt ‘Ren’ Wood — Lord Bute's good qualities—Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu at Caen Wood — Mr. Wortley Montagu, her son —
Bxclusive habits of Englishmen –Lord Mansfield's early life—his ride to
London—his family Jacobites—employed as Attorney-General against the
Jacobite rebels— suspicions of his Jacobite tendencies —his house burnt
in the Gordon riots—Lord Campbell's character of him—his beneficial
innovations of legal custom—founder of the commercial law of England
—declares the freedom of negroes—opponent to freedom of the American
colonies—also to rights of juries—charges of “Junius’ against him—Lord
Brougham's estimate of him—instances of liberal conduct in him—his
fortitude on the loss of his library—poem of Cowper on that occasion—
Lord Mansfield's steady pursuit of wealth—Noble conduct of the land-
lord of the ‘Spaniards’ in defence of Caen Wood ſº . 326–354
CROMWELL AND ANDREW MARVELL — Old houses of Highgate—Cromwell
House built for General Ireton—substantial building of Cromwell House
—flimsy building of Rome in its decline, as of London in our day—
Account of Ireton—Marvell's House, near to Lauderdale House—charac-
ter of Marvell—his life repeatedly attempted—his poetry—hostility of
the Court to Marvell—attempt of Charles II. to bribe him—his cottage at
Highgate no longer remaining . & g ſº . 354-367
ARABELLA STUART AND LORD BACON.—Arundel House supposed to have be-
longed to the Cornwallis family—to have been occupied for a time by
Gondamar, the Spanish ambassador to Elizabeth—Sir William Cornwallis
visited at Highgate by James I.—house becomes Lord Arundel's—Lord
a 2 -
xviii - CONTENTS.
Bacon feasted there by the Countess of Arundel—King James at Arundel
House—Flight from it of Arabella Stuart — retaken, and dies in the
Tower—pardon and long life of her husband—LORD BACON in disgrace
—attempts in our time to clear him of the acceptance of bribes—Sir
Arthur Weldon's account of him—Anecdote by Basil Montagu–Bacon's
greatness in his philosophy—his death at Arundel House . 367–382
LAUDERDALE Hous E AND NELL Gwyn NE—Nell Gwynne and Charles at Lauder-
dale House—Lord Macaulay's portrait of Lauderdale—Marvell's picture
of Charles II.-Amiable character of Nell Gwynne—Nell and Bishop
Ken—anecdote of Nell at Lauderdale House—Duke of St. Albans . 382–388
WHITTINGTON STONE–Story of Dick Whittington—Fugger of Augsburg—
Whittington's palace in London—his noble works in London—founda-
tion of the Whittington Almshouses—public benefactor . . 388-394
WILLIAM BLAKE, founder of an Orphan School at Highgate—spent his whole
fortune upon it—wrote “Silver Drops,’ as an appeal on its behalf—his
singular style—his appeal in vain º g g . 395–397
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN HIGHGATE–Jewish Synagogue—Jewish Academy
—School for Jewish young ladies—Presbyterian Chapel—now the
National School — Baptist Chapel — new Independent Chapel — John
Wilkes and his father frequenters of the Presbyterian Chapel—names
of successive ministers . * > & * e . 3 97–399
DAVID WILLIAMS, founder of the Royal Literary Fund—once minister of the
Presbyterian Chapel—author of various works—defends Mossop against
Garrick—preached sermons on religious hyprocrisy—his life and character
—founds the Literary Fund—becomes its permanent secretary—his bust
by Westmacott—great success of the Fund g e . 399–404
CATHOLIC CHAPEL, ST. JoSEPH's RETREAT.-Highgate in former times of Ritual-
ism—Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick—cheering of Burton in Highgate 405, 406
THE CEMETERY--The Highgate Père La Chaise—vast importation of bodies
from London—fine views from the Cemetery—persons of distinction
buried there — Tomb of Tom Sayers most visited—Artists interred
there—Alfred Edward Chalon—Charles Joseph Hullmandel—William
Henry Hunt—Sir William Ross—Mrs. Bartholomew—Alaric Alexander
Watts—Wife and daughter of Dr. Robert Chambers g . 406–409
HIGHGATE ARCHWAY—Fall of the tunnel—present Archway—Fossil remains
found there — Bishop's Woods—Church property offered for building
—Archway Road completed by Telford—a road formerly projected by
Caen Wood and Millfield Lane to save the heavy traffic on the Hill—
defeated by private interests—the suffering to horses still continues --
West Hill—Holly Lodge—Duchess of St. Albans—Miss Burdett Coutts
—THE HERMITAGE--its curious history—The Prince of Wales and Sir
Wallis Porter—Lord Nelson—Fauntleroy—his forgeries and execution
—Hermitage demolished—House of Charles Mathews—John Ruskin—
—Kentish Town and Camden Town—Progress of population . 409–422
CONTENTS. xix
w PAGE
MUSWELL HILL–Formerly a great resort to the Mouse or Moss Well—
Descent of property at Muswell Hill—Alexandra Park—Modern resi-
dences—Lalla Rookh Cottage—Moore once resident there——The Well 422–424
HoRNSEY—Bishop of London Lord of the Manor—Bishop's House once at
Lodge Hill—traces of it—Palace there burnt down in 1576—Meeting of
nobles in Hornsey Park in Richard II.'s time — Roger Bolingbroke
and the Rev. Canon Southwell accused of sorcery at Lodge Hill in
the reign of Henry VI.-Great case of Dame Eleanor Cobham, Duchess
of Gloucester—Bolingbroke hanged—Southwell died in prison—Penance
and imprisonment for life to the Duchess—Margery Jourdemain burnt for
a witch, as accomplice—Shakspeare's account of this case—Edward W.
conducted through Hornsey by Richard of Gloucester to murder him—
met at Hornsey Park by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen—Henry VII.
met there by the citizens of London—Samuel Buckley, editor of ‘Thuanus,’
resident at Hornsey —Rogers the poet buried there—Thomas Westfield,
afterwards Bishop of Bristol—Thomas Lant ejected from the living by
the Puritans—Lewis Atterbury—William Cole, Cambridge antiquary—
Reginald Gray of Ruthin, Earl of Kent—John Lightfoot, learned Hebraist
and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge—Supposed age of parish church 424–433
ISLINGTON.—Origin of the name—various theories—mentioned in the ‘Tourna-
ment of Tottenham’—State of the neighbourhood at the Conquest—Famous
for its open fields, frequented by shepherds and graziers—Supposed to have
a church in the Saxon times—Old church pulled down in 1751—The
inhabitants of Islington broke down enclosures in 1514—Lord Macaulay's
description of the northern suburbs of London in Charles II.'s reign
—Cowley's ‘Monster London’— John Evelyn's account of the Lon.
doners in Islington Fields at the time of the Great Fire—Queen Elizabeth
crossing Islington Fields — Elizabeth beset by ‘begging rogues’—
Gerard the herbalist botanizing in Islington Fields—The ‘Angel Inn,’ in
the open country—Finsbury Fields the resort of archers—Boys playing
at ball there in Henry II.'s time—Popular sports mentioned by Fitz-
stephen — Ditto by Stow — Archery practised there — patronised by
Henry VIII.-Establishment of the City Artillery Company—Rules of
the Company—Ring Henry's Walk at Kingsland—Henry dubs one Barlo
Duke of Shoreditch, for his skill in archery—Similar titles frequent
amongst the archers—In Henry VIII.'s time the archers broke down all en-
croaching inclosures—Grand shooting matches—Paul Hentzer, in Queen
Elizabeth's time, notes the decline of archery — James I.'s endeavour
to revive its use—he and Charles I, keep the grounds open for archery—
Shooting at ‘rovers’—Markham's ‘Art of Archery’—Woodcuts of archers
in full costume—Engraved tickets of admission to members of Archery
Societies—Charles II. present at the Archery Meeting at Finsbury in
1682—Pepys takes a walk in the Archery Fields—Sir William Davenant
describes archers in his ‘Long Vacation'—Robin Hood and the King
introduced in Finsbury Fields in the Ballads—The Archery Company
repeatedly broke down inclosures—Distance at which an archer could hit
XX. CONTENTS.
PAGE
a mark—Topham, the strong man, and the Archers—inclosures finally
drove out the archers—Odd names of citizens' summer-houses—The
Wells and Public-houses—Drunken Barnaby—‘Merry Milkmaid of Isling-
ton’—Ned Ward’s “Walk to Islington’—George Colman’s ‘Spleen’—
Sunday excursions of the citizens to Islington described by Bonnel
Thornton—Goldsmith's ‘Shoemakers' Holidays’ at Islington and High-
bury—Sir William Davenant's ‘Citizen going to Islington’—The dairies
and milk, cakes, syllabubs, and custards—Islington called the ‘London
Flospital’ for resort of invalids—Anecdote of a lodging-house keeper—
The citizens fortifying the roads at Islington against the Pretender
—The Fields now buried under brick and mortar e . 435–455
T’ONDs, CoNDUITs, AND RIVERs—The ducking-ponds — A ducking-pond in
Aldgate—one in Mayfair—one in Limehouse—a number of them about
Islington—Ducking-pond House—Wheel Pond, very dangerous—Howell's
description of the duck-hunting and other sports there—Pepys in the
Ducking-pond Fields—The various conduits supplied by these ponds 455-457
Titº NEW RIVER—The grand enterprise of Sir Hugh Myddelton, a native
of Wales—neglected by the City, but supported by King James—The
New River, for some reason, not appreciated—Liberal conduct of James I.
and Charles I. to Sir Hugh—Original cost of the New River—Subsequent
improvements—Rules and government of the Company—Descendants of
Sir Hugh—Small grants to them by the Company—Extensive growth
of the Company—Stow's Account of the first opening of the New River
—Portrait of Sir Hugh in Goldsmiths' Hall e g . 457–464
REMARKABLE BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS-Districts of Islington—The Old
Lazaar-house near the Whittington Stone—The Whittington Stone sup-
posed to be the base of an ancient cross—CROMWELL's House at Upper
IIolloway—The ‘Crown' Public-house, now pulled down—Sir Arthur
Haselrigge assaulted— Great danger of the roads about Islington as late as
1770—People at night only dared to pass thence to the City in company—
The robber Duval—Butler's allusion to Duval—Dick Turpin nearlislington
—The Mother Redcaps in different places—Drunken Barnaby at the
‘Mother Tedcap' at Holloway—Cheesecake houses at Holloway—Cheese-
cakes sold by a man on horseback in London—Allusion to them in ‘Jack
Drum's Entertainment’—Holloway the residence of the Blount family
—suicide of Charles Blount g & & e . 464–469
IIIGIIBURY House — Highbury famous for springs and conduits — The
Corporation of London made excursions to the Springs—Gerard the
herbalist's notice of plants thero—Manor of Highbury formerly called
Tollington—Manor House ro-crected on the supposed site of a camp—
probably a British barrow—Manor House of Highbury, a favourite
retreat of the Priors of St. John—demolished by Jack Straw—Sir
William Walworth knighted, on the sandhills near Islington, for killing
Wat Tyler—Others knighted, and some ennobled thore — The dagger
that killed Wat Tyler long preserved in Islington—Manor of Highbury
CONTENTS. xxi
f #
* TAGE
granted successively to Lord Cromwell, Queen Mary, Prince Henry of
Wales—Sold by Charles I., and passed through many hands . 469-472
IIIGHBURY BARN–The ancient farm to the Manor House—Barn synonymous
with dairy—Barn-measure of milk—CREAM HALL–Resorts of Londoners
to drink milk and eat custards, &c.—Highbury Barn becomes a tavern
and tea-garden—Court Baron held there—Place made very popular by
Mr. Willoughby before 1785–Great place for public dinners—Freemasons
dimed there, 500 in number—The Dissenters’ ‘Highbury Society’—their
singular mode of proceeding thither—their game of hop-ball—their
standing toast—Portrait of Father Ponder, Treasurer of the Society—
IHighbury Barm of to-day—THE EEL-PIE Hous E, and Hornsey WooD
House-IIighbury College tº tº & c . 472–477
CANoNBURY—Former mames of Canonbury—Formerly the property of the
Berners Family—Granted by them to the Priory of St. Bartholomew—At
the dissolution granted to Lord Cromwell—At his death Ann of Cleves
dowered out of it—-Granted to Dudley Earl of Warwick—Granted
by Queen Mary to Lord Wentworth—Left by him to Sir John Spencer
—Crosby Hall, Sir John's town-house—Canonbury Tower in its best
state—The attempt to kidnap Sir John—His daughter carried off by
Lord Compton—Sir John reconciled to his daughter by Queen Elizabeth
—Lord Compton deranged by the vastness of his wealth—The famous
letter of Lady Compton—Lodgers at Canonbury Tower—Newbery the
publisher—Oliver Goldsmith writes several of his works there—Wash-
ington Irving visits the Tower—Smart the poet, Chambers editor the
“Cyclopædia, Humphreys the poet, lodgers there—Home visited the Tower
—Earlier residents there—Sir Arthur Athye, Lord Ellesmere, Lord Bacon,
Lord-Keeper Coventry, Earl of Denbigh, Arthur Onslow, Speaker of
the House of Commons, and other distinguished men . . 477–487
NEWINGTON GREEN–House of the Mildmay family—House used by Henry
VIII.-Algernon Percy, Earl of Northumberland, the lover of Ann
Boleyn, had a house there—Ruinous consequences to Wolsey of his treat-
ment of the Earl—The Presbyterian Chapel—amongst its ministers Dr.
Price, Mr. Barbauld, and a descendant of Cromwell—Memorials of Dr.
JPrice and Mrs. Barbauld . © & t * . 487–491
Isr.INGTON GREEN, OLD QUEEN's EIEAD, PIED BULL, &c. — The Fisher
House—The Fowler House—Account of the Fowlers and Fishers—Queen
Elizabeth's Lodge—The Old Queen's Head—an account of it—a new
house built on its site—The Pied Bull—house of Sir Walter Raleigh—
still remaining—traces of former state-Proofs of Sir Walter's possession
of it * g g † * e . 491–496
WARD's PrAcE—Supposed to have belonged to Lord Hunsden–King John's
Place—belonged to Earl of Leicester—then to Sir Robert Ducy—pulled
down e wº- & g gº sº wº . 496, 497
xxii CONTENTS.
•, PACT,
THE OLD AND NEW PARISH CHURCH –Numerous churches in Islington—
Date of the Old Church—Memorials of people buried in it—The bequests
of Richard Cloudesley–New Church built in 1751—Remains of persons
of note within the New Church—Mother of Sir George Saville—Monu-
ment of Dr. Hawes—In the Churchyard inscriptions in memory of Sir
John Mordaunt—John Nichols, of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’—persons
who died of the plague—Sir William Perriam—Sir Henry Yelverton—
Lady Worcester—many members of the Fowler and Fisher families—
Marchioness of Clanricarde—Sir Henry Ascough—Sir Henry Dymock—
Sir George Wharton—Duel fought at Islington—Names on the Register
—Playford, writer on music—Bishop Blackburn—Dr. Poole, traveller—
Osborne the bookseller—Rev. John Lindsay, author of ‘History of the
Regal Succession'—John Hyacinth de Magelhaens—Cooke the Miser of
Pentonville—Rev. John Pridden, epitomizer of the Rolls of Parliament,
&c. — Mrs. Olivia Serres, soi-disant Duchess of Cumberland — Her
daughter, Mrs. Ryves—Her trials for her supposed rights–Contradictory
stories of Mrs. Serres—Exposé of her claims by Sir Robert Peel—Exposé
in the ‘Leeds Mercury’—Pretended Will of George III.-The Duke of
JKent imposed on . tº * s * e . 497–507
THE ANGEL INN–The old inn pulled down in 1819–description of it . 508
PRIoRy of St. JoHN of JERUSALEM-Remains of the Priory—Account of the
Order—Great possessions of the Order—Its abolition—Monastic bodies
having property in Islington * g º e . 508—510
T)AME ALICE OWEN’s HospitaL AND SCHOOLS-The old School and Alms-
houses—Rebuilt in 1840–41—The origin of the bequest—The present
state of the property & e g © e . 5 l 1–513
HISTORICAL FACTS CONNECTED WITH ISLINGTON.—Battle of the Romans with
Queen Boadicea—Description of the place by Tacitus—Roman Tondon—
Account of the battle at Battlebridge–Skeleton of an elephant found on
the place—Welshmen with Prince Llewellyn at Islington in reign of
Edward I.-Arrest of Henry VI. at Islington—Edward IV. met near
Islington by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen—Henry VII. met in Hornsey
Park by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen—Henry VIII. a frequent visitor
at Islington—Queen Mary's deputation to meet the ambassadors of the
Ring of Muscovy at Islington—Several Protestants burnt by Queen Mary
at Islington—many treacherously captured in a field there—committed by
Sir Roger Cholmeley—thirteen of them burnt — Queen Elizabeth at
Islington—The Earl of Essex, on his way to Ireland, passing through
Islington—James I. conducted through Islington to the Charter House
—Charles I. passing through Islington from Scotland—Breaking out of
the Rebellion—Oliver Cromwell's stoker, Colonel Okey, lived at Is-
lington—Sir Arthur Haselrigge, the friend of Cromwell, living at Hollo-
way—Accident to General Skippon in Islington—Plot against Cromwell
—Vowell the schoolmaster—The Fire of London—the people fly to
Islington Fields—Copenhagen House originated and frequented by Danes
CONTENTS. xxiii
- PAGE
—menaced by the Gordon rioters—Place of political meetings—fre-
quented by Horne Tooke, Hardy, and Thelwall—Great Trades' Union
meeting in 1834 . . e e © ſº ſº t 513–529
THE CATTLE MARKET-established in Copenhagen Fields—Mr. Perkins's
Cattle Market near Ball's Pond—New Prison at Pentonville—New City
Prison at Holloway t to tº e te , 529, 530
REMARKABLE PERSONs who HAVE LIVED IN THE PARISH of ISLINGTON.—
John, second Baron Berners—Dame Juliana Berners—Lord Berners, the
translator of Froissart—Manor of Barnsbury passes to the Fowler family—
thence to the Wilsons—SIR HENRY YELVERTON, a judge under James I.
— RoPERT BROWN, founder of the Brownists—his singular character —
Rise of the Independents—BISHOP STILLINGFLEET, prebendary of Is-
lington—JoBN BAGFORD, collector of books—ADDISON.—an idea of his
sojourn at Islington doubtful — DEFOE educated at Islington — sin-
gular treatment of him—HALLEY THE ASTRONOMER resident at Islington
—account of him—ToPHAM THE STRONG MAN–anecdotes of him—
killed his wife and committed suicide—John BANKs, bookseller and
writer—Mrs. Forster, granddaughter of Milton—kept a chandler's
shop at Lower Holloway—account of her by Dr. Johnson—Co.LINS THE
PoET-some time at Islington—his fate—beauty of his Odes—CoILEY
CIBBER—-lived at Islington—Mrs. Clarke, his daughter, kept a public-
house at Islington—ALEXANDER CRUDEN, AUTHOR of THE ‘CoNCORDANCE’
— lived at Islington—his singular character—confined as a lunatic—his
eccentric philanthropy—attempts at reform of prison discipline—the
forerunner of Mrs. Fry—sound sense displayed in his literary labours—
JAMES BURGH, author—John ALLINGHAM, dramatic writer—DR. NICHO-
LAS ROBINSON, medical writer—Isa AC RITSON, translator of ‘Homer's
Hymn to Venus,’ &c.—JosLPH AND MARY CoILYER, translators from
IClopstock, Gesner, &c.—their son Joseph, a celebrated engraver . 530–554
OLIVER GOLDSMITH-arrested by his landlady at Canonbury—DR. RICHARD
PRICE—account of him—a great calculator—zealous republican—friend
of Dr. Priestley, John Howard, Franklin, &c.—The Rev. GEORGE
MARRIOTT–The Rev. JoHN PALMER—MARY Woolston ECRAFT-kept
a day-school at Newington Green—buried in Old St. Pancras church-
yard gº * gº & e g e . 554–560
BARON D'AGUILAR—a wealthy Portuguese Jew, developing into a most cruel
miser and debauchee, living on the banks of the New River—miserable
Scene in his house—awful starvation of his animals—his miserable end
—large amount of his property.—strange enigma of such characters 560–565
ALEXANDER AUBERT, the friend and patron of Smeaton, the engineer . 565
ABRAHAM NEWLAND, celebrated manager of the Bank of England—his plod-
ding habits—his house at Highbury—his peculiar life—his constant
residence at the Bank—Dibdin's song of ‘Abraham Newland' : 565–567
xxiv. CONTENTS.
IP AG [.
DR. WILLIAM HAWES, FOUNDER OF THE ROYAL FIUMANE SocIETY—Account,
of him—his opposition to premature interments—Lectures on suspended
animation—Benevolent exertions on behalf of the Spitalfields weavers—
Great success of his Society—Humane character of his brother, Benjamin -
E[awes . e (e ſº º • gº . 567–572
JAMES ELPHINSTON, critic and translator of Racine the younger—-JosFPH
WHITE, collector of Saxon coins—SIR BRook Booth. By, translator of
Sappho—WILLIAM HUNTINGTON, the coalheaver preacher—account of
him—his singular epitaph for himself—The Rev. TIMOTHY PRIESTLEy,
brother of Dr. Priestley—THOMAS SKINNER SURR, novelist-–author of
‘Splendid Misery,’ ‘George Barnwell,’ &c. e *. . 572–575
JoIIN THURSTON AND ROBERT BRANSTON, engravers—THOMAS DAVISON, the
excellent printer of Whitefriars—MR. AND MRs. BARBAULD —JoHN
NICHOLs, proprietor of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’—an account of him
and his numerous and excellent works—his tomb in Islington Church-
yard iº te e e ſº ſº & . 575—578
DANIEL WILSON, vicar of Islington — Bishop of Calcutta — his works —
Dissenting ministers, BURDER, Bogue, and CLAYTON.—The Rev. Row-
LAND EIILL in White Conduit Fields—WILLIAM WooDFALL, the reporter
—JoBIN THOMAS-SMITH, keeper of prints in the British Museum—author
of the ‘Life and Times of Nollekens,’ and many other works . 579, 580
SAMUEL RogCRs the poet—an account of him—proceeds of his books, pictures,
&c.—CHARLES LAMB—account of him and his sister—his friend George
Dyer nearly drowned in the New River by Lamb's house—numbered
all the great writers of the time as his friends—Wainwright, the poisoner,
a fellow-writer in the ‘London Magazine'—his end—Lamb's last days—
SIR. RICHARD PHILLIPS–his origin and progress—imprisoned in Leicester
Jail for selling Paine's works—Daniel Lambert, of obese fame, his jailor
—became a sheriff of London—started the ‘Monthly Magazine’—Com-
bated Newton's philosophy—a vegetarian—a specimen of his vegetarian
habits—Sir Richard a literary curiosity—MISS LAWRENCE—Concluding
remarks . ſº º © e & fe . 580–590
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
HAMPSTEAD.
THE OLD CHURCH. (IFrom Park's ‘Hampstead').
PAGE
3
OLD BELSIZE HousB. (From a print in the possession of J. E. Gardner, Esq.) 10
OLD KILBURN PRIORY. (From an old drawing in Mr. Gardner's collection) .. 39
Ww WALK. (From a photograph taken expressly for this work). 54
LORD ERSKINE’s Housſ, NEAR ‘THE Spaniards' (From a photograph taken
expressly for this work). g º tº © & g e 56
NoFTH-END House. (From a photograph taken expressly for this work) 83
SouTH VIEW OF • THE SPANIARDS.’ (From a print by Chatelaine, in the King's
Library, British Museum) . us te & tº - 92
THE UPPER FLASK. (From a photograph taken expressly for this work) . 123
ICING's BENCII AvRNUE. (From a lithograph in the possession of Miss
Meteyard) & e * . 136
THE OLD WorkHouse. (From Park's ‘Hampstead') . 140
HAMPSTEAD OLD CHURCH. (From Park's ‘Hampstead') . 141
FROGNAL PRIORY. (From an original drawing in the possession of J. E.
Gardner, Esq.) . * e e º ſº * • 154
THE CITICKEN-House. (From an old print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) 162
SIR HARRY WANE's House. (From Park's ‘Hampstead') 179
RossLYN HousB. (From a photograph taken expressly for this work) . 191
STEELE's Cot'ſ AGE, HAVERSTOCK HILL. (From a print in Mr. Gardner's Collec-
tion) . . 214
OLD CHALK TARM. (From a print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) . 227
LONG ROOM AT THE WELLs. (From a print by Chatelaine, in the possession
. 274
of J. E. Gardner, Esq.).
S.
XXvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
HIGHGATE).
VIEW of HIGHGATE FROM THE PONDs. (From a photograph taken expressly
in November, 1868) e te e & e . 281
OLD CHAPEL AND GATEWAY. (From Tomlins’ “Perambulation of Islington) . 291
PAGE
CEREMONY of BEING ‘Sworn AT HIGHGATE.’ (From Woodward's ‘Excentric
Excursions,’ in the British Museum) . º e º ſº * . 320
JKENWOOD HousB. (From an original drawing in the possession of J. E.
Gardner, Esq.) . * gº g & g & º © & . 326
CROMWELL House. (From a photograph taken expressly for this work) . 355
ANDREW MARVELL's Hous E. (From a photograph taken in 1848). tº . 361
LAUDERDALE HousB. (From an original drawing by J. W. Archer, in the
possession of W. Twopeny, Esq.) . * e * g e gº . 382
WHITTINGTON STONE AND THE LAZAR HotSE. (From an old print, by
Chatelaine, in the possession of J. E. Gardner, Esq.) . & g . 389
DoRCHESTER House. (From an old print in Prickett's ‘History of Highgate’) 395
HIGHGATE ARCHWAY FROM THE North SIDE. (From a photograph) . . 409
THE HERMITAGE, HIGHGATE RISE. (From a photograph in the possession of
the Author) . ë e * * ſº * º e e * . 414
CHARLES MATHEws's HousE. (From a drawing in Mr. Gardner's Collection). 419
FIORNSEY.
HoRNSEY CHURCH. (From an original sketch by O. Jewitt). g & . 425
ISLINGTON.
OLD CHURCH. (From Nelson's ‘History of Islington’) . o t º 437
OLD ANGEL INN. (From a print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) . . . 443
ARCHER of THE TIME of CHARLEs I. (From a woodcut in Gervase Mark-
ham’s “Art of Archerie, 1634, in the British Museum). e ſº . 44
OLD SADLER's WELLs. (From a scarce print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) . 452
HoRNSEY WooD HousB. (From an original drawing in the possession of J.
E. Gardner, Esq.). ſº * © e * wº tº e . 47
CANONBURY ToweR. (From a print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) . * . .478
OLD QUEEN’s HEAD. (From a print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) . tº . 493
PIED BULL. (From Nelson's ‘History of Islington’) . e gº tº . 495
CoPENHAGEN House. (From an old print in Mr. Gardner's Collection) . 527
CHARLEs LAMB's House. (From an original drawing by J. W. Archer, in
the possession of W. Twopeny, Esq.) . º g * g . 583
HAMPSTEAD.
%
§ &#.
§§§
/
.*
***.*.*.
º Q ** * * - ºzºº
º tº º 'ºtº sº "º gº º, . Gºº
º § f * §§ ś É%
§§ & º $º º?tſ. º É:43 º
Nºtº ºº::3%2% ºft % * ::/ºſº/, .. 2
n §§ £% #####!/#3% *.
- - f º Af g & sº J.W. “
tº:
Fº Nº. --
ºff. Nº § Sºº
*; Wºź º $: gº- º
* ~ * c. sº º is... sº “. º * F ºr º **** - gº º:
|ſſº ſº % § #3% §%\{\º **º-g -
ſº º % #. ſ jº |& *::ffff; § yº. • ** , , ; *::#2.
: I.2 '', 75//f ^ ºf.” –
* ' ' ' | ſº & J.”
%sºº
THlº OLD CHURCH.
From Palºk’s ‘ History of Hampstead.')
THE MANOR OF HAMPSTEAD.
THE first grant of this manor purports to be from the Crown
under Edgar the Peaceable in 978 to his minister Mangoda.
Unfortunately, Edgar the Peaceable died in 975, that is,
three years before the date of this grant said to be made by
him. This looks very like a forgery on the part of the monks
of Westminster, to whom the manor was granted after the
death of Mangoda, who it seems had no heirs, and allowed
it to lapse again to the Crown. If the grant of Mangoda
was a forgery by the monks of Westminster, it must have
been a very clumsy and needless one, for as it did not at all
affect the title, which was a subsequent grant, not from
Mangoda, but from the king, the monks could have no
motive for such a forgery. The real cause of the ana-
chronism of the date was, probably, an error in the copying
the 9, 8, or 3, which are figures so often confounded. This is
much more likely than that the monks of Westminster should
forge a charter in which they had not the sumallest interest.




















* B 2
4. FIAMPSTEAD.
The extent of the manor thus granted was five cassati, or
hydes, a cassatus, or hyde, being supposed to be 120 acres,
which would make the five hydes just 600 acres. It is
named as five hydes in Edward the Confessor's grant of
other privileges, when he restored the cathedral of West-
minster. In the Confessor's grant it was freed from the
burden of trinoda, necessitas, or military duty, and from all
regal or episcopal exactions whatever.
In Doomsday Book, the account is very confused. It
states that the abbot had four hydes and three ploughs.
But directly after it says that the demesne consisted only of
three hydes and a half, and employed one plough, but villeins
held part of another hyde, and there was wood for 100
swine. The villeins had another plough ; so that, after all,
only two ploughs appear on the estate, and a hyde of land is
missing, probably already alienated by the monks, who were
much in the habit of alienating uncultivated land. The
value in the Confessor's time was only 100s. ; in the Con-
queror’s only 50s., and the chief villein was a Ralph Peverel,
that is, a Norman who had married Ingelrica, the Con-
queror's discarded mistress. Probably, the alienation lay in
this quarter.
In the reign of Edward II. the convent of Westminster
received by a grant from Sir Roger Brabazon, Chief Justice
of the King's Bench, the manor of Belsize adjoining. It
consisted of a house and fifty-seven acres of land. In the
twelfth year of Henry IV., the villages of Hampstead and
Hendon were conferred on Sir Henry Scrope, afterwards Lord
Serope of Masham, for the lodging of his retinue, horses,
&c., during his attendance on the King as royal harbinger
or forager. This was, however, only a right to quarter there,
during such times, as we find Hendon still the property
of the convent of Westminster in Henry VIII.'s time; for
EIAMPSTEAD MANOR SINCE THE REFORMATION. 5
Wolsey on his journey from Richmond in Surrey to York in
his time of disgrace and banishment to his diocese, made his
first resting at Hendon Place, that is, Hendon Manor House.
This old building had a spacious gallery, and seems to have
been long after in the hands of the Crown, passing thither at
the dissolution of the monasteries; and there was a famous
cedar there, said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth.
The old house was not pulled down till 1756, when it was
the property of a Mr. Snow. -
HAMPSTEAD MANOR SINCE THE REFORMATION.
At the dissolution of monasteries, the Manor of Hamp-
stead was conferred on the bishopric of Westminster, esta-
blished in the year after the suppression of the convent of
Westminster, namely, in 1540, when Thomas Thirlby was
consecrated bishop of the new see. In nine years this
bishop had alienated nearly all the property of the see,
and it was reduced to a deanery. The Crown, however,
obtained possession of the manor of Hampstead, and
Edward VI. in 1551 conferred it on Sir Thomas Wroth.
It was then valued at 65l. 15s. yearly. This Sir Thomas
Wroth was from the west of England. On the accession of
Queen Mary he fled to Strasburg, but returned on the acces-
sion of Queen Elizabeth, and died at his manor of Durants
in Enfield in 1573. His grandson, Sir Robert Wroth,
Imarried Mary, daughter of the Earl of Leicester, and niece
of Sir Philip Sidney. She was a literary lady, and wrote
‘Urania, in imitation of her uncle's popular ‘Arcadia.” It
was called the Countess of Montgomerie’s ‘Urania,” in com-
pliment to the wife of Philip, Earl of Montgomery, who was
their neighbour at Enfield. The poem, though praised by
the adulators of the age, is not likely to win much attention
(3 EIAMPSTEAD.
from the present generation. This Sir Robert Wroth, hus-
band of the poetess, ordered in his will that the manor
should be sold, and it was accordingly made over to Sir
Baptist Hickes, afterwards Wiscount Campden, in 1620, by
his three trustees—John Wroth, his uncle ; his brother, and
his cousin, for the discharge of his debts and legacies.
This Sir Baptist Hickes was the youngest son of Sir
Michael Hickes, who was a great silk-mercer and foreign
merchant. He was knighted by James T. On his coming to
the English throne. Sir Baptist is said to have been one
of the first citizens who kept shop after his knighthood,
and insisted on taking precedence of the aldermen on that
account. The affair led to an examination of these claims
by the Court Marshall, and the decision was ultimately left
to Sir Robert Cotton and other referees. From the account
in the Cotton MSS.) it appears that Sir Baptist’s son-in-law,
Sir Edward Noel, very unceremoniously sent Sir Robert a
bribe, in the shape of a “piece of some commodity, very
extraordinary for its goodness,’ and with it solicited his
honourable decision. The contest had been carried on with
great heat and through various suits by Hickes and Her-
rick, ‘knights commoners of the city, and their imperious
wives; ” but it seems they would not, after all, venture to
abide by the judgment of the lords’ referees.
In 1611 Sir Baptist Hickes was himself elected an alder-
man, but at the express desire of the King, he paid a fine of
500l., and was discharged. The following year he built at
his own expense Hickes' Hall, in St. John Street, Clerken-
well, partly for a meeting-place for the magistrates, and
partly for a House of Correction. He founded also at
Campden, in Gloucestershire, a hospital for six poor men
and six poor women. In 1620 he was named one of the
1 Jul. c. iii. f. 101 b.
HAMPSTEAD MANOR SINCE THE REFORMATION. 7
Commissioners by James I. to enquire into the condition of
St. Paul's.
Sir Robert Noel, who married Juliana, the eldest daughter
of Sir Baptist, and transferred the manor of Hampstead to
the Noels, was the son of Sir Andrew Noel, of Dalby in
Leicestershire, and of Brook in Rutlandshire, a gentleman
who for his free expenditure obtained the distinction of an
epigram by Queen Elizabeth—
The word of denial and letter of fifty,
Is that gentleman's name who will never be thrifty.
King James I., visiting him at Burleigh in Rutlandshire,
was so chairmed with his hospitality, and his great merits
and abilities, that he created him a peer by the title of Lord
Noel, &c. He attached himself to the cause of Charles I. ;
enjoyed the titles of Lord Hickes and Wiscount Campden
on the death of his father-in-law. He died in garrison at
Oxford, in March 1643, and was buried at Campden.
Bis son Baptist Noel appears to have married four wives;
namely, Ann Fielding, second daughter of the Earl of Den-
bigh; Ann Countess of Bath; Hester, daughter and co-
heiress of Thomas Lord Wotton ; Elizabeth Bertie, eldest
daughter of Montague Earl Lindsey, who survived him.
This, the third earl, on the fall of Charles I., was severely
fined, but of course, at the Restoration, he was compensated.
His eldest son was created Earl of Gainsborough. The wife
of his third son, Baptist Noel, founded the Wells Charity
at Hampstead. The son of this Baptist Noel, who succeeded
to the title, after the decease of Wriothesley Noel, his elder
brother, third Earl of Gainsborough, alienated the manor
of Hampstead by sale to Sir William Langhorne, Bart., in
1707.
Sir William Langhorne was a wealthy East India mer-
chant. He had also purchased the manor of Charlton, near
8 EIAMIPSTEAD.
Woolwich, Kent, and hence the connection of these two
properties still existing. Sir William married first, a
daughter of the Earl of Rutland; and secondly, the daughter
of Dr. Warren, rector of Charlton. Sir William had no
issue, and left his property to his nephew, William Lang-
horne Games, with various remainders in case of failure of
heirs; but he dying without issue, it went to Sir John
Conyers, Bart., who married another sister; but Sir John
Conyers dying before Mr. Games, the remainders now took
effect, and the estates went to Margaret Maryon, and next
to her son, the Rev. John Maryon, whose granddaughter
married General Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, Bart., and
their only son, Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson, is the present
proprietor. His three sisters married, the eldest, Charles
George Lord Arden; the second, the Right Hon. Spencer
Perceval, who was shot by Bellingham in the House of
Commons in 1812; and the third, Sir John Trevelyan, of
Nettlecombe, Bart.
Of the mother of the present Sir Thomas Wilson, the
following curious fact is related. At the fair of Charlton,
of which manor Sir Thomas’s father was lord through
marriage with the heiress of Charlton, there used to be a
procession of horns. These horns consisted of those of
sheep, goats, and smaller animals, gilt and decorated. The
fair was a kind of carnival, or masquerade, in which the
visitors wore masks, and where men. Often appeared in
women’s clothes. Lady Wilson was a great admirer and
patroness of the fair, and even in her old age used to come
down with her attendants every morning during the fair,
and proceed in procession from the steps of the hall to the
outside of the gates of her courtyard, where the bands of
the different shows hailed her appearance as a signal to
strike up their melody of discords. Richardson, the great
HAMPSTEAD MANOR SINCE THE REIFORMATION. 9
peripatetic theatre-master, who was in high repute in his
day, and in whose troop Edmund Kean made his début,
always pitched his great portable theatre in front of the
house. The neighbouring gentry used to proceed to Charl-
ton Fair in their carriages, and there was a general cry of
* Horns | horns !” and most people purchased and placed
them in their hats and bonnets; of course, Lady Wilson
and her retinue honouring the custom. In 1825 Richardson
was not there; the shows were few and poor, and the fair
was rapidly falling into neglect.
There is a curious circumstance related of . Sir William
Langhorne by Park, in his ‘History of Hampstead.” Dr.
Warren, who resided like a domestic chaplain in the house
of Sir William, and who had the character of being a
‘ mighty hunter,’ not of foxes, but of legacies, coming,
one day, into his relation’s closet at Charlton, Sir William
said, ‘I have just been making my will.’ ‘Have you?”
cried the Doctor, ‘well, what have you done for me?’
‘O,’ replied the other very complacently, ‘I have made you
thirteenth in remainder in these manors.’ ‘Thirteenth in
remainder l’ replied Dr. Warren, in a disappointed tone—
‘is that all? Sir, I would not thank you for it !” Sir
William, taking him at his word, dashed out the clause,
and the intended devisee lived to see the eleventh, if not the
twelfth, remainder expire. However, Dr. Warren appeared
as the sole executor of Sir William and guardian of his
nephew, W. L. Games. The Margaret Maryon to whom
the estate eventually fell, is said to have been the fourteenth
tenant-in-tail, so that Dr. Warren, or his heirs, would have
taken precedence of her.
Such is a brief outline of the descent of the Manor of
Hampstead into the present hands.
Illutiſtillº
f
|
| iſſiº
&
†: . Šsº ºft # ...tl||||||||||||||
ºr:
f
sº
*-*** * ...-k-
OLD BELSIZE EIOUSE.
(From a Print in the possession of J. E. Gardner, Esq.)
MANOR OF BELSIZE.
This manor and manor-house after the dissolution of the
monasteries, fell into the Waad or Wade family. This
family is stated to be of high antiquity, as no doubt every
family is if we could trace it out, the stem-father being
Adam to us all; but the earliest tracing of the Wades is to
one Richard Wade of the reign of Richard I. The records
of the Herald's Office, however, do not ascend higher than
Armigell Wade, of the Wades of Yorkshire. He was clerk
to the Council under Henry VIII. and Edward VI. He is
asserted by Anthony à Wood to be the first Englishman
who discovered America, but this cannot be the case, for he S.
is stated to have accompanied a Mr. Hore, of London, in the
* Minion,” Mr. Hore himself sailing in a ship of 140 tons,

MANOR OF BIELSIZE. 11
called the ‘Trinity,” which sailed from Gravesend in 1536,
about the end of April. They reached Cape Breton, the Pen-
guin Isles, and Newfoundland, suffered much from famine,
and arrived again in England at the end of October.' Why
Mr. Wade should have seen the American shore sooner
than Mr. Hore does not appear. Possibly his ship sighted
it first, but this, if the fact, which we are uninformed of,
hardly gives him a title to be an earlier discoverer. True,
the voyage of Hore and Wade was forty-two years before
that of Gilbert and Raleigh to Virginia; but Englishmen
sailed with Sebastian Cabot as early as 1497, and Cabot
himself was an Englishman, though his father was a Vene-
tian merchant settled in Bristol. Wade, however, and Hore,
must be numbered amongst the earliest visitors and ex-
plorers of the northern coasts of America.
Armigell Wade, after his voyagings, and an embassy
from Queen Elizabeth to the Duke of Holstein in 1559,
settled down at his Manor of Belsize, then a retirement,
says Park, in the full sense of the word. He died there in
1568, and had a mural monument erected in the chancel of
Hampstead old church.
BHis son, Sir William Waad, or Wade, was a still more
distinguished figure in his time. James T. knighted him at
Greenwich in 1603. He had previously served on distin-
guished missions under Queen Elizabeth; to the Emperor
Rodolph in 1583, and to the King of Spain in 1584. This
last was a delicate business. It was to inform the monarch
that his countryman Mendoza was banished from England
for treasonable practices against the sovereign. The Spanish
Ring would not admit him to his presence, but Ordered him
to deliver his instructions to his Minister. This, however,
Wade refused to do, and returned. He was then sent to
| Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. ii.
12 FIAMPSTEAD,
Henry III. of France to lay before him an account of the
conduct of the Spanish ambassador, and afterwards was em-
ployed diplomatically to the courts of Portugal and Denmark.
Wade was also employed in some negotiations of Elizabeth’s
with her prisoner, the Queen of Scots. Sir William was
Clerk of the Council, Commissary-General of England, and
Inspector of the Irish Forces. He was Counsellor to James I.,
Muster–Master-General and Lieutenant of the Tower.
From the lieutenancy of the Tower he was removed by
the notorious Carr, Earl of Somerset, in 1613, it is asserted,
to put in a more pliable man, in order to the murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury. In an article in ‘Somers’ Tracts,’ called
“Truth brought to Light,’ &c., it is said that one Sir Jarvis
Yelwis offered a handsome sum to get him out. This article
gives him the highest character for integrity and honour,
though too fond of wealth; but Sir Anthony Weldon refuses
this fair character by saying that all the evidence brought
against Sir Walter Raleigh was matter wormed out of Cob-
ham by Wade, and put down in writing over a signature of
Cobham's obtained by unfair means. This is also made to
be asserted by Cobham himself in the ‘Court and Character
of King James.” London, 1650.
If these things are true, Sir William was not more im-
maculate than nine-tenths of the diplomatists and courtiers
of those times. David Lloyd, however, in his ‘Statesmen
and Favorites,’ defends him zealously as a most honourable
man ; and if we could put faith in epitaphs, so does that of
Sir William at Battailes-Waade in Essex, where he died in
1623:— -
You that have place and charge from princes' trust,
Which honours may make thankful, not unjust,
T)raw neare, and set your conscience and your care
I3y this true watch of state: whose minutes were
Religious thoughts, whose howers heaven’s sacred food;
Whose hand still pointed to the kingdom's good
MAN OR OF BIFLSIZE. 13
And sovereigne safety; whom Ambition's key
Never wound up to guiltiness, bribe, or fee.
Zeale only, and a conscience cleare and even
IRaysed him on earth, and wound him up to heaven.
Sir William was author of some tracts on subjects of
political interest at the time. -
The manor of Belsize passed from Sir William’s widow,
Lady Anne Wade, daughter of Lord Wotton, and thrice
married—first, to Henry de Kirkhoven, Lord of Hemfleet,
in Holland; secondly, to Lord Stanhope ; and thirdly, to
Daniel O’Neale, Esq. She is said to have disposed of the
leasehold to John Holgate, Esq.; but it did not remain more
than ten years in his hands, and came back to Lady Anne
Wade, for in 1660 she renewed the lease to Daniel O’Neale,
her third husband, who was Gentleman of the Bedchamber
to Charles II. In 1667 her son Charles Henry de Kirkhoven,
by her first husband, succeeded her, and, on account of his
mother’s lineage, was created a baron of the realm, as Lord
Wotton of Wotton in Kent. He died without issue.
During the occupation of Belsize House by Lord Wotton,
a desperate attack on it was made by robbers, which is thus
recorded in the “True Protestant Mercury’ of Oct. 15–19,
1681 :—‘London, Oct. 18. Last night eleven or twelve
highway robbers came on horseback to the house of Lord
Wottom at Hampstead, and attempted to enter therein,
knocking down part of the wall and gate; but, there being
four or five within the house, they very courageously fired
several musquets and a blunderbuss upon the thieves, which
gave an alarm to one of the lord’s tenants, a farmer, that
dwelt not far off; who, therefore, went immediately into the
town, and raised the inhabitants, who going toward the
house, which was about half a mile off, it is thought the
robbers hearing thereof, and withal finding the business
difficult, they all made their escape. It is judged they had
14 . . HAMPSTEAD.
notice of my lord’s absence from his house, and likewise of
a great booty which was therein, which put them upon this
desperate attempt.”
Lord Wotton appears to have lived at Belsize from 1673
till 1683. In 1668 Pepys visited it, and made this note:–
‘July 17, 1668. To Hampstead, to speak with the Attorney-
General, whom we met in the fields by his old route and
home. And after a little talk about our business of Acke-
worth, went and saw the Lord Wotton’s house, Belsize, and
garden, which is wonderful fine; too good for the house the
gardens are, being, indeed, the most noble that I ever Saw,
and have Orange-trees and lemon-trees.’"
The property, on Lord Wotton’s death in 1683, as lease-
hold, fell to his half-brother Philip, second Earl of Chester-
field, who was the son of Lady Anne Wade by her second
husband, Lord Stanhope. In the Chesterfield family the
estate was again granted on a lease of three lives, and in
1807 the Earl of Chesterfield sold his interest in the estate
to Germain Lavie, Thomas Forsyth, Thomas Roberts, and
James Abel, Esq., who divided the estate (about 234 acres)
into several allotments, which obtained fresh grants. Since
the death of Lord Wotton the old Belsize House had been in
the occupation of under-tenants, and, during the possession
of the Chesterfields, was described as in ruins. As it was
sold by the Earl of Chesterfield in 1807, the house must have
been rebuilt after that period, but it does not seem to be
known exactly when. The former house was said to be built
about the time of Charles II. The restored house had an
old look in 1852, when it was entirely pulled down, and the
park wall with it.
But to return. In 1718 it was occupied by a very singular
and independent sort of person—a Mr. Povey, a coal mer-
| Pepys' Diary, vol. iv. p. 152.
MANOR OF BIFI, SIZE. - 15
chant—who, not having been brought up to the business,
was very much persecuted by the trade. He was not a man,
however, to sit down quietly with such attacks. He was
very active with his pen, and wrote a pamphlet, called ‘The
Discovery of Indirect Practices in the Coal Trade,’ London
1700, exposing all the dishonest practices in that trade. He
was the first institutor of the Sun Fire Office ; and he
followed up his exposé of the coal trade by other volumes,
some in quarto, some in Octavo. One of them, called
‘England’s Inquisition,’ &c., exposed the extortions and
oppressions of the Excise. In this, issued from Belsize, he
inveighed bitterly against the Whig Ministry. In another,
‘The Unhappiness of England,” he records a lively exposi-
tion of the miseries of the poor; the pernicious consequences
of wearing swords; the licentious scenes enacted in the
theatres; with the proper measures for reforming those
evils. He defended the government of William III. ; and he
says that altogether his books and pamphlets amounted to
more than 600 in number.
When he was the occupier of Belsize House, the French
Ambassador, the Duc d’Aumont, desired to take the house
and grounds at a rent of 1,000l., and the Duke to put the
apartments and gardens in repair. But he wanted the house
on account of its having a chapel attached. Povey would not
let it for the chapel to be desecrated by Popery. This piece
of religious zeal he seems, however, to have thought merited
reward from the Crown, and was much surprised to receive
a reprimand instead of a commendation from the Privy
Council, as an “enemy to the Queen.” It was a time, .
he says, when there was a danger of having mass-houses
set up in our universities and in London. On the arrival of
the Prince of Wales—afterwards George II. —he says he
made him acquainted with these particulars, and offered
16 HAMPSTEAD.
him his house and chapel as a place of residence, and was
again surprised not to receive even an answer to his offer,
though ‘ he kept his mansion and park open for a consider-
able time.” .
Mr. Povey evidently had an eye to self when he was pro-
fessing an anxiety to benefit the nation and its princes, but
does not seem to have been a very shrewd observer of the
signs of the times.
BELSIZE AS A PIACE OF AMUSEMENT.
In 1720 Belsize House ceased to be a private mansion,
and for twenty or thirty years continued to be a place of
public amusement.
Estates are landscapes, gazed upon awhile,
Then advertised, and auctioneered away.
According to an old ‘Description of Middlesex,’ formerly
in the possession of John Britton, Hampstead in the reign of
Henry VIII. was chiefly inhabited by washerwomen; and
here the clothes of the nobility, gentry, and chief citizens
were brought from London to be washed. But at the com-
mencement of the eighteenth century it had become a water-
ing-place, from the discovery of medicinal wells there ; and
the aristocracy and wealthy citizens of London frequenting
them, carried all their follies and dissipations there.
“It was,’ says Park, ‘towards the commencement of the
eighteenth century that Hampstead became celebrated as
the resort of the wealthy, the idle, and the sickly, under the
specious name of a watering-place. Houses of amusement
and dissipation now started up on all sides, and the public
papers teemed with advertisements of concerts at the long-
rooms, raffles at the wells, races on the heath, entertainments
at Belsize, and private marriages at Sion Chapel.”
BIELSIZE AS A PLACE OF AMUSIEMENT. 17
Ben Jonson, in his comedy of ‘A Tale of a Tub, seemed
to have an ambition to celebrate all the ‘northern heights'
and suburbs of London. He brings together his characters
from every quarter of the district—the Vicar of Pancras, the
Squire of Totten-Court, the Justice of Maribone, the High
Constable of Kentish Town, the Tilemaker of Kilburn, Head-
borough of Islington, the Farrier of Hemsted, the Tinker of
Belsize, Scriben the writer of Chalcot, and rumours, at least,
from Highgate.
A comedy called ‘Hampstead Heath was acted at Drury
Tane in 1706. It was altered from one called ‘The Act of
Oxford,” which was prohibited appearing at that university
city. It purported to be by the author of ‘The Yeoman
of Kent,” but was written by a Mr. Baker. A passage or
two will show what sort of place Hampstead was at that
period. -
‘Act I. Scene 1,–HAMPSTEAD.
‘Smart. Hampstead for awhile assumes the day. The
lively season o’ the year; the shining crowd assembled at
this time, and the noble selection of the place, gives us the
nearest show of Paradise.
* Bloom. London now indeed has but a melancholy aspect,
and a sweet rural spot seems an adjournment O’ the nation,
where business is laid fast asleep, variety of diversions feast
our fickle fancies, and every man wears a face of pleasure.
The cards fly, the bowls run, the dice rattle; some lose their
money with ease and negligence, and others are well pleased
to pocket it. But what fine ladies does the place afford 9
‘Smart. Assemblies so near the town give us a sample of
each degree. We have city ladies that are overdressed and
Il O air; court ladies that are all air and no dress; and
country dames with broad brown faces like a Stepney bun;
besides an endless number of Fleet Street Sempstresses, that
C
18 HAMPSTEAD,
dance minuets in their furbeloe Scarfs, and their clothes
hang as loose about them as their reputations.
‘[ENTER Driver.]
‘Smart. Mr. Deputy Driver, stock-jobber, state botcher,
the terror of strolling women, and chief beggar-hunter,
come to visit Hampstead - -
* Driver. And dº you think me so very shallow, Captain, to
leave the good of the nation, and getting money, to muddle
it away here 'mongst fops, fiddlers, and furbeloes, where
everything's as dear as freeholders’ votes, and a greater
imposition than a Dutch reckoning. I am come hither, but
’tis to ferret out a frisking wife o' mine, one o’ the giddy
multitude that’s rambled up to this ridiculous assembly.
* Bloom. I hope, Mr. Deputy, you’ll find her in good
hands: coquetting at the Wells with some Covent Garden
beau; or retired to piquet with some brisk young Templars'
Belsize House and park being, as we have said, involved
in this sphere of gaiety, was opened by the following adver-
tisement in “Mist's Journal,” of April 16, 1720:—‘Whereas
the ancient and noble house near Hampstead, commonly
called Bellasis House, is now taken and fitted up for the
entertainment of ladies and gentlemen during the whole
Summer season, the same will be opened on Easter Monday
next, with an uncommon solemnity of music and dancing.
This undertaking will exceed all of the kind that has
hitherto been known near London, commencing every day at
six in the morning, and continuing till eight at night, all
persons being privileged to admittance without necessity of
expense, &c. &c.’ By handbill it was added: “The park,
wilderness, and gardens being wonderfullyimproved, and filled
with variety of birds, which compose a most melodious and
BELSIZE AS A PLACE OF AMUSEMENT, 19
delightful harmony. Persons inclined to walk and divert
themselves may breakfast on tea, or coffee as cheap as at
their own chambers. Twelve stout fellows completely armed
to patrol between Belsize and London,’ &c. &c. -
One Howell, who appears to have possessed a considerable
fund of low humour, and who went by the name of the Welsh
ambassador, was the adventurous opener of Belsize House in
this character. In the year after the opening, Howell gave a
plate of six guineas to be run for by eleven footmen. The
exploits of Howell, and the follies of the place, are fully
treated in a satiric poem called “Belsize House,’ published
in 1722, that is, when it had been open two years. From
the following quotations from this poem, it appears that
Howell managed to get into Newgate. Whether his incar-
ceration was for debt or offences against public morals
does not appear ; but the immorality of the place was
€11OI’ll] OllS.
sº But since he hath obtained his liberty
By Habeas, the wicked merry be ;
Whom he by advertisements invites
To visit him amidst his false delights:
Assuring them that thirty men shall be
TJpon the road for their security:
Dut whether one-half of this rabble guard,
Whilst t'other half's asleep on watch and ward,
Durst rob the people they pretend to save,
I to the opinion of the reader leave.
In “St. James’s Journal’ of May 24, 1702, it is stated that,
* The Court of Justices at the General Quarter Sessions at
Hickes's Hall, have ordered the high constable of Holborn
division to issue his precepts to the petty constables and
headboroughs of the parish of Hampstead to prevent all
unlawful gaming, riots, &c., at Belsize House and the Great
Room at Hampstead.’ This great room was afterwards
converted into a house inhabited by Charles Cooper, Esq.
By another advertisement in the same Journal, we learn
C 2
2-4
f
20 HAMPSTEAD.
that ‘ on Monday, June 7, 1772, the appearance of nobility
and gentry at Belsize was so great that they reckoned be-
tween three and four hundred coaches, at which time a wild
deer was hunted down and killed in the park before the
company, which gave three hours’ diversion.”
The poem already quoted gives us a little light about the
hunting in this park, said to be a mile round, or less than
a quarter of a mile across.
The Welsh ambassador has many ways
Fools'-pence, whilst summer season holds, to raise.
For ’tis not only chocolate and tea,
With ratifia, brings him company:
Nor is it claret, Rhenish-wine, or sack,
The fond and rampant lords and ladies lack,
Or Venison pasty for a certain dish,
With several varieties of fish :
But hither they and other chubs resort,
To see the Welsh ambassador make sport,
Who, mounting on a horse rides o'er the park
Whilst cuckholds wind the horn and beagles bark,
And in the act of hunting has the luck
To kill in fatal corner tired buck,
The which he roasts and stews, and sometimes bakes,
Whereby his excellency profit makes.
He also on another element
Does give his choused customers content,
With met, or angling-rod to catch a dish
Of trout, or carp, or other sorts of fish, &c.
The house is described in this poem, or rather volume of
very wretched verse, as follows:–
This house, which is a nuisance to the land,
Doth near the park and handsome garden stand,
JFronting the road, betwixt a range of trees,
Which is perfuméd with a Hampstead breeze;
And on each side the gate's a grenadier,
IIowe'er they can not speak, think, see, nor hear;
But why they're posted there no mortal knows,
TJnless it be to fight jackdaws and crows;
Tor rooks they cannot scare, who there resort
To make of most unthoughtful bubbles sport.
This poem professed to expose : 1. The fops and beaus
BELSIZE AS A PLACE OF AMUSEMENT. 21
who daily frequent that academy. 2. The characters of the
women, whether maid, wife, or widow, who make this an
exchange for assignations. 3. The buffoonery of the Welsh
ambassador. 4. The humours of his customers in their
Several capacities. It professed to be by a serious person of
quality.
Belsize House was, in fact, one of the houses rightly
called folly-houses, of which there was a wooden one
anchored in the Thames opposite to Somerset House, another
at Blackwall on shore, &c. It was also the prototype or
predecessor of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, which arose about the
middle of the century, and were scenes of the most disgraceful
gambling, folly, and wickedness. None of the above places
could exceed Belsize House.
Belsize House, we have seen, was opened in 1720. The
‘ Gentleman’s Magazine’ of 1786 says, that Vauxhall Gardens
came into the hands of Mr. Tyas in 1736, who opened them
with a ridotto al fresco, by silver tickets one guinea, each.
This was probably the first opening, as a jubilee was given
in 1786, in commemoration of this event being fifty years
before."
The house and property might have been named from the
profligate family Bellasis, but does not appear to have ever:
had any connection with it, but rather to have taken its
Original name from Bel-Siége, being currently called Belseys.
Thackeray seems to have named his freely spending Jack
Belsize to indicate the class that he belonged to.
The evil reputation of Belsize increased so rapidly, that
the highwaymen who lay in wait for the gamblers, and all
who were likely to carry any considerable sums of money
along with them, increased in an equal ratio, and the “twelve
stout fellows completely armed,” in less than a year had to
* See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lvi. p. 438.
22 - EIAMPSTEAD.
be increased to thirty, so perilous had the journey between
it and London become. Two sentinels, moreover, were
regularly posted at the door of the house. In the fourth
volume of Knight's ‘Illustrated History of England,’ p. 827,
is an engraving of the house as it appeared at that time.
It was not closed as a public resort till after 1745, for foot
races were advertised in May of that year in the ‘London
M. Advertiser,” to take place there. -
After it became again a private residence, it was occupied
by the unfortunate Spencer Perceval from 1798 to 1807.
In Lysons’ time it was in the tenure of James Everett, Esq.,
and afterwards G. J. Wright, Esq. The last tenants were
an aged gentleman and lady, Roman Catholics, and at their
decease it was pulled down, and the ground disposed of for
building. In 1852, when I left St. John’s Wood for Australia,
it was standing in its large old gardens surrounded by part
of the old park-wall, at the farther extremity of which, in
a then lonely spot, a frightful murder had shortly before
been perpetrated.
IMURDER OF MIR. DELATUE.
On the 21st of February, 1845, Mr. James Delarue, a
professor of music, was murdered by a young man named
Thomas Henry Hocker, only twenty-two years of age. This
crime was perpetrated about seven o’clock in the evening,
by a stile at the corner of Belsize Park, on a foot-road
leading to Belsize Park from Chalk Farm. The spot, then
very solitary, is now either covered with houses or is very
near them. Mr. Hilton, a baker of West End, passing near
there in his cart, heard repeated cries of murder, and seeing
a gentleman named Kilburn about to proceed in that direc-
tion, mentioned this to him, and desired him, if he made
any serious discovery, to halloo to him, and leaving his horse
NIUIR, DER OF MIR. DEL ARU E. 23
and cart at the Swiss Tavern, he would hurry to him with
assistance. Mr. Kilburn, at the spot mentioned, found a
man weltering in his blood. On the arrival of police and
others, Hocker, who had proceeded coolly to the Swiss
Tavern after committing the murder, and there called for
brándy and water, also appeared on the spot ; enquired what
was a miss, and taking the dead man’s hand, felt his pulse
and pronounced him dead. The murder was afterwards
clearly traced to Hocker; the cause of it being jealousy and
revenge, So far as it appeared, for his being supplanted by
Delarue in the affections of a young woman of Hampstead.
On the trial Hocker read a paper endeavouring to throw the
charge of the murder on a friend of his, whose name, of
course, he did not disclose; and added an improbable story
of the manner in which his clothes had become stained with
blood. The reading of this paper only impressed the court
and the crowd of spectators with an idea of Hocker’s ex-
cessive hypocrisy and cold-bloodedness. He was convicted
and executed.
The lane which passed Belsize House from St. John’s
Wood to Haverstock Hill might still be called a rural lame
in 1852; but St. John’s Wood was crowding up to it. The
Dissenters had already built their college within sight of it.
When I returned from Australia, two years afterwards, house,
park, and all were gone, and a town stood in their places, still
called Belsize Park, it is true, but a park of streets and
human dwellings. The old elm-tree avenue leading from its
ancient site to Haverstock Hill, is the Only thing now denoting
its ancient whereabouts; and some of these fine elms are in
danger of destruction, some are already killed, by the earth,
in raising the road in the lower part of the avenue, being
heaped about their boles above its customary level. The
French display a better knowledge of natural history; and
24 HAMPSTEAD.
on their boulevards have grates round the stems of the trees
to admit the air and rain to their roots.
THE WELLS.
Those who now pass through the lime avenue of Well
Walk, and see the old Assembly Room, afterwards a chapel,
and now the guard-room of the West Middlesex Volunteers
—who see the Wells Tavern and the chalybeate well oppo-
site—perhaps very seldom have any idea of the scenes which
had taken place there at no very distant date.
The chalybeate wells on Hampstead Heath seem to have
attracted attention at the commencement of the eighteenth
century as of medical efficacy. Dr. Gibbons is said to have
been the first physician of eminence who strongly recom-
mended the drinking of these waters. He himself continued
to drink them ‘whenever business and the season permitted
him to be there,’ till he died in 1725. . It is asserted that
through his recommendations, and those of other physicians,
as Drs. Stephens, Hare, Plumtre, &c., these wells became as
celebrated and much frequented as those of Tunbridge Wells.
As appears by an advertisement in the ‘Postman of April
20, 1700, the Hampstead waters were carried fresh every
day and sold by various persons at Holborn Bars, Charing
Cross, Temple Bar, Ludgate Hill, Stock’s Market, Blooms-
bury, Cheapside, and King’s Street near Guildhall. Mr.
Richard Philps, apothecary, at the Eagle and Child, Fleet
Street, not only sold them every morning fresh, at three-
pence per flask, but sent them out to people’s own houses
at a penny per flask more, the flask returned. --
Dr. Gibbons played a considerable part in Garth’s “Dis–
pensary,’ under the name of Mirmillo. According to the
poet, he was one of the most killing of doctors. He puts
TEIE WELLS. 25
him amongst the stoutest opponents of the proposed dis-
pensary, and makes him say :—
Oxford and all her passing bells can tell
By this right arm what mighty numbers fell.
Whilst others meanly asked whole months to slay
I oft dispatched the patient in a day:
With pen in hand I pushed to that degree,
I scarce had left a wretch to give a fee.
Some fell by laudanum, and some by steel,
And death in ambush lay in every pill.
Por save or slay, this privilege we claim,
Though credit suffers, the reward's the same.
And again :–
• Long have I reigned unrivalled in the town,
Oppressed with fees, and deafened with renown.
None e'er could die with due solemnity,
|Unless his passport first was signed by me.
My arbitrary bounty's undenied :
I give reversions and for heirs provide.
None could the tedious nuptial state support,
But I to make it easy, make it short.
I set the discontented matrons free,
And ransom husbands from captivity.
But the fame of these waters was not very enduring. In
1734 Dr. John Soame, who lived at Hampstead, wrote a
little volume to endeavour to revive their reputation. He
termed his work “Hampstead Wells; or Directions for
drinking the Waters.’ He gave many instances of wonderful
cures effected by these waters; and made as dire an on-
slaught on drinking tea, as ever Cobbett did on eating
potatoes. To this he added an analysis such as, perhaps,
the state of chemical knowledge of the time allowed.
But all did not avail to win back the departed fame of
Hampstead Wells. Mr. Bliss, member of the Royal College
of Surgeons in 1802, gave a much better analysis.
The fame of the waters at first brought a great concourse
of people from London and other places, and Hampstead
was speedily turned into as dissipated a watering-place as
26 HAMPSTEAD.
any in the kingdom, or any in Germany at the present
moment. The Wells were furnished with a tavern, coffee-
room, dancing-room, raffling-shops, bowling-green, &c. &c.
Park gives numerous advertisements from the ‘ Postman'
and the ‘Tatler,’ from 1701 to 1710, which show what was
going on during the summer season there. People were in-
formed that the Wells would be opened with good music for
dancing all day, on May 10, to continue every Monday
during the season ; ‘good eating and drinking, a very plea-
Saint bowling-green, with convenience of coach-houses, and
very good stables for fine horses, with good attendance, and
a farther accommodation of a stage-coach and chariot from
the Wells at any time in the evening or morning.’
It is clear, therefore, that dancing went on all night as
well as all day, which the play of ‘Hampstead Heath also
2LSSULFGS Uls : —
‘Arabella. Well, this Hampstead’s a charming place—to
dance all night at the Wells, and be treated at Mother Huff’s
—to have presents made us at the raffling-shops; and then
take a walk in Cane Wood with a man of wit that’s not over
rude—but to be five or six miles from one’s husband 1 Mar-
riage were a happy state, could one be always five or six
miles from one’s husband l’
Concerts of both vocal and instrumental music were con-
stantly advertised by the best masters. Jeremy Bowen was
to give songs, or Mr. Hughes and Mr. Dean to perform on
the violin. On one occasion several opera songs were to be
given by a girl of nine years old, a scholar of Mr. Tenoe's.
Tickets were usually only a shilling; dancing in the after-
noon Only sixpence ; but on especial occasions tickets were
as high as two-and-sixpence. The dancing took place in
the great or long room, which was 75 feet long and 33 feet
wide. On each side of the entrance were small rooms for
TELE WIETILS. . 27
tea and cards. A subscription of a guinea admitted a gentle-
Iman and two ladies every other Monday through the season.
There was another very accommodating place somewhere
near, namely a private chapel, called Sion Chapel, where
any couples could be married who brought a licence and five
shillings; and an advertisement in ‘Read’s Weekly Journal’
of September 8, 1716, informs us that “Sion Chapel, being a
private and pleasure place, many persons of the best fashion
were married there. Now, a minister is obliged constantly
to attend, and therefore notice is given that all persons, on
bringing a license, and who shall have their wedding dinners
in the gardens, may be married in that said chapel without
giving any fee or reward whatever.” Such as did not dine
in the gardens were only charged the Ordinary five shillings.
Thus the chapel as well as the dancing-room was an
appendage to the inn, and one concern. The place was the
prototype of the Fleet and May Fair.
Besides these amusements and those at Belsize, Hampstead
had its fairs and races on the Heath. The fair was held in
the Lower Flask Tavern Walk, on the 1st of August, and
lasted four days. This, too, was in the immediate vicinity of
the Wells, and on the line leading out of the town to them.
The races were put down, on account of the crowds of bad
company that they drew together, and the mischief occurring.
Probably the fairs were treated the same, from the same
causes, for they appear to have long ceased. The Middle-
sex elections were also held on the Heath till 1701, when
they were removed to Brentford.
With all these places and scenes of dissipation, Hampstead
could not have been then a very desirable place of resi-
dence, nor does one wonder at the following passage in the
‘Tatler '':—
* Vol. ii. No. 59, August 1709.
28 -- - EIAMIPSTEAD.
‘I am diverted from my train of discourse of the fraternity
about this town by letters from Hampstead, which give me
an account there is a late institution there, under the name
of a raffling-shop, which is, it seems, secretly supported
by a person who is a deep practitioner in the law, and, Out
of tenderness to conscience, has, under the name of his
maid Sisly, set up this easier way of conveyancing and
alienating estates from one family to another. He is so
far from having an intelligence with the rest of the frater-
nity that all the humbler cheats who appear there are faced
by the partners in the bank, and driven off by the refection
of superior brass. This notice is given to all the silly faces
that pass that way, that they may not be decoyed in by
the soft allurement of a fine lady, who is the sign to the
pageantry; and at the same time Signior Hawkesly, who is
the patron of the household, is desired to leave off this inter-
loping trade, or admit, as he ought to do, the knights of the
industry to their share in the spoil.’
In 1698 the Hon. Susanna Noel, relict of the Hon. Baptist
Noel, and mother of Baptist, Earl of Gainsborough, did, by
consent of her son (then a minor, and lord of the manor),
grant, in a court baron held for the purpose, six acres of the
waste land lying about and encompassing the Wells, in trust
to the poor of Hampstead. On this land the chapel and
several houses in Well-walk are built. This ‘Wells Charity’
is still applied to apprenticing out poor children whose
parents have been parishioners for three years without re-
ceiving parish relief. The boys must be fourteen, and the
girls twelve years of age. The Wells estate in 1812 pro-
duced 921. per annum, and the trustees had also 1,100l. in
the 3 per cents. The income must now be much larger.
The great assembly-room of the tavern seems to have been
converted into a chapel in or about 1733, as Dr. Soame
THE MINERAL WELLs NORTH OF LONDON. 29
mentions it as a chapel in 1734, and it was not so in 1732.
The Rev. Charles Grant, who became rector of Hinton Parva,
in Dorsetshire in 1800, was some time curate at Hampstead,
and was proprietor of Well-walk Chapel for upwards of thirty
years. -
As the wells of ‘the northern heights of London are so
numerous, and in the last generation presented a peculiar
characteristic of that suburban region, leaving their conse-
quences in the theatre of Sadler’s Wells to this time, we
cannot select a better opportunity of introducing an account
of them than here.
TEIE MINERAL WELLS NORTH OF LONDON.
In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine '' there is an account of
the most remarkable wells in and round London, from which
we take what concerns those on the north of the metro-
polis. Soon after the Revolution, upon the Drama being
emancipated from the shackles of the Puritans, a novel
species of amusement first became general, under the name
of Musick-houses. One of the earliest of these was Cole-
man’s Musick-house near Lamb’s Conduit, which soon
became a place of much abandoned company. In fact, this
was their general character, and, in the end, caused their
putting down one after another. One of the most fre-
quented, and one which long outlasted others, was that
at Islington called Miles’s Musick-house or Sadler’s Wells.
Epsom and Tunbridge Wells were in use before Sadler’s
Well acquired its modern reputation, and there was also
another well at Islington near the same spot called Islington
Wells or Islington Spa, to which we shall anon refer. But
as to Sadler's Well, in a tract referred to by Sir John
* Vol. lxxxiii. pt. ii. p. 553.
30 HAMPSTEAD.
Hawkins, Lysons, and Strutt, published by Thomas Malthus
at the Sun in the Poultry, 1684, we are told that ‘the new
well at Islington is a certain spring in the middle of a
garden belonging to the musick-house built by Mr. Sadler
on the north side of the great cistern that receives the New
River water near Islington; the water whereof was, before
the Reformation, much famed for several extraordinary cures
performed thereby, and was thereupon accounted Sacred, and
called the Holy Well. The priests belonging to the Priory
of Clerkenwell used to attend there, and made the people
believe that the virtues of the water proceeded from the
efficacy of their prayers. But upon the Reformation, the
well was stopped up, on the supposition that the frequenting
it was altogether superstitious; and so by degrees, it grew
out of remembrance and was wholly lost. Mr. Sadler being
made surveyor of the highways, and having good gravel in
his garden, employed two men to dig there.”
These men re-discovered the well, a large well of Stone,
arched over and curiously carved. Supposing that the fame
of the well formerly had proceeded from some medicinal virtue,
Mr. Sadler carried some of it to a doctor, who advised him
to brew beer with it, and sell it in bottles, called roundlets.
Dr. Merton and others recommended their patients to drink
it. And they were told in a puff, that it was well to drink a
glass of Rhenish or white wine with it, and for those who
smoked, to take a pipe or two whilst the water worked. In
fact, it was intended as at all such places, to make it a
resort for dissipation in the pretence of seeking health. The
well appears to have been opened in June 1697, being re-
commended in the ‘Post-boy’ and ‘Flying Post’ as a powerful
chalybeate spring. Sadler would seem only to have held it
till 1799, for in that year it was called Miles’s Musick-
house, though the well continued to hold the name of
Sadler’s Well.
THE MINIERAL WELLS NORTH OF LONDON. 31
A description of the people frequenting the well and
music-house, which shows the rude, low, and disgusting
character of the population resorting to such places at that
period, is given in the ‘Weekly Comedy,’ a play “then acted
in the Coffee-houses of London.” Of this ‘Weekly Comedy
the first number was published about May 3, 1699, and it
was issued periodically in half sheets, folio; apparently with
remarks and anecdotes. It was by Edward Ward; and the
same piece was afterwards inserted in his Miscellaneous
Works, as the “ Humours of a Coffee-house.” These works
of Ned Ward present a faithful, no doubt, but a most awful
and disgusting picture of coarseness, obscenity, and vile
debauchery of the common people of London at that date,
in language which could not be read now in any decent
family. In the third number of Ward’s ‘Comedy,’ and in
‘Dowke's Protestant Mercury’ of the same date, 1699, a
story is related of a fellow at Sadler's Wells, who, after he
had dimed heartily on a buttock of beef, for the wager of five
guineas eat a live cock—feathers, entrails, and all—with
only a plate of oil and vinegar for sauce, and half a pint of
brandy to wash it down ; and offered, after an interval of two
hours, to do the same thing again for five guineas more. In
the same paper of January 4, following, the same monster is
stated to have eaten a live cat at a music-house in St.
Katherine’s. These horrible feats were attested by many
credible people, who were eye-witnesses. According to
Ward’s account, not only butchers, bailiffs, prize-fighters,
deer-stealers, and a world of ‘vermin trained up for the gal-
lows,” but fine ladies and gentlemen from the inns of court,
from the wealthy circles, frequented the New Tunbridge and
Sadler's Wells, at Islington, where they were regaled with
cheese-cakes, custards, bottled ale and Cyder, and with sing-
ing and dancing. In this motley crowd were conspicuous
32 HAMIPSTEAD.
numerous women of the town, and the quality of the singing
and dancing was of the lowest and most sensual kind.
Mimicry and pantomime, and a sort of masquerading, made
up the entertainment, which was witnessed by the more
Select, if any attending such places could merit the name,
from galleries adjoining the Organ-loft.
The celebrity of the springs at Sadler's Well and the
Islington New Tunbridge, did not last long, but the music-
halls and their attractions continued to draw crowds for
several years. There is a rare tract called “God’s Judgment
against Murderers, Or an account of a cruel and barbarous
murther, committed on Thursday night, the 14th of August,
at Sadler’s Musick-house, near Islington, on the body of
Mr. Waite, a lieutenant of a man-of-war, by one Mr.
French, a lawyer of the Temple, showing how they quar-
relled about women,’ &c., 1712. This tract, which calls the
place Sadler’s, otherwise Miles’s Musick-house, gives it the
character of a most abandoned resort ‘ of unaccountable and
disorderly people.’
Sadler’s music-house in his own time was a wooden
building. Miles is said to have much improved and beauti-
fied the place and made it very popular. One account Says
that Miles was succeeded by Francis Forcer, the musician;
but Sir John Hawkins, in his History of Musick, makes
Francis Forcer succeed Sadler:- One Francis Forcer, a
musician, and the composer of many Songs, printed in the
Theatre of Musick, published by Henry Playford and John
Carr, in the years 1685, 1686, and 1687, became the occu-
pier of the Wells and Musick-house. His successor therein
was a son of his, who had been bred up to the law, and,
as some said, a barrister. He was the first who exhibited
there the diversions of rope-dancing, tumbling, &c. He
! Vol. iv. p. 380.
THE MINERAL WELLS NORTH OF LONDON. - 38
was a very gentlemanly man, remarkably tall and athletic,
and died in an advanced age, about the year 1740, at the
Wells, which, for many years, had been the place of his
residence.” -
William Garbott in his ‘New River, a Poem,’ praises
Francis Forcer highly as a gentleman and man of education,
educated at Oxford, and a member of the Bar, and ‘most
obliging man,’ though he confesses that ‘Miles first did
make the Wells known,” or, at least, ‘first got it fame.’ A
few stanzas from Garbott’s poem will give an idea of the
place and its amusements:—
Through Islington then glides my best-loved theme,
And Miles's garden washes with his stream ;
Now Forcer's garden is its proper name,
Though Miles the man was who first got it fame.
And though it's owned Miles first did make it known,
Forcer improves the same we all must own.
There you may sit under the shady trees,
And drink and smoke, fanned by the gentle breeze,
Behold the fish, how wantonly they play,
And catch them also, if you please, you may.
Two noble Swans swim by this garden's side,
Of water-fowl the glory and the pride,
Which to the garden no small beauty are ; - -
Were they but black, they would be much more rare :
With ducks so tame that from your hands they feed,
And, I believe, for that they sometimes bleed.
A noble walk likewise adorns the place,
To which the river adds a greater grace;
There you can sit, or walk, do what you please,
Which best you like, and most suits at your ease.
Now to the show-room let's awhile repair
To see the active feats performèd there;
How the bold Dutchman on the rope doth bound,
With greater air than others on the ground;
What capers does he cut ! how backward leaps
With Merry Andrew eyeing all his steps:
His comic humours with delight you see,
Pleasing unto the best of company.
The great D'Aumont has been diverted there,
- With divers others of like character;
As by their generous gifts they make appear.
D
34 FIAMPSTEAD.
The famous tumbler lately is come o'er,
Who was the wonder of the other shore :
France, Spain, and Holland, and High Germany,
Sweden, and Denmark, and famed Italy,
His active feats did with amazement see,
Which done by man they thought could never be.
Amongst the rest, he falleth from on high,
Head-foremost from the upper gallery,
And in his fall performs a somerset,
The women think in dread he'll break his neck,
And gently on his feet comes to the ground,
To the amazement of beholders round.
Black-Scaramouch and Harlequin of fame
The ladder-dance, with forty I could name,
Full as diverting, and of later date,
You may see there at a much cheaper rate
Than at THE Hous E, as well performed too :
You only pay for liquors, not the show ;
Such as neat brandy, Southam cyder fine,
And grape's true juice as eer was pressed from vine.
Francis Forcer continued lessee of the premises till the
time of his death, which happened in April 1743. In his
will he added the house at Sadler’s Wells, with all its stock,
scenery, &c., to be sold for the payment of his debts. This
was done; an encouragement to a new place of the same
kind opened at Clerkenwell. A view of old Sadler's Wells
is engraved in a quarto volume of songs set to music, called
“ Universal Harmony, or the Gentlemen and Ladies Com-
panion,’ 1745 and 1746. The Well-house is seen standing
detached from the Musick-house. ‘A song on Sadler’s
Wells' in the volume says:–
Herds around, on herbage green,
And bleating flocks, are sporting seen ;
While Phoebus with his brightest rays
The fertile soil doth seem to praise;
And zephyrs with their gentlest gales,
T}reathing more sweet than flowery vales,
Which give new health, and heat repells,
Such are the joys of Sadler's Wells.
Let us just imagine the site of Sadler’s Wells now, in the
heart of brick Islington |
THE MINERAL WELLS NORTH OF LONDON. 35
The next proprietor was Rosoman, who in 1765 pulled
down the old wooden building, and erected the theatre on
an enlarged scale, at a cost of 4,225l. In fitting up the
theatre every attention was paid to the accommodation of
the audience with liquors during the performance, for which
purpose the seats had backs with ledged shelves at the top,
so as to secure the bottles for each row of visitors in succes-
sion, and the glasses having only short stems, were turned
down over the mouths of the bottles. A bill of 1773 gives
us the terms on which this theatrical system was conducted:
—“Ticket for the boxes, 3s., which entitles the bearer to a
pint of Port, Mountain, Lisbon, or Punch. Ticket for the
pit, 1s. 6d. Ticket for the gallery, 1s. ; either of which,
with an additional sixpence, will entitle the bearer to a pint
of either of the aforesaid liquors. Any person choosing a
second pint may have it at 1s., the price paid at any other
public place.’ At benefits, the performers relied on their
popularity to fill the house, and announced, ‘boxes 88. ; pit
and gallery, 1s. 6d. Those who choose wine may have it at
2s. a bottle.” There was a temporary revival of this most
objectionable custom during the seasons of 1803–4–5; and
the wine supplied at 2s. the bottle and 18. the pint.
In 1778 the whole interior of the house was broken down
and materially improved. About the same period, if not
some years earlier, Dibdin composed several favourite pieces
for this theatre. The music was popular, the scenes novel,
and the pantomimes celebrated for their comic tricks and
changes. Here Grimaldishone in all his inimitableness. From
Rosoman Sadler’s Wells went to the celebrated performer,
Mr. King, Serjeant the trumpeter, and Arnold, a goldsmith
and jeweller. Arnold and Mr. Wroughton, of Drury Lane,
purchased the place for 12,000l. The Wells were afterwards
the joint property of Messrs. Wroughton, Siddons (husband
ID 2
36 HAMPSTEAI),
of the celebrated Mrs. Siddons), Hughes (proprietor of
several provincial theatres), Coates (a linen-draper), and Mr.
Arnold, jun. In 1802 it was purchased by Charles Dibdin,
Mr. T. Dibdin (his brother), Mr. Reeve (the composer), Mr.
Andrews (the scene-painter of this theatre), and two gentle-
men of the City. The proximity of the New River enabled
the proprietors, in Easter of 1804, to exhibit a water enter-
tainment called Naumachia, in which real water was intro-
duced, with a large basin, where the stage originally stood,
with boats, ships, and huge sea-monsters upon it.
The Islington Spa, or New Tunbridge Wells, was a similar
place of entertainment, as we have said, before Sadler’s
Wells was opened ; though it does not seem to have had
music until Sadler's Wells compelled it to introduce it or to
fall behind in interest. In 1700 it advertised music for
dancing all the day long every Monday and Thursday during
the summer season. No mask admitted. In 1733 it was
visited by the Princess Amelia for drinking the waters.
George Colman wrote a dramatic trifle called ‘The Spleen; or
Islington Spa,” which was acted at Drury Lane in 1776. In
the following year Mr. Holland, the proprietor, advertised
that the number of patients daily receiving benefit “was
scarcely to be creditted.’ Holland soon after failed, and the
remainder of the lease was sold. The place continued to go
down. The gardens, however, for some years opened on
Mondays for drinking the waters, and on afternoons for
tea. Annual subscription one guinea; visits to drink the
waters, sixpence each to non-subscribers. In a volume of
songs, published about 1727, there is a view of the company
walking round the quadrangle enclosing the well, and others
walking in the gardens. After the gardens were closed an
attempt was made to re-open them again as a minor
THE MINERAL WELLS NORTH OF LONDON. 37
Hy
Vauxhall; but before 1812 they were broken up and a
row of houses built on the spot, the well, however, con-
tinued open.
The Clerks’ Well, so called from the monks of Clerkenwell
Priory, and which now gives name to the populous parish of
Clerkenwell, is the most ancient of those in the vicinity of
the metropolis. It was indebted for its fame to the history
of the drama, and not to any medicinal virtues of the
Spring.
Bagnigge Wells were situated on a little stream called the
River Bagnigge, though scarcely better than a ditch. The
House of Bagnigge was at one time inhabited by Nell
Gwynn. On an inscription on the front of it stood, ‘T. S.
This is Bagnigge House near the Pindar a Wakefeilde, 1680.”
In it was a chimney-piece with a carved effigy of Nell sur-
rounded by prints of all sorts, gilt, supposed to refer to her
Origin as seller of fruit at the theatres. In 1760, on dis-
covery of the wells, it was opened for water-drinking, and
for the rest of the amusements given at such places, and
probably from Nell Gwynn's residence there, called, “The
Boyal Bagnigge Wells.’ It was a great Sunday resort. A
curious mezzotint print of Bagnigge Wells was published by
J. R. Smith, 1772. In 1813 the tenant, a Mr. Salter, was a
bankrupt, and the furniture, fittings-up, with all the leader,
figures of the garden, pumps, suckers, pipes, coppers, garden
lights, shrubs, 200 drinking tables, 250 forms, 400 dozen of
bottled ale, &c., were sold.
Kilburn Wells were not publicly known at the time of the
publication of Dr. John Birkenhead’s “Outlines of Natural
History,’ in 1772; but in the following year they were
38 HAMPSTEAD.
advertised as having their gardens and great room for music,
dancing, &c. -
There were also St. Chad's Well, near Battle Bridge, which
was much resorted to by the population of the neighbour-
hood, and .
The River of Wells, which commenced at the foot of Hamp-
stead Hills, and ran between Pond Street and Kentish Town to
Pancras, and then by several meanders through Battle Bridge,
Black St. Mary’s Hall (where also there was a spring), and
thence by Turn mill Street, Field Lane, Holborn Bridge, to
Fleet Ditch. Of this river tradition saith, according to
Norden, “that it was once navigable, and that lighters and
barges used to go up as far as Pancras Church, and that
in digging, anchors have been found within these two
hundred years.’ Hence, by the choking up of the river, it is
easy to account for the decay of the town of Pancras. In
the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell there were several wells—
Skinner’s, Fag’s, Tode, Loder’s, and Rodwell Wells; and
from the overflowing of these, according to Stow, this was
called the River of Wells.
All this is now covered in, and runs under houses.
RILBTURN PRIORY.
This conventual property and estate having been inti-
mately connected with the Manor of Hampstead, both under
the monks of Westminster, and afterwards, it will be con-
venient to give a concise notice of it before entering on the
details of the Village of Hampstead. .
This numnery was, it appears, Originally a hermitage.
One Godwin had retired thither, being in possession of
certain lands there; and he built his hermitage on the
banks of the little rivulet, Kule-Bourne, or the Coal Brook,
RIL BURN PRIORY. - 39
synonymous with the phantom of Kühleborn in the story of
Undine. It was surrounded with wood; and was very much
as Spenser describes such a place in his Faerie Queene :—
A litle lowly hermitage it was,
Downe in a dale, hard by a forest's side,
Far from resort of people, that did pass
In traveill to and froe ; a little wyde
There was a holy chapell edifyde
Wherein the Hermite dewly went to say
His holy things, each morne and eventyde:
Thereby a christall streame did gently play
Which from a sacred fountaine welled forth alway.
OLD KILIBURN PRIORY.
(From an old Drawing in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
The place a town now, no doubt was solitary enough in
the reign of Henry I. in the early part of the twelfth cen-
tury. Godwin, it appears, soon became weary of so much
solitude as Kilburn then afforded, and made over his cell
and lands to the Abbey of Westminster; and the abbot
of Westminster, the Bishop of London consenting, con-
veyed the place to three virgins, named Emma, Gunilda,
and Cristina, who had been maids of honour to Matilda,
queen of Henry I. The queen was herself a most religious

4() HAMPSTEAD,
personage, who is stated to have gone every day in Lent
to Westminster Abbey, bare-footed and bare-legged, wear-
ing a garment of hair. She would wash and kiss the feet
of the poorest people. These three maids of honour pro-
bably were inspired by their devout mistress with a desire
for a religious life; and they and all others who should
thereafter take up their abode in that place, under monastic
regulations, were to have the guardianship of a warden of
suitable age and character. Godwin received this office first,
and no doubt found his solitude agreeably relieved by the
society of those ladies who, as maids of honour, must have
possessed whatever education court-ladies then received.
On the death of Godwin, the nuns were to elect with the
advice of the Abbot of Westminster, some senior person
capable of presiding over their church, and their chaplain
was not to interfere with the temporal matters of the con–
vent, for into that it grew; neither was the Abbot of West-
minster to put any one into this office without their consent;
they were to enjoy all the possessions which God might
please to bestow on them, “as freely as St. Peter did his.’
Very soon, additions were made to the property by the
Abbot of Westminster and others for prayers for the souls
of abbots and brothers of Westminster and Feschamp. The
church was dedicated to St. John the Baptist; and Herbert,
the abbot, soon after gave them an estate in Knightebruga,
or Knightsbridge, called the Gara, probably the Gore at
Rensington. His successor, Gervase, gave them two corra-
dies, one of bread and beer, and another of cooked meats
for the kitchen, called coquina, and of clareto.
Abbot Walter, in 1191, gave the Manor of Paddington to
the Abbey of Westminster, and on the anniversary of this
gift, the nuns of Kilburn received a fresh allowance of bread
and wine,
KILBURN PRIORY. 41
Great strife arose afterwards betwixt the Abbot of West-
minster and the Bishop of London, as to right of spiritual
interference in the nunnery, and the question was referred
to Pope Honorius in 1225, who gave the decision as was
just, according to the charter, to the Abbot of Westminster;
but the Bishop of London, who was now become very power-
ful, resisted this, and referred the question to the Bishop of
Rochester and the Prior of Dunstable, who decided in his
favour. Henceforward, the bishops of London exercised eccle-
siastical authority over the nunnery, consecrated the nuns,
appointed the chaplain, and the prioress, for they now had
One. Further benefactions were made to this nunnery of
the Manor of Middleton in Surrey, by John de Somerie, and
the priory was exempt from all tenths, fifteenths, and taxes
and tallages whatever. In the reign of Edward III. Roger
de Aperdele granted the prioress and nuns the Manor of
Minchin in Surrey; and, in the same reign, Thomas de
Wolton and William Topcliffe granted them the advowson
of the church of Codam, and an acre of land in Kent. Yet,
after all, one is surprised to learn that in 1877 the nun-
nery was in great distress, and an enquiry being instituted
by the Bishop of London, “a wretched spectacle of distress'
was exhibited to the eyes of the visitors. It is not explaimed
how this distress came about, but it must either have arisen
from mismanagement of the property of the nunnery, or from
the great hospitality which the nuns had to exercise to trav-
ellers so near London, when the convents were the only or
nearly only, houses for the reception of travellers.
Park gives an inventory of the goods in the nunnery at
the time of the visitation in the reign of Henry VIII., in
order to the suppression. Amongst the articles of daily use
were ‘6 stone cruesys to drynke in.” The fittings-up of
the church do not appear to have been very costly. The
42 HAMPSTEAD.
nuns were found in possession of forty acres of cultivated
land in the parish of Willesden, besides the other property
mentioned. The nunnery must have been of less yearly
value than 200l., as it was suppressed under that category.
After the dissolution, Henry VIII. made over the lands
of the nunnery at Kilburn, Hampstead, and Kilburn Wood,
in exchange for Paris Garden and other estates, to the
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. The Knights Templars
formerly owned this property, but having been dissolved in
1312, it was transferred to the Knights Hospitallers of St.
John of Jerusalem ; and also they, in their turn, were dis-
solved by Henry VIII. in 1540; and the King granted the
site of the Priory of Kilburn to the Earl of Sussex, and the
Manor of Shuttup-Hill, called also the Mamor of Hampstead,
to Sir Roger Cholmeley, Chief Baron of the Exchequer. Kil-
burn afterwards passed through many different hands. Sir
Roger Cholmeley having only two daughters, his property also
passed through various hands, and in those of Sir Arthur
Atye in 1564, the two estates became again united, only to
be afterwards divided again. In Park’s time, there remained
the farm of Shuttup-Hill, which was freehold and in posses-
sion of Arthur Annesley Powell, Esq. of Devonshire Place ;
and a portion of the Kilburn property called the Abbey
Farm, forty-six acres, copyhold, was in the possession of
Mr. Richard Marsh of Simonshyde, near Hatfield. All the
conventual buildings had disappeared, except a portion of
the domestic buildings of which he gives an engraving.
IHAMPSTEAD HEATH AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
Before entering the village of Hampstead we may as well
take one stroll on the Heath, now greatly diminished from
what it once was, and greatly defaced by the destruction of
HIAMIPSTEAD HEATH AND ITS ASSOCIATTONS, 43
trees, the uprooting of its luxuriant furze and broom, and
the carting away of its heathery surface for gravel and sand.
In old Gerard’s time, who ranged the Heath as he did all the
country round London, a most remarkable variety of plants
grew upon it. But it is really amazing to see in the cata-
logue of Mr. Bliss, furnished to Park, such plants as the
crowberry, the henbane, the lily of the valley, bilberries, the
service-tree, and raspberries, were still to be found on the
Heath in the present century. These are wholly exclusive
of rare plants found in Caen Wood park, woods, and ponds,
as furnished in the catalogue by Mr. Hunter, Lord Mans-
field’s steward. There probably they may yet be found, as
they are protected; but to what an extent must the surface
of the Heath have been ravaged and deteriorated within the
last fifty years. Only, indeed, by the jealous care of its
inhabitants has it been saved from the process of inclosure
which has swallowed so many other of the open spaces
around the metropolis and other great cities, so vitally
essential to the health of their inhabitants. It is not to
be wondered at that the lords of manors, tempted by the
enormous value which such open expanses have acquired
as building land, should have exerted all their power
and influence to appropriate them. In proportion as this
value increased, so did the lords of manors propound the
theory that the fee simple resided in them, and that they
could enclose at pleasure. But this doctrine has met with
a decided check at Great Berkhampstead, at Wimbledon, and
at Hampstead. At Great Berkhampstead the lord of the
manor had already proceeded to enclose, and set the in-
habitants and commoners at defiance. At Wimbledon, the
lord of the manor had more magnanimously offered to
bestow the common on the inhabitants; but in both cases
the commoners and inhabitants put in a claim of rights On
44 - HAMPSTEAD.
their part as valid as those of the lord, and their rights
were allowed by the legislature or the courts of law. Hamp-
stead Heath has been for many years menaced with enclo-
sure by the lord of the manor, and the numerous attempts
of Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson to beguile Parliament into
sanctioning his desire for enclosure, is a piece of history
unique and curious of its kind. Fortunately, as lords of
manors rose in their claims, it became clear to the minds
of the public that, if there were any truth in the maxims of
common law, and any force in successive acts of parliament,
in declaring the acquisition of right by the unrestricted
enjoyment of a property for a certain number of years,
the public enjoyment of the open grounds near particular
places, by the inhabitants of those places, constituted a .
right of such enjoyment as strong as that of the lord of the
manor; and that without their consent neither the lord of
a manor, nor the lord in co-operation with the freeholders,
copyholders, and those enjoying commonage, called the
homage, could enclose at all. This right, too, has received
the sanction of the law, as may be seen in the treatises on
common rights which have lately been published. Besides
this, the Act of Parliament procured by the Right Hon.
William Cowper in 1866 has now for ever barred the enclo-
sure of such lands within a circuit of fourteen miles found
Charing Cross, London. These will prove serious obstacles
to the inflated demands of Sir Thomas Wilson of some half
million for Hampstead Heath, as advanced on the basis of
building land value to Sir John Thwaites, the head of the
Metropolitan Board of Works; and the enquiry in Chancery,
on the part of the inhabitants of Hampstead, into Sir
Thomas’s real rights will, no doubt, result in a fresh con-
firmation of the solid and inalienable claims of the public
over all such lands where they have for more than thirty
EIAMIPSTEAD EIBATEL AND ITS ASSOCIATION S. 45
years established a user. Whether the mischief done by the
sale of sand can be checked is perhaps more dubious.
One of the earliest and most curious facts of history con-
nected with Hampstead Heath is that stated by Matthew
Paris, or rather by Roger of Wendover, from whom he borrows
it, that so late as in the thirteenth century, it was the resort
of wolves, and was as dangerous to cross on that account
at night as it was for ages afterwards, and, in fact, almost
down to our own times, for highwaymen.
But Matthew Paris not only says that wolves in his time
abounded in this neighbourhood, but wild boars, deer, and
wild bulls, the ancient British cattle; so that neither the
wolf's-head tax of King Edgar in Wales, nor the man-
dates of Edward I. in England, had anything like ac-
complished the extirpation of the wolf in this island.
Fitz-Stephen in his ‘Survey of London,’ so late as 1182,
and Juliana, Berners, still later, in the reign of Henry VI.,
in the fifteenth century, asserts in the “Boke of St. Alban’s’
that the wolf and wild boar still haunted the forests north of
London. Of the four ‘beastes of venerie,” she says: —
The fyrste of theym is the harte ; the second is the haire,
The boore is one of tho : the Wulfe and not one mo.
So late as the commencement of the present century,
highway robberies were of daily occurrence within twenty
miles round London. They were pretty frequent about
Hampstead Heath. The following account in the ‘Domestic
Occurrences’ in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for July 1803,
shows that there were plucky fellows amongst the London
tradesmen then. ‘This morning, June 26, as Mr. Orrell, of
Winsley Street, Oxford Street, with Mrs. Orrell, were passing
in their chaise over Goulder’s Green, on their way to Hendon,
about half-past eight, they were stopped by a single high-
wayman, who produced a pistol and demanded their money.
46 EIAMPSTEAT).
Mr. Orrell declared he would not be robbed, and after the
highwayman had uttered violent oaths and threats, and put
his pistol several times to the head of Mr. and Mrs. Orrell,
Mr. Orrell jumped out of the chaise, and seizing the high-
wayman, nearly pulled him off his horse, and laid hold of
the pistol; on which the highwayman struggled and spurred
his horse, and having extricated himself, gallopped away
towards Hampstead. He afterwards stopped one of the
Hampstead stages near Red Lion Hill, in which were six
passengers, with two men and the coachman outside, and
robbed them of upwards of 40l. Besides this number of
persons in and on the coach, there were several persons
passing at the time ! He then rode coolly off.”
What a striking proof that a bold heart in a single man’s
breast, is worth a score of men without hearts.
To what a regular profession the ‘dealing with gentlemen
for rings, watches, purses, canes, swords, and other commo-
dities on the heaths round London had become, is demon-
strated by the following curious document :—
BILT, FILED BY A HIGHWAY MAN.
One of the most remarkable facts in the history of high-
waymen, who a century ago played a bold and very promi-
ment part. On the roads round Tondon for a dozen miles
or so, is connected with Hampstead, as it also is with
Finchley, Blackheath, Hounslow Heath, and other favourite
places for the kind of ‘dealing' in which this gentleman
and his partner were engaged. It is a ‘Bill filed in the
Court of Exchequer by William Wreathock, of Hatton
Garden, attorney, between John Everet and Joseph Wil-
liams, two motorious robbers; the former of whom was
afterwards executed at Tyburn, and the latter at Maidstone,
JBIT,L FILEID BY A HIGHEIWAY MAN. 47
in Rent ; for which insult and affront on the Court,
Wreathock was committed prisoner to the Fleet, where he
remained six months.”
It is worth while to quote some portion of this extra-
ordinary bill as a curiosity.
“To the Right Honorable the Chancellor and Under-
Treasurer, the Right Honorable the Lord Chief Baron, and
the rest of the Honorable the Barons of His Majesty’s Court
of Exchequer:-
“Humbly complaining, sheweth unto your Honours your
orator, John Everet, of the parish of St. James’s, Clerken-
well, in the county of Middlesex, gent., debtor and ac-
countant to his Majesty, as by the record of this honorable
court and otherwise it doth and may appear; that your
orator being skilled in dealing and in buying and selling
several sorts of commodities, such as corn, hay, Straw,
horses, cows, sheep, oxen, hogs, wool, lambs, butter, cheese,
plate, rings, watches, canes, swords, and other commodities,
whereby your Orator had acquired to himself a very con-
siderable sum of money, to the amount of 1,000l. and up-
wards; and Joseph Williams of the parish of , in the
said county of Middlesex, gent., being acquainted there with,
and knowing your Orator’s great care, diligence, and in-
dustry in managing the said dealing, he, the said Joseph
Williams, in or about the year of our Lord 1770, applied
himself to your orator, in order to become your orator's
partner therein ; and after several such applications and
meetings between him and your Orator for that purpose
your orator agreed that the said Joseph Williams should
become his partner.’
In the same legal style the bill continues to the extent of
several pages, but we may note its depositions much more
concisely. These are, that the said Joseph Williams agreed to
48 HAMPSTEAD.
enter into this trade, or, in plain language, general system
of robbery, and to pay half the expenses of it on the roads,
at inns, alehouses, markets, and fairs, &c.; and should
furnish his share of necessaries, as horses, bridles, saddles,
assistants, and servants. This partnership was only for one
year, and was to end at Michaelmas 1721.
This trade was to be plied on Hounslow, Hampstead, and
Black Heaths, at Finchley Common, Bagshot, and Wimbledon
in Surrey, Salisbury in Wiltshire, and elsewhere; in which
places they dealt with gentlemen for divers watches, rings,
Swords, Canes, hats, cloaks, horses, bridles, saddles, and
other things (purses, no doubt, though not mentioned). In
this trade they were so successful that they soon were in
possession of 2,000l. But when the said Everet called on
the said Williams to render a full and fair account, and to
divide the proceeds (for Williams is made to appear to have
been ‘the Judas, and carried the bag ’), instead of so dividing,
he made similar claims on Everet, and these being refused,
commenced an action at law against him in Court of
Common Pleas at Westminster, and actually obtained a
verdict for 20l. ; on which account, and also because the
said Joseph Williams threatened the said Everet with fresh
lawsuits, and moreover maligned his character, denied the
receipts of money attributed to him, and even denied the
contract of partnership (which the plaintiff confesses was
not in writing, but merely verbal), this John Everet seeks
redress from the Court of Exchequer, and prays that the
fraudulent Joseph Williams may be cited and compelled to
show a fair account, by the production of all the necessary
books, papers, writings, memorandums, and accounts; that
he may be compelled to make a fair division of profits on
such accounts thus proved, and may be restrained from any
further action at law against the said John Everet, &c.
BITIL FILEID BY A HIGH WAY MAN. 49
This extraordinary bill was filed on October 3, 1725,
‘Int. Joh’em Everit . . . quer.
Josephum Williams ... deft.
‘P. Bill Anglicum.’
Immediately on the filing of this bill, the counsel for the
defendant, Mr. Serjeant Girdler, moved that it might be
referred to John Harding, Esq., D.R. of the court, as scan-
dalous and impertinent, which was done; and the bill being
pronounced by the court, on the report of the said John
Harding, Esq., D.R. of the court, both scandalous and im-
pertiment, Everit was sentenced to pay the costs in the case;
and the solicitors, White and Wreathock, were summoned
into court by the tipstaff, and each of them fined 50l. or to
be committed to the Fleet till the fines were paid. It
appears that Wreathock was accordingly imprisoned for six
months. John Collins, Esq., whose name appeared upon
the bill, was also sentenced to pay such costs as the Deputy
should state. Such was the punishment inflicted by the
Court of Exchequer for the indignity offered to it by the
filing of this highwayman’s bill.
Everit, the plaintiff, was convicted in January 1729–30,
for robbing one Martha Ellis on the highway near St. Pan-
cras, and was executed at Tyburn on the 20th of February
following. Williams, the defendant, was executed two years
before Everit, namely in March 1727, at Maidstone, for a
robbery committed there; and Wreathock, Everit's solicitor,
was afterwards tried at the Old Bailey, for being concerned
with robbing Dr. Lancaster, in company with several others,
and transported for life. As a proceeding at law, this bill,
filed by a highwayman, and drawn by a solicitor who also
practised on the highway, is certainly unique."
| Gentleman's Magazinc, Vol. lxxxii, part i. p. 610,
E
50 |HAMPSTEAD.
Finchley Common, which was enclosed only in 1812, and
of which a large portion was obtained by the proprietors of
Friars' Barnet, was perhaps more motorious for the practice
of this nocturnal conveyancing than even Hampstead Heath.
By the year 1816 wonderful changes had been produced
in and around the metropolis, as regarded the security of
moving about. The improvement in the roads and in the
system of magistracy and police had operated most bene-
ficially. Before this the magistrates were, as they are still
generally in the provinces, unpaid. They were, moreover,
most unfit, and extremely corrupt. Few of them knew any-
thing of law; many were retail tradesmen. Justice Black-
borough, of Clerkenwell, was an old ironmonger. They had
no salaries, and therefore made what they could out of fees
and bribes. Henry Fielding, it is said, had no salary,
though his half-brother, Sir John Fielding, had. Hence the
justices were called ‘trading justices,’ and ‘basket justices.”
The basket justices were open to bribes of good things, and
had a basket into which such contributions by those called
before them were not very privately thrown. The trading
justices lived upon fees, which they shared with their clerks,
and had the lion’s share. Fielding describes one of these in
his “Amelia.’ Jonathan Thrasher, Esq., one of the justices
of the peace for the liberty of Westminster, he says, “was
utterly without knowledge of the laws of England, but was
well versed in the laws of nature; that is to say, he looked
after his own interest, and was never indifferent in a cause
but when he could get nothing on either side.’ Fielding
says that One of his own predecessors used to make a
thousand a year of the place. One means was to issue
Orders to take up all the poor devils in the streets, and then
bail them out at 2s. 4d. per head. Thus a hundred wretched
girls at 2s. 4d. would make 11!. 13s. 4d. This all went to
EIIGEIWAY IMPROVEMENT. 51
the magistrate—a tolerable morning’s work. They sent none
to jail, for bailing them was so much better.
The police of that time were not police, but constables—
fellows picked up any where or how, for not every one
would have such a post; and many of them had trades of
their own to look after. So magistrates, constables, and
thieves all flourished together. The change into paid
Imagistrates and regular police astonished the famous Bow
Street officer, John Townsend. When he had held that post
for five-and-thirty years, in giving his evidence before a
committee of the House of Commons, in 1816, he said :
“There is one thing which appears to me most extraordinary,
when I remember that very likely in a single week there
would be from ten to fifteen highway robberies. We have
not had a man committed for highway robbery very lately.
I speak of persons on horseback. Formerly there were two,
three, or four highwaymen; some on Hounslow Heath, some
on Wimbledon Common, some on the Romford Road. I
have actually come to Bow Street in a morning, and while I
have been leaning over the desk, had three or four people
come in and say: “I was robbed by two highwaymen in
such a place;” “I was robbed by a single highwayman in
such a place.” People travel more safely by means of the
horse-patrol that Sir Richard Ford planned. Where are these
highway robberies now? As I was observing to the Chan-
cellor at the time I was up at his house on the Corn Bill:
he said, “Townsend, I knew you very well so many years
ago.” I said, “Yes, my lord, I remember you first coming
to the bar, just in your plain gown, and then as King’s
Counsel, and now Chancellor. Now your lordship sits as
Chancellor, and directs the executions on the Recorder's
report, but where are the highway robberies now P” And
his lordship said, “Yes, I am astonished. There are no
E 2
52 EIAMPSTEAD.
footpad robberies now, but merely jostling you in the streets.
They used to be ready to pop at a man as soon as he let
down his glass; that was by banditti.” "
As to the frequency of highway robberies in the districts
round London, Townsend added, ‘Chief Justice Eyre once
went the Home circuit, beginning at Hertford and ending at
Ringston, when crimes were so desperate that in his charge to
the grand jury at Hertford, he told them to be careful about
what bills they found, for he had made up his mind, when-
ever persons were convicted throughout the circuit for capital
crimes, to hang them all. And he kept his word; he saved
neither man nor woman. In One case seven people—four
men and three women—were convicted of robbing a pedler
in a house in Kent Street. They were all convicted, and all
hanged opposite the house in Kent Street where the offence
was committed; and, I think, on Kennington Common, eight
more, making fifteen, all that were convicted being hung.
With respect to the present time, and the early part of my
time, such as 1781–1787, where one is committed now ten
were them, and we never had an execution without gracing
that unfortunate gibbet with from ten to twenty, and forty
I Once saw at twice. I have them all down at home.’
Since Townsend’s time we cannot so much say that the
thieves have decreased as that they have changed the theatre
of their operations. Our highways are tolerably secure—
railways have, for one thing, removed nocturnal travelling
from them—but the streets of the metropolis can show all
the robbery that the highways have lost. No part of the
world displays such nightly assaults and plundering of the
person as the British capital, as the police reports testify.
The ‘Arabian Nights’ boast of their ‘forty thieves;' but our
gas-lit and police-provided streets boast their forty thousand.
When shall another Townsend be astonished at the disap-
pearance of these perpetual feats of night-errantry 3
THE GROVES OF HAMPSTEAD. 53
TEIE GROVES OF EIAMPSTEAD.
Hone, in his ‘Table Book, p. 810, says Hampstead is ‘the
place of groves; how long it may remain so is a secret
in the bosom of speculators and builders. Its first grove
townward is the noble private avenue from Hampstead Road
to Belsize House, in the valley between Primrose Hill and
the hill where the church stands, with Mr. Memory-Corner
Thompson’s remarkable house and lodge at the corner of the
pleasant highway to the little village of West-End. In the
neighbourhood of Hampstead Church, and between that
edifice and the Heath, are several old groves. Winding
southwardly from the Heath, there is a charming little grove
in Well Walk, with a bench at the end, whereon I last
saw poor Keats, the poet of the ‘Pot of Basil,” sitting and
sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief, glancing
parting looks towards the quiet landscape he had delighted
in, musing as in his “Ode to the Nightingale’—
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth !
O for a beaker full of the warm south,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainëd mouth ;
That I might drink and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
HAMPSTEAD.
¤±
ſ（№∞ae：
§*?， †№^'*-- （）----
.… …»ſaeae5: （.*?）（$№rs
ſae . №Ē№
NT º T. ..
*~
, , , ， ºs
ĒĒĒS=s~№Ē
ĒšĒĒĒĒĒĒĒ
|-#
will always confer an interest on the seat in the avenue at
on the earth, as he faded away, and ‘left the world unseen,”
the end of Well Walk.
This little incident of one of the farewell looks of John Keats
WALK.
\\ 15 Ll,
sly
(From a Photograph takcn expres
for this work.)
not noticed by
Ough
leads down thr
Hone,
2
A noble avenue
Mr. Hoare's house to Nor
quarter remarkable on many accounts.
-End, a
th
2UT
the fir-clump from me
To these William Home might also have added the fine
avenue leading from Squire’s Mount up to the new church
—Christ Church.
A still more remarkable one is an avenue
called Judges’ Bench, or Judges’ Avenue (mentioned anon),
















THE GROVES OF HAMPSTEAD. 55
and facing the Heath, behind Upper Terrace. A very fine
avenue is that leading from Roslyn House, particulars regard-
ing which will be found under the head of “Roslyn House.’
Another such avenue is Montague Grove itself. Besides
these avenues or groves, every part of Old Hampstead is
distinguished by rows of trees, either lime or elm trees,
planted along the broad footpaths in boulevard style.
Bampstead stands on a great extent of ground, and its old
narrow roads winding under tall trees, are continually con-
ducting to fresh and secluded places, that seem hidden from
the world, and would lead you to suppose yourselves far
away from London, and in some especially old-fashioned
and old-world part of the country. Extensive old and lofty
walls enclose the large old brick houses and grounds of
what were once the great merchants and nobles of London;
and ever and amon you are reminded of people and things
which lead your recollection back to the neighbouring
capital and its intruding histories. For instance, descend-
ing one of those quiet shady roads from Mr. Bickersteth’s
church towards Well Walk, you come to a still sort of three-
cornered space, surrounded by houses of a somewhat de-
serted character, except at the lower side, where modern
improvement has entered. The house No. 6 of this still
quarter, which bears the name of Grove Place, and which is
of lath and plaster, and stoops forward as if intending to fall
forward ere long, is, you are assured, the One where the
motorious Mary Ann Clarke lived when in the keeping of the
Duke of York. It is no very princely abode, but is distin-
guished from the rest of the row by a somewhat ornamented
doorway of carved wood. Next it, but standing somewhat
back, is a house called the “Bath House,” probably set up as
a bath-house in the days when the wells of Hampstead were
frequented by the invalids and roués of London.
Yſiºſ: ºlº
ºš'
º &####$º.
sº º
lºſſ ſº nº
º |||}| # . | º
| ſ k',"," # º º | |
º
º
§ § 3.
º
§§
º |
jº tº f
º lºº, Ilºilº :
Nººs { ***. ! {
ſº • *
sº
º
** º:
i ſº
|
||||||
* * * * - º
sitºwº , * *: #
|º
} ...}} |I||
||f|| |||}
: ºſſ. | |
Fº:
*:
Fº:
É § º ºf P
º - * #: º
º Nº. #3 º E-
; wº U
|; É. |6|ff
|ÉÉÉ;
2nd | “... it D
ºrs' --- - "I D
: sº º -
º ***
º º
s
* º
† :::::::::::mºlº ;
i:38.4% º
LORD ERSKINE’s Hous E, NEAR ‘THE SPANIARDS.’
(From a Photograph taken expressly for this work.)
LORD ERSKINE AT EVERGREEN HILL, HAMPSTEAD HEATH.
Passing by the ‘Spaniards' public-house at the eastern
entrance of Hampstead Heath, on the way from Highgate,
with what a different feeling do we contemplate the house
next adjoining it, to what we do the abode of Lord Chancellor
Wedderburn, or even the great mansion of Lord Mansfield
in Caen Wood. Of this house we see little but its end, and
a simple portico leading into it from the road. A high wall
shuts in what little of garden it has on that side, and
another high wall shuts out from view the spacious gardens
and grounds formerly belonging to it on the other side of
the road. There is no grace of architecture about the
building; it is simply a bald Square mass, shouldered up
again by another house at its back. We see, however, the

LORD ERSKINE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 57
tall windows of its large drawing-room on the second floor,
commanding a splendid view over Caen Wood and some part
of Highgate. Yet this was the house inhabited by Thomas
Lord Erskine, cotemporary with both the law lords, his
neighbours, Mansfield and Loughborough. Here he con-
verted the place from a spot of no account into a very
charming residence, laying out with great enthusiasm its
grounds, and so planting it with bays and laurels that he
called it Evergreen Hill. He is said also to have planted
with his own hand the extraordinarily broad holly hedge
separating his kitchen garden from the Heath, opposite to
the Fir-Tree Avenue.
Lord Erskine has been pronounced by other distinguished
lawyers the greatest forensic orator that England has ever
produced, but his fiery and electric eloquence was not more
remarkable than the warm and noble impulses of his heart.
They were his humanity and patriotism, his indignation
against whatever was unjust and oppressive, which kindled
and inspired his great intellect, and their expression carried
irresistibly the souls of his hearers along with him. Under
the fervid outgush of his intense love of right, his vehement
hatred of human wrong, the dullest hearts caught a new life
and fire, and he drew verdicts from men who, without his
communicated spirit, would have never dreamed of the sublime
heights of truth and justice to which he carried them. The
secret of his triumphs was the possession of a noble heart,
vivifying a quick and instinct-like intellect. He seemed to
spring at Once to the truth of the case submitted to him, and
he hurried his hearers with him almost unconsciously to the
same goal. It is rare to see a mind like Erskine’s surviving
all the cold cautions and technical sophistries of a legal
education, and seeking its triumphs only in the triumphs of
humanity — a mind unseduced by royal favour, or party,
58 HAMPSTEAD.
much less by selfish individual interests—exulting in se-
curing the victory of truth, even at the highest peril of self-
Sacrifice. Such men may have their weaknesses, as Erskine
had his, but they have a strength to which no mere intellect
or learning can ever reach. For this reason there is no life of
any lawyer which I ever read with the same delight as I
have read that of Thomas Erskine.
Lord Erskine was the youngest son of Henry David, tenth
Earl of Buchan, who, though a Scottish earl of long and
high descent, possessed only about 200l. a year, and, with a
numerous family, lived in one of the upper ‘flats’ or storeys
of a very tall house in the Old Town of Edinburgh, where,
indeed, some of the houses were sixteen stories high. His
mother was—as almost all the mothers of great men are—a
woman of extraordinary intellect, greatly cultivated, and of
equal piety—a daughter of Sir James Stewart, of Goodtrees,
in the county of Mid-Lothian, baronet. Thomas Erskine
was born on January 10, 1750, in that lofty, but small and
ill-furnished, eyrie. At an early age he attended the High
School of Edinburgh, and displayed a lively disposition, and a
capacity for rapidly acquiring knowledge, being generally dux
of his class. The resources of the family not allowing them
to continue in Edinburgh, as all the children began to re-
Quire education, Lord Buchan removed to St. Andrews, where
young Erskine not only finished what education he had, but
learned, he tells us, amongst other accomplishments, to dance
single and double hornpipe, and shantrews, a peculiar Highland
dance. At the age of twelve, he expressed a desire to be bred
to some learned profession, but was told that the means of the
family would only allow of his becoming a midshipman, and
much to his discontent, though without any resistance, he was
sent on board the ‘Tartar man-of-war, at the age of fourteen,
under the command of Sir David Lindsay. He would much
LORD ERSIKINIE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 59
have preferred the army, but this could not be accomplished,
and it is pleasant to find that Lord Mansfield, who was the
uncle of Sir David, recommended him to be kind to the
young middy. After his father’s death, however, he quitted
the navy, and managed to purchase an ensigncy in the 1st
regiment of Foot, by the absorption of the whole of his
little patrimony. Like too many young men of quick feelings
and imaginative sentiment, he married, at the age of twenty,
a young lady of good family, but with no fortune. His wife
was the daughter of Daniel Moore, Esq., M.P. for Marlow,
and a brother of Sir John Moore, of Coruña memory. In
everything but fortune this was a happy marriage. Mrs.
Erskine was a Sweet and most amiable woman; and their
attachment was perfect. After some sojournings in country
towns, they went with the regiment to Minorca, where they
remained two years. During this interval of foreign se-
clusion, Erskine directed himself to the study of English
literature, and became an enthusiastic admirer of Milton
and Shakespeare, the latter of whom he could quote at
almost any part. He deeply imbued himself also with the
harmonious verse of Pope and Dryden, and the noble sen-
timents of the greatest amongst these writers no doubt,
falling on a congenial mind, refined and exalted those ideas
of truth, honour, and heroic virtue which gave such a power
and glory to his Oratory. During the absence of the army
chaplain on furlough, Erskine read the service to the men,
who were chiefly Presbyterians, and soon proceeded to make
them lay addresses, which were greatly liked by the soldiers,
and he himself always remembered these occasions of re-
ligious Oratory with peculiar satisfaction. In fact, he already
felt within him the impulses of public speech which were
his true inspiration, and indicated his true vocation. On his
return to England he published an emergetic pamphlet on the
60 HAMPSTEAD.
abuses of the army, “By the Honourable , an Officer,’
which, bold as it was, had a great success, although he
lashed the vices of the aristocratic officers in a manner which
appeared very hazardous. “So long,” he said, “as the bat-
talions are encamped on native plains, or ensconced in
peaceful barracks, so long these sons of riot and effeminacy
maintain their posts. The brilliant orbit of Ranelagh glows
with their scarlet, and the avenues of Vauxhall glitter with
blades drawn against unarmed apprentices in honour of a
courtezan, which rust in their scabbards when their country
calls. If for a review or a muster they are obliged to loll in
their vis-à-vis to the quarters of their regiment, it is but to
inflame the contempt and hatred of the people of England
against the defenders of their peaceable privileges. They
gallop again to town after having filled the country with
such horror at their debaucheries that hospitable doors are
shut against officers of principle and reputation. Such are
the advantages which the military profession reaps from
these apes in embroidery; such are the heroes that in the
event of war must lead the British troops to battle; for
these men rise almost universally over the heads of officers
grey with fatigues and rough with scars—whose courage
and abilities yet preserve the honour of the English name
—who, without money and without interest, languish in the
subaltern ranks, unknown and unrespected; who, after
having braved all the terrors and calamities of war, and
immortalised their country, sink into obscure graves, unwept
and unremembered, without a tongue to speak their worth
or a stone to record their virtues.”
So far from injuring him, this daring eaſposé did him good,
and he soon after was raised to the rank of lieutenant. But
his heart was not in the army. During his visit to London
he seemed naturally to seek the society of distinguished men
LORD ERSIKINIE AT TEVERGIREEN HILL. 61
of letters, and was on friendly terms with Dr. Johnson. An
event in 1775 decided his destiny. He entered the court
of assize in the town where he was quartered, and Lord
Mansfield presiding, invited the young officer who had sailed
with his nephew to sit on the bench by his side, and kindly
explained to him the nature of the proceedings as they went
forward. What struck him was that the barristers, though
Imen of standing, and thought to have very ably discharged
their duties, did not by any means urge the best points in
their causes; and he then and there saw his real path in life,
and resolved to go to the Bar. There were enormous diffi-
culties in the way. The main one was the want of the
necessary funds to enable him to maintain his family during
the years of his preparation for a call to the Bar. The
shortest time to a man not an M.A. was five years; to an
M.A. of one of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge,
three. He was not, however, daunted. Lord Mansfield did
not discourage him, neither did his brothers; his mother
encouraged him. He sold his commission, entered Lincoln's
Inn as a student in April 1775, and Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, as a gentleman commoner, in January 1776. He
managed to keep his terms at both college and Lincoln’s Inn,
for as he was under no necessity to study, but could take his
degree without examination, his chief business at Cambridge
was to eat so many dinners in the Common Hall. He took
his honorary degree of M.A. in June 1778, and he studied
hard under Mr. Justice Buller, and then under Mr. Wood,
afterwards Baron Wood of the Exchequer.
During the three necessary years of probation, he was
reduced to the greatest straits to maintain his family. He
had lodgings in Kentish Town, and his wife used occasionally
to relieve the hard monotony of her own wretched home by
a call at the house of a connection who kept a glass-shop in
62 HAMPSTEAD.
Fleet Ditch, or of a relative, Mr. Moore, a jeweller on Lud-
gate Hill. Mr. Harris, the manager, occasionally gave them
free admission to Covent Garden Theatre. He also made fre-
quent excursions to the villa of Mr. Reynolds, a solicitor, at
Bromley in Kent, the father of Reynolds, the comic writer.
He dressed very shabbily, and boasted that he lived on cow-
heel and tripe, and thanked God that he did not know a lord
Out of his own family. Such are the hardships that a soul
confident of its powers will sometimes struggle through with
a desperate courage—the heroism of genius. Still, though
he was called to the Bar in July 1778, he had a most gloomy
prospect before him. He had made no acquaintance likely
to bring him into practice, and that splendid Oratorical
talent within him lay all unknown to the race of attorneys.
He felt the oppressive horrors of his situation, and began
almost to despair of ever emerging from them. A fortunate
accident, however, opened the door for his recognition, and he
rose at One leap to the very summit of fame and emolument.
In the month of November 1778, Erskine was crossing
Spa, Fields with a friend, intending to spend the day with
Mrs. Moore, the mother of his friend Mr. Charles Moore,
and of Sir John Moore, when, in leaping over a wide ditch,
he sprained his ankle, and was carried home. In the even-
ing he was so much recovered that, finding an invitation to
a dinner party on his table, he determined to join it. Here
at table the conversation turned on the case of a Captain.
Baillie, a veteran officer and Lieutenant-Governor of Green-
wich Hospital, who had found such abuses in that establish-
ment that he repeatedly brought them under the notice of
the Admiralty. No notice being taken of these statements,
he published them, that public opinion might compel a
reform. In this eaſposé he severely commented on the con-
duct of Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty,
TIORD ERSIKINIE AT TEVERGIREEN HILL. 63
who, for electioneering purposes, had placed in the Hospital
a great number of landsmen. In consequence Captain
Baillie was immediately suspended from his office, and a
Criminal information filed against him in the name of several
of the inferior agents for a libel against them, Lord Sandwich
pulling the strings, but keeping in the background. Erskine,
On hearing the case stated, broke out into vehement denun-
ciations of this tyrannic proceeding, and declared that Lord
Sandwich, instead of prosecuting this honest and patriotic
man, Ought to be prosecuted himself. Captain Baillie,
unknown to Erskine, was himself at the table, at some
distance, but hearing this bold and energetic expression of
opinion on his case, asked who this young man was ; and
being told he was a young sailor who had turned lawyer,
and had been just called to the Bar, declared that he was
the man for him. Without seeking an introduction to him,
however, he sent to his chambers the next day a retainer
with a guinea, fee. Erskine’s pleasure, nevertheless, was, on
the opening of Michaelmas term, greatly damped by finding
upon his brief four counsel already engaged before him. On
the 24th of November Erskine attended at Westminster
|Hall, but with no hope of being called on to open his mouth.
The four senior counsel fired away the whole day on the
case, and Lord Mansfield, supposing the whole of the de-
fendant’s counsel had been heard, adjourned the Court
till next morning. This was just what Erskine wanted.
T)uring the night he prepared his speech, and the next
morning it was supposed that the Solicitor-General would
follow on the plaintiff’s side, and the court was crowded
with persons of rank, from the political aspect of the case,
and the excitement which it had produced. “There arose,”
says Lord Campbell, ‘from the back row a young gentleman
whose name as well as whose face was unknown to most
64. HAMPSTEAD.
present, and who in a collected, firm, but sweet modest and
conciliatory tone,’ announced himself ‘ also as counsel for
the defendant.” In a very few sentences he struck a pro-
found silence of astonishment into the whole Court and
crowd. It was felt that there was a new power amongst
them; and, proceeding, he painted the disgraceful and
oppressive nature of the case in such flashing colours that
every one was held breathless. At length, saying, “Indeed,
Lord Sandwich has, in my mind, acted such a part,” Lord
Mansfield reminded him that Lord Sandwich was not before
the Court. ‘I know, replied Erskine, ‘that he is not form-
ally before the Court, but, for that very reason I will bring
him before the Court 1 He has placed these men in the front
of the battle in hopes to escape under their shelter, but I
will not join in battle with them; their vices, though screwed
up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of
dignity enough to windicate the combat with me. I will
drag him to light who is the dark mover behind this scene
of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of Sandwich has but one
road to escape out of this business without pollution and
disgrace—and that is by publicly disavowing the acts of the
prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command
If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too
common One of having suffered his own personal interests to
prevail over his public duty in placing his voters in the
Eſospital. But if, on the contrary, he continues to protect
the prosecutors, in spite of the evidence of their guilt, which
has excited the abhorrence of the numerous audience of this
crowded court; if he keeps this injured man suspended, or
dares to turn that suspension into a removal, I shall then
not scruple to declare him an accomplice in their guilt, a
shameless oppressor, a disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to
his trust.”
LORD ERSKINE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 65
At this outburst the whole court and crowd were electri-
fied; the case was dismissed with costs; and the young
counsel was surrounded by throngs of eager people rushing
forward to shake hands with and congratulate him. As he
made his way through the hall, attorneys pressed round him
to put briefs into his hands, and he went home with the
proud and happy conviction that fame and fortune were
before him. When people asked him how he dared to
oppose Lord Mansfield as he had done, he replied that he
thought his little children were plucking his robe, and that
he heard them saying, ‘Now, father, is the time to get us
bread ' When he went down to the court, he had scarcely
a shilling in his pocket. The guinea that he received as his
first fee he always preserved, and frequently showed to his
friends; probably it is still sacredly kept by his descendants.
Lord Campbell pronounces the speech then delivered, the
very first in his legal career, to be “the most wonderful
forensic effort of which we have any account in our annals.’
It was the forerunner of the most vividly powerful, patriotic,
and generous displays of true eloquence ever delivered at
the Bar of any country. - -
From this hour Erskine’s fortune was made; and, true to his
noble instincts, he continued to the last to exert his amazing
eloquence in the cause of oppressed liberty, and in defiance
of the arbitrary and unjust, however powerful. It would be
a long story to detail his labours and triumphs of this kind,
but I will passingly allude to the most prominent cases.
One of the first of these was to defend Admiral Keppel
against a charge of incapacity and misconduct in the battle
of Ushant in 1778. The fate of Admiral Byng, who had
been shot on such a charge, excited a strong sympathy on
his behalf. The trial lasted thirteen days, during the whole
of which time Erskine exerted himself with unceasing
F.
66 * HAMPSTEAD.
vigilance and assiduity for his defence. He showed by evi-
dence that not a whisper had been raised against his client
till his superior officer, Sir Hugh Palliser, was himself
accused of disobedience of orders. The King had personally
complimented Keppel; the First Lord of the Admiralty had
assured him of the satisfaction his conduct during the action
had given to the Government, and the public had been
equally pleased. As it was a trial by Court Martial, Erskine
could not speak in his defence ; but he wrote the Admiral
a speech, which he delivered, and such was its effect that
on its conclusion he was acquitted by acclamation. Keppel
himself, delighted with the result, sent Erskine at once a
cheque for 1,000l. In his enthusiasm at this generous gift,
Erskine not only ran off to express his grateful thanks to
the Admiral, but he posted off to Bromley to his friends the
Reynoldses, and, showing the money as he entered, ex-
claimed, “Voilà 1 The non-suit of cow-beef, my good
friends !” .
This was in January 1779, and that spring, as he rode over
a barren heath on the circuit betwixt Dewes and Guildford,
he remained some time in deep silence, and then exclaimed
to his companion, William Adams (afterwards Lord Chief
Commissioner of the Jury Court, in Scotland), ‘Willie, the
time will come when I shall be invested with the robes of the
Lord Chancellor, and the Star of the Thistle shall blaze On
my breast; both of which events took place about thirty
years afterwards. &
In May of that year he made his first speech at the bar of
the House of Commons, in defence of Mr. Carnan, a book-
seller of St. Paul’s Churchyard, against the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, which claimed a monopoly of printing
and publishing almanacks. He succeeded in defeating the
Universities, and throwing Open this lucrative business to
LORID ERSIKINIE AT IFVERGIREEN HIII. 67
the public; but the ministers, by a disgraceful job, afterwards
paid a large sum of the country’s money to indemnify the
Universities for their loss of this monopoly.
Erskine was next engaged by Lord George Gordon, to
defend him against the charge of exciting the riots in which
TIOrd Mansfield’s house was burnt down and an immense
amount of other mischief done by the mob. The trial was
conducted before Tord Mansfield himself, a man so much
injured by this mob, and his brother judges of the King’s
Bench; but notwithstanding both this and the exasperation
of the public, by a masterly speech, in which he showed the
folly of the indictment against the prisoner, as intending to
compass the King’s death and levy war against his person,
he brought Lord George off triumphantly. That he had
excited the mob by his cries of “No Popery’ was undeniable;
but that he had attempted to levy war on the King, or to
compass his death, was merely the law jargon by which the
Government sought to convert into high treason instigations
to awe Parliament into a continuance of the penal restric-
tions on Catholics. It was an attempt at that “constructive
treason which the King said to Wedderburn had “put the
Government into the wrong box.” Lucky was it for Lord
George Gordon that he was not tried, like the rioters them-
selves, by Wedderburn, just now made Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas, and the Special Commission, or, spite of
Erskine’s eloquence, he would probably have suffered the
Same fate as they did, by shoals.
In 1783 Erskine became a member of the House of Com-
Imons, sitting for Portsmouth. Here he had to encounter
Pitt in his full power, with whom he had been at the bar.
He did not, however, produce the same effect as at the bar.
His eloquence was of a kind addressed to the hearts and
best feelings of men; but in that corrupt House of Commons
F 2
68 EHAMPSTEAD,
they were not hearts to be touched, but hard political in-
terests, and prejudices as impenetrable as the coat of a
rhinoceros, to be combated. Still, he continued through his
whole career, both in the lower and the higher House, to
battle for right and liberty, for the most part alongside of
Burke and Fox, and with no inconsiderable effect. In
speaking on Pitt’s India. Bill, he foresaw and foretold that
our policy towards that great Eastern dependency would
produce misery, oppression, revolt, and the ruin of the East
India Company; all of which we have lived to see accom-
plished. yº k
In 1778 he obtained his silk gown, and in the same year
defended the Dean of St. Asaph against a Government pro-
secution for publishing a pamphlet on Parliamentary Reform,
written by Sir William Jones, called ‘A Dialogue between
a Gentleman and a Farmer.” After various delays and post-
ponements, this famous trial came off at Shrewsbury in
August 1784. Mr. Justice Buller presided, who held strictly
Lord Mansfield’s doctrine, that a jury had only to prove the
fact of publication : the decision whether the matter was a
libel must be left to the judge.
The case was exactly similar to that of William Penn and
William Mead, tried before the Recorder of London in
1670, for a violation of the Conventicle Act, by preaching in
a meeting-house in Gracechurch Street. Penn and Mead
made their own defence. The Recorder told the jury that
they had only to decide on the fact of preaching—the law
was for his decision. Penn, on the contrary, told the jury
that they were his judges, and not the Recorder. It was
for them to pronounce whether he was guilty of breaking
the law, or not guilty; the Recorder had only to record their
verdict. After most violent and disgraceful conduct on the
part of the Recorder towards the prisoners, and dictation to
LORD ERSIKINIE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 69
the jury, the jury brought in a verdict of ‘Guilty of speaking
in Gracechurch Street.” “Is that all?’ asked the Recorder,
in angry amazement. ‘That is all !” said the foreman,
coolly. -
Such was the rage of the Recorder, that he menaced and
abused the jury, refused the verdict, thrust the prisoners into
a stinking hole in the prison, and locked up the jury for two
days and nights without food, light, or any convenience
whatever. When at length called up, they brought in a direct
verdict of ‘Not guilty.” In his fury, the Recorder, refusing
to receive the verdict, committed the prisoners and their
jury to Newgate, whence they were only released by the in-
terference of the citizens in defence of their violated rights,
and a re-hearing before Judge Waugham.
Thomas Clarkson, the champion of negro freedom, says in
his ‘Life of Penn,” that ‘ this trial, proving juries to be the
great palladium of Our liberties, ought to be engraved on
tablets of the most durable marble.” Yet the judges had
continued from 1670 to 1784, or above a hundred years, to
uphold and endeavour to enforce the same doctrine.
Mr. Justice Buller, having laid down this view of the law
strongly to the jury, they, notwithstanding, returned a ver-
dict of ‘Guilty of publishing only,’ when this remarkable
scene took place :—
Erskine. You find him guilty of publishing only P
A Juror. Guilty only of publishing.
Mr. Justice Buller. I believe that is a verdict not quite
correct. You must explain that one way or other. The
indictment has stated that G. means Gentleman; F.,
Farmer ; the Ring, the King of Great Britain.
Juror. We have no doubt about that.
Buller. If you find him guilty of publishing, you must not
say the word ‘only.”
70 HAMPSTEAD.
Iſh'skine. By that they mean to find there was no sedition.
Juror. We only find him guilty of publishing. We do
not find anything else. -
Erskine. I beg your Lordship’s pardon; with great sub-
mission, I am sure I mean nothing that is irregular. I
understand them to say, they only find him guilty of
publishing. º >
Juror. Certainly ; that is what we do find.
Buller. If you only attend to what is said, there is no
question or doubt.
Erskine. Gentlemen, I desire to know whether you mean
the word ‘only’ to stand in your verdict? -
Jurymen. Certainly.
Buller. Gentlemen, if you add the word ‘only, it will be
negativing the innuendoes.
Erskine. I desire your Lordship, sitting here as judge, to
record the verdict as given by the jury.
Buller. You say he is guilty of publishing the pamphlet,
and that the Imeaning of the innuendoes is as stated in the
indictment.
Juror. Certainly.
Erskine. Is the word ‘only’ to stand part of the verdict?
Juror. Certainly.
Erskine. Then I insist it shall be recorded.
Buller. Then the verdict must be misunderstood; let me
understand the jury.
Erskine. The jury do understand their verdict.
Buller. Sir, I will not be interrupted.
Erskine. I stand here as an advocate for a brother citizen,
and I desire that the word ‘only may be recorded.
Buller. Sit down, Sir ; remember your duty, or I shall be
obliged to proceed in another manner.
Erskine. Your Lordship may proceed in what manner yow
LORD ERSRINE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 71
think fit ; I know my duty as well as your Lordship knows
gours. I shall not alter my conduct.
The judge saw his error, and did not repeat his menace
of commitment. The jury however added to their verdict,
that “they did not find whether it was a libel or not.’ An
attempt was made to set aside this verdict in the ensu-
ing term, but Erskine, in a splendid speech, overruled it.
Lord Mansfield, on this occasion, made his famous mis-
quotation from a ballad composed on the trial of the ‘Crafts-
man prosecuted by Sir Philip Yorke:-
Sir Philip well knows
That his innuendoes
Will serve him no longer
In verse or in prose;
For twelve honest men have decided the cause,
Who are judges of facts though not judges of laws;
whereas the true reading of the line is :—
Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws.
The noble stand made by Erskine on this occasion, raised
the public spirit, and Charles James Fox soon after brought
in a bill, to settle the full rights of juries in cases of libel,
which was passed, though all the law lords in the House of
Peers opposed and voted against it.
Well might Erskine be proud of having given the final
triumph to this great question of constitutional right. The
conduct of the judge, though overbearing, was very dif-
ferent from the vulgar violence and brutality of Sir John
Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower and Howel the Recorder
of London, when Penn and Mead, and a true British-
hearted jury, so bravely withstood them, and suffered so
severely, in the detestable prisons of those times, for the
liberty of the subject. But a long series of such battles for
public liberty was yet before him. Lord Mansfield, now at
‘qvāLSãWVH & 4
Jo O'outſ.I.T elſ) 01 dusIEIoua:3–Keu.IO4]e out, UUIO.J. [ESSTUISIp
otſ, ‘St. M. JosūIIII Ol Kot:00Apt SIU Jo Oottonbosttoo out) pub
“[E]] ſubot, Jo JoſpitoA tº otmoos O] poſity out ‘to AOAO (I ‘ost:0
SIU, UT SUOISn(OUIOo poin}ºut STI on OUIUO putſul origind
ouſ] quuſ) SUOIUIdo Jo hoſputoo Kol StºA ºr ºutſ.I, KISnorluoros
-Uloo put Álºsotrouſ qi pºp out JI ‘ordo, oſſind KIOAO Kloot)
a)B1158 OT quºt tº putſ Ubut KUIB ºbt[] populoquoo put “ox{t}]s
qū SEA UIOISSnosip Jo Kºtoqi ouſ quuſ) ||o] ouſ ‘NLIOAA quuſ)
up uoqq.[A pull otryºd Tulſ). It aao.Iddº Toul plp outp[SIGI
U3nOUIL. UTBA UIT Inq ‘Ostro out, Utoput:(18 O1 UITUI optºms.Tod O]
potnoAgopure put ‘UlºoH puønsduit. H. Uto fluſtrøAo ouo UIUI
q9UI (15uo.IOquiánorI. p.IOT TOUTtºo.I tº Uſons 5uſldoooº slui qu
‘ool posſTºpUIbos put ‘UTI IOJ poul.Tº Kilbolā olòA spuolij
SIH ºut. IN JO STU31&I, SIUI Jo Junoooº IIO tropºuloosold quouſ
-ULIOAOE) b 1stryū38 euſºc, SºuTOUII, putoſop O1 (tºtſ). Toulo Out
—osto [boy]].To SOUI '8 UT pottſ Bjø. St AA ou Toljº KIonºſpouTUTI
put . IU9 oottopuodset.IOO snotopuſ I, , quouTutoA09 ouſ tro
quºnuſstto oolog tº opetti et SuouTuTOO Jo osmoh oth uT
..' KATInă qoN, JO loºp toA quºtiduluſ I) tº pouſtºdo pub ‘IIBH
101suptuºso AA UI ‘oouéjop SIUI uſ [[000ds quooglušbut b oppuſ
oup|Saff 'exping put XOJI OtoA UIOUIAA 5utout; Joſuo “SUOUIUIOO
Jo OsmoPI oth uſ [UIA] oth Jo Stoßbubuſ ou" (IO Ioqū B 5uſoq
qoſqduled oup, Jo puno.15 oth UO ‘poºnoosold SpA out SIU, U.O
•ootrajap sput up loſt[duTud tº ponss: ‘ĀIIIpt:00I.E. UT JOUSIIqnd
e ‘opepoons (IN “ssumseh uelle M jo Tupil out 5uſing
“Tooods IO Ssold Jo UIOpool], [[U put ‘UtøUIETI
-IBJ Jo utioja.I qu SydūIolº II’t Seinstoul K.I.B.I.TICETB Kq USnto
on 5ulaq quouTutoAOE) out, Jo IIOI, buTUTIOlop oth : popooooms
.*.I.O.L.IOM JO uároºt, où poſſeo SbA qºlī AA "poAOTIOf Uſoſt A
statutojet qsupeñu spºt.In out, Jo ouTOS UIO optsold Ol pull soãpnſ
3uplºad to Ao a totu put tou]O ‘SSolppb KUU|UIOUTIIduroo B (ITIAA
(linoo spu Jo Tostinoo 5utpºol oth S'B) UITUI Tuoso.1d. On polttroddu
SEAA oups.IGI put ‘tſouaq out, UIOIJ potſhot *ēšu pooutºApu Ut,
LORD ERSKINE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 73
Wales, which had been some time before conferred on him.
This, however, did not prevent his undertaking the de-
fence of John Frost on a charge of treason, where he also
failed; of Perry and Gray, proprietors of the ‘Morning
Chronicle,” for complaining of the state of the representa-
tion and other abuses, where he succeeded; and a Mrs.
Walker, on a charge of keeping fire-arms for treasonable
purposes, which charge he made so ridiculous that the
Government abandoned it. -
To these succeeded the famous trials of Hardy, Horne
Tooke, and Thelwall, for high treason, in which Erskine
displayed the most masterly ability and undaunted con-
duct, bringing them all freely off. His speeches on these
trials raised him to the very pinnacle of national popu-
larity. “He had now,” says Lord Campbell, ‘gained a
position as an advocate which no man before had reached,
and which no man hereafter is ever likely to reach at the
English bar.” Yet he describes his private life in a letter
to a friend at this time, in these words:—
‘I am now very busy flying my boy’s kite, shooting
with a bow and arrow, and talking to an old Scotch
gardener six hours a day about the same things, which,
taken altogether, are not of the value or importance of a
Birmingham halfpenny, and scarcely up to the exertion of
reading the daily papers. How much happier would it be
for England and the world, if the King's ministers were so
employed in a course so much more innocent than theirs,
and so perfectly suited to their capacities 1’
In the House of Commons he denounced the Govern-
lment prosecutions, and resisted the extension of the treason
law. In the court he defended William Stone, a London
merchant, from a charge of treason, successfully; soon
after, he with equal success, and in a more doubtful case,
74. - HAMPSTEAD.
defended the Bishop of Bangor from a charge of riot. In
another prosecution of Thomas Paine, for the publication
of his “Age of Reason,’ whilst attempting in vain to save
Paine from the clutches of the law, he pronounced such a
splendid oration on the truth of Christianity, as served not
only to shield him from the reproaches of the religious,
but drew a grand eulogium from Porteus, the Bishop of
London, upon it. Passing over a number of other cases
of less importance, in which Erskine stood as defender of
the accused, we come to the remarkable one, that of
Hatfield for shooting at the King. In this, Erskine so
clearly laid down the diagnosis of insanity, and proved
Hatfield hopelessly insane, that Lord Kenyon stopped the
proceedings, and directed the jury to bring in a verdict
of insanity, by which the man’s life was saved, and he was
consigned to safe keeping in Bedlam.
In 1806 Erskine became Lord Chancellor—seven-and-
twenty years after his own prophecy of this event. In
March 1807, he bad the great seal again taken from him,
having occupied his elevated post little more than a year.
Still Erskine (now Lord Erskine) put forth his powers and
influence steadily for the promotion of human freedom, both
personal and religious. He advocated concessions to the
Catholics, and in 1809 did not think it beneath him to bring
in a bill for the prevention of cruelty to animals. It was the
day of dog-fighting, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, bull-baiting,
&c., and by the influence of Wyndham—the great advocate
of these things—were regarded as especially English l—it was
thrown out. A second time he introduced it, and a second
time it was rejected; but it was not lost. It had found a
steady supporter in Martin of Galway, and in Erskine’s own
lifetime became the law of the land. Now we possess the
active services of a Royal Society for the prevention and
IORD ERSIKINIS AT EVERGIREEN HILL. 75
punishment of such cruelties, and we ought never to forget
that we owe this distinction amongst the nations mainly to
the eloquence of Thomas Erskine.
Thirty-six years after he had foreseen it, he received the
Green Ribbon or Scottish Order of the Thistle ; and five
years afterwards he vehemently opposed the despotism of
the ministers of the Prince Regent, who had conferred it. On
him. He opposed energetically Castlereagh’s notorious ‘Six
Acts,” and in 1820, in the House of Peers, he boldly and
independently supported the persecuted Queen against the
King—George IV. — demanding for her a list of all the
witnesses against her, and resisting at every stage the ‘Bill
of Pains and Penalties’ against her, and had the final satis-
faction to see it thrown out.
I have dwelt upon the noble career of Lord Erskine at
greater length than the limits of this work properly admit,
simply because it is but once in many ages that we meet
with a man who possesses, with the most splendid powers
of mind and expression, a soul so truly great and gener-
ous, spending his life in a long-continued course of com-
bat, dazzling and victorious, for liberty, truth, justice, and
humanity. The only occasions on which his enemies have
been able to detect inconsistency or selfishness in him are
but two : one, that he recommended prosecution for a libel
on Parliament; and the other, that he retained the great
seal for a week, by permission, after notice that it would
be withdrawn from him, in order to make his son-in-law,
Edward Morris, a Master in Chancery. Many anecdotes have
been circulated of his vanity in his old age, and his frequent
boastings of his battles for the defence of trial by jury. But
the fact is, that, though it was weak to show it, he had an
enormous deal to be vain of; and as to his boastings, truly
he had something to boast of. There are thousands who
76 HAMPSTEAD.
have not his weakness, but how few who have his strength.
His battles were the feats of a mighty man-at-arms; his
flights of eloquence were eagle flights. I would rather be
such a man as Thomas Erskine, with all his foibles, than the
most faultless mediocrity that you can find me. We have
seen him amid all his glories at the bar and in the Senate ;
let us take just a peep at him in his private life.
During the many years that he lived on Hampstead
Heath, he inhabited the house close by the ‘Spaniards,”
which is thus mentioned by Sir Egerton Brydges, in a new
edition of Collins’s ‘Peerage, ix. 273 :—‘ Having purchased
a house with a garden adjoining it, connected by a sub-
terranean passage, upon the very top of Hampstead Hill,
above Ken Wood, he set about to make it a fitting residence.
At that time it was a very small place, and though com-
manding, from its elevation, a most extensive and splendid
prospect, was entirely shut out from it by banks and hedge-
row timber, so as to possess no beauty or interest whatever.
The improvement and decoration of this spot has been the
amusement of many years, and though attended with very
considerable expense, by great additions to its extent, and
by cultivation and Ornament, has amply repaid its possessor,
being now a most delightful retreat, though within an hour’s
distance of any part of London. It is so entirely shut out
from the road between Hampstead and Highgate by walls
and plantations, that no idea can be formed of it by a
stranger to the place. Lord Erskine having ornamented it
with evergreens of different descriptions, has lately given
it the name of Evergreen Hill.”
Here, during the intervals of his arduous professional
labours, he was Zealously engaged in planning and carrying
out his improvements. With his old gardener, John Barnett,
he took his spade, and Schemed and dug, and planted and
LORD ERSIKINIE AT EVER,G#IREEN HILL. 77
transplanted; and no one who has not tried it can tell the
immense refreshment of such an entire diversion of otherwise
exhausting trains of thought. To men compelled to spend long
days in crowded, ill-ventilated courts, the health and spirit
given by such tastes is incalculable. No doubt from these
occupations Erskine returned with tenfold vigour of body and .
mind to his pleadings and to his parliamentary conflicts.
From an account by Sir Samuel Romilly, we see not only
what men frequented his house in those days, but some of
Erskine’s curious hobbies:—‘ Here he gave gay parties, of
which he was the life by his good humour and whimsicalities.
I dined there one day at what might be called a great
Opposition dinner. The party consisted of the Duke of
Norfolk, Lord Grenville, Lord Grey, Lord Holland, Lord
Ellenborough, Lord Lauderdale, Lord Henry Petty, Thomas
Grenville, Pigot, Adam, Edward Morris, Lord Erskine’s son-
in-law, and myself. If the most malignant enemies of
Erskine had been present, they would have admitted that
nothing could be more innocent than the conversation which
passed. Politics were hardly mentioned. Amid the light
and trifling topics of conversation after dinner, it may be
worth while to mention one, as it strongly characterises
Lord Erskine. He has always felt and expressed a great
sympathy for animals. He has talked for years of a bill he
was to bring into Parliament to prevent cruelty to them.
IHe has always had several favourite animals to which he
has been much attached, and of whom all his acquaintances
have a number of anecdotes to relate. He had a favourite
dog which he used to bring, when he was at the bar, to all
his consultations; another favourite dog which, at the time
he was Lord Chancellor, he himself rescued in the street
from some boys who were about to kill it, under pretence of
its being mad. A favourite goose, which followed him
78 HAMPSTEAD,
whenever he walked about his grounds; a favourite macaw ;
and other dumb favourites without number. He told us now
that he had two favourite leeches. He had been blooded by
them last autumn when he was taken dangerously ill at
Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and he had brought
them with him to town—had ever since kept them in a glass
—had himself every day given them fresh water, and formed
a friendship for them. He said he was sure they knew him
and were grateful to him. He had given them the names of
FIowe and Clive, the celebrated surgeons—their dispositions
being quite different. He went and fetched them for us to
See ; but without the vivacity, the tones, the details and
gestures of Lord Erskine, it would be impossible to give an
idea of this singular scene.
Amongst his defences of animals, in one case he retorted
a brutal fellow’s arguments practically. On Hampstead
Heath, seeing a ruffian beating unmercifully a wretched
horse, and interfering, the fellow said, ‘Can’t I do as I like
with my own?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Erskine; ‘and so can I;
this stick is my own l’ And he gave the scamp a good
threshing.
His witty Sallies gave much life to his society, and would
have stocked a Punch. We may glance at one or two of
them :—Captain Parry, saying ‘that when frozen up in the
Arctic regions they lived much on seals. “Yes,’ said the
ex-Chancellor, ‘ and very good living too, if you keep them
long enough l’ -
The old Duke of Queensborough having a case for his
opinion, he wrote, ‘I am of opinion that this case will not
lie unless the witnesses do l’
Polito, the keeper of the wild beasts in Exeter Change,
having brought an action against the proprietor of a stage-
coach for the loss of his portmanteau, which was taken from
LORD ERSEINE AT EVERGIREEN HILL. 79
the boot of the vehicle, while he himself was riding on the
box; ‘Why did not he,’ asked Erskine, who was counsel
for the defendant, “take a lesson from his own sagacious
elephant, and travel with his TRUNK before him 2'
As counsel for a gentleman who had been upset in a
coach starting from the Swan—with-two-Necks, in Lad Lane,
and had his arm broken :--‘ Gentlemen of the jury,’ Erskine
said, with much gravity, “the plaintiff in this case is Mr.
Beverley, a respectable merchant of Liverpool, and the de-
fendant is Mr. Neilson, proprietor of the Swan—with-two-
Necks in Lad Lane, a sign emblematical, I suppose, of the
number of necks people ought to possess who ride in his
vehicles.”
Being invited to attend the ministerial fish dinner at
Greenwich, when he was Chancellor :—“To be sure,” he re-
plied; ‘what would your dinner be without the GREAT
SEAL 9 °
Lord Erskine was to some extent an author. He wrote a
pamphlet on ‘The Causes and Consequences of War,” which
is said to have run through seven-and-thirty editions. He
wrote a romance entitled ‘Armata,’ something in the manner
of Sir Thomas More’s ‘Utopia.’ He wrote a pamphlet in his
old age, advocating the freedom of Greece, composed, accord-
ing to Lady Morgan, with all the freshness of feeling and
vigour of youth. He threw off many jeua-d'esprit in verse,
which display much wit; but it is, after all, not as an author
but as a great orator on the side of truth and liberty that
Lord Erskine will be honoured. Lord Brougham says:–
“Juries have declared that they felt it impossible to remove
their looks from him when he had riveted, and, as it were,
fascinated them by his first glance. Then hear his voice of
surpassing sweetness, clear, flexible, though exquisitely fitted
to strains of earnestness.’ “ His action,’ says Espinasse,
80 . HAMIPSTEAD,
‘ was always appropriate, chaste, easy, natural, in accord-
ance with his slender and finely-proportioned figure and just
stature. His features regular, prepossessing, as well as
harmonious, bespoke him of no vulgar extraction. The tones
of his voice, though sharp, were full, destitute of any tinge
of Scotch accent, and adequate to any emergency, almost
scientifically modulated to the occasion.’ ‘Adequately to
estimate what Erskine was,’ says another barrister, “we
must forget all that the English bar has produced after him.
They will afford no criterion by which he can be appre-
ciated. They are all of inferior clay—the sweepings of the
hall in comparison.”
Such was Lord Erskine in public and private life. Lord
Byron, Miss Burney, Lady Morgan, Hannah More, Miss
Seward, Dr. Parr, were amongst his friends and advisers.
As for Burke, they fought side by side for years, and only
parted when Burke, frightened at the French Revolution,
suddenly retreated into conservatism. Their last meeting
and parting, described by Erskine, is affecting :-‘What a
prodigy Burke was He came to see me not long before
he died. I then lived on Hampstead Hill. “Come, Erskine,”
said he, holding out his hand, “let us forget all! I shall soon
quit this stage, and wish to die in peace with everybody,
especially you!” I reciprocated the sentiment, and we took
a turn round the grounds. Suddenly he stopped. An ex-
tensive prospect over Caen Wood broke upon him. He stood
wrapped in thought, gazing on the sky as the Sun was
setting. “Ah, Erskine !” he said, pointing towards it, “ this
is just the place for a reformer ; all the beauties are beyond
your reach—you cannot destroy them.””
Lord Erskine committed, in his later years, the mistake of
selling this noble situation, and buying a barren estate in
Sussex, which produced little but stunted birch trees, and
LORD ERSRINE AT EVERGREEN HILL. 8].
where he is said to have set up a manufactory of brooms,
as the only valuable produce of the property. He com-
mitted, probably, another in a Gretna-Green marriage. But
no follies or weaknesses could defraud his country or his name
of the noble triumphs of his genius. He died in Scotland
on November 17, 1823, in the seventy-third year of his age,
On a visit to his relatives, and his remains lie at Uphall, a
remote parish in the county of Linlithgow. At one time he
had acquired a fortune of 200,000l., but a great deal of this
slipped away through his unworldly habits.
* This extraordinary man,’ says Lord Campbell, “will be
a greater boast to his descendants, than any Earl of Buchan,
or of Marr, or any royal progenitor. By his first marriage
he had eight children: Frances, married to the Rev. Dr.
Holland, Prebendary of Chichester; Mary, married to Ed-
ward Morris, Esq., Master in Chancery; David Montague,
the present Lord, whose son served his country as Minister
of the United States of America, and at the Court of
Würtemberg; Thomas, a Judge of the Court of Common
Pleas, one of the most upright and amiable of men; and
Esmé Stewart, an officer in the army, who fought gallantly
at Waterloo, and was killed near the end of the day by the
side of the Duke of Wellington.
A niece of Lord Erskine, Mrs. Bockett, lives, I am told, on
the Heath, opposite to “Jack Straw’s Castle.”
The contemporary residence of these three great lawyers,
Loughborough, Mansfield, and Erskine, in the neighbour-
hood of Hampstead, is one of the most remarkable associa-
tions of the place, and the residence of Erskine there will for
ever remain one of its greatest glories.
On the staircase of the house possessed by Lord Erskine,
and the copyhold of which he transferred to Lord Mans-
field, there is a window of stained glass, in which are
G.
82 EIAMPSTEAD.
emblazoned Lord Erskine’s arms, with the Baron’s coronet,
and the motto which he assumed—“Trial by Jury.’ The
tunnel under the road, which connected the premises with
the pleasure-grounds on the other side, is now built up,
Lord Mansfield having resumed the grounds on his side.
Baron Tindal at one time lived in this house.
In the house next to that which was Lord Erskine’s, and
facing the Heath, a white house of a peculiar style, of which
there are several in different suburbs of London, evidently
of the same date, have lived successively Mr. Edward Cox,
author of some poems, published in 1805; Sir Edward
Parry, and Mr. Henry H. Waughan, son of Judge Waugham.
At the large square house facing the Scotch-fir Avenue,
called the “Firs,” now occupied by William Dugmore, Esq.,
once lived Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet. The house was built by
Mr. Turner, a tobacconist of Fleet-street, who planted the
Avenue of now venerable pine-trees, so great an Ornament to
the Heath, and also made the road thence to North-End.
NORTH-END, HAMPSTEAD HEATH, THE RETREAT OF
LORD CHATEIAM.
The temporary sojourn here of Lord Chatham, is one of
the most singular episodes of the career of that great, but
self-willed statesman. In the year 1767, when Chatham
was prime-minister, during a time of accumulating diffi-
culties, when the affairs of the East Indies were deeply
embarrassing, when the war with America was every day be-
coming more imminent, and John Wilkes was exciting the
people against the Government at home; when, to add
to the arduousness of the situation, Junius was beginning
to pour a terrible raking fire of criticism into the ranks
of diplomacy, and Chatham had rejected scornfully the aid
LORD CHATHAM AT NORTH-END. 83
of Burke, and made him a perpetual enemy; that great
minister was seized with an extraordinary illness. This
strange malady seemed at once to have reduced his master
mind to imbecility, and to have placed the King and his
Council in the most fatal perplexity. In the Christmas
recess, Chatham hastened to Bath to improve his health
for the campaign of the ensuing session, and when Parlia-
ment met again in the middle of January, 1767, ministers
were in consternation at his not reappearing. The news
NOT&TH-END H() USE.
(From a Photograph taken expressly for this work.)
from India was continually bringing fresh proofs of the
Tapacity and despotism of the East India Company, which
was at once invading the territories of the native princes
on all hands, and curtailing the rights of all British
traders but themselves. The troubles in America were
hastening to a crisis, and the cabinet was composed of

G 2
84 HAMPSTEAD.
such discordant, and, for the most part, incapable mate-
rials, that, without its head, there was no hope of its exist-
ence. It contained not merely men feeble in ability, if
strong in self-will, but men drawn directly from the quarters
of his enemies; so that his best friends utterly despaired
of its working without his presence. Tidings came that
he was suffering from a severe attack of his old tormentor,
the gout ; and weeks passed on, and he still was absent.
At length the administration was greatly relieved by hear-
ing that, though still in a bad condition, he was on the
way to town. The good news quickly changed. It was
found that he had reached the ‘Castle Inn at Marlborough,
where he lay for a fortnight in such a state that he was
utterly incapacitated for business. The Dukes of Grafton
and Bedford, who were his most devoted adherents, were
thunderstruck. They found it impossible to keep in order
the heterogeneous elements of the Cabinet; all the hostile
qualities which would have lain still under the hand of the
great magician, bristled up, and came boldly out. The
spirit of Bedford, of Rockingham, and Newcastle, were active
in their partizans, and gathered courage to do mischief.
Lord Shelburne and the Duke of Grafton became estranged.
Charles Townshend, who was much better calculated for a
comic actor than a chancellor of the Exchequer, began to
show airs, and to aim at Supremacy. He proceeded to
perpetrate the most disastrous political acts. Following in
the steps of George Grenville, with his stamp acts, he did
not stop till he had imposed duties on various articles
imported into America, and amongst them, the fatal one on
tea, which produced the disastrous outbreak.
The Duke of Grafton, on whom lay the chief burden of
responsibility, implored Chatham to come to town if pos-
sible, and when that was declared impracticable, to allow
QS * CINGI-E[[ISION TW INVEILWHO CISIOT
qour pinoo JIOSUTIII pitt: Tonbottox'ſ oup, Jo IOIFootſt:TIO ot|| ||bt[]
bott Loop of [ 5UTInt:Idutoluoo StºAA UIEThetto Uſoſ UAA UIOI]t’.11
-SIUTUIpt: Utºppuſ Jo outoutos quo.15 oth of BUIUp on poleſnotto
‘osnoH tºpuſ ouſ, Jo STO]oetiQ out, UIOIJ SotnºtoAO on 5ttſ
-Uonsul trooq putſ out osmºood qud ‘Ut:0& OU, Jo on UtøAo.1 out, UUIOIJ
Months SUA UIOIII]ut tº JTBU Uſoſuſ M. Ka ‘xtº-putſ ouſ poptºot
st KTUIO hour ‘putoutstLAOT, Suyºe UIonºuărpuſ Jo Oyºs qsoudul
où up StºA oPI 100] IO pubtſ oAOut on o[qu Klootbos put
“[attut]] UI patinº AS Tánouſ, ‘ULAAO, UT poAILUE OUI ‘g UIQUBIN (IO
“TIOAO SIUſ) tolje SKup oo.III, ‘UIETT) BUIO Osmo.1 Ol pouloos AOIQ
oùJ, ‘poujisol OAUTI pluoA &Inspurſul out, ‘ouTI) Ino III putt,
: opodſ tº AA Jo SKup out) ootts UIOInsonb Tupou bug tº UIO STO]sſuTut
Jo Jºjop |S.III ot!” SUA 11 : Sopotººsoo UI SEAA (IOITISOddO oùI.
."punod outſ, UII ŠuTITITIS SITU) TITIAA SoA[ostuouſ] pod ITQ
putſ troutoſłuoã populuſ oth ITV, ‘poA.Iosqo plogromsøUIO p.IOT
SV 'So AIosutauq 5UTXB1 ox|II Tour pºp OUAA trout put ‘statDAO
–ptreſ KUOITIo otoA on OA tº put[ OUAA Kolū : Tott popoot TT 10K
put ‘ssoooms UIAAO STI qu potisſuolst; SBAA UIOInſSoddo ou.I. 'Sg|
1stUp.5u SoloA 903 Ka portatio St.A quoutpuoute att] put UUUI
politoddus [[OASopMOCI KIonºſpoutut'ſ edt'ſd extº) pluous Utop)
-onpot ou', ‘tºok prou Jo pºolsuſ ‘putt, Tuolupttoute uſe poAout
où put : Toqol On Aptial stop|OU-putſ ouſ, ‘KuMº Tuouoddo
180.15 syll—03'UTUBApp SITI AA'Bs all IAUIoIO ‘OAA). On soullouTOS
put ‘oo.III.] On poonpot KTIOuTuloo St.A qi oogod Jo STBOK III
qptſ, 5uTuoso.Idol ‘polquintã Urouoſhuto:3 KIAutnoo oliſ, ‘oo.III]
O] qi oompol OT Uto.{ qxott posſutold ot| |nd : It’M out 5uſinp
pools putſ aſ HopſiA Tu olet out-punod oth uſ sºuTUTIs
..Inoj Jo qumourt; oth IOJ poſſeo of I ºxº-publ Ottº IOJ Oººl
Tºnu'ut, où posodo.[d ‘Tonbottox{I ouſ, Jo IOIIooutºu O SE “pulou
-SILAOL solſt:UO ‘sootſºnsumo.110 018UInq.[O]un Osotſ] topuſ)
‘qūSUIOO O". To OAOUI On
oſquTIn KITUnbo S'BAA 101stUTUI oth quT1 poultojuſ SpA out qug|
'Laquituo Moſs spu uſ UTITI (ITIAA Instroo put, UAOp O3 01 (IIII
86 EIAMPSTEAD.
hold office together. A few days, and Townshend would have
been dismissed from office, and the country might have
escaped one of its greatest shocks; but, unfortunately, the
malady of Chatham returned with redoubled violence, and in
a new and more terrible form. He was obliged to refuse
seeing any one on State affairs. For a time his colleagues
and the King were urgent for some communication with
him, supposing that his illness was merely his old enemy the
gout; and there was much dissatisfaction amongst his friends,
and exultation amongst his enemies, at what was deemed
his crotchety humour, in so entirely shutting himself up
under such critical circumstances, when his own fame, his
own great plans, and the welfare of the State, were all at
stake. But in time it came to be understood that this
refusal to see anyone, or to comply with the repeated and
earnest desires of the King, expressed in letters to him, to
admit Grafton, or one of his best friends, or to examine im–
portant papers, was no voluntary matter, but the melancholy
result of his ailment. It seems to have been the fact, that,
anxious when at Marlborough to get to town and resume
the reins of business, his physician, Dr. Addington, had
given him some strong medicines to disperse the gout.
These had succeeded in driving it from his extremities, but
only to diffuse it all over the system, and to fix it on the
nerves. The consequence was, that the physical frame,
oppressed by the incubus of disease, oppressed the mighty
mind of Pitt, and reduced him to a condition of nervous im–
becility. Some people imagined that he had become de-
ranged; but that was not the case: he was suffering under
no imaginary terrors or delusions, but an utter prostration
of his intellectual vigour. Lord Chesterfield expressed his
condition, when, being told that Chatham was disabled by
the gout, he replied, ‘No; a good fit of the gout would cure
LORD C EIATHAM AT NORTH-END. 87
him ' ' That is, one of his usual attacks of gout in his ex-
tremities, would be a proof that it had quitted its present
insidious hold on his whole system.
Whately, the secretary of Grenville, thus describes his
condition, as obtained from members of his family. ‘Lord
Chatham’s state of health is certainly the lowest state of
dejection and debility that mind and body can be in. He
sits all day leaning on his hands, which he supports on the
table; does not permit any person to remain in the room ;
knocks when he wants anything; and, having made his
wants known, gives a signal without speaking to the person
who answered his call, to retire.”
The account given by the Duke of Grafton, who obtained
a brief interview with him in May, on the most urgent plea,
is quite in accordance with this of Grenville’s. “Though I
expected,” he says, “to find Lord Chatham very ill indeed,
his situation was different from what I had imagined. His
nerves and spirits were affected to a dreadful degree, and
the sight of his great mind, bowed down and thus weakened
by disorder, would have filled me with grief and concern
if I had not long borne a sincere attachment to his person
and character.” At times the slightest mention of business
would throw him into violent agitation ; at others, when
such matters were carefully kept from him, he would remain
calm, and almost cheerful, but utterly incapable of exertion. In
this lamentable condition he continued for upwards of a year.
During this time the public and many of his friends
expressed the utmost impatience, not comprehending the
nature of his case; and his enemies demanded why, being
incapable or indisposed to discharge his duties, he did not
resign, but continued to receive his salary. These com-
plaints have been repeated by historians; but the simple fact
was, that he was as incapable of thinking of his salary as of
88 HAMPSTEAD.
resigning his duties. Once, indeed, he had sufficient colm-
mand of his energies to request, in January 1768, that the
Ring would resume the Privy Seal; but His Majesty would
not hear of it, saying that his name alone enabled the
Government to go on better than it could without it. And
as the Cid Ruy Diaz, though dead, was carried into the field
of battle on his horse, and thus, by his imagined presence,
put the enemy to flight, so the name of Chatham in some
degree still gave force to the administration of affairs.
Such is the explanation of this episode in the life of
Chatham, on account of which so much censure has been
heaped upon him, as a wayward and intractable man—as if
he were likely to be so regardless of his own fame, of his
great designs, and of the country’s prosperity, for which he
had at other times made such gigantic efforts. The very
circumstances of his setting Out from Burton Pynsent to
town when still so unfit, and of his seeking medical assist-
ance to enable him to go on and attend to business, are of
themselves sufficient proofs of his anxiety to have acted had
he been able.
Such a strange calamity could not but be attended with
mischievous consequences. Chatham was obliged to leave
town and seek retirement and a purer air at North-End,
Hampstead.
|Here, then, in this deplorable condition, the great orator
and statesman was living, and, as it were, hiding from the
importunities of the King and his nobles, and the pressing
cares of a great empire; by his office called on to discharge
the most important functions that could rest on human
responsibility, and from the effects of his disease helpless as
a child. During this melancholy time he used to be driven
about the Heath and immediate neighbourhood in his car-
riage, with the blinds drawn closely down, and shunning the
TIORD CEIATEIAM AT NORTEI-IEND. 89
parts frequented as much as possible. How long Chatham
led this melancholy life here is not exactly known, but
probably about a year; for he came here some time Soon
after March 1767, and in October of the following year we
find that he had refurnished Hayes, near Bromley in Kent,
and had retired thither, but still not much better; and
there, on October 12, 1768, he resigned his post as Prime
Minister, amid the glooms and anxieties of the American
War, already commenced in the outbreaks at Boston. He
seems not to have fully recovered till the summer of 1769,
when the gouty element quitted his general system, concen-
trated itself in his foot, and Chatham was himself again.
Suddenly appearing in the House of Lords on January 6,
1770, he launched a most fiery diatribe at the Ministry for
its vielation of the rights of the colonists in America, and the
rights of the people at home, in the person of Wilkes, whose
return to Parliament by a large majority they had arbitrarily
overruled; and the whole Cabinet went to pieces under the
lightnings of his ire, and Lord North became for a long time
the ruler of England’s destinies.
The house at which Lord Chatham lived during this gloomy
time is now called Wild-wood House, but, till recently, North-
IEnd House. It is a large house standing at the northern foot
of the declivity descending from Mr. Hoare's house, and be-
tween the Finchley Road and the Chestnut Avenue, leading
down from Mr. Hoare's to Wild-wood. The gardens of
Wild-wood House run up the hill, and have on the summit a
fine summer-house, surmounted by a dome. These grounds
are bounded by a Scotch-fir clump, near Mr. Hoare's house,
where the two roads divide. Wild-wood House was once, it
is said, occupied by Lord North, though he never was the
copyhold proprietor of it. Probably it was owing to its being
in Lord North's tenancy that Chatham came to sojourn in
90 |HAMPSTEAD.
it. The Rev. Edward Taggart, Unitarian minister, was, and
his widow, I believe, still is, the possessor of it. It is now
occupied by William Haynes, Esq., who has raised it another
story, and otherwise added to it.
The small room, or rather closet, in which Chatham
shut himself up during his singular affliction—on the third
story—still remains in the same condition. Its position
from the outside may be known by an Oriel window looking
towards Finchley. The opening in the wall from the stair-
case to the room still remains, through which the unhappy
man received his meals Or anything else conveyed to him.
It is an opening of perhaps eighteen inches square, having
a door on each side of the wall. The door within had a
padlock, which still hangs upon it. When anything was con-
veyed to him, a knock was made on the outer door, and the
articles placed in the recess. When he heard the outer door
again closed, the invalid opened the inner door, took what
was there, again closed and locked it. When the dishes or
other articles were returned, the same process was observed,
so that no one could possibly catch a glimpse of him, nor need
there be any exchange of words. This closet, and its little
double-doored perforation, constitute One of the most remark-
able monuments of the phenomena of the human system, of
the domination of the physical Organisation over the mind.
There is a tradition of a murder committed in or near the
summer-house at the top of the garden attached to this
house, about ninety years ago. The Summer-house where
the murder is said to have been perpetrated must have been
an older one than the present one, but standing much in the
same situation. The butler of the gentleman then living
there is said to have killed the cook or one of the female
servants of the family; but for the exact date and particulars
of this murder I have sought in vain. A friend of mine at
LORD CHATEIAM AT NORTEI-IEND. 91
Hampstead inserted an inquiry regarding it in the Hamp-
stead newspapers; but it produced no result. Still the
inhabitants of North-End are unanimous in their belief in
the murder, and there are those who assert that the ghost
of the murdered woman still walks in the garden—a belief
most effective for the protection of the garden; a ghost
walking at night being worth a dozen policemen with their
bull’s-eye lanterns, especially as ghosts eat no peaches.
A murder much better attested marks the opposite side
of the Finchley Road. Just over against the summer-house
here mentioned, there stands an elm-tree, called the Gibbet-
tree. Between this tree and another formerly stood a gibbet
on which was suspended the body of Jackson, a highway-
man, for murdering Henry Miller on or near this spot in
May 1673. ‘In 1674 was published,’ says Park, ““Jackson’s
Recantation; or, the Life and Death of the notorious High-
wayman now hanging in chains at Hampstead,” &c., wherein
is truly discovered the whole mystery of that wicked and
fatal profession of padding on the road. 4to.” Park was
told that the post of this gibbet was in his time remaining
as a mantle-tree over the fireplace in the kitchen of the
‘Castle public-house. One of the two trees betwixt which
the gibbet stood was blown down a few years ago, but its
stumps are still visible. - §
Park also mentions the murder of a Thomas Cowley on
Fortune Green, by one Martha Bradley and some female
gipsies. This woman managed to escape conviction through
want of evidence, and in her old age was an occupant of
some almshouses in the Vale of Health, since pulled down.
Over her wretched fire in the evening, or lying awake at night,
she was continually heard confessing her crime, detailing the
circumstances, and earnestly praying for pardon : a picture
of desolate misery befitting the pen of Crabbe.
92 HAMPSTEAT),
The house in possession of Mrs. Earle at North-End, bears
the name of Wild-wood, and appears to have the original
claim to it. From an old map now before us, Wild-wood
appears to be the wood just behind the ‘Spaniards’ public-
house, being, no doubt, a remnant of the ancient forest of
Middlesex. -
Q. J & r * i t . tº E L tº st .
souTH VIEW OF • THE SPANIARDS.’
(From a Print by Chatelaine, in the King's Library, British Museum.)
Many associations of a literary and historical character are
connected with North-End, as you might suppose from the
views of those ancient groves and the old mansion-like houses
which they overshadow. The ‘Bull and Bush ’ public-house
used to have, as now, a pleasant garden, to which, it is
asserted, Addison and his friends were accustomed frequently
to resort. -
Here Akenside’s friend Dyson bought a house for him, in
order to introduce him to his friends resident in the neigh-
bourhood, and thus create a medical practice for him ; a

LORD CHATEIAM AT NORTH-END. 93
generous design which Akenside’s haughty temper rendered
abortive. Just on the edge of the Heath, below Wild-wood,
stands a farm-house, at which William Blake, the singularly
imaginative artist and inspired poet, used sometimes to lodge.
Mr. Linnell, the celebrated painter, frequently occupied
this house in summer, and invited Blake there. It was a
spot well calculated to refresh, by its silence and peaceful
nature, his mind, harassed by poverty and neglect ; for the
independence of his character rendered him totally unfit to
cope with the matter-of-fact persons with whom he had to
deal in his profession, and he lived in the deepest poverty
with his faithful, sympathising wife, both of them executing
an amazing amount of work in their lifetime, to be dis-
posed of at the most contemptible prices, to rise after his
death into as extraordinary a value. Authors now rush in
to praise him in biographies, and connoisseurs to purchase
any scrap of his drawings, who, during his own existence,
was complacently smiled at as a madman. In fact, with all
his genius, it is not easy to exempt him from a considerable
trace of insanity, nor to defend some of his theological ideas.
They are extremely wild and strange. But no doubt there
is a world where such spiritual and inspired souls find them-
selves understood and at home.
Mr. Coventry Patmore for some time lived at North-End;
Mrs. Craik, formerly Miss Dinah Mulock, the popular novel-
ist, occupied, a few years ago, the house now occupied by
Miss Meteyard, the author of the splendid and truly ap-
preciative ‘Life of Wedgwood,” and many other charming
works. .
SIR FOWELL BUXTON lived some time at North-End, to be
near his brother-in-law, Mr. Hoare. He lived at the square
brick house at the bottom of the avenue leading down from
Mr. Hoare's to Wild-wood. This house is on the right
94. HAMPSTEAD.
hand as you descend the avenue, between the cross road
leading from the ‘Spaniards ' to the Finchley Road, and an
avenue descending from the Heath, and dividing it from a
paddock. At the same time, Mrs. Charles Buxton, a widow,
occupied Wild-wood, Mrs. Earle’s house. -
Sir Fowell Buxton married a Gurney of Norwich, and thus
was closely connected with the Society of Friends. His ser-
vices, both in the House of Commons and out of it, in the
cause of freedom to the negroes, are too well known to need
more than a reference. His name will always stand united
with those of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and the noble band who
effected that great act of justice to the black race, the freedom
of their persons. Sir Fowell Buxton, from the Life of him
published by his son, Mr. Charles Buxton M.P., appears to
have been a man of a beautifully and tenderly religious
spirit.
HAMPSTEAD HEATH CONTINUED.—TEIE WALE OF HEALTH.
Eormerly, fairs and races were held on Hampstead Heath,
which drew so much dissolute company, and produced such
scenes of riot and gambling, that they were prohibited.
Recent times have seen Sunday dissipation reasserting itself,
by the erection of a monster public-house with a lofty tower
and flag, to attract the attention of Sunday strollers on the
Heath. Of all places, this raised its Tower of Babel bulk in
that formerly quiet and favourite spot, the Vale of Health.
That suitable refreshments should be attainable to the nume-
rous visitors of the Heath on Sundays and holidays is quite
right and reasonable; but that taps and gin-palaces on a
Titan scale should be licensed, where people resort ostensibly
for fresh air, relaxation, and exercise, is the certain mode of
turning all such advantages into popular curses, and convert-
TEIE WALE OF HEALTH. 95
ing the very bosom of nature into a hotbed of demoralisation
and crime. Anyone who has witnessed the condition of the
enormous crowds who flock to the Heath on summer Sundays,
as they return in the evening, needs no argument on the
subject. When I lived at Highgate, I could from my garden
hear the continuous hubbub of the retiring pleasure-seekers
stretching all the way from the Heath itself to the bottom
of Haverstock Hill. It sounded like a riotous mob on its
way to exercise its mischievous vivacity in London; and a
mear approach to this noisy stream of life demonstrated, in
its language, the worst effects of the liquors which it had im-
bibed for the benefit of the excise duties, and the damage to
individual health.
This Wale of Health used, till of late years, to present a
sight at once picturesque and pleasant. In front of a row of
cottages, and under the shade of willows, were set out long
tables for tea, where many hundreds, at a trifling cost, par-
took of a homely and exhilarating refreshment. There
families could take their own tea and bread and butter, and
have water boiled for them, and table accommodation found
for them, for a few pence; but then came this great tavern
with its towers and battlements, and cast them literally and
practically into the shade. It was, however, really gratifying
to see that the more imposing and dangerous place of enter-
tainment never could compete with the more primitive tea-
tables, nor banish the homely and happy groups of families,
children, and humble friends.
The Wale of Health was formerly, for some time, the abode
of Leigh Hunt, and the resort of his celebrated friends
Shelley, Keats, Hazlitt, Haydon, &c. The house which he
occupied, I am informed, was the same occupied at a later
date by Mr. Matthew Davenport Hill, the well-known and
public-spirited Recorder of Birmingham, a brother of Sir
96 HAMPSTEAD.
Rowland Hill. It was pulled down to make way for the
great hotel just mentioned. e
What an idea the particular spot on which three or four
of our most gifted and intellectual men used to meet, and
speculate on ideal beauty, and on plans for the elevation of
the race, should be the one on which the bestial Bacchus,
the brutaliser and demoraliser of this nation, should select to
squat himself down, as if in intense satisfaction of triumph
over them. One seems to see the demon of drink and riot
stamping his foot on the ground consecrated to genius and
refinement, and laughing uproariously at his odious achieve-
ment. Every right mind will rejoice that the base specula-
tion has failed, and that, at the moment at which I write, the
huge abortion is in the market, and we may hope will be
converted to some more honourable purpose. Let us revert
to earlier days. . .
Yet even at the time that we refer to, the three poets
were then far from happy. They were more or less martyrs
to free thought and popular prejudices. Shelley had offended
the moral sense of the public by his early indiscretions of
opinion and of action. He had written “Queen Mab,” and
married a wife unsuited to him, and had separated from
her; yet without Sanctioning one act or the other, I may
remark how many now daily perpetrate as much, and escape
with a passing and often very slight censure. Shelley, at
the age of nineteen Only, was rudely, and, as competent
authorities have affirmed, ‘precipitately, unjustly, and ille-
gally ' expelled from University College, Oxford, for the
printing and privately circulating a thesis on Atheism con-
jointly with a fellow-student. To the authorship, or part
authorship, he did not confess, when grossly and insultingly
called upon to do so, and was on the spot formally expelled
without further inquiry, and without the least attempt
THE WAL}} OF HEALTH. 97
benevolently to convince him—an enthusiastic and inex-
perienced youth—of his error. Such conduct was the most
certain to harden him in his opinions. It was the observa-
tion of the awful extremes of human life, the oppressions
and contumelies of the poor, which had swelled his heart with
indignation, and made him call in question the existence
of a Providence who could tolerate such things. How little
do people who profess Christianity, and are promptly ready
to avenge any disavowals of its principles, reflect that they
themselves, and the multitudes acting with them, are the
real originators of infidelity and atheism People now-a-
days who see the European nations professing Christianity—
the religion of peace and love—yet steeped to the lips in
hatred to each other, and armed to the teeth to destroy one
another, may well, as thousands and hundreds of thousands
do, lose all faith in a religion followed by such practice. To
those of quick and impetuous feeling, the whole aspect of the
soi-disant Christian world is one of the most barefaced
hypocrisies. They read the New Testament, and find that
it declares that every man shall love his neighbour as him-
self, that its Author declares himself the Prince of Peace, and
his doctrine as love. They turn their glance on the na-
tions professing to believe this Gospel, and see every nation
covered with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, armed with
deadly, and ever more deadly and devastating, weapons; they
see every so-called Christian nation suspicious of its neigh-
bour, and ready to carry the most terrible destruction through
it. They take a closer view of the internal condition of these
nations, and behold the wildest contrasts of life—pride,
luxury, domination. On the One hand, and ignorance, desti-
tution, and consequent crime and misery On the other; and
to what mental conclusion can they come, but that Christi-
anity is a solemn farce, and that the bulk of modern society
H
98 HAMPSTEAD.
knows and believes it to be such 9 This is, and must be, the
One prolific source of that infidelity which has of late years
Overrun the so-called civilised world with such rapidity.
Yet, for an anonymous pamphlet only circulated amongst a
few individuals, and written in the first astonishment and
indignation of a noble heart at the inconsistent scenes around
him, poor Shelley was expelled college, and a mark set on
him for life. -
At the time when these three persecuted men of genius
used to meet here, chiefly in the year 1816, they were ostra-
cised by the public, and two of them, Keats and Shelley,
were made very miserable. In proportion to their genius
was the intensity of the public hatred. Reats, indeed, at
that time, was only just entering on that career of shameful
abuse by the critics, and of ultimate glory, which was his
fortune in a very short life. He had not yet written
* Endymion,’ but he had become acquainted with a group of
eminent men, who continued to appreciate him as he de-
served. Leigh Hunt, Haydon (whose misfortunes equalled
his own), Shelley, Mr. Dilke (afterwards proprietor of the
‘Athenaeum ”), Reynolds (author of the amusing papers of
‘Peter Corcoran,’ &c)., Mr. Cowden Clarke, and soon after
of Hazlitt, Lamb, and Barry Cornwall.
From this time till 1820, when he left—in the last stage
of consumption—for Italy, he resided principally at Hamp-
stead. During most of this time, he lived with his very dear
friend Mr. Charles Brown, a Russia, merchant, at Wentworth
Place, Downshire Hill, by Pond Street, Hampstead. Previ-
ously, he and his brother Thomas had occupied apartments
at the next house to Mr. Brown’s, at a Mrs. ’s whose
name his biographers have carefully omitted. With the
daughter of this lady Keats was deeply in love—a passion
which deepened to the last. Lord Houghton, in his ‘Life
THIE VALE OF HIEATATEI. - 99
and Letters of Keats,” merely says on this subject, ‘However
sincerely the devotion of Keats may have been requited, it
will be seen that his outward circumstances soon became
such as to render a union very difficult, if not impossible.
Thus these years were passed in a conflict in which plain
poverty and mortal sickness met a radiant imagination
and a redundant heart. Hope was there, with Genius, his
everlasting sustainer, and Fear never approached but as the
companion of Necessity. The strong power conquered the
physical man, and made the very intensity of his passion, in
a certain sense, accessory to his death; he might have lived
longer if he had lived less. But this should be no matter of
self-reproach to the object of his love, for the same may be
said of the very exercise of his poetic faculty, and of all that
made him what he was. It is enough that she has preserved
his memory with a sacred honour, and it is no vain assump-
tion, that to have inspired and sustained the one passion of
this noble being, has been a source of grave delight and
earnest thankfulness, through the changes and chances of
her earthly pilgrimage.’’ *
The story of the latter years of Keats’ life is one of the
most affecting that can be conceived. Whilst pouring out
his exquisite poetry, whilst enriching our literature with some
of its most beautiful possessions, he was in constant and
dread conflict with poverty, disease, and murderous critical
Savagery, with hopes continually prostrated, with a love
passionate, intense, and torturing from its inevitable despair
of fruition. On the other hand, he had the solaces of friend-
ships of the most ardent and disinterested nature, amongst
which the self-sacrificing devotion of that of Mr. Severn, the
artist, who accompanied him to Rome, and nursed him to
Vol. i. p. 243,
II 2
100 HAMIPSTEAD.
the last moment with a most noble and rare magnanimity, is
almost unexampled in human history.
By the aid of the statements of Leigh Hunt and Lord
Eſoughton, we may trace most of the scenes in which the
very finest poetry of Keats was written—for the noblest of
his productions were all written at Hampstead. His ‘Endy-
mion,’ ‘Lamia,” “Isabella,” “Eve of St. Agnes,” “Hyperion,”
all were written at Hampstead. Teigh Hunt says, “The
poem with which his first volume begins, was suggested to
him on a delightful summer day, as he stood by the gate
which leads from the battery on Hampstead Heath into a
field by Caen Wood; and the last poem, the one on “Sleep
and Poetry,” was occasioned by his sleeping in the Vale of
Health ; * in fact, at Hunt’s own house. In the lane near
Highgate leading from Milfield Lane to Caen Wood—and
from its being often frequented by Hunt, Keats, Lamb,
Hazlitt and Coleridge, called Poets’ Lane—Keats with
Hunt, first met Coleridge, who afterwards described Keats as
‘ a loose, slack, not well-dressed youth,” and after shaking
hands with him, observed—“There is death in that hand.”
This was in 1817, when every one else thought Keats in good
health, but when, evidently, the consumption, which carried
off early both himself and his brother, was already in progress
in him. This disease ICeats himself believed to have fixed
fatally on him in riding outside a coach on a cold day from
Tondon up to Hampstead.
To ‘Endymion,’ written at Hampstead, he put the finishing
touches at Burford Bridge, at the foot of Box Hill, Surrey,
in one of those pedestrian excursions which he delighted to
make, and in which he traversed several parts of the South
of England, the Isle of Wight, Devonshire, and portions of
Scotland, the Western Isles, with a peep at Ireland. He
began his “Hyperion in December 1818, immediately after
THE WALE OF HEALTH. 101
removing to his friend Brown's house in Wentworth Place.
This noble fragment remained a fragment, in consequence
of the brutal attack on his ‘Endymion by the ‘Quarterly
Review’ and ‘Blackwood’s’—a direct standing contradiction
of the oft-asserted fallacy that no criticism ever destroyed
or prevented the productions of a genuine poet. The kick
of a cart-horse may kill a poet ; and the base onslaught of a
stupid critic can and does not unfrequently as completely
annihilate the soul of poetry in a sensitive bosom as a deadly
frost kills both flower and fruit. In this sense malignant
critics murder the genius and blast the literature of their
country. º
. “In the spring of 1819,’ says Lord Houghton, “the ad-
mirable “Ode to a Nightingale” was suggested by the
continual song of the bird that had built its nest close to
the house, and which often threw Keats into a sort of trance
of tranquil pleasure. One morning he took his chair from
the breakfast table, placed it on the grass-plot under a plane
tree, and sate there for two or three hours with some scraps
of paper in his hands. Shortly afterwards Mr. Brown saw
him thrusting them away as waste paper behind some books,
and had some difficulty in putting together and arranging the
stanzas of the ode. Other poems, as literally “fugitive” were
rescued in much the same manner, for he permitted Mr.
Brown to copy what he could pick up, and sometimes assisted
him.’ Soon after he repeated, or rather chanted, in a sort
of recitative, this ode to Mr. Haydon, as they strolled to-
gether through Kilburn meadows—meadows now all buried
in brick and mortar. We may add, that at one time Leigh
Hunt had lodgings in Kentish Town, and then, probably, it
was that they used to take their strolls up Milfield Lane and
encountered Coleridge. These few glimpses of the spots on
which Keats composed his most beautiful poems, may serve
102 IHAMPSTEAD,
to show us that many a piece of ground, very common-place
in itself, has witnessed the walks and conversation of men
whom we are accustomed to look for only in books, and that
we often tread in the footsteps of the great when we little
dream of it. -
In Sadness and poverty, and under loads of the world’s
scorn, evoked by the base Mohawks of criticism, here they
often walked where we now walk. Of the sadness of Keats
in his rambles about Hampstead, we have evidence in what
Leigh Hunt says:–“As we were sitting on the bench in Well
Walk, near the Heath—the one against the wall—he told
me, with unaccustomed tears in his eyes, that his heart was
breaking. Then, and till his death, he believed that the
Reviews had destroyed his fame.”
It is to be regretted that Wentworth Place, where Keats
lodged, and wrote some of his finest poetry, either no longer
exists or no longer bears that name. At the bottom of John
Street, on the left hand in descending, is a villa called
Wentworth House; but no Wentworth Place exists between
Downshire Hill and Pond Street, the locality assigned to it.
I made the most rigorous search in that quarter, inquiring
of the tradesmen daily supplying the houses there, and of
two residents of forty and fifty years. None of them had
any knowledge or recollection of a Wentworth Place. Pos-
sibly Keats's friend, Mr. Brown, lived at Wentworth House,
and that the three cottages standing in a line with it and
facing South-End Road, but at a little distance from the
road in a garden, might then bear the name of Wentworth
Place. The end cottage would then, as stated in the lines
of Reats, be next door to Mr. Brown’s. These cottages still
have apartments to let, and in all other respects accord with
the assigned locality.
In less than two years after the death of Keats, Shelley
THE WALE OF HEALTH. 103
was drowned off the coast of Italy, namely, on July 8, 1822;
and his ashes were laid near those of his dear friend and
poet-brother in affliction, Keats, in the English burial-
ground at Rome, aged only thirty.
Never had men who conferred such glory on their country
such hard measure dealt out to them by their contempo-
raries. Shelley was, in fact, morally outlawed and banned
by the general voice of the country. The whole press, with
the exception of the ‘Examiner'—in the hands of his friend
Leigh Hunt—pursued him with an inexorable and rancorous
hatred. As his noble poems came out one after another,
they were hissed and hooted at by the critics; fell dead from
the press; and never were the effects of the deep melancholy
which this treatment induced more graphically and pathetic-
ally depicted than in his ‘Lines written on the Shore at
Naples.”
I sit upon the sands alone—
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me—and a tone
Arises from its mingled motion.
How sweet ! if any heart could share in my emotion
And in that other verse—
Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are.
I could lie down like-a tired child,
And weep away this life of care,
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air,
My heart grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my outworn brain its last monotony.
And what was the real character of the man whom
critics and relatives, and the law, which stripped him of his
children, and the self-righteous world, contrived to chase
from society as a demon? A perfectly childlike and Christ-
like creature. If Christianity is love, and love of your neigh-
104. HAMPSTEAD.
bour especially, then was Shelley in heart and soul and daily
deed a perfect Christian. He lamented his early errors, but
found no forgiveness. ‘He was,’ says Captain Medwin, his
relative, and one who knew him from childhood, “an enemy
to all sensuality. The pleasures of the table, that form the
summum bonum of the herd, were not his pleasures. His
diet was that of a hermit, his drink water, and his principal
and favourite food bread. His conversation was as chaste
as his morals—all grossness he abominated.” His heart was
, one congeries of all noble and generous emotions. He was
ready, at every information of human suffering, to stand up
and try to relieve it; and in the pursuit of such divine
objects he cared not for conventionalities or misrepre-
sentation. Leigh Hunt gives us this picture of him here at
Hampstead:— ‘Shelley often came there to see me, some-
times to stop for several days. He delighted in the natural
broken ground, and in the fresh air of the place, especially
when the wind set in from the north-west, which used to
give him an intoxication of animal spirits. Here also he
swam his paper-boats on the ponds, and delighted to play
with my children, especially with my eldest boy, the seri-
ousness of whose imagination, and his susceptibility of a
“grim * impression—a favourite epithet of Shelley’s—highly
delighted him. He would play at “frightful creatures”
with him, from which the other would snatch “a fearful
joy,
which was a way that Shelley had of screwing up his hair in
” Only begging him occasionally “not to do the horn,”
front, to imitate a weapon of that sort. This was the boy,
now a man of forty, and himself a fine writer, to whom
Flamb took such a liking on similar accounts, and addressed
Some charming verses, on his “favourite child.” ''
He then tells an anecdote very characteristic of Shelley,
* Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 195.
THIS WALE OF HEALTH. 105
and which Ought to make many of us think seriously of the
way we look at things:—‘I was returning home one night
to Hampstead after the opera; as I approached the door, I
heard strange and alarming shrieks, mixed with the voice of
a man. The next day, it was reported by gossips that Mr.
Shelley, “no Christian,” for it was he who was there, “ had
brought some very strange female” into the house, no
better, of course, than she ought to be. The real Christian
had puzzled them. Shelley, in coming to our house that
night, had found a woman lying near the top of the hill in
fits. It was a fierce winter night, with snow upon the ground;
and winter loses nothing of its fierceness at Hampstead. My
friend, always the promptest as well as most pitying on these
occasions, knocked at the first house he could reach, in Order
to have the woman taken in. The invariable answer was,
they could not do it. He asked for an out.house to put her
in while he went for a doctor. Impossible In vain he
assured them he was no impostor. They would not dispute
the point with him ; but doors were closed, and windows
were shut down. Had he hit on another, Mr. Park, the
philologist, he would assuredly have come, in spite of his
Calvinism. But he lived too far off. Had he hit upon my
friend and neighbour, Dilke, they would either of them have
jumped up from amidst their books or their bedclothes, and
have gone out with him. But the paucity of Christians is
astonishing, considering the number of them. Time flies;
the poor woman is in convulsions, her son, a young man,
lamenting over her. At last my friend sees a carriage
driving up to a house at a little distance. The knock is
given; the warm door opens; servants and lights pour forth.
Now, thought he, is the time. He puts on his best ad-
dress, which anybody might recognise as that of the highest
gentleman, as well as of an interesting individual, and
106 - . HAMPSTEAD.
plants himself in the way of an elderly person, who is stepping
out of his carriage with his family. He tells his story; they
only press on the faster. “Will you go and see her?” “No,
sir, there is no occasion for that sort of thing, depend upon
it. Impostors swarm everywhere : the thing cannot be done;
sir, your conduct is extraordinary.” “Sir,” cried Shelley,
assuming a very different manner, and forcing the flourish-
ing householder to stop out of astonishment, “I am sorry to
say that your conduct is not extraordinary ; and if my own
seems to amaze you, I will tell you something which may
amaze you a little more, and I hope will frighten you. It
is such men as you who madden the spirits and the patience
of the poor and wretched; and if ever a convulsion comes
in this country, which is very probable, recollect what I tell
you : you will have your house, that you refuse to put this
miserable woman into, burnt over your head l’” “God bless
| >>
me, sir! Dear me, sir exclaimed the poor frightened
man, and fluttered into his mansion.
“The woman was then brought to our house, which was
at Some distance, and down a bleak path ; and Shelley and
her son were obliged to hold her till the doctor could arrive.
It appeared that she had been attending this son in London
On a criminal charge made against him, the agitation of
which had thrown her into the fits on her return. The
doctor said that she would have perished had she lain there
a short time longer. The next day my friend sent mother
and son home comfortably to Hendon, where they were
known, and whence they returned him thanks full of gra-
titude.” "
When we read the parable of the Good Samaritan, we
all despise the Priest and Levite who passed on the other
side when they saw the wounded man lying in the road.
| Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 198.
TEIE VAT,E OF HEALTEI. 107
We all applaud the Good Samaritan, and think we should
have done just like him. Should we?—Ah! not so easy is
the ‘doing likewise.” Here we have an example of the
Good Samaritan in our own day, and who was he? Exactly
Such a man as the Samaritan of old. A man under a
ban and a stigma; a man to whom was denied the very
name of Christian ; a man persecuted, maligned, made
utterly wretched by the revilements of critics and the “unco
guid.’ He is the man who at Once attempts to succour
the poor fainting woman. He knocks at door after door, he
stops the good Christians passing comfortably by, he grows
desperate in his denials of help for the suffering, and stands
before the wealthy man and his family issuing from his car-
riage, and only alarms him, Only makes him probably think
that he has to do with a madman or a robber | Such are
the difficulties of imitating the Good Samaritan in this age
and country. Should we them so readily have done as the
Good Samaritan did? Alas! there are ninety-nine in the
hundred against it ! If we were, as many of us think we
are, such Good Samaritans in this country, there could not
exist the astounding contrasts of luxury and splendour,
starvation and desolation, as those which overspread this
Christian England.
But the house of Leigh Hunt received and revived the
poor woman. Leigh Hunt, the third of this remarkable
trio, had also his share of persecutions. He dared to be a
bold reformer in the days of rampant Toryism, and he was .
not only thrown into prison for calling the licentious Prince
Regent an “Adonis of fifty,” but the ‘Quarterly Review,’
‘Blackwood’s Magazine,’ and the whole herd of lesser
journals and newspapers, fell upon his poetry, Or treated it
and him personally as if he had been a shameful malefactor,
108 HAMPSTEAD.
and his most charming poems and most genial essays as
something worse than ratsbane.
Looking back at these things from the present time, we
can scarcely believe the records of such malignity. Walking
here over the Heath on a sunny day we can scarcely realise
the fact of such men as John Keats, the tender-hearted
Shelley, and the naturally blithesome and broad-minded
Leigh Hunt, taking a stroll amongst the blooming furze and
the flowers quivering in the summer breeze—three men
branded as the enemies of society, because they had enriched
our literature with some of its most beautiful possessions.
The fact ought to be a great lesson, if we ever do profit by
such lessons, of forbearance and kindliness towards those
who are doing all they cam, though not exactly as we may
think they should, towards augmenting that pile of noble
national thought which is the solace of our lonely and the
guide of our active days. Here, with the rest, we may
imagine the quaint-humoured and self-sacrificing Charles
Lamb occasionally strolling up from the Temple, or the
cottage at Islington, for a Sunday chat with Hunt, on what
Wordsworth, Coleridge, nestled on the opposite hill of High-
gate, what Hazlitt, Lord Byron, Scott, Southey, and the rest
of the prolific souls of that day, were doing.
ELEATEI LODGE. MIRS. LESSINGEIAM.
The name of this lady has assumed a prominent place in
the history of Hampstead, from a hotly litigated case of
enclosure on the Heath. Every One who sees the extensive
appropriation from the Heath, surrounded by a ring-fence,
including space for the house — Heath Lodge – pleasure-
grounds, and gardens of David Powell, Esq., on the north-
western side of the Heath, must wonder how it came to be
made. In 1775 a Mrs. Hemett, an actress of secondary parts
HEATEI LODGE.-MIR.S. LIESSINGEIAM. 109
at Covent Garden, professionally styled Lessingham, but also
an actress of other parts which gave her a greater motoriety,
had set her heart on a lodge on the Heath. At the time
when this contest took place she was said to be under the
protection of Mr. Justice Addington. The lords of the manor
of Hampstead, it seems, had always claimed a right to grant
portions of the waste lands, with consent of the homage, to
persons already copyholders. Mrs. Lessingham applied to
the lord of the manor for the grant of a permission to erect
a house on the waste. No doubt the application was backed
by influential friends, and the homage, having surveyed the
ground, reported that it was no detriment to the lord, and
gave their consent on July 6, 1775. The lord therefore
granted the permission.
Now, however, some of the copyholders and commoners
becoming aware that Mrs. Lessingham was no copyholder,
raised a violent opposition. They entered a protest against
the grant in the Manor Court, and proceeded to demolish
the enclosure and destroy the buildings. ‘A battle,’ says
Park, “ of a very Sanguinary nature is reported to have taken
place between the bricklayers and the constables; and the
public papers of the day teemed with communications on
the subject of “the riot on Hampstead Heath,” the parties
to which were attacked and defended with considerable
warmth.” George Stevens is said to have been very active
in the composition and issue of these squibs; and Mrs.
Lessingham herself put forth whatever powers of poetry and
satire she possessed in a metrical palmphlet, entitled ‘The
Hampstead Contest.’ -
The discontented copyholders proceeded to try the case in
the Court of Common Pleas. The case came on in Easter
Term, 16 George III., 1776, in the name of Folkard v.
Hemett and others. Mrs. Lessingham seems to have been
110 HAMPSTEAD.
advised to extinguish the ostensible objection to her claim by
purchasing a copyhold cottage, and thus becoming a copy-
holder. This seems to have altered the tactics of the oppo-
sition, who accordingly proceeded against her, not for being
admitted to a copyholder's privilege, though a non-copy-
holder, but the charge was made for encroachment and
injury to the right of pasturage existing in copyholders,
&c. The judge treated the grants of this nature as ‘a re-
served right of the lord; and the jury, declaring the land
of no value, and, consequently, no damage having been done
to the plaintiffs, found a verdict for the defendants. Mrs.
Lessingham triumphed, finished her enclosure fences and
her house; but the grand question of the lord’s right to grant
such enclosures remained untried, though evidence on the
trial was produced to show that the lord had exercised this
right from 1599 to the date of the trial, sometimes on ten
occasions in one year. This will account for the numerous
enclosures which have evidently, at one time or another,
been made on the Heath.
HAMPSTEAD ELEATEI. MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JOHN SADLEIR.
One of the most extraordinary events which have taken
place on Hampstead Heath was the finding there the body
of John Sadleir, M.P., representative of the borough of
Sligo, on the morning of Sunday, February 17, 1856. A
labourer was hunting for his donkey, to do service for the
pleasure-seekers so numerous on that day, and a little way
down the slope behind “Jack Straw's Castle he came upon
the corpse of a well-dressed man. It was lying in a hollow,
with the feet very near a small pool of water. The dress of
the deceased was undisturbed, except that his hat had fallen
off and lay at a little distance. The head of the deceased
MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JOHIN SAD LEIIR,. 111
lay near a furze bush. The soles of his boots were not
dirtied; so that it was evident that he had arrived near the
spot in a vehicle. It was not far from the road leading
from the flagstaff towards the Finchley Road. By his side
lay a silver cream ewer, smelling strongly of essential oil
of bitter almonds, and a bottle labelled, ‘Essential oil of
Almonds,’ and ‘Poison,’ was also lying near it. The man
gave the alarm at the “Jack Straw's Castle;’ and on the
police proceeding thither, they found the person must have
been dead the greater part of the night, for the rigor mortis
was completely established. It was a clear case of suicide;
and in the pockets of the deceased were found a case of razors,
denoting that the unhappy man had contemplated making
use of them had the poison not operated speedily. There
were also a 5l. Inote, 3!. in gold, some silver and halfpence,
some pieces of lump-sugar, a latch-key, and a piece of paper
on which the deceased had written in a clear bold hand,
‘John Sadleir, Gloucester Square, Hyde Park.” This gave
a clue to the identification of the suicide, which, on inquiry,
proved correct.
Mr. John Sadleir had for some time occupied a position of
so much importance in the public eye—having been, not long
before, even in the Ministry—that his death under such cir-
cumstances excited not Only Surprise, but great commiseration.
A little time, however, converted this feeling into indigna-
tion at the enormity of his crimes, which had conducted him
to this tragic end, and plunged tens of thousands into
misery and destitution. It was soon found that a long
career of the most reckless and unprincipled speculation
had been drawing to a crisis; and the news of his death
brought forth astonished claimants, who in their turn
astonished the public by their disclosures.
Let us, however, before entering on his remarkable career,
112 |HAMPSTEAD,
state the circumstances which identified him. The body
was removed to Hampstead Workhouse, where, at the
coroner’s inquest held upon it, the surgeon deposed that he
detected a powerful odour of the essential oil of bitter
almonds (which, in fact, is chiefly prussic acid) issuing from
the mouth; and on examination he obtained from the
stomach three ounces of this powerful poison, besides a con-
siderable quantity of Opium. It was clear that the deceased
had taken the most determined measures for his destruction
–prussic acid enough to kill a dozen horses, opium, and
razors ready if the drugs failed him, which they were not
likely to do. - -
The butler of this great delinquent deposed that he had
returned to his house to dinner at about seven o’clock on
Saturday evening. This was unusual, as he generally dined
at his club. When he came in he gave the butler a letter
addressed to his sister-in-law in Ireland, desiring that it
should be posted, and a paper which he desired him to take
to Mr. Maitland, a neighbouring chemist. It stated that
the groom required a quantity of essential oil of bitter
almonds, and requested that one pound’s worth should be
sent. At nine o’clock he enquired if it had arrived, and
finding that it had not, directed it to be sent for. At about
half-past nine it came, and the butler took it to his master
and placed it by his side. He was then looking over some
papers. The poison was in quantity about half a pint. At
a later hour, the butler took up the tea-tray; the silver
cream-ewer was part of the service. Some time after the
butler went to remove the tray, but his master appeared not
to have finished, and he left him. He saw him last about
half-past eleven o’clock, and he must have left the house
between that time and One o’clock, for when the butler went
into the room at the latter hour, Mr. Sadleir was gone, and
MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF 'JOHN SADLEIR. 113
his hat and coat were missing. The servants went to bed,
knowing that their master had a latch key.
As to the state of mind of the unhappy man on this mise-
rable evening, Mr. Anthony Norris said, ‘I reside at No. 2,
Bedford Row, and am a solicitor. I was intimately ac-
quainted with the deceased gentleman; I saw him last alive
shortly before eleven o’clock on Saturday might, at his house
in Gloucester Terrace. I had no appointment with him, but
I went up there, and was with him about half-an-hour. I
have known him since 1848, and have frequently transacted
business with him.” -
This witness deposed that on this last occasion he was
greatly depressed by his affairs, and that on leaving him he
noticed that his eyes were bloodshot, and that he was in
such a state as he had never seen him in before ; his manner
$*, * being usually cool and collected. He appeared to have been
weeping very much. He desired him to call at eleven
o'clock on the following morning, respecting a letter just
received from Ireland, but when he went at that time, he
heard that he was dead. He said he had remarked to a
friend, after learning the state of Mr. Sadleir's affairs, that
he should not be surprised if Mr. Sadleir were to shoot
himself. Here the coroner seemed disposed to close the
enquiry; but the jury having heard that Sadleir had left
three letters in the hall when he disappeared on Saturday
night, demanded that they should be produced. They were
accordingly produced and read. These revealed a condition
of mind which might operate as a serious determent to
those tempted to run a career of guilty ambition, could any
warnings avail with such persons. One of the letters ran
thus:— - ‘Saturday night.
‘I cannot live—I have ruined too many—I could not live
and see their agony — I have committed diabolical crimes
I
114 EIAMPSTEAD.
unknown to any human beings. They will now appear,
bringing my family and others to distress—causing to all
shame and grief that they should ever have known me.
* I blame no one, but attribute all to my infamous villamy.
Hundreds are ruined by my villany. I could go through
any torture as a punishment for my crimes. No torture
could be too much for such crimes; but I cannot live to see
the tortures I inflict upon others.
* J. SADLEIR.
‘Telegraph to —— and otherwise when you read this.”
Another of these letters was to Mr. Robert Keating, M.P.
for Waterford :—
* 11 Gloucester Terrace,
‘ 16 February, 1856.
* Dear Robert, To what infamy have I come step by step
—heaping crime upon crime—and now I find myself the
author of numberless crimes of a diabolical character, and
the cause of ruin and disgrace to thousands—ay, to tens of
thousands.
* Oh, how I feel for those on whom all this ruin must fall
—T could bear all punishments, but I can never bear to
witness the suffering of those on whom I have brought such
ruin—it must be better that I should not live. *
* No one has been privy to my crimes—they spring from
my own cursed brain alone—I have swindled and deceived
without the knowledge of any one—Stevens and Norris are
both innocent, and have no knowledge of the fabrication of
deeds and forgeries by me, and by which I have sought to
go on in the horrid hope of retrieving. gº
* It was a sad day for all when I came to London. I can
give but little aid to unravel accounts and transactions.
There are serious questions as to my interest in the Grand
Junction and other undertakings. Much will be lost to the
MIYSTERIOUS DEATH OF JOHN S.A.D.L.EIR. 115
creditors if these cases are not fairly treated. The Grand
Junction, the East Kent, and the Swiss Railways, the Rome
line, the Coal Co., are all liable to be entirely lost now—so
far as my assets are concerned.
‘I authorise you to take possession of all my letters,
papers, property, etc. etc., in this house and at Wilkinson's,
and at Cannon Street.
‘Return my brother his letters to me and all other papers.
The prayers of one so wicked could not avail, or I would
seek to pray for those I leave after me, and who will have to
suffer such agony, and all owing to my criminal acts.
“Oh that I had never quitted Ireland 1–0h ! that I had
resisted the first attempts to launch me into speculation
* If I had less talents of a worthless kind, and more firm-
ness, I might have remained as I Once was, honest and
truthful — and I would have lived to see my dear father and
mother in their old age. I weep and weep now, but what
can that avail?
* J. SADLEIR.’
‘ Robert Keating, Esq., M.P.
‘Shamroque Lodge, Clapham.’
The ground for the self-accusation of forgery contained
in this letter, the direct cause of the suicide, was soon ex-
plained. Mr. Josiah Wilkinson, of the firm of Wilkinson,
Gurney, and Stevens, solicitors, of Nicolas Lane, stated that
on the morning of Saturday, Mr. Sadleir had called upon
him in a very excited State, proposing to him to raise a
large sum in aid of the Tipperary Bank. The plans he pro-
posed were altogether impracticable, and Mr. Wilkinson
refused the transaction. The firm had frequently advanced
large sums to Mr. Sadleir, but the balances had become
so large that they had required security. This, about six
weeks before, Mr. Sadleir had given. It purported to be a
I 2 - .
116 - FIAMPSTEAI).
deed given on the purchase of an estate in the Encumbered
Estate Court. Mr. Wilkinson was so much alarmed by the
conduct of Mr. Sadleir upon this Saturday, and by the
knowledge of the critical condition of the Tipperary Bank,
that that very evening he despatched his partner, Mr.
Stevens, to Dublin, for the purpose of registering it, which
he had hitherto neglected doing. Mr. Stevens immediately
discovered that the deed was a forgery. It was signed by two
of the commissioners, and attested by two witnesses, in two
parts of the deed. All these signatures were forgeries. The
seal upon the deed was the genuine seal of the commis-
sioners, but it had been transferred from some other docu-
ment.
Rumours went forth that many other securities lodged by
the deceased were also forgeries, particularly some of those
held by the London and County Bank, to which he was in-
debted; but on these being tested, they were found to be
genuine, nor was any evidence adduced before the inquest to
show what were the forgeries, and what the nature of the
crimes to which the deceased alluded in his last letter. A
particular enquiry was made as to what had become of a
large sum of money which had been paid to Mr. Sadleir on
the morning of his suicide; but no trace of its disposal could
be found. -
The letter which Sadleir had written on the day of his
suicide, exhibited intense distress and remorse, but no trace
of insanity, and the jury returned a verdict of death by his
own hand while in a perfectly sound state of intellect.
Of the extent of the frauds perpetrated by Mr. John
Sadleir, no connected statement was published. The fraudu-
lent transactions in respect of the Royal Swedish Railway
appeared to consist in an over issue of shares and obligations
to the amount at least of 150,000l. In respect of the Tipperary
Bank, the manager, his brother, had permitted him to over-
MITYSTERIOUS DIEATH OF JOHN SADLEIR. 117
draw more than 200,000l., and, with other fraudulent mis-
managements, the deficit of the bank exceeded 400,000l.
The assets were stated to be 100,000l., but they proved
to be little more than 30,000l. The misery caused by this
infamous confederacy was unspeakable. Not only were the
depositors in the south of Ireland—chiefly small farmers and
tradesmen—defrauded of their whole savings, but the share-
holders were stripped, for the most part, of every farthing
they possessed. The means taken to entrap the last-named
classes were most infamous. On February 1, one lunar
month before the crash, Mr. Sadleir had published a balance-
sheet and report, in which the concern was represented as
most flourishing. A dividend at the rate of 6 per cent., with
a bonus of 3!. per cent., was declared, and 3,000l. was carried
to the reserve fund, raising that to 17,000l. By means of
this infamous fabrication, a considerable number of persons—
most of them widows, spinsters, and half-pay Officers—were
induced to become shareholders, and lost their all. Endless
suits were brought by attorneys who had purchased debts
due by the company, against these unhappy persons. Some
declared themselves insolvent, others suddenly disappeared,
and fled to the United States with such of their property
as they could hastily secure. Mr. James Sadleir, the brother
of the deceased, and manager of the bank, absconded under
circumstances which gave rise to much comment. It was
asserted that the large sum of money received by John
Sadleir the day before his death, had gone to help him off.
He was said, not long after, to be seen in the United States;
and a most extraordinary story got abroad, and was exten-
sively believed, that John Sadleir himself had, in addition to
his many forged documents enacted a false suicide. That
he had purchased the corpse of a man resembling himself,
had him conveyed to Hampstead Heath, and was himself
gone off to America with his brother. The whole of the
118 HAMPSTEAD.
circumstances, however, which came out on the inquest were
too decisive of his identity to warrant this rumour. Not
only did his friends and servants fully recognise him, but
Mr. Wakley, the coroner, who knew him too well to be mis-
taken, perfectly identified him. Besides, the man found
had actually been poisoned on the spot by the contents of
the cream-ewer and bottle laid beside him, and could not
have been brought there a corpse, even could Sadleir's ser–
vants and friends have entered into so wild a conspiracy to
favour his absconding alive.
And who was this John Sadleir 9 He was an Irishman,
the third son of Clement William Sadleir, Esq., of Shrone
Hill near Tipperary, in which town a bank was established
by his grandfather. He was born in 1814, and educated at
Clongoes College. He succeeded an uncle in a very lucrative
business as a solicitor in Dublin, which profession he con-
tinued to follow till 1846, having before that time become
a director of the Tipperary Joint Stock Bank, established
about the year 1827, and in which the private bank founded
by his grandfather was merged. In July 1847 he became
Member of Parliament for the borough of Carlow, and made
himself conspicuous both as such and as parliamentary agent
for Irish railways. He was in the House a distinguished
member of the ‘Irish Brigade.” He became a junior Lord
of the Treasury under Lord Aberdeen, and appeared a
remarkably rising man. This, however, lost him his seat
for Carlow, but he was re-elected for Sligo in 1853. Some
disclosures, not to his credit, again lost him his seat in the
Treasury; but he still held his head aloft, and found public
confidence enough to become chairman of the London and
County Joint Stock Banking Company, and is said to have
conducted its affairs with great ability. Had he restrained
his ambition within the limits of honesty, he might have
TEIE POINDS. 119
continued to pass for one of the most successful men of the
time. He is said at one period to have been worth 200,000l.
Ceasing to be chairman of the London and County Joint
Stock Bank, he became chairman of the Royal Swedish
Railway Company, and the founder of the Joint Stock Bank
of Tipperary, in which his brother James was manager.
Here he crowned all his crimes and forgeries by the last act
of detestable villany, which plunged such thousands into
ruin, and consummated a fate evidently, to himself, as
intense in its misery, as it was loaded with a lasting and far-
blown infamy. The horrors of that night in which, in storm
and darkness, he took his way to the black solitude of
Hampstead Heath, bearing with him the accumulated appa-
ratus of his own destruction, has something in it especially
indicative of avenging justice; and the suicide’s frightful
delusion of escaping from God’s conscience-torturing hand
by rushing, steeped in villanies, into his presence, adds the
last lurid shadow to the picture. It has been well said, that
‘ he was a swindler on the very grandest scale, and kept up
the game to the last.”
THE PONDS
On the Heath are a prominent feature. The origin of
these was the necessity, at an early period, of water supply
in Tondon. As population extended on this side of the
metropolis, the currents of the various streams descending
from these ‘northern heights * became at once decreased
and polluted. The River of Wells, terminating in the Fleet,
ceased to display its clear currents, and its grassy and
wooded banks, to which the citizens delighted to resort.
Its clacking mills had disappeared ; and the Fleet itself,
the tidal portion of the stream, as its Saxon name, pleoc,
120 |HAMPSTEAD.
denotes, so far from bearing vessels of considerable burthen,
as it was said to have done in the good old times, as far up
as Holborn Bridge, was shrunk into the dimensions and into
the name of a ditch. So early as the reign of Henry VIII.,
we are told that Sir William Bowyer Knt., Mayor of the city
of London, turned his attention to these hills for water. The
Act of 35 Henry VIII. (1543–44), preserved in the British
Museum, says that Sir William, ‘ calling with him as well
dyvers grave and expert persons of brethrene, and other of
the comminaltie of the saide city, as other persons in and
aboute the conveyance of water well experienced, hath, not
onely by diligent searche and exploracion, founde out dyvers
great and plentyfull sprynges at Hampstede-heath, Mary-
bone, Hackney, Muswell-hylle, and dyvers places within the
Saide citie, very mete, propise, and convenient to be brought
and conveyed to the same.’
The Act just mentioned was therefore obtained ‘for the
conveyance thereof, by Cundytes, vautes, and pipes, to the
said citie.” They were empowered to search, dig for, and
convey away water, and to “make heades and vautes for the
conveyance of the same water.” The Act proceeds to say
that ‘ for every sprynge or sprynges within Hampsted-
hethe, they, the sayd maire and cominaltie, and their
successOurs, shall forever yelde, beare, and pay unto the
Bisshopp of Westminster for the tyme being, at the Feast of
St. Mychell tharchaungell, one pounde of pepper, in and for
thacknowledging hym and them for the lordes and verie
owners of the said hethe.”
Except the term of ‘ making heades,’ there is little indi-
cation of the formation of ponds. The chief idea in the
commencement appears to have been to clear out the spring
heads, and cut water-courses, and lay pipes to facilitate the
flow of the waters towards the city, one great object of this
THE VILLAGE OF HAMPSTEAD. 121
increased and combined current being to enable the Fleet
to scour itself, and to keep its estuary open to the Thames.
This part of the project failed; but the works for the supply
of water to the city were continued by Sir John Hart, Lord
Mayor in 1589-90. The springs were then leased by the
London municipality, and the lessees in 1692 were incorpo-
rated by the title of ‘The Hampstead Water Company.’
The London city authorities were prohibited by their Act of
Henry VIII. from interfering with the spring at the foot of
the hill of the said Heath, which, it says, was closed in with
brick for the use and convenience of the inhabitants of
Hampstead. At the same time the Bishop of Westminster
was authorised to search for springs on the Heath, and con-
vey water from them to his manor of Hendon. From some
CºlllSG Ol' other, Lysons says, the water company and the
people of Hampstead fell into disputes about what the Ameri-
cans call their ‘water privileges,’ and then the inhabitants
amongst themselves, even proceeding to law about the year
1700. Park found that the present ponds existed in the
Seventeenth century, being mentioned amongst the copyholds
—the upper pond on the Heath, stated to contain three roods
thirty perches; the lower pond one acre, one rood, thirty-
four perches. The pond in the Vale of Health was added in
1777. “The ponds,’ he adds, “ have been fatal to many in-
cautious bathers, owing to the sudden shelving of their sides.”
In that in the Vale of Health are visible two rows of wooden
posts, probably the remains of a bridge either leading across
Or to some aquatic pleasure-house on the water.
TEIE VILLAGE OF HAMPSTEAD.
This place was anciently written Hamestede, meaning
simply Homestead.
122 HAMPSTEAD.
Having now taken a survey of the neighbourhood of
Hampstead, we may proceed to the village itself, and note
its most prominent and historical sites as we pass along.
The village and immediate vicinity, from their fine views
towards Harrow and Windsor in one direction; in another,
towards Hendon and Finchley, and far into Hertfordshire;
in another, towards Highbury, Islington, and Epping Forest ;
in another, over London, east and west, down the Thames
and up the Thames, and over to the Kent and Surrey hills
beyond, from the open expanse of heath about it, has always
been a favourite resort of Londoners, and a favourite abode
of commercial and professional men. Lawyers and artists
have shown a great preference for it. In times past a
considerable number of the nobility had houses there ; and
we read of the gay and crowded fêtes given there by Lady
Crewe and others, amongst them Lords Erskine and Lough-
borough. There the Kit-cat Club for a time held its sit-
tings; and literary men sought there retirement from the
distractions of London. The great number of old brick
houses standing in their ample grounds, and gardens en-
closed by high brick walls, and shaded by large and lofty
elms, show how favourite a place it has been to wealthy
merchants, bankers, and others engaged in the commerce
and professions of the metropolis.
Approaching the village from the north, but before arriv-
ing at it, on the left hand we have
THE UPPER, FLASIK.
This celebrated house lies opposite to the new reservoir.
The wall enclosing its garden and grounds extends down
Heath Street from a lane nearly opposite to the pool along
the Heath side towards the lower Heath, and the road lead-
THE UPIPER. FLASIK. | 2:3
ing from Heath Street to the new church —-Christ Church.
Outside the wall, the footpath is shaded by a fine row of elm-
trees. The house has long been a private house, and is now
Occupied by Mrs. Lister. Some time ago Mr. Sheppard,
M.P. for Frome, lived there; but the house derives its fame
from having been the Upper Flask mentioned by Richardson
º * * *
- - Zºº,
-º-4-2
so $49, tº \\'ºt, ',
ºğ §:"
•' ' ' - :, .
~g 2.
* &ºxsº ºr. rºg --
§so * * * * * _* * sºvº; 5.º. *. *śs - - : *
sº . . " 'tº "... . ... •,• ,
TI-Il, UPPElè l'IASIC.
(From a Photograph taken expressly for this work.)
in his novel of ‘Clarissa Harlowe,” from being the resort of
the Kit-cat Club, and of many of our celebrated men of a
former period, and subsequently, after it ceased to be a
public-house, the residence of George Steevens, the commen-
tator of Shakspeare.
Richardson, like so many men of reputation, seems to
have had a great liking for Hampstead, and took the occa-
sion, in ‘Clarissa Harlowe,” to make it conspicuous as the
ground of some of the leading events of his story. He

124 EIAMPSTEAD.
represents the fashionable villain, Lovelace, who had man-
aged, on the promise of marriage, to lure away Clarissa from
her tyrannical family, as inducing her to take a drive with
him, in company of two of the women of the sponging-house
into which he had with infamous deception introduced her.
In a letter to his friend Belford he says—‘The coach carried
us to Hampstead, to Highgate, to Muswell Hill; back to
Hampstead to the Upper Flask. There, in compliment to
the nymphs, my beloved consented to alight and take a little
repast; then home early by Kentish Town.”
So soon as Clarissa discovers the real villamy of Lovelace,
and the foul place into which he has brought her, she sets
about to escape, and seems for a moment to manage it. She
does not hasten home, or to any of her friends, for she feels
the sad effect of her elopement on her character and position;
but she thinks of Hampstead, and endeavours, as a first step,
to get there. But one of the creatures of Lovelace, who had
attended them on their excursion to Hampstead, Highgate,
&c., sees her escaping, and tracks her to a hackney coach,
and, from her directions to the driver, instantly suspects her
aim ; he follows in disguise, and discovers her at the “Flask.”
The fellow writes to Lovelace—“Tf your honner come to the
Upper Flax, I will be in site all the day about the Tapp-
house on the Hethe. I have borrowed another cote, instead
of your honner's liferie, and a black wig; soe can not be
known by my lady, if as how she should see me.”
Lovelace pursues his victim in all haste, and arrives at the
Upper Flask, but finds that she has removed to lodgings
near. In his letter on this occasion to Belford, Lovelace
says, “All Will's account, from the lady’s flight to his find-
ing her again, all the accounts of the people of the house,
the coachman’s information to Will, and so forth, collected
together, stand thus:–
THE UPPER, FLASIK. 125
‘The Hampstead coach, when the dear fugitive came to it,
had but two passengers in it; but she made the fellow go off
directly, paying for the vacant places. The two passengers,
directing the coachman to set them down at the “ Upper
Flask,” she bid him set her down there also. They took
leave of her very respectfully, no doubt, and she went into
the bouse and asked if she could not have a dish of tea, and
a room to herself for half an hour. They showed her up to
the very room where I now am. She sat at the very table I
now write upon ; and I believe the chair I sit upon was
hers. O, Belford, if thou knowest what love is, thou wilt be
able to account for these minutiae.”
The scoundrel Lovelace immediately surrounds Clarissa
with his vile tools and spies, and by disguise and bribery
regains possession of her in her lodgings. The landlord of
the “Flask’ has lent him his disguises, and he interests all the
women of the house by representing Clarissa, as his wife,
who has quarrelled with and left him. The scene is then
changed from the “Flask’ to the lodging-house of a Mrs.
Moore, where all the arts are carried on by which the poor
entrapped fugitive is inveigled back to London and her ruin.
Clarissa attempts to escape, and this conversation takes place
between her and her landlady—
Clarissa. ‘Let me look out. Whither does that path lead
to 9 Is there no possibility of getting a coach 9 Can not I
steal to a neighbouring house, where I may be concealed till
I can get quite away? Oh, help me, help me, ladies, or I
am ruined l’ Then pausing—‘Is that the way to Hendom 9
Is Hendon a private place P The Hampstead coach, I am
told, will carry passengers thither.’
Mrs. Moore. “I have an honest friend at Mill Hill, where,
if such be your determination, Madam, and if you think
yourself in danger, you may be safe, I believe.”
126 EIAMPSTEAD.
Clarissa. “Anywhither, if I can but escape from this man.
Whither does that path lead to out yonder? What is that
town on the right hand called?’
Mrs. Moore. ‘Highgate, Madam.’
Miss Rawlins. ‘ On the side of the Heath is a little village
called North End. A kinswoman of mine lives there; but
her house is small: I am not sure she could accommodate
such a lady.’
Such is the part which not only the Upper Flask, but
Hampstead at large, is made to play in this Once immensely
popular novel. Clarissa is frightened from further attempts
to escape, by the story of highwaymen who infest.the road,
and of a dreadful robbery perpetrated ‘ but two days ago at the
foot of Hampstead Hill.’ A great part of the fourth and
fifth volumes—there are seven—is occupied with these Hamp-
stead transactions. But to proceed to other matters.
The house and grounds occupy rather more than two
acres. It was once known as the Upper Bowling-green
House, from its possessing a very good bowling-green. It
was much frequented by the celebrities of Queen Anne’s
time, when Pope and Steele are known to have been there.
In the Summer months the Kit-cat Club used to meet there,
and sip their ale under the old mulberry-tree, which still
flourishes, though now bound together by iron bands, and
showing signs of great age. Sir Richard Blackmore, in his
poem, ‘The Kit-Cats,” thus reports this part of the history
of the house—
Or when, Apollo-like thou’rt pleased to lead
Thy Sons to feast on Hampstead's airy head—
Hampstead, that, towering in superior sky,
Now with Parnassus does in honour vie.
The house has been added to and much altered since then,
as the various heights of the rooms indicate. In , 1709
TEITE TUPPETR, FLASIK. 127
Samuel Stanton, vintner, came into possession of it. He
appears to have been the last innkeeper, as his nephew and
successor in 1737, also Samuel Stanton, is styled gentleman.
He left it in 1750 to his niece, Lady Charlotte Rich, only
child of the Earl of Warwick, and his sister Mary, Countess
of Warwick; but it is not known that she ever lived in it.
In 1771, George Steevens, the annotator of Shakspeare,
bought the property, and occupied it till his death in 1800.
He added considerably to the house. Mr. Thomas Sheppard,
M. P. for Frome, occupied it from 1804 till 1845, when he
parted with it to Mrs. Raikes, a near relative of Mr. Thomas
Raikes, whose memoirs were published a few years ago. At
her death it was purchased by Mr. Lister, whose family still
Occupy it.
The annotator of Shakspeare was so extraordinary a cha-
racter, that his purchase and Occupation of this house con-
stitutes its chief interest, and demands a somewhat detailed
memoir of the man.
GEORGE STEEVENS was the only son of George Steevens,
Esq. of Stepney, many years an East India captain, and
afterwards a Director of the East India Company, who died
in 1768. He was born at Stepney, May 10, 1736, and ad-
mitted at King's College, Cambridge, about 1751 or 1752.
Eſis fame rests on his edition of Shakspeare’s Plays, twenty
of which he published in 1766, in five volumes 8vo.
For this great work the whole of Steevens’s life seems to
have been a preparation. ‘The early editors of Shakspeare,’
says the memoir of Steevens in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’
“look to little more than verbal accuracy; and even War-
burton consigned the Sagacity of his mighty mind to the
restoration of certain readings, and the explanation of dubious
passages. Johnson, who possessed more of the knowledge
necessary to an edition of Shakspeare than those who had
| 28 • HAMPSTEAD.
preceded him in that character, was found wanting, and his
first edition of Shakspeare’s Plays, which had been expected
with much impatience, brought disappointment along with
it. In a subsequent edition, he accepted the assistance of
Mr. Steevens, and consented that the name of that gentleman
should be in editorial conjunction with his own.”
A year before the appearance of Steevens’s edition, Dr.
Johnson had published an edition with notes, in eight
volumes. A coalition between these two editors having
been negotiated, another edition, known by the name of
‘Johnson’s and Steevens's Edition made its appearance in
ten volumes 8vo. 1773. It was reprinted by these joint
editors in the same number of volumes five years after ; and
again in 1785, under the care of Isaac Reed of Staples Inn,
who, at the request of his friend Mr. Steevens and Dr. Farmer,
undertook the office of editor. -
The valuable assistance of Mr. Isaac Reed, Steevens had
enjoyed before in bringing out his own first edition.
Of his qualifications for his work, the ‘Gentleman’s
Magazine gives these proofs: ‘Mr. Steevens possessed that
knowledge which qualified him in a superior degree for the
illustration of our divine poet, and without which the most
critical acumen would prove abortive. He had, in short,
studied the age of Shakspeare, and had employed his per-
severing industry in becoming acquainted with the writings,
manners, and laws of that period, as well as the provincial
peculiarities, whether of language or custom, which prevailed
in different parts of the kingdom, but more particularly in
those where Shakspeare passed the early years of his life.
This store of knowledge he was continually increasing by
the acquisition of the rare and obsolete publications of a
former age, which he spared no expense to obtain, while
his critical Sagacity and acute observation were employed
TEIB UPPER, FLASIK. 129
incessantly in calling forth the hidden meanings of our great
dramatic bard from their covert, and consequently enlar-
ging the display of his beauties. This advantage is evident
from his last edition of Shakspeare, which contained so
large a portion of new, interesting and accumulated illus-
tration. -
‘It is to his own indefatigable industry, and the exertions
of his printer, that we are indebted for the most perfect
edition of an immortalbard that ever came from the English
press. In the preparation of it for the printer, he gave an
instance of editorial activity and perseverance which is
without example. To this work he devoted, solely and ex-
clusively of all other attentions, a period of eighteen months,
and during that time he left his house every morning at one
o'clock with the Hampstead patrol, and proceeding, without .
any consideration of the weather or the season, called up
the compositor and woke all his devils:
Then late from IIampstead journeying to his book,
* Aurora oft for Cephalus mistook :
What time he brushed the dew with hasty pace,
To meet the printer's devils face to face,
at the chambers of Mr. Reed, where he was allowed to
admit himself, with a sheet of the Shakspeare letter-press
ready for correction, and found room to receive him; there
was every book which he might wish to consult; and to Mr.
Reed on his pillow he could apply, in any doubt or sudden
suggestion, to a knowledge of English literature perhaps
equal to his own. This nocturnal toil greatly accelerated
the printing of the work, as, whilst the printers slept the
editor was awake ; and thus, in less than twenty months he
completed his last splendid edition of Shakspeare in twenty
volumes—an almost incredible labour.”
George Steevons concentrated the labour and energies of a
IK
130 FIAMIPSTEAD,
A
life on this edition of Shakspeare, and certainly produced
by far the most complete and correct edition of Shakspeare’s
plays up to that time. Besides this, he scarcely produced
anything. A poem of a few stanzas, called ‘The Frantic
Lover,’ appeared in Almon’s ‘New Foundling Hospital for
Witt,” in 1771, and in Dodsley’s “Annual Register,’ which
has been highly praised; and he wrote a few other poems,
amongst them ‘The Miserable Lover,’ as a contrast to the
frantic one, which appeared in the “ St. James’s Chronicle
in January 1774. He is stated to have been a fine classical
scholar, and was celebrated for his brilliant wit and smart
repartee in conversation, in which he was lively, varied, and
eloquent, so that one of his acquaintance said that he re-
garded him as a speaking Hogarth. He was too apt, how-
ever, to indulge his satirical fancy, and to scatter his wit
and his humour, his jibes and his jeers too freely around
him, and they were not lost for want of gathering, by which
he made many enemies, and provoked retaliation from those
who had command of the press.
Mr. Steevens possessed a handsome fortune, which he
managed, says his biographer, “with discretion, and was
enabled to gratify his wishes, which he did without any
regard to expense, in forming his distinguished collections
of classical learning, literary antiquity, and the arts con-
nected with it. His generosity also was equal to his for-
tune. . . . He possessed all the grace of exterior accom-
plishment, acquired when civility and politeness were the
characteristics of a gentleman. He received the first part
of his education at Kingston-upon-Thames; he went thence
to Eton, and was afterwards a fellow-commoner of King’s
College, Cambridge. He also accepted a commission in the
Essex militia, on its first establishment. The latter years of
his life he chiefly spent at Hampstead, in unvisitable retire-
TEIE UPPER, FLASIK. 131
ment, and seldom mixed in Society except in booksellers’
shops, or the Shakspeare Gallery, or the morning conversa-
tions of Sir Joseph Banks.”
In 1780 Malone having published a supplement to John-
son and Steevens's edition of Shakspeare, excited greatly
Steevens’s indignation. This supplement contained the
doubtful plays and the poems; the latter Steevens afterwards
declared that he had not published ‘because the strongest
Act of Parliament that could be framed would fail to compel
readers into their service: an avowal betraying an ignorance
of genuine poetry of a most extraordinary kind. Malone
pursued his researches into the life and writings of Shaks-
peare, and a great rivalry sprung up betwixt Steevens and
him. It was probably to outshine his rival that Steevens
departed from his early plan of closely adhering to the text
of the most ancient copies of Shakspeare’s Plays, to lop off
supernumerary syllables, and add others that appeared to
have been omitted, giving what he was pleased to call ‘a
pleasant and commodious text of Shakspeare.’ This is the
text of his edition of 1793.
In “ St. James’s Chronicle and the ‘Critical Review he
is accused of attacking severely the characters of many
literary men of his time, whence Beauclerk said to Dr. John-
son that Steevens was malignant: to which Johnson replied,
‘No, sir, he is not malignant; he is mischievous, if you will.
He would do no man an essential injury; he may, indeed,
love to make sport of people by vexing their vanity.’ Which
we may suppose means, that he would not stab a man with
a dagger of steel, but Only with One of Sarcasm, often the
most deadly weapon of the two. Neither Steevens nor
Malone were capable of estimating the real genius of
Shakspeare.
Dibdin says that ‘ the latter moments of Steevens were
K 2
132 HAMPSTEAD.
moments of mental anguish. He grew not only irritable
but outrageous; and in full possession of his faculties, he
raved in a manner which could have been expected only
from a creature bred up without notions of morality or
religion. Neither composure nor joyful hope soothed his
bed of death. His language was often that of imprecation,
and his wishes and apprehensions such as no Christian can
think upon without agony of heart. Although I am not
disposed to admit the whole of the testimony of the good
woman who attended him at the last ; although my preju-
dices, as they may be called, will not allow me to believe
that the windows shook, and that strange noises and deep
groans were heard at midnight in his room, yet no creature
of common sense—and this was a woman of uncommon sense
—could mistake oaths for prayers, or boisterous treatment
for calm and gentle courage. Neither the sharpest wit, nor
the most delicate intellectual refinement, can afford a man
peace at the last.”
Steevens left the bulk of his property to his niece, Miss
Steevens, and his curious and most valuable collection of
books and engravings was sold by auction, except some parti-
cular copies, which he bequeathed to Earl Spencer, to Mr.
Reed, and to Mr. Windham, of Fellbrig, Norfolk, ancestor of
the unhappy possessor of the same property in our time, who
sold it, and ruined himself by his follies in a few years.
Amongst these were the second folio of Shakspeare, formerly
the property of Charles I., with that monarch’s name and
autograph motto Dum Spiro spero, which was purchased for
the royal library; and one of the most complete sets of
Hogarth’s prints ever collected, with his commentary on
them, now published with the quarto edition of Hogarth’s
works, and with Nichols's ‘Biographical Anecdotes.”
Probably there was insanity in Steevens, which produced
THIE UPIPER, FLASIK. 133
his eccentricities, and which, towards the close of his life, in-
creased to such a degree, that he cut to pieces any portrait
of himself that he could lay hold of. He destroyed a fine
miniature of himself by Myers, and a full-length, in the cha-
racter of Barbarossa, in which he had played in a private
theatre with great éclat. Fortunately an excellent portrait
of himself, by Zoffani, and sold to a Mr. Clark, of Prince’s
Street, escaped him. This he sought for in vain all over
London, to destroy it, and an engraving was made for sale
from it at the expense of Sylvestre Harding. This probable
insanity would account for his violent and never-abated
enmities, and his sudden dislike taken to friends whom he
left the moment before in the most cordial kindness. He
behaved the same to his bookseller. He discontinued his
daily visits at Mr. White’s after many years’ attendance, for
no real cause; and left Mr. Stockdale, whom he took up on
quitting Mr. White, all at once in the same unaccountable
manner. Losing his snuff-box in St. Paul's Churchyard, he
never after took a pinch of snuff, though it cost him the
custom of his life, a practice he was greatly addicted to, and
being in the habit of making his memorandums on bits of
paper which he carried in his box.
In the excess of this humour he lived at last in his house
on Hampstead Hill, shut in by trees and shrubs, and sur-
rounded by books, seeing no One, and seen by nobody, except
when a company of strolling players visited the place, when
he would turn out, and be observed watching their wretched
performances with as much delight as though Garrick and
Mrs. Siddons were acting, and would afterwards refit the
wretched performers, who had often scarcely coats or gowns
to their backs. His remains were interred in the chapel at
Poplar, where there is a monument to his memory by Flax-
man, and a poetic epitaph by Hayley. His house was paled
134 HAMPSTEAD .
in, and had a pleasant lawn in front, skirted with a variety of
picturesque trees.
Miss Laetitia, Matilda Hawkins, the daughter of Sir John
Hawkins, author of the ‘History of Music,’ says of Steevens
in her ‘Anecdotes, Biographical Sketches, and Memoirs,”
vol. i. p. 28:—
‘Steevens’s intimacy at one time had become very great.
My father had quitted Twickenham, yet still was accessible
to Garrick; but, strange to say, after this time no advantage
was made of vicinity. They seldom met, and a friendship
that had stood for years mouldered away. I will not say
that my father was wholly uninfluenced by Steevens's inces-
Sant ridicule, or by stories which he told with address, and
which, though they magnified blemishes cruelly, might not
be wholly without foundation. But an explosion took place,
and an interview followed between my father and the cele-
brated dramatist, Arthur Murphy, in consequence of some-
thing which attacked the latter in the public papers precisely
in the same manner as Garrick had been attacked in the
jubilee-business. -
‘Steevens was strongly suspected of this, but I believe
had not been supposed the author of the others, till com-
parison of facts and dates and circumstances, together with
my father’s production of the papers my brother possessed,
brought out not only that fact, but that of his having been
the occasion of the relaxation of correspondence between
Garrick and my father.
“Everything was now prepared to inflict on Steevems the
punishment he merited; and I was in the act of copying a
statement of grievances, when, at his usual very early hour, he
entered the room where he was generally received. My father
met him with the paper which he was preparing in his hand,
and verbally taxed him with being the cause of hostility
TELE UPPER, FLASIK. 135
between him and Garrick and Murphy. I heard him, with
guilt in his countenance, deny it, and offer to take the Sacra-
ment on the truth of what he asserted. I remember my
father’s saying, “A pretty fellow you to talk of taking the
Sacrament l’ and then by the collar turning him out at the
house door.”
For further particulars regarding George Steevens, see his
life in Reed’s ‘Shakspeare; the ‘Monthly Mirror,’ vol. x.
p. 190, xii. p. 307; ‘European Magazine,” June 1812;
‘Monthly Magazine,’ February, 1800, p. 84; ‘Gentleman’s
Magazine,’ vol. lxx. p. 178; Dibdin’s ‘Bibliomania, pp. 570
and 585; Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ vol. ii. p. 656.
A writer in the ‘Universal Museum,’ April, 1764, p. 199,
says that, going to observe an eclipse of the Sun, he noticed
near the Upper Flask a stone fixed, stating that this spot
was as high as the cupola of St. Paul's. I believe no trace
of such a stone is now remaining.
Lysons, in his “Environs of London,” gives the following
list of eminent persons who have lived in or adjoining
Hampstead :-
SIR HENRY WANE. SIR RICHARD STEELE.
BISHOP BuTLER, WILKEs.
CHIEF BARON WYLDE. CoLLY CIBBER.
SIR JEFFREY PALMER. Boot.II.
JosLPH. KFBLE. - DR. A.KENSIDE.
WILLIAM SHERLOCK. DR. JoHNSON.
THOMAS ROWE. GEORGE STEEVENs.
ARTHUR MAIN WAYRING. LORD MACCLESFIELD.
JoBIN GAY. LORD LOUGHBOROUGH.
DR. ARBUTHNOT. LORD ERSICINE.
To which catalogue we shall add others.
around Avranches.
º
.
sº
§
;
s
s
º,
2.
* § Fº
§ºt º
§§ º ºf A'
º ºš § º §§ sº
º §§
$º & § º:
Sº §§§
§§§ §º
bº ;
º ſº
jº º
ºt:
º §º §§
*x e # ſº º
§
-
}
g§
i
&
X.
§
i
*ā
.
º
º
|
ſº:
§i}º
|.§:C.ºº
i.
§gº
f
%
§:
º
§ſ
§§
Yºº º º
&º
§ º
º
º
|º§º
ºº:
->§ºs
:5.&.
t§
s
|i
|;-ºš
|>-
:
ſ
§º t §§ º |
§ ſ' º º : • * § º | W. . ſº
: =====\;=$NºW W §§§ \ §§ *
| º: º §§ \\ \ Rº: º º } §
, sº sº tº ºf ºt; §§ § § \\ wºn gé ºf . º
ºłºś. iºlº jº','º'
#: §§ ºš º º
§ { §§ § $ ..!!.
\\ - ſº tºº ºf tº * t
§
º: º
㺠§
*ziº.:*::::: ***6thºgº £º § -
*sº: “tº zºº.
4 4 º • * *
KING's BENCII AVENUE.
(From a Lithograph in the possession of Miss Meteyard.)
JUDGE'S BENCEI; OR, JUDGES AVENUE.
Turning to the right at Hampstead pool and reservoir, and
immediately again to the right up a short lane, we come to
an avenue at the back of Upper Terrace and facing the Heath,
with a fine view towards Harrow and the Hertfordshire hills—
a view which Leigh Hunt used to say reminded him of some
Italian Ones, and which reminds me of those of Normandy
This avenue derives its name from the
tradition that during the great plague of London the judges
removed from Westminster, and held their courts in this
very airy spot.
Just below it, to the left, as you face the Heath, lies



























































|BIRANCH HILL LODGE. 137
BRANCH IIILL LODGE.
This is a large house standing in extensive grounds,
amounting almost to a small park, with fine old Oaks. The
house stands on a pleasant terrace looking towards Oak Hill
Park, with a deep valley between it and the foot-road leading
by Oak Hill Park to New West End. At Branch Hill Lodge,
Lord Rosslyn resided before he bought Rosslyn House, and
before his elevation to the Barony of Wedderburn. Branch
Hill Lodge formerly belonged to Sir Thomas Clark, Master
of the Rolls, who, about the year 1745, built part of the
house standing in Lord Loughborough’s time, and bequeathed
it to his patron, Lord Chancellor Macclesfield, who was
obliged to purchase the copyhold part of the premises from
Sir Thomas Clark’s heirs, in consequence of his having neg-
lected to surrender it to the uses of his will. Lord Maccles-
field resided there some years. It was afterwards in the
successive occupation of Thomas Walker, Esq. Master in
Chancery, and then of Lord Loughborough. In 1799 Thomas,
son of Sir Richard Neave, Bart., purchased it of Colonel
Parker (a younger son of Lord IMacclesfield), and greatly
improved the house and grounds.
Mr. Neave had at this villa, a very large and most valuable
collection of ancient painted glass, a great part of which was
procured from various convents on the Continent, immedi-
ately after the French Revolution. Amongst the most re-
markable of the pieces may be mentioned the ‘Nativity,”
from a convent at Ghent, and a most rich and highly-prized
piece from a convent at Rouen, representing Catherine of
Austria, Queen of Portugal, consort of John III. (its founder),
and St. Anne. It contained also a fine piece of the “Cruci-
fixion, upon a large scale, many Scripture Subjects and
138 HAMPSTEAD. .
figures of saints, besides some highly-finished historical
pieces on a smaller scale. To Mr. Neave’s collection also
the portraits on glass of James I. and the Duke of Bucking-
ham, mentioned under the head of the Chicken House, were
added.
Not long ago this house was occupied by Bartholomew
Claypon, Esq., and since by Basil Wood Smith, Esq.
GROWE LODGE.
In a road a little lower than the one leading to Branch Hill
Lodge, but running out also in the direction of Montagu
Grove, and near what is called Crockett's Pond, is a large
house recently inhabited by Gilbert Scott the architect,
called Grove Lodge, which therefore deserves a passing
notice, whatever may have been its previous history.
MONTAG-U GROVE
Is a house between Branch Hill and Frognal. Leaving
Branch Hill on our right, we find ourselves at the entrance
of an avenue of lime trees. There is a footway through it,
and at the bottom stands Montagu House. In this house,
a century ago, resided Mr. Henry Flitcroft, an architect, who
had this curious fact in his history. He was a journeyman
carpenter, who had the misfortune to fall from a scaffold and
break his leg, when engaged in repairs at Burlington House.
The Earl of Burlington interested himself in his recovery,
and One day observing him drawing, was struck with the
merit of his performance, and got him put on the Board of
MONTAGU GROVE. - 139
Works, of which he rose to be the Comptroller. He died in
1769.
Montagu Grove was afterwards occupied by Edward
Montagu, Esq., the first patron of Hampstead Sunday School.
The ‘European Magazine’ of June 1788, thus relates the
following important anecdote of his life — June 10. This
morning Lord Mansfield sent a servant from Caen Lodge to
Mr. Montagu, the Master in Chancery, Frognal Grove, near
Hampstead, requesting that gentleman’s company to dinner.
The answer returned was, that “Mr. Montagu had come
home the preceding evening from London, ill, and remained
then indisposed.” The messenger returned back, pressing
Mr. Montagu's attendance on his lordship, who had some
material business to communicate ; upon which Mr. Montagu
replied, “he would wait on the Earl in the afternoon.” At
five the Master went to Caen Wood Lodge, where he was
introduced to Earl Mansfield, who was alone. “I sent for
you, Sir,” said his lordship, “to receive, as well officially as
my acquaintance and friend, the resignation of my office;
and, in order to save trouble, I have caused the instrument
to be prepared, as you here see.” He then introduced the
paper, which, after Mr. Montagu had perused, and found
proper, the Earl signed. The Master underwrote it, and
afterwards despatched it to the Lord Chancellor’s house, who
laid it before the King.’
Montagu Grove was afterwards the residence of Richard
Richards, Esq., Chief Justice of Chester, and then of the
Rev. Samuel White, D. D., minister of Hampstead.
§§
ſº
ºtſº
ſºjºjº
§ %; º:
| º
####|
iž ; i.
i
wº t - - ſ
a $2 p
- * * * a * .’
* : * * 4 º
lºſſº...º.º. * - J º tº $." &
*** º º *- : * : ºf $4
§§§ ºf - º ºg
º” & & | || ~ t
- t |
f º
* * ºft'ſ º
i º | ſ: §º |
! {{ #||||ſºlº tºº º:
|;&#3. º *
Fº § Fº:
ºf §§§
sº tº ºr ºr sº ºº: º * gº º
º §§
P & º ºº: º tºº
ºl ºr. ºxa.º sº
G § ºś
º
sº º.º. º º º
sº-º-º:
‘ſº i º
º .. * W.;; º §
º º º
º, ºft * º
º * *
zydº--> :- cº ...tº
- ~72 t <-º-º-º-º: º3 -º
º :::::::::::::::::::
cº-º-º: --- . . . [F *.
e
THE OLD WORIKHOUSE.
(From Park's ‘Hampstead.')
THE OLD WORKHOUSE.
Opposite to Montagu Grove, on a slope descending from
Mount Vernon, and now occupied as a garden, it is said that
formerly stood the Old Workhouse of Hampstead. It has
long disappeared. At this house, before it became the work-
house, Booth, Wilks, and Cibber the actors spent a summer.
THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD.
The Church of Hampstead was originally a chapel-of-ease
to the church of Hendon. The first ascertained mention of
this chapel is so late as 1461. It was only in 1561 that the
chapel came under the jurisdiction of the bishop as a separate
church, by the incumbent presenting himself at the primary
initiation of Bishop Grindal. The old church was a very


THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD. 141
humble structure, built evidently at four or five different
times, having a low wooden belfry. The present church was
built in 1747, and cost 4,500l. It was found damp, and the
tower gave way, so that, so soon after the erection as 1772, it
had to undergo a thorough repair. It is remarkable as
having its belfry tower at the east end; and the reason
assigned is, that, that end facing the town, it was thus built
º
**º.
iº ſº
;
$º ºś. Hº
dº #
º
ºft *.
Nº & E. : FE
§§ - § § |ff
J. º º - - - - *
§ M. Wºº ~ º: ſ * -º º- lºº }ºſºtº-
- º º ſ gº º ſº
% | º % a * § º g # It's º º § % % § ºw.
% - | - / Ž sº w 2 ! º sº Aº º ºf; %22 º ſ: * {{#ſ. ºf e-jº
iſºſº/ * Mºś º, º *}% &; ; – ’
“ ºf f % %lſ. º: §§ º º ar % ſº 2×3 . . ſ ** , , Z
zºWſº %; %\}\}}ºff. ... . .
* Mºſſ"4.2% # / 2%. ſºft ! III £º"l-2.j ‘’” º/2. 2.
\ | *:: * > % ºt |ſ. f & a 4 | A. : % %22%– - _^ -
| ' 7 ºf , /*./ 2'ſ tº ~ 2. £e-º'
IIAMPSTEAD OLD CHURCHI.
(From Park's ‘History of Hampstead.')
for better effect. Altogether, however, it is but a very plain
brick church. Perhaps the most remarkable of its incum-
bents was the same Dr. Warren, as already Imentioned as
incumbent of Charlton, and so curiously missing the legacy
of the manors of Charlton and Hampstead. He was a man
of rather voluminous authorship, Park giving the titles of
sixteen of his religious publications. His son and grandson,
Dr. Langhorne Warren, and the Rev. Erasmus Warren,






























142 EIAMPSTEAD.
succeeded him as incumbents of Hampstead, the latter dying
only in 1806. In 1806 the Rev. Samuel White succeeded as
curate. The present incumbent is the Rev. Charlton Lane.
We are not writing a regular topography; but we may
mention a few of the names of those who have monuments
or tablet records in the church and churchyard, as re-
calling the idea of those who once lived here. In the church
are monuments of Anthony Askew, M.D., F.R.S., who died
February 28, 1774, aged 52; one to the wife of the cele-
brated Lord Erskine, which we have already mentioned;
Mrs. Sabina Tierney, mother of George Thomas Tierney,
M.P., as hereafter mentioned amongst our brief biographical
notices, 1806, &c.
In the churchyard are tombs of Daniel Bedingfield, clerk
of the Parliament, 1637; Lady Elizabeth Norton, daughter
of the Earl of Gainsborough ; Nathaniel Booth, Lord Dela-
mere, 1770; Lady Delamere, 1773; Hon. Elizabeth Booth,
1765; John Harrison, the distinguished inventor of the
chronometer, 1776; Mrs. Dorothy Baillie, the mother of
Joanna Baillie, as will be mentioned. -
SIR. JAMES MACKINTOSH. The tomb of Sir James is under
the yew-tree in the eastern part of the churchyard. The
inscription states that he was born at Aldourie, Inverness-
shire, in August 1765, and died in London in May 1832.
In the same tomb are buried an infant son, his youngest
granddaughter, and some other of his grandchildren. Lady
Mackintosh, it is also recorded, died in Switzerland in 1830.
Sir James is one of those men of a vast reputation, which,
on referring to their works, causes us to wonder how it
acquired such an extent. Perhaps the secret may in some
degree be explained by the fact of his being a Scotchman,
one of a nation who by their spirit and indomitable perse-
verance make the most of their talents and opportunities.
THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD. 143
To us, Sir James presents a man of grave, practical, useful,
and moderately reforming character and talents, rather than
of that broad and Original stamp which marks the foremost
leaders of mankind. -
Attached to the account of his tomb may be preserved the
following one of its cost, discovered by Miss Meteyard
amongst the Wedgwood papers. It may afford some guid-
ance in the matter of tomb-building:— -
MR. MACKINTosh,
To H. WHITE, Jun.
1803. :6 s. d.
July 8.--To fixing new Portland stone curb round Grave in
Hampstead Church, and cutting holes for Iron-
work, &c. complete 3 1 () ()
Dues charged for fixing e 5 15 6
Sexton's charge for turfing, &c. . O 5 ()
Bill for Bricklayers' work . 1 13 0
Do. for Carpenters' work . te tº ſº & , 0 1 2 ()
Do. for Painting . 0 10 6
Do. for Smiths' work. ... 10 0 0
:622 6 0
Wedgwood Papers, Mayer MSS.
HENRY CORT. Near the east gate is the modest head-
stone of a man who in his day received the usual reward of
merit. On it merely stands:– Sacred to the memory of
Mr. Henry Cort, of Devonshire Street, St. George the
Martyr, Queen Square, London, who departed this life
May 3, 1800, in the sixtieth year of his age.’
This inscription was a few years ago illegible, but has
been recently restored by his surviving son. The headstone
also records the memory of Mrs. Cort.
BIenry Cort was born in Lancaster, where his father was
a builder and brickmaker. Mr. Cort became a navy agent
in Surrey Street, Strand, London, after a period of his life
of which little is known. There he became aware of the
144 HAMPSTEAD.
inferiority of British to foreign iron, and set on foot a series
of experiments for its improvement, taking mp the manu-
facture at the point to which the labours of Ford, Dr.
Roebuck, and Peter Onions had brought it. In 1783 and
1784 he took out patents for his processes. In these he
not only introduced many improvements, but combined
those of his predecessors with them, so as to establish an
entire new era in the history of the iron manufacture. In
1786 Lord Suffield said of him—“If Mr. Cort's very in-
genious and meritorious improvements in the art of making
and working iron, the steam-engine of Bolton and Watt,
and Lord Dundonald’s discovery of making coke at half the
present price, should all succeed, it is not asserting too
much to say, that the result will be more advantageous to
Great Britain than the possession of the thirteen colonies
of America, for it will give the complete command of the
iron trade to this country, with its vast advantages to
Inavigation.”
The first of Cort’s patents was for a new process of con-
verting cast into malleable iron; his next was for rolling it.
In this he is said to have rediscovered the process of Payne.
His improvements soon raised him to great prosperity. He
took premises at Fontley and Fareham, close to Plymouth
Harbour, where he erected a forge and iron mill. His great
success induced many iron-masters to work under his pa–
tents, and numerous of Cort's furnaces are still in operation.
But, unfortunately, he entered into partnership with Samuel
Jellicoe, the son of Adam Jellicoe, called Sellicoe by Ure in
his “Dictionary of the Manufacturing Arts.” This Adam
Jellicoe was deputy-paymaster of seamen's wages. They
took a wharf of Adam Jellicoe at Gosport, who advanced
large sums to the firm of Cort and Samuel Jellicoe, his son,
on the security of their premises and trade. Had Cort
THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD. 14.5
steered clear of this partnership he must have made an
immense fortune. According to both Ure and Fairbairn he
had himself put 20,000l. into the concern, and numbers of
iron-masters were working his patents under condition of a
handsome royalty to him.
On the death of Adam Jellicoe it was discovered that the
money which he had advanced to Cort and Jellicoe, amount-
ing to 27,000l., had been embezzled by him from the Go-
vernment funds in his hand for the payment of the sailors.
The Government, therefore, seized on the property of the
firm, when it appeared that Cort had also assigned his
patents to Adam Jellicoe as collateral security for the moneys
advanced. Ure says that Adam Jellicoe had destroyed the
patents thus deposited with him. Cort was made bankrupt.
He afterwards solicited Government for the restoration of
his patents, proving that he was perfectly ignorant of the
source whence Adam Jellicoe derived the advances. He
solicited in vain, and was additionally astonished to find
that Samuel Jellicoe was put in possession of them, with the
properties of Fontley and Gosport. Various appeals were
made to Government for justice to Henry Cort, who had
done so much for the trade of the country, and remained a
ruined man with a family of twelve children. In 1794 an
appeal was made to Pitt by a number of influential members
of Parliament, but only with the paltry result of a pension
of 200l. a year. He died, as appears on his gravestone, in
1800, at the age of 60, broken in health and spirit. He had
laid the foundation of many gigantic fortunes, and was
himself suffered to perish in poverty. Mr. William Fair-
bairn, the great engineer, in his ‘History of Iron and its
Manufacture,” says that, some time ago, Cort's claims were
called in question, but on examination, nearly all the great
L
146 FIAMPSTEAD.
iron-masters and writers on iron have declared their validity.
Mr. Fairbairn says that “Henry Cort has conferred an
amount of wealth on his country during the last three or
four generations, equivalent to sia hundred millions sterling,
and given employment to Sia, hundred thousand of the working
population l’ Mr. Fairbairn expresses the utmost indigna-
tion at the treatment of Cort, and says that Government is
bound in honour to do something for his family. Men are
made affluent with pensions and estates, and their children
ennobled for destroying their fellow-creatures. What, then,
is due to a man who so illustriously augments the wealth
and power of the nation, and gives the means of existence
to hundreds of thousands? But alas! such appeals in this
country are useless. We pay many millions annually to
support a uselessly enormous army, and we are deaf to the
claims of our greatest benefactors. This is but a parallel
story to that of Thomas Gray, the projector and enthusiastic
advocate of a national system of railways. Standing over
this simple headstone, one marvels at the mere handful of
earth which can hide for ever from the world the genius, the
vast services, the griefs and wrongs of a grand public bene-
factor, and the lamentable ingratitude of his country.
Amongst the notices on the Register, we may quote the
following, with Lysons’ remarks:—
‘Charles Athey, son of Arthur Athey ; baptised Jan 23,
1598-99.’ Sir Arthur Athye, who resided at Kilburn Priory,
was principal of Alban Hall, and public orator of the Uni-
versity of Oxford. He was secretary also to the unfortunate
Earl of Essex, in whose ruin he was nearly involved. Sir
Arthur was knighted on the accession of James I., died in
1604, and was buried at Harrow. -
‘Charles, son of Sir William Jones; baptised Sept. 24,
1671.’ This Sir William Jones, not to be confounded with
THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD. 147
the famous Sir William Jones of later date, was Attorney-
general in 1674, and resided some years at Hampstead.
‘Tyke Marrow, servant to Judge Dolben; buried May 26,
1679.’ The Judge, his master, also lived several years at
Hampstead.
* Mr. Thomas Jevon, from London; buried Dec. 24, 1688.”
Jevon was an actor of low comedy, and dancing-master, and
wrote some dramatic pieces, ‘The Devil of a Wife,’ &c. He
seems to have been an occasional resident at West-End.
John Pate, another player, was buried here in 1703-4.
* Mary, daughter of Richard Lord Wiscount Fitzwilliam,
a Roman Catholic, was baptised Sept 8, 1707.” She was
maid-of-honour to the Princess of Wales in 1726; in 1733
married Henry, Earl of Pembroke; and secondly, in 1751,
North Ludlow Bernard, Esq. -
‘Christopher Bullock; buried April 8, 1722.” This Mr.
Bullock was the son of an actor who resided at North-End ;
was an actor himself, and dramatic writer, whose produc-
tions are enumerated in the ‘Biographia Dramatica,’ and
was the husband of an actress, the daughter of Wilks, the
comedian, and probably the father or brother of another actor,
Hildebrand Bullock, who was buried here Oct. 21, 1733.
“Dr. George Sewell; buried Feb. 12, 1725-26.” We shall
hereafter mention Dr. Sewell in the Biographical Notices.
‘The Right Hon. David Erskine, Earl of Buchan; buried
Oct. 17, 1745.” The fourth Earl of that family. ‘Isabella,
Countess of Buchan; buried May 21, 1763.’ Daughter of
Sir William Blackett, and second wife of the Earl of Buchan.
The Scotch peerage calls her Elizabeth. -
‘Mr. Joseph Dorman; was buried Feb. 18, 1754, N. S.’
A dramatic writer, author of the entertainment of Sir
* Roger de Coverley,’ and reputed author of ‘The Female
Rake; or, Modern Fine Lady,” produced in 1735.
L 2
148 - HAMPSTEAD.
‘James Pitt, Esq., from London; buried Jan. 23, 1763.”
To be mentioned in Biographical Notices.
‘William Popple, from London; buried Feb. 13, 1764.’
See again Biographical Notices. - -
‘James MacArdell; buried June 5, 1765.’ A celebrated
mezzotinto engraver, a native of Ireland; buried in the
churchyard, with an inscription to his memory.
‘Charles Spooner, from London; buried Dec. 6, 1767.’
Another celebrated engraver in mezzotinto, fellow-pupil with
MacArdell, and who desired to be buried near him in Hamp-
stead churchyard. --
“Henry Barnes; buried Jan. 20, 1773.’ Secondary of the
Court of Common Pleas, and author of ‘Notes of Cases of
Practice,” in two volumes.
‘Sir William Duncan; buried Jan. 14, 1774.” Sir William
was physician to George III., was created a baronet in 1764,
having married in the preceding year Lady Mary, daughter
of Sackville, Earl of Thanet.
‘James Pettit Andrew; buried Aug. 10, 1797.’ Mr.
Andrew was of a good family, and devoted to literature.
He deserves a cordial mention for being one of the first who
took up the cause of the wretched chimney-sweeps, and by
his writings led to an Act of Parliament ameliorating their
condition. Besides other works, he made a continuation of
Henry's excellent ‘History of England,’ the plan of which
was judiciously adopted by Charles Knight in his ‘History
of England.’ He died at Brompton at the age of 59, and
was buried in this churchyard, by the remains of his wife.
Iſis son Joseph succeeded his uncle, Sir Joseph Andrews, in
his baronetcy and estates in Berkshire.
There are entries in the Register relating to the noble
families of Delaware, Ikerine, Delamere, Erskine, &c., and
many others great in their time, as well as many distin-
THE CHURCH AND CHURCHYARD. 149
guished ladies, in whom the present age takes no further
interest, having passed on its attention to others.
Great in their time, -
They float away along the great time-stream,
And others in great numbers, great like them,
Just for a little pleasing hour of greatness,
Succeed them, and succeed them, and pass on.
They are not of that greatness which stands fixed
In the firm earth of fame—for their importance,
Made up of wealth, and birth, and such like stuff,
Is but a vapoury fleeting show of greatness,
And takes no hold on Time.
In this Parish Register there are some records of longevity,
which speak significantly of the healthy air of the neigh-
bourhood:—‘Richard Smith, of West-End, aged 100 years,
buried Dec. 5, 1684; Elizabeth Kidd, of Hampstead, aged
105 years, buried July 24, 1685; Margaret Smith, of Hamp-
stead, aged near 100 years, buried March 12, 1687–88;
Eleanor Winbush, buried Aug. 1, 1744, aged 104 years;
Susanna Horder, aged 107 years, who died at West-End,
and was buried March 13, 1754, N. S.; Jane Staples, who
was buried March 9, 1787, said to have been 106 years of
age.’ I find mention, also, of the following persons who died
at Hampstead, though their names do not occur in the
Register :—Mrs. Harrison, aged 104, Aug. 1733; George
Eccleston, aged 103, Sept. 23, 1768; and Mrs. Foa, aged
110, Dec. 1781. - - -
Let us also commemorate here the benevolence of honest
John Stock. This gentleman, in 1781, gave a sum of 1,000l.,
which, with accumulation of interest, and some donations of
the trustees, purchased 2,000l. Three per Cents. This sum
was devoted, according to the will of Mr. Stock, to clothing,
educating, and putting out apprentice six fatherless boys
and four girls, the former to receive 5l. as an apprentice-fee,
the latter 21. The number of the recipients has been since
150 HAMIPSTEAD.
increased, being now twenty-one—seventeen boys, and four
girls. The relative number of the boys and girls is said to
be regulated annually, but the boys, somehow, greatly pre-
dominate. The annual income, I am informed, is about
827.
In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. Ix. part 1, p. 79, we
also find the following fact of Mr. Stock’s further benevo-
lence to those who have few benefactors. In the former
case he had his eye on the Orphans, in this case on a class
about as little sympathised with in general—poor curates:—
‘1790. A meeting was held by the trustees of John Stock,
Esq., of Hampstead, who bequeathed 200l. per annum to be
divided amongst ten curates of the Church of England
whose incomes did not exceed 40l. a-year. Thirty-eight
petitions were received from poor curates whose stipends
were not more than 25l. a-year, with which they had to
support large families.”
|Hampstead has had other benefactors. Elizabeth, Dow-
ager Wiscountess Campden, in 1643 left the sum of 200l. to
purchase lands; half the produce to be appropriated to ap-
prenticing children, the other half to be distributed among
the poor of the parish. With this money was purchased an
estate at Child’s Hill, in Hendon. An unknown benefactress
left a sum of 40l. in 1643, the same year that Lady Camp-
den’s money was left, and it was united with that money in
the purchase of the estate at Child’s Hill. The proceeds of
this 40l. were to be distributed to the poor of Hampstead in
halfpenny loaves on Good Friday morning. These bequests
must now have greatly increased in value.
The Hon. Susanna Noel, and her son Baptist, Earl of
Gainsborough, a minor, in the year 1698 gave the site of
Hampstead Wells, with certain houses adjoining, and six
acres of the Heath, for the use of the parish. The interest
. THIE OLD MANOR HOUSE. 151
of this charity, including the interest of 1,100l. Three per
Cents., is appropriated by the trustees to the apprenticing
poor children, or clothing them for service, and occasionally
relieving aged and infirm parishioners not receiving alms.
John Robinson, Bishop of London, happening to die at
Hampstead in the year 1723, this place became entitled to
100l., which he had bequeathed to the parish in which he
should happen to be resident at the time of his decease.
THE OLD MANOR HOUSE.
From Park’s account there does not appear to be really
any old Manor House. He tells us that the demesne lands
anciently extended from Child’s Hill north, to Belsize south;
but the name Manor Farm, in his time, was confined to that
portion of these lands which is situated south of West-End
Lane. The old Manor House stood on the north side of this
lane, but a Mr. Pool, lessee of the Manor Farm, pulled
down the old Manor House, and built a substantial brick
residence upon the place. There the manors or courts were
held till Pool removed to a smaller house, which he built on
the south side of the road, and the courts were removed with
him. This is no doubt the House called Manor Lodge, in-
habited by George Chater, Esq.; the Court Leet being still
held there. -
The old site of the Manor House, Park says, was in his
time occupied by Sir Samuel Bentham, but that the adjoining
residence of Thomas Norton Longman, Esq., had obtained
the name of the Manor House; that in 1802 this house was
occupied by the Rev. Charles Grant, who was proprietor
of the chapel in Well Walk, for thirty years, and in that
year ‘a court of view of frankpledge and general court baron
and customary court’ was held. This was probably before
} 52 HAMPSTEAD .
Mr. Pool was prepared to remove the court to his new house.
We may therefore presume that the Manor House is the
same now bearing that name, in possession of Mr. Husband,
but that the next house, the Ferns, occupies the ancient site
of the old Manor House.
HENRY BRADSHAW FEARON.
At the Ferns, the next house to the so-called Manor House,
formerly lived Mr. Henry Bradshaw Fearon, wine merchant,
of Holborn Hill and New Bond Street, a man of liberal
opinions, and actively co-operating with the originators and
founders of the London University. Mr. Fearon in 1817
went out to the United States as pioneer of a numerous body
of his friends who wished to know what really were the
prospects for emigrants to that country. In 1818 his reports
to these friends were published, and in 1819 reached a third
edition. At that time the settlement of Messrs. Morris
Birkbeck, and George Flower, in Illinois, had produced a
great sensation in England, through Mr. Birkbeck’s “ Notes
of a Journey in America,’ published in 1818, and his ‘Letters
from Illinois,’ in the same year. Mr. Fearon’s impression
of the American people, and the prospects of emigration to
the States, at that period, were by no means encouraging
to his friends. With the exception of some particular busi-
messes, which he pointed out, he thought only the very poor
would mend their condition by transferring themselves to
the Western World. He strongly anticipated great future
troubles in the United States, both from the existence of
Negro slavery, and from the predominance of mob rule.
Cobbett also, then living in Long Island, in the United
States, vehemently attacked, in his ‘Political Register,’ the
glowing representations of Birkbeck, and was responded to
FROGNAL HAILL. 153
by Mr. Richard Flower, in letters from the new settlement.
Mr. Fearon and his friends remained at home and flourished
there. He became a leading Liberal in the City, and died a
wealthy man, about twenty-five years ago.
FROGNAL HALL.
This house, standing close to the west end of the church,
was formerly inhabited by Mr. Isaac Ware, an architect who
was patronised by the Earl of Burlington. He was the
author of ‘A Complete Body of Architecture.” Mr. Ware's
work is a large folio, printed in 1756. Its title is ‘A Com-
plete Body of Architecture, adorned with Plans and Eleva-
tions from Original Designs. By Isaac Ware, Esq., of His
Majesty’s Board of Works.’ It states, also, in the title-page,
that it contains designs by Inigo Jones never before published.
He also translated from the Italian ‘ Palladio’s Architec-
ture,” and engraved the plates after tracings which he had
made from the original work. He published a separate
edition of the first book of “Palladio on the Fine Arts,’
Palladio being then the English standard of the art. Besides
this, he translated “Senagatti’s Perspective.’ Mr. Ware
died at his house at Kensington Gravel-pits in depressed
circumstances. After him the Guyons possessed this house.
This family of eminent merchants were probably amongst
the refugees from the terrible effects of the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, and lived in Hampstead till 1805. This
house, however, was sold on the death of Mr. Stephen Guyon,
in 1780. Lord Alvanley, Master of the Rolls, and after-
wards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, resided some years
here, and his widow, Lady Alvanley, after him. In Park’s
time it was occupied by Thomas Wilson, Esq., and now by
T. Julius Airey, Esq. -
; ſº # º
- ſº *
j; ; ;
#,' |
i . . " tº
$||
|iliº | iſ''
§ !
JF R O GNAT, PRIOIR.Y.
(From an Original Drawing in the possession of J. E. Gardner, Esq.)
FROGNAL PRIORY.
Descending towards West-End on our left hand, at a
paddock's distance, stands Frognal Priory. This house, now
hastening fast to ruin, was built by a Mr. Thompson, best
known by the name of Memory Thompson, or, as stated by
others, Memory-Corner Thompson. This Mr. Thompson built
the house on a lease of twenty years, subject to a fine to the
lord of the manor. He appears to have been an auctioneer
and public-house broker, who grew rich, and, having a peculiar
taste in architecture and old furniture, built this house in an
old English style approaching the Elizabethan. That the
house, though now ruinous, is of modern date, is also witnessed
by the trees around it being common poplar, evidently planted
to run up quickly. Thompson is said to have belonged to
a club of auctioneers or brokers, which met once a week;

FIROGINAL PRIORY. * 155
and at one of these meetings, boasting that he had a better
memory than any man living, he offered to prove it by stat-
ing the name and business of every person who kept a corner
shop in the city; or, as others have it, the name, number
and business of every person who kept a shop in Cheapside.
The former statement is the One most received, and is the more
probable because Thompson, being a public-house broker,
was no doubt familiar with all these corner-haunting drink-
houses. Having maintained his boast, he was thence called
Memory, or Memory-Corner Thompson; but his general
cognomen was the first. Thompson not only asserted that
he built his house on the site of an ancient priory, continu-
ing down to the Dissolution, and inhabited as a suburban
house by Cardinal Wolsey, but, as an auctioneer, he had the
opportunity of collecting old furniture, pieces of carving in
wood, ebony, ivory, &c. With these he filled his house,
dignifying his furniture (some of which had been made up
from fragments), as having belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, to
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Scots, and other historical
magnates. On the marriage of Queen Victoria, he offered
for sale a huge old bedstead, as Queen Elizabeth’s, with chairs
to match, to Her Majesty; but the Queen declined it. It is
said, however, to have been purchased by Government, and
to be somewhere in One of the palaces. This bedstead, and
the chairs possibly, had some authentic character, as he built
a wing of his house especially for their reception. Thompson
had an ostensibly magnificent library, containing to all ap-
pearance most valuable works of all kinds; but, on examina-
tion, they proved to be only pasteboard bound up and labelled
as books. The windows of the chief room were of stained
glass, casting ‘a dim, religious light.’ And this great ware-
house of articles of furniture of real and manufactured an-
tiquity, of coins, china, and articles of vertu, became so great
156 IHAMPSTEAD.
a show-place, that people flocked far and near to see it.
This greatly flattered Thompson, who excluded no one of
tolerable appearance, nor restricted visitors to stated hours.
It is said that, in his ostentation, he used to leave five guinea
gold pieces about on the window-seats. I have it from a lady
who visited there occasionally, that, though this delighted
Thompson, it was an incessant nuisance to his family. There
was no security for a moment, during daylight, from the in-
roads of wondering people, who took all for genuine and in
perfect taste. There was, in consequence, no comfort, no one
could be at ease. If the bell rang, or the knocker resounded
during meal time, the dishes were hurried away that the
company might come in. Thompson was always telling the
ladies to put things in order. If they went upstairs to
dress, they were in constant trepidation, lest people should
come and be walked into their rooms. This informant de-
scribed the gardens as being really beautiful.
Whilst this was going on at the Priory, Thompson, who
owned nearly all Crown Street, Soho, and some of the adja-
cent streets, with numerous houses in other parts of the town,
used in the latter years of his life to be driving round from
house to house in his carriage every week, to collect his
rents, because he could not trust an agent. He was twice
married, and had a daughter by his first wife, who became
paralysed by rheumatism, and when she took an airing, had
to be carried from her chair to the carriage and back again.
She died prior to 1818. Thompson is not renowned for his
virtues either as husband or father. His daughter, it is
said, being very young on her mother's death, was taken by
some friends or relatives, and brought up for several years
entirely at their expense. In after years, falling into diffi-
culties, they asked Thompson for 500l., which he refused ;
FROGINAL PlöIORY. - 157
whereupon they sued him for the cost of her maintenance
and education, and recovered the sum of 2,000l.
Thompson is stated to have died aged 80, about 1836,
when a sale took place; but most of his wealth descended
to his niece, who married Bernard Gregory, the motorious
proprietor of the ‘Satirist.’ It is some proof of the moral
advance of the nation, that no such journals as the ‘Satirist'
and the “Age can now exist. We remember when these
papers, which trafficked in scandal, attacked the most vir-
tuous characters in the hope of being bribed to silence.
There is an on dit, that Gregory, making insinuations
against the character of a wealthy lady, on being remon-
strated with, replied that nothing was so easy as to disperse
the scandal.—‘Let the lady marry me. No one would be-
lieve that I would take a wife with any spot on her reputa-
tion;' and it is said that his proposal was accepted.
Gregory, it seems, on the death of his wife, did not pay the
fine to the lord of the manor, and Sir Thomas Wilson
recovered possession by injunction, intending to remove the
offices of the manor thither. From a fear, however, of some
heir of Thompson’s appearing after he had repaired it, which
was a possibility, Sir Thomas did not repair it, and it is now
too far gone for re-instatement. . -
A few items regarding Gregory may be drawn from his
own “Satirist,’ and from ‘The Town,” edited by a man who
seems to have known him well, Renton Nicholson, better
known as ‘Baron Nicholson,’ the late chairman of the noto-
rious “Judge and Jury Club,” held at the “Garrick's Head; as
well as from others who knew Gregory formerly. He is said
to have been the son of a woman who kept a small green-
grocer's shop in Goswell Street Road. She obtained him an
errand-boy's place in the family of a banker of Lombard
Street, for whom she washed. Gregory managed to get
158 - BIAMPSTEAD. .
himself advanced from the kitchen to the bank as a clerk:
thence, through the influence of his master, he went into a
bank as clerk, at Brighton. His ambition, however, soared
higher, and in concert with an auctioneer and brewer he set
up a bank himself. This daring speculation soon brought
him and his partner into the Gazette. After this, he seems
to have attempted many things, amongst them the rôle of an
amateur actor. In this he played the part of Hamlet at the
Coburg Theatre. Subsequently he started the ‘Satirist,
and became a trafficker in character, satirising and libelling
every one from whom he thought he could extort money.
For such an attempt on Mr. James Weir Hogg, M.P. for
Beverley, he was tried, pleaded guilty, offered a creeping
apology, but was committed and sentenced to three months’
imprisonment. Once out of prison, he displayed the spirit
of vengeance which animated him against his punisher.
He announced himself a candidate for Beverley, in opposi-
tion to him ; but a menace of exposure on the hustings
from the so-called ‘Baron Nicholson,’ compelled him to
abandon the project. It is stated that some lady, who
seemed to relish his scandals, left him 2,000l. a-year, upon
which he set up as a fine gentleman. This, however, I
imagine, is but another version of his marriage with the
niece of Mr. Thompson, the whole of whose wealth is stated
to have fallen to her, and so to Gregory, as he lay in prison
for libel. This fortune he is said entirely to have dissipated.
From the number of persons maligned by him, he was con-
stantly lain in wait for, and never could be found at his
office. An irritated watcher for him followed his brougham,
and, mistaking an old man in it for Gregory, gave him a
terrible cudgelling. Gregory is described as a short, squat,
bull-headed fellow, with a very sensual expression. The
OLD WIEST-END. 159
“Satirist’ was a sixpenny paper, published at 334 in the
Strand, and was continued from 1831 to 1841.
The place looks now as if under a curse. It is a
scene of damp, dreary, and wild neglect. It seems a fit
haunt for guilty ghosts rather than for men. When I
visited it some time ago, parties from London had been
holding their revels there on the untrimmed lawn in front;
benches, beer-tables, and dirty heaps of paper were scattered
about, and the turf was beaten black by the heels of riotous
dancers. .
OLD WEST-END.
As on the Heath, also at old West-End, was formerly held
a sort of Bartholomew Fair, where shows, plays, and games
of various kinds were carried on. The ‘Cock and Hoop was
a great resort; and the same riot, dissoluteness, and gam-
bling, as were rife on the Heath, caused this popular assem-
bling to be put down. In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol.
lxxxii. part 2, p. 184, we find the following statement of what
took place here :—‘At this fair, in 1812, August 21, a cir-
cumstance occurred which had nearly a fatal termination.
The clown of Saunders’s corps of horsemen and tumblers, on
returning to the public-house where he lodged on the night
on which the fair concluded, met with a party of peace-
officers, with whom he fell into some altercation, which
ended in blows. Some of the peace-officers drew their cut-
lasses, and wounded the clown in a desperate manner; but,”
says the note of Domestic Occurrences, “he is likely to
recover.’
From this incident we see that the police of those days
carried cutlasses so late as 1812. What occurred seven
years after, however, shows that their cutlasses were of no
*r
160 HAMPSTEAD,
avail against the menacing roughs of the time. At the fair
on the 28th of July, 1819, 200 ruffians, armed with bludgeons,
fell on the people, knocked them down, and robbed them by
wholesale. Not contenting themselves with their purses,
they stripped them of their hats, bonnets, coats, shawls, and
all descriptions of their dress. Some articles they tore,
others they cut away, leaving many of them, women and
children included, nearly naked. The constables had no
chance with them. The next day, a great number of special
constables were sworn in at Hampstead, who managed to
capture about thirty of the rogues, who were hanging about.
It was time not only for the suppression of these suburban
fairs, but for the establishment of a more numerous and
effective police.
West-End, of late years, has ceased to be an obscure nook,
with a few houses almost hidden in trees. London, as On
all other sites, has thrust itself in, and planted handsome
houses of merchants and professional men, and opened up
the secluded scene of former rude revels into a pleasant
suburb of the great Babel.
Returning to the village, we pass on the left hand, in
Heath Street, the
INDEPENDENT CHAPEL,
a place of worship not without its historical reminiscences.
The Independent congregation at Hampstead is supposed
to owe its origin to the preaching of Whitefield there in 1739,
who, in his Journal of May 17 of that year says, “Preached,
after several invitations thither, at Hampstead Heath, about
five miles from London. The audience was of the politer
sort, and I preached very near the horse course, which gave
me occasion to speak home to their souls concerning our
3:
CITICREN-EIOUSE. 161
spiritual race. Most were attentive, but some mocked.
Thus the Word of God is either a savour of life unto life, or
of death unto death.’ The congregation experienced its share
of the persecutions of those times. The earliest mention of
the chapel is 1775. It was built on copyhold land, leased
for 63 years. In 1777 the lease was assigned to Charles
Chandler, of Marylebone, clerk, who assigned it, in 1780, to
Selina, Countess of Huntingdom, who relinquished her right
in 1782. In 1785, the premises were vested in nine trustees.
This chapel, called the Heath Street Chapel, was rebuilt
about six years ago, and, as I alm informed, is attended by
Independents and Baptists, under the ministration of the
Rev. Mr. Brock.
Somewhat lower down we reach, in High Street, a passage
leading to
THE LOWER TIASK AND FLASK WALK.
The ‘Lower Flask’ is still a public-house, a little way
within the entry. Formerly, Flask Walk was open to the
High Street, and was shaded with fine trees. Many of
these are gone, and houses have taken their place. Formerly
a fair was held in Flask Walk, noted for its riot and Bar-
tholomew Fair character. An advertisement on the cover of
the original edition of the ‘Spectator * is as follows:—“This
is to give notice, that Hampstead Fair is to be kept upon the
Lower Flask Tavern Walk, on Friday, the first of August,
and holds for four days.”
Lower down, on the same side, you come to the celebrated
CHICKEN-FIOUSE.
This house was formerly a brick building in the farmhouse
style. In it used to be some painted glass, representing the
M
162 HAMPSTEAD.
Saviour in the arms of Simeon; and in another window Small
portraits of James I. and the Duke of Buckingham. Under
James's portrait was written—‘Icy dans cette chambre coucha
notre Roy Jacques, premier du nom. Le 25me août 1619.”
This glass was removed to the collection of Thomas Neave,
Esq., of Branch Hill Lodge.
- …º
*
- . º- - •. •º
- - - ...ſº
- % łºś.
25% º
fº-E *
º
sº - - -
*
º–-
- #. ..
ºf: |:
§ {
- º tº.º. º:
*: º “tº #: 3.
tº gº
!
TIII, CHILCIKEN-TIOUSE.
(From an Old Trint in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
At the Chicken-House died Samuel Gale the antiquary, in
1754, and was buried in the churchyard.
In the Chicken-House the Earl of Mansfield had lodgings,
before he purchased Caen Wood, whither some of his law
friends occasionally resorted for relaxation from the fatigues
of their profession. At that time, no doubt, the Chicken-
House had an ample garden, and overlooked the open country,
for it is described as being at the entrance of Hampstead.
In 1766, not many years after Lord Mansfield and his
friends used to resort to the Chicken House, we find it fallen
greatly in the world. It had become a great rendezvous of




THE OLD PRESBYTERIAN CEIAPEL. 163
thieves and vagabonds. In that year one Francis Parsons,
who had been landlord of this house, was taken up for pick-
ing pockets. He was found to be worth 700l. He used to
keep good wine at the house, and the security of the thieves
—his companions—was so much consulted, that five or six
doors had to be passed through before they could be reached.
In the meantime, they escaped out of the windows, and went
off across the Heath. The constables of those days could
not be very adroit, or they would have planted a proper force
under these windows to intercept them.
The old building at present occupies the space betwixt
two narrow passages proceeding from the street, and is in-
habited by several families. The front next to the street
appears to be more recent, containing shops, and hiding the
original buildings, which are of a very dirty and shabby
stamp. An outside staircase ascends from the lower pas-
sage to the upper storey. This entry is frequently filled with
the wash of the families, hung to dry. When I visited it the
first time, an old man stood on the outside staircase, of whom
we asked if that were the Chicken House. ‘Yes,’ replied
the old man, humorously, ‘ and I am one of the chickens.’
Near the Chicken House is the site of
THE OLD PRESBYTERIAN CHAPEL.
This chapel—at which Mr. Barbauld was minister from
1789 to 1802—is supposed to have been established in the
reign of Charles II., by one of the ejected ministers whose
lives are recorded by Dr. Calamy. The first minister whose
name is known, was Mr. Thomas Woodcock, the son of a
clergyman who was ejected from St. Andrew Undershaft.
This Mr. Woodcock, minister of this chapel, was cousin to
Milton’s second wife. Mr. Woodcock was there in the reign
MI 2
otus I Kol Inq trooq 0Abū ol pyBs “ſodºſſo pIo ouſ, 83SI uſ
'IOIO'BS
Stºulouſ, ‘ICI ‘tonsſtipul quoplooxo quoso.Id oth popoooons ‘978I
uţ ‘urſtſ OL SUBOK troop. Is Jo Kūsputput tº 101ſt pouárso.I OUAA
‘MORIUOXI ‘9 Aoyſ oup) Kd split M.Ionjº put ‘outox{A310 UIOIJ
‘tioSIAA tutºrſ!!M Aoyſ out, Kc1 sp.tºrolyt: ; uootº) (1043tſ;A9N
qt Aulop'Bow Spydºgſ [8.1otto%) oup, uto.J. Shuopnºs Kd pononpuoo
3.10A S001Atos ouſ) outſ) outos toll '0EST uſ pop put ‘UTIII
popoooons ‘progstreW utoq ‘Aoûto 'TV 6 ISI uſ Kiyunoo IIAo
SIU 00 pou.Injo.I OUA (urbuluohoos ū) spport[S UN Ko put ‘Tºo &
tº quoqu Toj ‘(, SonáoſtſCI opſ]uoſos, Jo Iouant) ookoſ IIN Kal
bordinooo seas ºrd[nd oun put ‘g ISI uſ pop ou A ‘uontºloſ IIIN
Ád popooooms SUA put ‘uoo.1%) u013up/AoN qu Iodºqo ouſ, Ol
&OSI III poAOUIOI qmd ‘UTIII poAOTIOJ plugq.IUgſ quourouſoo?] ‘IN
‘g.8/...I uſ troºbiotău.00 oun Ajoſ ou A “tollm, TVN SUA tossooons
SHH ‘poºls JOU ST Tuo'ſ ºbu AA uſ qud : pſogous Ibou “uo]
-šuſuu'UAS IO) puonsduTuFI Jol ou.A ‘ĀlūttoAt CI Ju Kuroptov ot||
UIOJ ‘ūOSq}{) p.It'Ap(H IN ourbo UtouT, '08/I UT pottàſsor OUAA
‘UAOIGI IOUIOITI IJN Ka popooooms SUAA Ibo K outes out, put: ‘I/I
uſ ‘Khunoo oAſ, but sitſ ‘otſusptoſtºls III ‘trºoposoſ) to ‘KIOSOO
IOP pºolsduit H Joſ OUAA toutury prºtoſy] ‘IIN SUAA IOSSoooms
SIH 'g')/ I U. K.I]ttnoo ouſ, Oluſ poAOutot qud ‘drus.IO]Stºd oup)
boºdoooº “ošpſippooſ ICI Jo IIdnd tº ‘Ioup.tº) pubt[oſſ IJN
Sg/ I (II ºut:00A StºA ºrdlud ou, /g/. I up qug ‘outſ] ].IOUs b
Joj polygogo ‘ĀſītioAOO uto.1) “uosuplºw litodoº I TIN 'gg/I
uſ otolſ, 5utſot:0.Id StºA on St. ‘ostooap s.Suoultuis UN 0.10]
-oq Lodulio out he populogo uo"It'AA IIN tº KIQuqoid ºgll
up pop put “69/. I Uſ Olouſ to] sluruI SUA SuouTuTIS UIdosoſ
‘IIN "K.Inqū10T ‘IIBH. S.Ioptino, I ‘IOInt[O S100S 9TH O1
poAOUTOI ou uouſ AA ‘SIUOK XIS quoqu oleu) poulotold put ‘āg/ I
up ptomsduit. H 10 poſljos OUAA “uttut[0109s tº ‘UO15UT,It'd
IIIoſ IIN Act popooooms SpA of ‘ag/. I uſ O.I.O.U', pomp ou A
‘IIo.L.ION TERIBU207 KG popooooms StA put, “III UIUTIILA Jo
* CIV (MALSCIIAIVII | 9 |
Q9I "Tºld WFIO OITOTIT.WO
-SOAUT-OITTICT JO Khoſoos ouſ, JIoSq àugſ[30 Áloſoos w ‘Snoſ.Ino
Joſſ] tº SI IOouſos Kupuns pºolsduſbBI oth Jo III.3.IO ouT.
‘(IVILSãINVII LV IOOHOS XVINſis & III. To NIOTIO
où.) UlſAA ‘IOAOAAOU ‘osto oup) jou. SI ºbt[I, KIO)SIII Jo quo)xo
OUI qsbOq ‘OSlmoo Jo ‘oSoul qud : 100.11S [[3HT JO Xſouq ot||
qt “outrī (IoInt[O oſ)]]T UI ‘Iodºtſ) ut Koſso AA tº put uſions
-Ioxioſºſ H. p.It'Apºl A&M oth ‘ºuaqutuouſ Sºp-100.11s qār BI
JO opts toū10 ouſ) ULO poloo.To “upoint[O |S|TUC) poſſ to ‘uout
-IISTIQBlsº ouſ, Jo Holmuſ) Aou & Sossossod Osſe pºonsdutºpſ
- ‘UIO.Into OUI)
SpVgAO] ‘Āto]outoo Aou ou Kg ‘IIIH [[Sugſ KUOII UIOJ 5utpuo
pºol AOLIBut out, UUI sputºs AOU [oduúð or ſoul to W ‘subt[t]
-ſun out on toao possed put ‘uoſitiouoã sul on Jo ‘puols
-dubRI Jo SILOTOIN oug Jo OUIOS ºpponsdubEI qu polloS OUAA
Squbišiūto Totto.I.I 003 oth Jo otto SUAA IIoIOIN TIN qqnop ON
‘IO)SIULIUL SUAA IIoIOIN 'ſ 'ſ 'Aoºſ out, UQIU[A JO ‘AAONI Uſo.InUIO JO
puto ouſ) ||t OSuouſ OyèAIId tº uſ [odbug) or ſouth UO B SUA otou I
"TGICIVIHO OITOHALWO
‘UtosotrºuTN. Itſoſ ‘Aoyſ out, ST 101sºuTut
quosold out.I. 'II'BTIETITIſ) outloooq ‘O3t; ourſ old 8top|STIOO t,
‘5uſAbū SUBI.to),(dSO.I.I. pſo oth ‘Strºſto) Kdso.I.I (It'ſ It?', ſtrºlſ, oùl
Jo Jotuuſo AAOU out, sputºs AOU 100T1S [I3PI Jo UTO]]oq on 1
qu “ſodºúſ) [I'Eſtol Kotsold pſo oth Jo Ops Ottº OAOqt of 111ſ V
‘mbouilluſ soutſ ‘Aoy ou', put tolpºs ºld Kol
pononpuoo 5uſoq soonAIOS uoſºlnängur où ‘ūOdin potontto put
polo[dutoo olio ouTOSpubtſ quosoid oth put ‘potiopuuqe sew
quq, Z981 (II '828T uſ politoddesſp (IoIIIA Inq outo oth put
‘99. I uſ poAouloſt uaoq oAbū ol posoddnesſ “tokowou ‘Iodulio
puyffy,to ouſ I, Ops STI IIO linq Toulout, put ‘UAOp poſſnd
st A ‘Utopsubtil 3UTIIoſpt, où) qu poAIT OTIAA “bST ‘pooAKotto H
166 EIAMPSTEAD.
tigists, was established in 1781, and met at the Flask. As
its somewhat fantastic name imported, it was what is now
called a debating society—a society for mutual instruction.
It flourished, and one of its first suggestions was a wise one
—namely, to raise a fund, and found a Sunday School. In
1789 it was thought that it would stimulate parents to send
their children to the School if a certain number were elected
for daily education; and accordingly, twelve boys and
girls were selected, and sent to a good day school—a plan
which was found to answer admirably. Edward Montagu,
Esq., Spencer Perceval, Esq., and Joseph Holford, Esq.,
were successive presidents of the Sunday School Society.
Of the various religious and philanthropical associations
which Hampstead, in common with other places, possesses,
it is not within my province to speak.
Leigh Hunt has described the scenery of Hampstead in
various poems, amongst others in two rhyming letters to
Tom Moore; and in several sonnets. Perhaps the following
is the most descriptive:—
DESCRIPTION OF HAMPSTEAD.
A steeple issuing from a leafy rise,
With farmy fields in front, and sloping green,
Dear Hampstead, is thy southern face serene,
Silently smiling on approaching eyes.
Within, thine ever-shifting looks surprise,
Streets, hills, and dells, trees overhead now seen,
Now down below, with smoking roofs between,_
A village, revelling in varieties.
Then, northward what a range, with heath and pond,
Nature's own ground; woods that let mansions through,
And cottaged vales, with pillowy fields beyond,
And clump of darkening pines, and prospects blue,
And that clear path through all, where daily meet
Cool cheeks, and brilliant eyes, and morn-elastic feet.
From ‘Foliage,’ 1818.
THE AIRIN FAMILY AND MIR.S. BARBAULD. 167
THE AIKIN FAMILY AND MIRS. BARBAULD,
In a house on the right-hand side of Church Row, in
Hampstead, proceeding from the town towards the church,
—a house with a large iron gate, lived for some time Mrs.
Barbauld, who in the last generation enjoyed a great repu-
tation both as a poetess and a miscellaneous prose writer.
She was one of the Aikin family, various members of which
have been distinguished in literature, especially Dr. Aikin,
the brother of Mrs. Barbauld, and Miss Lucy Aikin, her
niece, the author of “Memoirs of the Courts of Queen
Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I.,’ a ‘Life of Addison,’ a
Memoir of her distinguished father, Dr. John Aikin, &c.
To Miss Aikin, whose life extended to within these few
years, we owe also a “Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld.” From
this it appears that Anna Letitia Aikin was born at
Ribworth Harcourt, in Leicestershire, in 1743. Her father,
Dr. John Aikin, was a Dissenting minister there, and
had a school; her mother was the daughter of the Rev.
John Jennings, of Kibworth. For some years Dr. Dod-
dridge resided in their family. Her brother John was four
years her junior, and these were the Only children. In
1753 her father removed to Warrington, in Lancashire,
when, of course, Miss Aikin was about fifteen. In the
Dissenting Academy at Warrington, where Dr. Aikin was
classical tutor, were also teachers Drs. Priestley and Enfield;
and hence we trace the Unitarian connection of the Aikins
with the Enfields of Nottingham, where the son of Dr.
Rimfield became the town-clerk.
In 1773 she published a volume of poems, which were well
received; and the same year she joined her brother, who
was then settled in Warrington as a physician, in a volume
168 EIAMPSTEAD,
of miscellaneous prose. In the Academy at Warrington was
educated Mr. Rochemont Barbauld, the son of a descendant
of a French Protestant of the time of Louis XIV., who had
fled the persecutions of that bigoted monarch. Mr. Roche-
mont Barbauld was born at Cassell, in Germany, where his
father had attended George T.I. as chaplain ; whence some
of his biographers style him a German. On his marriage
with Miss Aikin, Mr. Barbauld settled as Dissenting
minister at Palgrave, near Diss, in Suffolk. There they
commenced a boarding-school, which, Owing much to
the reputation of Mrs. Barbauld, greatly flourished; and
amongst their pupils were William Taylor, of Norwich, who
became the translator of Goëthe's ‘Iphigemia, in Tauris,”
Bürger’s ‘Lenore,’ &c., and the author of “English Syn-
onyms.” In fact, Mr. Taylor was one of the first of our
countrymen to draw attention to German literature, which
his relative, Mrs. Austin, continued by her various trans-
lations. Another of the Barbaulds’ pupils was Dr. Sayers,
author of the “Dramatic Sketches of Northern Mythology.’
Mrs. Barbauld, at the same time, received a class of little
boys under her own particular tuition, and amongst these
she was fortunate enough to have Thomas Denman, the son
of Dr. Denman, of Middleton Dale, Derbyshire, who became
the celebrated Lord Denman, the bold and eloquent defen-
der of Queen Caroline in conjunction with Henry, afterwards
Lord Brougham. Here, again, we have the Unitarian con-
nection of the Priestleys, Enfields, Taylors, and of Lord
Denman being at one time Recorder of Nottingham, no
doubt through the influence of Mr. Enfield, so many years
not only town-clerk, but the ruling spirit of the corpora-
tion; William Gell, afterwards Sir William Gell, the anti-
quary and topographer of Grecian and Pompeii fame, another
of her pupils. For these lucky boys she wrote her charming
THE AIKIN FAMILY AND MIR.S. BARBAULD. 169
* Hymns in Prose, for Children.” Other pupils of the Bar-
baulds’ at Palgrave were the late Basil Lord Daer, and three
of his brothers, including the Earl of Selkirk; two sons of
Lord Templetown, Lord More, Lord Aghrim, and the Hon.
Augustus Phipps.
Whilst living at Palgrave, the Barbaulds made visits
during their vacations to London, where they were on
terms of intimacy with Mrs. Montague, and Joseph Johnsom,
of St. Paul’s Churchyard, Mrs. Barbauld's publisher, and
at these two houses saw all the fashionable literary, or the
city people of distinction.
In 1785 they quitted Palgrave, and, after a tour in Swit–
zerland and France, settled in Church Row, Hampstead,
Mr. Barbauld minister of a small congregation, and at the
same time receiving a few young gentlemen as pupils; Mrs.
Barbauld also gave instruction to a few young ladies. Here
Mrs. Barbauld appeared as a writer on several great public
questions. Besides a poetical epistle to Wilberforce, on the
rejection of the Bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade, she
wrote a pamphlet in advocacy of the repeal of the Test and
Corporation Acts; another in criticism of Gilbert Wake-
field’s “Inquiry into the Expediency of Public or Social
Worship;’ and a third, called “Sins of Government, Sins of
the Nation: a Discourse for the Fast.” All these manifested
a strong, logical, and correctly-thinking mind; but they do
not retain their interest like her contributions to one of the
most delightful books for children—the ‘Evenings at Home.”
This was supposed to be a joint-work of her brother, Dr.
Aikin, and herself; but it appears rather to have been Dr.
Aikin’s, with some contributions by Mrs. Barbauld. Out of
ninety-nine pieces, of which it consisted, Mrs. Barbauld fur-
nished only fourteen, as follows:—“The Young Mouse; ”
‘The Wasp and Bee ; ’ ‘Alfred: a Drama; ‘Animals and
170 EIAMPSTEAD.
Countries; ” ‘’Canute’s Reproof; ” “The Masque of Nature;
‘Things by their Right Names; ” “The Goose and the
Horse; ” “On Manufactures; ” “The Flying Fish; ” “A Les-
son in the Art of Distinguishing; ” “The Phoenix and Dove;’
‘The Manufacture of Paper; ” “The Four Sisters.’ “Live
Dolls’ has, I believe, since been added. Those who recall
the pleasant reading of their youth will recognise amongst
these articles some of their chief favourites.
This seems to have been the sum total of Mrs. Barbauld's
authorship at Hampstead, except a critical essay prefixed
to an illustrated edition of Akenside’s ‘Pleasures of Imagi-
nation,’ and another to a similar one of Collins’ “Odes.”
In 1802 the Barbaulds removed to Stoke Newington, Mr.
Barbauld having become the pastor of Newington Green
Chapel, formerly that of Dr. Price, the friend and political
coadjutor of Priestley. The motive for this change of resi-. "
dence was the mutual desire of Dr. Aikin and Mr. Bar-
bauld to pass the evenings of their days near each other;
Dr. Aikin being established in his practice at Stoke New-
ington.
The poems of Mrs. Barbauld, though greatly admired at
the time, and displaying excellent Sense and a noble senti-
ment, have been succeeded by others in our time, which
throw them into the shade, and create a disappointment in
us. They resemble most of the poems of the day, Cowper's,
Burns's, and the earliest of Sir Walter Scott's excepted, and
to us lack the genuine poetical inspiration. The subjects, as
you turn over the table of contents, give you at once a true
idea of them. “ The Invitation,’ ‘To Mrs. B . . .,’ ‘The
Groans of the Tankard,’ ‘‘Verses written in an Alcove,” “An
Inventory of Dr. Priestley’s Study,’ ‘Lines on a Chimney-
Piece,” “Delia,” “An Elegy,’ &c. Yet Lord Byron manages
to borrow an idea from her ; namely:—
THE AIKIN FAMILY AND MERS. BARE AULD. 171
The earth hath bubbles as the water hath,
And this is of them.—
Mrs. Barbauld's poem on “Washing-Day,’ vol. i. p. 206 —
Earth, air and sky, and ocean has its bubbles,
And verse is one of them—this most of all.
In editorship she performed a loving and good work.
She made a pleasant selection from the ‘Spectator,’ ‘Tatler,’
* Guardian,’ and “Freeholder,’ with a preliminary essay.
She edited the letters of Richardson, which disappoint us.
She edited also an edition of the ‘British Novelists,” with
excellent notices of the writers. Amongst her own letters
we find a few curious touches and glimpses of cotempo-
raries. This of Joanna Baillie, her neighbour:-‘I have
received great pleasure, lately from the representation of
“De Montfort,” a tragedy which you probably read a year
and half ago, in a volume entitled “A Series of Plays on
the Passions.” I admired it then, but little dreamed that
I was indebted for my entertainment to a young lady of
Hampstead whom I visited, and who came to Mr. Barbauld's
meeting all the while, with as innocent a face as if she had
never written a line. The play is admirably acted by Mrs.
Siddons and Kemble, and is finely written, with great purity
of sentiment, beauty of diction, thought, and originality of
character; but it is open to criticism—I cannot believe such
a hatred natural. The affection between the brother and
sister is most beautifully touched, and, as far as I know,
quite new. The play is somewhat too good for our present
taste.”
The quiet modesty of Miss Baillie will be recognised by
all who had the pleasure of her acquaintance. In another
place she says:—“I spent one day at Hampstead, where I
met Walter Scott, the lion of this London season.” There
is no date to the letter, to tell us what season, but, from the
172 HAMPSTEAD.
letter preceding and following, it must have been 1819. In
a letter of 1787, she thus speaks of Burns : —‘I have been
much pleased with the poems of the Scottish ploughman,
of whom you have had specimens in the “Review.” His
“Cottar’s Saturday Night ° has much the same kind of
merit as the “Schoolmistress; ” and the “Daisy” and the
“Mouse.” I think are charming. The endearing diminutives,
and the Doric rusticity of the dialect, suit such subjects
extremely. This is the age for self-taught genius. A sub-
scription has been raised for a pipe-maker of Bristol, who
has been discovered to have a poetical turn; and they have
transplanted him to London, where they have taken him a
little shop, which probably will be frequented at first, and
then deserted. A most extraordinary instance is that of a
common carpenter at Aberdeen, who applied to the profes-
sors to be received in the lowest mathematical class. They
examined him, and found he was much beyond it; then for
the next, and so on, till they found he had taught himself
all they could teach him ; and instead of receiving him as a
student, they gave him a degree.” .
Why did not Mrs. Barbauld tell us who the wonderful
mathematical carpenter was 9 His case is similar to that of
Professor Lee, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge,
who was also a carpenter, and owed his rise out of obscurity
to his chest of tools being burnt in a fire.
Here is a pleasant medical whim : —‘I have been to Dr.
Beddoes, who is a very agreeable man; his favourite pre-
scription at present to ladies is, the inhaling the breath of
cows; and as he does not, like the German doctors, send the
ladies to the cow-house, the cows are brought into the
lady’s chamber, where they are to stand all night with their
heads within the curtains. Mrs.
, who has a good
deal of humour, Says the benefit cannot be mutual; and
THE AIKIN FAMILY AND MRS. BARBAULD. 173
she is afraid, if the fashion takes, we shall eat diseased beef.
It is fact, however, that a family have been turned out of
their lodgings because the people of the house would not
admit the cow; they said they had not built and furnished
their rooms for the hoofs of cattle.”
On another occasion, ‘We have paid a visit to Hannah
More and her four sisters at Barley Wood, under the Mendip
Hills, where we had a Bible meeting.”
In 1787, whilst at Hampstead, the Barbaulds received a
young Spaniard, and beheld a wonder, become in our time
Only wonderfully too common. ‘He is quite a man, of one
or two-and-twenty, and rather looks like a Dutchman than
a Spaniard. Did you ever see seguars—tobacco-leaf rolled
up of the length of one’s finger, which they light and smoke
without a pipe? He uses them. “And how does Mr.
Barbauld bear that?” say you. O ! the Don keeps it smug
in his own room.’
In taking leave of Mrs. Barbauld we may present another
domestic incident, which my friend Miss Meteyard found
amongst the papers of Josiah Wedgwood—a note of Mrs.
Barbauld's to the great potter, which speaks for itself—one
of those little peeps behind the scenes where the author is
sunk in the careful housewife :-
‘Mrs. Barbauld's compliments to Mr. Wedgwood ; begs
the things she bought may be sent to No. 8 Caroline Street,
Bedford Square, to-morrow morning, by seven ; if, however,
that hour is too early, they may be sent this afternoon
They must be packed fit for Hampstead."
* CAROLINE STREET,
‘March 30, 1787.’
‘Wedgwood Papers.” Mayer MSS.
174, HAMPSTEAD.
MISS LUCY AIKIN.
In the house which the Barbaulds occupied in Church
Row, lived afterwards, that is, June 1822 to 1830, Mrs. and
Miss Aikin. Mrs. Aikin then dying, Miss Aikin removed to
No. 18 on the opposite side of the street, and lived there till
she removed in 1844 to London. She afterwards lived with
her relative by marriage, C. H. Le Breton, Esq., of Wim-
bledon, and finally returned to Hampstead and lived with
Mr. Le Breton’s family in John Street. Miss Aikin, the niece
of Mrs. Barbauld, and only daughter of Dr. John Aikin, in-
herited the tastes and talents of this distinguished literary
family. Dr. Aikin has left a large amount of testimony at
once to his talents and his noble independence of mind.
His works are voluminous, but these represent only a small
part of his labours. His medical works, his ‘Essays on
Song Writing,” his “England Delineated,” his “View of the
Character and Public Services of John Howard,” “Letters
from a Father to his Son,” his “ Arts of Life,” his contribution
of the “Annals of the Reign of George III.,’ were, one would
have thought, work enough for a life devoted at the same time
to medical practice. But besides these, and his still popular
* Calendar of Nature,” “Woodland Companion,” and ‘Even-
ings at Home,” he commenced and carried on for two years
a periodical called the ‘Athenæum ; he compiled a bio-
graphical dictionary, in connection with several coadjutors,
in ten quarto volumes, which occupied nineteen years. He
edited for four years Dodsley’s “Annual Register;' and,
finally, made a selection of the ‘Select Works of the British
Poets.” -
Had he never written anything but “Evenings at Home,’
he would leave all youthful posterity greatly his debtor. It
has not only continued to charm the young down to this
MISS MARGARET GILLIES, THE ARTIST. 175
day, but has been translated into almost every European
language.
The works of Miss Aikin appear like a continuation of
those of her father. His mantle seems to have fallen effec-
tively upon her. Her principal works are: ‘Epistles on the
Character of Women,’ ‘The Life of Zuinglius the Reformer,’
* Memoir of her Father, and Selection from his Works,” in
which she has repaid the care which he bestowed on her
education, by erecting to the memory of his genius and his
virtues, a monument of touching and enduring proof. Her
next works were “Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth,”
* Memoirs of the Court of James I.,” “Memoirs of the Court
of Charles I.,’ and “The Life of Joseph Addison.” This last
work was rather sharply criticised regarding accuracy of
dates, and some other particulars; but it has been justly
remarked by an American writer, that ‘the character of
Addison was never before set in so favourable a light.”
Certainly the name Aikin must always stand in favourable
connection with the most distinguished inhabitants of Hamp-
stead. -
Miss Aikin was born at Warrington, November 6, 1781,
and died at Hampstead January 24, 1864. Her remains are
interred at the east end of Joanna Baillie’s tomb.
MISS MARGARET GILLIES, THE ARTIST.
In one of the houses of Church Row on the same side as
that in which Miss Aikin last lived before removing to
London, lives the popular and very charming artist Miss
Margaret Gillies, whose works are too well known to require
more than a reference to them. With her resides also her
sister, Miss Gillies well known for her various works for the
young.
176 - HAMPSTEAD.
• MR. CLARKSON STANFIELD.
This quarter of Hampstead seems to have particular
attractions for authors and artists. Returning to the
main street, we find ourselves near the residence, for many
years, of Mr. Stanfield, which stands on the right hand in
descending towards London, and his garden runs up to the
footroad leading behind into the Shepherd’s Fields, and
towards St. John’s Wood.
Mr. Stanfield, the great painter of vast heaths and sea-
shores, of battles and sieges, lived for many years in the
house next but one above the premises formerly occupied by
Mr. Thomas Longman, the publisher, father of the principals
in the firm of Longman and Co., Paternoster Row. In early
life Mr. Stanfield was a seafarer, and in that character met
with Douglas Jerrold. These two eminent men, after having
both quitted the sea, met at Drury Lane Theatre, one as
a dramatic author, and the other as the most wonderful
scene painter that ever existed. In his scenes for the stage,
Stanfield lavished genius and art sufficient to have made a
princely fame on more enduring canvas. Since then, his
* Battle of Trafalgar,’ ‘French Troops Crossing the Magra,’
‘The Castle of Ischia,” “Wind against Tide,’ ‘The Victory
towed into Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar,” and the
“Abandoned,’ representing the hull of a ship rolling in a dark,
desolate, waste of sea, have shown the wide and varied extent
of his genius. His ‘Coast Scenery,’ a series of engravings
from these subjects, have made the magic of his pencil familiar
to the public. His scenes in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany,
France, &c., have still further manifested his magnificent
genius. His eldest son inherits his talents, and has exerted
JOHN ROGIERS EIFRIBERT. 177
them in some of his father’s favourite fields, as in Italy and
on the Rhine. Clarkson Stanfield died in 1867.
JOHN ROGERS HERIBERT.
This eminent artist was till lately also an inhabitant of
Hampstead, where he lived many years. His works since
1840, when he embraced the Catholic faith, have assumed a
character in accordance with his religious feeling. The
works of Mr. Herbert are so familiar to the public that it is
scarcely requisite even to name them ; yet the naming of the
principal of them will at once indicate his earnest faith, and
his title to be classed as one of the most eminent and serious
painters of this country:-The ‘Introduction of Christianity
into Great Britain; ” a “Portrait of Cardinal Wiseman; ”
* Christ and the Woman of Samaria; * * Sir Thomas More
and his Daughter, observing from their prison window the
Monks going to Execution,’ produced in 1844, and now in
the Vernon Gallery Collection; ‘St. Gregory teaching his
Chant,’ 1845; a ‘Portrait of his friend Welby Pugin, the
Catholic architect,” 1846; “Our Saviour subject to his
Parents,’ 1847; ‘St. John the Baptist reproving Herod,”
1848; ‘The Outcast of the People,’ 1849; ‘St. Mary Magdalem,”
1859; and “The Virgin Mary,’ painted for the Queen, 1860.
Mr. Herbert was for some years head-master of the School
of Design at Somerset House, and in 1846 was selected to
execute one of the frescoes in the vestibule of the Houses .
of Parliament, and was afterwards commissioned to paint a
series of nine subjects illustrating Human Justice, taken
from the Old Testament, for the Peers’ Robing Room. His
great picture, the “Descent of Moses from Sinai,” is executed
in stereochromie, or the Wasserglas of the Germans, for so
N
I 78 HAMPSTEAD.
many years previously used by the great German artists, and
especially the greatest of them, Kaulbach, in the open-air em-
bellishments of Munich and Berlin. Mr. Herbert was also
appointed to paint several subjects from “Ring Lear,’ in the
Poets' Hall. In the greater part of these public works, Mr.
Herbert has added substantially to his fame. He was elected
a Royal Academician in 1846. His eldest son, John Arthur
Herbert, was a most promising artist, but died of typhoid
fever when only twenty-two, at Muriae, in Auvergne.
EIOUSE OF THE MESSRS. LONGIMAN.
At the large old house next but one below the house of the
late Clarkson Stanfield, resided many years Thomas Norton
Longman, Esq., the head of the great publishing house of this
Iname. Mr. Longman appears to have lived previously at
the Manor House, Frognal, and his father (also Thomas
Longman) lived and died in Hampstead. His death took
place in 1797. Nichols, in his ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ says,
* He was a man of the most exemplary character, both in his
profession and in private life, and as universally esteemed
for his benevolence as for his integrity.”
The grounds are extensive, and are embellished by many
fine large old trees. From the back of the grounds an
extensive view is obtained up the Vale of the Thames and
Over the Surrey hills. The late Lord Ashburton occupied
these premises shortly before his death. At this moment a
large board is up, offering them for sale, so that they may
Soon, probably, be broken up and covered with new houses.
Just below, with only one house intervening, lie the
premises once belonging to Sir Harry Vane.
SIR IIARRY WANE's HOUSE.
(From Park's ‘Hampstead.”)
THE HOUSE OF SIR HARRY WANE AND BISHOP BUTLER.
A large square house on the left hand of the entrance into
the town of Hampstead, which Park says in his time was the
residence of Charles Pilgrim, Esq., is supposed to have been
built and was inhabited by Sir Harry Wame. This house,
which stood in ample grounds, and of which we present an
engraving, has been for SOme years pulled down, and its site
is now occupied by the Soldiers' Orphan Asylum. Certainly
no spot in Hampstead is one of greater interest, or more hal-
lowed by all the claims of an exalted patriotism. Sir Harry
Vane has been represented as a fantastic theorist, whose
speculations were as visionary as his language was difficult to
understand. Clarendon, who was Vane’s enemy, because he

N 2
180 HAMPSTEAD.
was the staunch friend of liberty, describes him as a great
dissimulator, and one exceeding Hampden ‘in all mysterious
artifices.” The simple truth is—and modern enquiries into
the historic records of those times have shown it beyond
dispute—that he was one of the most open, direct, and con-
sistent lovers of freedom that ever lived. His speeches in
Barliament, and his writings, especially his “Healing Ques-
tion,’ ‘The People’s Case Stated,’ ‘The Retired Man’s
Meditations,’ and his famous speech at his execution, are
ample proofs of this. Vane was not only a great and un-
daunted advocate of constitutional liberty, but a sound and
conscientious Christian, displaying both these qualities in
every action of his life. He was ever ready to sacrifice him-
self and his property for the public good, and no tempta-
tions or persuasions of friends, far less considerations of future
consequences, could ever move him from what he believed to
be the right and his duty. His learning, genius, eloquence,
and general ability, assisted and guided by these principles,
placed him at the head of the great movement which rescued
this country from the determined and incorrigible tyranny
of the Stuarts, and that amid such coadjutors as Cromwell,
Pym, Henry Marten, Milton, Fairfax, Scott, Bradshaw,
Hampden, Algernon Sidney, and a host of others inspired
with all the stoical rigour of ancient democracy. It was at
this house in Hampstead that he was seized by the emissaries
of Charles II., and carried away to incarceration and death.
A brief review of the life of such a man is necessary, to give
due honour and interest to the scene of his last abode.
Harry Vane was the son of Sir Henry Vane, of Hadlow, in
Kent, and was born in 1612. His family was of high and
ancient degree. One of the branches of it altered the name
to Fane, and were the ancestors of the present Earl of West-
morland. His father, and then himself, succeeded to the
SIR HARRY WANE’s HOUSE. 181
possession of Raby Castle and estate in Durham, to the
manor of Hadlow and other estates in Kent, to property at
Belleau in Lincolnshire, and were the ancestors of the present
Duke of Cleveland, the Marquis of Londonderry, &c. From
Sir Harry’s sisters are also descended the Honeywoods,
Vincents, of Surrey, Lord Ravensworth, the Duke of New-
castle, the Earl of Chichester, and Lord Yarborough. In
worldly rank and connection, Harry Vane stood scarcely
second to any man below the position of royalty, in the
country; but all this weighed nothing with him in com-
parison with the honest discharge of his duty to God and his
country. In the maintenance of the divinity of his conscience,
he was ready to sacrifice everything else. Mr. John Foster,
in his ‘Lives of Eminent British Statesmen,” has rendered a
real service in clearing away many of the calumnies heaped
On the name of this great patriot, and in presenting him to
our view as he is—One of the proudest ornaments of Our
Imational history. -
In his youth, Vane, like most young men of his rank and
time, was addicted to gaiety and pleasure; and this seems to
have pleased his father, who was not only a Royalist and
courtier, but Comptroller of the King’s Household, and
Secretary to the Privy Council. A more serious mood came
over him; he had been partly educated at Leyden, partly at
Oxford, and, travelling on the continent, he spent some time
at Genoa, where he imbibed the spirit of republican liberty,
without that persecuting bigotry which Knox and others so
unfortunately brought thence. On the contrary, no man
was ever more thoroughly tolerant of the religious opinions
of all other men. Despairing of being able to enjoy the
religious freedom that he loved, amid the Church and State
conservatism of England, he emigrated to the New Eng-
land States of America. Thither the persecuted Puritans
I82 - BIAMPSTEAD.
and Nonconformists had fled, and Vane imagined that those
who had sought freedom of conscience there, would be sure
to allow it to others. As all the world, however, knows, they
had learned only to love the rights of conscience in them-
selves, and had not advanced a step beyond their persecutors
at home, who did the very same. Vane soon became involved
in conflict with this one-sided liberty, in defending the
famous Mrs. Hutchinson, who did not understand a Janus
kind of liberty, which, seen on one side, showed the features
Of freedom, but on the other had the old lineaments of
tyranny. Vane was elected Governor of Massachusetts;
but the rigid Puritans were soon very glad to be quit of
him. Nothing, indeed, could have been more anomalous
than for a people who were for hanging and burning every
man and woman who differed from them in creed, to be
governed by a man who had all the tolerance of Christ, who,
when those ‘Pilgrim Fathers,’ his disciples, would love to
scorch up with thunder all who did not believe with them,
said quietly, ‘Let them alone.” Vane was for letting alone
both so-called Christians and heathens too, of every phase of
Opinion. He was for UNIVERSAL TOLERATION, and was,
therefore, soon voted out of his governorship, and found that
he might as well return to England—in fact, far better, for
there he could enjoy the sympathy of great and enlightened
men like himself, and not suffer all the rude savagery of a
little knot of the harshest bigots in a rude and unreclaimed
wilderness.
On his return to England, the spirit of the nation had
driven Charles I. to the calling of a Parliament, after twelve
years of disuse of Parliaments, and Harry Wane was at once
elected the representative of Hull, where Andrew Marvel
afterwards also sat. Great was the consternation of the
Court on the news of this event, and not less so that of his
SIR HARRY VANE’s HOUSE. 183
own father; for it was well known what were his views of
government, and how inflexible he was in his nature. To
draw him to the Court side, he was immediately knighted,
and made joint-treasurer of the navy with Sir William
Russell. This was a post of great trust and profit; but
neither that, nor the fear of losing it, weighed for a moment
with him. He had imbibed an utter abhorrence of the at-
tempts then made by the Crown to erect a perfect despotism
in England, and he cherished a lofty idea of the true func-
tions of government. Ludlow, who knew him well, says on
this occasion:—“In this station, he soon made appear how
Capable he was of managing great affairs, possessing in the
highest perfection a quick and ready apprehension, a strong
and tenacious memory, a profound and penetrating judg-
ment, a just and noble eloquence, with an easy and graceful
manner of speaking. To these were added a singular Zeal
and affection for the good of the Commonwealth, and a
resolution and courage not to be shaken, or diverted from
the public service.”
Trom this time he became the leading spirit of the great
revolution already in progress. He very soon furnished
evidence, which he had fallen accidentally upon, of the
secret league formed between the King, Laud, and the Earl
of Strafford, for what they called ‘the thorough,’ that is, for
bringing an Irish army to completely crush the constitu-
tional liberties of England. This evidence, produced on
Strafford’s trial, put the climax to his fate.
In the war which speedily broke out between the King
and Parliament, Sir Harry Vane not only most ably defen-
ded the |Parliament, from his seat in the House of Commons,
but, as treasurer to the navy—this office being conferred by
the Parliament on him alone—managed so well, that he soon
turned the tables on the Dutch, who, under Wan Tromp, were
184 FIAMIPSTEAD,
not only chasing the English navy from the Seas, but from
the very Thames itself, and, by the appointment of the
celebrated Blake and other able admirals, he raised the fame
of England on the ocean to the highest pitch, making her,
in fact, the mistress of the seas. Still more, he refused to
accept the ‘fees of his office,” amounting to 20,000l. a-year,
and stipulated only that his deputy should have 1,000l.
a-year. It is impossible to conceive a higher stretch of
pure patriotism.
We cannot here follow in detail his brilliant services and
counsels through the great war which dethroned and
decapitated Charles, and placed Cromwell on the pinnacle
from which Charles had fallen, though only under the name
of Protector. It is sufficient to say that, surrounded by
such men as Cromwell, Marten, Scott, Ireton, Harrison,
Bradshaw, Milton, and others in and out of the House of
Commons, Vane stood chief amongst them as a statesman.
So soon as he discovered the treachery of Cromwell, he
denounced it, and himself and Marten, who had been his
closest as his ablest friends, severed themselves from him.
Vane refused to have anything to do with the trial and
execution of Charles, retiring, during this period of what he
deemed apostasy and treason to the great principles of
liberty which they had advocated, and writing, in the seclu-
sion of his estates, ‘The Retired Man’s Meditations.”
Well might Cromwell exclaim, when he was breaking up
by military force the Long Parliament, ‘Oh, Sir Harry
Vane | Sir Harry Wame ! the Lord preserve me from Sir
|Harry Vane !” For he knew that no man had so much
power of exposing his usurpation, and that nothing which
he could offer him could for a moment induce him to wink
at, much less favour it. He kept him out of the packed
Parliament summoned by himself, and Vane employed his
SIR HARRY WANE’s HOUSE. 185
leisure at Raby in writing not only ‘The Retired Man’s
Meditations,’ but his great ‘Healing Question,’ in which he
painted Oliver's violent suppression of the nation’s gloriously
achieved liberties in such horrid colours that the tyrant
arrested and consigned him to a dungeon in Carisbrook
Castle, in the Isle of Wight, the very prison in which
Charles I. had been confined during the last year of his
life. Bills were prepared for the confiscation of his estates,
and other measures of menace and harassment ; whilst, On
the other hand, favour and honour were secretly offered
him if he would cease his opposition, and coalesce with the
usurper. But no such measures, either of persecution or
offers of favour, ever had the least influence on the pure and
noble soul of Sir Harry Vane.
After Cromwell's death, Sir Harry resumed his public and
parliamentary efforts to restore the republic ; but it was too
late. Cromwell had destroyed the public faith in the sta-
bility of a republican Government, and he had shown Monk
the way to supersede Governments by armies. On the
return of King Charles II., Vane was certain to fall a victim
to his pre-eminence in opposition to his father, though he
had declined to stain his hands with the dying monarch’s
blood. To a man like Charles II.—a base sensualist,-
such a man as Vane was a standing reproach. With this
wretched monarch, as imbecile, in government, as he was
faithless and vindictive as a man, neither his solemn declara-
tion, at Breda, of full indemnity to all persons regarding the
past, nor his reported assurance of oblivion of all enmities,
was likely to have any weight. If we needed any proof of
the utter baseness, the utter worthlessness of this most
contemptible man, and of the disorder to which he reduced
this kingdom, we have these in the Diary of Pepys, who was
a Royalist and a courtier. Such scenes of neglect of all
186 EIAMIPSTIEAD.
royal duties, of licentiousness, obscenity, of profligacy, and
outrage on all ideas of religion and humanity, are not to
be found in any narratives like those of Pepys, Evelyn, and
others who frequented the Court of this modern Sardanapalus.
When Sir Harry Wane was brought to trial on the charge
of having compassed the King’s death, his defence startled
and confounded in no slight degree the arbitrary legal tools
of the King, the judges, who were set not to try, but to Con-
demn him; and the effect of his speech on the scaffold,
which the sheriff had in vain endeavoured to drown by the
noise of drums and trumpets, produced a stupendous effect
throughout the whole kingdom. We cannot have better
evidence of this than Pepys, a thorough-paced Royalist.
In his ‘Diary,’ under date of May 22, 1662, he says:–
‘Nicolas, the Secretary of State, hath sent one Mr. Lee to
see what papers in his office—the same in which Vane had
so long presided, the secretaryship of the navy—would help
to found a charge against Sir Harry.” On the 7th of June,
he says:—‘Sir Harry was the day before condemned, after
a full hearing in the King's Bench, and that “Sir John
Robinson, Lieutenant of the Tower, said he never heard any
one plead so simply in his life. The fact was, that he
pleaded most ably, although he had not been allowed to
see the indictment against him till he came into Court;
and when he demanded the right to have counsel, he was
told by the judges that they would be his counsel—they,
the King’s appointed tools of his destruction. In fact, the
judges, so far from Saying a word in his favour, did all in
their power to stop his mouth, and deprive him of all means
of defence.”
The same Sir John Robinson, Pepys tells us, attended Sir
Harry’s execution on Tower Hill, on the 24th; and reported
that “he died in a passion, but with as much courage as
SIR HARRY VANE’s HOUSE. 187
never man did.” This Sir John Robinson was the same who,
with the Recorder of London, presided at the trial of Penn
and Mead. He was a most prejudiced and arbitrary fellow,
and not likely to report favourably of Sir Harry Vane, under
any circumstances. But Pepys himself attended the execu-
tion, and under same date we find this entry:—
‘About eleven o’clock, having a room got ready for us, we
all went out to the Tower Hill, and there, over against the
scaffold, made on purpose this day, saw Sir Harry Vane
brought. A very great press of people. He made along speech,
many times interrupted by the sheriff and others there, and
they would have taken his paper out of his hand, but he
would not let it go. But they caused that all the books of
those that writ after him to be given to the sheriff; and the
trumpets were brought under the scaffold that he might not
be heard. Then he prayed, and so fitted himself, and re-
ceived the blow ; but the scaffold was so crowded that we
could not see it done. But Boreman, who had been upon
the scaffold, told us that first he began to speak of the irre-
gular proceeding against him. That he was, against Magna,
Charta, denied to have the exceptions against the indictment
allowed, and that there he was stopped by the sheriff. Then
he drew out his paper of notes, and began to tell them, first
his life, that he was born a gentleman; he had been, till he
was seventeen years old, a good fellow, but then it pleased
God to lay a foundation of grace in his heart, by which he
was persuaded, against his worldly interest, to leave all pre-
ferment and go abroad, where he might serve God with more
freedom. Then he was called home and made a member of
the Long Parliament, where he never did, to this day, any-
thing against his conscience, but all for the glory of God.
IIere he would have given them an account of the pro-
ceedings of the Long Parliament, but they so often inter-
188 |HAMPSTEAD.
rupted him, that at last he was forced to give Over ; and SO
fell into prayer for England in general, then for the churches
in England, and then for the City of London; and so fitted
himself for the block, and received the blow. He had a
blister, or issue, upon his neck, which he desired them not to
hurt; he changed not his colour or speech to the last, but
died justifying himself and the cause he had stood for; and
spoke very confidently of his being presently at the right
hand of Christ; and in all things appeared the most resolved
man that ever died in that manner, and showed more of
heat than cowardice, but yet with all humility and gravity.
One asked him why he did not pray for the King. He
answered, “You shall see I can pray for the King: I pray
God bless him l’’ The King had given his body to his friends;
and therefore, he told them he hoped they would be civil to
his body when dead; and desired they would let him die like
a gentleman and a Christian, and not crowded and pressed
as he was.” -
He adds, a few days afterwards, that the courage of Sir
Harry at his death was everywhere talked of as a miracle.
Lord Sandwich told him that Sir Harry must be gone to
heaven, for he died as much a martyr and a saint as ever
man died, and that the King had lost more by that man’s
death than he will get again a good while. Still, at the end
of the month he says, “All men do cry up the manner of Sir
Harry Vane's death, and he deserves it.’ -
Bishop Burnet also says, “that it was generally though
that the Government had lost more than it gained by his
death.” No doubt the political murder of this eminent
patriot and excellent man by the dissolute Charles was a
capital mistake, and was one of the many odious things
which sank deep into the public mind, and drove the
detested Stuart family for ever from the throne of England.
SIR HARRY WANE’s HOUSE. 189
That Charles personally urged his death remains under his
own hand. The day after the trial, he wrote from Hamptom
Court to Clarendon, saying, “Certainly he is too dangerous a
man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way.
Think of this, and give me some account of it to-morrow.’
It is an interesting circumstance that it was from his
house at Hampstead that this great and good man was led
away to pay the penalty of his life for his exertions for the
liberties of us all. It is a spot made Sacred to all time by
this event, and around it linger also the memories of Milton,
Andrew Marvel — poor but incorruptible, the witty and
staunch patriot Henry Marten, of the eloquent Scott, of
Cromwell himself, before he had been drawn aside by a poor
and personal ambition from the great object of a country’s
regeneration, and of many others of those men of iron who
fought at Naseby, Dunbar, and Worcester, for the Common-
wealth of England, and made the House of Commons ring
with the most eloquent tones of an indignant patriotism
which shook the throne, and read an eternal lesson to des-
potic kings. All these must at times have assembled around
Sir Harry Vane here, to relax from the tension of political
cares, or to plan the progress of the nation’s enfranchisement.
“In the same house,” says Park, ‘ afterwards lived Dr.
Joseph Butler, Bishop of Durham, the author of the “Analogy
of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and
Concerns of Nature.” He lived there several years, and
ornamented the windows with a considerable quantity of
stained glass, which is still preserved there, and consists of
a large series of scriptural subjects, in Squares; some very
finely executed, and two or three of them with biblical in-
scriptions in old English, and the date of 1571 underneath;
several figures of the apostles, with their names subscribed
in Latin, in smaller oblong Squares. These are reported by
190 - EIAMPSTEAD.
local tradition to have been a present from the pope to
Dr. Butler; some modern pieces, of inferior execution, in
small ovals—namely, landscapes, &c., and a circular piece of
painted glass, containing a figure of St. Paul, seated in the
centre of some rich Gothic stall-work, and circumscribed
“Sigillum com’une Decani et Capituli eccl’ie Pauli Londin.”’
(Dr. Butler was promoted to the Deanery of St. Paul’s in
1740, by George II.). “All the pieces above mentioned, ex-
cept the modern Ones, are inlaid in borders of stained glass
adjusted to the panes. In the upper storey there was a very
large room, now divided into several smaller ones, running
along the whole back-front of the house, and containing the
bishop’s library. Most of the apartments were hung with
tapestry when a late possessor occupied it. The house has
been (says Park) considerably modernised in some parts, but
still retains enough of the antique hue to make it a very
interesting object. The back-front entrance, with carved
staircase, are in their Original state. The garden is laid out
in the old style, with a very large and Square grass-plat, and
avenue of fine elms at the end. An adjoining house, the
residence of Mr. Langhorn, now completely modernised,
was, I believe (says Park), formed out of the bishop’s offices,
and contains painted glass in almost every window, in con-
tinuation of the scriptural series before mentioned.
“After the bishop’s death, this house, which was his own
copyhold property, was sold, together with the whole of his
real estates, for the payment of his debts, as directed by his
will. He had been scarcely two years in the rich see of
Durham before his death; and whilst he was Bishop of
Bristol, he is said to have expended more than the whole
revenue of his income in repairing and improving the epi-
scopal palace. A box containing his sermons, letters, and
other papers he ordered in his will to be burnt, without any
ROSSLYIN HOUSE AND LORD ROSSLYN. 191
of them being read, soon after his decease, which, I sup-
pose, was done. The mansion was divided into two by the
bishop’s successor, Mr. Regnier.” So far Park. It is now
pulled down, and on its site stands, as already observed, that
excellent institution, the Orphan School of Soldiers’ Children.
si
s:
§
º É º
jºš º
§§ §§§
- * * §ºurs." ſº
§ *Hºº
\s t ºf H. Y º:
*:S ; : ſiliº
jš. iłºść ; :
§:8: 3.7 l. ":# Sº
§§ ######
3. #}}|†
‘: }}}#}}}ºi.
"...º j'}}}}#}}|†
tº: #}}}}}|†:
3. ſº. º # t §
•+ ſºlº ſº i: Hºº'.
+ # § - t -
* ---- d * º
§§§ #:
º § -. º
- - -, d ::::
jº #º 2×5,... Alfº i- £º." :==
- º ºğış. Tr; P ×5....T.I.T.E. º. - , , ;
- #:# § šić. s § §§ 2.
SR}, º&Spºrº - -
*>2}}ºs º *M. º.º.º. Nº sº S.
*::3% º %3 ### ze#: fººrtº º ; º º: sº.
- 2-ºxºº." 242.É:##### º 2:2:3:
º E=-
------ Fºº-jºº
ºf ººº-ºº: * Rºº.
fºrºźº: º:6. *Ew -----
##########~~ *** **** TT cº, Z.É.- :
IROSSLYN HOUSE.
(From a Photograph taken expressly for this work.)
ROSSLYN HOUSE AND LORD ROSSLYN.
On the hill a little below Hampstead, and nearly in an
oblique line betwixt the Church and the site of the now
destroyed Belsize House, the foot-path proceeding from one
to the other, passing the front, stands Rosslyn House, once
the seat of Alexander Wedderburn, a Scotch lawyer, who
worked himself up to the rank and dignity of Lord Chan-
cellor, and to the titles of Lord Loughborough and Earl of






















































192 - EIAMPSTEAD.
Rosslyn. He is still remarkable as a brilliant adventurer
who devoted his life simply to ambition, and succeeded, little
concerned for the causes in which he appeared, and less for
a fame founded on virtuous and patriotic principle.
Rosslyn House at that time, and long after, stood alone
amidst the fields, commanding a vast view of the country
round; of Epping Forest over Highbury, on the one hand,
and of the Surrey Hills on the other; of much of London,
and of the Vale of the Thames upwards, far beyond Rich-
mond, and of the tower of Windsor.
Lysons states Rosslyn House to have been many years ‘in
the occupation of the Cary family, probably of the Huns-
dons, or ancestors of the Falklands; that it was held under
the Church of Westminster, and that when Lord Rosslyn
bought it, it was called Shelford Lodge. It has been sup-
posed that a family of the name of Shelford built it, and,
being Catholic, planted the great avenue leading to it in the
form of a cross, the head being towards the east, and leading
direct to the high road. But this is very doubtful. The
celebrated Lord Chesterfield is said to have lived here some
years, when he held the lease of the manor of Belsize, of
which it was a part, and more probably his ancestors gave
it the name, from Shelford Manor, their seat in Nottingham-
shire; for the Earls of Chesterfield held the estate of Belsize
from 1683 till 1807, when they sold it to ‘several’ purchasers,
who divided the lands amongst them. Whoever planted
the avenue must have done it in the reign of Elizabeth, as
proved by a fact hereafter given. When Lord Rosslyn pur-
chased the place he added a large Oval room, thirty-four
feet long, on the west side, with a spacious room over it.
These spacious rooms, of a form then much in vogue, whilst
they contributed greatly to the pleasantness of the house,
disguised the original design of it, which was on the plan
ROSSLYN HOUSE AND LORD ROSSLYN. 193
of what the French call a maison or château & quatre
towrelles, four-square, with a high mansarde roof in the
centre, and a square turret at each corner, with pyramidal
roof. Notwithstanding various other alterations by Lord
Rosslyn and his successors, part of this original structure is
visible, including two at least of the turrets.
Before purchasing Shelford House, Wedderburn resided
at Branch Hill Lodge, Hampstead, which had been the
abode of a succession of lawyers. Shelford Lodge, to which
he gave the name Rosslyn House, in Lord Rosslyn’s time
occupied as fine a situation as can well be imagined, Sur-
rounded by its gardens, groves, and fields, with no neigh-
bour much nearer than the village of Hampstead above, and
Belsize House below, to disturb the feeling of ample and
aristocratic isolation. Having thus located this lucky lawyer
in so fair a spot, we may in some detail contemplate him in
his career.
Lord Loughborough was one of that group of great
lawyers who, about the same time, planted themselves on
the heights of Hampstead, but with very different characters
and aims—Mansfield, Loughborough, and Erskine. Lord
Loughborough was, in simple fact, a legal adventurer of
consummate powers, which he unscrupulously and unblush-
ingly employed for the purposes of his own soaring and
successful ambition. He stood in strange contrast to the
nice honour of Mansfield, the eloquent enthusiasm of Erskine,
and the glowing, impulsive patriotism of Chatham, who, for
a short time also, as noticed, was resident on these hills.
Junius, whom some people simply enough have supposed
Loughborough to be, has finely characterised him as ‘Wed-
derbury, the wary, who has something about him that even
treachery cannot trust.’ It is perhaps more instructive to
trace the career of such a man than that of a more upright
O
194 HAMPSTEAD.
One, for we are more often moved with indignation at un-
principled deeds of selfishness than stimulated by the
examples of the generous and the great.
Alexander Wedderburn was the son of Peter Wedderburn,
the owner of a small estate in East Lothian, practising with
considerable success as an advocate at Edinburgh. Like
Imany poor Scotchmen, the Wedderburns boasted of a long
aristocratic descent; and his grandfather was made a judge
of the Court of Session; and his father, Peter Wedderburn,
was also—but only shortly before his death—raised to the
Scottish Bench by the title of Lord Chesterhall, the name of
his estate. When a boy, young Wedderburn had nearly
been extinguished by a turkey-cock. The anecdote is amus-
ing:—‘When he was between three and four years old,
having provoked a fierce turkey-cock by hallooing to
him—
Bubbly Jock, your wife is a witch,
And she is going to be burnt with a barrel of pitch,
the animal flew at the child, laid him flat on the ground,
and seemed disposed to peck his eyes out, when he was
saved by his nurse, who rushed in to the rescue with a
broom in her hand. A young lad, then acting in the family
as assistant to the gardener, witnessed this scene, and
many years afterwards, when passing through London,
having been carried into the Court of Chancery to see Lord
Loughborough in all his glory, instead of being, as was
expected, overwhelmed with awe and admiration, after he
had coolly contemplated him for some time, at length ex-
claimed—“Weel, weel ! he may be a great man noo; but I
mind fine he was aimce Sair hadden doon by his mither's
bubbly-jock.” -
After being educated at Dalkeith, in his fourteenth year
he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, where he made
ROSSLYIN HOT SE AND LORD ROSSI, YN. I'95
the acquaintance, young as he was, of Robertson the his–
torian, Adam Smith, and David Hume. He was destined to
the bar, and seems very early to have contemplated practis-
ing at the English bar, as the only sphere ample enough for
his ambition. Mr. Yorke was already practising there with
great éclat, and William Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield,
was already Attorney-General. His father, on hearing of
these vaulting ideas, took him to Hugh Campbell, brother of
the Earl of Marchmont, who was also practising at the
English bar; but there he received a great and almost
fatal blow, for Campbell pronounced him “a hopeless dunce : *
an opinion which he afterwards Savagely revenged. Un-
daunted, however, by this rebuff, he made a journey to
London in his twentieth year, with a letter in his pocket
from David Hume to Dr. Clephane. He then and there
entered himself as student of the Inner Temple, though in-
tending to return and practise at the Scottish bar till he had
raised money enough to take his chance in London. In the
same year he obtained his call to the Scottish bar, where he
practised for three years, slipping away to London each year
for a sufficient time to eat the number of dinners in the
Inner Temple Hall, the only thing then required for a call
to practise English law in the Courts. He managed to
improve his oratory and power of disputation by becoming
an elder of the Scotch Church, and taking a prominent part
in the debates in the General Assembly, where he defended
T)avid Hume and Lord Kames against the charge of infi-
delity presented against them, in which, being supported by
Dr. Robertson, he was successful. Soon after, a proposal of
excommunication was laid against John Home, who, being a
clergyman, had committed the awful offence of writing a
play—namely, his very popular tragedy of ‘Douglas.” In
O 2
196 HAMPSTEAD.
this defence young Wedderburn was less successful. He
was, in fact, much more in his element in the Poker Club,
than as an elder of twenty-one in the church. This club,
originally of a political character, became a very jolly con-
vivial one; and though it enumerated amongst its members
Allan Ramsay, its projector; David Hume, Home, author of
‘Douglas;’ Dr. Robertson, Hugh Blair, Adam Smith, Sir
David Dalrymple, Drs. Monro and Hope, and afterwards
Lord Kames, Lord Elibank, the Earls of Glasgow, Lauder-
dale, and Bute, and the Duke of Hamilton, Wedderburn was
elected its first president.
One of the objects of this club was to cultivate the true
pronunciation of the English language, under the instruc-
tion of Dr. Sheridan, father of the famous Sheridan, who
spoke in a broad Irish brogue; and they also started an
‘Edinburgh Review —but not the enduring “Edinburgh
Review —which was to appear twice a-year ! These club
affairs and Review affairs not being attended with much
practice at the bar, an incident suddenly brought Wedder-
burn’s connection with it to an end. Being insulted by the
judge, Lockhart, Dean of Faculty, and afterwards Lord
Covington, a man of learning, but rude and overbearing,
Wedderburn stripped off his gown at the bar, and vowed
never to enter the Parliament House again. Forthwith he
started for London, protesting that he would never again
enter Scotland—a resolution which he faithfully kept.
In London, almost a total stranger, and with very little
money in his pocket, he set himself zealously to study the
English pronunciation under Sheridan, and afterwards under
Macklin the actor; but his remaining term at the Inner
Temple obtained his call to the bar, and then he sought for
practice in the Court of King’s Bench. His success there
Was, however, by no means encouraging; and for three years,
ROSSLYN HOUSE AND LORD ROSSLYN. 197
that is, during the remainder of the reign of George II, he
was in very low water. With true Scotch perseverance,
however, he went into society, and assiduously cultivated
the good graces of men capable of giving a young aspirant
a lift. Amongst these was Lord Bute, who had been a
member of the Poker Club; and Wedderburn so successfully
renewed his acquaintance with him, that on the accession
of George III., when Bute became Minister, Wedderburn
was brought into Parliament by his influence, for the
Rothesay and Inverary burghs. Once in Parliament, such
a man as Wedderburn was sure to work himself upward; for
a man of his stamp is like an Indian bat—every extremity
has a hook or a tooth by which he can catch and cling;
mouth, legs, wings, tail, every joint of him, can catch, and
seize, and hold. His character at this period is thus sketched
by Churchill in the ‘Rosciad: ’—
To mischief trained, even from his mother's womb,
Grown old in fraud, though yet in manhood's bloom;
Adopting arts by which gay villains rise,
And reach the heights which honest men despise;
Mute at the bar, and in the senate loud,
Dull 'mongst the dullest, proudest of the proud;
A pert, prim prater of the northern race,
Guilt in his heart, and famine in his face.
Having now obtained a silk gown, he grew more daring at
the bar. He had already violated recklessly the etiquette of
his profession by canvassing for practice; and he even made
an unprecedented inroad in the Northern circuit, it being
contrary to all custom for a barrister, after obtaining a silk
gown, to select his circuit, as it is equally contrary to it to
change from One circuit to another. But he chose this
circuit with the hope of suddenly stepping into the practice
of Sir Fletcher Norton, who was made Attorney-General,
Of course he was cut by the whole of the barristers of that
198 HAMIPSTEAD.
circuit, and his bold adventure proved a failure. In the
Court of Chancery his success was greater; but when Bute
was driven by public opinion from the Ministry, Wedder-
burn suddenly shifted his politics, and from a staunch Tory
appeared as staunch a Whig ; nay, he became a flaming
patriot, and defended what he called that injured brother-
patriot, John Wilkes. Carrying his patriotism a little too
far in support of Wilkes, he lost his seat for the borough of
Richmond, which had returned him as a Tory, and was
fêted as a martyr, at a dinner at the Thatched House Tavern,
by the leading patriots of the day, amongst them George
Grenville, Burke, Lord Clive, Lord George Sackville, Alder-
man Beckford, and Colonel Barré.
In the next session he was returned by Clive for his
pocket borough of Bishops Castle, and he proceeded to
attack Lord North’s policy vehemently, panegyrised the
liberty of the press, sympathised with the Americans, as-
serted the rights of juries, and stood forth as a patriot of the
first degree. In the very next session he ratted openly and
shamefully ; and it was on this occasion that Junius branded
him with the words, that ‘ there was something about him
that even treachery could not trust.” For this, which Lord
Campbell calls ‘one of the most flagrant cases of ratting in
our party annals,” he was made Solicitor-General; and his
own saying, applied to another, was now in everybody’s
mouth—“Bit by the tarantula of Opposition, he is cured by
the ermine of the Court.” The Secretary of the Treasury,
John Robinson, was believed to have brought Wedderburn
thus suddenly over ; and Sheridan alluding to the circum-
stance vaguely, there was a cry of ‘Name him name him l’
On which he said, ‘I could name him as easily as say Jack
Robinsom.” Thurlow being Attorney-General, Horne Tooke
observed that Lord North now sat secure to guard the
IROSSLYIN EIOUSE AND LORD IROSSLYN. 199
Treasury Bench, between his two brazen pillars—Jachin and
Boaz.
On the occasion of his crossing the floor of the House on
this sudden change of party, even the brazen assurance of
Wedderburn broke down: he appeared for some time after
embarrassed; and Junius said, ‘We have seen him in the
House of Commons overwhelmed with confusion, and almost
bereft of his faculties.”
In Order to recover his popularity, he now seized on seve-
ral occasions to display great liberality. He behaved with
remarkable moderation in the great question which arose
betwixt the City and the House of Commons regarding
the publication of its proceedings, in the course of which
Crosby, the Lord Mayor, and Alderman Oliver were com-
mitted to the Tower for protecting the reporters, and which
ended in the establishment of the right of reporting the
Parliamentary debates: members of the present day being
as eager to have their speeches reported as those of that day
WCTO a VēTSG.
Wedderburn patronised literature, and defended the pro-
priety of Dr. Johnson’s pension. He advocated the right of
laymen to study in the Universities without subscribing to
the Thirty-nine Articles. He strongly argued for the copy-
right of an author in his works; he showed a considerable
bearing towards Woodfall, the printer, when prosecuted for
publishing the letters of Junius; and in all these cases his
speeches were as able as they were just.
About this time he defended the Indian policy of Lord
Clive, and recommended Clive to allow Voltaire to write the
history of his conquests in India, as he wished to do. In
1773 he married a rich heiress of Yorkshire, and lived in a
style, with one house at Mitcham and another in Lincoln’s
Inn Fields, near the Duke of Newcastle's, equalling that of
200 HAMIPSTEAD.
the mobility. Clive had given him the house at Mitcham,
and some lacs of rupees, for his defence of him in Parlia-
ment; and in horses and equipages he was quite princely.
He told Lord Haddington that on being made Solicitor-
General, he immediately ordered a service of plate at a cost
of 8,000l. The son of the little Scotch lawyer now seemed
in the element, if not on the summit, of his ambition—that
of mere social distinction. -
But now came an event, in which he indulged his powers
of vituperation to his country’s loss of a great dependency.
In 1774, Benjamin Franklin, then political agent of the
American colonies in England, came into possession of
certain letters written by Governor Hutchinson of Massa-
chusetts, and Mr. Oliver, Lieutenant-Governor of that pro-
vince, to Mr. Whateley, who had been private secretary to
George Grenville, the originator of the tax on tea imported
into the American colonies. These letters, which, however,
were not official, but written as from one friend to another,
recommended the employment of a military force to suppress
the discontents there. Franklin, it has since appeared by a
Memoir of Dr. Williamson, by Dr. Hosack, of New York, had
procured them from this Dr. Williamson, who, having been
employed in Mr. Whateley’s office, had purloined these
letters, and sold them to Franklin, who transmitted them at
once to the Speaker of the House of Assembly, who read
them publicly. The exasperation occasioned by this dis-
covery was intense; and Franklin was instructed to demand
the recall of Governor Hutchinson and the Tieutenant. But
before this was done, it had led to a duel betwixt Mr. Whate-
ley, banker in Lombard Street, and brother to the late Se-
cretary Whateley, and Mr. Temple, Lieutenant-Governor of
New Hampshire, whom Whateley suspected of having some
concern in the purloining of the letters. Gordon, author of
IROSSLYIN HOUSE AND LORD ROSSI, YN. 201
a ‘History of America,’ very partial to the American side,
seems to support this view. Franklin, however, on the duel
taking place, wrote and published a letter, declaring that he
alone was responsible for obtaining and transmitting the
letters, and excusing both Whateley, who was severely
wounded, and Mr. Temple. He then applied to the Privy
Council, by petition, for the removal of the Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, Dunning being his
leading counsel.
It is said that no juridical proceedings had excited SO
much interest and expectation since the trial of Sacheverell.
The case came on in the Council Chamber, at the Cock-pit,
Whitehall. Thirty-five privy councillors attended, with
Earl Gower, the Lord President, at their head. Burke,
Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, and other distinguished stram-
gers, were accommodated with places near the bar, and a
dense throng filled the adjoining rooms and passages. Ac-
cording to Bentham’s account, ‘the president’s chair was
with the back parallel to and not far distant from the fire;
the chimney-piece, projecting a foot or two, formed a recess
on each side; alone, in the recess on the left hand of the
president, stood Benjamin Franklin, in such a position as
not to be visible from the situation of the president, remain-
ing the whole time like a rock, in the same posture, his head
resting on his left hand, and in that attitude abiding the
pelting of the pitiless storm.’
Dunning and Lee, as counsel for the petitioners, stated
their case, and supported the prayer of the petitioners, but
feebly, as if ashamed of the manner in which the letters had
been procured. On the other hand, Wedderburn, as assessor
of the Privy Council, made a trenchant speech against the pur-
loiners of the letters. He highly praised the Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts as most honourable
202 EIAMIPSTEAD.
and accomplished men, and meritorious public officers; de-
clared that there was no charge against them, no accusers,
Ino proof. The petitioners only simply said these officers had
forfeited their confidence. As to the letters, they were
simply private letters, and therefore could not be made the
ground of a charge against them. ‘How these letters,’ con-
tinued Wedderburn, ‘ came into the possession of any one
but the right owners, it was a mystery for Dr. Franklin to
explain. He was not the rightful owner, and they could not
have come into his hands by fair means. Nothing will
acquit Dr. Franklin of the charge of obtaining them by
fraudulent or corrupt means, for the most malignant of
purposes—unless he stole them from the person who stole
them. This argument is irrefragable. I hope, my lords,
you will mark and brand the man, for the honour of this
country, of Europe, and of mankind. Private correspon-
dence has hitherto been held sacred, in times of the greatest
party rage, not only in politics but in religion. The betrayer
of it has forfeited all the respect of the great, and of his own
associates. Into what companies will the fabricator of this
iniquity hereafter go with an unembarrassed face, or with
any semblance of the honest intrepidity of virtue 2 Men
will watch him with a jealous eye; they will hide their
papers from him, and lock up their escritoires. Having
hitherto aspired after fame by his writings, he will hence-
forth esteem it a libel to be called a man of letters—homo
trium literarum. (Fur, a thief.) But he not only took
away these papers from One brother, he kept himself con-
cealed till he had nearly occasioned the murder of another.
It is impossible to read his account, expressive of the coolest
and most deliberate malice, without horror. Amid these
tragical events—of One person nearly murdered, of another
answerable for the issue, of a worthy governor hurt in the
ROSSLYN HOUSE AND LORD ROSSLYN. 203
dearest interests, the fate of America in suspense—here is a
man who, with the utmost insensibility of remorse, stands
up and avows himself the author of all! I can compare
him only to Zanga, in Dr. Young’s “REVENGE’’:—
JKnow then 'twas I.
I forged the letter—I disposed the picture—
I hated, I despised—and I destroy.
I ask, my lords, whether the revengeful temper attributed
by poetic fiction only to the bloody-minded African, is not
surpassed by the coolness and apathy of the wily New
Englander.”
The effect of these scathing words was tremendous at the
moment, and still more so ultimately. Charles Fox, in a
debate in 1803, warning the House against the delusive
eloquence of Pitt, bade them remember, ‘how all men tossed
up their hats, and clapped their hands in boundless delight,
at Mr. Wedderburn’s speech against Dr. Franklin, without
reckoning the cost it was to entail upon them.” Bentham,
who was present, professed himself not only “astonished at
the brilliancy of Wedderburn’s lightning, but astounded by
the thunder which accompanied it.” Dr. Priestley, also pre-
sent, declared that “at the Sallies of his wit, all the members
of the cabinet, the president himself, Lord Gower, not ex-
cepted, frequently laughed outright.” No person belonging
to the council behaved with decent gravity except Lord
North ; and Lord Shelburne, in a letter to Lord Chatham,
wrote that ‘ the indecency of their behaviour exceeded, as it
was agreed on all hands, that of any committee of election.”
And how did the victim of this terrible fulmination of
legal license, accompanied by the unrestrained ridicule of the
Privy Council of England, bear it? With the outward com-
posure of a stoic or a Red Indian, but with an inward rage
of revenge that no time and no success of retaliation could
204 HAMPSTEAD.
burn out. In that moment Franklin vowed etermal hatred
to England, and the separation of the North American
colonies at any cost and by any means. He retired to his
lodgings, took off the suit of Manchester velvet which he
wore on this occasion, locked it up in a box, and never wore
it again till the day on which he signed the articles of peace,
recognising the independence of the United States, at Paris
in 1783, nine years afterwards. He had accomplished his
vow, and the suit of Manchester velvet was returned to its
chest, never to be worn again by him. Franklin’s resolve of
vengeance had been deepened by the Privy Council voting
the petition which he had presented, “false, groundless,
vexatious, and scandalous,” thus dismissing it, and a few
days afterwards dismissing him from his office of Deputy
Postmaster General in America. Still further, Wedderburn
filed a bill in Chancery against Franklin, to compel him to
discover the means by which he had obtained these letters,
and this prosecution was only interrupted by news of Open
hostilities having broken out in America. From this time
forward Wedderburn showed himself on all occasions one of
the most furious and inveterate of the urgers on of the war
against the Americans, and no man was more responsible for
the alienation of these colonies than he.
Having thus done the worst work of the infatuated and
despotic Government of that time, and defended the worst
abuses of the pension-list, Wedderburn was made Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas, and a peer, with the title of
Tord Loughborough, in 1780. In that year he had to judge
the rioters of the Gordon riots, and no Jeffreys could have
done his work more relentlessly. A great example was
deemed necessary, and the rioters were executed by the
score. Burke, in the ‘Annual Register,’ says that Wedder-
burn’s address to the grand jury was generally spoken of in
ROSSLYN EIOUSE AND LORD ROSSLYN. 205
terms of indignation, as calculated to inflame the passions of
the jurymen, and prejudge the case. Lord Brougham, in his
* Statesmen,’ condemns Wedderburn’s address on this occa-
sion with equal severity; saying “It consisted of a solemn and
stately lecture upon the enormity of the offence, and a denial
of whatever could be alleged in extenuation of the offender’s
conduct.”
Lord Loughborough was the first to deny the right of the
poor to glean in corn fields after the harvest—a custom, if
language can establish any right, existing from all time. The
law of Moses was more benevolent than Loughborough law.
In 1782 he made a second marriage, with the sister of
Lord Courtenay, and in the same year became Commissioner
of the Great Seal. In 1788, on the first occasion of the
King’s insanity, he advocated the taking possession of the
regency by the Prince of Wales as of right, but was defeated
by Pitt's Government, and them became a flaming Liberal
and voted for Catholic Emancipation. Soon after, however,
Pitt found means to bring him over from Fox, and what were
called the Alarmist Whigs, and in 1793 he was rewarded by
being made Lord Chancellor of England, the grand aim of
his ambition. He carried the Great Seal home in his coach,
and exultingly showed it to Lady Loughborough, though he
confessed that he was afraid, on awaking in the morning, he
should find it only a pleasing dream.
He now gave way fully to his unbounded love of making a
great figure in the public eye. ‘His style of living,” says
Lord Campbell, “was most splendid. Ever indifferent about
money, instead of showing mean contrivances to save a
shilling, he spent the whole of his official income in official
splendour. Though himself very temperate, his banquets
were princely; he maintained an immense retinue of ser-
vants, and, not dreaming that his successor would walk
206 HAMPSTEAD.
through the mud to Westminster, sending the Great Seal
thither in a hackney coach, he never stirred about without
his two splendid carriages, exactly alike, drawn by the most
beautiful horses, one for himself, and another for his attend-
ants. Though of low stature and slender frame, his features
were well chiselled, his countenance was marked by strong
lines of intelligence, his eye was piercing, his appearance
was dignified, and his manners were noble.”
Thus we may see him parading with his grand equipages
up Hampstead Hill to Rosslyn House, and there, his people
all in a bustle with the attendance on such guests as the
Prince of Wales, the Duke of Portland, Edmund Burke,
Gibbon, Lord Spencer, Windham, Fox, and afterwards
Pitt, &c.
From this time forward Wedderburn continued one of
the most inflammatory promoters of the war against the
American colonies, and to the last the most dogged oppo-
ment of a peace with them. In the great war with France, we
Owe to him the fatal scheme of subsidising the continental
Rings, which cost us hundreds of millions, and which makes
continental Governments still so clamorous to draw us into
their quarrels. They denounce our non-intervention because
they long once more to be pulling at our purse-strings.
We are told by Lord Malmesbury that this proposition of
Wedderburn’s was at first opposed by Pitt and Grenville."
In the Reign of Terror which arose here in fear of
the revolutionary principles of France, Lord Chancellor
Wedderburn advocated the most arbitrary measures. He
opposed any idea of reform of Parliament, and supported the
most rigid prosecutions of reformers. He introduced to the
Cabinet the idea of the Traitorous Correspondence Bill, by
which correspondence with any Frenchman was made high
Malmesbury Diary, III, 6.
ROSSLYIN HOUSE AND TORD ROSSLYN. 207
treason, with all the ancient terrors of hanging, drawing, and
quartering. He supported the Bill for the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus, in 1794; the Bill against seditious meetings,
and the policy of employing spies and informers; he approved
and confirmed, on appeal to the House of Lords, the infamous
sentence of transportation of Muir, Palmer, and the rest of
the patriots, for merely advocating Parliamentary Reform.
He disgusted even George III. by endeavouring to condemn
Horne Tooke, Hardy, and Thelwall, by the invention of a
new crime—constructive treason. The King said to him,
‘You have got us into a wrong box, my lord, you have got
us into a wrong box. Constructive treason won’t do, my
lord, constructive treason won’t do.” Amongst the judgments
he gave was one, that the famous Thelluson property should
go on accumulating for three generations, according to the
will, the family being deprived of it for that time. But, as
Lord Campbell observes, the Court of Chancery conveniently
ate up nearly all the rents and profits, and then an Act of
Parliament was readily obtained to let the estates go to the
family. Another was, that the old law of burning alive
women guilty of coining should not be mitigated into
hanging. He opposed all peace with France, and when
Mr. Pitt would have carried Catholic Emancipation, in 1795,
Wedderburn, who was now as much opposed to freedom of
religion as he had been formerly zealous for it, defeated him,
and threw him out of office. He is said, moreover, to have
confirmed, if not originated, the King’s obstimacy on this
head, by frightening him about his coronation oath. His
manoeuvres against Pitt and the Catholics, however, did not
benefit him. In 1801 the King dismissed him, and gave the
Great Seal to Lord Eldon.
After this his influence wholly declined. He seemed to
retain only the ambition of being about the person of the
208 BIAMPSTEAD.
Ring, and he hired a villa at Baylis, near Slough, to be near
the Court; yet, so little confidence had he inspired in the
monarch, with all his assiduous attentions, that when the
news of his death was brought to King George III., who
had seen him the day before—for he went off in a fit of gout
in the stomach—George cautiously asked if the news were
really true; and being assured that it was, said, as if with
a sense of relief, ‘Then he has not left a greater knave
behind him in my dominions !’
Lord Brougham’s estimate of this splendid adventurer is
equally severe. He treats him as a ‘man of shining but
superficial talents, supported by no fixed principles, embel-
lished by no feats of patriotism, nor made memorable by
any monuments of national utility; whose life being at length
closed in the disappointment of mean and unworthy desires,
and amidst universal neglect, left behind it no claim to the
respect or gratitude of mankind, though it may have excited
the admiration or envy of the contemporary vulgar.’’
We cannot, indeed, look on Rosslyn House without re-
flecting how much of the disastrous politics of the reign of
George III. Originated in it, how much of the mischievous
war against America, and France ; and what a riding and
driving to and fro there must have been, of the great movers
of these events, where Rosslyn House now stands, no longer
amid its solitary fields, but shouldered up by a multitude of
new villas, and overlooking the advancing tide of brick and
mortar from St. John’s Wood, and all the vast expanse of
miles of dense town, where only ten years ago spread a
green expanse of fields and dividing hawthorn hedges.
Still, the situation of Rosslyn House enables it to preserve
within its grounds an air of retirement and even of solitude.
These grounds are spacious; below it yet remain well-
wooded fields, and the fields westward remain unbuilt upon.
* Historical Sketches, I. 87,
BOSSLYIN EIOU SE AND LORD ROSSLYN. 209
After passing through several hands after the death of Lord
Rosslyn, it was inhabited by Robert Milligan, the projector
of the West India Docks. Mr. Milligan was a great West
India merchant, and in honour of his services a statue was
erected to him at the entrance of the Dockyard, executed
by Westmacott. Subsequently Sir Francis Freeling, secre-
tary of the General Post Office, occupied it, and had there
a very fine library. To him succeeded Admiral Sir Moore
Disney, and then Mr. Davidson, senior. At his decease the
house was rented for some fourteen years by the late Earl of
Galloway, and there his grandson, the present Duke of
Marlborough, passed, with his mother, much of his early
boyhood. It was then again occupied by the Davidson
family (of Tulloch), until it passed into the hands of a specu-
lative builder, who happily failed before the old house was
destroyed or all the old trees were cut down, though it was
shorn of much of its beauty and adjoining lands, now
covered with numerous but handsome villas, and streets of
houses. During this luckless period the myrtles of forty
years’ growth perished; the Orangery fell into decay, and it
became the Home of the Soldiers’ Daughters for four years.
In 1860 Prince Albert led these children in procession to
their present Home, built on the site of the old Wane
House.
In 1861 Charles H. L. Woodd, Esq., purchased the place,
and as a descendant of John Evelyn of the ‘Sylva,’ and of
Dr. Basil Woodd, Chancellor of Rochester, who fought
under Charles I. at Edge Hill, has naturally a pleasure in
maintaining it as much as possible in its historic integrity.
His predecessor, Mr. Davidson, a wealthy West India, mer-
chant, is stated to have expended 10,000l. On the house, and
Mr. Woodd has evidently expended additional money and
taste upon it. In the course of the alterations which he
P
210 HAMIPSTIEAD.
made seven years ago, several coins of Elizabeth, Charles T.I.,
and William III. were found under the flooring; and upon
the old panellings, when the canvas covering was removed,
were seen the words written—“Tomorrow last day of Holli-
days | | | 1769.’ At first it was supposed that Lord Chester-
field’s natural son, to whom the ‘Letters were addressed,
might have inscribed this pathetic sentence; but the date
shuts out the possibility. Lord Chesterfield died in 1773,
and this his only son five years before him.
The main body of the avenue still exists, and amongst
its trees are some very fine Spanish chestnuts, one of which
measures full eighteen feet in girth. On one of these vener-
able trees being, from necessity, cut down, the present pro-
prietor counted above 180 rings of annual growth, besides
which was a central portion representing another 100 years,
almost obliterated by decay. Two hundred and eighty years
—this would bring the planting of the avenue up to the
latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, and the age of the trees
to 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada. A clematis
vitalba, also in the gardens, is worthy of notice from the size
of its trunk, and the extent to which it has run over a
covered way, and over the neighbouring trees, being pro-
bably one of the oldest and largest of these lianos in the
kingdom.
OTHER OLD RIOUSES AT HAMPSTEAD.
Besides those whose inhabitants we have noticed, there
are many other fine old houses in and about Hampstead,
which could render up to us curious and very interesting
histories, if we had the means of commanding them ; but
little care seems to have been exercised in preserving the
memory of the former residents of many of them. Some of
THE CONDUIT IN SHEPHERD’s FIELDS. 211
these residents were, no doubt, for long terms, others were
temporary. John Wylde, Lord Chief Baron of the Exche-
Quer during the Civil War, who drew up the impeachment
against the bishops, resided there some time, and died there
about mine years after the Restoration. Thomas Rowe,
author of ‘Lives of Illustrious Persons,’ and husband of
Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe, once a very popular poetess, whose
versified ‘History of Joseph’ in our boyish days we greatly
admired, as many persons do still her ‘Devout Exercises of
the Heart,” died at Hampstead in 1715, and after his de-
cease Mrs. Rowe retired to Frome, where, with occasional
visits to her dear friend the Countess of Hertford, she resided
many years.
QUEEN ELIZABETII'S HOUSE.
At the bottom of the town there used to be a house so
called, but evidently without a just claim, the architecture
being of a later date.
THE CONDUIT, SHEPIIERD'S FIELDS.
This spring, which is situated at a short distance, in Shep-
herd’s Fields, to the west of Rosslyn House, formerly sup-
plied the greater part of Hampstead with water of excellent
Quality, which was fetched thence by water-carriers, and sold
by the bucket. Since the supply of the place by the New
River Water Company, it has fallen into total neglect.
There used to be a handsome arch over it, as may be seen
from the wood-cut in “Hone's Table Book,” p. 381. The
arch is now built up. The supply of water is scanty, and
only serves to make a boggy place below it. The posts and
• ‘)
l' 2.
212 EIAMPSTEAD.
rails round are, for the most part, destroyed, and the whole
spot is filthy and disreputable.
Passing the little world of new houses that have sprung
up between Shepherd's Fields and the Hampstead Road, in
one of which, in Haverstock Place, the late Robert Stephen-
son lived—where also Charles Knight the publisher, and
other men of note reside—we come to a green lying betwixt,
the road and Pond Street. This is called Hampstead Green,
and is where Wilkie tells us that Collins the painter lived at
one time. Great alterations on this Green have recently
taken place. The houses and gardens on the side nearest
to Hampstead have vanished, and a large hotel and a row of
shops, and sundry villas, have taken their place. On the
top of the Green a Church is about to be erected. A little
beyond this Green, and facing Belsize Lane, is the large
Square brick house inhabited by Sir Rowland Hill, the great
reformer of our postal system.
We now proceed further down Haverstock Hill, reminding
the reader that Nichols, in his ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ says
Grose the antiquary—commemorated by Burns for his
IFouth o' auld nick-mackets :
Rusty airn caps and jinglin jackets,
Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets,
A towmont gude;
And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets,
Before the Flood–
was killed by a fall from his horse on Haverstock Hill, as the
late Mr. Longman was on the same road to Hampstead.
Somewhere in this direction also lived a person motorious
in her day, and made a permanent character by the pencil of
Hogarth :—
STEELE'S COTTAGE. 213
MOIL RING.
Hogarth has introduced her in his “ Four Times of Day,”
in the painting of “Morning.” She was the proprietor of
“Tom King’s Coffee House,” in front of which Hogarth
sketches a prim old lady, who, it is said, struck him out of
her will for this piece of distinction. Mrs. Moll King, the
proprietor of this house, the relict of Thomas, was well
acquainted with the magistrates, and suffered in purse, as
well as in person, for keeping a disorderly house. Retiring
from business, and that bad eminence, the pillory, to the
Hill of Hampstead, she lived on her early gains, paid for a
pew in church, was charitable at appointed seasons, and died
in peace in 1747. In Nichols's ‘Anecdotes of Hogarth,’ it is
said that she built on Haverstock Hill three houses, in one
of which lived the equally celebrated Nancy Dawson.
DICK TURPIN. f
We may as well, too, imagine this famous highwayman
riding his tall black horse up and down this road; for,
amongst other famous men, he had a house Once at Hamp-
stead, where the vicinity to the Heath and to Finchley
Common might be a convenience : but where this abode was,
I know not. -
STEELE'S COTTAGE. '
Still descending Haverstock Hill, we arrive at the site of
what was called Steele's Cottage. This cottage stood on the
right-hand side of the road, in a garden opposite to the
public-house called ‘The Load of Hay,’ now modernised, and
214 FIAMPSTEAD.
having much the air of a gin-palace. The cottage called
Steele's Cottage, after Sir Richard Steele, was of late years
divided into two dwellings, and had the name ‘Steele's
Cottage painted on the front. When I visited it in 1866,
the building which (as everywhere all round London) was
going on there, was fast encroaching on the cottage. The
long line of the new street called Adelaide Road, bounded
the Open ground at the back, at no great distance; other
houses were fast rising still nearer; and, at the end nearest
#...] §§
w - 5. Tº D D
, twº Nºſſ.
ºğ H. }; ſ'ſ
ºzºº...,
A. - > * > /*** * > •.
t zº:--><sº: .
- - - - - - - - -
STEELE'S COTTAGE, IIAVERSTOCK HILL.
(ſ’rom a Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
to London, new houses crowded up close to it, and it was
then evidently destined at no distant date to fall, and give
way to more ambitious structures. The tenants informed
me that they had notice to quit, and that, in about another
year, it would be swept away. This was verified in the spring
of 1867, and Steele's Cottage now only exists in engravings.
I have heard it said that this was not really the cottage in
which Steele once sojourned ; but there can be no doubt


SIR CHART, ES SEl).T,EY. 215
about its identity. Engravings of it exist, some of them
dating from Steele's own time, when all the country
round was open. The engravings of it, in Park's ‘Hamp-
stead ' and in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ are correct, and
agree with a number of such in the possession of John
Gardner, Esq., of St. John’s Wood Park, the proprietor of, I
suppose, by far the most valuable private collection of the
drawings, engravings, and photographs of scenes and build-
ings in and around London in existence. Amongst the
many places of historical interest which the growth of London
is continually sweeping away, the destruction of Steele's
Cottage is a matter of general regret. Before Steele lodged
in it, however, it had been the Occasional retirement of
another man of historical and literary note, whom we must
in order of time first note—
SIR CHARLES SEDI,ICY.
Sir Charles Sedley was one of the most profligate men of
Charles II.'s Court. He was author of several plays, and
was the father of James II.’s mistress, created Countess of
Dorchester: he died 1701. Pepys, vol. ii. p. 63, says he
was tried in June of 1663 for debaucheries at Oxford too in-
decent to print; that Lord Chief Justice Foster, and the
whole Bench, spoke to him in the severest manner, and told
him that it was such wicked wretches as he who brought the
judgments of God on the nation, calling him sirrah many
times. Lord Buckhurst being present, the judge asked if it
was that Buckhurst who was lately tried for robbery, and
gave him also a stern reproof. . It is pleasant to see judges in
so corrupt an age, so boldly condemning titled offenders to
their faces.
Of the character of Sedley for licentiousness, we have a
216 EIAMPSTEAD.
pretty good idea, from his name being used as a sort of
standard for judging of degrees of vice. Pepys says, “Lord
Waughan is one of the lewdest fellows of the age, worse than
Sir Charles Sedley.’
In Pepys's fourth volume we have Sedley again, and that
king of debauchees, Charles II. “Pierce, do tell me, among
other news, of the late frolic and debauchery of Sir Charles
Sedley and Buckhurst, running up and down all the night,
almost naked, through the streets, and at last fighting, and
being beaten by the watch, and clapped up all night; and
how the King takes their parts; and my Lord Chief Justice
ICeeling hath laid the constable by the heels, to answer it
next sessions, which is a horrid shame. How the king and
these gentlemen did make the fiddlers of Thetford, this last
progress to sing them all the obscene songs they could think
of.”—p. 185.
Again, p. 186:– “The King was drunk at Saxam (near
Newmarket), with Sedley, Buckhurst,’ &c.; and “The King
was so drunk, he could give not audience to Lord Arlington
on pressing business.’ What a charming king and charming
times |
Bad as Sedley was, however, he was, like many other
profligates, not without a sound place in his nature. This
profligate companion of Charles II. had been very properly
prosecuted for offences contra bomos mores, and, as Anthony
Wood says, “took up and grew very serious.” It is certain
that, in the first year of the reign of William III., he uttered
some pithy remarks in Parliament on the Bill for raising
money for the Civil List :--.
“Mr. Speaker : —We have provided for the army, we have
provided for the navy; and now at last a new reckoning is
brought in. We must provide likewise for the Civil List.
Truly, Mr. Speaker, it is a sad reflection that some men
SIR CHARLES SEDLEY. . 217
should wallow in wealth and plenty, whilst others pay away
in taxes the fourth part of their yearly revenue for the sup-
port of the same Government. We are not upon equal terms
for His Majesty’s service. The courtiers and great officers
charge, as it were, in armour: they feel not the taxes, by
reason of their places, whilst the country gentlemen are shot
through and through by them.
“The King is pleased to lay his wants before us, and, I am
confident, expects our advice upon it. We ought, therefore,
to tell him what pensions are too great, what places may be
extinguished during the time of the war and public calamity
His Majesty is encompassed with. His Majesty sees nothing
but coaches and six, great tables, &c., and therefore cannot
imagine the want and misery of the rest of his subjects. He
is a brave and generous prince ; but he is a young king,
encompassed and hemmed in by a company of crafty Old
courtiers. *
“To say no more : some have places of 2,000l., some of
6,000l., and others of 6,800l. per annum a-piece. Certainly
public pensions, whatever they have been formerly, are too
great for the present want and calamity that reigns every-
where else. And it is a general scandal that a Government
so sick at heart as ours is, should look so well in the face.
‘We must save the King money wherever we can; for I
am afraid the war is too great for our purses, if things be
not managed with all imaginable thrift. When the people
of England see everything saved that can be saved; that
there are no exorbitant pensions nor unnecessary salaries,
and all is applied to the uses to which they are given, we
shall give, and they shall cheerfully pay, whatever His
Majesty can want to secure the Protestant religion, and to
keep out King James too—whom, by the way, I have not
heard named this session, whether out of fear, discretion, or
218 - HAMPSTEAD.
respect, I cannot tell. I conclude, Mr. Speaker—Let us save
the King what we can, and then let us proceed to give him
what we are able.’’ -
This is certainly one of the most sensible speeches ever
made in the British Parliament. If our present members
would study the concise and clear style of Sir Charles Sedley,
and to put as much sound advice into the same compass, they
would save both themselves and hearers a great deal of un-
necessary waste of patience and time. What they say could
at least be read, which one quarter of the immensely wordy
speeches of the present day are not; whilst, from the weight
and pertinence of the matter, it would be remembered, which
very little of the present verbose speechification is.
Sir Charles Sedley died in August 1701—that is, about
eleven years before Steele lived in this house. In his youth
he seems to have lived, during the Commonwealth, in the
country, at his father’s seat at Aylesford, in Kent. Thither
he went from Wadham College, Oxford, where he took no
degree, in his seventeenth year. On the restoration of
Charles TI. he appeared at Court, and was one of the gayest
attendants on that dissipated monarch. He was a satirical
wit, poet, and comedian. According to Anthony Wood, he
was in 1663 fined very heavily for a drunken frolic, of which
Wood gives the particulars. Soon after this, he represented
New Romney in Parliament. He seems not to have affected
Court life under James II., but reappeared on the accession of
William and Mary. The licentiousness of Sedley’s poems is
not so gross as that of many of his contemporaries. His works,
with a memoir, were published in 1722, and consist chiefly
of short amatory poems, his few speeches in Parliament,
and the following plays: ‘The Mulberry Garden, a comedy;
* Antony and Cleopatra,’ a tragedy; ‘Bellamira the Mistress,’
i Harl. MS. 6389, f. 64.
SIR, IRICHARD STEELE. 219
a comedy; “Tunbridge Wells; or, a Day's Courtship,” a
comedy; “The Tyrant King of Crete,’ a tragedy; and ‘The
Grumbler,’ a comedy, have also been attributed to him.
His poems are superior to his plays, and the best of them
have been reprinted in ‘Ellis's Early English Poets.” The
verses on him, quoted by Steele, below on this page, are
from Rochester.
The descendants of Sir Charles became possessed of an
estate at Oxton in Nottinghamshire. His grandson married
a Miss Freeth, of Nottingham, grand-daughter and co-heiress
of Richard Slater, late of Nuthall, Nottinghamshire. I re-
member a Sedley living at Nuthall Temple in my youth.
SIR. RICHARD STEELE,
Drake, in his ‘Essays illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator,
and Guardian,’ says—‘During part of the year 1712, it
appears from our author’s correspondence, that, either from
necessity or choice, either with a view of escaping the im-
portunities of his creditors, or for the Imere purpose of
privacy and seclusion, he removed, for a short period, to a
house situated between Hampstead and London.” It is from
the following passage, in a letter to Mr. Pope, dated June 1,
1712, that we learn this incident in his eventful life.
‘I am at a solitude,” he writes, ‘an house between Hamp-
stead and London, where Sir Charles Sedley died. This
circumstance set me thinking and ruminating upon the
employments in which men of wit exercise themselves. It
was said of Sir Charles, who breathed his last in this
I'OOIYl—
Sedley had that prevailing, gentle art
Which can with a resistless charm impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart :
.220 * . HAMPSTEAD.
Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,
Till the poor vanquished maid dissolves away
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.
This was a happy talent to a man of the town; but, I dare
Say, without presuming to make uncharitable conjectures On
the author’s present condition, he would rather have had it
said of him that he prayed—
Oh, thou, my voice inspire,
Who touched Isaiah's hallowed lips with fire.’
Mr. Nichols thinks that there were too many pecuniary
reasons for this temporary solitude. The editor of the
“Biographia Dramatica,” observes, ‘Sir Richard retired to a
small house on Haverstock Hill, on the road to Hampstead.
Part of this building remains, and is now a cottage. Here
Mr. Pope, and other members of the Kit-Cat Club, which,
during the summer, was held at the “Upper Flask,” on
|Bampstead Heath, used to call on him, and take him in their
carriages to the place of rendezvous.”
Here Steele spent the summer days of 1712, in the com-
position of many of his ‘Spectators,’ returning generally to
town at night, and to the society of his wife, who at this
time had lodgings in Berry Street. That he left the cottage
in the autumn is probable from the circumstance of his
taking a house for Mrs. Steele at the close of this summer,
in Bloomsbury Square; and from his correspondence we learn
that he was actually in this house on September 3, 1712.”
Sir Richard Steele is one of the writers of the age of
Tope, Addison, and Swift, to whom our literature owes
almost incalculable benefits. He was not only a writer of a
most liberal and patriotic spirit, but he was the originator
of our periodical literature, and in no small degree of our
| Steele's Letters, Vol. I. p. 92.
SIR. RICHARD STEELE. 221 .
newspaper press. The publication of the ‘Tatler’ by Steele,
which appeared on April 12, 1709, was the birthday of that
periodical press of England, which has now acquired such
an extent and pre-eminence. What a multitude of writers
owe their existence and reputation to that event, and what
an incalculably vaster number of readers, a daily source of
delight and information. The father of the periodical press
of England ought to take his stand amongst the greatest
benefactors and elevators of his race; for it was not merely
that Steele thus created a new organ of amusement—it was
a new and potent organ of social and moral improvement.
Steele, with his great coadjutor Addison, who became an
occasional contributor to the ‘Tatler soon after its publi-
cation, and from its eighteenth number a regular one, at
once introduced a purer and more elegant style of writing;
a style which has been studied, and which has influenced
many of our best writers from that time to the present.
Amongst the most avowed adopters of this style was Wash-
ington Irving. But the improvement of style was the least
of the reforms aimed at or achieved by Steele, Addison,
and their co-workers: they set themselves earnestly to
correct the violent and morally low character of their age.
Mr. Montgomery, the biographer of Steele, has traced the
effects of a century and a half of bad government under the
Stuarts, the destruction of morals, and the debasement of
manners:–“Amid this furious strife of parties, the tot-
tering of thrones, and the rise and fall of dynasties, the arts
of peace were necessarily retarded; the little glimpses of
science which appeared under the auspices of Boyle, after a
few feeble flickerings, expired. A general ignorance and
licentiousness, both in principle and practice, prevailed. The
streams of public amusement were polluted at their source,
for the writers of the drama pandered shamelessly to the
222 EIAMPSTEAD.
popular taste; and it was customary for ladies who had
regard to reputation to frequent the theatres in Imasks, and
to attend the public performance of any new piece before
they could be supposed to be aware of the prurient jest Or
indecent allusion. All decorum was a jest—the most sacred
social institutions considered a subject of polite raillery.
Gambling and duelling were the pursuits of those styling
themselves men of honour. -
“But in addition to the general levity and frivolity in
which life was spent amongst the most refined, the amuse-
ments indulged in by some of the very highest rank, as well
as the populace, were of the most brutal and Savage descrip-
tion. Prize-fighting, bull-baiting, and bear-baiting were
prevalent diversions, and were not only attended, as we are
informed by an annotator of the “Tatler’” (edit. 1797), by
butchers, drovers, and great crowds of all sorts of mobs, but
likewise by dukes, lords, knights, and squires. There were
seats particularly set apart for the quality, Ornamented by
old tapestry hangings, &c. It was a time when duelling
was extensively prevalent, and Captain Hill, in company
with Lord Mohun, murdered Mountford, the actor, in the
open street, in cold blood, and without provocation. Clubs
of wild young bucks, under a variety of names, particularly
that of Mohawks, infested the streets, and rendered them
dangerous after nightfall, by Savage and barbarous pranks
worthy of the name they adopted, insulting, wounding, and
maiming passengers in a variety of ingenious methods, for
they possessed a sort of wit and drollery in their diabolical
pranks. It seems utterly incredible that in addition to
slashing, maiming, and wounding their victims, we have it
on the authority of Gay, that they actually would thrust
women into barrels, and roll them down Ludgate or Snow
Hill. Another and more harmless sort of these bloods went
SIR. RICHARD STEELE. 223
by the name of Nickers, whose delight was to break win-
dows with showers of halfpence, to whom Steele wittily
alludes in the ‘Tatler,” No. 77, on finding his floor strewed
with coppers—“I have not yet a full light into this new
way, but am apt to think that it is a generous piece of wit
that Some of my contemporaries make use of, to break
windows and leave money to pay for them.” ”
All these barbarities, Steele and his coadjutors attacked in
the ‘Tatler,’ and in its successors, the ‘Spectator,” “Guar-
dian,’ ‘The Lover,’ ‘The Reader,’ ‘Town-Talk,’ ‘Tea-Table
Chit-chat,’ &c., with the weapons of a delicate raillery, and
those of sound and earnest argument. Through a period of
six years did Steele, with the assistance of Addison, Pope,
Swift, Parnell, Congreve, Tickell, Dr. Watts, and most of
the wits and literati of the time, contrive to make war on
the rudeness, cruelties, and follies of the age, and to inculcate
the highest morals and the soundest and most attractive
views of religion. Many of the rude and barbarous sports—
as bear and bull-baiting, cock and dog-fighting, and throw-
ing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday—were so deeply rooted in
the spirit of the nation, that it required until our own time
to thoroughly restrain them; and cock-fighting and prize-
fighting, notwithstanding the injunctions of the law, and
the vigilance of the police, are still struggling for a con-
tinued existence. Railway companies are still found to
prepare clandestine trains to conduct the offenders of the
law, in the case of prize-fighting, to some unlooked-for Spot,
for the commission of this brutal crime; and gentlemen and
even clergymen have within these few years been found
making part of these disgraceful expeditions. From these
facts it may be conceived how daring and arduous was
the enterprise of Steele and his fellow-writers to discoun-
tenance these practices, and how much we owe them on
224 |HAMPSTEAD.
that account. Duelling died as reluctantly, having reached
its close only in our own time. In the general refinement
of manners, in the elevation of morals, and in the spread
of science and general intelligence from the days of Steele
to our own, with all the mighty power into which the press
has grown, we see with wonder, and we ought to perceive
with gratitude, the vast obligations under which we are to
the writers who put this work of reform into motion, and
gave, by a ten years’ labour at it, an impetus which insured
its ultimate triumph.
Sir Richard Steele was a warm-hearted and impulsive
Irishman, who, in his zeal to accomplish his plans and
efforts for the good of society, never put his own interests
into the balance, but continually ran counter to them.
Bence, whilst his more phlegmatic and calculating friends,
Addison and Swift, won promotion and wealth, he himself
was continually victimised by Government for his bold and
patriotic avowals of the truth, and demands for justice to-
wards the public. In 1710, he lost his post of State
° and in
Gazetteer for his plain speaking in the ‘Tatler;
1714 he was expelled from Parliament, when he represented
Stockbridge, in Hampshire, for his exposure of the conduct
of the Ministry with regard to the treaty of Utrecht, and for
their neglect of that part of it concerning the port of Dun-
kirk. These damaging statements he had made in his
pamphlets “The Englishman and ‘The Crisis.”
Steele married a lady of some fortune, named Scurlock, of
Llangunmor, near Carmarthen, in Wales; but from his bold
and independent mode of acting and writing, he was often in
great pecuniary difficulties, which were, no doubt, much in-
creased by his desire to maintain a social position which his
precarious income did not warrant; and by a failing, too
common in that age, of indulging in too much wine. What-
SIR. RICHARD STEELE. 225
ever were Steele's faults, however, they were against him-
self, and not against others or the public. He was warm-
hearted, generous, always ready to help others to the extent
of and often beyond his means; and his endeavours aimed
to promote the good of the nation, of literature, and of the
drama, being for some years Governor of the Royal Com-
pany of Comedians. This office, with a salary of 600l. a-year,
was taken from him by the grasping and despotic Duke of
Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain, in 1720. During his
patriotic labours in the public cause, Sir Richard was at-
tacked with the utmost scurrility and insult by his quondam
friend, Dean Swift, who was as cold-blooded and cantan-
kerous as Steele was generous and high-minded.
So much was he reduced at times, whilst maintaining this
warfare for right and liberty, that in one of his letters to his
wife, who was gone for her health to her native place in
Wales, he says —‘We had not, when you left us, an inch of
candle, a pound of coal, or a bit of meat in the house ; but
we do not want now —to such extremity had he been
reduced in order to raise enough to carry his wife into
Wales; and when she wanted to return, she was compelled
to remain there some time longer from the same cause.
Steele lost his wife, a handsome and clever woman, of whom
he was dotingly fond, in 1718, at the age of 40. Of four
children, two boys and two girls, the only one who survived
him was his daughter Elizabeth, who was married to the
Hon. John Trevor, one of the Welsh Judges, afterwards
Lord Trevor, of Bromham. With their only daughter, who,
like Addison’s, though beautiful, was of weak intellect, the
race of Steele seems to have ended. -
For himself, hunted down by the undying malice of the
Tory party, amongst whom Swift was the most truculent and
base; left solitary by the death of his wife and all his
Q
226 HAMIPSTEAD. .
children but one, and his health undermined, he retired to
the estate of his late wife at Llangunnor, in Wales. Even
there, the diabolical spite of Swift followed him in the
distich, in which he says Steele—
IFrom perils of a hundred jails,
Withdrew to starve and die in Wales.
This was, however, far from the truth, a thing which Swift
paid little regard to. Sir Richard left a clear balance, when
all his debts were paid, of 1,400l. He appears to have
retired into Wales about 1725; and he lived a life of quiet
serenity there, greatly enjoying the beauty of the country,
till 1729, when he died at Carmarthen, aged 58, and his re-
mains, at his own request, were buried in the town chancel.
“I was told,” says Mr. Victor, in his ‘Original Letters, &c.,’
‘ that he retained to the last his cheerful sweetness of tem-
per, and would often be carried out of a summer's evening,
where the country lads and lasses were assembled at their
country sports, and with his pencil gave an order to his
agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the best dancer.’
This is a characteristic trait of the hand which drew the
inimitable “Roger de Coverley,’ and which brought the fame
of Shakspeare again to light, when it had been so unaccount-
ably and generally obscured; which sketched the touching
story of “Inkle and Yarico,” and the “Adventures of Alex-
ander Selkirk,” thus laying for the immortal pen of De Foe
the foundation of ‘Robinson Crusoe.” The builder has wiped
out the visible trace of the memory of Richard Steele on
Haverstock Hill, but his memory itself is sustained in the
deathless monument of the British language, and the great
march of civilisation and moral greatness to which he gave
so grand an impulse.
There is an engraving of Sir Richard Steele's house at
Llangunmor, the hereditary property of Lady Steele, to which,
• PRIMITROSE HIILT1. 227
as observed, he retired to end his days, given in the ‘Gentle-
man's Magazine,’ vol. lxvii., part I., p. 457. The house is
not much superior to the cottage on Haverstock Hill, and in
the view appears considerably dilapidated.
º
ſº º
Zºš
#ft.
º Bºº º
Ol.I) CHAT, K FARM.
From a Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
PRIMROSE HILL.
We may close our survey in this direction with this cele-
brated suburban elevation, so called from the abundance of
primroses once to be found there, no doubt when Holborn
had its botanic gardens, and all between London and West-
minster and the present West-end were solitary, and in a
great degree open fields. An adjoining lane is, or was, called
Primrose Lane before the ‘Buy my fine beau-pot' boys and
other Londoners had grubbed them all up.
The place is notorious in history for the murder of Sir
Edmond Bury Godfrey, a mystery of the reign of Charles II.,
which has never been thoroughly cleared up, and probably

Q 2
228 - HAMPSTEAD.
never will. It occurred in 1678, a period when the country .
was agitated by the pretended Popish plots of the infamous
Titus Oates, and the real one of Coleman, secretary to the
Duchess of York. The public had become aware in some
degree of the infamous bargain by which Charles II. had
sold himself to the French king for a pension, and was thus
allowing Louis XIV. to act against the Protestantism of the
Continent without check. There was a strong Protestant
party in England, at the head of which were the Earls of
Shaftesbury and Buckingham, and the Whigs generally.
An attempt was made by this party to pass an Act of Parlia-
ment to exclude James, afterwards II., from the throne, On
account of his avowed Popery. To fan the flame of the
public hatred of Papacy, all sorts of plots were declared in
existence, and in the midst of these came forth the creature
Titus Oates, abetted by a Dr. Tongue, the rector of St. Mi-
chael’s, in Wood Street, London, and others. It was declared
that the King was to be murdered to make way for James,
and a liministry of Catholic noblemen, Lords Powis, Stafford,
Arundel, Peters, Bellassis, and others, was to be set up, a
rebellion in Ireland excited, and thus Popery to come in with
all its ancient terrors. Informers swarmed in the rear of
Oates, and in the midst of their inventions a real plot was
discovered in a traitorous correspondence of Coleman with
France. Everything, however improbable, was then believed
to be true; Coleman fled, though he was afterwards captured
and executed; and Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey, an active
magistrate of Westminster, who had taken the depositions of
Oates, and a friend of Coleman's, was found murdered in the
fields between Primrose Hill and 'old St. Pancras Church.
Godfrey was a man of a melancholy and sensitive tempera-
ment, and seemed sometimes on the very verge of insanity.
On the apprehension of Coleman, Godfrey had been seized
PRIMROSE HILL. 229
with great alarm, and expressed his conviction that he should
be the first martyr of this plot. On October 12, he burnt a
large quantity of papers, and that day he was seen hurrying
about the town in a state of great abstraction of mind. From
that time he was missing, and it was not till the sixth day
that his body was found. He lay forward, resting on his
knees, his breast, and the left side of his face. His sword was
thrust through his heart with such violence that it appeared
at his back. His cane stood upright in the bank, for he
himself sat in a dry ditch; his gloves lay near his cane On
the grass, and his rings were on his fingers, and his money
in his purse. All these circumstances seemed to indicate
suicide, and to confirm it, it was reported that when the
sword was withdrawn, it was followed by a rush of blood.
This, however, the doctors denied, and after six days it was
not possible in any case, whether of suicide or murder. It
was declared that there were marks round his neck, showing
him to have been strangled, and that he had been thrust
through, and the came and gloves so disposed as to give the
idea of his having killed himself. On the other hand, it was
affirmed that the marks on the neck were faint and dubious.
That Godfrey had committed suicide really appeared the
most probable conjecture. His great alarm at the discovery
of Coleman’s guilt; his burning large quantities of papers,
showed that he was deeper in these popish schemes than he
dared let come to the light; his rushing about town in great
distraction the day before his disappearance, all confirmed this
idea. He had warned Coleman to fly ; he had always been
a partisan of the Catholics. Coleman was now in custody,
and though Godfrey had burnt the dangerous papers, some-
thing might be drawn out on Coleman’s trial which might
commit him fatally. The balance of evidence was certainly
in favour of suicide. But if he were murdered, who were his
230 |HAMIPSTEAD.
murderers? Soon a fellow of the name of Bedloe turned up,
and declared that Godfrey had been murdered at Somerset
House, the Queen’s palace, by the Jesuits, her attendants;
that Le Fevre, the Jesuit, told him that he and Walsh,
another Jesuit, a servant of Lord Bellassis, and a waiter in
the Queen’s chapel, had smothered him betwixt two pillows,
and had offered him two thousand pounds to take the body
away in a cart. But Bedloe had made a fatal blunder in
laying the scene of Godfrey’s murder in a room always occu-
pied by the Queen’s footmen, and at the very time that the
Ring was there, and not only a throng of persons all over
the palace, but a sentinel posted at every door, and a detach-
ment of guards drawn out in the court. The next day he
contradicted himself worse. Though he declared that he
himself had seen the body at Somerset House, yet, as the
state of the body when found did not favour the Smothering
theory, he now dismissed the two pillows, and said that he
was strangled with a cravat. Anon he pitched on One
Prance, a silversmith, who had worked at the Queen’s chapel,
as one of the murderers, and Prance was so pressed and
badgered that he lost his head, and confessed, but again
recalled his confession, and charged three others with being
the murderers : namely, Green, Hill, and Berry, three ser-
vants at Somerset House; that Green strangled him with a
handkerchief, and punched him. On the breast with his knee,
but finding him not dead, wrung his neck; that on the
following Wednesday night, about twelve o’clock, the body
was put into a sedan chair and taken to the Soho, and then
conveyed on horseback, before Hill, to the place in the fields
where he was found, and where they thrust his sword through
him. These men stoutly denied the whole affair; but they
were hanged for it, and the Court and country proceeded to
fresh plots and rumours, which implicated many other lives,
PRIMROSE HILL. 231
and some of them men of the most exalted rank and cha-
racter, as Lord Stafford, Lord William Russell, Algernon
Sidney, and others. As regarded the fate of Godfrey, how-
ever, the various depositions made by such wretches as
Bedloe and Oates only involved it in fresh confusion—a con-
fusion likely to continue for ever, though perhaps suicide
appears the most probable solution. On the other hand, in
a little volume published by John Hancock at the ‘Three
Bibles, over against the Royal Exchange,” in 1682, entitled,
* Memoirs of the Life and Death of Sir Edmond Bury God-
frey, late Justice of Peace for Middlesex, who was barbarously
murdered by the Papists, upon the first Discovery of the
Plot,’ &c., the reader has a distinct narrative of this strange
event, according to the views of those who attributed his
death to the Catholics.
As to the place where Sir Edmond Bury Godfrey’s body
was found, it is stated in a letter to Mr. Miles Prance, 1681,
folio, half-sheet, ‘that it was a ditch on the south side of
Primrose Hill, surrounded by divers closes, fenced with high
mounds and ditches; no road near, only some deep, dirty
lanes, not coming near 500 yards of the place, and impos-
sible for any man on horseback, with a dead corpse before
him, at midnight to approach, unless gaps were made in the
mounds, as the constable and his assistants found from ex-
perience when they came on horseback thither.’ This does
not favour Prance's story of Hill carrying the corpse before
him in the night to such a place.
Primrose Hill has also been called Barrow Hill, and an
adjoining farm, Barrow Farm, leading to the supposition
that it had been the scene of a battle, as Chalk Farm, just
by, has been of many a duel, and one of the latest and most
sorrowful, that of Christie and Scott, in which John Scott,
232 BIAMPSTEAD .
the editor of the then celebrated ‘London Magazine,’ was
killed. Chalk Farm, by the bye, is probably a corruption of
Chalcote Farm, the Chalcote estate extending thence to
Belsize Lane. There is no chalk in the neighbourhood to
Originate the name.
The ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. lxxv., part II., p. 967,
relates the following extraordinary circumstance as occur-
ring in this vicinity:—‘As a gentleman and lady, in Sep-
tember 16, 1805, were walking across the fields from
Hampstead Road turnpike to Primrose Hill, they met a
person of gentlemanly appearance, who rushed on the lady,
and grasped her round the neck. The gentleman was
astonished at the stranger’s conduct, and concluded that he
was a lunatic ; but, when in the act of attempting to disen-
gage him, the unfortunate man fell, and expired in a fit.’
TSIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.
In the heraldic visitation of Middlesex, in 1664, by Ryley
(Lancaster) and Dethicke (Rouge Croix), there was only one
family at Hampstead, that of Woodward, which gave in a
pedigree. -
JoBN WYLDE, who had been Lord Chief Baron of the
Exchequer during the Civil War, and drew up the impeach-
ment against the Bishops, led a retired life at his house at
Hampstead, and died there about nine years after the Re-
storation, or about 1669. His daughter married Lord Dela-
W2LT6.
SIR GEOFFREY PALMER, Knt. and Bart., manager of the
evidence against the Earl of Strafford, was a prisoner in
the Tower, for loyalty, Attorney-General for Charles II.,
and Chief Justice of Chester. He was author of various
law reports. He died at Hampstead, May 5, 1670, aged 72
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 233
years. He was buried at Carleton, in Northamptonshire,
the ancient seat of his family. -
HENRY MILLER.—This person was murdered by a man
named Jackson, who was gibbeted for it between two trees,
on the side of the North-End Road, near Heath Lodge.
Miller was buried March 20, 1672. The post of the gibbet
of Jackson was said to remain on a mantel-tree over the
fireplace of the kitchen of the ‘Castle public-house.
THE RIGHT Hon. PHILIP LORD WHARTON. ; died at Hamp-
stead, where he had been some time for the air, February
1695–96, being about 80 years of age. He was the grand-
father of the notorious Duke of Wharton. The character of
Lord Wharton, though highly eulogised in the ‘Flying
Post,’ Feb. 4, 1695–96, is not so estimated by Grainger,
Vol. ii. p. 143. -
DR. SHERLOCK ; died at Hampstead, June 19, 1707, aged
67, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. His chief work
was his “Practical Treatise of Death.’ See Grainger’s ‘Bio-
graphical History,’ vol. iv. p. 299.
JosLPH KEBLE was one of the singularities of Hampstead.
He was a voluminous law reporter, who had a small estate
at North-End, where he lived during the vacation. He
usually walked to Hampstead; and a Mr. Keble, a bookseller
in Fleet Street, a relative, reported of him that ‘ he gene-
rally performed the walk in the same number of steps, which
he often counted.” He died suddenly in Holborn Gate,
Gray’s Inn, as he was about to take the coach for Hamp-
stead, aged 68.
WILLIAM PopPLE, Esq., Secretary of the Board of Trade,
is buried in a vault in the churchyard. He died in 1722,
aged 56. His wife lies also in the same vault, with several
children, one of them also William Popple, Governor of Ber-
muda in 1745. There was also an Allured Popple, Governor of
234. - EIAMPSTEAD.
Bermuda in 1737. Mr. Popple was also an author of some
note. He wrote two comedies, ‘The Ladies’ Revenge,’ and the
“Double Deceit,” as well as a volume of poems, edited by
Richard Savage, in 1736, and a translation of Horace’s “Art
of Poetry.” He was concerned jointly with Aaron Hill in
‘The Prompter.”
DAME JULIA BLACKETT has a slab in the churchyard with
this inscription :-‘Here lies the body of Dame Julia, relict
of Sir William Blackett, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Bart. ; after-
wards wife of Sir William Thomson, Knt., Recorder of the
City of London. She died the 16th of August, 1722.”
Dame Julia was the daughter of Sir Christopher Conyers,
Bart., by Julia, daughter of Sir Richard Lumley, Wiscount
Waterford. By Sir William Blackett, Dame Julia had two
sons, one of whom married at Hampstead Lady Barbara
Williers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey; Christopher, who
died young; and eight daughters, of whom Isabella was the
second wife of David, fourth Earl of Buchan. Both the Earl
and his wife Isabella were buried at Hampstead—the Earl
October 17, 1745; and his wife May 21, 1763.
CHRISTOPHER BULLOCK, a comedian of some note, and
the son of William Bullock, of North-End, also a distin-
guished comedian, was buried in Hampstead churchyard
in 1722, his funeral being accompanied by a great number
of actors. His wife was a natural daughter of Wilks, the
comedian, and was also on the stage. e
ROBERT MILLINGEN, Esq., died at Rosslyn House, May 21,
1809, and was buried at Hampstead. He was not only the
projector, but the completer, of the West India Docks; as-
sisted, it is true, by other public-spirited men. We have
named his services under the head of Rosslyn House. A tomb
in the churchyard bears a grateful record of his memory.
DR. GEORGE SEWELL died at Hampstead, and was interred
|BIOGRAPHICAL IN OTICES. 235
there on February 12, 1725. Dr. Sewell had no house at
Hampstead, but only lodgings. He seems to have been a
regular man-of-all-work to the publishers; edited their re-
prints of the poets, was a considerable contributor to the
supplemental volumes of the ‘Tatler’ and ‘Spectator,’ and
had the principal share in a translation of Ovid’s ‘Meta-
morphoses.’ His chief work, however, was the tragedy of
‘Sir Walter Raleigh,’ which was successfully performed at
the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He was familiarly
acquainted with Pope and Addison; but it was his fate,
whatever his merits, to be in a condition of extremest in-
digence, neglected by all his friends, and by those who used
to invite him to help to dissipate the dulness of their dinner
tables. His remains were consigned to a coffin little better
than those allotted to workhouse paupers, and no stone
marked the spot where he lay. A holly-tree, one forming
part of a hedgerow formerly the boundary of the churchyard,
was said to indicate the vicinity of his grave; but that has
long disappeared. -
JoHN GAY, the celebrated poet and fabulist, lost his for-
tune by the South Sea Bubble, and, suffering severely in his
health, went to Hampstead for some time in 1722, for the
benefit of the air and water, where, by the care of his
friends, and especially of Pope and Arbuthnot, he was re-
stored. As the South Sea Bubble burst in 1720, this visit
of Gay's was about two years after that time.
JoHN MERRY, a governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company,
has a tombstone in the churchyard, where his remains lie.
He raised the Company’s fortunes from a low to a very high
and wealthy condition. . -
DR. ARBUTHNOT, the friend of Pope, Gay, and Swift,
appears to have visited Hampstead first on account of Gay,
as just stated, but having fallen into a dropsy himself, he
236 HAMPSTEAD.
went there in 1734 for the recovery of his own health, in
which object he to a degree succeeded. He seems to have
led a rather gay life at the Wells, for an invalid. Pope, in
one of his letters to Martha Blount, says:–‘I saw Arbuth-
not, who was very cheerful. I passed a whole day with
him at Hampstead. He is in the Long Room half the morn-
ing, and has parties at cards every night. Mrs. Lepell and
Mrs. Saggioni, and her sons and his two daughters are all
with him.’" Arbuthnot joined Pope and Swift in many of
their literary schemes, particularly in the satire of ‘Martinus
Scriblerus.” He wrote two works on ‘Aliments,’ and on the
‘Effect of Air on Human Bodies,” which might dispose him
to try the value of "his hygienic theories at Hampstead.
Swift describes him thus:—‘ He has more wit than all his
race, and his humanity is equal to his wit.’ He was just
the man to find amusement in this then fashionable resort.
Eſe died in 1735.
MR. ANDREW PITT is said to have been ‘ an eminent
Quaker,” who died at Hampstead of gout in the stomach.
Voltaire, in his letters concerning the English nation, says
‘ he was one of the most eminent Quakers in England, who,
after having traded thirty years, had the wisdom to prescribe
limits to his fortune and his desires, and settled in a little
solitude in Hampstead. He was of a hale, ruddy com-
plexion, and had never been afflicted with sickness, because
he had always been insensible to passions, and a perfect
stranger to intemperance ; and some of our newspapers
added, ‘He inherited many virtues, and wanted every vice.”
On Sunday, April 4, 1736, he waited on the then Prince
of Wales, to solicit his favour in relation to the Quakers’
Tithe Bill, when his Royal Highness answered to this effect:
—‘As I am a friend to liberty in general, and to toleration
1 Bowles' Supplement to “Pope's Works, p. 377.
BIOGRAPHICAL IN OTICES. 237
in particular, I wish you may meet with all proper favour;
but for myself, I never gave my vote in Parliament; and to
influence my friends, or direct my servants in theirs, does
Inot become my station. To leave them entirely to their
own conscience and understanding is a rule I have hitherto
prescribed to myself, and purposed throughout life to
observe.’
Mr. Pitt, overcome with this conduct, replied — May it.
please the Prince of Wales I am greatly affected with thy
excellent notions of liberty, and am more pleased with the
answer thou hast given me, than if thou hadst granted my
request.’ -
In Howard’s ‘Collection of Letters, p. 604, see : A Letter
from Voltaire to Mr. Alex. Pitt, a Quaker, at Hampstead, and
a very Orthodox Believer, concerning “Alciphron; or, the
Minute Philosopher; ”’ a treatise then lately published.
MARK AKENSIDE.-Akenside was introduced to Hamp-
stead by the Hon. Jeremiah Dyson, Clerk of the House of
Commons. Dyson and Akenside were fellow students at
the University of Leyden. On Akenside coming to London,
Mr. Dyson endeavoured to introduce him as physician. As
Hampstead was then much frequented, and was inhabited
by many wealthy people, Mr. Dyson purchased a house at
North-End, where he and Akenside lived together in the
summer months, frequenting the Long Room, the clubs, and
assemblies of the inhabitants. Sir John Hawkins says that
Akenside defeated the efforts of his friend Dyson to establish
him at Hampstead, by his vanity and love of display. He
seemed resolved to take the lead there, as he had done in
other places, but this did not succeed. His endeavours led
him into disputes, and he suffered himself to betray a con-
tempt of those who differed from him. This, certainly, was
not the way “to make his way as a physician. It was soon
23S - HAMPSTEAD.
discovered that he was a man of low birth, and dependent
On Mr. Dyson, and this was naturally made full use of by
those whose resentment he had aroused. When he con-
tended that he was a gentleman, this was thrown in his teeth.
Mr. Mark Noble, in a letter to Mr. Park, August 22, 1811,
says:–“ Akenside, of humble origin, wished to have his birth
a secret, and was certainly ashamed of his relations. I
was at the trouble of asking a friend at Newcastle, the place
of his nativity, concerning the Akensides, and I found that
his kindred were inferior persons: his father a butcher; and
that, when one of his near relations called upon him in his
prosperity—namely, his aunt—he would not so much as
acknowledge her. This gave me a very mean opinion of his
heart.”
As these circumstances totally prevented Akenside suc-
ceeding at Hampstead, his generous friend, Mr. Dyson,
parted with his villa at North-End, and settled him in a
small house in Bloomsbury Square, assigning him 300l.
a-year, which enabled him to keep a chariot, and make a
proper appearance in the world.
Akenside alludes to his residence at Hampstead in an
“Ode to Caleb Hardinge, M.D. :’—
From Hampstead's airy summit, me,
Her guest, the city shall behold, &c.
See Brand’s ‘Observations upon Popular Antiquities,’ 1778,
pp. 118, 800; Dr. Anderson’s ‘Life of Akenside,’ Edinburgh
edition of ‘British Poets,’ &c. -
This account (pp. 52–54) agrees to a certain extent with
that of Bucke, the author of ‘The Beauties, Harmonies, and
Sublimities of Nature,” in his ‘Life and Writings of Aiken-
side.’ Bucke tells us that Mark Akenside was born at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the 9th of November, 1721; that
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. * 239
his father, indeed, was a butcher, but a respectable one ;
and that he and his wife were very strict in their religious
observances, and were Dissenters; that the name had always
been spelt Akinside, and so by the poet himself in his
Dedication of his poems to his friend Dyson. It was thus
spelt in all Dodsley’s editions of his “Pleasures of Imagina-
tion,” till the sixth. Akenside, like Burns, altered his name,
and improved it more than Burns did.
Akenside’s friends, the Dissenters, sent him to Edinburgh .
at the age of seventeen, to study in preparation to becoming
a Dissenting minister; but he soon changed his views, and
after one year he began to study medicine. During the
three years’ residence at Edinburgh, he made the acquaint-
ance of Dr. John Gregory and Dr. Robertson. After this he
went to Leyden, where he studied three years, and obtained
his diploma as Doctor of Physic in 1744. There he made
the acquaintance of Jeremiah Dyson, a young man of for-
tune, and one of the truest and most generous friends that
any man could possibly meet with. The two young men
quitted Leyden together, and on arriving in London, Dyson
went to the bar, and Akenside cast about for a medical prac-
tice. At the same time, having completed his great poem,
‘The Pleasures of Imagination,” he obtained 120l. for the
copyright of it, of Robert Dodsley, the poem having been by
Dodsley submitted to Pope, who said, ‘Make no niggardly
bargain—this is no every-day writer.” The work was printed
by Richardson, the great novelist. It at once became popular,
and speedily ran, through many editions, and was translated
into Italian and French—in the latter language in prose.
Alzenside endeavoured to obtain a practice in North-
ampton, but did not succeed; but he there made the ac-
quaintance of Dr. Doddridge and Dr. Kippis. On quitting
Northampton, after a year’s abortive trial, his friend Dyson
240 HAMPSTEAD.
thought Hampstead would be a likely place for a physician
to succeed in. It was a place of fashionable summer resort
—had its chalybeate wells, its long-room, clubs, and as-
semblies. Dyson, therefore, bought a house at North-End,
where he established Akenside, and resided there himself, to
introduce the poetical physician to the Opulent inhabitants
and visitors. To put him at his ease, he allowed him 300l.
a-year. This was friendship in its noblest and most ideal
Sé]].S62.
“But Hampstead,” says Bučke, ‘ was not suited to a man
like Akenside. The inhabitants were respectable and rich ;
but many of them were not only respectable and rich, but
purse-proud, and therefore supercilious. They required to
be sought ; their wives and daughters expected to be es-
corted and flattered, and their sons to be treated with an
air of obligation.”
Akenside was a man already famous through the nation,
and sensible of it, and was therefore not likely to play the
courtier in a corner. Besides, according to a man of great.
repute, Mr. Meyrick, he was “stiff and set,” which, indeed,
is the fault of his chief poem, and the great drawback from
its merits. Meyrick adds, that ‘he could not bear to see
any One Smile in the presence of an invalid, and, I think,
lost much practice by the Solemn sententiousness of his air
and manners.’ The result was, that after a residence of a
year and a half at Hampstead, he returned to London, and
took up his abode in Bloomsbury Square, where he continued
to live for the rest of his life. g
The generous Mr. Dyson, who himself rose to be one of
the Lords of the Treasury, and had the honour of pretty
sharp flagellation by Junius for his connection with Lord
North and the Earl of Bute, continued his allowance of 300l.
a-year to Akenside, who never married. He attained to
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 241
considerable medical eminence in London; received a Doc-
tor’s degree from Cambridge; was elected a Fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians; a Fellow of the Royal Society;
and he appears, through the influence of Dyson with Lord
Bute, to have been introduced to notice at Court, and was
accused of some change in his political principles through
that circumstance. 2
‘The features of Akenside,’ says Bucke, ‘were expressive
and manly in a very high degree, but his complexion was pale,
and his deportment solemn. He dressed, too, in a very pre-
cise manner, and wore a powdered wig in stiff curl. In
respect to disposition, he is said to have been irritable, and
to have had little restraint upon his temper before strangers,
with whom he was precise and ceremonious, stiff, and Occa-
sionally sententious and dictatorial.” In this character of
the man, we have the exact character of his poetry; and the
whole is in perfect accordance with the causes said to have
made so brief his sojourn at Hampstead. He died in
Bloomsbury Square in June, 1770, in the 49th year of his
age; and his books, furniture, and other property, passed to
his great friend, Mr. Dyson. *
Miss Hawkins’s description of Dr. Akenside, or rather Dr.
Lettsom’s, is not very favourable. Dr. Lettsom says, great
was his disappointment at finding Akenside, when visiting
St. Thomas’s Hospital, supercilious and unfeeling. If the
affrighted patients did not return an exact answer to his
questions, he would discharge them. He showed particular
disgust and harshness to females. This was imputed to a
disappointment in love. He ordered one patient bark in
boluses: he could not swallow them ; Dr. Akenside Ordered
the nurse of the ward to discharge him, saying, “He shall
not die under my care.” In removing, the man expired.
R.
242 HAMPSTEAD.
‘One of Dr. Akenside's legs was shorter than the other;
to remedy this he wore a false heel. He had a pale, stru-
mous countenance, but was always neat and elegant. He
wore a large white wig, and a long sword. He would some-
times make some of the patients precede him with brooms,
to clear the way. Richard Chester, one of the governors,
upbraided him with his cruelty, saying, “Rinow, thou art a
servant of the charity.”
THE LORDS DELAMERE.-There are on the four sides of
an elegant altar-tomb in the church, memorials of the Booths
and of the Delameres, to whom they succeeded. The verses
on some of the children of the Right Hon. Nathaniel Booth
and his wife Margaret, have been attributed to Gilbert
Cooper, the biographer of Socrates. The title of Delamere
became extinct at the death of this Nathaniel Booth, Lord
Delamere, and was granted, with that of Warrington, to the
Earl of Stamford April 22, 1796.
DR. JoHNSON at Hampstead.—Boswell, in Wol. I. of the
illustrated edition of ‘Johnson’s Life,” p. 134, says: “In
January 1749, Johnson published “The Vanity of Human
Wishes,” being the tenth satire of Juvenal imitated. He, I
believe, composed it in the preceding year. Mrs. Johnson,
for the sake of the country air, had lodgings in Hampstead,
to which he resorted occasionally; and there the greater
part, if not the whole, of this “Imitation ” was written. The
fervid rapidity with which it was composed is scarcely
credible. I have heard him say that he composed seventy
lines of it in One day, without putting one of them upon paper
till they were finished.”
At p. 163 of the same volume, Boswell adds: “I have been
told by Mrs. Desmoulins, who, before her marriage, lived for
some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hampstead, that she indulged
| Anecdotes, Vol. I. p. 302.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 243
herself in country air and nice living at an unsuitable ex-
pense, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of
London, and that she by no means treated him with that
complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife.
But this,” says Boswell, ‘is perfectly compatible with his
fondness for her, especially when it is remembered that he
had a high opinion of her understanding, and that the im-
pressions which her beauty (real or imaginary) had origin-
ally made upon his fancy, being continued by habit, had not
been effaced, though she herself was much altered for the
worse.’
She was much beyond his own age. He married her in
1736, when he was 27 years of age, and when she was 48, or
only within two years of 50 ; consequently, at her death, in
1752, when he was 43, she was 64. --
Park says, the house at which Dr. Johnson used to lodge,
as mentioned above, was the last house in Frognal, south-
ward, occupied in Park’s time by Benjamin Charles Stephen-
son, Esq., F.S.A.
JAMES PITT, ESQ.—Pitt lived in London, but was buried
here. He had a periodical paper in favour of Sir Robert
Walpole, and is supposed to be the person alluded to in the
* Dunciad” as ‘Mather Osborne,’ from his signature of
Osborne in the ‘London Journal.” He was appointed Sur-
veyor of Tobacco in 1731. Some letters of his are printed
in Dr. Howard’s ‘Collection.”
JAMES MACARDELL, a mezzotint engraver of great excel-
lence, had a memorial-stone in the churchyard at one time.
He undertook to engrave the Gallery of Beauties at Windsor,
but only executed those of the Countess of Grammont and
Mrs. Middleton. His numerous works were chiefly portraits.
CHARLES SPOONER, a fellow-pupil of MacArdell, and also an
excellent mezzotint engraver, was buried by him.
R 2
244 HAMPSTEAD.
RICHARD CROMWELL, Esq.-This gentleman was a lawyer,
in Chancery Lane, who died at Hampstead December 1, 1759.
He was a direct descendant of the Protector, being the ninth
son of Major Henry Cromwell, and grandson of Henry, Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland. He was born at Hackmey, May 11,
1695. He had several children, but his two sons dying
without heirs, his daughters became wealthy, and two of
them, Eliza and Letitia, possessed the manor of Theobalds, in
Hertfordshire, formerly the property of Cecil, Lord Salisbury,
Minister to James I., and where James was fond of staying."
These ladies possessed the armour, medicine chest, and
many other valuables and curious things of their great ances-
tor, the Protector, with portraits of many of the family.
They were much esteemed by those who had the honour
of their friendship.” They were both buried at Hamp-
stead, Letitia in November, 1789, and Eliza in October, 1792.
The rest of the family were interred in the Bunhill Fields
Cemetery.
JAMES NEWNHAM, a lieutenant in the Duke of Marlborough’s
Own regiment, and who had a ball through his thigh at the
Battle of Blenheim, was buried at Hampstead in 1773, aged
102 years.
DR. ANTHONY ASKEW.—Amongst the many men of merit
who have resided, more or less, in Hampstead, was Dr.
Askew, who died there on the 27th of February, 1774, aged
52 years. Dr. Askew was the son of Dr. Adam Askew, who
enjoyed a great reputation as a physician at Newcastle-on-
Tyne. He was born at Kendal, in Westmoreland, com-
menced his education at Sedbergh-School, and completed
it at Cambridge and Leyden. He practised originally at
Cambridge, but seems to have been introduced to London,
| See ‘History of England.’ - -
* See ‘Noble's Memoirs of the Cromwell Family,’ 1784, 8vo. Vol. I. p. 295.
BIOGRAPHICAL IN OTICES. 245
and zealously recommended there by Dr. Mead. He had
been at Constantinople in attendance on the British Am-
bassador. He was chiefly noted for his collection of classical
works, which were sold at his death. Nichols says that his
collection of Greek and Latin works was one of the best,
rarest, and most valuable ever sold in Great Britain: con-
taining many noble volumes from the libraries of De Boze,
Gaignat, Mead, Folkes, and the Harleian.
JOHN HARRISON, THE CHRONOMETER MAKER.—On his tomb-
Stone stands:—“In memory of Mr. John Harrison, late of
Red Lion Square, London, inventor of the time-keeper for
ascertaining the longitude at sea.” He was born at Foulby,
in the county of York, and was the son of a builder at that
place, who brought him up to the same profession. Before
he attained to the age of 21, he, without any instruction,
employed himself in cleaning and repairing clocks and
watches, and made a few of the former, chiefly of wood.
At the age of 25, he employed the whole of his time in h
chronometrical improvements. He was the inventor of the
gridiron pendulum, and the method of preventing the effects
of heat and cold upon time-keepers, by two bars fixed toge-
ther. He introduced the secondary spring, to keep them
going while winding-up, and was the inventor of most, or
all the improvements in clocks and watches during his time.
In the year 1735, his first time-keeper was sent to Lisbon;
and in 1764, his then much-improved fourth time-keeper
having been sent to Barbadoes, the Commissioners of Longi-
tude certified that it had determined the longitude within
one-third of half a degree of a great circle, not having erred
more than forty seconds in time. After 60 years’ close
application to the above pursuit, he departed this life on the
24th day of March, 1776, aged 73 years.
MR. Is AAC WARE, THE ARCHITECT.-As already observed,
246 HAMPSTEATD.
|Park says, that this gentleman lived at the house called
Frognal Hall, on the west side of Hampstead Church.
Mr. Ware translated “Palladio’s Architecture from the
Italian, and ‘Senagatti’s Perspective; ” he also published a
* Complete Body of Architecture,” which we shall see that
Thomas Day, author of ‘Sandford and Merton,’ studied to
his cost. He translated and edited “Palladio’s First Book
On the Five Orders.”
LADY JANETTA DE CONTI.—There is a tomb in the church-
yard bearing this inscription :-‘To the memory of the Right
Hon. Lady Janetta de Conti, eldest daughter of the Right
|Hon. Cosimo Conti de Conti, a noble Tuscan by birth, and
Knight of the Holy Roman Empire, by Janetta, his wife, the
only daughter of the late Robert White, Esq., of the family of
Lord Rollo, and His Majesty’s agent at the city and kingdom
of Tripoli in Africa, by Jean Mackenzie, his wife, of the
families of the Earls of Ross and Seaforth. This young lady
was born in the city and kingdom of Tripoli, in Africa, on the
8th of January 1759, and died at Hampstead, in the county of
Middlesex, in Great Britain, the 18th of July 1780. Mild in
her temper, gentle in her manner, in public company easy,
polite, and reserved ; with her friends open, cheerful, and
gay; highly accomplished in music, strongly attached to the
improvement of her mind by reading, and mistress in speech
and writing of the Italian, English, and French. This truly
accomplished and amiable young lady died in her 21st year,
and this monument is erected by her affectionate parents
and inconsolable grandmother, the 30th of April, 1784.”
JENNY DIVER, THE PICKPOCKET.— March . . . 1783, died
at Hampstead, Miss West, the motorious female pickpocket,
and accomplice of Barrington ; for many years celebrated by
the appellation of the Modern Jenny Diver. She was said to
have bequeathed nearly 2,000l. to her two children, the
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 24,7
eldest of whom was born in Clerkenwell Bridewell, previous
to her mother's being removed to Newgate under sentence of
a year’s imprisonment for picking a pocket in a room over
Exeter Change, while the body of Lord Baltimore was lying
there in state.”
MR. THOMAS LONGMAN.—Mr. Thomas Longman, book-
seller and publisher, of Paternoster Row, died at Hampstead
February 5, 1797, and was buried at Barnet. Nichols, in his
‘Literary Anecdotes, vi. 439, gives him this character :-
‘He was a man of the most exemplary character, both in his
professional and private life, and universally esteemed for
his benevolence as for his integrity.’
His son, Thomas Longman, Esq., was the father of the
present publishers of that name. He was killed by a fall
from his horse in returning from London One evening.
ADMIRAL BARTON.—See an engraving of his house in
Malcolm’s ‘Tllustrations of Lysons’ “Environs.” -
In June 1756, this gentleman was captain of the ‘Lich-
field,’ and captured the Arc-en-ciel, a French ship of fifty
tons, off Louisburgh. In November 1758, he was Admiral in
Reppel’s squadron ordered against Goree. He was wrecked
On the coast of Barbary, and managed to live, though he and
his crew were quite naked, on a few drowned sheep that
were driven ashore. After enduring eighteen months’ slavery,
he was ransomed by Government. In 1760 he commanded
the ‘Téméraire,” in Admiral Keppel’s Squadron sent against
Belleisle, and successfully commanded the flat-bottomed boats
at the landing. He became Rear-Admiral of the Blue in
1777, in 1778 of the same rank in the White. He was after-
wards appointed Vice-Admiral, and finally, Admiral of the
Blue and the White. º
DR. GEORGE ARMSTRONG, the poet, practised medicine for
some years at Hampstead. Armstrong is best known by his
248 EIAMPSTEAD.
poem, ‘The Art of Preserving Health,’ the principles of
which the wealthy members of the present luxurious style of
society might adopt with great advantage. He made the
tour of Italy with Fuseli, the painter, and finally settled in
London, where he associated with the chief wits and poets of
the age. He contributed to Thomson’s ‘Castle of Indolence’
the beautiful stanzas descriptive of the diseases resulting
from indolence. He died in 1779.
MRs. MARY GREEN, a descendant of the founders of
Wadham College, has a flat gravestone in the churchyard,
with the date 1789. Her husband, Walentine Green, was
keeper of the British Institution in Pall Mall, and author of
a ‘History of Worcester,’ and a “Review of the Polite Arts
in France,’ 1782. He was an eminent mezzotinto engraver.
RICHARD PEPPER ARDEN, LORD ALVANLEY, lived at Frognal
Hall, the large house immediately west of Hampstead Church,
afterwards inhabited by Mr. Ware the architect and Mr.
Thomas Wilson. Lord Alvanley was descended from a Che-
shire family, an ancient one of the Ardennes. He was Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas. He died March 19, 1804, and
was buried at London in the Rolls Chapel.
SIR FRANCIS DELAVAL.-Sir Francis Blake Delaval, of
Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, had a house at Hamp-
stead. Sir Francis was the last but one male individual of
that distinguished family who had been remarkable for the
gaiety and freedom of their lives for generations. The last
Lord Delaval had a large family of sons and daughters, yet,
by many of the sons not marrying, and, as it were, by a
fatality, the family became extinct in the last generation, in
the male line, in the person of Edward Hussey Delaval.
After Lord Delaval, his brother Sir Francis succeeded to the
estate, but leaving no heir, it went to Edward Hussey
Delaval, and thence into the female line. The daughters of
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 249
Lord Delaval were very handsome, very gay, and fond not
only of theatricals, but of all sorts of disguises and extra-
ordinary frolics. One of them married Lord Tyrconnel, and
their only daughter was the mother of the late Marquis of
Waterford, from which source we directly trace the fondness
for such escapades which distinguished his lordship. At
Ford Castle, in Northumberland, belonging to the Waterford
family, there is a portrait of Lady Tyrconnel, which shows
what an arch and lovely creature she must have been. She
had hair of such rich luxuriance that when she rode it
floated on the saddle. The Delavals were so fond of thea-
tricals that once, by permission of Garrick, the whole family
acted on the boards of Drury Lane.
Sir Francis, during his possession of the estate, kept up
the character of the race for gaiety and frolic. He was re-
markably handsome, and possessed abilities which, had they
been seriously applied, would have given him a better dis-
tinction. He was in Parliament, and so great an authority
in all racing matters, that the Duke of Queensberry, Lords
Eglinton and Effingham, Mr. Thynne, Colonel Breton, and
other leading members of the Turf Club, consulted him on
their betting speculations, and never were deceived.
At Seaton Delaval, during his time, all sorts of fêtes,
jollifications, theatricals, and dissipated life went on. Sam
Foote was a great companion of Sir Francis, and assisted
him in many tricks and follies. On one occasion they set
up as conjurors in Leicester Fields, with the design of
catching, for Sir Francis, Lady Nassau Paulet, a widow with
90,000l., amongst the silly moths of fashion who would be
drawn to their web of mystery. In this they succeeded;
and Sir Francis, though he did not live long, yet lived long
enough to spend the whole of her fortune.
Amongst Sir Francis's acquaintances was Richard Lovell
250 HAMPSTEAD.
Edgeworth, the father of Maria Edgeworth. Lovell Edge-
worth was, as his Life by his daughter shows, very fond of
mechanics, and was a great friend of Watt, Boulton, Wedg-
wood, and Dr. Darwin. Amongst his mechanical hobbies was
an improved system of telegraphing. This he strongly urged
on the Government during the great French war, but without
receiving much encouragement. In Ireland, however, he was
permitted partially to try it, and, according to his account,
with great success. He proposed to Sir Francis, at whose
house, he says, he saw more of the world in six weeks than he
could possibly have seen elsewhere in as many years, a plan by
which, through telegraphing, they could, if they pleased, fleece
the betters of Newmarket to a vast extent. Sir Francis was
delighted with the scheme, and, had it extended no further
than a capital joke, would have gone into it heart and soul.
One telegraphic experiment they however carried out—
the occasion of its mention here. They set up a night
telegraph, with illuminated figures or signals, between Sir
Francis's house at Hampstead and one which Mr. Edge-
worth frequented in Great Russell Street. This nocturnal
telegraph, Edgeworth reports to have answered well, but was
too expensive for common use. Which was the house occu-
pied or possessed by Sir Francis Delaval at Hampstead I
have not been able to ascertain.
THOMAS DAY, AUTHOR OF • SANDFORD AND MERTON.”
—This eccentric, but noble-minded man, whose story of
‘Sandford and Merton’ has charmed successive generations
of youth, and it is to be hoped has infused into their minds
some of his pure and correct modes of thinking, occupied
a house somewhere at Hampstead for a time. His friend
Lovell Edgeworth says, on his marriage with Miss Milnes,
a lady of large fortune of Yorkshire, they retired to a small
lodging at Hampstead, where he determined to reside till
BIOGRAPHICAT, NOTICES. 251
he should find a house suited to his taste. Mr. Day was
himself a man of fortune, but, as is well known, he had
views of human life and its duties, which made him less
regardful of wealth and station than of the exercise of inde-
pendent and liberal principles. Determined not to marry a
mere woman of fashion, he educated two poor girls, in the
hope of finding in one of them a consort suited to his ideas
of what a woman should be. The experiment was a failure,
and Mr. Day continued to middle life a bachelor. He hesi-
tated to unite himself to Miss Milnes for some time, on
account of her fortune, but his friend Dr. Small advised him
to despise the fortune and take the lady, and he adopted
this wise recommendation, much to his own happiness.
His taking the small house at Hampstead was in order to
be at some distance from his friends, and also to avoid being
drawn into the usual modes of life followed by people of his
wealth and standing. The readers of ‘Sandford and Merton’
can imagine what were his reasonings on this head. Miss
Milnes, who was not only rich but highly accomplished, fell
with the utmost readiness into his motions and plans. Mr.
Edgeworth says:–
“My wife’—the celebrated Honora Sneyd, to whom the
unfortunate Major André had been attached—‘ and I went
to see the new married couple at Hampstead. It was the
depth of winter; the ground was covered with snow, and to
our great surprise we found Mrs. Day walking with her
husband on the Heath, wrapped up in a frieze cloak, and her
feet well fortified with thick shoes. We had always heard
that Mrs. Day was particularly delicate; but now she gloried
in rude health, or rather was proud of having followed her
husband’s advice about her health—advice which, in this
respect, was undoubtedly excellent.
‘I never saw any woman so entirely intent upon accom-
252 HAMPSTEAD.
modating herself to the sentiments and wishes and will of a
husband. Notwithstanding this disposition, there was still
a never-failing flow of discussion between them. From the
deepest political investigation, to the most frivolous circum-
stance of daily life, Mr. Day found something to descant
upon ; and Mrs. Day was nothing loath to support, upon every
subject, an opinion of her own ; thus combining, in an
unusual manner, independence of sentiment and the most
complete matrimonial obedience. In all this there may be
something at which even a friend might smile ; but in the
whole of their conduct there was nothing which the most
malignant enemy could condemn.
‘Mr. Day,” continues Mr. Edgeworth, “remained some
time at Hampstead, being in no haste to purchase a house ;
as he thought that by living in inconvenient lodgings, where
he was not known, and consequently not visited by anybody
except his chosen few, he should accustom his bride to those
modes of life which he conceived to be essential to his
happiness.” *
He afterwards bought a house and small estate, called
Stapleford-Abbot, near Alridge, in Essex, to which he pro-
ceeded to make additions. He bought at a stall ‘Ware's
Architecture,” the work of the Mr. Ware who, Park says,
lived at Frognal Hall. This he read with persevering in-
dustry for three or four weeks, before he began his opera-
tions; and, though he had now left Hampstead, we may as
well see the result, as characteristic of the man :—‘ Masons
calling for Supplies of various sorts, which had not been Sug-
gested in the great “Body of Architecture,” Ware’s work, that
he had procured with so much care, annoyed the young builder
exceedingly. Sills, lintels, door and window-cases, were
wanting before they had been thought of; and the carpen-
ter, to whose presence he had looked forward, but at a distant
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 253
period, was now summoned, and hastily set to work to keep
the masons a-going. Mr. Day was deep in a treatise, written
by some French agriculturist, to prove that any soil may be
rendered fertile by sufficient ploughing, when the mason desired
to know where he would have the window of the new room
On the first floor. I was present at the question, and offered
to assist my friend. No ; he sat immovable in his chair,
and gravely demanded of the mason whether the wall might
not be built first, and a place for the window cut out after-
wards. The mason stared at Mr. Day with an expression of
the most unfeigned surprise. “Why, Sir, to be sure, it is
very possible; but I believe, Sir, it is more common to put
in the window-cases while the house is building, and not
afterwards.” -
“Mr. Day, however, with great coolness, ordered the wall
to be built without any openings for windows, which was
done accordingly; and the addition which was made to the
house was actually finished, leaving the room, which was in-
tended as a dressing-room for Mrs. Day, without any window
whatsoever. When it was sufficiently dry, the room was
papered; and for some time candles were lighted in it when-
ever it was used. So it remained for two or three years;
afterwards, Mr. Day used it as a lumber-room ; and at last
the house was sold, without any window having been opened
in this apartment.” -
This remarkable but eccentric man was killed a few years
after this date in following Out one of his humane ideas.
He had observed that horses were often treated with much
brutality by common horse-breakers. He therefore under-
took the breaking of one himself. It took fright at some
one winnowing corn near the road, plunged, threw him on
his head, and killed him instantly.
* “Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth, p. 223.
254 HAMPSTEAD.
ROMNEY, THE PAINTER.—Romney, the celebrated por-
trait, ideal, and historic painter, lived some years at
Hampstead; but it was not till he began to feel the
approaches of old age, and the satiety of his miscel-
laneous labours on the portraits of the aristocracy, and
the scenes of Milton and Shakspeare. His house, in Caven-
dish Square, had been crowded with fashionable sitters and
loungers; he had there painted over and over the peerless
beauty of the time—Emma Lyon, the more celebrated Lady
Hamilton, and fascinator of Nelson. He had made his
summer flights to Eartham, and conversed at the house of
Hayley with the poet Cowper, Miss Seward, Charlotte
Smith, and others of that time. Amongst his sitters he
had seen Flaxman, Warren Hastings, Mrs. Fitzherbert,
Lord Thurlow, and most of the ministers of State; the
archbishops, and many dukes and nobles; John Wesley,
Mrs. Tighe, Mrs. Jordan, Chatham, Bishop Porteus, Paley,
T}r. Parr, Bishop Watson, and Thomas Paine—certainly a
grand variety of characters. His house was now crowded
with finished, and, still more, with unfinished paintings; but,
though thus full of his works, was uncheered by the presence
of his excellent and affectionate wife, whom, from his first
coming to London from his native north (he was a native of
Beckside, near Dalton, Lancashire), he had never invited to
join him. In this condition, full of fame and wealth, but
not of self-satisfaction, he fancied that what he needed was
an ample gallery for his paintings in a quieter scene. ‘This
structure,” says Allan Cunningham, ‘ he determined to build
within a few miles of London; and, true to the character
assigned him by Hayley, of obeying impulses, he forthwith
purchased the ground, lined out the site, and began to draw
the plans. He was not the first nor the last of our eminent
artists whose love of brick and mortar proved a source
BIOGRAPHICAL IN OTICES. 255
of amusement to their friends, and disquietude to them-
selves.”
Romney was now 60 years of age, and evidently not the
man he had been. Old friends were dying off, and leaving
the shadows of their memory on his sensitive mind. Yet
this same mind was teeming with magnificent designs.
Writing to Hayley, he says:—‘I have formed a plan of
painting the “Seven Ages; ” and also the visions of Adam
with the angel; to bring in the Flood, and the opening of
the Ark, which would make six large pictures. Indeed, to
tell you the truth, I have made designs for all the pictures;
and very grand subjects they are. My plan is, if I live, and
retain my senses and sight, to paint six other subjects from
Milton—three where Satan is the hero, and three from Adam
and Eve—perhaps six of each. I have ideas of them all,
and, I may say, sketches; but, alas ! I cannot begin them for
a year or two ; and if my name was mentioned, I should hear
nothing but abuse, and that I cannot bear. Fear has always
been my enemy; my nerves are now too weak for supporting
anything in public.’ -
And now several events occurred which shook still more
his shattered nerves. Gibbon, the historian, whom he
knew and esteemed, died unexpectedly, exclaiming, “Mon
Dieu !—bon Dieu !” and Cowper, whom he loved next to
Hayley, had fallen once more into his most melancholy and
despairing insanity. He sought relief from his own feelings
under these losses in the Isle of Wight, and in Hampshire;
and the meeting with Warton, the poet, who praised warmly
his cartoons in chalk, illustrating the ‘Persians’ of Æschylus,
and the return of Flaxman from Rome, greatly restored
his spirits for a time. Hayley had also discovered a ‘Cor-
reggio and a ‘Salvator Rosa' at Teddington, and drove
him out to see them ; and the view of them seemed to act as
256 |HAMPSTEAT).
a cordial to him. But there were causes, T imagine, in his
constitution at this period, which soon overpowered these
temporary amenities. We find Allan Cunningham thus speak-
ing of him in 1797:—‘The strange new studio and dwelling-
house, which he had planned and raised at Hampstead, had
an influence on his studies, his temper, and his health. He
had expended a year, and a sum of 2,733l. On an odd and
whimsical structure, in which there was nothing like domes-
tic accommodation, though there was a wooden arcade for a
riding-house in the garden, and a very extensive picture and
statue gallery. The moment the plasterers and joiners had
ceased working, before the walls were even half dry, this
impatient man of genius had bade farewell to Cavendish
Square, after a residence there of 21 years; and, arranging
his pictures and statues in his new gallery, and setting up
his easels for commencing the historical compositions for
which all this travail had been undergone, imagined that a
new hour of glory was come.
“A new hour had indeed come ; but it was of a darker
kind. To those not intimate with Romney he still appeared
vigorous in frame, and strong in mind, and likely to reach
an advanced age in full possession of all his faculties. He
was now some sixty-four years old, and had acquired a high
name; was rich enough to please himself in his mode of life,
and master of his own time, and of a gallery which combined
the treasures of ancient art with some of the best of the
modern. All that seemed wanting now was for the painter
to dip his brush in historical colours, and give a visible
existence to some of those magnificent pictures with which
his imagination teemed. He set up his easels, put his
colours in Order, and then, stretching himself on a sofa,
gazed down upon London, which, with its extensive roofs
and numerous domes and spires, lay far and wide before
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 257
him. The old demon of nervous dejection had waited for
the moment of apparent satisfaction and opening glory, to
stoop Once more on his prey. Hayley heard of his condition,
and, though needing consolation himself, from the illness of
a promising son, he hastened to see him. “I found Romney,’
says the poet, ‘much dejected in his new mansion on the
hill of Hampstead, for want of occupation and society; I
advised him to employ himself a little with his pencil, and
offered to sit with him merely for his amusement. He began
a head—the first attempted in his new painting-room—and,
though his hand shook a little, yet he made a very creditable
beginning, and thus pleased himself. The next morning he
advanced his sketch more happily, as the very effort of
beginning to work again, under the encouragement of an old
friend, seemed to have done him great good.’
But the effect was only temporary. Hayley, after several
visits, and much laudable exertion to cheer his friend, found
that his constitution and his mind were really sinking to-
gether. In another visit by Hayley, in April of 1799, the
ravages of the internal enemy were much more Sadly apparent
on the painter. In the summer of that year, Romney could
neither enjoy the face of nature, nor feel pleasure in his
studio and gallery; he had made a grand mistake in thus
quitting London, with its society and excitements, as a soli-
tary man. The approaches to Hampstead were then very
different from what they are in these Omnibus and railway
days. His old associates failed to reach him, and the man
who had so coolly left behind in his youth an amiable and
affectionate wife, found himself a neglected and dejected
hermit amid his artistic grandeur.
* A visible mental languor,’ says his biographer, ‘Sat upon
his brow, not diminishing but increasing. He had laid aside
his pencils; his swarms of titled sitters, whose smiles in other
S
258 HAMPSTEAD.
days rendered passing time so agreeable, had moved off to
a Lawrence, a Shee, or a Beechey ; and, thus left lonely and
disconsolate, among whole cart-loads of paintings, which he
had not the power to complete, his gloom and his weakness
gathered upon him. Hayley was at a distance, and came
not; and as the sinking man was considered a sort of enemy
or rival to the Royal Academy, few of its members appeared
to soothe or cheer him. Tn these moments his heart and
his eye turned towards the north, where his son, a man
affectionate and kind, resided; and where his wife, Surviving
the cold neglect and long estrangement of her husband,
lived yet to prove the depth of woman’s love, and show to
the world that she would have been more than worthy of
appearing at his side, even when earls sat for their pictures,
and Lady Hamilton was enabling him to fascinate princes,
with his Calypsos and Cassandras. Romney, without dis-
closing his intentions to any One, departed from Hampstead,
and, taking the northern coach, arrived among his friends at
Kendal in the summer of 1799. The exertion of travelling,
and the presence of her whom he once had warmly loved,
overpowered him ; he grew more languid and more weak,
and, finding fireside happiness—to which all other human
joy is but casual or weak—he resolved to remain where he
was, purchased a house, and authorised the sale of that on
Hampstead Hill, which had cost him so much in peace and
purse.
Such is the melancholy narrative of George Romney’s five
years’ residence at Hampstead. It was as happy as that of a
man deserved to be, who deserted a wife whom he professed
warmly to love, in the early years of their marriage, paid
her only two visits in thirty years, and then fled to her for
comfort when the rest of the world, amid fame and riches,
could afford him none. The house which he built, and thus
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 259
inhabited, I am informed stood on Windmill Hill, but the
gallery has been pulled down. It is most probably the
house standing in a garden just behind Bolton House, the
one inhabited by Joanna Baillie.
The story of his after-life is soon told. His admirable
wife received him without a reproach, and nursed him with
tender assiduity. In his letters he spoke of her attentions
in terms of the tenderest gratitude. In the soothing care of
this noble consort, and the affection of their son, Romney
continued to sink. In 1800 his brother, Colonel Romney, to
whom he was much attached, arrived from abroad; but he
scarcely recognised him, burst into a flood of tears, and
then forgot both him and all else that he loved in the world.
He died on November 15, 1802, when nearly sixty-eight
years of age, at Kendal, but was buried at Dalton, his native
place.
The works of Romney, finished and unfinished, are ex-
tremely numerous. His portraits of distinguished persons
alone amount to nearly forty. He painted Lady Hamilton
fourteen times, in various characters—Iphigenia, St. Cecilia,
Cassandra, Calypso, Joan of Arc, a Pythian princess, &c.
Of unfinished subjects from Milton, Shakspeare, Spenser,
classical mythology and common life, the list is thirty-eight.
Part of these were presented by his son to the Fitzwilliam
Museum at Cambridge, and the rest to the Liverpool Insti-
tution. Of the character of his paintings we cannot give a
more correct or just idea than that drawn of it by Flaxman :—
* His compositions, like those of the ancient pictures and
basso-rilievos, told their story by a single group of figures in
the front; while the background is made the simplest pos-
sible, rejecting all unnecessary episode and trivial Ornament,
either of secondary groups or architectural subdivision. In
his compositions the beholder was forcibly struck by the
S 2
260 HAMPSTEAD.
sentiment at the first glance, the gradations and varieties of
which he traced through several characters, all conceived in
an elevated spirit of dignity and beauty, with a lively ex-
pression of nature in all the parts. His heads were various:
the male were decided and grand, the female lovely; his
figures resembled the antique: the limbs were elegant and
finely formed; his drapery was well understood, either
forming the figure into a mass, with one or two deep folds
only, or, by its adhesion and transparency, discovering the
form of the figure, the lines of which were finely varied with
the union of spiral or cascade folds, composing with, or con-
trasting, the outline and chiaro-oscuro. Few artists, since
the fifteenth century, have been able to do so much in so
many different branches; for besides his beautiful composi-
tions and pictures, which have added to the knowledge and
celebrity of the English school, he modelled like a sculptor,
carved ornaments in wood with great delicacy, and could
make an ornamental design in a fine taste, as well as con-
struct every part of the building.’
MRs. TIERNEY, the mother of the once popular member of
Parliament, the Hon. George Tierney, has a tablet to her
memory in the south aisle of the church. Probably this
tablet was erected by her daughter, who married Abraham
Robarts, Esq., of North-End, partner in the house of Robarts,
Curtis, Robarts, and Curtis, bankers. Date 1806.
MRS. DOROTHEA BAILLIE, widow of the Rev. James Baillie,
Brofessor of Divinity at Glasgow, and mother of Dr. Matthew
Baillie and of Joanna Baillie, the poetess, died at Hampstead
September 29, 1806. -
T)AME JOANNA WATSON, AND CHIEF JUSTICE WATSON.—
Dame Watson was the relict of Sir James Watson, who
succeeded Sir William Jones as Chief Justice of India.
Dame Watson died at Hampstead, May 7, 1811.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 261
The fortunes of this Chief Justice Watson are worth re-
cording. He was the son of a Dissenting minister in South-
wark, and was educated for the same profession. He became
pastor of a little Dissenting flock at Gosport, but grievously
Offended their sanctity by handing a young lady across the
street, who was not one of his congregation. Probably this
was the lady whom he afterwards married, a Miss Burgess;
for we are told that his father-in-law insisted that he should
leave so fanatical a flock, and devote himself to the law,
which he did with such success that, through the influence
of his father-in-law with Lord Mansfield, he rose rapidly,
became M.P. for Bedford, greatly distinguished himself on
the board of directors of the India House, and finally suc-
ceeded to the judicial seat of the celebrated Sir William
Jones, as Chief Justice of India. The little rigid flock of
Gosport Dissenters must have gazed in wonder at the soar-
ing rise of their snubbed and catechised young pastor.
WILLIAM COLLINS, THE PAINTER.—Amongst the various
eminent artists who have added to the historic interest of
Hampstead by residing in it, we find the celebrated William
Collins, the painter of ‘The Sale of the Pet-Lamb,” “May
Day,’ ‘The Bird-Catchers,’ ‘The Fisherman’s Departure,’
‘The Prawn Fisher,’ and a host of inimitable sea-side and
rural pictures; the friend of Sir David Wilkie, and the
father of the present great novelist—in whose name those of
the two famous painter-friends unite—Wilkie Collins.
Collins, according to family tradition, descended from the
same stock as Collins the poet. His father was a picture-
dealer. One of Collins’s earlier pictures was ‘The Bird-
Catchers; ” and we are told that he used to go out into the
fields, sometimes into the Regent’s Park, to study the LOn-
don bird-catchers and all their apparatus; and that he
finished the landscape of the piece by study of Hampstead
262 HAMPSTEAD.
Beath. As fame and interruptions grew upon him, he took
a cottage at Hampstead in 1823, when he was about thirty-
five, living quietly there with his wife, and studying the
scenery of the neighbourhood to his heart’s content. In
earlier life he had rambled about this neighbourhood and
Highgate with George Morland, and this, no doubt, had
given him a great liking for it. In fact, we find, when com-
mencing his career, as a boy, he would fly off to Hampstead
in any artistic difficulty, and conquer it by a close and
mechanical delineation of grass, trees, leaves, or whatever
was the subject which puzzled him. His first introduction
to Morland is thus related by his son, Mr. Wilkie Collins:–
‘On being told by his father that Morland was in the house,
he opened the kitchen door by a sort of instinct, and looked
cautiously in. On two old chairs, placed by the Smouldering
fire, sat, or rather lolled, two men, both sunk in the heavy
sleep of intoxication. The only light in the room was a
small rush candle, which imperfectly displayed the forms of
the visitors. One, in spite of the ravages of dissipation, was
still a remarkably handsome man, both in figure and face.
The other was of immense stature and strength, coarse, and
almost brutal in appearance. The first was George Mor-
land; the second, a celebrated prize-fighter of the day, who
was the painter’s chosen companion at the time.” We shall
soon see Morland at the ‘Bull’ inn at Highgate, selling
there his pictures for his entertainment ; and his habits of
life—rambling, painting, and drinking—are well known.
Notwithstanding, William Collins had such a reverence for
the man, on account of his genius, that when Morland died,
in 1804, and Collins was consequently sixteen, he attended
his funeral in the burial-ground of St. James’s Chapel,
Hampstead Road; and after the people were gone, he thrust
his stick into the wet earth as far as it would go, carried it
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 263
carefully home, and when it was dry, varnished it. ‘He kept
it,” says Mr. Kirton, one of his friends, “as long as I knew
him, and had much veneration for it.”
With this John Kirton, as a youth, he used to ramble,
accompanied often by his father and his brother, Francis
Collins, from Highgate to Willesden; and Collins was always
looking out for bits of scenery a la Morland. When the
others were ahead, they would call out, ‘Bill, here’s another
sketch for Morland,” which was sure to bring him up. They
went to the public-house where Morland painted the sign,
to eat bread and cheese, and drink porter; and they clam-
bered over hedges, ditches, and brick-fields, to look at the
yard where Morland used to keep his pigs, rabbits, &c., and
where Morland used to give him lessons.
When Collins settled at Hampstead he was in the zenith
of his fame, and acquainted with nearly all the eminent
painters of the time, as well as the great patrons of Art.
Leslie, Howard, Wilkie, Danby, Sir Thomas Lawrence,
Washington Allston, were amongst his intimate friends;
amongst literary men, James Smith, of the ‘Rejected Ad-
dresses,’ Bernard Barton, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey ;
amongst his earnest patrons were Sir Thomas Heathcote, his
earliest and best; Sir George Beaumont, Lords Liverpool,
Lansdowne, De Tabley, Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of New-
castle, the Prince Regent, &c. He had already visited
Devonshire, the Lakes, Scotland, so that he had seen a con-
siderable variety of scenery. Before settling at Hampstead
he had spent the Summers there, and at Hendon, whence he
used to run over to Highgate to see Coleridge, whose gifted
daughter, Sara, he had made a charming portrait of at
Southey's, and where he found continually some of the
famous men of the time, who assembled there to hear the
poet’s wonderful talk. Amongst these was Edward Irving.
264 HAMPSTEAD,
Great, and deservedly great, as was Coleridge's reputation,
we find him complaining, like Beethoven, that in the midst
of his fame he was solitary. ‘God knows,’ he says, in a
letter to Collins, “I have so few friends, that it would be un-
pardonable in me not to feel proportionably grateful towards
those who do not think the time wasted in which they interest
themselves on my behalf. There is an old Latin adage—
“Wis videri pauper, et pauper es”—Poor you profess your-
self to be, and poor, therefore, you are, and will remain. The
prosperous feel only with the prosperous; and if you sub-
tract from the whole sum of their feeling for all the gratifi-
cations of vanity, and all their calculations of lending to the
Lord, both of which are best answered by conferring of their
superfluities on advertised and advertisable distress, or on
such as are known to be in all respects their inferiors, you
will have, I fear, but a scanty remainder.” All this is too
true ; but then, what is that man to do whom no distress can
bribe to swindle or deceive, who cannot reply, as Theophilus
Cibber did to his father, Colley Cibber, who, seeing him in a
rich suit of clothes, whispered to him as he passed, “The.,
The., I pity thee!’ ‘Pity me ! pity my tailor!'
Collins dates from North-End, Hampstead, where Wilkie
describes his house as a beautiful cottage, and from Hamp-
stead Green. He afterwards removed to another house, a
large one near the Heath. During his residence at Hamp-
stead, he made excursions to Boulogne, and into Belgium
and Holland. Amongst the pictures painted here, the chief
were—‘Stirling Castle;’ ‘The Cherry Seller;’ “Scene at
Tuvy Castle;’ ‘Buckland, on the River Dart; Kitly,
Devon;” “Fishermen getting out their Nets;’ ‘Buying Fish
on the Beach;’ ‘Prawn Fishers at Hastings; ” “The Fisher-
man’s Departure ;’ ‘Young Shrimp Catchers;’ the celebrated
“Frost Scene, painted for Sir Robert Peel; “Mornin g after a
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 265
Storm;’ ‘Summer Moonlight;” “Fisher Children.” After his
visit to Boulogne, “Les Causeuses;’ ‘Waiting the Arrival of
Fishing Boats; ' ' Coast of France,’ and ‘Muscle Gatherers.”
“Amongst his difficulties in prosecuting his art here,’ his
biographer says, “ was that of obtaining a sight of a real
pillion. Among the figures introduced in his composition
of the “Frost Scene,” were a man and woman mounted on a
pillion—(or rather, I should imagine, a saddle and pillion).
All Hampstead was ransacked without success for this old-
fashioned article of travelling equipment; and the painter—
determined, even in the minor accessories of his picture, to
trust to nothing but nature—had begun to despair of finish-
ing his group, when a lady volunteered to hunt out a pillion
for him, in the neighbourhood of Hackney, where she lived.
Nor, when she had procured it, did she remain satisfied with
simply obtaining the model. When the painter arrived to see
it, he found her ready to demonstrate its use. Her gardener
hired an old horse, strapped on the pillion, and mounted it.
[Mounted into the saddle, no doubt, in front of the pillion.
It is clear that the biographer never saw the saddle and
pillion, as I remember them well in use, having often ridden
with a lady behind me on a pillion.] His mistress placed
herself in the proper position, behind; the complete series
of models, however, animal and mechanical, remaining at
the painter's disposal until he had made a careful study of
the whole. The group thus completed, was one of the most
admired in the picture for its fidelity to nature.”
At Hampstead his two sons were born. The after-life
of Collins does not belong to Hampstead, which he quitted
in 1830, taking a house at Bayswater. I may close my
notice of this great artist and genuine lover of nature, by
observing, that from the list of his works given by his son
at the end of his Life, Collins, in the course of forty years,
266 HAMPSTEAD.
produced 220 pictures, which sold for about 35,000l., besides
water-colour pieces, and between seven and eight hundred
drawings, studies, and sketches, which were sold by auction
by Christie and Manson after his death. Probably he made
in all about 40,000l., or about 1,500l. a year for that time.
Those paintings would now fetch double the price, I should
imagine.
SIR DAVID WILKIE.—Sir David was not a resident in
Hampstead, but on One occasion a visitor there in search
of health. We must not, therefore, say more about him,
or his well-known works, further than the mere record of
this little episode in his life demands. In September, 1810,
Sir David, having been much out of health, was recom-
mended by his physician, Dr. Matthew Baillie, to take
lodgings in the clear air of Hampstead for a while. As
Dr. Baillie’s mother and sisters had resided there many
years, he was well acquainted with the healthy character of
this retreat. Joanna Baillie and her sister Agnes, with
their usual kindness, offered Sir David the use of their house
during a proposed absence of three months. This offer was
accepted by him. But as the house of his friends was not
at liberty so soon as he wished to get there, he went into
lodgings, and during that time, no doubt, it was that he had
lodgings on Hampstead Green. On the 12th of September,
we find Sir David entering on the Misses Baillie’s house on
Windmill Hill, which he says was provided with every com-
fort, and was in a pleasant part of the town; that they
had left their servants to attend him, a number of books to
read, and had not forgotten, besides, some jelly, marmalade,
and Scotch cheese. With all these, he says, “I have such
open fields to walk in, and fresh air to breathe, that I have
improved in health most wonderfully since I came here;
and I have not only the prospect of getting rid of my com-
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES, 267
plaint, but of establishing a stock of strength for the time
to come.’ Sir David lived more than thirty years after
this, and died, and was buried the same day, at sea, on his
return from Constantinople, in Gibraltar Bay, on June 11,
1841.
John CoNSTABLE.—Constable, a disciple of Gainsborough
and Wilson, was fond of Hampstead, and one of his paintings
of the Heath is considered by Pilkington to be the loveliest
that he ever executed. A thunderstorm is rushing over it,
and driving a group of gipsies, with their asses and panniers,
and tawny children, to the rough shelter of a gravel-pit.
Constable, according to the inscription on his tomb, at
the bottom south-east corner of Hampstead Churchyard,
was born in 1776, at East Berghold, in Suffolk, and not at
Farringdon, as stated in the memoir of him in Bryan’s
“Dictionary of Painters.’ He lived, at the latter part of his
life, at No. 6 Well Walk, according to Leslie, but by others
at No. 5. Whichever was the exact house, it is one of the
row between the Wells Tavern and the Assembly House.
Constable's mode of painting was peculiar, and his land-
Scapes have a curious spotty appearance. He neither imitated
the ancient nor the modern masters, notwithstanding his
being said to be a disciple of Wilson and Gainsborough. His
belief was that he copied only nature, but certainly he did
not do this in the peculiarity which I have mentioned. This
singularity, however, makes his pictures striking, and marks
them from all others. His skies are cloudy, and his clouds
turbulent. They are charged with thunder, lightning, and
rain; and when the shower falls, instead of verdant fresh-
ness, his trees and meadows are covered with flakes of Snow.
These traits have both their admirers and censurers. His
favourite subjects were views of water-mills, landscapes after
a shower, boats threading locks, lake scenery, moonlights,
268 HAMPSTEAD.
views of Hampstead Heath, with impending storms and
heavy showers of rain.
Constable was a Royal Academician, and in private life
was much esteemed for the good qualities of his head and
heart. He died suddenly in London, without pain, March 31,
1837. On his tomb it is stated that his wife and two children
are also interred there ; and that his eldest son died at
Jesus College, Cambridge, at the age of twenty-three, and
lies buried in the chapel of that college. Several of his
paintings are in South Kensington Museum, and one in the
National Gallery, which was purchased by some students, in
honour of his memory, and presented to it.
SIR WILLIAM BEECHEY.—‘Sir William Beechey,” says Pil-
Rington’s “Dictionary,” “ had a house at Hampstead, and died
and was buried there.” Sir William lived some time at the
house on the Upper Terrace, formerly occupied by Mr. John
Jackson, and now by Mr. Johnson, of the firm of Jean and
Johnson, London. At another time he lived at the house
of Mrs. Innes, his daughter, on Red Lion Hill, Hampstead,
now occupied by Messrs. Cock and Co., Surgeons.
Sir William was a portrait painter, a native of Burford in
Oxfordshire, born there in 1753. He became an academi.
cian, and was patronised by George III., and shared also in
the favour of the mobility, with the most eminent of his con-
temporaries in the same branch of art. He painted, in 1798,
a review of the Horse Guards, in which the portraits of
George Ill. and the Prince of Wales were introduced, and
for which he was knighted. He at one time attempted
fancy subjects; but whether he found his mind not suited to
the regions of poetry, or that the painting of good like-
nesses was more profitable, he did not pursue it with any
great ardour. He died in 1839. This is about all that
appears known of him, beyond incidental mentions in the
BIOGRAPHICAL INOTICES. 269
memoirs of contemporary artists; and I regret not to be able
to make this notice more complete.
CRABBE THE POET.-Hampstead Heatlı was for many years
a great resort of this most descriptive of all English poets.
Whenever he came to London from Trowbridge, he took up
his quarters at Mr. Samuel Hoare's, the banker. Campbell
the poet, writing to Crabbe's son and biographer, says, “The
last time I saw Crabbe was, when I dined with him at Mr.
Hoare's at Hampstead. He very kindly came with me to
the coach, to see me off, and I never pass that spot on the
top of Hampstead Heath without thinking of him.’
From Mr. Hoare’s hospitable mansion Crabbe used to
drop down conveniently to London, and circulate amongst his
great aristocratic acquaintance, amongst whom he enume-
rates the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, Earl and Countess
Spencer, the Lansdownes, Lords Strangford, Dundas, Lord
and Lady Besborough, Lord and Lady Holland, Duke and .
Duchess of Cumberland, Lord and Lady Binning, Lord
and Lady Errol, Sir Harry Englefield, Canning, Moore,
Freere, Brougham, and a vast many more of the magnates
of both rank and literature. Sometimes he stayed to sleep
at Holland House, sometimes to breakfast with Rogers.
Bowles the poet, in a letter to Crabbe's son, claims the intro-
duction of Crabbe to the ‘Hoares of Hampstead,” with whom
he was subsequently so intimate, and who contributed so
much to the happiness of all his later days. The Rev.
George Crabbe, junior, says, “During his first and second
visits to London, my father spent a good deal of his time
beneath the hospitable roof of the late Samuel Hoare, Esq.,
on Hampstead Heath. He owed his introduction to this
respectable family to his friend Mr. Bowles, and the author
of the delightful “Excursions in the West,” Mr. Warner;
and though Mr. Hoare was an invalid, and little disposed to
270 HAMPSTEAD.
form new connections, he was so much gratified with Mr.
Crabbe's manners and conversation, that their acquaintance
soon grew into an affectionate and lasting intimacy. Mr.
Crabbe in subsequent years made Hampstead his head-
quarters on his spring visits, and only repaired thence Occa-
sionally to the brilliant circles of the metropolis.”
After the death of Mr. Hoare, Crabbe became still more
attached to Mrs. Hoare and the other members of the family,
and we find him travelling with them to the Isle of Wight,
Hastings, Ilfracombe, or Clifton. At Clifton the Hoares had
a house, and there Crabbe used to domesticate himself occa-
sionally. At Hampstead he used to see Coleridge, a frequent
guest at Mr. Hoare's, Joanna Baillie, Wilberforce, Miss Edge-
worth, and Mrs. Siddons, and, dining in turn at Rogers’s,
Mr. Murray’s, his publisher, or at Holland House, could meet
Wordsworth and Southey ; on another occasion he met
Horace Smith, of the ‘Rejected Addresses who dubbed him
“Pope in worsted stockings.” In one of his letters, dated
from Hampstead, June 1825, he says, “My time passes I
cannot tell how pleasantly. To-day I read one of my long
stories to my friends, and Mrs. Joanna Baillie and her sister.
It was a task, but they encouraged me, and were, or seemed,
gratified. I rhyme at Hampstead with a great deal of
facility, for nothing interrupts me but kind calls, or some-
thing pleasant.”
The simplicity of Crabbe's character is amusingly shown
in a letter from Joanna Baillie:–“While he was staying
with Mrs. Hoare a few years since, I sent him one day the
present of a blackcock, and a message with it, that Mr.
Crabbe should look at the bird before it was delivered to the
cook, or something to that purpose. He looked at the bird, as
desired, and then went to Mrs. Hoare, in some perplexity, to
ask whether he ought not to have it stuffed, instead of eating
BIOGRAPHICAI, NOTICES, 271
it. She could not, in her own house, tell him that it was
simply intended for the larder, and he was at the trouble
and expense of having it stuffed, lest I should think proper
respect had not been paid to my present. This both vexed
and amused me at the time, and was remembered as a
pleasing and peculiar trait of his character.” -
In closing this notice of Crabbe at Hampstead, I may
remark how many people of note we find recording, or
having recorded for them, the pleasure they enjoyed in
rambling on Hampstead Heath. Haydon relates calling on
Leigh Hunt, with Wordsworth, in May 1815, and afterwards
strolling on the Heath with the poet of Cumberland:—‘I
sauntered on to West-End Lane, and so on to Hampstead,
with great delight. Never did any man beguile the time
as Wordsworth. His purity of heart, his kindness, his
soundness of principle, his information, and the intense and
eager feelings with which he pours forth all he knows, affect,
interest, and enchant me.’
Haydon, in fact, was fond of endeavouring to escape from
the weight of cares which continually oppressed him, by a
ramble on the Heath, where the face of uncultured nature,
the verdurous avenues, the far views over the country, and
the vast stretch of the metropolis below, with its clouds of
rolling smoke, presented him with grand pictorial effects.
In July of 1830, he writes in his diary:-‘Walked to Hamp-
stead with dear Frank, and enjoyed the air and sweet-
scented meadows. Thought of the poor prisoners in the
Bench, B–– and others, who would have liked this rural
stroll. The thought of what I have seen, and what I
have suffered, always gives a touch of melancholy to my
enjoyments.”
JoANNA BAILLIE.—This powerful dramatic writer, this
graceful and witty lyrist, and sweet and gentle woman, lived
272 - HAMPSTEAD.
many years at Hampstead, in Bolton House, on Windmill
Hill, a little below the Clock House, the residence of the
late Miss Montgomery. Perhaps no person of literary dis-
tinction ever led a more secluded and unambitious life so
near the metropolis. In the society of her sister, Miss
Agnes Baillie, she seemed to care little whether the world
forgot her or not. But of this forgetfulness there was no
danger. Every man of pre-eminent genius delighted to do
her honour, and to commemorate in their works the name
of Joanna Baillie. She was, as already observed, the sister
of the amiable and excellent Dr. Matthew Baillie ; and was
born at the pretty manse of Bothwell, near Bothwell Brig,
in the fertile vale of the Clyde, and amid scenes famous in
the history and the romance of Scotland. The manse of
|Bothwell looks directly down upon the scene of the battle
of Bothwell Brig. Near Bothwell lies also Bothwell Castle,
equally poetical in the works of Scottish poets, and in its
own charming situation. About a mile farther, across the
Brig, stands the ducal palace of Hamilton in its beautiful
park. Miss Baillie, however, only lived four years of her
infancy at Bothwell. After the death of her father, who
had removed to Glasgow to occupy the chair of divinity, she
lived with her family in the moorlands of Kilbride, and then
came to England. For many years she lived at Hampstead,
visited by nearly all the great writers of the age. Sir
Walter Scott, as may be seen in his letters addressed to
her, delighted to make himself her guest ; and on her visit
to Edinburgh, in 1806, she spent some time at his house
there. Sir Walter planted a bower of pineasters àt Abbots-
ford in honour of her, from seed which she furnished, and
raised Joanna’s Bower. Through his means her drama, the
‘Family Legend,’ was brought out at Edinburgh by Mr.
Henry Siddons. The last time that I saw the poet Rogers
IBIOGRAPEIICAL NOTICES. 273
lie was returning from a call on Joanna Baillie. This novel-
reading age, I believe, is almost a stranger to her dramas,
but they will still continue to charm such poetical readers as
can appreciate vigour of conception, healthy nobility of sen-
timent, and a clear and masterly style. Joanna Baillie died
February 23, 1851, and is interred in Hampstead Church-
yard beside her mother, who had also reached the venerable
age of 86.
The tomb of Joanna Baillie is one of those altar-tombs
standing in a row near the east end of the churchyard, and
not far below the gate. It records that the mother, Dorothy
Baillie, widow of the Rev. James Baillie, above mentioned,
died at Hampstead in 1806, aged 86 years. Joanna Baillie,
her daughter, born in 1762, died February 23, 1851, aged
89. Agnes Baillie, the elder sister of Joanna, is buried in
the same tomb. She was born September 24, 1760, and
died at Hampstead, April 27, 1861, aged 100 years and
7 months. The Baillies were clearly a remarkably long-
lived family.
T
oIQBXLIBITIOI soul oup, ſquxo on ‘Ilosurru To) to Tºo oil) put
‘SM,Inſ, put struTSSny] oup) ºr Aqoq Souaos-oſ)]ug Ka poſsilloqūto
oq on ‘otojo.toul ‘stºw upopulaw put uuplºzO oup) on Juosold tº Su
bopuoltſ on HoſtIM. Jo otto “poºnooxo tºurno tropso.ICI Jo soo!A
-tos OAA) 5uTAUTI SuM upssm.I.T. Jo 5ury oup, SW ‘soo!AIOS troo
-guátºut osoth poſtop to ous Insuoo USITTg ouſ, Tišnottſ) ºnq
“poonpold jok put Koſhuoq put poo/AğpoAA Hoſt(A ‘stuoč put
‘sjøſſø.I-Sud ‘sosbA soug oth unſaw ootſud tou poulopt ATIO
jou ous put ‘poowäpo AA Jo S3E10A [n]]]nuoq oſſ, Ssolduſ'ſ
où.) Jo Oomott oth O1 poompoïquſ J.UBOT) to proT ºnq ‘ĀuoxºS
put ooutº UTO,1] uſ too.Tod [[]]A poſſddus Agoſuto Utood putſ
tºssuyſ ourſ, S.pooA5poAA otojoq ‘g/z ‘d II IOA ."pooAğpoAA
Jo Ojpſ, S.p.tº ſolo N. SSIN III pumoſ SI E10A quºtoduſ SHI}
JO quinooot, oùù. "UISSnºſ Jo Sso,Idutg ‘outſ.Ioult'O Suoſ IO]ou
où.) IO) ool Atos tossop put toutſp pub:15 tº poºnooxo “K.Tollod
ul Ols'U). USILäugſ ouſ, Jo JoAOIduty quo.15 tº put “outsp.to gºs
III “Bºttling Jo Toljod quotö out, ‘pooA5poAA ‘g// I III
'TLVOHOIH (INV (TVGILSJINVII IO SATIA (IOOM poſſM III.],
(‘bsºl toupuuº) 'T'ſ Jo uossossod out uſ ‘ottſu[0]utſo Aq quild u tuoli)
‘S’ l'l’IA\ {i III, I,V IVIC) O Al t) NOT
Sº ...tº
{ # * §§§
{ - - *S. º *…"
§ 3 || || H R º §
: , , ...,’,‘AA A/A/º/, º *** **Nº, -
.''''{{#; tº: #3%li it tººl 1 || 3, a rº #.
* , iſºft", § $ºl " . s - tº ºxy
} … *::::: - e s tº gº
§§º
*:::::$.” J. - *
jºy tº - *::::::: º' .
*.*** -
| -
V sit tºw; a *::iº. is: {
º: ***ś-º-º-; gº
º
*...* .
.*.*, , ;
&


‘puoqsduTuPI.p ou A 0.11n W. Gö9
‘puolsdub FI.p on A. O.T.) nW F39
‘pealsdūTUH.p on A 0.11n W ‘gz9
'sputuſN mp out tº smdop ‘pºolsduit. Hºp oſquºd outlip on A '639
'soaputorſ op SQadmu ‘oquštål H. op 911tud outlip on A 667
‘qoſqo out ºut up on A '86;
'pºolsduTuTT T. O.T.O.K.u.Igſ UI op Suq ūb "So Tub SPUIUut up on A. Z.6%
'pºonsduº EI Q STIlld up opettou IO.T.I. BI op on A '967
'O.TQKnigſ BI op quºuſ mp ‘peonsduTuTI.p of]ubd outlip on A. g6?
‘qūOT puo outºut up on A. O.I]n W F6F
‘oſſes output tº op on A 0.11n W '367
'XOSOIppūAI
op 9]uTOO of subp ‘puolsduitºrſ tº oſt's optibiº) tº op on A ‘G6P
—: e.toul troAI3 St. ‘KIIb.10111 on b5ušIH
pUIt peonsduTuFI Jo SAOIA out) Jo quinoooº oth ox{B} 0AA SITI)
UTOIJI Touro.II III du UAB.Tp ‘oſolſ|AA out, Jo ‘o.It. AOU ‘ondo[B] tºo
tº put ‘poiſoquinut StºAA ooord Tobºl '1000°g SUA 1soo ouſ) put;
‘sooard 00I*I Jo Spitt: Adm. On pontinoute soot Atos outſ, UIT SOIOI).It
Ibnpraſpur oùù, 'pºonsduit. H UIOIJ Khºtoſ but ot.)—ontºušIH
put pºonsdult H. Jo Khruſo A out, UUIOIJ 0.10A utoAOS-AquoA]
utúl IOAAaj OUI ‘UtøAI3 SAoA oth 1s5uouTV to lºod out, Jo
outby oth O1 KIngo.13 poppe Smutſ, pIIB “KAIIIqOU out) Jo SpAAOU)
put onqolītūO troomſ) Kd Troos otoA Kotſ, otoll A ‘otoS “100,1].S
Mooty) III “Koſºtrog put poo/AğpoAA Jo SUTOOI out 18 poliquxo
Kronqud otun outos to otoA put 'op's hoojiod put Knsoo
|Sout out). Itſ polo[duloo OtoAA soon Atos out,L, ‘Utopičup oth
III soot [d aſqux|[butto.1 soul out, Jo Suársop ox{tºtti O1 poMoIduro
oteAA STSI).It qud ‘K.Intro3 put Soſqou Jo ‘ATIUIt] [tºo.I otſ)
Jo seſ.IoITU3 oth up 5unspro Ápûalſº sodºosput[ put ‘stropluš
‘sons to ‘stroſstttitut USIL5ugſ Josétrºuped Jo opuu Sopdoo otoA
ATuo Tott “osodind sºul IOI soutoos USH3UBL II.]]A polioſ Iuo
oq ptuous pooAäpo AA Kol soonAtos Osotſ) buſ, posodotd.
SSolduſ'ſ oth ‘suoruluTop UAO SIUI uſ sodºosputſ putº SAOIA
Q/3 * QTJW4) Flº) III CINW CIWGILSCſINVEI IO SM SIIA CIOOM #) CIGIAA.
& I.
276 EIAMPSTEAD.
626. Vue d'un gros village auprès de Highgate.
627. Vue d’Hampstead, du jardin de M. Holford.
628. Autre Vue d’Hampstead.
629. Autre Vue d’Hampstead.
834. Vue de Pancras et d’une partie de Hampstead.
854 Vue d’une partie de Hampstead.
855. Vue de la grande Salle à Hampstead.
856. Autre Vue de Hampstead.
858. Vue de Highgate.
859. Autre Vue du mème endroit.
862. Vue de la route de Hampstead.
956. Vue auprês de Hampstead.
958. Vue auprês de Hampstead.
959. Autre Vue du mème endroit.
1116. Wue auprès de Highgate. *
In this catalogue, the ‘marais au bas de la Bruyère' is, no
doubt, the pond in the Vale of Health; the ‘ Promenade du
Puits’ is Well Walk; and the ‘rue du Marais ? Pond Street;
but we query whether the “gros village auprês de Highgate ’
should not be “Highgate, gros village auprés de Hamp-
stead.” If not, how did the cataloguer happen not to know
the name of the “gros village,’ which must be Holloway,
Hornsey, or Kentish Town? -
In concluding our notices of Hampstead, we ought also to
inform the naturalist and archaeologist, that in the possession
of Mr. Dutton, the steward of Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson,
at the office of the estate, are a number of curious relics of
the past, which were found in digging out the foundations
of the aqueduct on Sir Thomas’s property on the north-east
side of the Heath. Amongst these are several celts, some of
stone, others of bronze ; a number of fine large agates; part
of a large antler of a deer; part of a wild boar’s tusk; a
number of rusty keys—some of mediaeval form, others ap-
parently picklocks; a considerable number of coins—the
RELICS OF THE PAST. 277
greater part of them of modern date—as halfpence, and even
a crookéd sixpence; a fleam for bleeding cattle; a fish’s
tooth—apparently a shark's; old rings; a human skull with
two holes knocked into it—one in front, one at the back—
but whether by the bludgeon of an assassin or the pick of
the navvy, there is no means of knowing. The place, how-
ever, where it was found, indicates a murder or a suicide. A
careful and scientific examination of these remains might
give some interesting results; but many of them, as the
modern halfpence, would seem to have been slung into the
water in idle pastime.
Whilst this is passing through the press, the following
appears in the Times:–“ The other day, while engaged in
digging the foundations of the new Home for Sailors’
Orphans between Church Row and High Street, Hampstead,
a working man came upon a leaden coin, about two feet
below the surface, in a bed of loam and clay. It is about an
inch and a half in diameter, and on inspection it turns out
to be a “bull” of Pope Innocent IV., one of the well-known
family of Fiesco, who sat in the chair of St. Peter from A.D.
1243 to 1254. The “bull” bears on the reverse the figures
of St. Peter and St. Paul, and is in a tolerable state of pre-
servation ; and we understand that it is likely to be secured
for the British Museum.” .
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS OF
HIGHGATE.
*.
#####:
º:
ºº:
ºv.
7 * *** * : ...
VIEW OF HIGHGATE FROM THE PONIDS.
(From a Photograph taken expressly in November, 1868.)
ALL-IDEWOURING LONDON.
THERE is no spot in the world more thickly sown with his—
toric memories than London and its environs. If any one
were to set himself to relate the striking incidents attached
to the objects which present themselves only from the top of
the house which I occupied at Highgate, he would have to
write one of the most stirring and extensive narratives that
the earth could present. Below, South-eastward, stretches
this mighty metropolis, a breathing mass of life, composed of
nearly three millions of souls. Far south-westward, up the
Thames valley, runs the dense mass of houses; all in the
foreground expands the wondrous province of buildings—
churches and palaces, domes, and those modern monuments,

282 EIIGHGATE.
railway-stations, lift their heads above the brick-and-mortar
wilderness. St. Paul’s looks out grandly sombre through the
rolling sea of smoke, the mingled upcast of domestic fires
and of the sooty breath of manufacture. The ancient minster
and the modern legislative palace of Westminster tower on
his lordly right hand, and around him spire up a host of
lesser ecclesiastical dignitaries. On his left hand, but in the
background, blazes forth in one great flame, in the afternoon
sun, the Crystal Palace; nearer stand up, eastward, the New
Cattle Market Tower, and the donjons of Pentonville and
Holloway. Far eastward stretches this Titanic London, by
Islington, Highbury, Hackney, Tottenham, and still onwards.
Over this stupendous expanse of the work of the coral insects
of the earth, the housification animals, called builders and
bricklayers, still greet us the remains of Epping Forest,
but seem to wave us a sorrowful farewell; for Lords of
Manors, and Enclosure Commissioners and builders, have
long been conspiring its absorption. Here at Our feet
rises the green swell of Traitor’s Hill, where Guy Faux's
comrades stood to see his match send Parliament House, and
Parliament, and, if possible, King Jamie, into the air ; and
there lies Caen Wood, into which they fled when the non-
explosion showed the explosion of their own design. The
whole of this vast panorama is studded and clustered with
the trophies of those great deeds that have made us a great
nation; but how many more have been swept away by the
rapid advance of this monster development of burnt clay, and
buried for ever beneath its dingy piles | Look along the
feet of these yet green and smiling hills—east and west, far
and wide, comes up, as it were, a giant army to desolate and
trample them down. See that front rank of the great house-
army far as the eye can reach before you, and on either hand,
coming on with a step “steady as time and inexorable as
ALL-DEVOljRING LONDON. 283
death.’ Already it has covered, with its hosts standing close
serried, all the fields south of the Thames—St. George’s
Fields, Kennington and Vauxhall Fields, and the rest of
them; already it has climbed the Surrey Hills, and Brixton
and Norwood and Lewisham are one town. Already—but
why proceed?—on every side the tide of population has rolled
on with brick and mortar in its rear. Our ancestors lamented
once the swallowing up of the pleasant villages of Holborn
and Charing, and St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and many another
rustic little isolation now only a dingy district, in the mono-
tonous province of streets and shops. They lamented in vain.
They saw the irresistible progress of wealth and commerce
extinguish nature, and tell them to seek their compensa-
tion in society and art. Growing pollutions drove the quiet
anglers from the pleasant banks of the oak-shadowed Fleet,
as they have since from those of the great Thamesis itself.
It is now difficult to imagine that all where this enormous
London stands was once the quiet Forest of Middlesex. Yet
such was the fact, long after the Norman Conquest. Fitz-
Stephen, one of the oldest of our topographers, in his ‘Sur-
vey of the Metropolis,’ written between 1170 and 1182, thus
describes its suburbs:---
“There are cornfields, pastures, and delightful meadows,
intermixed with pleasant streams, on which stands many a
mill whose clack is grateful to the ear. Beyond them, a forest
extends itself, beautified with woods and groves, and full of
the lairs and coverts of beasts and game, stags, bucks, boars,
and wild bulls. These wild bulls were probably buffaloes, or
like the beasts of Andalusia, in Spain, which, I presume, are
small.’ More probably they were of the same kind as the
ancient British race, which Walter Scott, in the ‘Bride of
Lammermoor,’ tells us ranged the old Caledonian Forest, and
of which herds still remain in the parks of Chartley, in Staf-
284, HIGHGATE.
fordshire, and of Chillingham, in Northumberland—splendid,
though small, white cattle, with black ears and muzzles.
But the Forest of Middlesex, in the heart of which nestled
the yet infant London, Fitz-Stephen tells us also, “was full of
yew-trees, the growth of which was particularly encouraged
in those days, and for many succeeding ages, because the
wood of them was esteemed the best for making bows.” Thus,
from the ground over which now tramps the peopled life of
London, over which the crowding wagons and Omnibuses
roll, and under which the railway pours its vital stream, the
hardy warriors of Hastings, and probably of Cressy and
Agincourt, cut their bows, the death-warrants of French and
Franco-Norman. -
This charming old forest was, according to Maitland’s
“History of London,’ disafforested A.D. 1218, in the reign of
Henry III. Already the conqueror, population, more im-
perious than William of Normandy, began to find itself
cramped by boles of trees, and too much in company with
game. No doubt, in those days primroses actually grew on
Primrose Hill; and flower-girls cried, ‘Cowslips sweet
cowslips ' ' gathered on the slopes of Holborn, and ‘Beau-
pots | pretty beaupots of blue-bells, wallflowers, and sweet
brier, plucked from the thickets of the Strand, or in the
meadows of St. Pancras.
Disafforested might be the Forest of London; but those
fiery times of the Crusades, and the wars of the Barons, were
wondrously small times, with all their martial din, if we are
to believe the statements of the chroniclers of those days. It
was ‘the day of Small things,’ truly, in England, notwith-
standing the brave noise that our ancestors made. At the
Conquest, the whole population of England was calculated at
2,000,000. In 1377, the last year of the great victor, King
Edward III., who conquered Calais, and made France tremble,
AT,L-IDEVO URING LONDON. 285
the population, as ascertained by the capitation tax, had
only advanced to 2,290,000—an increase of not 300,000
people, that is, from 1066, the era of the Conquest, or more
than three centuries. With Wales, the population only
reached 2,500,000 ; so that Wales itself only numbered,
towards the end of the fifteenth century, about 200,000
souls. And what was the Superb Augusta, the glorious
London, at this same time 9 It boasted 35,000 inhabitants
No wonder, then, that bluff Harry VIII., though the Forest
of Middlesex was disafforested, retained a tolerable piece of
hunting-ground, and looked after it with all his own master-
ship of imperial will. Here is one of his proclamations:—
* Rex majori et vice-comitibus, London. Wobis manda-
mus, etc.
* Forasmuch as the King’s most royall ma" is much
desirous to have the game of hare, partridge, pheasant, and
heron, preserved in and about his honor, att his palace of
Westm' for his own disport and pastime; that is to saye,
from his said palace of Westin' to St. Gyles-in-the-Fields,
and from thence to Islington, to Our Lady of the Oke, to
Highgate, to Hornsey Parke, to Hampstead Heath, and from
thence to his said palace of Westm", to be preserved for his
owne disport, pleasure, and recreac’on,’ &c.
And he proceeds to denounce the penalties of imprisonment,
and further punishment at his will and pleasure, against all
who by any means presume to kill game within these precincts.
Thus Harry Tudor sported all over Westminster, and over
all London, west and north of the city, including the then
solitary and woodland districts of Highgate, Hampstead,
Islington, &c. We may suppose, however, that the wolves,
wild bulls, boars, and stags had retired further off, for he
does not mention them.
His daughter Elizabeth used to frequent Islington and
286 EIIGHGATE.
Highgate, to hunt and hawk in the vast woods around. She
took up her quarters at Canonbury Tower, and her courtiers
had houses around it, amid woods and gardens. The resi-
dence of Sir Walter Raleigh still remains as the ‘Pied Bull’
public-house, Islington, not very far from the Tower. During
her reign, too, Sir John Spencer, Lord Mayor of London, and
said to be the richest commoner of England, was lain in wait
for by Dunkirk pirates, on the moors betwixt his place of
business, St. Helen’s Place, in Bishopsgate Street, and Can-
onbury Tower, to kidnap him for his ransom. They had
learned that he rode daily over these moors—now one solid
town, to and fro; but a storm keeping him that day in
town, they became noticed, and hastened to make off.
Now, in 1575, the latter end of the reign of the great
queen, who made Europe tremble, and triumphed over the
great Armada, the population of these realms, according to
Harrison’s ‘Description of England,’ appears to have been
only about 5,000,000; and if we quadruple the population of
London from 1377, when it was only 35,000—a period of
less than two hundred years—the metropolis of her powerful
kingdom would not exceed 140,000 ! Yet a terrible fear of its
becoming an Overgrown, unwieldy, and unmanageable capital,
Moved the stout heart of England's queen,
Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it.
What appears to us such a snail’s progress, was to her and
her wise counsellors most alarming. In 1580, only eight
years before the appearance of the Armada, she issued her
proclamation for stopping the extension of London by new
buildings. This proclamation, dated at Nonsuch on the 7th
July of that year, sets forth that great inconveniences having
arisen from the vast congregations of people in London, and
greater being likely to follow—namely, want of victuals,
danger of plagues, and other injuries to health—she orders
ALL-DEVOURING LONDON. 287
H.
that no further buildings shall be erected, by any class of
people, within the limits of the said city, or within three
miles from any of its gates; that not more than one family
should live in one house, and that such families shall not
take inmates. The mayor and corporation are called upon
to disperse all such, and to send them away down to their
proper places in the country. And any persons violating
any of these orders—that is, by building new houses, or even
laying down materials for building, or by living more than
one family in one house, or by taking inimates—were to be
committed to prison, there to remain without bail till they
found good security for keeping these regulations. The roads
were then in such a state, that there was a reasonable fear
of scarcity of provisions; and great stress was laid on the
mischief of heaping up many families with children in one
house—‘Smothered,’ says the proclamation, “with crowds of
children and servants in one small tenement.’ The majority
feared that this wonderful attraction to the capital would
cause the decay of the country, and of “divers auncient good
boroughs and towns.” Amongst other mischiefs, her Majesty
considered the spirit of gain generated by such a great city
One of the most serious, and declared that “all particular
persons are bound by God’s lawes and man’s to forbeare from
their particular and extraordinarie lucre.”
The Stuarts were equally haunted by the terrors of the
growth of London, and issued repeated and most stringent
Orders for resisting it. James T. had scarcely come to the
throne when he ordered all such houses as had been erected
contrary to Elizabeth’s proclamation to be pulled down and
demolished. In One of these proclamations, in 1617, James,
the wonderful Scottish Solomon, ordered all noblemen,
lºnights, and gentlemen to go hence with their wives and
families to their country houses, and to remain there till
288 HIGHGATE.
they were called again to Parliament. This order he re-
peated in 1622, and moreover, that when the noblemen and
gentlemen, and others who had business in town came up,
they should leave their wives and children in the country.
The proclamations and orders in council of the Stuarts to
this end were numerous, the last being supposed to be that
of Charles II. in 1674. In one of James T.’s proclamations
he calls the flocking of people to London ‘ a ricketty dis-
temper in the head of the kingdom which occasioneth a flux
of humours to approach the Court.”
Nor was Cromwell a whit the wiser in this respect. In
1656, after many more prohibitions of building in London
had been treated with contempt, he ordered a fine of one
year’s rent against any offender who had erected a house
having less than four acres of land attached to it, and of
100l. against any one who had erected a house without land.
None of these proclamations were taken the least notice of,
and they were looked on as merely a means for the extortion
of bribes by the favourites about the Court.
Yet so small was London, and the locomotion in it, that in
1625 there were only twenty hackney coaches in all Lon-
don and Westminster; but these having increased in 1635,
Charles T. Ordered that no hackney coach should be used for
anything but to carry people into and out of London at
least three miles—not from One part of town to another,
‘ because they obstructed the streets and rendered them
dangerous to his Majesty, his beloved consort, and the nobi-
lity;’ as well as rendering hay and provender dear. No
more than fifty hackney coachmen were ever allowed; but
Cromwell extended them to 200.
During all this time the same war was going on in the city
against hawkers and stalls as there is at this day. In 1631,
in the time of Charles T., hawkers, stalls, and stands were,
ALL-DEV OUTRING LONDON. 289
however, found to be more numerous than ever. Bakers,
butchers, poulterers, chandlers, fruiterers, sempsters, grocers,
oyster, herb and tripe women thronged the streets, so that
a penalty of 20s. for the first offence, 40s. for the second, and
4l. for the third, and for every after offence to be doubled,
was decreed. William III. continued this war so late as
1695. -
Through all these times we find no accurate data for deter-
mining the real population of the kingdom or the capital. In
1662 and 1665 the population of England and Wales was cal-
culated by the hearth-tax at 6,500,000. In 1670 Sir Matthew
Hale calculated it at 7,000,000; yet Haydn, in his “Dic-
tionary of Dates,’ says that in 1700 it was found by official
returns to be only 5,475,000. The population of London
and its suburbs was calculated by Sir William Petty, in
1687, to be 696,000; and Gregory King, in 1697, by the
hearth-money, made it 530,000; and yet by actual census in
1801, including Westminster, Southwark, and the adjacent
bills, it proved to be only 864,845. - -
Our ancestors seemed to have been occasionally close on
the idea of a census, but never to have arrived at the full
idea. Elizabeth, in 1580, eight years before the Armada,
had a census of all the foreigners in London, as a measure of
precaution, but the full idea of a national numbering on
accurate principles was reserved for our time, and the year
1801. Since then a census has been regularly taken every
ten years, and by this means we can see to a nicety a pro-
gress of population in London that must have driven our
Tudor and Stuart kings out of their senses, but which we
contemplate with as wonderful an equanimity. From 1801 to
1841—that is, in förty years—the population of London
advanced from 864,000 to 1,873,000. In forty years the
metropolis had increased above a million, or more than
U
290 HIGHGATE.
through all the previous history of the kingdom. In ten
years more it had swelled to 2,361,640, or nearly half a mil-
lion more. Again, in the last census, 1861, it had risen to
2,803,034, or an increase in ten years of 441,394 souls
Very soon we shall have London increasing at the rate of
half a million every ten years, an amount of population which
it did not reach from the Conquest till the end of the seven-
teenth century.
Since Our colonies, our commerce, and manufactures have
expanded into importance, London and the whole population
and wealth of the country have expanded and must expand
with them. This was the invincible force which first raised
the alarm of our kings and queens and then set them at
defiance. It was a vain and even a laughable struggle that
of royal short-sightedness against the vigour of humanity,
against the prolific vitality of human enterprise, genius,
and indefatigable exertion. Now we see this gigantic power
of life revealed before us in its full Titan stature and mea-
Sureless energy, we no longer wonder that the metropolis
spreads itself in every direction like an ocean tide, swallow-
ing fields and meadows, woods and streams, with a voracity
that makes old landmarks disappear as mere scratches on
the sands of a tidal beach.
Who shall limit this life? Every wind that blows from
north or south, east or west, from India, China, America, or
Australia, feeds it ; every wheel that turns at home, every
colonist who digs or watches his flocks at the antipodes, in-
tensifies it. The marrow of London is in the backbone of
the world; its blood is the blood of myriad kindred popula-
tions; its million hands seize upon the fruits, the corn, the
gold, the oil, and wine of every zone. Shall we, like the wise-
foolish rulers of our fathers, endeavour to stop it 2 Shall we
stop the Sun ? All we can do is to exclaim every now and
OLD AND NEW ASPECTS. 291
then—“What will this London grow to l’ and make haste to
note with a loving glance the old historic footsteps that are
about to disappear for ever under the ponderous surge of
brick and mortar. Our business in these pages will be, in
the first place, to do this for the yet green Highgate Hill.
Already the engineer is laying out and planning tunnels to
bore it; already the builder is climbing its grassy slopes,
and the army of life shows its vast phalanx at its foot with a
mien that is unmistakable.
OLD CHAPEL AND GATEWAY.
(From Tomline’s ‘Perambulation of Islington.')
OLD AND NEW ASPECTS.
Many an age Highgate, though situated. On a conspicuous
hill 400 feet above the level of the sea, and within a few
miles of the metropolis, continued a mere hamlet of houses,
scattered here and there amid the forests. People fond of
seclusion located themselves there in profound peace, for no.
road led through it to anywhere beyond. It was not till the

U 2
* {{T, Wł) H3)][H 3.6%
t; put dousſº ouſ) e.toUA ‘Āoſuouſ. On Moºd quârl ºu.IOAUL
Spºrtiºds, ouſ, Mou ‘ū) to H. ptonsduit Hjo oneš oup) on 5upuſot:0.1
‘on tº SIT] puto Koq SöUISOUtop put SpooA oAISUtoqxa pºtſ (IOpUIOT
jo opidousſa on L preK sºodoo toº on 15mottº Kew tºoth
oxIt!) On putſ os put, ‘KuAlſo,U3 s, dotſsºg out, topum SSud You
p[noo U0).JO STOIIIbo ouſ, JO Spºoſ [It] ouſ] ]buq pſol 0.18 OAA
“utout, uro pools 5uſ Abū ‘ophºbo
Jo 5upſe.I]s oup) poolſo on soyb5 UIOIJ Soyuuſjito spun ‘KThunoo
out) Jo STUud Totto UT Solºš poſſuo OTU spºol atoll AA ‘Āſquqold
put ‘‘oy ‘on.b3sdous q ‘on.b3pmrT St, *oqvā B uto.1) popoooo..Id
Tooths to pºol out, otou M \dooxo ‘utopUOI quoqu osuo ouſ!
Urooq a Met Off Teoddt, 1out soop stuſ] quid ‘son’bà polito trol.JO O.It
spºol Sonumoo put[p]]N put ultounto N out. UI ‘on.b3 tº poſſeo
Kºuopout uongo ‘pºol u üo 5uſoq Sputo.J ‘Kannuoo Int:00]tuo).
où up “ourg, s, dousſd out, otojoq 3UOI poſito OS SUA opt:303 PI
quuſ) ponso:35ms trooq Stu TT 6 ouTuu Sºl StºA quºt A ‘oltop 3AUTI
qsnut q osoddns outos St, *otojoq pollspºo oltáušpH J “ox.
'ont:5-13, H–00 BTd out) Jo outbu ou', ‘pſes st ºf ‘popuupäio
sful “p 5urduoso out SUAA etoun quuſ, Os ‘osnott S. Todoo I
-0) tº oup, Uto Toujo ouſ, uto put: “[[UAA Iodºqo pſo (IU (IO pubtſ
ouo (Io 5unnmau ‘KuAIOTU TImq-quons tº uſ 5unt St A ontº
spull ‘TIO, stu ox{tº put on tº b looto on Utſu UI dousſd oul Jo
upāuotto putſ ‘toAoAou ‘otAA ‘dousſº oth Jo oAtoſ Ka ‘opt:5uārīI
Jo doons out, qutoſo Koun “stuo& 00g outos TO} on p 10K 5uſoq
hou utupuouſ put ‘Kulo Jo shut doop out uſ asūj Šuploſis
put ‘ptot jutſ] no ULIOM 5upattſ Stott JKBAA put Stoßt.Ito oth
qnq : ouolslot(AA. On ‘hou Itº out B&II “Holt H oſtrö00 “opuſ'ſ
oùomoto ‘uonáutiliol, AOU ‘outºrſ ouopäuillºſ, “oloodoº tod
poſſeo Utoq, ‘UtúT S. KUIK) (15uotuſ] pit, MUTIOUI UOpUIOT UIOIJ
ssud on posm pºor oui, KosutoH opuſ postropnoo Aoti soluti
jo poow pub Aoptout to ‘ûâuu-05ut-ovelſ oun — Kulišu II
-It. H. Jo spooAA put XIIt'd STU TI3nOJII) duo od Oq KūAU3 ſq
Q3 poAoiſe IIOpUIOT JO dousſº out, Tºul &Inquoo Inuool.Inoj
OLD AND NEW ASPECTs. 293
goodly palace or lodge on Lodge Hill, and so down to
Hornsey. Many a fat slice has been carved away from this
episcopal property, one of which we shall soon note; but
some noble fragments of woods, Bishop's Wood and Hornsey
Wood, and a broad expanse of rich lands which the Eccle-
siastical Commissioners—that modern race of church econo-
mists—are about converting into a town, still remain.
A hermit was one of the earliest inhabitants of this place.
He had a Čell or hermitage, where pilgrims to the holy well,
formerly Mouse Well, or Muswell, giving the name to
Muswell Hill, used to seek his prayers, and perhaps refresh-
ments of a more mundane stamp. This cell gradually ex-
panded into a chapel of ease dedicated to St. Michael.
Mousewell Hill had also its ancient chapel. The chapel of
Highgate was granted by Bishop Grindal, afterwards Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, in 1565, to a new grammar school
erected and endowed the year before by Sir Roger Cholmeley,
late Lord Chief Justice, with gardens, orchards, and two
acres of land. Bishops in those church-reforming days,
thinking more of promoting the public good than of main-
taining a pompous rivalry with the temporal aristocracy and
laying the foundations of great families, founded churches
and Schools—a thing little heard of amongst bishops now-a-
days, who have enough to do to protest against spiritual
Corruptions.
The very hermits of those days seem to have been stirring
and public-spirited fellows, for which we now give them
little credit. Here was one William Lichfield, according to
Norden, a poor, infirm hermit, who dug and carried gravel
from the top of the hill, and raised the road, then very
properly called Hollow-way, it having become impassable.
By this means the holy anchorite at once made a good high-
Way and a capital pond of water, which remained till 1865
2.94. EIIGEIGATE.
a prominent feature of the village. The hermit’s chapel was
enlarged at a subsequent period, and took a new lease of life
along with the school erected by Sir Roger Cholmeley.
The chapel was pulled down many years ago, and the
church was built in another part of the village. Till 1866,
however, the graveyard remained as it was ; and in it stood,
among other tombs, that of Coleridge, the poet and philoso-
pher. It was covered with a large slab, and you descended
by several steps to it. There you saw a board, or shutter,
on which were painted, ‘S. T. C.,’ the initials of the poet;
those also of his wife; of his daughter, Sara, and of Henry
Nelson Coleridge, her husband. The Sexton, removing this,
showed you the coffins themselves, often much to the surprise
of visitors. At the time of the rebuilding of the Grammar-
school, in 1866, a new chapel was also erected, in the crypt
of which the tomb of Coleridge is enclosed.
HIGEIGATE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.
This school was founded, in 1562, by Sir Roger Cholmeley,
Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, for a general education
of the children of the place and neighbourhood, such as was
given at that day, and not exclusively for a grammar-school,
as we shall See.
This Sir Roger Cholmeley was the natural son of Sir
Richard Cholmeley, of Goldston, in Yorkshire, Knight, Lieu-
tenant of the Tower of London, who died in 1521 without
legitimate issue. He appears to have turned his attention
to the profession of law in the lifetime of his reputed father,
at whose death he was already entered at Lincoln’s Inn.
He pursued his studies so effectually, that his rise to legal
honours was gradual, but rapid ; for We find him to have
been successively Reader in Lincoln's Inn at different periods;
EIIGIIGATE GRAMMAR SCIPIOOL. 295
a Bencher of that society; Serjeant-at-law; King's Serjeant;
Chief Baron of the Exchequer; and, finally, Chief Justice of
the King’s Bench.
Upon his removal from his high office, in the reign of
Mary, he settled at Hornsey, in Middlesex, in which county,
as well as in Essex and London, he possessed lands, be-
queathed to him by his father; and, after an active life
passed amidst the anxious and eventful scenes of that turbu-
lent period, he appears to have spent the evening of his days
in the calm delights of literary retirement. Jucunda oblivia,
vitae.
A few years before his death, he entertained the desire,
participated by many other pious and distinguished Protes-
tants, of erecting and endowing a public grammar-school,
for the diffusion of knowledge and the maintenance of the
true religion; and, having accomplished his laudable pur-
pose in the foundation of a school at Highgate, he died in
June, 1565, the very month in which his seal was put to his
last public act, by which he conveyed estates for the support
of the establishment.
Probably Sir Roger Cholmeley held the site of the Her-
mitage by a grant from the Crown. By an inscription, for-
merly on the west end of the old chapel, it appeared that in
the year above mentioned, 1562, when Chief Justice to Edward
VI., he ‘did institute and erect at his own charge a public
and free grammar-school, and procured the same to be
established and confirmed by the letters patent of Queen
Elizabeth, he endowing the same with yearly maintenance.”
Lysons, in his ‘Environs of London,’ 1810, vol. i. p. 432,
has condensed the chief particulars regarding this school
and chapel, of which I now avail myself. There are two
charters, one dated January 29, the other April 6, 7 Elizabeth.
These charters give license to Sir Roger Cholmeley to found
296 HIGEIGATE.
a grammar-school for the education of poor boys living in
Highgate and the neighbouring parts; and to provide a
fund for the relief of certain poor persons in the village or
hamlet of Highgate. For carrying this into effect, Sir
William Hewett, and Roger Martin, Esq., aldermen of the
City of London; Roger Carew, Esq., Richard Heywood,
Esq., Richard Hodges, Esq., and Jasper Cholmeley, Esq.,
were constituted governors, and made a body corporate, with
license to possess lands in mortmain, to use a common
seal, &c. On a vacancy amongst the governors, by death or
resignation, the remaining governors were to elect a new
one. Sir Roger Cholmeley was to nominate the master
during his life, to fix his stipend, and to make such statutes
as he should think fit for the regulation of the school. By
the first charter it was directed that after his death the
appointment of the master should be wested in his heirs, and
On their failing to appoint within two months, the governors,
with the advice and consent of the Bishop of London, were
to appoint: his heirs and the governors jointly were em-
powered to make statutes. All the revenues then belonging
to the institution, together with all future benefactions, were
directed to be appropriated solely to the maintenance of a
master, and the relief of the poor. By the second charter it
is provided that after the founder’s death the governors should
elect the master, whose place must be always supplied
within a month after vacancy, otherwise the appointment
lapses to the Bishop of London. The governors are em-
powered to make any regulations relating to the school, or
the master’s salary, provided that they are not contrary to
the founder’s statutes."
The Ordinances of 1571 direct that the schoolmaster shall
be ‘a graduate of good, sober, and honest conversation, and
* Pat. 7 Eliz. pt. 2, April 6.
HIGHGATE GRAMMAIR, SCEI.O.O.L. 297
no light person; ' and that ‘he shall teach and instruct young
children their A B C, and other English books, and write, and
also the grammar, as they shall grow up thereto, and that
without taking any money or other reward for the same,
other than as hereafter is expressed; that is, 4d. at the
admission of each child into the school, and 4d. for books.”
This, in 1712, was increased to 12d. The schoolmaster’s
office is also to read morning and evening prayers at the
chapel on Sundays (except on the first Sunday in each
month, when the inhabitants are to repair to their respective
parish churches), morning prayers on Wednesdays and Fri-
days, and evening prayers on Saturdays, and on the vigils
of all festivals. He must not serve, nor take any cure else-
where, nor must he be absent above ten days in the year,
and that not without urgent cause.
The master’s salary was fixed by the said ordinances at
10l. per annum, besides a house rent free, and kept in repair,
a garden, an Orchard, two acres of land enclosed out of
Highgate Common, and eight loads of fuel out of the Bishop
of London’s woods at Hornsey. In 1712 this annual gift of
wood had long been discontinued. The master was bound
in a penalty of 20l. to observe the above-mentioned ordi-
mances; and it was further provided, that if he should
infringe them, having been thrice warned by the governors,
he should be expelled.
In , 1681, the salary was 28l. ; in 1698, 30l. ; in 1762,
100l. ; besides 10!., as Reader, left by the will of Edward
Paunceford, Esq., in 1748. In Lysons’ time, 1810, the
master’s salary was 140l. per annum, and, no doubt, is
very much more at present, the value of everything
having risen so much of late years. Mr. Lysons was fur-
nished with the account of the lands and moneys vested in
the governors of Highgate School, with their produce, in the
298 HIGEIGATE.
year 1672. This being supplied by the treasurer, Thomas
Bromwich, Esq., of course was correct. They will be found,
stated at large, in ‘Lysons,’ vol. i. p. 433, and consist of
lands, and rent-charges on lands and tenements in Highgate,
St. Martin’s, Ludgate, and St. Martin’s, Crooked Lane, LOn-
don; in Stoke Newington, Hendon, and Kentish Town;
bequeathed by Sir Roger Cholmeley, John Dudley, Esq.,
Jasper Cholmeley, Esq., and William Platt, Esq. This pro-
perty, in 1762, produced an income of upwards of 1521,
which must now be vastly increased in value. Besides,
fifteen different items of money were invested in the funds,
amounting to 4,260l. Thus, independent of anything which
may have been conferred on this school since, it was very
handsomely endowed.
By an ancient order of the governors, the number of
scholars is limited to 40, to be chosen from Highgate,
Holloway, Hornsey, Finchley, and Kentish Town, if there
shall be so many in those places; otherwise, they are to be
elsewhere elected, at the discretion of the governors for the
time being." Sir Roger Cholmeley’s endowment produced,
in 1794, 166l. per annum. The governors pay the master’s
and preacher’s salaries out of this endowment, aided by some
subsequent benefactions; and the pew-rents, when there
were such, went to the same purpose.
So far from there being now any want of boys in the places
included within the limits of the endowment, candidates for
education in the school—a great number more than can get
upon the foundation—avail themselves of the institution.
People go and live within the prescribed district to have
a claim on the privilege, and numbers of supernumeraries are
admitted on payment. Since the able management of the
present master, the Rev. Dr. Dyne, the school has rapidly
* Entry in the Register of the chapel.
THE OLD CHAPEL. 299
risen from a very low condition to one of great repute.
Unfortunately, with the great tendency of modern educa-
tion, the chief attention has been paid to carrying profi-
ciency in Latin and Greek to a great, and, in the majority
of cases, an unnecessary length. As in all such schools,
what was intended for the poor has been usurped by the
rich, and so far from the children of the poor receiving
any benefit from this substantial endowment, those of the
respectable tradesmen of the place have been excluded by
the pressure of wealth and the spirit of caste. A wealthy
retailer assured me, ‘that he had asked the master
whether he could send his son to the school, and was
answered, “Of course; but I do not advise it.”” Of
course not, for the poor lad would have found himself like a
pigeon in a throng of hawks, amongst the sons of wealthy
merchants and professional men.
It is to be hoped, now there is appearing a wholesome
perception of the folly of devoting time to classics, which
could be so much more profitably devoted to other branches
of practical modern sciences; and now that the spirit of
reform is abroad in this direction, as it regards the 3,000
endowed grammar-schools of England, that a due portion of
the funds of this school will be set aside for the education
of the poorer and retail trading classes. One of the great
reforms needed in England, in regard to all kinds of endowed
institutions, is that of a resuscitated conscience in such
Imatters.
THE OLD CHAPEL.
The old chapel adjoining the school was originally built
by Sir Roger Cholmeley, on the site of a former One, which
had stood from the earliest times of the Highgate her-
mits. Sir Roger's chapel, which had been enlarged by
300 HIG FIGATE,
other benefactors, had, as we have said, been pulled down
many years ago; and in 1866 both school and chapel were
rebuilt in a much ampler and finer style, and now form,
perhaps, the most distinguished group of buildings in
Eighgate.
MEMORIALS OF PERSONS OF DISTINCTION IN THE OLD CHAPEL.
Dr. Lewis Atterbury, Rector of Hornsey, and thirty-six
years preacher at this chapel, a brother of Bishop Atterbury,
and one in the six preachers to Queen Anne at St. James’s
and Whitehall, was buried here in 1731.
Sir Francis Pemberton, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench,
under Charles II., had a monument here.
In the Register we find the following notice:—
* Nathaniel f. Dmi. Nathanielis Hobart, ex Annä 27 Sep.
1636.” This was a son of Sir Henry Hobart, Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas, who had a house at Highgate, and his
descendants after him for many years. -
* Hon. Dna Judith Platt, uxor Hugonis Platt, militis sepult.
Jan. 28, 1635.’ This was the relict of Sir Hugh Platt, author
of ‘The Garden of Eden,’ ‘The Jewell-house of Art and
Nature,” and other curious works. It is supposed that Sir
Hugh, who died in 1605, was buried here also, but there is
no register extant of so early a date.
There are entries regarding members of Sprigmell, the De
la Warre, Mainwaring or Manneringe, and other families of
note.
“Robert Earl of Warwick and Ellenor Countess of Sussex,
married Mar. 30, 1646.’ The Earl of Warwick was admiral
for the Long Parliament. This marriage is not mentioned
by Dugdale, nor does he speak of any Ellenor Countess of
Sussex.
TMEMORIALS OF PERSONS OF DISTINCTION, 3()] .
: Charles, son of Sir Henry, and Hester Lady Blunt, of
Holloway, was baptised May 10, 1654.” The Blount family
was of Tettenhanger, in Bedfordshire, and the first in their
pedigree was Sir Walter Blount, the standard-bearer of
Henry IV., who was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury. The
family was greatly distinguished in the time of Charles I.
and the Commonwealth, both in arms and letters. Sir
Henry published ‘Travels in Turkey and other Countries;’
a satire called the ‘Exchange Walk; and an epistle in
praise of coffee and tobacco. He was editor also of Lilley’s
‘Comedies.’ He fought at Edge Hill on the royal side, but
afterwards quitted the King’s service for that of the Com-
monwealth, and on various Occasions rendered great service
to his country. He sat on the celebrated trial of Don
Pantaleon Saa, the Portuguese ambassador, and was one of
the commissioners for promoting trade and navigation. Sir
Henry married the widow of Sir William Mainwaring, by
which means he became possessed of the house at Upper
Holloway, where he resided several years. He died in 1682.
His son, Thomas Pope, so called from his relation Sir
Thomas Pope, founder of Trinity College, in Oxford, was
born at Upper Holloway, September 12, 1649. He pub-
lished a critique in Latin on the most eminent writers of all
ages—“Censura, celebriorum auctorum,’ &c., a work in con-
siderable esteem; and various essays, remarks on poetry,
and a volume of natural history. He was Greated a baronet
in 1679, and died in 1697. Charles, his younger brother,
whose baptism is here recorded, was a celebrated deistical
writer; he published also a pamphlet in defence of Dryden,
when he was only nineteen years of age; an introduction to
polite literature; and a treatise on the liberty of the press.
He put an end to his life in a fit of frenzy, Occasioned by
the sister of his deceased wife declining his hand, she
302 HIGEIGATE.
having scruples as to the legality of such a marriage. His
miscellaneous works were published after his death. -
‘Sir John Wollaston, buried in the chancel, April 29,
1658.” Sir John Wollaston was an alderman of London ;
treasurer-at-war, and one of the committee for the sale of
church lands. His wife was also buried here, June 1, 1660.
Sir John Wollaston is still better known in Highgate by
being the founder of the almshouses for poor widows in
Southwood Lane. These houses being decayed in the year
1722, Edward Paunceford, Esq., pulled them down and
built twelve others on their site, with a schoolhouse in
the centre for charity girls. This excellent charity has
been much augmented by property left by Messrs. Foster,
Edwards, Bromwich, and Kleinert. Twenty children are
clothed, and a number of poor widows made comfortable.
“The Lady Anne Peerpoint, daughter to the Honourable
the Marquis of Dorchester, and John Ta Rosse, Sonne of
the Right Honourable the Earle of Rutland, were married
July 15, 1658.” The Marquis of Dorchester, a nobleman of
good learning, who is remarkable for having been a Bencher
of Gray’s Inn, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians, had
a mansion at Highgate. The marriage here recorded was
dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1666.
‘Charlotte, daughter of Sir John Pettus, buried May 28,
1678.” Sir John Pettus, Bart., was cupbearer to Charles II.
and William III. He published ‘Fodinae Regales,” or a history
of the Chief Mines and Minerals in England, Wales, and
Ireland; ‘Fleta, Minor,” or the Art of Assaying Metals, and
a book entitled, ‘England’s Independency of the Papal
Power,’ abridged from Sir John Darril and Sir Edward Coke.
‘Sir Francis Pemberton, buried June 15, 1699. Dame
Anne, his relict, April 15, 1731.” We have already men-
tioned Sir Francis as a resident in Highgate.
HIGEIGATE CHURCH. 303
‘Mr. John Shower, of the parish of Stoke Newington, a dis-
senting minister, buried July 5, 1765.’ Mr. Shower was author
of a work on Earthquakes, and of various religious treatises.
There is also the following curious entry :—
‘Christopher Wilkinson, Merchant, Adventurer, and Alder-
man, 1676, and though interred far from his native land—
Leeds, Yorkshire—yet hath he left there a Monument en-
graven in the heart of all good men.”
In the adjoining cemetery are the tombs of Sir Jeremy
Topp, Bart., of Bremore, Hants, 1733; the Rev. Edward
Yardley, author of ‘Discourses on the Genealogy of Christ,’
&c., &c., Archdeacon of Cardigan, preacher at the chapel
from 1731 till his death, 1769; and this : —
“Underneath lyes the body of Richard Browne, late Citizen
and Macon of London, who departed this life the 21st day of
March, 1720, in the 47th year of his age. He was a very
ingenious Artist in his way, and a zealous son of the Church
of England.”
HIGHGATE CHURCH.
This church, dedicated to St. Michael, was built in 1832
on a new site, in the parish of St. Pancras. It cost nearly
10,000l., of which 5,000l. was contributed by the Church
Commissioners, and the remainder raised by subscription
amongst the inhabitants. Some delay in the consecration
was occasioned by the ancient chapelry of Highgate being
an ecclesiastical peculiar, situated in the three parishes of
Hornsey, St. Pancras, and Islington, and, though surrounded
by the diocese of London, not included in it. Claims of
jurisdiction were also set up by the parish of St. Pancras,
on the ground of the church having been built within its
boundary. But the difficulties were set at rest by the passing
304 HIGHGATE.
of an amendment to the Act by virtue of which the edifice
had been erected, and Highgate is now a district of itself,
paying no ecclesiastical dues to any parish.
A number of memorial tablets were removed from the old
chapel to this church. The most noteworthy is that to the
memory of the poet Coleridge, whose tomb, as observed, is
in the resuscitated chapel by the grammar-school. The
present vicar of Highgate is the Rev. Charles Dalton, a
canon of St. Paul’s. .
Having thus noted the ancient, age-long condition of this
fair hilltop overlooking the city, yet itself a woodland haunt
rather than a haunt of men, we will take a rapid glance at
the fragments of history that, nevertheless, caught like locks
of wool in its thickets, from the passing flocks of mankind;
for the ambitious conflict of life was always going on below.
There would a splendid city rise to view,
With carts, and cars, and coaches roaring all;
Wide poured abroad behold the giddy crew—
See how they dash along from wall to wall!
At every door, hark how they thundering call !
Good Lord! what cam this giddy rout excite?
Why on each other with fell tooth to fall:
A neighbour's fortune, fame, or peace to blight,
And make new tiresome parties for the coming night?
In the unhappy reign of Richard II. we find the Duke of
Gloucester, with various other nobles, meeting in Harringay,
that is, Hornsey Park, to call poor Richard to account for
his favouritism to Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford. They
had 4,000 men with them, and they overawed the King. In
the following year these nobles were called to account them-
selves for their treason, at Nottingham; but the end of these
troubles saw the unfortunate Richard conveyed through High-
gate, in 1898, on his way from the North, by his haughty rival
Bolingbroke, mounted on a sorry steed, and hooted by the
fickle rabble all the way through Islington and to the Tower of
HIGHGATE CHURCH. 305
London. Henry W., a very different monarch, had a meeting
with the Lord Mayor of London and 500 citizens on the
same ground; and Henry VII. met the Lord Mayor of 1487
here on his return from his successful pursuit of Lambert
Simnel. - &
Thomas Thorpe, Baron of the Exchequer, was beheaded
by the insurgents in Highgate in 1461.
Queen Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne, was met
by the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London at Highgate,
On her way from Hatfield House, and conducted into the
city. -
Wenner and the Fifth Monarchy Men, in their riot in 1661,
retreated into Caen Wood.
These seem far-off events, but much nearer to our time
General Monk encamped his army on Finchley Common,
just by, when planning the restoration of the ribald king,
Charles II. Little more than a century ago, that is, in 1745,
the London Train Bands and other troops marched through
Highgate to encamp on this same common to defend the
metropolis against Prince Charles and his Scots, who were
already at Derby; and Hogarth was watching to sketch his
immortal ‘March to Finchley.’ Soon after the rebel lords
Lovat, Kilmarnock, Cromartie, and Balmerino were seen
escorted through the village under guard, on their way to
the Tower, three of them to lose their heads there.
How far removed from this present England of ours, appear
Londoners marching out against rebels and a pretender to
the throne; and yet, but the other day, men were living who
saw this rebellion. The celebrated novelist, Miss Letitia,
Hawkins, daughter of Sir John Hawkins, author of the
‘History of Music,’ and who was living in 1824, says in her
* Memoirs,’ that her mother, in 1745, saw the troops march
past their house to Finchley Common to meet the rebels.
X
306 HIGHGATE,
Their house was the one now occupied by Mr. Daniels, the
statuary, in full view of the London Road; and that she
afterwards saw the rebel lords brought in prisoners through
Highgate. She had a particular view of old Lord Lovat,
who stopped to take refreshments, probably at the inn at
the corner, his carriage being thrown open; and she bore
testimony to the faithfulness of the likeness as given by
Hogarth's portrait of him. I myself have seen a man, then
112 years old, who as a boy witnessed the battles of Preston-
pans and Culloden. I knew another who, being a farmer in
Staffordshire, was visited by the rebels in their progress
southward, and who often used to describe with much gusto
these free-and-easy Scots slicing up his cheeses the whole
breadth of the surface, and toasting them in huge discs
on their dirks. General Oglethorpe, who was the founder of
Georgia, and who used to relate that he shot woodcocks in
the reign of Queen Anne where Regent Street now is, died
only in 1785, and was well known to our immediate fathers.
Such are the extraordinary human links that make the far
past seem almost present.
Only one event of national importance has, according to
my recollection, taken place during our time here, but it is
one that is already making us sensible how fast the present
happy reign is running away, for it occurred upwards of
thirty-One years ago.
A remarkable object on West Hill is the tavern of the ‘Fox
and Crown.” Only sixteen days after our present excellent
Queen had succeeded to the throne, Monday, July 6, 1837,
descending the hill in a carriage with her mother, the Duchess
of Kent, the horses took fright, and dashed forward at a
furious rate. Mr. Turner, the landlord, seeing the imminent
danger, sprang bravely forward, made a desperate clutch at
the reins, and succeeded in arresting the frightened animals.
HIGHGATE CHURCH, 307
The bold landlord probably arrested at the same time a change
in the succession to the throne; and without his saving hand,
we might at this moment be the subjects of we don’t know
who. Her Majesty, besides a handsome present, in acknow-
ledgment, granted Turner a license to mount the royal arms;
and there they stand now over the door, accompanied by an
inscription recording the circumstance. On Sundays and
holidays, groups of Londoners may be continually seen point-
ing out the royal escutcheon, and talking of the Court. As
you go up and down, you may hear, too, Occasionally, very
curious remarks. Once, about a dozen men and women were
listening to a knowing-looking commentator on the subject.
“But,” said one man, ‘what is that fox doing there on the
pole, above the crown?’ ‘Ala said the politician, laugh-
ing, and shaking his black shiny locks, that fell from under
a very little hat that seemed to have stood many a brushing
and ironing, ‘Aha! the fellow who put that up was a wag,
and no mistake. Why, Jem, the fox always does get above
the crown. As the old farmer said—“The turkey-cock is
master here; I am master o’ the men; wife is master o’ me;
Tommy is master o’ wife; but the turkey-cock is master o’
Tommy,” Aha that's it. I say, did you never read the
story of “Reynard the Fox 9’ They tell me it's almost as
old as Noah’s ark; but the man as writ it was no fool. Don’t
you know how Foxy talked old King Lion over; and though
they had got him up to the gallows, and were just going to
swing him off, he begged a moment to tell King Lion a secret
about a treasure, and Once down again, was made Lord Chan-
cellor? That’s it ! I tell you the fox will always get above
the crown. Crown thinks it rules us; but there’s always
Some deep fox at hand—Pitt, or Pam., or somebody else, as
says: “Let me just go up to the top of the pole, and tell
your Majesty which way the wind blows.” Up he goes; but
X 2
308 - HIGHGATE.
the wind may blow twenty ways before you’ll get him down
again. Look there now. The crown has got up on a pretty
high pole, above us; but fox is twiddling and grinning above
it. Now you see his whiskers, and now you see his brush;
but for coming down again, trust old Foxy.” Here there was
a hearty laugh from the listeners; but the politician, shaking
his black locks, said gravely, “A deep chap that was that put
the fox up there.” -
But if not history itself, there are testimonies of history
scattered all over Highgate, in its old mansions. From the
time of Elizabeth, and downwards, till lately, the aristo-
cracy had a particular liking to this northern ridge of hills,
overlooking the metropolis, and many a far scene besides.
Many of the views into Kent, with glimpses of the winding
Thames, into Essex, Hertfordshire, and Surrey, remind you
of those from some of the hills of Normandy and Brittany.
Accordingly, from Muswell Hill to Hampstead, we find the
scenery studded with the residences, or the remembrances of
them, of many noble and historic men and women. Around
Hampstead, as we have seen, linger the memories of Sir
Harry Vane; Butler, the author of ‘The Analogy of Re-
vealed Religion; Lord Hotham, Lord Erskine, Richardson,
the novelist; of Joanna Baillie, Shelley, Keats, Leigh Hunt;
of Herbert and Stanfield, in art, and many others.
In and around Highgate many aristocratic families have
resided, as those of Dorchester, Arundel, Cholmeley, Pem-
berton, St. Albans, Lauderdale, Argyll, Bute, Mansfield,
Southampton, Russell, Cornwallis, Hobart, Huntingdon, &c.
Amongst the chief benefactors to the poor of Highgate, be-
sides Archbishop Grindal and Sir Roger Cholmeley, already
mentioned, Sir John Wollaston founded a number of alms-
houses for mela and women; and Dick Whittington, through
the trustees of his estate, has erected a whole set of alms-
TITG HGATE CHURCH. - 309
houses for single women at the age of 55. These noble men
go on for ever making happy a number of their unfortunate
fellow-creatures. Why do not the wealthy people of our day
leave such perpetual blessings behind them 9
Amongst the names here mentioned, we shall speak more
particularly of the Cornwallises; John, Lord Russell, son of
Francis, Earl of Bedford, who died here in 1584; and add
those of Sir Richard Baker, author of “Baker’s Chronicle,”
who resided here about 1603, and the celebrated Dr. Sache-
Verell, who died at his house here on the 6th of June, 1724.
Amongst those of more than mere aristocratic distinction,
whose memories reflect honour on this ancient hill, are
Nicholas Rowe, the commentator on Shakspeare, and author
of seven tragedies of his own; Mrs. Barbauld, whose hus-
band was some time minister of the Presbyterian chapel
here; Sir Richard Baker, author of ‘The Chronicles of
England; the celebrated Countess of Huntingdon, the great
supporter of Whitefield, and the first to commence a restora-
tion of the abused charities of England. Dr. Isaac Watts
is said to have visited here sometimes his great patron Sir
Thomas Abney, and afterwards removed with him to Stoke
Newington, where he died. The noisy and troublesome Dr.
Sacheverell brought his busy, fussy soul into this quiet place
in Queen Anne’s time. General Wade, famous in the fol-
lowing distich for opening up the highlands of Scotland by
military roads, had a house here—
O ! had you seen these roads before they were made,
You would have lifted your hands and blessed General Wade.
Hogarth used to make excursions in his youthful days with
his companions to Highgate. Morland was a constant guest
at the ‘Bull Inn,’ where he sold his paintings to support him-
self. He knew the driver of every coach, and the pedigree
of the horses, and, taking his stand at Bob Bellamy’s Inn, in
310 IIIG II (; ATT.
the village, would halloo to the gentlemen of the whip, as
they made their appearance, and treat them to gin and
brandy. Frequently he would parade with a pipe in his
mouth before the door of the house, and hail the carriages
as they passed in succession before him, and, from being
so well known, was generally greeted by a familiar Salute
from the postilion. The consequence that he attached to
this species of homage was almost beyond belief.
Here the famous Jacobite and polemic, Bishop Atterbury,
used to visit his brother, Dr. Atterbury, the preacher of
Highgate Chapel. Here the wealthy Sir John Hawkins—
not Queen Elizabeth’s Sir John, the great slave-trade ad-
miral, but the historian of music—used to live facing the
pond, and daily set forth in his coach-and-four to discharge
his magisterial functions at Hicks’s Hall. And, more truly
distinguished than all the rest, Coleridge lived, slily swal-
lowed opium, and talked wondrous talk at Mr. Gilman’s, the
surgeon, in the Grove; the most extraordinary thing being
that the literati who used to flock up from London to hear
him never committed one of these wonderful harangues to
paper.
COLERIDGE AT IIIGIIGATE.
Something more must be said of Coleridge than in the
, above brief paragraph. His residence here was an event in
the history of the place. Few of our countrymen have
exceeded Coleridge in amount or variety of genius. As a
poet, a metaphysician, and a theologian, he stands pre-
eminent, and has produced a greater effect on our literature
and modes of thinking than most people are sensible of.
He was one of that illustrious band of men who hate the
artificial trammels of our literature, and led us back to
nature, inaugurating a new and nobler era of thought, and
COILERIDGE AT HIGFIGATE. 311
of the modes of expressing it. His earliest friends and
coadjutors were Wordsworth and Southey, Charles Lloyd,
Robert Lovell, and kind, helpful, pedantic Joseph Cottle,
first his publisher, and afterwards his biographer. His
early life was full of change and restlessness. At one time a
Unitarian preacher, at another a light dragoon, then a
journalist, and newspaper editor. He was one of the first to
introduce to us the poets and literature of Germany, having
visited that country with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy,
and Henry Crabbe Robinson. There he made the acquaint-
ange of Klopstock and others, and with the works, if not the
persons, of Schiller, Lessing, Gellert, Ramler, and Kant. He
studied at Göttingen, applying himself to physiology and
natural history, under Blumenbach, and had Eichhorn’s
‘Lectures on the New Testament * repeated to him by a
student from Ratzeburg. “But my chief efforts,” he says,
‘were directed towards a grounded knowledge of the German
language and literature. From Professor Tychsen I received
as many lessons in the Gothic of Ulphilas as were sufficient
to make one acquainted with its grammar, and the radical
words of the most frequent occurrence ; and with the occa-
sional assistance of the same philosophical linguist, I read
through Otfried's metrical paraphrase of the Gospels, and the
most important remains of the Theotiscan, or the transi-
tional state of the Teutonic language, from the Gothic to the
old German of the Swabian period. Of this period I read
with sedulous accuracy the Minnesinger, or singers of love,
the provençal poets of the Swabian court, and the metrical
romances; and then laboured through sufficient specimens
of the master singers, their degenerate successors; not, how-
ever, without occasional pleasure from the rude yet interest-
ing strains of Hans Sachs, the cobbler of Nüremberg.’
This was a vigorous introduction into the vast field of
312 THIGHEIGATE,
German knowledge, and the fruits of it were soon seen in
his enthusiasm for Schiller, and his indoctrination by Kant.
He proposed at once to translate the whole of the works of
Schiller, but the English public was not then prepared for
the importation of so much German poetry, and he contented
himself with translating the ‘Piccolomini” and ‘The Death
of Wallenstein,’ which, with some mistakes, showing a not
sufficient familiarity with the conversational phraseology of
Germany, is a masterly work. Of the part of his life
chiefly spent at Highgate, I will avail myself of the narrative
of my friend Freiligrath, the German poet, a man as dis-
tinguished for his knowledge of English, as for his genius —
‘The next eighteen years of his life were agitated and
unsettled. We find him at London, connected with Daniel
Stuart and the “Morning Post,” and writing a series of
letters for that paper, which, by their anti-Gallican tendency,
made him obnoxious to the First Consul; at the Lakes, where
Southey, recently returned from Portugal, and Wordsworth,
had established themselves; at Malta, in 1804, whither he
had just repaired for the benefit of his health, and where he
officiated for some months as secretary to the governor of
that island, Sir Alexander Ball; at Rome, where he made
the acquaintance of Ludwig Tieck; was painted by Wash-
ington Allston, and had to thank Wilhelm von Humboldt
for a warning which enabled him to escape from the snares
of Buonaparte. Again at the Lakes, planning a new perio-
dical, the “Friend.” Again at London, writing for the
“Courier,” lecturing on Shakspeare and Milton, visiting
Lord Byron, then One of the managing committee of Drury
Lane Theatre, and, through the influence of this generous
friend, seeing his tragedy of “Remorse” successfully brought
upon the stage. At Calne, in Wiltshire, occupied with the
“Biographia Literaria,” and arranging and publishing a
COLERIDGE AT HIGHGATE. 313
part of his lyrics under the title of “Sibylline Leaves,” until,
in 1816, we see him settling, for the rest of his life, at High-
gate, in the house of Mr. James Gillman, surgeon.
“The motive for this removal was a sad one. To seek
relief from bodily suffering, Coleridge had at an early period
begun the use of opium. He continued it for the same rea-
son, till he had acquired the habit of opium-eating, and felt
it beyond his power to shake off his unhappy bondage to the
baleful drug. The consequences were such as might be ex-
pected. His physical strength gave way; his mind, at no
time energetic and resolute, became utterly unstrung. A
voluntary exile from his family, whom he left to the care of
Southey, the kindest of friends and relatives, he was preyed
upon by remorse and self-reproach. The firmness with which
he resolved at last to cut down the use of the root, and for
that purpose to place himself under the charge of a physi-
cian, shows the fundamental worth and soundness of his
character. Mr. Gillman was the physician chosen for the
difficult and delicate task; and under his roof, in the bosom
of his affectionate family, who had sense and kindness enough
to know that they did themselves honour by looking after
the comfort of such a man, the last years of the poet’s life
were quietly spent. A cool and peaceful evening, after the
storm of a hot and feverish day. Here, on the brow of High-
gate Hill, to quote Carlyle, “he sate looking down on
London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the
inanity of life’s battle, attracting towards him the thoughts
of innumerable brave souls still engaged there—heavy-laden,
high-aspiring, and surely much-suffering man.” -
‘Still his aspirings proved stronger than his sufferings.
This period was also one of unabated intellectual activity
with Coleridge. He continued his literary exertions—the
fragments of “Christabel,” composed in 1797 and 1800,
3.14. HIGHGATE.
appeared in 1816; the “Biographia Literaria,” in 1817;
“Zapolya, a Christmas Tale,” in the same year; the two
“Lay Sermons,” in 1816 and 1817; the “Aids to Reflec-
tion,” in 1825; and the little work, “On the Construction of
Church and State,” in 1830. But mostly during this epoch,
it was by means of oral communication that he exercised a
bad and wide-operating influence. At no other time, per-
haps, his extraordinary conversational powers, always the
joy and wonderment of enraptured hearers—witness the
enthusiastic reports of Lamb, Talfourd, De Quincy, Hazlitt,
and others—proved themselves more fascinating and effec-
tive. His voice, indeed, had now grown feeble ; it had lost
the deep and full tone, which once reverberated from the
ferny slopes of the Quantocks; but it never tired in the
utterance, in copious and eloquent talk, of all the wisdom,
the bright fancies, the sad experience stored up under that
broad and pensive forehead.
‘A large circle of friends and disciples gathered round
him ; and he taught and talked amongst his trees and
flowers, like Plato in the garden of Academus. What men
entered Mr. Gillman’s humble porch in those days l—Lamb
and Wordsworth, Southey and Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt and
Talfourd, John Stirling and Thomas Carlyle—a hero wor-
shipped, and sometimes, we feel bound to add, reverentially
censured by heroes. Ludwig Tieck, too, we are agreeably
surprised to meet amongst his Highgate visitors. He, how-
ever, did not come to listen, but to be listened to. At the
request of Coleridge, Tieck, in a long midnight discourse,
developed to him his views of Shakspeare, concerning whom,
and his English commentators, the two friends were at
variance.
“In this way eighteen years passed by: he dreamt and he
talked, he cultivated his flowers, and fed his little pensioners,
COLERIDGE AT HIGH GATE. 315
the birds, until, on July 25, 1834, death gently took him
away. Three months more, and he would have completed
his sixty-second year.
‘Coleridge, with all his errors and shortcomings, is yet a
mame never to be omitted in a history of the march of
the English mind—not so much for what he has actually
performed, as for the stimulating impulses given by him.
His gifts were of the richest and highest order; yet, however
powerful as a critic, however profound as a metaphysician,
however melodious and imaginative as a poet, he, from an
innate want of courage and energy of character, had it not
in his power to give to his faculties that development which,
if it had been attained, would have entitled him to one of
the very highest places in English literature. But what he
has done amongst the poets and philosophers of his country
is this:–thirsting after truth, longing for the good and
beautiful, “an inquiring spirit,”—indeed, he was the first to
venture into intellectual regions far apart from the track
hitherto beaten by English thinkers. The experiment, for
himself, may have been to little purpose, but he at all events
has opened up the road. Here lies his merit—it is that of
the pilot and pioneer. It is the merit of being one of the
first, if not the very first, of those who have brought about that
all-important exchange of ideas between two great kindred
nations, which at present, stirring and humanising, fluctuates
to and fro across the German Ocean. What he did for
Schiller we have mentioned already. But it was Coleridge
who first introduced Kant ; it was he who first introduced
Fichte and Schelling to the English nation ; and, although
he did not carry on or diffuse their systems, nay, although
towards the close of his life he even disclaimed them, and
returned, a strict Trinitarian, into the bosom of the Church
of England, yet, what he has written upon metaphysical
316 HIGHGATE.
subjects, has proved highly suggestive to “inquiring spirits”
of a later generation. Much of the ferment in theology and
philosophy, at present going on in England and America,
originates in Coleridge.’
Amongst the frequent visitors of Coleridge was Edward
Irving, who, himself a great preacher and teacher of religion,
used to sit at the feet of Coleridge as at those of Gamaliel,
meekly listening. Amongst all his admiring auditors, Cole-
ridge never had a nobler and more Christian one than Edward
Irving. Whatever may be thought of his belief of the con-
tinuance of Christian miracles and preternatural gifts to the
present day, and his participation in the too eager faith in
the personal appearance of Christ on earth, there can be but
one opinion of his perfectly Christ-like spirit. Repeatedly
thwarted, snubbed, and turned out of the chapels and asso-
ciations of those whom his inspired eloquence had drawn
together—though these harsh trials broke his heart, and sent
him to an early grave, he never for a moment harboured
any resentment. He continued persecuted, meek, loving,
and forgiving to the last. Since the days of his great pro-
totype and Saviour, we know of no man who so much re-
sembled him in patient, loving, and unresentful faith.
The house which Coleridge inhabited in the Grove, High-
gate—the third from the high-road—has recently been much
altered, and may be known by its modern aspect in the
row of the old Grove houses. In America, the reputation of
Coleridge is far more properly appreciated than in England.
Some of his works are class-books in the colleges of the
United States, and his “ Aids to Reflection’ has, perhaps more
than any other production, formed the minds of the studious
young men there. Such is the enthusiasm for the memory
of Coleridge in the States, that numbers of Americans visit
his last residence at Highgate, and one of them offered a
MR. MAC DOWELL, THE SCULPTOR. 317
large price for the very doors of his room, that he might set
them up in his own house across the Atlantic.
Long will the pleasant walks round Highgate be connected
with the memory of Coleridge. The woodland seclusion of
Milford Lane, and the fields lying between them and Hamp-
stead, will, to the lovers of genuine poetry and broadly dis-
cursive minds, revive the image of the ‘old man eloquent’
taking his daily stroll, with his black coat and white locks, a
book in his hand, and, probably, a group of curious children
around him, whose acquaintance he was fond of making.
Amongst persons born at Highgate may be mentioned
Mr. John Taylor, author of ‘Monsieur Tomson,’ and who has
written his own life in two volumes octavo, published by
Bull, in Holles Street, in 1832—a work which abounds with
anecdotes of theatrical notabilities.
In the last house on Holly Terrace, farthest from the road,
lived also for some years, in the latter part of Coleridge’s
time, and with whom he was familiar, Thomas Pringle, the
first editor, and one of the projectors of ‘Blackwood’s Maga-
zine.” He also wrote a very interesting work, ‘A Narrative
of a Residence in South Africa,’ a volume of superior power;
and edited the annual, ‘Friendship’s Offering.” But perhaps
the most extraordinary part of Mr. Pringle's history was
that, with a full-sized and strong body, but with scarcely
any legs, owing to an accident in childhood, he used to
ride enthusiastically after lions and elephants in the Cape
country.
MR. MAC DOWELL, THE SCULPTOR.
One of the most distinguished of the inhabitants of High-
gate is Mr. Mac Dowell, the sculptor, equally remarkable
for his talent and the unassuming modesty of his character.
B : sp.torſ Jo OSnOH ot[] [O] ‘It’t|113IIO put 11ſ.I. Jo Souqt:18
: uſic|n(I ‘S].InoC) inoff ou! IQj ‘uoſušor I.O [outſoſ.W. IIS Jo
oſq.[but UI onquis B OSIIduroo SXLIOA quonbosqms STH ..'oAGI,
but ..ºutſºt: A Jo JºboCI ou I, , ...“oud KSJ., “AOLIOS ARIt'GI,
..“pſdno, ...[9&B.I.I. Jº IIH) W, ...ºubt[dumpſ I, oao'I, ‘SIO)
-dinos (ISIlāUIGI Jo SXLIOAA ouſ, Jo [n]ootſ.[5 1sour où 1s5utout; St.
“100IIO09.I IIIA IgSI JO UOITICII (IXGI tºo.1%) ot). On SIOTISIA,
‘FºrdSOH
to AAULø919 IOJ pouſsop SIULIUIpt: UIST|,IgE JO Sonqºls [BUIOT)
-Bul out, Jo outo ‘unuouTXII ptor I Jo O.Ināg 'b opnooxo O] [oad
quoqosſ Is Ka poſsnique sew on tºok outes out uſ 'v'ſ ut
bo!ooſo SbA IIoAOCI OUIN TW ‘9ISI uT ..."tºpuſºilſ A. Jo U189CI,
où.) SEA ‘Autoutnueg| TIN TOJ UITUI Aq poºnooxo ‘dno.13 pulooos W.
.."]ubUdumpTI, OAOT, SIU. UITUI IOJ potisſurg ouſ ‘u.In 191 SHI UO
'ATBTI uſ sinuouſ quâjo Tuods put polis A on ‘ttomsø;3ns put
to]]o Álbuoſi, S.JUOUInteg| T.W. Ušno.I.U.I. VºI'V ut, polooſe
ăuţoq SIU 01 paſ put ‘UOI]tºndo, S.IIoAOCI obj\ .IIW postºo.To
-U Kūt;0.13 quount:03 UT,IOAluto M ITN to] poºnooxo SXLIOAA
oùI, ‘UIII quâno.Iq 0Abū osſ Alou 10 plnoA . Šumpboyſ [II+) V,
Jo onquis SItſ Jo SSoooms put Kºnboq ouſ) (IOIUAA step.IO Kubuſ
oSOI O] [[OAAOCI OUTN ‘IIW postnºo SIULL YEIOAA Lotſ)0 OUI ox{B}
-TopUIn “s.It.0.X. oo.IU[] §uſ.Inp ‘ptuous ot qtuq ‘ToAoAOU ‘ātūnt'ſ
-ndrºs ‘sdno.13 of It'ſ OAA) Urſuſ UIO.J. pouoissºuTUIOO Utual]Uroš
STUD IIoAOCI obſ, ITN Jo Suo'ſ] brodo ouſ posse.1.18quio KIQB
-Toppsûoo outſ, SIT) 1.6 °o.IIISXLIOX J0 ‘AttoulnbogI (Il TOAAqua AA
'I W utoq (IoISSTututoo popuoluſ KISno.touloš 1soul W. ,
—: Sūdu:15u.I.Ed 3UIAAOIOJ out, UUI
paybouſtop stuouſ oouſs splitt, où.) Jo SS013old ouT, ouſt'ſ sºu
pauspiquºso 3upboyſ III*) V, Jo onlºs SIU ‘Āſīsnpui àuſºſul
-oſun Āq ootoujuto oſquooſiou on dn Josuiſtſ pox{10A 5uſAbū
‘yºun utbol oA ‘998I UI ‘oybásdotisſa Jo “joutlog poſſIV IN
Kol pousſaud .*)TV pub ‘oottoſos ‘o.Inqūtopſ I uſ ootouTuTGI
Jo uoſ Jo Spºtſ,IOd, Ur IIoAOCI ot|N TW. Jo Iſoutout tº UIOIJI
‘‘II, Wł)|IH)|IFI - SIS
M.R. MAC DOWELL, THE SCULPTOR. 3.19
statue in bronze for the late Earl of Belfast; a statue in
bronze, for Limerick, of the late Lord Fitzgibbon; a statue
in marble, “The Day Dream;” a group in marble for
T. Baring, Esq., M.P. ; “The First Thorn in Life; ” statue
for the Mansion House, from “Moore’s Loves of the Angels;”
statue of J. M. W. Turner, the celebrated painter, for St.
Paul’s Cathedral, the competition for which was confined to
members of the Royal Academy; a statue in marble of the
late Lord Plunkett, for Dublin; and a statue in bronze of
Lord Eglinton, for Dublin also.
‘Mr. Mac Dowell has since been engaged upon a monu-
mental group in marble, for the Marquis of Donegal, to be
erected in Belfast; and upon a group in marble of “Europe,”
for the Albert Memorial erecting in Hyde Park, a commission
received from Her Majesty.’
Mr. MacDowell has one son, Mr. R. C. Mac Dowell, whose
name is already favourably known to the public as a young
sculptor of promise. He has exhibited at the Royal Academy
Several statues and statuettes. -
In the mind of the ordinary public, however, Highgate is
more famous for its former nonsensical practice of Swearing
travellers on the horns, than for its distinguished men. The
whole particulars of the ceremony may be found in Hone’s
“Every Day Book.” In the great coaching days, when the
travellers to London from the North stopped at Highgate,
at whichever of its nineteen public houses it might be, out
came the horns fixed on a pole, and the passengers were
sworn to eat no brown bread when they could get white,
unless they liked it better, and not to kiss the maid when
they could kiss the mistress, unless they liked her better.
They were then inducted into all the liberties of the place.
If they saw a swine lying in the gutter, they were free to lie
down by it if they chose ; and much more such nonsense,
320 |HIGEIGATE.
no doubt thought very droll by the poor freezing coach
travellers, who, with stamping toes and blue noses, had been
facing the icy blast for days and nights together.
The Horns at Hornchurch, the Horns at Kennington, the
Horn Fair at Charlton, and the Horns at Highgate, all evi-
dently have reference to an ancient passage-toll levied on
- ***-
• * *
... *~. .
S& }. s' 'S
Y.
il •-
| i
| Š."Nº º, .
lºſiº.
i
| | | § h
jºš
: Tºº, si. Nº &\º.
§sº
*::::::
; , ; ; ; ;
Iſºjº”--—rſi º
#|| # - i {
4 i. º . ; º |:
| º ill |;
iº %illº tº
§ º: º
ºf{{& Tº Te º żº P'º'; * *…
N. §ſ. §§-ſº |:. º * sº
- *"; § Š & * - º ** º ºº::
º º, *: lº g , 26. § § - Jºy § § .
WW'ſ & §º. *º §:# Tº
}}''. º §§ 22*. Sº § º “AF
ſ ; : , \" §ºm º º . - * * ºšNº. º ,, . ."
:/ſ ğ. ſº |Nº º º
ºijº Fº'ſ ſº
§ * * § § {& | , ſºlº
º* **,º
CEREMONY OF BEING ‘sworn AT HIGHGATE.”
(From Woodward’s “IExcentric Excursions,’ in the British Museum.)
horned cattle, and gathered by some park-keeper, or manor
bailiff, who showed his authority by a staff mounted with
a sign not to be misunderstood.
But I have promised to say something of more serious
matters. Formerly there stood an old Southampton House
at Highgate. It is gone long ago, and instead of it and its
grounds, expand the pleasant Fitzroy Park and its pleasant
villas. This and the pretty little property, now almost one
solid town, stretching down to Oxford Street, is one of those












































MR. MAC DOWELL, THE SCULPTOR. 321
nice things which the aristocracy, who say the Radicals
want to pull down the Church, have filched from that amiable
mother. In 1837, a writer in the ‘Morning Chronicle made
public this fact :— & º
• ‘In the year 1768, the Duke of Grafton was Prime Minis-
ter. His brother, Mr. Fitzroy, was lessee of the manor and
lordship of Tattenhall, the property of the Dean and Chapter
of St. Paul’s, London. Dr. Richard Brown, the then pre-
bendary of the stall of Tattenhall, having pocketed the
emolument attending the renewal of the lease, and there
being little chance of any further advantages to him from
the estate, readily listened to a proposal of Mr. Fitzroy for
the purchase of the estate. The thing was agreed, and the
Duke of Grafton, with his great standing majority, quickly
passed an Act through Parliament, in March 1768, diverting
the estate, with all its rights, privileges, and emoluments
from the prebend, and conveyed the fee-simple entire, and
without reserve, to Mr. Charles Fitzroy and his heirs for
ever. The Act states it to be with the consent of Richard,
Lord Bishop of London, and the privity of the Dean and
Chapter of St. Paul's. -
‘Now what was, and where lay this estate, so readily
detached from the Church 9 It commences at St. Giles’
parish, extends some distance on the north side of Oxford-
street, and in other directions embraces a large part of St.
Pancras parish, Camden Town, and up to Highgate, including
copses, woods, and grounds lying beside Highgate of great
extent, and from its situation equal in value to any land
round the metropolis. Very considerable buildings were at
that time erected upon it, the ground was in great request
for building on, and could thus be disposed of in leases at a
considerable rate per foot. Mr. Fitzroy immediately settled
400l. a year on Mrs. Fitzroy, secured on only twenty-three-
y
322 EIIGHEIGATE.
acres of this land, the estate consisting of some thousands of
acres. Any One knowing the extent and situation of the
property, now that a vast town of more than three miles in
length exists upon it, must be aware of the astounding value
of it at present. -
* The full equivalent and compensation given to the
Church for this princely estate was a rent-charge on it of
300l. per annum, which, as 46l. of it was receivable under
the lease, makes the amount given for the fee simple 254l.
per annum ! The estate being thus secured, on the strength
of it Mr. Fitzroy was raised to the peerage in 1780 by the
title of Lord Southampton, by which the estate is now
known. Tattenhall is kept out of view, and this Church
plunder is probably all the title possesses.’
The writer added that at that time, on a moderate calcu-
lation, the Southampton family had received a million and
a-half sterling from the estate, the full equivalent paid being
then only 17,784l. He intimated also that in the library
at Lambeth Palace, a set of Parliamentary surveys of church
lands records many similar transactions. - -
O ! noble conservators of the “Poor Man’s Church 1”
2.
FITZROY PARK–DR. SOUTHWOOD SMITH.
This pleasant outskirt of Highgate, deriving its name from
the Southampton family, and on part of which the old
Southampton House formerly stood, had as a resident for
several years Dr. Southwood Smith, one of the most modest
and benevolent of the men of Science and genius whom this
country has produced. Of his labours we have a con-
densed statement in the “Men of the Time,” which, as it
appears correct, we cannot do better than quote:–“Thomas
Southwood Smith, author and physician, was born about
FITZROY PARIK—DR. SOUTEIWOOD SMITEI. 323
1790. He first attracted attention to himself by a work
entitled “The Divine Government,” written in 1814. Of
this Wordswórth, in a letter, says: “The view Dr. Smith
takes is so consonant with the ideas we entertain of Divine
goodness, that were it not for some Scriptural difficulties, I
should give this book my unqualified approbation.” The
argument is, that it seems probable, judging by analogy,
that pain is a correcting process, whether physical, mental,
or spiritual, and that the whole human race will be finally
saved. Dr. Southwood Smith spent several years in the
practice of his profession in the West of England, where he
' married. On the death of his wife he came to London with
his son and two daughters, and attached himself to one of
the metropolitan hospitals. He was soon after appointed
physician to the London Fever Hospital, and continued
connected with it to a late period of his life. He employed
his leisure in the composition of “A Treatise on Fever,”
which at once took its position as a standard medical work.
Be assisted in the promotion of the “Westminster Review,”
and wrote the article on Bentham's System of Education
in the first number. To this review he became a regular
contributor; and it was his papers on the amatomical schools
which brought the abuses of the old system of surgery so
prominently before the public. He reprinted the main part
of these articles under the title of “The Use of the Dead to
the Living; ” and his arguments, it is well known, prepared
the way for the passing of the present law, which has extin-
guished the horrible traffic of the resurrection-men. His
next scientific labours were some articles on physiology and
medicine for the “Cyclopædia,” and soon after he finished
his celebrated treatise on “Animal Physiology " for the
“Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.” The
success of this work suggested the idea of treating the sub-
y 2
324. HIGHGATE.
ject in a still more comprehensive manner, and hence, in
1834, his “Physiology of Health.” Dr. S. Smith had long
been the disciple and physician of Jeremy Bentham, and
attended him in his last illness. A characteristic anecdote
is related of the expiring philanthropist. During his last
illness, he asked his medical attendant to tell him candidly
if there was any prospect of recovery. On being informed
that nature was too exhausted to allow of such a hope, he
said, with his usual serenity, “Very well, be it so ; then
minimise pain.”
“In order to show the world his Superiority to the common
prejudices of mankind, Bentham left his body, by will, to Dr.
Smith for anatomical purposes, and requested that, after dis-
section, his skeleton should be preserved. The Doctor fulfilled
his desire, and delivered a lecture over the dead body of
his friend in the West Street School of Anatomy, on June 9,
1832. “There, on the dissecting table,” says a writer we
have before quoted, “lay the frame of that acute and bene-
volent man; before it stood the lecturer, pale as the corpse,
yet self-possessed and reverent; around were seated most
of the disciples and friends of the deceased. During the
address there was a violent thunderstorm, which threw an
indescribable awe over the whole scene. Every now and
then the countenances of the dead and the living were lit up
by the flashes of lightning; still the speaker proceeded, inter-
rupted now and then by the thunder-crash, until at length it
died away, and seemed to give up quiet possession to the
lecturer's voice. In this address was given a brief but
eloquent abstract of the life and writings of Jeremy Ben-
thalm.” - - -
‘In 1837, Dr. Smith was appointed by the Government to
enquire into the state of the poor, with a view to see how
far diseases and misery were produced by unhealthy dwel-
D'U FIFERIN LOD GE. 325
lings and habits. His enquiries led to the passing of the
Act for procuring improved drainage, and ultimately to the
establishment of the Public Board of Health, of which Dr.
Southwood Smith became a leading member.’
Thus Dr. Smith was the father of all those great sanitary
reforms, which have now assumed national proportions, and
wbich in the metropolis exhibit their effects in the gigantic
scheme of drainage, and pursue their active enquiries into all
causes of destruction of health and social decency into the
remotest and most obscure corners of the United Kingdom.
The skeleton of the great legal and social reformer Ben-
tham was preserved by Dr. Smith for many years in his
house—not in its maked Osseous condition, but clothed in the
philosopher’s own raiment, wearing his own hat, and with a
waxen mask, representing him as much as possible in his
living image. Many persons will recollect the start which
was given them when a sort of large cheffonier was opened,
and the figure of the philosopher was presented sitting before
them. -
Dr. Southwood Smith died at Florence on the 10th of
December, 1861, a hale old man, from a sudden chill from
the Tramontane wind. He was buried in the beautiful Pro-
testant cemetery there, and a handsome marble obelisk has
been erected to his memory by his family and friends, with
a medallion profile, executed by Mr. Hart, the sculptor, of
Florence.
DUIFFERIN LODGE.
Adjoining Fitzroy Park, on a pleasant eminence, stands
T)ufferin Lodge, the suburban residence of Lord Dufferin,
one of our most rising and respected statesmen, and equally
distinguished in literature for his lively ‘Letters from High
Latitudes.” As a descendant of Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
326 HIGEIGATIE.
Lord Dufferin inherits a large portion of the family genius
and spirit of liberal reform. Before him, his mother, Lady
Gifford, lived in the same house. As one of the three grand-
daughters of Sheridan—herself, the Duchess of Somerset,
and the Hon. Mrs. Norton—distinguished equally for their
personal and intellectual attractions, Lady Gifford, as Lady
Dufferin, will be long remembered by her touching song of
‘I am sitting on the stile, Mary’—a composition unsur-
passed for genuine pathos.
- - { tº 2
- * * * * º
º º - sº
º *s, *i-----...Fi :-
.3'º.,2: ..."
- W. - s
M. A. iſ f
º ." *
* * * * * º
g & º
sºlº
º - t | - - -
“sſ ; º: % : - f r '%'. º i.e.: 4% ºf
* ...? (ºft zºº. 2. ~ *Vºy º #º
RENWOOD HOUSE.
(From an Original Drawing in the possession of J. E. Gardner, Esq.)
CAEN WOOD AND LORD IMANSFIELD.
Highgate, by the difficulty of its hills, and by the estates
of the church, of Lord Mansfield, and Miss Coutts, lying in
front and rear of it, has retained to this hour more of a
rural character than any village in the immediate suburbs of
London. Unlike Hampstead, to which London has pushed
forward its bricklayers’ arms, both from St. John’s Wood

CAEN WOOD AND TORT) MANSIPIET,D, 327
and Haverstock Hill, it yet, on its western side, stands in
union with the country. London has, indeed, followed Dick
Whittington up Holloway Hill, but as yet only in a slender
line. The old green of Highgate yet boasts its old build-
ings, its old elm and lime-tree avenue, and has an air of
quiet and of the past. Around stretch fields, and hills, and
glades that possess an eminent beauty, which On Sundays
and holidays suddenly make the Londoner think himself a
countryman, and almost poetical. Especially crossing by
the footpath to Hampstead, with those green undulating
fields, the noble forest-look of Caen Wood, the chain of five
ponds, and the far-opening views, there is little English pas-
toral scenery to excel it. Turning back to look at Highgate
itself, the aspect of it is singularly beautiful and picturesque.
The white villas, amid their trees and pleasant grounds run-
ning up the hill, are finely terminated by the tall spire of the
church. On either hand, green uplands and noble scattered
trees, with the waters flashing at their feet, compose a pic-
ture that has no peer anywhere immediately round London,
and reminds one rather of a foreign than an English suburb.
As for those fields themselves, with their green swells and
slopes, and their trees dispersed in park-like Order, they
remind me of hundreds of miles of such lands that I have
traversed in Australia, as park-like, as fertile, as green in
spring, and having an air of centuries of the polishing touch
of human hands, though no hands save those of God have
touched them, and no feet but those of the Savage and his
kangaroo have, till lately, traversed them.
I have already adverted to the splendid landscape, and the
vast expanse of London lying under the eye of the spectator
from Highgate Hill; and I shall not soon forget the asto-
nishment of the Danish poet, Andersen, on his first visit to
England, as we drove at night over Highgate Archway, and
328 - HIGHGATE.
he saw the great world metropolis mapped out in fire below
him. - -
The house and estate of Caen, or Ken Wood, however, are
the finest feature, next to London itself, of the immediate
vicinity of the village. The house is a large and massive
building of yellow stone, impressive from its bulk and its com-
manding situation rather than from its architecture, which
is that of Robert Adam, who was very fashionable in the
early part of the reign of George III. Adam had two
brothers, both architects also ; and he, generally assisted by
his brother James, erected Luton House, Gosford House, the
Register Office in Edinburgh, as well as various buildings in
Tondon (the Adelphi, Portland Place, &c.), of which the
screen at the Admiralty is by far the finest. Caen Wood
House has two fronts—one facing the north, with projecting
wings; the other facing the south, extending along a noble
terrace, and has its façade elongated by a one-storied wing at
each side. The basement story of the main body of the house
is of rustic work, surmounted by a pediment supported by
Ionic pilasters, the columns of the wings being of the same
order. Within, Adam, as was usual with him, was more
successful than without. The rooms are spacious, lofty, and
finely proportioned. They contain a few good paintings,
among which are some of Claude's ; a portrait of Pope, the
poet, with whom the first Earl was very intimate ; and a full-
length. One of the great law lord himself, as well as a bust of
him by Nollekens. The portrait of Pope is said to be by
himself, as well as one of Betterton, the tragedian, for he had
studied painting with his friend Jervas. .
The park in front, of fifty acres, is arranged to give a feel-
ing of seclusion in a spot so near to London. The ground
descends to some sheets of water forming a continuation
of the Highgate Ponds, lying amid trees; and a belt of
CAEN WOOD, AND LORD MANSFIELD. , 329
fine, well-grown wood cuts off the broad open view of the
metropolis. Here you have all the sylvan seclusion of a remote
country mansion; and charming walks, said to be nearly two
miles in extent, conduct you round the park, and through the
woods, where stand some trees of huge growth and grandeur,
especially cedars of Lebanon and beeches. A good deal of
this planting—especially some fine cedars yet near the house
—was done under the direction of the first lord himself. A
custom is kept up here which smacks of the old feudal times.
Every morning, when the night-watchman goes off duty, at
six o'clock, he fires a gun, and immediately three long winds
are given on a horn to call the servants, gardeners, and
labourers to their employment. The horn is blown again at
breakfast and dinner hours, and at six in the evening for
their dismissal. -
No doubt in the old times Caen Wood, as part of the
forest of Middlesex, was a very wild and darkling region,
fit place for criminals to seek concealment in. So, as we
have seen, the Fifth Monarchy men fled there with Wenner,
in January 1661. So the confederates of Guido Faux fled
there on the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. The hill at
some distance in front of it, still called Traitor’s Hill, is a
bare green eminence, something resembling Primrose Hill,
and giving a fine view of the Parliament House, the old
predecessor of which they hoped to see start into the air.
In Miss Coutts’s grounds there is also a hill which bears
the same name, and probably may have been the stand-point
of some of the traitors; but the more western hill has the
more general title to the tradition. Betwixt this hill and
the woods of Lord Mansfield, on the rising ground, stands
a mound or ancient barrow marked by a few Scotch-fir trees,
making it a quickly recognisable object. The tradition
connected with this barrow is, that in very early times the
330 EIIGHGATE.
inhabitants of St. Alban’s, who aspired to make that town
the capital of this part of England, finding London growing
a vigorous rival, set out to attack and destroy it; but that
the Londoners turning out, met and defeated their enemies
of St. Alban’s on this spot, and that this mound contains the
dust of the slain.
Another association of a much more recent date which I
may mention before entering on the main object of this
paper, is that of the name of William Paterson, the founder
of the Bank of England. Paterson was a clever Scotchman,
whose head was as full of mercantile speculations as a hive
is of bees, and he was supported by such men as Mr. Coutts,
Sir John Trenchard, Sir Thomas Dalby, &c. It was the
same Paterson who originated the celebrated Darien scheme
in the reign of William III., a scheme which ended most
disastrously—not from any folly in the scheme itself, for
had it succeeded it would have established for us a passage
across the Isthmus of Panama, and a short cut into the
Pacific Ocean, and to China, and the East Indies, more than
a century and a half ago. But Paterson by his daring plan
had raised the fierce opposition of the Dutch and English
East India Companies, and of Dutch William at their insti-
gation; and William crushed the enterprise by his procla-
mation, and by prohibiting any supply of necessaries from
the West India Islands. Paterson was entirely and splen-
didly successful in the establishment of the Bank of England,
of which he was for some time a director, and of his humble
but still most useful scheme of water supply for the north of
London. It is true that Paterson’s water company was
only established in 1690, whilst Sir Hugh Middleton had
brought the New River to London in 1614—that is, seventy-
six years before. But Middleton had ruined himself by his
grand enterprise; and so little was it appreciated, that for
CAEN WOOD AND LORD IMAN SEIFILD. 331
above thirty years the seventy-two shares into which it was
divided netted only 5l. a share, though they now sell at
15,000l. or 20,000l. each. Paterson’s plan of collecting the
springs of Caen Wood into ponds or reservoirs succeeded,
and supplied Hampstead and Kentish Town and their vicinity
till the growing power of the New River Company pushed it
from the field. The ponds still remain—a fine, fresh chain
of water, giving life to the scene, and highly delighted in by
the Summer strollers from London. But on them, too, the
Speculators in endless railroads, and their great devastators,
the engineers, have cast murderous eyes, are yearning to let
them all off, run a line along their bed, and tunnel under
Caen Wood itself. Then adieu to the peaceful beauty of
Highgate; it will be followed quickly by ALL-DEvouring
LONDON.
As Caen Wood yet exists, it is an example of the magni-
ficent rewards of the law in this country. We look about
in vain in England for the palaces and great estates achieved
by the poets and authors in general in this book-loving
England; but everywhere we run against the broad lands
and aristocratic abodes of the lawyers in this law-loving
Bngland. Literati and artists in general may inherit large
fortunes, but lawyers are every day creating them out of
nothing. Lord Mansfield won Caen Wood, and infinitely
more, out of nothing. -
This charming place had been in the hands of a succes-
sion of proprietors. In 1661 it was the property of a John
Bill, Esq., who married a Lady Pelham, Supposed to be the
widow of Sir Thomas Pelham, and a daughter of Sir Henry
Vane. It must afterwards have belonged to one Dale, an
upholsterer, whom Mackay, in his ‘Tour through England,’
says, “had bought it out of the Bubbles,'—the South Sea
affair. This was in 1720. This Dale, unlike the majority
332 IIIG BIGATE.
of speculators, must have been a fortunate one. It then
became the property of the Dukes of Argyll; and the great
and good Duke John, whom Sir Walter Scott introduces so
nobly in the scene with Jeanie Deans and Queen Caroline
in ‘The Heart of Midlothian,” and who had lived in the
reigns of Anne and Georges I. and II. ; who had fought
bravely at Ramillies, Malplaquet, and Oudenarde, and who
afterwards beat the rebel Earl of Mar and drove the Pre-
tender from Scotland, resided here when called to London.
The property was then devised by the Duke of Argyll to his
nephew John, third Earl of Bute, who is only too well
remembered in the opening of the reign of George III. for
his unpopularity. Bute was one of those men of outward
grace and figure who attract the eyes of women, but who,
having little or nothing in their heads, are only rendered
ridiculous by being put into positions of eminence and
, responsibility. Bute was the favourite of the widow of Fre-
derick Prince of Wales, mother of George III., a connection
of public scandal. By this influence made minister of the
young King, he soon showed himself so incapable, that he
was compelled by universal opinion to resign. Bute married
the only daughter of the celebrated Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, who, of course, resided much here as Countess of
Bute. It is curious that in Lady Mary’s letters to her
daughter, she always spells the name of the place ‘Caen.’
The earlier possessors spelt it “ Ken;' and it is curious, too,
that though in the patent of the earldom to Lord Mansfield
it is spelt Caen,’ Lord Mansfield himself, in his letters, to
the end of his life spelt it ‘Ren.” The word would seem to
have originated in ‘ken, a view; but there was a very early
Dean of St. Paul’s, named Reginald de Kentewode, from
whom it and Kentish Town may have derived their appella-
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 333
tion; for, as I have shown, much property in that direction
formerly belonged to the cathedral of St. Paul.
Lord Bute, though so very unpopular as a minister, and
as the close friend of the Princess of Wales, must have had
Some very good qualities as a man. He appears to have
been very amiable in his family, and to have lived on the
best of terms with his wife. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
in her letters to her sister, the Countess of Mar, and her
daughter, Lady Bute, always spoke of him with great respect
and esteem. A good trait of Lord Bute is mentioned by
Mrs. Piozzi. Dr. Johnson having said that ‘ knowledge was
divided amongst the Scots like bread in a besieged town, to
every main a mouthful, and to no man a bellyful,” and some
officious fellow having carried this to Lord Bute when he
was minister, he only replied, “Well, well, never mind what
he says; he will have the pension for all that.”
In the second volume of ‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's
Letters,’ p. 407, she says, “I well remember Caen Wood
House, and cannot wish you a more agreeable place. It
would be a great pleasure to me to see my grandchildren
run about the gardens. I do not question Lord Bute's good
taste in the improvements round it, or yours in the choice
of furniture. I have heard the fame of the paper-hangings,
and had some thoughts of sending for a suite, but was in-
formed that they were as dear as damask is here, which put
an end to my curiosity.’ This was written from Louvere, in
Italy. In another letter from the same place, p. 415, she
congratulates her daughter on the comparative leisure that
she enjoys at Caen Wood.
A large fortune fell to Lord Bute from the will of Mr.
Edward Wortley Montagu, his wife’s father, who diverted it
from his only son, whose extraordinary conduct had alienated,
both his parents. This most eccentric man had from a boy
334 EIIGHGATE.
run away from his tutors, or from the school where he was
placed. He disappeared from Westminster School, and could
not be discovered for more than a year, when he was acci-
dentally found crying fish at Blackwall, where he had appren-
ticed himself to a fisherman. A second time he absconded,
and could not be traced for two or three years, when he was
recognised as a muleteer who had brought down fruit from
the interior of Portugal to an English vessel at Oporto. A
third time he went off, and entered himself as 'a foremast-
man in a vessel bound for the Mediterranean. After this he
was sent with a learned tutor to the West Indies, and on
his return became a member of Parliament; but his extrava-
gances soon drove him from England, and in Paris he got
into very dubious matters with Lord Southwell and a Mr.
Taafe, for which he was thrown into prison, at the suit of a
Spanish Jew of the name of Payba. After the death of his
father, having a certain amount of income, he lived chiefly
in the East, dressing like a Turk, and affecting to believe
entirely in the Koran; or in Italy, where he maintained the
same character. He advertised for a wife already emceinte,
that if she had a son he might inherit a large property, left
conditionally by his father; and a candidate for such a
wifeship being found, the marriage was only prevented by
his choking himself with a partridge bone and dying. His
mother, Lady Mary, left him one guinea, which on receiving
he gave away laughing to a Mr. Davison, who was his com-
panion in his Eastern travels. This Mr. Montagu was the
first child on whom his mother tried the effect of inoculation.
Did she inoculate him with all this passion for Eastern life
and Vagabondism from the blood of some Turk, having his
descent from Arabian and Ishmaelitish stock P Diseases are
said to be frequently inoculated, and even insanity; why not
idiosyncrasies too? It is to the honour of Lord Bute that
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 335
he gave up to this strange brother-in-law voluntarily a hand-
some quota of the property thus left away from him by his
father for his follies. We are glad to think of Caen Wood
as the place where so honourable a thing was done, and to
find Lord Bute in private life, showing qualities so unex-
pected from his public and political reputation.
The Earl of Bute sold Caen Wood in 1755 to Tord Mans-
field, who, on his death, devised it to go with the title to his
nephew, Lord Stormont, whose descendants now possess it.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's daughter brought Lord Bute
seven sons and six daughters, so at that time the house and
grounds of Caen Wood resounded with life enough. It is
now very little occupied, its proprietor being much fonder of
Scone Palace, his Scotch residence. In fact, this is one of
the worst features of the continued feudal system, and of
enormous properties in land in England. In this little popu-
lous island thousands of the most beautiful parts of it, which
God created for general pleasure, are, in a dog-in-the-manger
style, shut up for the greater part of the year, and seen only
by a few bailiffs and labourers. Our aristocracy too often -
only live themselves in the country to kill game. At the 12th
of August away they scud to shoot grouse, whatever national
business demands their attention ; and in February, the mo–
ment the game season expires, they hurry up to town again.
During six months of spring and summer, their houses and
grounds are closed to human enjoyment; in many cases
where they have various houses this non-residence is the
prevailing fact. If there be any truth in the gospels about
doing as you would be done by, there is something grossly
out of joint here. It is a condition of exclusiveness that
exists in no other country of the world besides, and if there
be, as Christians suppose, a state of recompense in the next
world, I fear many of our shutters up of God’s and nature's
336 IHIGHGATE.
paradises will find themselves committed to a very high-
walled pinfold there for a considerable time of expiation.
But this en passant.
Before the Earl of Bute, however, inherited Caen Wood,
there was a little boy already riding up from Scotland, on his
pony, with a little meal-sack hung from its neck, in order to
take possession of it. This was William Murray, the eleventh
child and fourth son of Wiscount Stormont, of the Castle of
Scone, which, says Lord Campbell, ‘in a dilapidated con-
dition, frowned over the Tay in the midst of scenery which,
for the combination of richness and picturesqueness of
beauty, is unsurpassed.” Lord Stormont had married a lady
of the ominous name of Scott of Scotstarvet, who brought
him so many children that they were in danger of being, in
Scotch phrase, “starvet” altogether. ‘To add to the difficul-
ties of the poverty-stricken viscount,” says Lord Chancellor
Campbell, ‘ his wife, although of small fortune was of won-
derful fecundity, and she brought him no fewer than four-
teen children. For these high-born imps oatmeal porridge
was the principal food which he could provide, except during
the season for catching salmon, of which a fishery near his
house, belonging to his estate, brought them a plentiful
supply.’”
Willie, the fourth son, showed symptoms of great talent,
and therefore much care was taken of his education—that
is, so far as the scanty means of his father would allow. He
was sent to the grammar-school at Perth till he was fourteen;
and there is a tradition that he was so short of money that
he and two other boys used to join at One candle in prepar-
ing their lessons over night for the next day. As the family
was out-and-out Jacobite, and his second brother, James, had
actually joined the Pretender, there was little hope of assist-
| Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii. p. 306.
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 337
ance from the nobles who supported the reigning family,
and law seemed the only profession for the lad to succeed
in. It was resolved to send him up to Westminster School,
where, by the influence of Bishop Atterbury, a thorough
Jacobite too, it was hoped he would be admitted and well
looked after. But how was he to get there? A coach ran
Once a week from the Black Bull, in Canongate, Edinburgh,
to the Bull and Mouth, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, London, per-
forming the journey in ten days. But the fares were exces-
sive, and beyond reach of the Stormont purse; it was
therefore resolved that the boy should travel up on his
pony. On this most formidable journey for a boy of fourteen
at that time of the day, to run the gauntlet of highwaymen,
and cheats and expenses at wayside inns, William Murray
set off from Scone, like Gil Blas from Oviedo to Pegnaflor,
on March 17, 1718. Making some stay with relatives in
Edinburgh, he jogged along southward. He could draw on
the contents of his meal-Sack at noon by some brookside,
and extemporise crowdy, whilst his pony grazed, and thus in
two months, short of one week, that is, On May 8, he
arrived in London. Here he was consigned to the care of
one John Wemyss, who had been born on his father's estate,
and now practised as an apothecary in the metropolis. Being
entered of Westminster School, he made good use of his
time and aptitude for learning, and acquired a wonderful pas-
sion for the higher practice of law by listening to the plead-
ings in Westminster Hall. Like other aspirants for legal
fame, Murray had his early difficulties; but he had a Scotch
indomitable perseverance, and a mild and pliant manner,
that worked his way. Moreover, all his contemporaries
attribute to him a silvery-toned voice exquisitely modu-
lated, which influenced almost irresistibly his hearers. We
need not say more than that in 1742 he became Solicitor-
Z
338 HIGEIGATE.
General, had distinguished himself both at the bar and in
Parliament in the highest degree, and in 1745 found himself
called upon to appear as Government prosecutor against the
Scotch rebel lords, Kilmarnock, Cromarty, Balmerino, and
Lovat. This must have been a crucifying business for him.
They were martyrs to the cause which had been the enthu-
siasm of his youth—the cause in which his parents and all
his family were engaged heart and soul. His second brother,
James, had early and openly gone over to the Pretender,
and had been created Earl of Dunbar by him in anticipation
of success. Yet Murray went through the trial and condem-
nation of the rebel lords with great self-command. Only
once was he seen to flinch when old Lord Lovat compli-
mented him on his speech against him, adding, “But I do
not know what the good lady your mother will say to it, for
she was very kind to my clan as we marched through Perth
to join the Prince l’ . -
And, spite of his conduct on this occasion, he afterwards
experienced much trouble from this cause. As a West-
minster boy, he used to go often with another boy, named
Vernon, in company with three others, Stone, Johnson, and
Fawcett, to dine at Vernon's father’s, a draper in Cheapside,
a desperate Jacobite. There the lads, in their zeal for the
Pretender, drank his health on their knees. When Murray
had thus become Solicitor-General, and through his good
offices Johnson was made Bishop of Gloucester, and Stone
sub-preceptor to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George III.,
this story was carried to Court, and an alarm was raised,
not only that Murray was a traitor, but that he had in-
sinuated another into the high places of the Church, and a
third into the still more serious post of forming the political
principles of the heir apparent to the throne. The accused
were called on to answer it to the Privy Council, and though
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MAN STIELT). 339
they were eventually acquitted, suspicion still clung to
Murray; and Pitt, afterwards Chatham, used to make him
shrink and tremble by his terrible allusions to this tender
place. “Colours, much less words,’ says Horace Walpole,
‘ could not paint the confusion and agitation of Murray’s face
during such an attack.’ .
Yet such was the eloquence and the profound knowledge
of law of Murray, that he surmounted all this, and be-
came not only member of successive administrations, but
Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, and Chancellor
of the Exchequer, with the title of the Earl of Mansfield.
His brother lawyers and countrymen, his biographers, Lords
Brougham and Campbell, have not only eulogised him as
the greatest lawyer, but almost the greatest man, of his
time. He was a most illustrious lawyer, but by no means a
great man, if we include moral greatness as the essential to
such a man. As a lawyer he had a wonderful clearness of
vision; he saw the true bearings of a case through any
amount of enravelment; and where his personal ambition
was not concerned, he was strictly and eminently just. He
advocated free-trade principles, and did much to establish
better forms of procedure in courts of law; in deciding the
true principles of mercantile transactions, and fixing those
of colonial judicature. He had the honour first to decide
that no slave can remain a slave in England. He was a
friend to religious toleration; but on the other hand he was
a strenuous supporter of pressing seamen, of hanging all
forgers, and of the destruction of the liberty of the press.
These features were conspicuous in the trials of Dr. Dodd, of
“Junius’ for libel, and of John Wilkes for publishing the
famous No. 45 of the “North Briton.” Whenever he was con-
cerned for the Government, whether in Parliament or on
the Bench, he was the organ of despotism in most despotic
z 2
340 HIGHGATE,
times. In the treatment of the American Colonies he sanc-
tioned and advocated all the policy which outraged that
people and lost that country. His biographers have egregi-
ously erred in venturing to draw a parallel betwixt him and
Lord Chatham. In eloquence, the one was a softly flowing
stream ; the other a consuming fire. Murray quailed and
trembled when Chatham's thunder rolled over his head, and
his lightnings flashed around him. Chatham was for full-
grown liberty, and he saw how countries were to be won,
whilst his humbler rival only saw how to lose them. Chat-
ham instinctively saw genius wherever it existed ; he chose
Wolfe for America, and Clive for India ; and he drove the
French not only from Canada, but from the American colonies.
Tnder his auspices Clive laid the foundation of our great
Indian empire.
It has been said that Lord Mansfield became a victim to
the Gordon riots because he had ventured to do justice to a
Catholic priest on his trial. But it is probable that had he
not shown himself so long the enemy of political freedom,
and the instrument of a most unpopular, because despotic,
government, his house and books had not been burned in
Bloomsbury Square on that occasion—an event commemo-
rated by Cowper in a few stanzas.
Lord Mansfield was a brilliant Orator and sagacious
lawyer, disposed to be just when justice did not stand in the
way of his ambition. He had his virtues and his vices.
Those who would see the one may read the lives of him by
Brougham and Campbell; those who would see him severely
castigated for his sins against public liberty may read
* Junius’s’ letters to him. Lord Campbell has spoiled his
intended deification of him by letting out the fact that he
had no heart. A hero without a heart is but a sorry hero.
‘A more serious defect,” says Lord Campbell, was his want
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 341
of heart. No one had a right to complain of him ; he dis-
appointed no just expectation of favour; and he behaved
with kindness to all within the sphere of his action; but all
that he did might have been done from a refined, calculating
Selfishness, with a view to his own credit. He had no
warmth of affection ; he formed no friendships; and he
neither made exertions nor submitted to sacrifices purely for
the good of others.’"
But the great position which Lord Mansfield occupied
for more than half a century in the public eye—that is, from
his successful defeat of the attempt to disfranchise the city
of Edinburgh, on account of the murder of Captain Porteous,
in 1737, to the resignation of his office of Lord Chief Justice
of the King’s Bench in 1788–demands a fuller notice of
the leading incidents of his professional and parliamentary
career than I have given in this brief outline of his life.
Lord Campbell, in his fair and impartial “Life’ of him,
notices at the outset something of that personal vanity from
which even the greatest men are rarely perfectly free. An
author proposed to become his biographer, and applied to
him for the necessary materials. He replied: ‘My success
in life is not very remarkable. My father was a man of rank
and fashion. Early in life I was introduced into the best
company, and my circumstances enabled me to support the
character of a man of fortune. To these advantages I
chiefly owe my success.’ He then advises the applicant to
write the life of Lord Hardwicke, who became Chief Justice
of England and Lord Chancellor, though his father was a
peasant. If our sketch of his early life and origin be
correct, this account of them by himself must be very in-
correct; and Lord Campbell says, “His circumstances did not
enable him to support the character of a man of fortune;
| Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. ii. p. 576.
342 HIGHGATE.
and he did not owe his success to the advantages which he
then enumerated; and it must be curious to trace the steps
by which, after riding on a wretched pony from Perth to
London, he “drank champagne with the wits; ” he became
the most distinguished advocate in England; he prosecuted
Scotch peers, his cousins, for treason against King George;
he was the rival of the elder Pitt, the greatest parliamentary
orator England has ever produced; he was raised to be the
highest criminal judge of the realm; he repeatedly refused
the still more splendid office of Lord Chancellor; he, without
political office, directed the measures of successive cabinets;
and, what was far truer glory, he framed the commercial
code of his country.” Campbell adds, that he was the first
Scotchman who ever gained distinction in the profession
of the law in England; and, On the other hand, the father
of Lord Hardwicke was not a peasant, but an eminent
solicitor in England.
From these statements it would appear that Lord Mans-
field really attached more value to being the son of a very
poor Scotch lord than to his own talents and ennobling
exertions. Lord Brougham says that Murray was removed
from Scotland at the tender age of three years, and educated
in England, and from that cause had contracted no peculi-
arity of dialect. This story was originated by Halliday,
Lord Mansfield’s earliest biographer, and copied by all that
followed. Even Dr. Johnson, speaking of Lord Mansfield,
said, “ Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught
young.” But Lord Campbell proves, from family documents,
and the statements of his near relatives, that, as already -
stated, he was in his fourteenth year when he rode his pony
up to Westminster, and he never revisited his native land,
though his parents lived many years, and his native scenes
must have awakened many tender recollections in his heart,
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 343
if he fortunately had had such a heart. Speaking of the
humble manner in which Lord Mansfield, after being called
to the bar, lived, Lord Campbell says he occupied very small
chambers, three storeys high (No. 1, Old Square, then
called Gate—House Court), and that these were pointed out
to himself when he began his own career, at the next
door, No. 2. Yet at this time, after finishing eight or ten
hours’ hard study, he used to spend his evenings amongst
the wits, and had Alexander Pope, then in his full fame, as
his intimate friend. Murray had frequent invitations to
Twickenham; and Pope, coming to Lincoln’s Inn, would
spend hours in instructing him in the most graceful atti-
tudes and intonations of an Orator. One day the pupil was
surprised by a gay Templar, who could take the liberty of
entering his rooms without ceremony, in the act of practising
the graces of a speaker at a glass, while Pope sat in the
character of a preceptor. Bishop Warburton also testifies
to the warmth of friendship which Pope entertained for the
young lawyer. After the death of Pope, he never seems to
have courted the society of literary men, not even of his
countryman Thomson, or of the great literary dictator
Johnson. But it is to his great honour that he especially
patronised Blackstone, the author of the immortal “Com-
mentaries.’ He had recommended Blackstone to fill the
vacant professorship of Civil Law in the University of Oxford;
but the then Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle, always
eager to do a little bit of dirty political jobbery, gave Black-
stone to understand that, in return for the office, he expected
a ready compliance with any Government demands of ser–
vice in the University. Blackstone demurred, and the place
was given to another, namely, Jenner, utterly ignorant of
law civil, canon, and common. Murray advised Blackstone,
notwithstanding, to settle at Oxford, and to read law-
344 |HIGH GATE,
lectures to such students as were disposed to attend them.
The plan was splendidly successful, and suggested to Mr.
Winer to establish a professorship of the Common Law of
England in the University of Oxford, and to this we owe the
immortal “Commentaries' of Blackstone. Besides this, Mr.
Murray, when he became Chief Justice, continued to recom-
mend to noblemen and gentlemen the reading of the ‘Com-
mentaries' as the best work calculated to instil into the
minds of their sons the great principles of English law,
and the best way of becoming acquainted with the crabbed
author, Coke upon Littleton, which, he said, had disgusted
and disheartened many a tyro.
Lord Campbell tells us, that owing to the intense interest
in his expositions of the law, and in his decisions, when
Chief Justice, ‘the unknown practice began of reporting in
newspapers his addresses to juries; and all suitors, Sanguine
in their belief of being entitled to succeed, brought their
causes to be tried before him ; so that the business of the
King’s Bench increased amazingly, and that of the other
courts of common law dwindled away almost to nothing.’
But not content with endeavouring to dispense strict jus-
tice to the public, he was equally anxious to extend the same
to the barristers practising in his court. He broke up the
monopoly of the bar. Before his time, the leading counsel
engrossed the whole hearing of the cases. “Day by day,
during the term, each counsel, when called upon, had been
accustomed to make as many motions successively and con-
tinuously as he pleased. The consequence was, that by the
time the attorney and solicitor-general, and two or three
other dons, had exhausted their motions, the hour had
arrived for the adjournment; and, as the counsel of highest
rank was again called at the sitting of the court next morn-
ing, juniors had no opportunity of making any motion with
CAEN WOOD AND LOIRD MANSFIET1D. 345
which they might be entrusted, till the last day of term,
when it was usual, as a fruitless compliment to them, to
begin with the back row, after the time had passed by when
their motions could be made of any use to their clients.”
Of course, under such a practice, people were not likely to
trust their causes to juniors; and yet the leaders had so
mamy, that they could do no sort of justice to the bulk of
them. Many of these leaders were in the House of Com-
mons, busy in political affairs, instead of carefully studying
their briefs in their chambers; and thus the public business
was damaged every way. “To remedy these evils, Lord
Mansfield made a rule that counsel should only make each
one motion in rotation ; and that if by chance the court rose
before the whole bar had been gone through, the motion
should begin next morning with him whose turn it was to
move at the adjournment. The business was thus both more
equally distributed and much better done.’
Another bad practice, that of questions which turned upon
points of law being argued two or three, and even four times
over in successive terms, though not attended with any real
difficulty, but with immense expense and vexation to the
clients, Lord Mansfield stoutly discouraged, always refus-
ing a second argument, unless the court entertained serious
doubts. There was another habit of the judges—that of not
deciding at the close of the argument, but making an entry
of curia advisari vult, a fearful cause of increased cost and
delayed judgment, which he as strenuously opposed, seeing
that judgment was often so long postponed that judges had
frequently forgotten the reasons and authorities brought
forward at the bar before publicly declaring their opinion.
I'dually was he averse to the delays occasioned by the laziness
or pugnacity of counsel, when a special case or statement of
facts in evidence was to be prepared for the opinion of the
346 HIGEIGATIE,
judges. He himself dictated such statements in open court,
and saw them signed by the counsel, before the jury was
discharged. He made, moreover, an Order that no cases
should be postponed, even with consent of the parties, with-
out the express authority of the court; and that such post-
poned cases should come on peremptorily at the beginning of
the next term.
In Nisi Prius causes, he put an end to much irregularity
in the routine of counsel addressing juries, and in examining .
and cross-questioning witnesses. ‘By his care,’ says Lord
Campbell, “the system which we now follow was gradually
matured. According to this, the junior counsel for the
plaintiff having opened the pleadings, or stated the issues, or
questions of fact, raised by the record for decision, the lead-
ing counsel for the plaintiff alone addresses the jury; the
plaintiff’s evidence follows; the defendant’s leading counsel
then addresses the jury, and if he gives no evidence, the
debates at the bar here close; but, if there be evidence
given, the plaintiff’s leading counsel addresses the jury by
way of reply. The judge then sums up, and the jury pro-
nounces the verdict.
Besides mere matters of procedure, Lord Campbell says
that Lord Mansfield had a great work to perform in educing
and establishing the great principles of the Common Law of
England. He found this system well adapted to the con-
dition of this country during the feudal ages, but a perfect
chaos as regarded the new condition of things which had
sprung up with extending commercial, manufacturing, and
colonial interests of the nation. The common law judges
had been too timid, or destitute of legislative genius, to
decide on great and fixed principles the questions which
came before them respecting buying and selling of goods,
respecting the affreightment of ships, respecting maritime
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 34.7
assurances, bills of exchange, and promissory notes. The same
undecidedness extended to all questions of colonial rights
and transactions. ‘He saw,” says Lord Campbell, “the noble
field that lay before him, and he resolved to reap the rich
harvest of glory which it presented to him. Instead of pro-
ceeding by legislation, and attempting to codify, as the French
had done very successfully in the “Coustumier de Paris,” and
the “Ordonnance de la Marine,” he wisely thought it more
according with the genius of our institutions to introduce his
improvements gradually, by way of judicial decision.” On
all these great points, he laid down those principles which
have become the practice of our time. He created a new
judicial system, in fact, applicable to our new commercial
and colonial requirements. ‘Most of us,’ says Chief Justice
Buller, ‘have heard these principles stated, reasoned upon,
enlarged and explained, till we have been lost in admiration
at the strength and stretch of understanding exerted. And
I should be sorry to find myself under a necessity of differing
from any case upon this subject which has been decided by
Lord Mansfield, who may be truly said to be the founder of the
commercial law of this country. This of itself would have been
glory enough for any One man. In some cases, subsequent
legislation has contravened his decisions, as in the case of
the legality of Ransom Bills, and the right of impressment
of seamen; but it has confirmed him in giving British
subjects right of appeal against the arbitrary proceedings of
the governors of any of its foreign and colonial possessions.
Lord Mansfield destroyed the right of wrecking. He laid
it down, that whenever the owners of a wrecked vessel could
prove their ownership, everything belonging to the wrecked
vessel belonged sacredly to them, and to no one else; but he
settled a far greater question—namely, that no man has a
right of property in any human creature. He it was who
348 HIGHGATE.
in the case of James Somerset, a negro, decided that
* Slaves cannot breathe in England.’ ‘Villeinage,’ he said,
‘has ceased in England, and it cannot be revived. The air
of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every
man is free who breathes it. Every man who comes into
England is entitled to the protection of English laws, what-
ever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and what-
ever may be the colour of his skin—
Quam.vis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.
Let the negro be discharged.”
In those words Lord Mansfield shed a new and immortal
splendour on his country, for which every Englishman for
all time ought to be grateful to him. He further defended
the honour and security of women in the case against Sir
Trancis Blake Delaval, and he established literary copyright
in authors. As I have already said, he had a most perspi-
cuous sense of justice, and exercised it nobly in all cases
where his interests or his political prejudices did not inter-
fere. In those cases he often lamentably failed, and Junius
did not neglect to seize upon and drag these deficiencies
before the public with merciless severity. In the case of
Lord Grosvenor v. the Duke of Cumberland for the seduc-
tion of his wife, he laid it down to every one’s astonishment,
that it made no difference as to the amount of damages,
whether the culprit were rich Or poor, a peasant or a prince.
Junius said, ‘I shall not attempt to refute a doctrine which,
if it were meant for law, carries falsehood and absurdity on
the face of it; but if it were meant for a declaration of your
political creed, is clear and consistent.’
From the time that his lordship became Lord Chancellor,
and a member of the Cabinet, this leaning towards govern-
mental interest became more conspicuous. ‘He was,’ says
CAEN wooD AND LORD MANSFIELD. 349
Lord Campbell, ‘ always ready as a champion of the
Ministers.” In the early part of the reign of George III.,
when the great Lord Chatham was dismissed to make way
for the weak favourite Lord Bute, Mansfield was in office
and in close alliance with that favourite. After his speedy
fall Mansfield still remained a member of the Cabinet, and
in this position was called upon to decide in the attacks of
the Crown on the subject, and on members of Parliament
in the case of the notorious John Wilkes ; and in this he
did himself honour by pronouncing against the validity of
general warrants, and in reversing the outlawry of Wilkes;
but he afterwards, though then no longer a member of the
Cabinet, neutralised the credit thus obtained, by defending
the House of Commons in its unconstitutional proceedings
of returning Colonel Luttrell instead of John Wilkes for
Middlesex, in spite of Wilkes's great majority, and although
he himself had reversed Wilkes's outlawry. His reasons for
this conduct he said were locked up in his breast and should
die with him, which need not have been the case, were they
just reasons.
In the unhappy quarrel with the North American colonies,
he also took the now universally acknowledged unconstitu-
tional course of asserting the right of the ‘mother-country
to tax them without representation,’ for which Chatham
hurled his most indignant thunder at his head; and Lord
Camden upbraided him in his more noble conceptions of
constitutional right. Still further to injure the reputation
of Lord Mansfield for impartiality where the Crown was
concerned, now arose the grand and trenchant attacks of
Junius on both ministers and monarch ; and in the trials
of Rex v. Woodfall, Lord Mansfield, presiding, endeavoured
to persuade the jury that they had nothing to do with the
law of the case, they had only to decide the facts of the
350 HIGHGATE,
publication of the letters, and leave the judges to decide
whether they were libellous. All we can say on behalf of
Lord Mansfield’s conduct is, that judges before him had
done the same; but it was due to his clear Sound sense to
have goné the other way. The jury, aware that if they left
the law with the judges, they surrendered absolutely the
liberty of the subject and the freedom of the press, gave a
verdict of “Guilty of publishing ONLY l’ And in spite of the
reasonings of Lord Mansfield, when the same point was
tried at Guildhall, in the case of Miller, the publisher, the
jury found a verdict of NoT GUILTY. At this time also,
Mansfield was not only Lord Chief Justice, but he held the
seals of the chancellorship or keeper, and received the emolu-
ments of both ; the other weakness of his character was for
making money; and he did not escape the lash of Junius for
this monopoly. “Who is it?” he asks, “who attacks the
liberty of the press? Lord Mansfield ! Who invades the
constitutional powers of juries? Lord Mansfield ! Who was
that judge who, to save the King’s brother, affirmed that a
man of the first rank and quality, who obtains a verdict in
a suit for criminal conversation, is entitled to no greater
damages than the meanest mechanic P Lord Mansfield
Who is it makes Commissioners of the Great Seal? Lord
Mansfield ! Who is it who frames a decree for these Com-
missioners deciding against Lord Chatham 9 Lord Mansfield !
Compared to these enormities, his original attachment to
the Pretender, to whom his dearest brother was confidential
Secretary, is a virtue of the first magnitude.” And he added,
‘Considering the situation and abilities of Lord Mansfield, I
do not scruple to affirm, with the most solemn appeal to God
for my sincerity, that, in my judgment, he is the worst and
most dangerous man in the kingdom.”
“When political considerations mixed themselves with the
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MANSFIELD, 351
trial,’ Lord Brougham pronounces the same judgment on
Lord Mansfield as Junius. On the occurrence of the sudden
death of Lord Chatham when addressing the House of
Lords, it is recorded, to the great discredit of Lord Mans-
field, that, whilst all, friends or opponents, were greatly
affected by this startling event, Lord Mansfield alone sat
silent and unmoved by the spectacle of this final scene of his
old antagonist. He would not vote one way or another for
the pension to his widow and family; nor would he attend
the funeral in Westminster Abbey. These circumstances
betray a pettiness of feeling which prohibits our placing
their possessor amongst the truly magnanimous great.
After this period, however, Lord Mansfield displayed
several instances of a liberal character beyond the prejudices of
his age. Though he continued to urge those measures against
the American colonies which lost them—which, however,
must have been lost some time—he showed a great liberality
in religious matters at home. He supported a Presbyterian
minister in the demand of possession of his own chapel; he
decided that Quakers might be admitted to make an affirma-
tion instead of an oath in all civil cases, and avowed his
opinion that a Quaker’s affirmation ought to be accepted in
all cases, as much as the oath of a Jew or Gentoo, or any
other person who feels bound by the oath he takes. He
decided against the Corporation of London, which sought to
augment its revenues, and punish Dissenters, by electing
them to the office of sheriff, and then heavily fining them
for serving without conformity to the Established Church.
For this decision Lord Mansfield in the city was cried down
as little better than an infidel; and soon after, when he
directed a jury to find a verdict of Not Guilty in the case of a
Roman Catholic priest for celebrating mass, which Catholics
did, though the law then forbade such celebration, he was
352 IIIGHGATE.
denounced as not only a Papist, but a Jesuit in disguise.
This, coming just before the riots, called the Lord George
Gordon riots—in which Lord Mansfield directed an acquittal of
Lord George on the charge of instigating the riots, although
in those riots Lord Mansfield’s house and invaluable law
library were burnt, and his own life put in peril—no doubt,
led in a great degree to those attacks on his person and pro-
perty, although his arbitrary spirit towards the press, and
Some other unpopular things, had their share in the resent-
ment against him. Erskine was the counsel for Lord
George Gordon on this trial, and made the charges of his
client having incited the mob to burn the house and library
of such a man as Lord Mansfield, and to make war on the
King, and to compass his death—the usual law jargon in
cases of high treason—look supremely ridiculous.
No conduct could be nobler than that of Lord Mansfield
on the burning of his house and library; and had his de-
meanour been such in the general events of his life, it would
have placed him amongst the greatest, as he was one of the
ablest of mankind. “His library,’ we are told, ‘contained the
collection of books which he had been making from the time
that he was a boy at school at Perth, many of them the
cherished memorials of early friendship; others rendered in-
valuable by remarks in the margin, in the handwriting of
Pope or Bolingbroke, or some other of the deceased wits and
statesmen with whom he had been familiar. Along with
them perished the letters between himself, his family, and
his friends, which he had been preserving for half a century,
as materials for memoirs of his times. It is likewise believed
that he had amused his leisure by writing for posthumous
publication, several treatises on judicial subjects, and historical
essays, filling up the outline of the admirable sketch he had
given in his ‘Letters to the Duke of Portland.’ All his
manuscripts had remained in his town house, and they were
CAEN WOOD AND LORD MAN STIELD. 353
consumed through the reckless fury of the illiterate wretches
who could form no motion of the irreparable mischief they
had done.
So then the Vandals of our isle,
Sworm foes to sense and law,
IHave burnt to dust a nobler pile
Than ever Roman saw.
And Murray sighed o'er Pope and Swift,
a And many a treasure more,
The well-judged purchase, and the gift
That graced his lettered store.
Their pages mangled, burnt and torn,
Their loss was his alone,
But ages yet to come shall mourn
The burning of his own.
CowPER.
Who can estimate the poignancy of feeling over such a
loss? Yet Mansfield bore it with an outward calm truly
philosophical, and refused to ask any compensation for it.
In private life Lord Mansfield is uniformly represented as
being extremely amiable, as fond of having his young friends
and relatives about him, and of promoting their interests in
life. He was also fond of ornamenting his grounds, and
Some cedars in the plantations opposite to his house at
Caen Wood were planted by him. He died on March 20,
1793, aged nearly eighty-nine years. -
Such was Lord Mansfield—a most able man, without
original genius; a great lawyer, but not a great patriot.
Yet, with all his faults, he was a real benefactor to his
country, by the general justice of his decisions, and his esta-
blishment of large and clear principles of judicature. These
benefits must always be coupled with his memory.
One thing Lord Mansfield, in accordance with his cha-
racter, kept steadily in view : the acquisition of a title
crowning the accumulation of a large fortune. He had to
this end a fondly-cherished maxim : “The funds give interest
A. A
354. HIGEIGATE,
without principal, and land principal without interest, but
mortgages both principal and interest.” Therefore, with the
exception of Caen Wood, he purchased no land, and he did
not invest in the funds; and at the time of his death the
interest of his money on mortgages amounted to 30,000l.
a year. To swell these mortgages for years—in fact, for
a longer time than had been known since the reign of
William III., the seals of the chancellorship were held by
him, along with his office of Chief Justice—indeed, till
* Junius’ frightened him out of his impudent monopoly. He
was soon frightened, for his zealous biographer, Lord Camp-
bell, confesses that he had as little moral courage as heart."
Let us close this article with an instance of generous
strategy in a man of that humble rank which derives its
lustre, not from estate or coronet, but from its own innate
value. When the infuriated mob who had destroyed Lord
Mansfield’s house, books, pictures, everything, in Blooms-
bury Square, were on their way to destroy his house at Caen
Wood, Giles Thomas, the landlord of ‘The Spaniards,” at
the end of Hampstead Heath, learning their object, stood at
his door and invited them to drink. He threw open his
cellars to this hot and thirsty crew, already broiling from
the fire in Bloomsbury, and whilst they caroused, he had a
messenger speeding his way to the barracks for a detach-
ment of the Horse Guards. By the time that the rioters
had exhausted the barrels of ‘The Spaniards,” they found
this troop drawn up across their way to Caen Wood. The
steward and Mr. Wetherall, the medical man of the family,
had also sent out ale in abundange from the cellars of Lord
Mansfield; and thus, at Once tottering under the fumes of
beer and confronted by the soldiery, the mob fled, and left
Caen Wood to stand peacefully through more peaceful times.
' ' Lives of the Chief Justices,’ vol. ii. p. 508.
ii. . ift āş 8
; i - § ºf. :--- º
| §ºn. #. º ºr * § | § º º
i; iſſºlº
º: § #|#:
§§§
$º
sº º º #º.
††
#
* , §§§ # ºf
|
º:
§ºº!'
tº º: P t º'.
... § iſ!'
© §§ tº sº º
&
CROMWELL IIOUSE.
(From a Photograph taken expressly for this work.)
CROMWELL AND ANDREW MARVELL.
In Highgate, Hampstead, and many another old suburb
of London, we see capacious mansions of a former age
standing in their walled enclosures of several acres, con-
sisting of gardens and shrubberies, with their rustic summer-
houses, old-fashioned conservatories, wide walks, and full-
grown trees, most pleasant and ample retirements. These
were, some of them, the abodes of the nobility, many more
those of the merchants and wealthy citizens of London. We
see at a glance, if we get a peep over their lofty walls, affluent
of peach, nectarine, and apricot, in what lordly spaces they
could indulge their expansive human nature; for it is a most
elastic thing, this human nature, and can crouch almost into

'IIvpHDIH 998
To ‘Sºuton]]].SUIoo sitſ ol stoºloſ Kºuout ºf Ltd Sput utod. On O.U+0.1
qūājūī ‘Bouſmã tº M.O.L.IOq ol KIITUIOISuooo pºtſ ouſAA ‘[[u]H TO]
loqutout soutout out, otol(AA ‘oštújoo polloquiſh-JTUTI odults tº
SI S.IIoAUBIN : [blouſoſ [n]ssooons tº 5uſ)tºpouTuTooot! Jo oſquduo
‘ūOISUBUI XIoIIQ poſt pITOS tº SI “poſſuo OS III]s ‘osmo H IIoMUTOIO
“loſuºd oſqūdni.Tootin otºl “Suoſ).Iquitºun Otſ, “tood out) Jo Toulo
otſ) : săup Jo Syſoatſ out, put souolu, UiO poſt) put Soſul.It
3uſtonbuoo pot ou M top|Inq tº Jo Syſtods otto otiſ, utout OAA)
où) Jo Sound.[O] put quids quotagºp ouſ oos no K ‘Toyot...It’tſo
[Bitotſo; Trotſ, put oz.Is OAT) got troul III : 0.10M Utour ouſ, St.
“Urologſp KIOA out Kotſ.I., "100,1]s Ottº Jo Sopts opSoddo uto qug
‘IOUno Toto UIO.J. AOTU)-s,ottons tº KToottos pub)s uouſ S.H.I.E.O.M.
-UOUTUTOO Osotſ, Jo Sooutopſ SOI ou I, Iſoaſt IN AQIpuw ‘tutorſqud
-01 to Imd put IoIdults quul Jo put ‘[[OAUIOTO TOATIO Jo OsmoPI
otſ) qu Tsūg put ‘TºtaAos qu II Bo tº ox{But On ºnoqt (IIB I ‘Mubgſ
où poſſils SI quTA UIO ‘otoEI Mt.A0IIOH split MO) 0405tlápH jo
qno IIITI out, Jo quoosap out, Su Suoſsu utu or IO)SITI pſo osotſ, Jo
Áubul Os AOU's ootds outs ouſ, up ubo sq.mqns utºpſodo.thout
où.) Jo qLtd out Sduútod pub : otou Mosſo St. KIOAISUtopco OS
qout 10K qug ‘oitouſ Ootſd uox{B} 0AUTI SoSOUId.loululouſ UIonS
‘SSoujouduloo Iſt III AAOUI tolſlo Totò
Aoqſo sonſ (II*) Ksnq Jo OAA) to O.IOOS tº ‘olok Jo posodot qubtſo
-IOUI (UIUM ouo Otoul AA utou, JO (IO'B9 JO 00IS ot!) uo posſ B.I
UAAO) aſou AA tº put ‘poſ[a] S.Lepoo 5uſpto.Ids-pºold put ‘soot]
ÁLIeq[nuI put ‘soot] oouTub Trotſ] ‘pousſouTop SOAOOTB quTumb
trouſ, ‘polybilso.Id SIBA Iloilº. “TopTInq ou? Kg Opuſ troXIOIQ
ăuſoq ºsey ore osotſ.I. 'Sosnou ox|II-Ioubul osotſ, on ‘oduouſ)
uſ Sdous Tſotſ). To ‘hoo.I].S pubqutor I UT SXIII'BQ Trouq UEO.[]
spools Toqos IIo opol Strozſ, ſo InjdúSTOA pub 04:3pos osotſ)
soug K.IoMoq quila Hänottſ, put suopiou (no ol āup tooot!
‘Ālotuspol Anq 5utout App StºAA ‘99.13 Kºšuſtulluſt. Os Túšnoun
‘SIſodoúour où" (Iou A ‘uouſ, StºA put I [myſquoid Aoû sees
ouc) 'oobſed 1solst;A out toAO JEOS]] on BUp to ‘IIolls-ºut tº
GlöOMWEI, T, AND ANDREW MARVELL. 357
a lyric in praise of the blind and then little regarded author
of ‘Paradise Lost; ” or to scarify by his biting satire the
great criminals of the time.
But Cromwell House is rather called so because he built
it than because he lived there. In fact, we can find no evi-
dence of his having made it more than an occasional visit.
It is said to have been built by him about the year 1630, for
the residence of General Ireton, who had married one of his
daughters. Prickett, in his ‘History of Highgate,’ says:—
‘Cromwell's house was evidently built and internally orna-
mented in accordance with the taste of its military occupant.
The staircase, which is of handsome proportions, is richly
decorated with Oaken carved figures, supposed to be of per-
sons in the General’s army, in their costume, and the balus-
trades filled in with devices emblematical of warfare. On the
ceiling of the drawing-room are the arms of General Ireton;
this, and the other ceilings of the principal apartments, are
enriched in conformity with the fashion of those days. The
proportions of the noble rooms, as well as the brickwork in
front, well deserve the notice and study of the antiquary and
the architect. From the platform on the top of the mansion
may be seen a perfect panorama of the surrounding country.”
The figures here mentioned stand on the posts of the stair-
case. They are each about a foot high, and were originally
twelve in number. They are now ten, and really represent
the different kinds of soldiers of the time. *
In 1864, a fire broke out in Cromwell House, but, did not
injure the staircase, or anything of historical interest. It
was thoroughly restored, and presents much the same
appearance as before.
As for the front deserving the attention of the architect,
that certainly is not on account of any architectural beauty,
but it well deserves it from the excellence of the bricks and
358 HIGHGATE.
brickwork. The bricks and brickwork of our old mansions,
as Hampton Court Palace, the part built by Wolsey, this old
house, and hundreds of old mansions in town and country,
show how far, in this hurrying and money-scraping age, we
have gone backward in the quality of brick and bricklaying.
And yet this is scarcely a correct expression, for we can go
back to no period of our history in which the brick and
bricklaying are not far superior to ours. Look at the fine-
ness, the solid smoothness of the brick; at the mice and
compact manner in which it is laid; and then turn to the
coarse, often very unequally burnt brick of to-day, and the
coarse mortar in which it is set, often in rude layers of nearly
an inch thick, and the contrast is disgraceful to this age of
boasted progress in the arts, but an age in which strength
and beauty of building are sacrificed to the sordid calcula-
tions of the builder’s profits. This was the case in the
decline of Rome. No people in their best days built more
magnificently than the Romans; none in their decline so
shabbily and unsubstantially. Juvenal, describing the build-
ings of Rome, as well as its luxury and vices, astonishes us
by his actual descriptions of London in Rome. In his third
Satire he says, you were always having the houses tumbling
about your ears, and hurrying to escape from fires:—
—incendia, lapsus
Tectorum assiduos, ac mille poricula sævae
Urbis.
And again—
Nos urbom colimus tenui tibicine fultam
Magná parte Sui, &c.
The builders ran up their slim walls and daubed them with
stucco to make them look decent, as Ours do. “Hence,’ says
Juvenal, ‘the greater part of the houses are kept standing
by frail props, which the agent erects to prevent their instant
fall. He stops up the old cracks, and assures you you may
CROMWELL AND ANDREW MARVELL. * 359
sleep in peace | But next, your neighbour shouts for water
—he is running to save his moveables—the flames are already
in the third storey, and woe to them who live in the garrets!'
The front of Cromwell’s house is low, being only of two
storeys finished by a parapet, so that the roof, which is
thrown backwards, adds little to its elevation. It is dis-
tinguished for that solid and excellent masonry just noticed.
It has a narrow cornice or entablature running the whole
length of the front over each row of windows. Its door-
way is arched and faced with a portal of painted wood, in
good keeping with the building. In front is a gateway with
Solid, square pillars surmounted by stone globes. At the
lower end a lofty porte-cochère admits to the rear of the
building. The mass of the mansion running backwards is
extensive, and behind lies a portion, at least, of its ancient
gardens and pleasant grounds.
Ireton married Bridget, the eldest daughter of Cromwell,
who, after his death, became the wife of General Fleetwood.
Treton was one of the stanchest, bravest, cleverest, and most
unflinching of Cromwell’s generals. He was born at Atten-
borough, a village a few miles from Nottingham. He
received a first-rate education at Oxford, but was called
away from the university by the outbreak of the civil war,
being a most zealous admirer of the old Greek and Roman
republicanism. He married Bridget Cromwell in 1646, and
was afterwards the very right-hand man of the great Oliver.
The year before this, indeed, he commanded the left wing at
the victorious battle of Naseby. He was constantly with
Cromwell when he was in treaty with King Charles at
Hampton Court, in 1647. He aided him in his struggle with
the Adjutators and the Levellers; he sat on the trial of the
King, and voted heartily for his death in 1648. The follow-
ing year he accompanied the Protector to Ireland, and was
360 - EIIG HGATE.
left in command there, where he died of fever, November
26, 1651, being only forty-one years of age. g
Such was his able and determined character, that those
who aimed at the life of Cromwell aimed at Ireton’s too, not
thinking themselves safe while he lived, even were Cromwell
killed. Morrice, in his ‘Life of Lord Orrery,’ declares that
Cromwell himself related that in 1647, at the time they were
endeavouring to accommodate matters with the King, Treton
and he were informed that a scheme was laid for their
destruction, and that they might convince themselves of it
by intercepting a secret messenger of the King’s, who would
sleep that night at the ‘Blue Boar’ in Holborn, and who
carried his despatches sewed up in the skirt of his saddle.
Cromwell and Ireton, disguised as troopers, waited that
evening, seized the saddle, and found letters of the King’s to
the Queen in France, confirming all that they had heard.
From that hour, convinced of Charles's incurable treachery,
they resolved on his death. Such was the son-in-law for
whom was built Cromwell House.
ANDIREW MARVELL.
Andrew Marvell was one of the purest and noblest patriots
that ever lived. Any one may see that by a single glance at
his house. It is small and poor, just as an honest patriot’s is
sure to be. Over the way, as we have seen, is the house of
a daring republican general and son-in-law of the equally
daring Protector; men who in helping their country took
care to help themselves. Just above it stood the house of the
Earl of Arundel; and an earl has maturally a big house. Just
below Marvell’s, and on the same side, stood and stands the
house of the Earl of Lauderdale, in Marvell’s time one of the
cruellest and most rapacious scoundrels that a debauched
ANDREW MARVELL. 361
king could set to fleece his unfortunate subjects. This man,
too, must have a great house and grounds; but Andrew
Marvell was neither a revolutionary general nor a common-
place earl, nor a great Government harpy ; he was only a
patriot, and therefore he had only a little half-wooden tene-
s
-
---
º *:
- =º:-
:º: $ :::$3&ſº ~. '• .
§ #$$.”
§.
Yº
Šº
• * *
tºº
.*: e.
º- c -
> -t;
- - -º-º:
E. - tº- ºr-. º]
ºffl sº ſºlſ|| |\;
**śāſīſā. # wº #º
sºmºiſt
ºil it it?". -
ANDREW MARVELL's 110 USE.
(From a Photograph taken in 1848.)
ment, such as–there it is You can look at it, and take
note what sort of a house an honest man and a patriot may
expect.
Andrew Marvell was the son of a clergyman at Hull, the
master of the public grammar-school there, who was drowned
in crossing the Humber in 1640. He must have had the
same noble nature as his son, for he crossed in a storm to
























362 EIIGHGATE,
assist in the passage of a young couple on their way to be
married, though he had so little expectation of reaching the
other bank in safety, that, on stepping into the boat, he
threw his cane on shore, and cried, ‘Bol hol for heaven l’
His son Andrew was a student, at the time, at Cambridge,
and just twenty years of age. He inherited a small patri-
mony; travelled several years on the Continent; went as
secretary of Earl Carlisle into Russia; became assistant
Latin secretary with Milton to Cromwell; and in 1658
became member of Parliament for Hull. From the year
of the Restoration of Charles II., 1660, we find Marvell
writing a weekly letter to his constituents at Hull, till his
death in 1678, having represented that town just twenty
years. During this long period he was once about a year
and a half in Holland, but, except on this occasion, was con-
stantly at his post, and frequently received a barrel of ale
from his constituents in sign of their good-will.
The reason of Marvell writing a weekly letter, was plainly
the want of newspaper reports at that time, and of the slow-
mess of the circulation of information, the post itself being
slow enough. These letters of Marvell’s are generally short,
plain, matter-of-fact ones, such as an ordinary letter-sheet
would contain, but giving the people of Hull to know ex-
actly what Government and Parliament were doing. Besides
his parliamentary duties, Marvell was industriously employed
in writing poetry, Satirical and religious, and the most slash-
ing exposures of the corruptions and corruptors of Church
and State. In a dissolute and dishonest reign like that of
Charles T.I., we may imagine what such exposures would be.
They fill three large quarto volumes. The chief of these are
“An Account of the Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Go-
vernment in England,’ ‘The Rehearsal Transposed,’ in which
he most vigorously castigates Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford,
ANDREW MARVELL. 363
for his base time-serving, and his fierce persecution of the
Nonconformists. Such was Parker’s fury, that he sent
Marvell word, in an anonymous note: “If thou darest to print
any lie or libel against Dr. Parker, by the eternal God I will
cut thy throat.” But Marvell printed, and completely cowed
the blustering bishop. Bishop Burmet says that Parker went
on publishing his virulent books, till Marvell not only put
down him, but his whole party. Dean Swift, noticing the
short existence generally of the answers to books, excepts that
of Marvell as the work of a “great genius; ' and says it con-
tinued to be read, though Parker’s writings had sunk long ago.
Marvell’s wit was joyous, but unsparing, and had a deadly
sting in it. In the same manner he disposed of Dr. Turner,
Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in an essay called,
‘The Divine Mode,” and wrote a splendid treatise on Gene-
ral Councils, in which he handles ruthlessly the squabbles
of bishops in all ages, saying that the very first council, that
of Nice, had, according to Eusebius, nine creeds, and, in
fact, that it had a dozen. He adds sarcastically, that as
bishops grew worse and worse, bishoprics grew better and
better.
* A Seasonable Argument to all the Grand Juries’ following
his essay on General Councils, the vicious Court and Church
could stand it no longer. He had made free with the profli-
gacy, the extravagance, and the mistresses of Charles II.,
and out came a royal proclamation, offering a high reward
for the apprehension of Marvell. He thought it safest to .
retire to Hull for a while; but this did not protect him, for
he died suddenly directly afterwards—namely, in August,
1678, in his fifty-eighth year, as it was firmly believed, and
as his biographer boldly asserts—by poison | His life had
been repeatedly attempted before. In one of his letters,
dated from Highgate, he states “that his foes were impla-
364 HIGH GATT).
cable, and that he was frequently threatened with murder,
and waylaid in his passing to and from Highgate, where he
was fond of lodging.” His only remark on this was that “he
was more afraid of killing than being killed.” The poetry of
Marvell was much admired at the time, but has lost a little
of its attraction now, though there are some pieces, such as
‘The Bermuda Hymn,” that are very charming. This begins
and ends thus:–
Where the remote Bermudas ride,
In ocean's bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along
The listening winds received this song:—
‘What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own 2'
Thus sung they in the English boat,
A holy and a cheerful note;
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
But if we are to accept as proved the statements of Cap-
tain Thompson, Marvell’s biographer, the patriot had claims
to poems universally admired, but attributed to others.
Three of these are paraphrases of psalms, always attributed
to Addison because they appeared in the ‘Spectator,” just as
scores of articles are now, and will be hereafter, attributed
to Charles Dickens, because they appeared anonymously in
* Household Words,’ &c. These are the psalms, beginning—
When Israel fled from Pharaoh’s hand.
Secondly— -
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue, ethereal sky.
And thirdly—
- When all thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys.
Captain Thompson claims also the ballad of “William and
*
ANT) R.E.W MARVELL. 365
Margaret,” ascribed to Mallet, for Marvell, and on the ground
that he finds these in the MS. book of his unpublished poems,
with his own corrections of them. The verses commencing,
“When Israel fled from Pharaoh’s hand,’ are, however, well
lºnown to be not Marvell’s but Dr. Watts’.
But my space fills: I must leave Marvell’s poetry for his
patriotism. The profligate King had often tried to win him
over by offers of wealth and promotion. Here is one of these
attempts :—
The king sent the lord treasurer Danby to wait upon him
with a particular message. His lordship with some difficulty
found his elevated retreat, which was in a second floor in
the Strand. Lord Danby, from the darkness and narrow-
mess of the staircase, abruptly burst open the door, and
suddenly entered the room, wherein he found Mr. Marvell
writing. Astonished at the sight of so noble and unex-
pected a visitor, he asked his lordship with a smile if he had
not mistaken his way. “No, replied my lord, with a bow,
* not since I have found Mr. Marvell;’ continuing, that he
came with a message from the king, who wished to do him
some signal service, to testify his high opinion of his merits.
He replied, with his usual pleasantry, that kings had not
the power to serve him ; he had no void left aching in his
breast ; but, becoming more serious, he assured his lordship
that he was highly sensible of this mark of his Majesty’s
affection, but he knew too well the nature of Court favours,
which were expected to bind a man in the chains of their
interest, which his spirit of freedom and independence would
not suffer him to embrace. These royal offers proving vain,
Lord Danby began to assure him that the King had ordered
him a thousand guineas, which he hoped he would receive
till he could bring his mind to accept something better
and more durable. ‘Surely,” said Marvell, with a smile,
366 HIGHGATE.
“you do not, my lord, mean to treat me ludicrously by
these munificent offers, which seem to imply a poverty on
my part. Pray, my lord treasurer, do these apartments wear
in the least an air of need? And as for my living, you
shall hear of that from my servant,” whom he called. ‘Pray,
Jack, what had I to dinner yesterday?’ ‘A shoulder of
mutton, sir.” “And what do you allow me to-day ?’ ‘The
remainder, hashed.” “And to-morrow, my lord Danby, I shall
have the sweet blade-bone broiled; and when your lordship
makes honourable mention of my cook and my diet, I am sure
his Majesty will be too tender in future to attempt to bribe
a man with golden apples who lives so well on the Viands of
his native country.” The lord treasurer, unable to withstand
this, withdrew with smiles, and Marvell sent to his bookseller
for the loan of a guinea.
The Roman general who was tempted in a similar manner
as he was supping on a dish of boiled turnips, and who
asked the tempter whether a man who supped on turnips
was likely to sell his country, was not a more heroic patriot
than Andrew Marvell. It was a prophetic coincidence that
named him a-Marvel. Rare are the men of this divine
stamp ! In a most debased and demoralised age Marvell
stood poor—willingly, voluntarily poor and incorruptible.
Dike the angel Abdiel, he stood
Among the faithless, faithful only he.
Witty beyond most of his age ; the friend of Milton, and
one of the first to discern and proclaim the magnificent
genius of ‘Paradise Lost,’ expressing his amazement at it in
those fine lines, beginning
When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold;
learned and accomplished by study and travel; having a
wonderful influence in the House of Commons; capable by
ARABELLA STUART AND LORD BACON. 367
his talents and personal suavity of reaching the highest
honours of the state, he preferred to be the unshaken friend
of England, liberty, and Magna Charta; the advocate of
justice and virtue, and the terror of the evil and corrupt,
who never felt safe till, having missed him with the dagger
of the assassin, they despatched him with poison. There is
no spot on the hill of Highgate, few in England, that can
boast the memory of such a man; and yet that little pic-
turesque cottage of his, with its little slip of garden behind,
with its raised walk, where the patriot no doubt often paced,
and planned some Onslaught on the enemies of his country,
is, even as this page goes to press, being swept away. The
property has lately fallen into the hands of Sir Sydney
Waterlow; great alterations are contemplated, and already
Marvell’s house, being greatly dilapidated, has been con-
demned to fall, and the last trace of this God’s true noble-
Iman is wiped out from amongst us for ever.
|His remains lie in St. Giles’s Church, London, near those
of Sir Roger L’Estrange.
ARABELLA. STUART AND LORD BACON.
A little higher up the hill, or Bank, as it is called, than
Cromwell House, Once stood Arundel House, the suburban
residence of the Earls of Arundel. It has long been gone,
but some remains of its garden walls still exist. Its site is
now occupied by some modern houses, but its position may
be known by its abutting on an old house called Exeter House,
probably also from its being once the abode of the Earls
of Exeter. Of this, however, there seems to be no record.
It is not until towards the middle of the reign of James I.
that we hear of the Earl of Arundel having a house at
Highgate. When Norden wrote his ‘Survey of Middlesex'
368 . HIGHGATE.
in 1596, the principal mansion was one thus mentioned:—
“Upon this hill is most pleasant dwelling, yet not so pleasant
as healthful, for the expert inhabitants there report that
divers that have long been visited with sickness, not curable
by physick, have in a short time repaired their health by
that sweet salutarie aire. At this place — Cornwalleys,
Esquire, hath a very faire house, from which he may with
great delight behold the stateley citie of London, West-
minster, Greenwich, the famous river Thamyses and the
country towards the south very farre.” -
On the accession of James in 1621–2, the Spanish Ambas-
sador, Gondemar, excused his absence, on account of his
retreat to Highgate to take the fresh air. It was Gondemar
who, on the departure of One of his Suite to Spain, facetiously
bade him recommend him to the sun, for he had not seen
him here for along time. Does the ‘Spaniards’ public-house,
at the entrance of Hampstead Heath from Highgate, date
from the occasional retreats of the Spanish Ambassador to
these hills? But the question here is, was the house of the
Cornwallis family on what is called the Bank, that which
became the property of the Earl of Arundel?
Lysons has remarked that there is in the Harleian MSS.,
6994, fol. 43, a letter of Sir Thomas Cornwallis, dated
“Hygat, 16 July 1587.’ Sir Thomas, who was treasurer of
Calais and Comptroller of the Household to Queen Mary,
had been knighted as early as 1548, so that Corn-
walleys, Esq., mentioned by Norden in 1596, was, doubtless,
his son William, who had taken up his residence there,
whilst Sir Thomas had retired to his mansion at Brome, in
Suffolk. It is said that this house at Highgate was visited
by Queen Elizabeth in June 1589. The bellringers at St.
Margaret’s, Westminster, were paid 6d. on the 11th of June,
when the Queen’s Majesty came from Highgate."
| Nichol's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. iii. p. 30.
ARABELLA STUART AND LORD BACON. 369
It is certain, however, that James I., the year after his
accession, visited the Cornwallises. On May 1, 1604, it was
the scene of a splendid royal festival. Ben Jonson was em-
ployed to compose his dramatic interlude of ‘The Penates’
for a private entertainment of the King and Queen given on
Mayday morning by Sir William Cornwallis, at his house at
Highgate; and Sir Basil Brooke, of Madeley, in Shropshire,
was knighted there at the same time."
At the end of the same year Sir Thomas Cornwallis died
at his house at Brome—namely, on the 24th of December,
aged eighty-five; and a writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’
for 1828, part i. p. 588, says that “it is most probable that Sir
William then removed to reside in the Suffolk mansion, as
we hear no more of his family in Highgate. This residence,
it is clear, from what has been already stated, had been the
principal one in the place; and as we find the Earl of
Arundel occupying one of a similar description a few years
later, whilst we have no information of his having erected
One for himself, there appears reason to presume that it was
the same mansion.”
This might be so; but as there were several fine old houses
at that period in Highgate, it is mere supposition. That
which gives the most probability to the conjecture is that
the prospect over London and the country accords well with
the situation. The same writer continues:—
“The first mention I have found of the Earl of Arundel
at Highgate, is of the date of 1617; and this is also con-
nected with the history of the great Bacon. At that time
the King was in Scotland, and Sir Francis, having been
recently appointed Lord Keeper, was left at the head of the
Privy Council in London, where, according to the satirical
Weldon, he occupied the King’s lodgings at Whitehall, and
* Nichols's Progresses of King James I., vol. i. pp. 430–437.
B B
370 FIIGEIGATE.
assumed the state of royalty. During the absence of the
Court, the lords were entertained by turns at each other's
houses; and in Whitsun week, says Mr. Chamberlain, in a
letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, the Countess of Arundel—the
Earl being with the King in Scotland—made a grand feast
at Highgate to the Lord Keeper, the two Lords Justices,
the Master of the Rolls, and I know not whom else. It was
after the Italian manner, with four courses, and four table-
cloths One under another; and when the first course and
table-cloth were taken away, the Master of the Rolls, Sir
Julius Caesar, thinking all had been done, said grace, as his
manner was when no divines were present, and was after-
wards well laughed at for his labour.”
In 1624, we find the King sleeping at this mansion. He
went on Sunday, June 2, towards evening, to Highgate, and
lay at the Lord of Arundel’s to hunt a stag early the next
morning in St. John’s Wood.” “The death of the Wiscount
St. Albans, in the year 1626, is the only subsequent event
connected with the Earl of Arundel’s house,” says this writer,
‘that I have yet met with.”
Arundel House numbers amongst its chief historical asso-
ciations two very different and yet very interesting ones—
the flight from it of Arabella Stuart, in the reign of James I.,
and the death of the great Chancellor Bacon in the same
reign, about fifteen years afterwards.
Arabella Stuart was one of those charming women who
might in private life have been happy themselves, and the
source of much happiness to others, but whose lives were
cursed by too near a proximity to a throne. Like Elizabeth
of England and James I., she was descended from Henry
VII., through Margaret, the daughter of that king, married
to James TV. of Scotland, and afterwards to Archibald
* Nichols's Progresses of King James I., vol. ii. p. 344.
* Ibid, vol. iii. p. 978.
ARABELLA STU AIRT AND LORD BACON. 3.71
Douglas, Earl of Angus. James I. had the precedence
in royalty of her by being the descendant by the English
princess and the King of Scotland, whilst Arabella was only
the offspring of Margaret Tudor's second marriage with the
Earl of Angus. Had James had no children she would have
been the next heir to the English throne. But though this
was her exact position, and though she never showed the
slightest ambition for reigning, she was too royal not to
excite the fears of both Elizabeth and James. There were
serious doubts of the legitimacy of Elizabeth, her father
having married Anne Boleyn before the divorce from his
queen, Catherine of Arragon. In fact, Henry VIII. had by
public acts declared her illegitimate. On this score Eliza-
beth was enormously jealous of Arabella Stuart, and did all
in her power to prevent her marriage. Indeed, it was a
system of Elizabeth’s to keep everybody about her un-
married if she could; but as regarded Arabella Stuart it
was a point of life and death with her. James himself
during Elizabeth’s reign, and when he had neither wife nor
child, had proposed to marry her to Esme Stuart, Duke of
Lennox, but Elizabeth immediately put Arabella in prison,
and sent James a very cutting and insulting letter for daring
to propose such a thing. Elizabeth, thus watched her as a
cat watches a mouse ; yet, from all that we can learn,
Arabella Stuart was much more disposed to enjoy a cheerful
life amongst her friends than to incur the heavy cares of a
crown. She was handsome, clever, fond of literature and
poetry; very intellectual and witty, as letters of hers yet
remaining show; and was of a particularly frank and gene-
rous character.
Having escaped from a miserable state of surveillance by
the death of Elizabeth, she quickly found herself as com-
pletely in durance under her cousin James. Arrived himself
B B 2
37.2 HIGHGATE.
at the English throne, though the father of several children,
he became as fearful of Arabella Stuart marrying as Queen
Bess had been. Cecil, his cold-blooded minister, took care
to have her secured till James was settled in the kingdom,
and then James resolved to keep her as cautiously as
Elizabeth had done. There were various offers for her hand—
One from the King of Poland; another from Count Maurice
of Gueldres; but James peremptorily refused them all for
her, and put her under the care of that virago, the Countess
of Shrewsbury, who was always building and scolding.
Scarcely was James in England, however, before an alleged
plot, in which Lord Cobham, Lord Grey, and the celebrated
Sir Walter Raleigh, were charged with being concerned,
Imade him more fearful of Lady Arabella than ever. It was
said that they had planned to engage the King of Spain, the
Archduke of Austria, and the Duke of Savoy, to place
Arabella on the throne, on condition that she should tolerate
Popery, and take as a husband whatever person they should
choose. At the trial, in which Coke, the attorney-general,
used the most violent and abusive language towards Sir
Walter, the Lady Arabella was present in the gallery with a
crowd of the nobility, and Lord Howard, afterwards of
Effingham, said for her that she had no concern whatever
in the matters alleged; and Cecil himself gave evidence
that she had indeed received a letter from Lord Cobham
on the subject of her claims to the throne, but that she had
only laughed at it and sent it to the King. James con-
tented himself with confiscating the property of the accused,
banishing some and imprisoning others. Raleigh remained
in the Tower on this charge twelve years, though he stoutly
denied his guilt, and though nothing was really proved
against him.
James might have permitted the Lady Arabella to marry,
t 3 & 4 (5
AOU ºutſ] od On Osmot[ SIU[] Sltosst UOInſpb.II, SIOKUOO TIN t
Jo Osmouſ ouſ, Ol pokoAUIOO SUA ous yet[] SKUs qunooot ouT, ‘on.b5
-U3H St. It'ſ St. XIOUq quâno-IQ 5uſoq ſtolſ Ol poluosuoo souttſ
tnutop outos 10]] W ‘Iouling tou KLIto OT qdulolyt Kut Kol
pooglobS Oq ºsmut of II IOU. 1UTI) pote[oop UUI poſſeo UPEIoISKūd t
put ‘toAaj B uo Tučno.Iq pºll purſui Jo UOITUTIšt: Iou outſ] spun
Ád qug loulºg, St. It'ſ St. KIqſo.IOJ poAoAltoo put of uſ...[to
t; OTU qual trouſ, SUA outs to ATI out, din Ooughs p ouTOS poAO.I
put “soulbul, ou, O, “juſlsºsol put 5upportús ‘smuſ) pollſbo S'BA
put ‘pod Toul III Stoogo KCI pozios ÁTuoppins SUA ous ‘Top.IO
oſqugſ]smſun put Árbºlºgit STUI) ([]]A Kºdutoo On 5uſsnjoyſ
‘oos quuſ, Jo dousſd oul Jo of UBUIo III UIUUImCI on IOU puos
O] pottſu,10]op ouſ ‘otouſ ojºs toū āupuytſ, lou qud ‘ūqoquºrſ
uţ ‘Ālūtd. Suutou I, IIS Jo Kpoſsno OUT On tſIoqū.IV pub ‘to AOL
otſ. On InouTKoS polyſurutoo sourbſ "pop[Tutu KITUOI otoA Kou().
quºuſ] polòAOosºp SUA ºr OI9'I UT put, ‘SunſuTSX100I 'yū Op O] plus
SI q. Su ‘sout'ſ qu poupéntſ oAOI qug 'uoissºulted Stu quount AA
o:5uptibul B job.Inuod O' ootºujśoſſº U0ū ūO utoqn optiq.10] put
‘UAO SIU St. [BK0I St. S'BA S.InouTKOS [I5mouſ, ‘pooſq [BK0I Thiſ A
J[OSUITUI ATIt On 5uTurnsold IOJ InouTKoS popuburſtdot MTootog
soutſ ‘stuoul Kos ouſ, Jo Jºlſ, S'BA UIoIIIA ‘ottſ Iou put KUBIN
Ionsis 'lso:5unoX STI (IO ‘onssy UIAAO STUI Jo O.Inſity Jo Osbo III
‘quoosop out, pollos pull IIIA &IIIoH, Ioj ‘s.sourbſ (IBUT 101100
uſbſo sºul quânot, OUIAA oldood O.I.9A orouſ put “IIA KIIIoH
UIOT) populoosep SUA opps Stu Uto Inout Kos ºutſu poultuTu
Kºbo.13 pub soutuſ Oº Aag qſ Jo SAouſ oth put ‘poAouot SUAA
quoultſot:1]º oſſuo Anſ. Trotſ,I, p.IOJ) to H JO RIB|I ou! Jo uos
qsappo oth ‘duTullombogI p.IOT Jo IOS puoods “InouTKoS UIETITIAA
‘Ummo K. KLTuo Totſ Jo Totſuipt: Up (ITIM qour ous sooutºsumo
-to osotſ] topuſh ‘pſed KIQBIOSIul SUAA Toul poAOITU TIOISutod
oup) put ound.[O] IOJ UAOTO out, Uſo quoptrodop SUA olis
•outo Smotu ſubušbut tº Uſooq oAbū ºsmut out ‘otnquoto snoutputſ
-Itsud ‘tood tº Jo pºolsuſ ‘uouſ] ºnq ‘SIBoy STII pass[UISIb pub
{? / Q * NOOVEI CISIOT Oſ NW I'TVſ) LS WITICICIWSIW
374, HIGHGATE.
called Arundel House. Probably it belonged to a Mr. Conyers
before it became the property of the Earl of Arundel, whose
it was when Lord Bacon was its guest, fifteen years after-
wards.
Lady Arabella had leave to stay here a month, and this
term was extended to two months, which she made use of to
establish a correspondence with her husband in the Tower,
and to plan a scheme for their mutual escape. This plan
was put into effect on June 3, 1611, the very day that the
Bishop of Durham had set out northward to prepare for her
reception. The following is the account of this romantic
adventure, chiefly from Winwood’s “Memorials of the Reigns
of Elizabeth and James I.’:— -
Disguising herself by drawing a great pair of French
fashioned hose over her petticoats, putting On a man’s
doublet, and a man-like peruke, with long locks over her
hair, a black hat, black cloak, russet boots with red tops,
and a rapier by her side, she walked forth between three
and four of the clock in the afternoon with Mr. Markham.
After they had gone afoot a mile and a half to a sorry inn
where Crompton attended with horses, she grew very sick
and faint, so that the Ostler that held the stirrup said that
the gentleman would hardly hold out to London. The
mounting the horse, however, brought blood into her face,
and so she rode on towards Blackwall. There she found
boats and attendants, who rowed her down the river to
Gravesend, where a French boat lay in waiting for her. She
expected to find her husband on board; but Seymour, though
he had managed to get out of the Tower disguised as a
physician, had not yet arrived. The French captain, con-
scious of the dangerous attempt in which he was engaged,
grew impatient, and in spite of Lady Arabella’s entreaties,
fell down the river and put to sea. Seymour, finding the
ARABELLA STUART AND LORD BACON. 375
vessel gone on his arrival at the appointed place, engaged
the captain of a collier to carry him over to Flanders for 40l.
The captain of the collier carried Seymour safe to Flanders,
but poor Arabella was not so fortunate. No Sooner was the
escape of the two prisoners ascertained than there was
a fearful alarm and bustle at Court. The Privy Council
met, a proclamation was issued, setting forth that the fugi-
tives were gone to the Spanish Netherlands to come back
with an army to overthrow the Government and restore
Popery. Letters were despatched to the Archdukes, the
Ring of France, and other Catholic sovereigns, warning
them against harbouring the traitors, and demanding their
surrender. A number of vessels of war dropped hastily
down the Thames in pursuit, and another put out of the
Downs. The latter intercepted the boat carrying Lady
Arabella in the Calais roads; and after a sharp struggle the
Frenchman struck, and gave up the fugitive. The poor
distracted Arabella was carried back to London, and com-
mitted to the Tower, exclaiming that she could bear her
fate could she but be sure of the safety of her husband.
Her grief and despair soon deprived her of her senses, and
after a captivity of four years she died in the Tower on
September 27, 1615. No care seems to have been taken to
ease her mind by the news of the safe escape of Seymour.
In vain, whilst she retained her senses, did she plead for
her liberty : in vain did the Queen endeavour to move the
obdurate James in her favour. As for Seymour, he was
permitted to return to England after the death of his wife,
and lived to be a very old man. He became, in the course
of inheritance, Marquis of Hertford, fought for the Crown
in the civil war, though he had married the sister of the
Barl of Essex, the parliamentary general. He lived to
witness the Restoration; and Charles II. restored to him
376 - HIGHEIGATE.
the title of Duke of Somerset, which had been acquired and
again forfeited by his great-grandfather, the Protector. He
did not die till 1660, nearly half a century after this adven-
ture; and he showed that he never forgot Lady Arabella, by
naming one of his daughters by his second wife after her.
LORD BACON.
From Arundel House, in 1626, went forth another and,
more remarkable person, not on a flight to the Continent,
but into eternity.
Erancis Bacon, Baron Verulam, Wiscount St. Albans, the
man who had reached the highest legal honours attainable
in England, who had sat in the seat of his father Sir
Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, as Lord High Chancellor;
the man who had reached a far higher glory than any legal
or state function could confer—who had revolutionised philo-
sophy, and laid the foundation of all our modern progress in
science, came here, unknowing of it, to die. The worldly
glory of Bacon at this epoch had vanished. For five years
he had been a fallen and disgraced man, banished from the
court, made incapable of holding any public employment,
and living at his house in Gorhambury, at St. Albans, or in
Gray’s Inn, a fallen, disappointed man: yet the greatest
man, so far as intellect was concerned, that ages had pro-
duced. In the words of the poet—
The greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind.
There have been attempts of late years to clear Bacon of
the charges of accepting bribes as a judge, and to justify
him. The attempt has only ended in whitewashing him.
There is a craze now to whitewash the great delinquents of
former ages. Richard III., Henry VIII., Queen Bess, Lord
Bacon, have all found zealous men with their great buckets
IORT) BACON. 377
of whitewash and busy brushes to clean them, but the dirt
still lies under, the rains of common sense fall, and it re-
appears. Froude, Basil Montagu, Hepworth Dixon, and
others make us think of Pope’s lines:—
Some in their choice of friends (nay, look not grave),
Have still a secret bias to a knave :
To find an honest man I beat about,
And love him, court him, praise him, in or out.
Unfortunately, what can Bacon’s distinguished advocates
do, though they ‘praise him, in or out,’ seeing that he
himself has fully admitted his crime?
Lord Bacon will always receive his just deserts. We owe
him incalculable benefits for the publication of his “ Novum
Orgamum,’ which cut down the delusive syllogisms of Aris-
totle, and taught us to seek facts from nature, and to draw
our deductions alone from them. For this he will always
receive the gratitude and the intellectual homage of man-
kind; but mankind will not on that account declare him as
morally as he was intellectually great. He showed himself
weak where his interests and his ambition were concerned ;
he set a bad example—the more pernicious the greater the
man; and for that he bore and must bear his punishment—
the pity of mankind. We love him; but we cannot, there-
fore, pronounce him faultless. As the Lord Chancellor of
England, he received presents from clients, knowing that
such presents were given to do what Solomon says they do—
‘blind the judge.’ His great apologist, Basil Montagu,
says that ‘this had been done long before, and was com-
monly done by judges.’ So much the worse But this does
not excuse a man of the clear understanding and high moral
teaching of Bacon. Murder, robbery, adultery, were common
in his day, and had been for thousands of years. The ex-
cuse for Bacon’s failing would extend to every possible
378 HIGHGATE.
Crime, and utterly put an end to the ten commandments,
and make virtue a solemn humbug. Solomon, in his day,
was the greatest genius, and the greatest fool. With all
his knowledge, and all his proverbs, he was a monstrous
sensualist; with all his praise of God he sunk into a miser-
able idolator. Will his talents or his philosophy excuse his
crimes or heathenism 9 On the contrary, they stamp them
as the more pitiful, and cry to us as an eternal warning to
take heed how we stand. On these clear and indestructible
distinctions stands the security of all morals, public and
private.
The character of Bacon as drawn even by his own friends,
in his own age, was one of personal ambition, Vanity, and
weakness in such a degree as to make him a marvel, con-
sidering his intellectual strength and eminence. In his
office he assumed, especially during the King’s absence in
Scotland, a state and consequence more regal than judicial.
Sir Anthony Weldon, in his ‘Court of King James,’ says
that he bade the other privy councillors, if they took seats
near him, keep their distance, so that Secretary Winwood
rose, went away, and never would sit any more under his
encroached state, but despatched a messenger to let the
King know that he had better hasten back, as his seat was
already usurped. He kept a state and household in rivalry
of the greatest nobles. On the King’s return, and the
menace of his disgrace, Weldon Says that he showed as
much baseness; that Buckingham kept him two days waiting
at his antechamber door amongst the lacqueys, and that
when at length admitted, he fell down flat at the duke’s
foot, kissing it, and vowing never to rise till he had his
pardon.
Basil Montagu himself tells us that his ostentation of
liberality was most pitiful; that when the King sent him a
LORD BACON. 379
buck he gave the keeper fifty pounds, when the man would,
mo doubt, have thought himself well treated by the present
of one; that a worthy old gentleman going to him about a
suit, to Gorhambury, saw two of his gentlemen, one after
another, in Bacon’s momentary absence from the room, open
his money drawer and fill their pockets with both hands,
and go away without a word. When he told Bacon of this
he only shook his head and said that he could not help him-
self. Well might he say to his servants when, after his
disgrace, on passing through the hall, they rose, “Sit down,
my masters. Your rise has been my fall !’ Basil Montagu
also tells us that the Prince (I suppose Prince Charles),
coming to London after Bacon’s fall, saw at a distance a
coach followed by a train of horsemen, and hearing that it
was Bacon, said: ‘Well, do what we can, this man scorns to
go out like a snuff.” And as to the bribery, Bacon does not
attempt to deny it. In a letter to the King, dated May
1621, he says candidly that he had taken bribes. Nay, on
his trial, he delivered in a list of twenty-eight cases, the
sums received amounting to 10,660l.—an amount equal to
60,000l. now. And these were only well-known cases. The
sums ranged from 50l. and 100l. to 1,000l. each. He gives
all the names of the persons, and endeavours to excuse him-
self by saying that he in some cases, after all, decided
against the bribers. What are we to think of such morality?
These people openly, avowedly, paid him money to sell them
an unjust advantage. He pocketed the money and then did
not give it. Another excuse is that he received many of the
sums after the decisions, as if this could not be by arrange-
ment. In some cases, however, as in that of Lady Wharton,
he directly sold her a judgment contrary to justice for 300l.
beforehand. In other cases, which he specifies, he sent
after the trial to borrow money, 500l. or 1,000l., from the
380 HIGEIGATE,
person to whom he had awarded the victory. This money
he does not pretend was ever to be paid again. Such was
the case of William Compton, to whom he sent for 500l. ; of
William Peacock, to whom he sent for 1,000l., and so on.
In plain terms, he levied black mail as the price of his
decisions.
Such was Francis Bacon—in his actions little, if any-
thing, better than his contemporaries; in his philosophy
great beyond any age; in his gift to mankind of his “ Novum
Organum,’ a benefactor of such magnitude that his moral
weaknesses lie in the splendour of his intellectual glories
like spots on the sun, which leave that luminary, in spite of
its blemishes, the noblest visible object of our universe. The
true greatness of Bacon is not demonstrated by endeavour-
ing to conceal his faults, but by leaving them to sink
into their proper insignificance by the side of his genuine
grandeur. This is the account of his death as given by
Basil Montagu, John Aubrey, Wotton, and Rawley:-‘In the
spring of 1626 his strength and spirits revived after the
weakness brought on him by the winter. He returned to
his favourite seclusion in Gray’s Inn, from whence, on
April 2, either on his way to Gorhambury or when making
an excursion into the country with Dr. Witherborne, the
Ring’s physician, it occurred to him as he approached High-
gate, the Snow lying on the ground, that it might be de-
serving consideration whether flesh might be preserved as
well in snow as in salt; and he resolved immediately to try
the experiment. They alighted from the coach, and went
into a poor woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill,
near the spot at which Hagbush Lane comes out into the
Holloway Road, and bought a hen, and stuffed the body with
snow, and my lord did help to do it himself. The snow
chilled him, and he fell so extremely ill, that he could not
LORD BACON. 381
return to Gray’s Inn, but was taken to the Earl of Arundel's
house at Highgate, where he was put into a warm bed; but
it was damp, and had not been slept in for a year before.”
Whether Sir Thomas Meautys, his most constant friend, or
Dr. Rawley, could be found does not appear; but a mes-
senger was immediately sent to his relation, the Master of
the Rolls, the charitable Sir Julius Cæsar, then grown so old
that he was said to be kept alive beyond nature’s course by
the prayers of the many poor whom he daily relieved. He
instantly attended his friend, who was confined to his bed,
and so enfeebled that he was unable to hold a pen; yet he
wrote to Lord Arundel by dictation :-
* My very good Lord, I was likely to have had the fortune
of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an
experiment about the burning of the mountain Vesuvius.
For I also was desirous to try an experiment or two touch-
ing the conservation and induration of bodies. For the ex-
periment itself, it succeeded remarkably well; but in the
journey between Highgate and London, I was taken with a
fit of casting, as I know not whether it was the stone, or
some surfeit, or cold, or, indeed, a touch of them all three.
But when I came to your lordship’s house, I was not able to
go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging
here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent
about me, which I assure myself your lordship will not only
pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it. For,
indeed, your lordship’s house was happy to me, and I kiss
your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give
me to it.” -
This letter shows that at the moment he dictated it the
great ex-chancellor did not suppose himself on his death-
bed; but he died in the arms of Sir Julius Caesar on the
morning of Easter Monday, April 9, 1626, in the sixty-sixth
382 - HIGHGATE.
year of his age. He was buried by direction of his will, in
St. Michael’s Church, St. Albans, near his mother, where a
monumént, exhibiting him as seated in his chair, supporting
his head on his hand, was erected to his memory by his
faithful friend, Sir Thomas Meautys.
** § w §: % |
| É%|
ºfflº,
#| ||ºiliº
###|ſº º |;
#º
|# # iſ: i §§§§: #
|} § #). | :
% º
i º
j||
# ! |
{ |
º
i
f
t
# º!|||}}}}|{{}i º !
º sº #
jºiniº
§§& Jīlūji i}\,{!!.
*jºs-ºs- milliºniſſº
3. º º
23: t #:
gº 5. . º º WºłWiſłºś º
* º #
§
º
º
** *2.
3&tº
LAUDERIDALE HOUSE. --
(From an Original Drawing by J. W. Archer, in the possession of W. Twopeny, Esq.)
LAUDERDALE HOUSE AND NELL G.WYNNE.
When Andrew Marvell sought retirement at Highgate he
did not get out of the vicinity of bad company. Just below
his modest house, on the same side of the road, stood the
ample one of the Duke of Lauderdale. This house still
remains. It has no architecture about it. It has two
fronts—one facing the highway, and the other looking down
south-eastward towards Holloway. It has on each front a
very simple pediment, and has been stuccoed, probably, in


LAUDERDALE HOUSE AND NELL Gwyn NE. 383
very recent years. Some of the old gardens remain, but
Iñuch altered, and in them stands an old-fashioned circular
- conservatory. The grounds appear to have been extensive,
running pretty closely in the rear of Marvell’s cottage. This
mansion is said to have been built about the year 1660–
that is, coincident with the restoration of Charles T.I., one of
whose most active and detestable ministers Lauderdale was
from first to last. Nay, we are assured that he was a pro-
minent man, even in the reign of Charles I., in Scotland,
being then a Covenanter, and one of those who sold Charles I.
to the English army. He turned round completely under .
Charles II., and became one of the most frightful persecutors
of the Covenanters that existed; he and Archbishop Sharpe
going hand-in-hand in their diabolical cruelties. He was
not only an English Minister, a leading one of the celebrated
Cabal Administration, but Lord-Deputy of Scotland, where
nothing could surpass his cruelty but his rapacity. Lord
Macaulay draws this portrait of him : ‘Lauderdale, the
tyrant deputy of Scotland at this period, loud and coarse
both in mirth and anger, was perhaps, under the outward
show of boisterous frankness, the most dishonest man in the
whole Cabal. He was accused of being deeply concerned in
the sale of Charles I. to the English Parliament, and was,
therefore, in the estimation of good Cavaliers, a traitor of a
worse description than those who sat in the High Court of
Justice. He often talked with noisy jocularity of the days
when he was a canter and a rebel. He was now the chief
instrument employed by the court in the work of forcing
episcopacy on his reluctant countrymen; nor did he in that
cause shrink from the unsparing use of the sword, the
halter, and the boot. Yet those who knew him knew that
thirty years had made no change in his real sentiments;
that he still hated the memory of Charles I., and that he
384. E[IGISIGATE,
still preferred the Presbyterian form of government to any
other.” If we add to this picture Carlyle’s additional touch
of ‘ his big red head,” we have a sufficient idea of this
Imonster of a man, as he was at that time at work in Scot-
land, with his renegade comrade, Archbishop Sharpe, with
their racks, thumbscrews, and iron boot in which they used
to crush the legs of their victims with wedges, so vividly
described by Sir Walter Scott, in “Old Mortality’ and in
the ‘Tales of a Grandfather; ” whilst their general, Turner,
was pursuing the flying Covenanters to the mountains and
morasses with fire and sword.
Such was Andrew Marvell’s near neighbour when Lauder-
dale was in England, during which time he was always an
advocate for bringing down a huge Scotch army to Crush
the liberties of England. His master Charles had sold him-
self to the French King for an annuity of 200,000l. a year
and a promise of soldiers to re-establish Popery. To com-
plete this military despotism, Lauderdale got an Act passed
in Scotland for the raising of an army there which the King
should have the right to march to any part of his dominions;
and Bishop Burnet gave evidence at the bar of the English
Commons that this wretch had told him that his design was
to have an army of Scotch to keep down the English, and an
army of Irish to keep down the Scotch. Not being able to
carry out the whole of this diabolical scheme, he, however,
managed to bring down the wild Highlanders on the
Covenanters, and let them loose on the west of Scotland
like a legion of desolating fiends. During all this time
Lauderdale and his duchess sold honours and estates in
Scotland, and seized on the property of the persecuted, SO
that they would have become enormously rich had they not
been still more enormously ostentatious and lavish in their
style of living. Yet the profligate Charles still protected
LAUDERDALE HOUSE AND NELL G.WYNNE. 385
this monster from the equal abhorrence of Scotch and
English. **
When Lauderdale was in Scotland on this devil’s business,
no doubt his indulgent master used to borrow his house at
Highgate for One of his troop of mistresses; and thus it was
that we find pretty Nelly Gwynne flourishing directly under
the nose of the indignant patriot Marvell. If Charles had
picked his whole harem, however, he could not have found
one of his ladies less obnoxious than poor Nelly. As for
Lucy Waters, the mother of the Duke of Monmouth, she
was dead. Lady Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, the
mother of the Dukes of Grafton, was a bold and fiery dame,
that kept even the King in constant hot water. Madame
Querouaille, made Duchess of Portland, mother of the Dukes
of Richmond, was the spy of Louis XIV. of France, sent ex-
pressly to keep Charles to his obedience, and for which
service Louis gave her a French title and estate. Moll
Davis, the rope-dancer, the mother of the Radclyffes, had
lost her influence, and Miss Stewart had got married to the
Duke of Richmond. Of all the tribe, Nelly was the best;
and yet Marvell launched some very sharp arrows at her.
Charles he describes as he might see him walking in the
Lauderdale gardens, as
Of a tall stature and of sable hue,
Much like the son of Kish, that lofty grew;
and Nelly, as ‘that wench of Orange and oyster,’ in allusion
to her original calling.
On Charles he spent his wit continually ; and his reckless
yet timid character was never better hit off than in the fol-
lowing stanzas :—
I'll have as fine bishops as were e'er made with hands,
With conscionces flexible to my commands;
And if they displease me—l’ll have all their lands.
C C
386 - - ELIGIEIGATE.
I’ll have a fine navy to conquer the seas,
And the Dutch shall give caution for their provinces;
And if they should beat me—I’ll do what they please.
I’ll have a fine court, with ne'er an old face,
And he who dare beard me shall have the next grace,
And I either will vacate or buy him a place.
I’ll have a privy purse without a control,
I'll wink all the while my revenue is stole;
And if any is questioned—I’ll answer the whole.
If this please not—I’ll reign them on any condition;
Miss and I will learn to live on exhibition,
And I’ll first put the Church, then the Crown, in commission.
Elinor, or Nell Gwynne, who was of the lowest extraction,
commenced life by selling oysters about the streets, and then
oranges at the theatres. According to her own account in
‘Pepys,’ vol. iii. p. 399, she ‘was brought up in a brothel,
to fill strong waters for the gentlemen.” Her beauty, wit,
and extreme good-nature seem to have made her friends
amongst the actors; and her figure and loveliness raised her
to the stage. There she attracted the dissolute monarch’s
attention by a merely ludicrous circumstance. At another
theatre an actor had been introduced as Pistol, in a hat of
extravagant dimensions. As this caused much merriment,
Dryden had Nelly to appear in a hat as large as a coach
wheel. The audience was vastly diverted, and the King, who
was present, taken at once by his fancy. But as she was
already the mistress of Lord Buckhurst, Charles had to
compound for the transfer of Nelly by an earldom, making
him Earl of Middlesex. Nell soon won the ascendency
amongst the mistresses of the King,
Who never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one. ,
Though extremely gay and witty, Nell Gwynne seems never
to have shown any hauteur in her elevation, nor any avarice
—a prominent vice in Some of her rivals. On the contrary,
LAUDERDALE HOUSE AND NELL G.WYNNE. 387
she made no secret of condemning her peculiar position, and
was always ready to do a good action. On one occasion,
seeing a clergyman in the hands of constables, she inquired
the cause, and hearing that they were taking him to prison
for debt, she paid the demand, and let him return to his
family.
Though often insulted, she never sought revenge, and no
doubt kept the King from it; nay, there is reason to believe
she induced him to show a magnanimity in some cases that
was not in himself. Had the following incident happened
to one of the other royal mistresses, there is little doubt that
the result would have been very different:-On a visit to
Winchester, Charles wished one of the clergymen, the Rev.
Thomas Ken, to allow Nell to lodge at his house; but Ken
positively refused, however much it might offend the King.
His friends thought there was an end to his preferment; but,
some time after, on the death of the Bishop of Bath and Wells,
Charles asked what was the name of that little man at Win–
chester who would not let little Nell lodge at his house, and
on being told, to the astonishment of the whole court, con-
ferred on him the bishopric. Charles never endowed Nelly
with the wealth and titles that he lavished on his other
women, probably because she did not worry him; but on his
death-bed, his conscience pricked him for his neglect, and he
said, ‘Don’t let poor Nelly starve.’ A frail security against
starvation for a king’s mistress in a new court.
The circumstance which connects her memory with Lauder-
dale House is the tradition, that, as the King delayed to
confer a title on her child, as he had done on the eldest son
of others of his mistresses, she one day held the infant out of
an upper window of Lauderdale House, and said, “Unless
you do something for him, here he goes l’ On which Charles
replied, ‘Save the Earl of Burford ' ' Whether this was
C C 2
388 EIIGHGATE.
exactly as related or not, it is very like One of Nell's
lively sallies; and the child was created Earl of Burford, and
afterwards Duke of St. Albans.
It is rather a curious coincidence, that, on the western
ascent into Highgate, a few years ago, lived a Duchess of St.
Albans, the wife of one of Nell’s descendants, who had also
begun life, like Nell, as an actress. I have often heard a
lady speak of her as Miss Mellon, acting in a country theatre.
Like Nelly, she had, whether actress or duchess, a noble
nature; and the inhabitants of Highgate still bear in me-
mory her deeds of charity, as well as her splendid fêtes, in
some of which, they say, she hired all the birds of the bird-
dealers in London, and fixing their cages in the trees, made
her grounds one great orchestra of nature’s music. What a
holiday for the birds !
IDICK WHITTINGTON.
Descending the hill from Lauderdale House towards Hol-
loway, and not far before we come to the Archway Tavern,
we arrive at a massive stone standing on the edge of the
footpath, which seems to give reality to the tales of Our
nurseries. It bears this inscription :-
WHITTINGTON STONE.
Sir Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London,
1397 . . . . . Richard II.
1409 . . . . . Henry IV.
1419 . . . . . Henry V.
So Dick Whittington was a real man of flesh and blood,
flourishing in an historic period, and not the creation of
some old story-teller who delighted to amuse children. So,
then, here he really sat and listened to Bow bells, which
rung him back to be thrice Lord Mayor of London. What-
DICR WEIITTINGTON. 389
ever of fable has wreathed itself like ivy round this old
history, there was a bond fide substantial British oak for it
to twine round. Here Dick sat on a stone (which appears to
have been the base of an ancient cross) and listened to that
agreeable recall. The stone, we are told, is not the actual
one on which Dick sat. That had been thrown down, had
become broken to pieces, and these fragments were removed
years ago and placed as kerb-stones against the posts at the
#ſil; gº º
:Sºº
*** .
2.
*:::
sº w erº º
.* -- - -A º
sº * *. t * Ç *
-> * * ~ * -- & º *
º º S.J., sº Nº.
"ºx. . . Arººs
Skºº § { * Kºłº *
sº º º: º g ...tº
Bºx- ( \ iſ \º. sº
- : 3. Yºlº ºt *- - <--
º *::---- - g .*
== -- tº, * -,
sºlſ||
j; —º-
:=== †: º º: t
º Se:Fº *~
E::=º
º:=**ś: …
WEIITTINGTON STONE AND THE LAZAR HOUSE.
(From an old Print, by Chatelaine, in the possession of J. E. Gardner, Esq.)
corner of Queen’s Head Lane. But this stone was erected on
or near the spot as a proper memorial of the fact that the
hero of this story, no longer Dick, but Sir Richard Whit-
tington, loved to ride out in this direction, and to dismount,
in order to walk up the hill, at this stone, and by it to re-
mount again—a very characteristic trait of Whittington's
humanity, which many fine fellows would do well to imitate,
who, instead of dismounting, often put spurs to their or their

390 HIGHGATE,
master's horses and gallop up the long and steep ascent.
To various such wind-breakers I have presented the ‘Little
Horse Book of the Society for Preventing Cruelty to
Animals, as a piece of instructive reading. f
Though other of the incidents of Dick Whittington's life
may have been embellished, I should be sorry to cast a
doubt on the cat story—that cat which Dick, in his sleep-
ing-place in the scullery of Mr. Fitzwarren, the rich mer-
chant, being wofully tormented with rats, bought for one
penny of an old woman in the street, and which, so mightily
pleasing the Dey of Algiers by clearing his table of the
same vermin, made Dick’s fortune. Yet there is a very
ancient story in the Scandinavian Sagas something like it;
but so there is, too, of the story of William Tell shooting
the apple on his son’s head. We will refuse to give up an
atom of faith in Dick's cat. Cat or something made a
wonderful man of him. History tells of his deeds with all
sober and authentic gravity. Thrice was he in reality Lord
Mayor of London. In the reign of Edward III. he made the
King a present of 10,000l., a vast sum in those days, towards
the expenses of his war with France. In the fifty-second year
of the reign of this Edward, Dick was knighted, and made
Lord Mayor instead of Adam Staple, who would not raise
the city poll-tax for the King, amounting to 4,000l. In
1377, the first year of Richard T.I., he was made member
of Parliament. Stowe tells us that he was then a great
merchant dealing in wool, leather, and pearls, which last
were then much worn by the ladies. When near forty he
married the daughter of his old master, Miss Fitzwarren, and
served his first regular mayoralty in 1897. He was one of
those who had the melancholy duty of guarding his captive
monarch, Richard II., to the Tower. He assisted at the coro-
nation of Henry IV., and figures on various occasions in
DICR WEIITTINGTON. 391
that reign. In the time of the warlike Henry V., during his
third mayoralty, in 1419, he entertained that monarch and
his queen at Guildhall. On this occasion he performed an
act of princely loyalty, if we may use such a phrase, which
has only been equalled by the great weaver of Augsburg.
In the noble building in that city, now the inn of the Three
Moors, we are told that Count Fugger, the weaver-merchant,
entertained Charles W., and afterwards consumed in a fire
of cinnamon a bond of a million of florins due from the
Emperor. No doubt Count Fugger had read the history of
Dick Whittington—who has not?—and so determined to
emulate the following noble deed:—‘At this entertainment
the King particularly praised the fire, which was made of
choice woods, mixed with mace, cloves, and all other spices;
on which Sir Richard said he would endeavour to make One
still more agreeable to his Majesty, and immediately tore
and threw into the fire the King’s bond for 10,000 marks
due to the Company of Mercers, 12,500 to the Chamber of
London, 12,000 to the Grocers; to the Staplers, Goldsmiths,
Haberdashers, Wintners, Brewers, and Bakers, 3,000 marks
each. “All these,” said Sir Richard, “with divers others lent
for the payment of your soldiers in France, I have taken in
and discharged, to the amount of 60,000l. Sterling. Can
your Majesty desire to see such another sight?” The King
and nobles were struck dumb with surprise.”
In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. lxvi. part ii. p. 545,
is an engraving of the house, in London, said to be that
of Dick Whittington, in which he lived, and which, with
other property in London, he left to his college, or hospital
for poor people. It was situate four houses from Mark Lane,
in Hart Street, up a gateway, and was then (1796) Occupied
by a carpenter and basket-maker. It was described in the
old leases as Whittington’s Palace, and its appearance,
392 HIGHG ATE.
especially the external, warranted a probability of the truth.
It formed three sides of a square, but, from time and ill-
usage, was much altered. Under the window of the first
storey were carved, in basso-relievo, the arms of the twelve
companies of London, except one, which was destroyed to
make room for a cistern. The wings were supported by rude
carved figures of Satyrs; and from its situation near the
church, it is probable that it had been a manor-house. The
principal room had the remains of grandeur. It was about
85 feet long, 15 broad, and 12 feet high. The ceiling was
elaborately carved, over which was a continuation of Saxon
arches in basso-relievo, and between each arch a human
figure. The ante-room had nothing worth notice but the
Imantel-piece, which, however, was much more modern than
the Outside, as was that of the adjoining room, which be-
longed to the basket-maker. It was not quite so large as
the principal room, but the ceiling was as superbly decorated
with carving. On a tablet was the date 1600, and on ano-
ther the initials This room appeared to have been
P
fitted up long since the building of the house. In medal-
lions on the above ceiling were several heads of the Caesars,
and two coats of arms, a chevron between nine pallets; but
no colours were expressed.
As this house must have been in perfection in the time of
Stowe’s writing his ‘History of London,’ it is wonderful that
he does not mention it, and equally so that it is passed over
by Maitland, who neither noticed it nor the Walbrook
House.
Numerous, besides those already mentioned, are the records
of the munificence of Sir Richard. He built a church in
Wintry Ward; almshouses and a college in the same ward;
founded a noble library in the church of Grey Friars, near
DICIR WEIITTINGTON. 393
where Christ Church in Newgate now stands. He rebuilt
Newgate, repaired Guildhall, and endowed Christ Church
with a considerable sum. Some of his buildings perished in
the Great Fire of London; his college was sold by the Mer-
cers’ Company, but they are said to still maintain the alms-
houses for thirteen poor men. But what concerns us on this
occasion is, that the Mercers’ Company, having 6,600l. in
hand from the estates of Sir Richard Whittington in 1822,
commenced a set of almshouses for twenty-four single women
not having individually property to the amount of 30l. a-year.
They receive a yearly stipend of 30l. each, besides other
gifts, with medical attendance and nurses in time of illness.
The establishment was proposed to be erected in the main
road, near to the Whittington Stone; but ground not being
procurable, they built it in the Archway Road, nearly oppo-
site to this stone. This is a much better situation, from its
greater openness and retirement. The buildings are Gothic,
of one storey, forming three sides of a quadrangle, having
the area open towards the road. In the centre of the main
building is a chapel or oratory for the reading of daily
prayers. The establishment has its tutor or master, its
Imatron, nurses, gardener, gatekeeper, &c. It is a remark-
ably pleasant object from the road, with its area embellished
by shrubbery and sloping lawn.
Blessed be the memory of those good old times, when great-
hearted men and women, who had much to leave, and few to
leave it to ; who remembered the hand which had made their
own path through life easy and honourable, and desired to
give Him an eternal testimony of their gratitude, by caring
for the comfort of His poorer children. A miserable philo-
sophy of late years, falsely called Utilitarian, has discouraged
the leaving of money to the infirm and the poor, and of erect-
ing almshouses for the aged and indigent, on the plea that it
394 EIIGHGATE.
tends to destroy the spirit of enterprise and of self-depend-
ence; as if in youth the heart of man calculated on an alms-
house in old age, and therefore sat down on a dunghill and
did nothing. No man in the fire and ardour of youth, nor
woman either, thinks of almshouses; but in the rude shock
of life, when all plans have been shattered, and age comes On
without provision and without friends, then how cheering
must be the prospect of a little quiet nook, where the last
days of existence may be spent, secured from the butcher
hand of starvation, and the vulture beak of despair. A
higher philosophy than the Utilitarian—that of Him who
said the poor shall never cease out of the land, and what ye
do unto the least of these little ones, ye do unto me—guided
the acts of Our noble ancestors, and happily is again begin-
ning to influence the best spirits of our time. It is delight-
ful to see the Snug homes which the guilds and trades have
raised here and there for their aged veterans. It is delight-
ful to see a Shaftesbury, a Southwood Smith, a Miss Coutts,
and many others, raising good, healthy homes for the poor;
and the noble banker, Peabody, setting splendid example to
the wealthy of the application of their money to the necessary
requirements of their less fortunate brethren. A genuine
Utilitarianism is fortunately reviving—that of utilising money
for general happiness; and it only requires that the higher
moral sense, the higher conscientiousness of this age, shall
prevent the harpies of selfishness again invading the sacred
heritage of the poor and infirm, as they have formerly done,
both in charities educational and philanthropic, in order to
give us again benefactors as princely as the Whittingtons of
old.
Nºn-S-Sºlºš
§º §
§§ §§ º
%. { ºb * , , z º. 1
§§§ }}|{{ſ).
º
*
o. Jewi TT. Arc
IDORCEIESTER HOUSE.
(Trom an old Print in Prickett's ‘History of Highgate.”)
BLARE'S ORPHANAGE.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, a William
Blake, woollen draper, of Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, pur-
chased Dorchester House, formerly the residence of the Mar-
quises of Dorchester, and standing where part of the Grove
Row now stands, with the most praiseworthy design of esta-
blishing it as a school or hospital, for the maintenance of
forty fatherless boys and girls. The boys were to be taught
the art of painting, gardening, casting accounts, and navi-
gation, or put forth to some good handicraft trade. The

396 - EIIGHGATE.
girls were to learn to read, write, sew, starch, raise paste, and
make dresses, so as to be fit for any good service. The system
of education for both boys and girls was most rational, and
anticipated the working schools of our own time, which are
thought to be the original idea of our time.
William Blake gave 5,000l. for the property—his whole
fortune—and hoped that the benevolence of the wealthy would
furnish the necessary funds for its support. But, far from
being so fortunate as Franke of Halle, the Curé d’Ars, or
Müller of Bristol, he found charity much colder than he
expected. Having exhausted his own resources, he made
earnest appeals to the titled and city ladies of London, but
in vain. For some time his generous establishment struggled
on. In 1667 there were thirty-six poor boys, in a costume
of blue and yellow, maintained and educated in it. It still
existed in 1675, but it does not seem to have continued
longer than 1688, or about twenty years. Blake wrote a
curious book, called “Silver Drops, or Serious Things,’ to
describe and recommend the institution. It is written in a
most eccentric style. He describes himself as being in a full
trade when he commenced this undertaking, but that, from
the liabilities into which it brought him, he was seized and
imprisoned for about two years. He speaks of the place as
‘ at first only for a summer’s recess from London, which,
having that great and noble city, with its numerous child-
hood under view, gave first thought to him of so great a
design.” His style is frequently unintelligible. ‘The Title
(the Ladyes, etc.) no Diminution, Honoured it witness Two
Sacred Monuments in their Honour, The Praise of the
Virtuous Lady by Solomon, Jedediah, or the Lord’s Beloved;
the Epistle to the Elect Lady by John, the beloved disciple.’
Speaking of the grounds, he says, “ All these dedicated by a
solemn devotion to God, and cannot be Ananiaz'd and
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN HIGHGATE. 397
Sapphira'd, being so incontrovertible a good purpose without
their sin.” -
The style almost insane, the nobility of soul struggling
through it, the piety and spirituality, the desire to have
the boys taught the art of painting, and the name William
Blake, strongly persuade me that this strange and yet good
man must have been the grandfather or great-grandfather of
William Blake, the eccentric but inspired writer and artist
of that name. None of the biographers of Blake trace him
beyond his father, who was a hosier, of 28 Broad Street,
Carnaby Market, London. It would be worth the while of
the lowers of Blake to trace this out.
As a frontispiece to his “Silver Drops,’ there is a print of
Dorchester House, which he had converted into this admir-
able institution. The margins of the print are full of notes,
in which he complains that he is treated as a madman.
He observes that if Sir Francis Pemberton, Sir William
Ashurst, both residents at Highgate, and his own brother,
F. Blake, would yet assist him, the school might be saved,
and all yet be well. Blake’s mansion, thus abortively devoted
to an excellent purpose, is engraved in Lysons’ “Environs of
London,’ and also in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. lxx.
part ii. p. 721.
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN HIGHGATE.
JEWISH SYNAGOGUE.
Some years ago, there was a Jewish academy in Highgate,
conducted by Mr. Hyman Hurwitz. It was the only thing
of the kind in the kingdom, except one on a small scale at
Brighton. It had generally about a hundred pupils, sons of
the chief families of the Jews; and there was a symagogue
for their use. There was also a school for Jewish young
398 HIGEIGATE.
ladies, established by Miss Hurwitz, the sister of Mr.
Hurwitz.
PRESBYTERIAN CHAPEL, AND NEW INDEPENDENT CHAPEL.
The chapel, standing in Southwood Lane, on the same
side as the grammar-school, and near to it, has since become
the Independent Chapel, where the Rev. Josiah Winey
preached before the handsome new chapel was built for him
facing the open space where the old pond was. I may note,
in passing, that Mr. Viney has been the first to set the ex-
cellent example of erecting model dwelling-houses in High-
gate, for the poor, which, I am happy to hear, are not only
very much appreciated by the working-class, but profitable
to the benevolent erector. Opposite to the old Presbyterian
Chapel, now become the National School, stands another
chapel, built for the Methodists, but now belonging to the
Baptists.
The Presbyterian Chapel in Southwood Lane, it appears,
was constantly attended by the father of the celebrated John
Wilkes, in his latter years, and to the time of his death.
The mother of Wilkes was a Dissenter; and in his youth,
John Wilkes himself used to attend this chapel occasionally.
A writer in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. lxviii. part i.
p. 126, says that he learned these particulars from members
of the Presbyterian congregation of the chapel when he was
presbyter, and from the clerk, who had held that office for
nearly forty years. He said that the father of John Wilkes
used to come to the chapel in his coach-and-six. This
writer gives the names of some of the ministers of this
chapel:— - -
The Rev. Dr. Sleigh.
The Rev. Mr. Hardy, minister for many years, and who
died there.
DAVID WILLIAMS. 399
Dr. Towers, who removed to the Presbyterian Chapel at
Newington Green. He was a man well known by his writ-
ings, and was a popular leader amongst the Dissenters.
The Rev. David Williams, afterwards dignified with the
name of the High Priest of Nature, and for many years the
avowed champion of infidelity. Here he delivered those
discourses on ‘Religious Hypocrisy,’ which he afterwards
published in two volumes. In his farewell discourse, he
gave, what the writer thought, some wholesome advice to
the Dissenters. -
The Rev. Samuel Tice, stated to be highly respected by
both Dissenters and Church people.
The Rev. John Baptist Pike, M.D., who introduced a short
liturgy of his own.
The Rev. Alexander Crombie, LL.D., author of a ‘Defence
of Philosophical Necessity.’
Besides these, Mr. Rochemont Barbauld, who married the
celebrated Miss Aikin, officiated for sometime at this chapel,
previous to settling at Hampstead.
During the ministry of Mr. David Williams, the meeting
was numerously attended, and Highgate Old Chapel being
shut up for repairs, the greater part of the members of the
Establishment attended this chapel during the interim.
Some time previous to the ministry of Mr. Tice, a separation
in the congregation took place, and those who left erected
the chapel opposite, now occupied by the Baptists.
DAVID WILLIAMS, FOUNDER OF THE LITERARY FUND.
A somewhat more extended notice of this gentleman is
worthy of a place here. He was born at a village near Cardi-
gan in 1738, and received the chief portion of his education
at a college of Dissenters at Carmarthen, where their young
400 HIGEIGATE.
men were prepared for the ministry. In later years he
attributed the revulsion which took place in his opinions
and feelings concerning religious institutions to the harsh,
cold, and oppressive manner in which the doctrines and
duties of Christian faith were disguised in the stern and
rigid habits of a Puritanical master. On leaving this semi-
mary, he became the minister of a small congregation at
Frome, in Somersetshire, but soon removed to a more im-
portant charge at Exeter. There his abilities and agreeable
manners drew him into much notice, and into more social
pleasures than some of the elder members of the society
thought becoming in a minister; and reproof was conveyed
in a manner more calculated to excite anger than produce
reform. The young minister, however, unfortunately for
his monitors, had knowledge of their own doings and private
characters, which produced a stunning retort; and, to prevent
a disagreeable exposure, these Nestors agreed to a compro-
mise, by which Mr. Williams left Exeter, and took the office
of pastor at this chapel at Highgate. There he remained a
year or two, and we have seen under what circumstances he
left.
In 1770, he appeared as the defender of Mossop against
David Garrick, in a letter to Garrick, which contained a
masterly critique on the great actor, and at the same time an
unsparing attack on his proceedings. The letter produced
the intended effect ; Mossop was liberated, and the letter
withdrawn from further publication. Soon after followed
his ‘Philosopher, in three Conversations,’ and this was soon
followed by ‘Essays on Public Worship, Patriotism, and
Projects of Reformation.” The appendix to these essays
gave a strong indication of his detestation of intolerance,
bigotry, and hypocrisy, the seed of which had been sown
in the ascetic Welsh school of Carmarthen, and which be-
*
DAVID WILLIAMS. 401
came the leading character of his subsequent life. His ser-
mons, chiefly upon religious hypocrisy, marked the close of
his connection with the body of Dissenters. He now settled
in Chelsea; published, in 1773, ‘A Treatise on Education,”
recommending a method founded on the plans of Commenius
and Rousseau, a system which he proposed to carry into
effect. He married a young lady not distinguished either
by fortune or connection, and soon found himself at the head
of a lucrative and prosperous establishment; but this gleam
of good fortune was speedily overcast by the death of his
wife, which, with the anxious attendance upon her in her
illness, gave such a shock to both his health and spirits, that
he never surmounted it. He gave up his establishment, and
quitted Chelsea.
During the residence of Mr. Williams at Chelsea, he for a
time gave an asylum to Dr. Franklin in his house, at a
period when there was a popular excitement against him, in
connection with American affairs. Franklin was a member
of a club of literary men and politicians, of which club
David Williams was also a member. In this club a scheme
for universal uniformity of worship was drawn up, on prin-
ciples supposed to be capable of uniting all parties; and Mr.
Williams composed and published “A Liturgy on the Universal
Principles of Religion and Morality.” With this was com-
bined a set of lectures illustrating these principles, delivered
in the chapel in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square; forming
two volumes, 1776. This service lasted about four years,
but drew little attention, and involved the lecturers in serious
difficulties. As the acknowledgment of the being of a God
was the only tenet demanded of its members, this theistic
church had nothing sufficiently binding in its composition to
hold any great number of men together who had no other
bond of union. +
D D
402 . HIG|HGATE.
Mr. Williams now supported himself by preparing young gen-
tlemen for the learned professions, and especially for political
and diplomatic life, and in connection with this employment
published ‘Lectures on Political Principles,’ and ‘Lectures
on Education; at the same time he proved himself, by his
constant readiness to assist his friends and others in moments
of distress and difficulty, to possess a heart as generous as it
was devoted to human liberty and progress. During the
alarm in 1780 from the outburst of French revolutionary
principles, he published a tract entitled “A Plan of Associa-
tion on Constitutional Principles,” and in 1782 “Letters on
Political Liberty,’ a work extensively read in both England
and France. It was translated by Brissot, and procured Mr.
Williams an invitation to Paris to assist in drawing up a
constitution for France, one of the earliest of the numerous
constitutions which appeared and perished in succession
during the violent effervescence of the Revolution. He con-
tinued only about six months in Paris. He gave temperate
and most excellent advice to the party of the Gironde, with
which he was in communication, which had it been taken
might have prevented the shedding of torrents of blood.
But the tornado of excited human passion swept all reason
before it, and Mr. Williams took his leave prognosticating
the awful scenes which followed. He brought with him home
a letter from the French Minister of War to Lord Gren-
ville, intended to enable Mr. Williams to make known to
the British Ministry the real sentiments and wishes of the
French Administration; but Mr. Williams never was ad-
mitted to an audience of Lord Grenville. He left the letter
in the hands of Mr. Aust, Under Secretary of State, and
nothing more was heard of it. A mention of this circum-
stance is made in Bisset’s ‘History of George III.” In fact,
his going to France had ruined him with the Ministry here;
DAVID WILLIAMS. 403
and he found himself denounced in England as a democrat,
and in France as a royalist. Before leaving England he had
removed to Brompton, for the purpose of executing an
engagement which he had made with Mr. Bowyer, to super-
intend a fine edition of Hume’s ‘History of England,’ and
to write a continuation of it ; but he found this engagement
now cancelled in consequence of some intimation on the
part of Government. Such was the jealousy of French
revolutionary ideas by the British Government, that Mr.
Williams might have foreseen that his intercourse with
political leaders in Paris would evoke the deepest suspicions
of him here. Still, undaunted by this rebuff, he published
his ‘Iletters to a Young Prince,’ and engaged in and com-
pleted in one volume quarto, a ‘History of Monmouthshire,’
with plates by his friend the Rev. John Gardner.
The work, however, on which he laboured with the most
benevolent enthusiasm, and for which he will always be held
in grateful remembrance by thousands who have derived
from it comfort and support in the seasons of deepest
distress, was that of the establishment of the ‘Royal Literary
Fund.” On this philanthropic achievement he built the
dearest hopes of his fame, and he built them not in vain.
In connection with this noble institution the name of David
Williams will always be held in honour. An excellent bust
of him, executed by Richard Westmacott, and presented by
him to the Institution, stands in the house of the Fund.
During his residence at Chelsea, Mr. Williams had conceived
the plan of this society for the assistance of deserving
authors, and in 1788 and 1789, he succeeded in establishing
it; and devoted all his talents and emergies, and much of
his time, to the advancement of its interests. He had the
satisfaction of seeing it continually rise in public estimation.
The Prince of Wales honoured it with his patronage, and
J) D 2
*{ITV DEIS).III WO?
‘OAOI put SSouſaſhtro3 SI ‘K.I.B.Inuod oup) uo ‘uport M.
tropäIot quTI) Jo ojºſ ouſ, Toj Kºptoaos put SSouttstetl Moonsput
OUA OSOUT JO Sooſhould ouſ, up poluoso.Id ‘Kaputºspitſ) polito
StºA QUILA JO SQUIT) oop out) unno K Sput uſ Utoos pºut out populaw
III III.IOJ oſqboA0IIIn oth Jo Inset ou', ‘uoſºplot truſhspruſ) oun
III Ulſt) JO quouTUOpUIBqt, où.) SEAA'ssouxſt:0AA STH trout-AAOIIoj
SIII Jo pooš otl IOJ pºt:30.1 Suo toua:3 tº put ‘Khloqiſ Jo OAOI
onseisnipuo tre oouſAo såuſpooooid S.SUIUIIIIAA ‘IIN JO OIOUIAA
oùù, '9LSI ‘63 ounſ (IO pop OH .'s IOUT.IOjoyſ [boy]II.O.I.
to sophis Kronpredoid , put ºuaututoAop put uomeonpg|
‘Kulottoog Itoſh Hod UT SITOInt: N JO ssatàoid otſ] uto Soſpnºs KIB1
-UtoutoTIL TO “BI.to:3GI, poonpold put ‘sso.150.Id [Boſh!!od Jo SMora
STUI Jo UIOI)0UIOId oul IOJ on IAA on ponuſ]ttoo III]s of ‘otn]
-redop spli otojoq soogo quotuutoAop out 5uſtomuo Kipoleodoi
Troos SUAA out St. “InstroQ 1s.III oth O1 quouTULIOAOK) Ino IIIO.I]
UIOISSIUIUIOO on BAIId tº UIO ‘poAOIIoq SI 11 ‘outſ, SIUſ) inq ‘SITEJ
popSIA uſe3b SUIUTIIIAA IIN “stroTulv Jo Ootºod outſ, 5ttſ InCI
'pottà Isop StºAA q UIOUAA Ioj Osotſ, 1s5utoutt säuTSSoſq [BITUIU)s
-qns 5uism]]|p ‘SIBOK Khujo IOI ‘TEOK. On Tºok ulo.II uto ouoã Suu
qnq ‘x{ot}Q pox|OOT TOAOUI UIOI) nqūSUIT quoſo Aoûoq SIU[] ‘poulount'ſ
snuſ, aſ Jo top|Tod unwo su ol outbu spil 5umºnd Houo
‘Stolnſpboo oſqt put snorboz Spu Jo (E.10A0s put ‘subſtLIM ITN
Áq potts Iqnd SUAA ‘Khoroos oup, Jo Sosodind put ‘UIOI)outo.Id
‘o.InqūUI out, Jo KIO, but Idko "otnºtonſ"I Jo SUITUTO, OII] pollſ]tio
XLIOM. W. “I UI opſsol pſmous SU(I'êIIIIAA ITN quºti) poſſsop
ÁIssoidxo put ‘Khoroos oth Jo Osm oth top osmouſ tº 3ttsbuotnd
Jo OSOd.Ind out, Ioſ IIoſygüop [Entruſt ut q UO poſtajuloo
HIGHGATE IN THE FORMER TIMES OF RITUALISM. 405
CATHOLIC CHAPEI,..
Of late years the Catholics have established a large chapel
and house for priests on the hill descending towards Hollo-
way, by the entrance to Maiden Lane, under the name of
St. Joseph’s Retreat. The greater part of the priests there
being foreign, and with a predominance of Italians, speaks
pretty plainly of its origin in the Propaganda, and it seems
to have succeeded greatly, its chapel being generally crowded,
especially by the Irish living in Upper Holloway. For many
years, the Roman Catholic Church has instituted a system
of perpetual prayer, which is carried on by priests and nuns,
whose especial office it is, for the conversion of England;
and the strange tendency evinced, especially amongst the
established clergy, towards a reversal of the Reformation,
looks as though the ceaseless prayers were in course of being
answered.
IIIGHIGATE IN THE FORMER TIMIES OF RITUALISM,
PRYNNE, BURTON, AND BASTWICK.
On June 30, 1637, one of the most atrocious pieces of
political and priestly cruelty was perpetrated on the cele-
brated William Prynne, and his coadjutors, Dr. Bastwick,
and the Rev. Henry Burton, who had formerly been chaplain
to Charles I. The same popish infatuation about ritualism
was rife in the Established Church, as at the present time.
Archbishop Laud, backed by the King, was at the head of
this movement, and stopped at no tyrannous audacity or
cruelty to carry his point. Prynne, for his stern opposition
to these attempts, had already had his ears cut off in the
pillory. He had now the stumps of them gouged out, and
his friends had theirs cut off. They were each, besides being
406 - HIGHGATE.
fined 5,000l., branded on both cheeks with the letters S. L.
for ‘seditious libeller, kept in the pillory for two hours in the
face of a burning sun, and condemned to separate prisons for
life. It was in carrying out the latter part of this diabo-
lical sentence, that of conveying them to their prisons, that,
soon after this odious exhibition, Highgate witnessed one
of the most extraordinary scenes in its history. It was that
of a vast crowd, said to be a hundred thousand in number,
accompanying Mr. Burton for two miles beyond that village
on his way. They cheered and applauded him enthusi-
astically, as an undaunted champion of religious and po-
litical liberty, and threw money into the coach to his wife
as she drove along. Similar scenes were enacted on the
conveyance of Prynne and Bastwick out of London, giving
the great champion of Ritualism an example of British
feeling which, had he had the wisdom to take warning by,
would have saved his head. The present ritualistic mania
is but a very mild and feeble repetition of the desperate
game played by the daring and unscrupulous Anglo-Papist,
Laud. The King and his archbishop, by cutting off ears,
had roused a spirit in the people which would be satisfied
with nothing short of heads.
THE CEMETERY.
Highgate has its Père-la-Chaise, a cemetery lying on the
slope of the hill southward, commanding a fine view over
Ilondon. In fact, in situation and in tasteful laying-out, it
is one of the most attractive cemeteries in the kingdom.
The vicinity to London has in a few years densely crowded
it with graves and enormous loads of monumental marble,
so that a great extension of it has been necessary. Such
a cemetery in a popular suburb is but a questionable institu-
ARTISTS INTERRED IN HIGHGATE CEMETERY. 407
tion for the deposit of the London dead, which, continually
carried thither in hearses, is neither a very cheerful object,
nor would it be very satisfactory in a sanitary point of
view, were it not that the ground is a deep stiff clay, which
must effectually prevent any exhalations from the mountain
of decaying mortality accumulated there.
Many names, familiar to Tuondon ears, present themselves
on the tombs as you wander through this city of decomposi-
tion; and some of considerable distinction. The French have
found their Montmartre or Père-la-Chaise here; Germans,
their Friedhof, and natives of countries still more distant
lie scattered here and there. Perhaps no tomb has ever
attracted so many thousand visitors as that of Tom Sayers,
bearing on it his own portrait and that of his dog. Womb-
well, with his lion standing over him, as if to say—‘Well,
he kept me cramped up for many years in his vans, but I
have got him safe under my paw at last,’ was, in its newness,
a thing of much note; but never had a charm for the
pugnacious populace of London like the tomb of the great
boxer.
ARTISTS INTERRED IN HIGHGATE CEMETERY.
Alfred Edward Chalon, brother of the more celebrated
John James Chalon, was buried in this cemetery in October
1860. He was a native of Geneva, and a Royal Academician
of London. His chief reputation is for portrait painting,
and that mostly in water colours.
Charles Joseph Hullmandel was buried there in November
1850. Hullmandel was of German extraction. He was one
of the greatest improvers of lithography, and extended its
use in various directions. He introduced tinting and colours
into this department of printing, in which style splendid
folio works by Stamfield, Harding, Nash, Roberts, Haghe,
4.08 IIIG. H.G.A.T.I.
&c., have been produced. In the more highly coloured style,
Cattermole’s “Portfolio,” and Mr. S. C. Hall’s ‘Baronial Halls,”
are specimens. Mr. Hullmandel afterwards invented modes
of putting on and multiplying patterns on rollers for calico-
printing by machinery, and for producing patterns of all
kinds of coloured marbles on earthenware, extraordinary
specimens of which were executed by Messrs. Copeland, of
Old Bond Street. Perhaps to no one man has lithography
owed so much of its present status.
William Henry Hunt, the pre-eminent painter of country
scenes and objects. Every one knows his rustic boys, as
familiarly as he does such boys in the real life of the country.
Whatever Hunt undertook—whether a single object, a bird’s
nest, a flower, a living object, or a landscape at large—it
stood forth like life itself, and life in one of its most piquant
aspects. His remains were buried in this cemetery in
February 1864, in the presence of many artists of note. -
Sir William Ross, the fashionable and truly excellent
miniature painter, died on January 20, 1860, and his re-
mains were deposited here. Sir William’s pencil had been
employed on the portraiture of many royal personages,
including those of the English, French, Belgian, and Portu-
guese royal families, besides of great numbers of the aristo-
cracy. Sir Thomas Lawrence declared him the first minia-
ture painter of his day. -
Near the upper entrance gate lie the remains of Mrs.
Bartholomew, the artist, and wife of the celebrated flower
painter, Mr. Valentine Bartholomew.
Amongst men of literary note, whose remains are interred
in this cemetery, we observe, on the high terrace near the
church, the tomb of Alaric A. Watts, Esq., whose poetry,
strictly of a lyrical kind, has touched, by its tender and
domestic tone, the holiest chords in the hearts of thousands,
HIGHGATE AIRCEIWAY. . 409
and whose services, as editor of the “Literary Souvenir,’ in
the refinement and advancement of English art, deserve a
permanent and grateful remembrance. As an active and
energetic member of the periodical and newspaper press, Mr.
Watts also discharged an honourable life’s labour. Near
him also lie the remains of the wife and of one of the
daughters of Dr. Robert Chambers, of ‘Chambers’s Journal,’
and author of much sterling literature of his own.
IIIGI-IQ: ATE A G.C.I.IVAY lº IN ONI TFII, NOIRTI'ſ SID lº.
(From a Photograph.)
IHIGHGATE ARCHWAY.
The Archway Road, which avoids the steep hill by which
Bighgate is entered on the north, east, and west, and which
leaves the village on its south-west, was made by Act of Par-
liament, conferred on a company in the year 1809. The
archway was built by Mr. Robert Vazie, engineer. It
consists of one large arch, forming a bridge 36 feet high,
with a handsome stone balustrade. It is 300 feet in
length. The company was empowered to borrow 60,000l.
for the formation of the bridge and road. A tunnel was

410 HIGHG ATF .
first completed; but tunnelling being then but imperfectly
understood, it fell in on April 13, 1812, with a tremen-
dous crash; and the labour of several months was, in
a few minutes, converted into a heap of ruins. Some of
the workmen, who were going to resume their tasks—for
luckily it was between four and five o’clock in the morning
—described the noise that succeeded it as like distant
thunder. It was the crown arch, near Hornsey Lane, which
first gave way, and the lane in consequence fell some feet
deep, and became impassable. The houses in the vicinity
felt the shock like that of an earthquake. The falling in
had been anticipated by the workmen for nearly a fortnight,
and is considered to have originated in a too economical use
of brick in the arch, and in the quality of the cement for
uniting them having been deteriorated by too great a pro-
portion of sand and lime. The interest in the work had, on
the Sunday, that is, the day before, attracted 800 persons;
but providentially the fall was reserved for a moment when
nobody was there.
This catastrophe resulted in the formation of an open cut-
ting, and the erection of the present fine arch. In the exca-
vation of the road, a variety of curious fossils was discovered,
amongst them fossil teeth, commonly called shark's teeth,
sometimes sword-fish teeth, but unlike either; petrified fish;
nuts resembling the palm-nut, and a great variety of shells;
nautili much larger than those generally found in a fossil state;
petrified wood, very abundant; a peculiar resinous substance,
not yet described by any naturalist, but resembling amber.
Close to this Archway now runs a line of railway.
A considerable extent of woods belonging to the See of
London, and called Bishop’s Woods and Hornsey Woods, are
yet standing on this side of Highgate; but the church lands
HIGEIGATE AIRCEIWAY. 4.1.1
lying betwixt Highgate and Crouch-end are already in the
hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and offered by
them for building land. Gas is carried from Muswell Hill to
Highgate, in anticipation of what, in a very short time, will
make its appearance—a populous town all over the ground
which formerly constituted Haringhay Park; a wonderful
contrast to the state of things seen at the making of the
Archway Road, when old prints show the country all about
to have lain open. - r
It is worth noting, that on the making of the Archway
Road it was found impossible, from Springs and boggy spots,
to make the road solid; and Telford was called in, who laid
in those places a solid pavement of stone, which conquered
the difficulty.
As a proof of the slowness of ideas, even in this active
country, we may state that in 1781 a road was projected to
turn to the right hand of Highgate from the Great North
Road, coming from Finchley, near the North Hill, and pro-
ceeding by Caen Wood, down the valley by the ponds, to come
out on the level below Millfield Lane, somewhere near the
present St. Alban’s public-house. This was nearly thirty
years before the Archway Road was made. The object of this
road, says a writer in the ‘ Gentleman's Magazine of that
date, was to decrease the cruelties to horses, suffered daily
by them in dragging heavy loads up West Hill. “Amongst
the numerous useful improvements,’ he says, “made of late
years in roads and communications in the environs of this
great metropolis, it is annoying that nothing should have
been thought of to divert the Great North Road so as to
avoid the passing over Highgate Hill, which has ever been
the dread of all passengers and carriers, and, indeed, a re-
proach to the community. Not a day passes, nor has pro-
bably ever passed, but some accident has happened on this
412 HIGEIGATE.
hill; and I will venture to say that the injuries sustained
upon it, could they be ascertained, are enormous, not to
mention the delay it occasions to the traveller, and the
labour to the horses, at which every humane heart must
bleed, who are witnesses to their passage up or down in
loaded carriages. I mean that side of the hill that leads
from Kentish Town.” -
This statement the writer accompanied by a plan and
figures, showing the advantages of the route, which would,
undoubtedly, have been a very good one ; but there can be
as little doubt the influence of Lords Mansfield and South-
ampton defeated its accomplishment. In 1809, the Archway
Boad was made, affording relief to the traffic up the Hol-
loway Road; but ‘this horrible hill'—that is, West Hill—
has continued to the present time a daily scene of agony to
horses, in vain attempts to draw up it the ponderous loads
of coal and beer. Living on this hill, and the windows of
my study looking out upon it, I was tortured for nine years
by the cruelties which it occasions. I have often seen men
flogging, shouting and swearing at their overtasked horses
for three and six hours together. My repeated attempts
through the ‘Times’ and “Morning Star * to induce the
authorities to even adopt the roller, to abate the annual
aggravation of the deluges of loose stones with which it was
mended, proved in vain; and it was only in the humane
oversight which the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, in response to my repeated suggestions, that I
at length saw some little abatement of these horrors. From
1781, the date of the article in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’
to 1869, are eighty-eight years, during which, since the
humane project of the writer in that magazine, these daily
cruelties have been tolerated under the eye of the public
with apparent indifference.
WEST HIII. I.--THE EIERMIT.A.G.E. 413
WEST IIILL.
In the house and grounds of the late Duchess of St. Al-
ban’s now resides Miss Burdett Coutts, famous for her wealth,
her extensive benevolence, her erection of dwelling-houses
for the poor, churches for church-goers, and bishoprics for
the colonies. A daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, she has
not appeared ambitious to follow in his democratic steps,
but rather to become a nursing-mother to the Church of
England. She has founded the bishoprics of Adelaide, of
Natal, of Columbia in the north-west of America, and built
churches in Westminster and Carlisle. I suppose no other
woman under the rank of a queen ever did so much for the
Established Church; had she done it for the Catholic Church
she would undoubtedly be canonized as St. Angela. But,
perhaps, the noblest and most enduring of her works is seen
in the clean and Smiling hearths of hitherto too much
neglected and ill-housed poverty.
THE HERMITAGE ON WEST HIDL.
On West Hill, a little above the entrance to Millfield Lane,
stood inclosed in tall trees a Small house called the Her-
mitage. Adjoining it was a still Smaller tenement, which
was said to be the real and Original Hermitage. It consisted
only of one small low room, with a chamber over it, reached
by an outside rustic gallery. The whole of this Hermitage
was covered with ivy, evidently of a very ancient growth, as
shown by the largeness of its stems and boughs, and the
prodigality of its foliage. In fact, it looked like one great
mass of ivy. What was the origin of the place, or why it
acquired the name of Hermitage, does not appear; but being
4.14 HIGHGATE.
its last tenant, I found that its succession of inhabitants had
been a numerous one, and that it was connected with some
curious histories. Some dark tragedies had occurred there.
One of its tenants was a Sir Wallis Porter, who was an
associate of the Prince Regent. Here the Prince of Wales
used to come frequently to gamble with Sir Wallis. This
Hermitage, hidden by the tall surrounding trees, chiefly
º
* *****
TIIE IIBRMITAGE, HIGHGATE RISE.
(From a Thotograph in the possession of the Author.)
umbrageous elms, and by the huge ivy-tod, seemed a place
well concealed for the Orgies carried on there. The ceiling
of the room they used was painted with naked figures in the
French style, and there they could both play as deeply as
they pleased, and carouse as jovially. But the end of Sir
Wallis was that of many another gamester and wassailer.
Probably his princely companion, and his companions, both

"THE FIERMIT.A.G.E. 415
drained the purse as well as the cellar of Sir Wallis, for he
put an end to his existence there, as reported, by shooting
himself. -
There was a pleasanter legend of Lord Nelson, when a
boy, being once there, and climbing a very tall ash-tree by
the road-side, which therefore went by the name of “Nelson’s
Tree,’ till it went the way of all trees, to the timber-yard.
It was reported, too, that Fauntleroy, when the Officers of
justice were in quest of him, concealed himself for a time at
this Hermitage. The account of Fauntleroy’s crime and
- fate are thus recorded in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for
1824, part ii. p. 461:— -
‘ October 30, 1824.—The trial for forgery of Mr. Henry
Fauntleroy, acting partner of the banking-house of Marsh
and Co., Berners Street, took place. The case, on account
of the vast extent of the forgeries committed, and the high
respectability of the firm, has caused an unusual degree of
public interest. In the years 1814 and 1815, Mr. Fauntleroy,
it appears, disposed of Bank of England stock, by forged
powers of attorney, to the amount of 170,000l. The pro-
secution was instituted by the Bank. At seven o’clock the
doors leading to the court-house of the Old Bailey were
beset. Pounds were offered for seats in the gallery, and
the court was excessively crowded in every part. The jury
being sworn, the clerk read the first indictment, which
charged Henry Fauntleroy with forging a deed with intent
to defraud Frances Young of 5,000l. stock, and with forging
a power of attorney with intent to defraud the Bank. The
Attorney-General, in his address to the jury, described the
prisoner as the acting partner in the house of Marsh and Co.,
in Berners Street. Mr. Fauntleroy, the father of the prisoner,
became a partner at its establishment, and continued such
till his death in 1807. At that period the prisoner was
*{{\LWł) H3)][EI - 9IP
..") I TO] ).Ittus II Bus XIIIt'ſ] ouſ] : osmouſ Imo Jo poto otl) Kolūs
-op Ol pitt: ‘soottº] doooº Ino quinoosip O' osmjø. On SIU trºoq
XIIItgſ ouſ I, SYIOOq Ino III Squaul Küd (ſons Jo Oomot[ OUI optºut
|nq ‘spuapraſp oth Jo IIouTKud oth din ºdox I Stott,Tºd Kut
Jo ošpoſMOUDI OUT quot|1|A put ‘polº's otouſ quinoult, où no
bIOS put ‘soſ).It'd put surns oAoqê oup, Io; Koti.TO]]t Jo StoAOd
boãIOJ OAbū I ‘eSnoiſ Ino Jo ºppolo alſº din doox. On top:10 UI, ,
—: UIUI) ut
-bloop spun Ka poAOIO, SbA troutonºs ouT, 5uſ]][Aptrºll
S..toUIOSIId ouſ, UII 1st SIU[] Jo Joop ouſ) |g port:0ddit: “10000&T
“[t]01 UIns oth put ‘Toulošon poppū oroAA SUIns out). It quuſ)
‘poAIOSqO UEuroſ)(183 pou.Itoſ ouſ] putt, “Kotoſquinº'ſ U19qb/IIGI
put ‘KO.IoIQUImº I H put ºf ‘AA ‘ou Koq W Kperſ “UIt'TſIodſ
‘STIN JO SOUTEUſ outſ, UIT pool}(d. OSIB OtoA SUInS SIOSULOO
“1000°F ‘supp[od — ; 'Squeſ) Tod Ino, “1000"/ ‘KIOSSO Jo
ITBI SIOSTIOO “1966*II ‘UIOSION Appr1 : SIOSUIOO “1000°9
‘ĀIIoyſ H. : SIOSUIOO 1000g ‘āunoX sooutºſſ SIOSUIOO “1000'9
‘āuinox [BIOTIOE) : SIOSUIOO “1000°g ‘āunoX ‘AA 'GI : SIOSTIOO
‘qūOO Tod oo.III “10g I*II ‘oot.I.T 31 OCI—: Sutopſ 3UIIAAOTIOJ oil)
boluoso.Id (IoIUAA ‘Iodući où pºol [Brouë9-Kou.IO]]V OUIL ,
‘lomptroë SItſ Ioſ (IOSºot tº poonpp1; put, ‘Iſmā
spli pošpolaou Hoe on HoſtEA uſ ouo pumoſ uooq put otolſ,
‘xoq unt uſ poupinuoo ‘stoded on BAIId Sºtoutosºld oul săutoute
qbū ‘sbA asto oth Jo J.T.Bd KIBulb.I.O.U.I., Yo Soul oup, qugl "p
O) SOSSouth IAA OAl Jo put: 3LInox sootre.I.I. Jo ouTEII ot|] poš.[O]
bºtſ toūOSIId out, IoMod SIU[] O.I., UITU Ka poloago St.A. oſts
où) put, ‘Mubgſ ouſ, O, paltrosold S'EAA ‘xpools quq, Iſos on Tottos
-IId oth 5uTSITOlſºng ‘Koti.TO]]t Jo JoAod Toulout: SpVgAAtolje
IOOS ºnq : poAſooet KITUInāo.1 elow sputoppa Ip ou L SIOSUIOO
Tuo) Tod oo.IIII, 70g Fºg (IO sputopſ Aſp ouſ, OAJooo.1 Ol Koti.TO]]t
Jo JoAod tº Sputtſ Trotſ, UIT pošpoſ ‘osnou out, Jo touTO]sno
t; ‘toºsotropºlo Jo ‘āunox sooutº gTSI uſ aſ Jo Ioquoul
oAI]ot soul out outbooq put: ‘II,toottoo oth opuſ populpt:
THE HTRMITAGE. A, 7
‘The Attorney-General then called his witnesses, who
confirmed in every point his statement of the case. The
prisoner, on being asked what he had to say in his defence,
read a paper stating that, on his joining the firm in 1807, he
found it deeply involved, in consequence of building specu-
lations. The house remained in embarrassment till 1810,
and then it experienced an overwhelming loss from the
failure of Brickwood and Co., for which concern they had
accepted and discounted bills to the amount of 170,000l. In
1814, 15 and 16, the firm was called upon, in consequence
of the speculations in building, to produce 100,000l. In the
year 1819 the most responsible of the partners died, and the
embarrassments of the house were increased by being called
upon to refund his capital. During all this time the house
was without resources, except those for which he was now
responsible. He received no relief from his partners. He
had overdrawn 100,000l. He kept two establishments on a
very moderate scale. He never embezzled one shilling.
Having finished reading the paper, he sate down, and wept
with much agitation. -
Sir Charles Forbes, and fifteen other respectable wit-
messes, attested their high opinion of the prisoner’s honour,
integrity, and goodness of disposition. The Jury, after ten
minutes’ consideration, returned a verdict, “Guilty of utter-
ing —.” Every exertion was made by Mr. Fauntleroy’s
counsel, his case having been twice argued before the judges;
first, before Mr. Baron Garrow, at the Old Bailey; and since
before the Twelve Judges at Westminster, when both de-
cisions were against him. Many petitions were presented
to his Majesty, in favour of the unhappy man; but all in
vain. He was executed on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 1824.
The crowd to witness the execution of Mr. Fauntleroy was
enormous; it was estimated at nearly 100,000. Ludgate
- F. F.
4.18 HIGHGATE.
Hill, Skinner Street, Newgate Street, from which it was
impossible to catch a glimpse of the scaffold, were blocked
up by dense masses of people. Every window or house-
top which could command a view of the dreadful ceremony
W2,S likewise occupied. The execution took place soon after
eight o’clock A.M. Mr. Fauntleroy was dressed in a black
coat, waistcoat, and trowsers, with silk stockings and shoes.
The demeanour of the unhappy man was perfectly com-
posed. His eyes continued closed, and he was led by the two
sheriffs. He never turned his head to the right or the left.
The moment he appeared on the scaffold, the vast crowd
took off their hats. As Mr. Cotton was reading the usual
service, the drop fell, and the awful scene closed.
The Hermitage, of which the author of this work and his
family were the last occupants, with its quaint buildings, its
secluded lawn, and its towering trees, ten years ago gave
way to a terrace of suburban houses.
RESIDENCES OF CHARLES MATHEWS, SENR, AND
JOHN RUSIKIN.
A little way on the left hand, after entering Millfield
Lane, stands the house formerly inhabited by Charles Ma-
thews, but which has since been much enlarged by succeed-
ing proprietors. Mathews spent a large sum on the house
and the gardens, which he made altogether a very charming
retreat. The next house on the same side, a plain but com-
fortable cottage, called Millfield Cottage, is said to have,
for a short time, been occupied by John Ruskin, the great
art-critic. Mr. Ruskin himself, however, recollects nothing
further than that, as a child, he lived with his father and
mother in a cottage at Highgate or Hampstead. Tradition,
therefore, may take the liberty of Saying Highgate.
CHARLES MATHEWS's HOUSE. 419
Here, them, I close my gathering on this hill of a few
historic waifs and strays. They are snatched from the en-
gulphing ruin of the advancing tide of population. What
the last generation saw we see only in isolated fragments—a
stump, a piece of ancient wall here and there. What we see
our children a very few years hence will see no more. There
are men, not very old, living, who remember the wide com-
mons of Finchley and Highgate which lay around in airy
expanse. In 1812, or thereabout, they passed into enclo-
2%. 3: E
§ §: "...
$º. Fº
º
§
§:
..º
%;
***. t ; J
§§
£º.
º
ºº: , º, ... ºdº ſº
& 5 º' s :
tº
CIIARLES MATHEWS's Hous E.
(From a Drawing in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
*
sure; even the little open strips of land peeping into the
village were imprisoned within garden hedges and walls.
Not a foot of such Folks'-land can now be discerned. But
about fifty years ago, the people of Highgate made their
visits to town in a stage-coach, which performed the journey
in between two and three hours; fare half-a-crown ; and
















E E 2
420 HIGFIGATE.
such was the arduous undertaking, that the passengers regu-
larly stopped to take tea, on their return at the Assembly
House, Kentish Town. A very little beyond this Assembly.
House, now a tavern, is the Old Farm House. You will
readily find it by that name; but don’t look for poultry and
geese in its yard, cattle in its fields, or milk and butter in its
dairy. The only cattle are the human kind densely crowded
all round it in their close-packed houses; the Only geese
those who haunt its spirit tap—for it is a gin-shop public-
house. But the other day all in front of this strange Old
Farm House, as far as Camden Town, were green fields; they
are now houses and shops. Hampstead, a generation or two
ago, was considered so remote and obscure a place, that in
that once most popular story, ‘Henry, Earl of Moreland,’ its
hero having been stolen away from his father by his uncle,
the wealthy London merchant, was taken there to be un-
heard of. The uncle lived in great splendour in a great
house, and young Moreland rode and drove about openly,
but nobody found him out; and the uncle having at length
to go to London. On important business, he did not find
himself able to get back again under a fortnight, during
which time, so unvisited was Hampstead by the post, that
little could be heard of him. In less than another fifty
years we may safely prophesy that all these suburbs will be
engulphed in London, and that it will be in vain to look for
historical associations in Highgate.
The ground where Bacon died, and Marvell lived, where no
doubt Milton sometimes visited Marvell; where of late years
Coleridge philosophised; where the genial Leigh Hunt loved
to walk; where Keats learned in its green lanes that
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
and Shelley, that so-called atheist, who had more love to his
neighbour in his soul than a thousand nominal Christians,
RIENTISH TOWN AND CAMIDEN TOWN. 421
who, under the divine opal arch of heaven, learnt to denounce
the despotisms of earth—which are
- Tyrants to the weak and cowards to the strong:
it is something to have seen all this as they saw it. To have
seen through long summers the artists in its Poet’s Lane,
sketching lovingly every tree and sylvan view; and swarming
Londoners traversing its glades, and drinking in their sun-
shine and their freshmess a life for the coming week of cribbed
and cabined labour in town—to have seen and enjoyed all
this in peace, on the very edge of the great roaring vortex
of Mammon, is to have this privilege in its latest period.
Every day descends this hill towards the great mart of trade
and speculation, a multitude of heavy-browed men, whose
every third word, if listened to, is shares. As in New York
the air is said to be alive with the sound of ‘ dollar,’ the air
around London is resonant of ‘shares, shares”—a certain
proof that these will, ere long, conglomerate into one share,
a ploughshare of destruction to every green thing, and leave
in their place only a mere monotonous region of dusty streets
and incrustation of brick. These papers may then bear wit-
ness that in 1869 there were really fields, lanes, and woods
round Highgate, and within it historic traces of long past
times. Meanwhile, Dwm vivimws vivamus.
RENTISH TOWN AND CAMDEN TOWN.
These places do not lie within the limits of this work; but
as bordering on Hampstead, and still closer on Highgate, the
following statements, as showing the wonderful rapidity with
which they have grown up, are not uninteresting in connec-
tion with our subject. -
In a ‘History of Kentish Town,’ 12mo, pp. 74, published by
J. Bennett in 1821, it is stated that in the middle of the last
century, Kentish Town was a retired hamlet, of about 100
422 IIIGHGATE.
houses, detached from each other on the road side. Between
1775 and 1795, it had increased in buildings one half;
and, in 1821, it contained 504 houses and 100 cottages
below the rate of houses. There were also 48 houses on the
Marquis of Camden’s estate, where now Camden Town stands.
In 1251, there were only 40 houses in the whole parish of
St. Pancras. In May, 1821, these had increased to 9,405
houses, with 71,838 inhabitants.
MUSWELL HILL,
Of this place, being a continuation of the ridge of hill run-
ning north of London, from Hampstead to this spot, little
seems to have been recorded by the topographers. It is a
fine easy walk from Highgate thither, with extensive views
over town and country. It is about five and a half miles
from London, with the advantage of the Great Northern
Railway running just below it through Hornsey. Norden
says, that at Muswell Hill, called also Pinsenall Hill, there
was some time a chapel, dedicated to Our Lady of Muswell,
of whom, of course, there had been an image, and a great
resort of pilgrims. This arose from a miraculous cure said
to have been performed on a King of Scots, who in some
early time had been divinely directed to Muswell Hill, and
healed by the waters of a well there. This well was called
Mouse-well, or Muswell, probably originally Moss-well, on
the spot where the chapel stood. The fame of the well,
however, departed at the Reformation, and in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, when Norden wrote, its supernatural vir–
tues had all evaporated. Norden says, that on the site of
the well, and farmhouse adjoining, in his time, * Alderman
Roe had a proper house.’
The chapel had been an appendage to the Priory of
Clerkenwell, having, it is supposed, been built on land
MUSWELL HILL. 423
granted to that convent by Richard de Beauvois, Bishop of
London, in the year 1112. To whom this property was
granted on the fall of the Papal Church does not appear;
but William Cowper, and his wife Cecily, alienated it in 1546,
in the reign of Edward VI., to Thomas Goldynge, and by
various transfers it passed successively into the possession
of the families of Goodwyn, Wighell, Rowe, Muffett, and
Pulteney, to the Earl of Darlington.
At the top of the hill, a building, called the Exhibition
Building, in rivalry of the Crystal Palace, has been erected
on land named Alexandra Park, after the Princess of Wales.
Many handsome villas of London merchants, and other men
of wealth, amongst them that of the great librarian, Mr.
Mudie, are now scattered over the hill; and at its foot, in a
secluded spot, there is a cottage called Lalla Rookh Cottage,
because it was occupied by Thomas Moore during the time
that he was putting ‘Lalla Rookh through the press. This
Bastern poem had been written during three years, from
1813 to 1816, that he had lived in the Peak of Derbyshire,
at Mayfield Cottage, near Ashbourne. The cottage at Mus-
well Hill stands in very secluded grounds. There he and
his wife, and their two daughters, spent the summer of
1817; and his wife stayed there while he made a trip to
Paris, where he collected materials for that humorous pro-
duction, ‘The Fudge Family in Paris.’ From Paris he was
hastily recalled by the illness of his eldest daughter, who
died soon after he reached home, and was buried in Hornsey
churchyard. From Lalla Rookh Cottage, Moore removed to
Sloperton Cottage, near the village of Bromham, in Wiltshire,
and near the residence of the Marquis of Lansdowne, Bowood,
where he lived for the rest of his life.
Dr. Jackson, the present Bishop of London, was, in his
early days, incumbent of Muswell Hill, being at the same
time head-master of Islington Proprietary School.
“dumd B unIA Kubduloo oth Kol pop[ddins otuſ, SITU) Tº st
‘MOJIQ (ITIM TOAO potſo.It 05u SUBO.K Khudio outos “[[0A alſ.I.,
‘son].T.A Tºuloſpout to] utop|U|ndöl tº Sossos
-Sod put, “Kºmbſhuu Tsolgo.13 out) Jo spuopu A ‘poolſ.Inoquërott
9II] III ‘(S. utilsund "S) [[OAA orignd Mott out) Jo quotu Koſuo
|SøInj oth UT Sºuthſquuſuſ oth otmºng oup, TO] poloolold (IoITIA
poliostII oIOAA Sosn’t [o ‘Kulºduroſ) LIB, I BIput xopy ot|] [o] ‘ošt:
SIBOK 30ttſ) to OA., “low ontºsł IIIH IIoASnIN ou'l Jo ‘oinqui
-Späoſſ oth Ka ‘āuissed oul Jo IIoIst:000 eun (IO “And ‘pod misſp
-In LIo9q STU3LT orignd oul OABIT KIIIo qou ‘outſ] quTI) 00IIIS,
"Z981 ‘93 IIId W ‘(‘g () ‘Sopoulºſ ‘a
IIoMOH) UOI)0t, où) up pouăps SUM quouſ3puſ put ‘polytuſ|ns
Słuppūajop out, ‘IIox{U) trooq put STUIETIqbuluſ pſo KIOA outos
JO 90ttop|Ao QUT tolje qud : ]].trds (Ionut UlſAA poptºſop StºA qI
“USIT OUT USITQūlso on pooutoutuloo St.M. utoplot; Ut: ‘suoſºſ)
-ošott Sso1pm, J 10]] W posoſo upbāb od Ol KIIIo ºnq ‘potrodo
[[3A out) put ‘posſe, St. A uopºdſ.IOSqns W. Sluft II oſqud out)
III tºurſ but O1 poAIOSol STUIETIqbt[u] poºl.IIds-oſſgnd Aaj W ‘IIQAA
-SmIN ouſ, Jo quitº. On Torrajul IIonut od On STSATBut UO poAOld
SIIAA osoul Jo toyºA out, put : Ātuo Sossuſo Tolloq oth Jo
Sosruto.[d otºl UO on Unqus otoAA STIOAA oup) ‘opps utiouſ].IOUT OUT UO
aſſu A : Āblo IIOpUOT OUT JO Hºdop ostrouTutſ out, Jo Junoooº uo
‘IIIuſ ouſ, Jo opps Utoqnos ouſ, UIO 2(uns ad ‘osuodko quo.15 tº qu
qdooxo ‘hout pinoo SITe AA puq KIOA StºAA outſ) ºbt[] ]t to]t'A Jo
ÁIddins out] IOJ ‘Sqūb) Iqbt[III to IOOd oth to] UOIntATId Smontos
t; St.M. QI ‘posoſo SUAA || Jo Ulmour où put: ‘olumnis SI [IoM
otſ). Uſoſ UAA IIO optºso ouſ, Jo Stott Mo ouſ, Jo Otto Kd potto) tºo.III]
atoA Słuśnt Osotſ! “I98I ‘todutooool uT IIoAA-SmIN OTH st:
UIAAOUXI KTUIOUIUIOo ‘IIoM quotout, où, Jo OSn oth TUI Toutouttur
outlº tuoſ, pokoſuo oAbu IIIH IIoASmIN Jo shutºſququſ ouſ,
—: ‘bSGI ‘ū0.Illuſ) I H IIIO.J. S.It Inoſ).It'd 5UTAOIOJ
orſ, poaroool oatuſ I ‘SSold oul II:3nOTTI) SoSStd. SIU[] "STITIAA
"QII, Wł)II?) III #2.É.
lok Sºul ºutſ, p.1060.1 Kurt Jo Toto.1 oun puto Koq poſiod º Tuolſ
Tropuoſ I Jo oos ou" On pošuoloq SETI KosU.[OH JO TOut:UI OUIL
‘KosU.IOH On pošutuo KIIT Tip
-Bú uouſ] put ‘Kostſ.TUH. Oluſ pouonious trooq OAUTI On Stºod
-dt: "I Kūdbāşoulio [BulāIIo sp. Jo oppº KIOA hott SI ‘Solºtſ
Jo Aopuout out) ‘oduſ-Tupſ 'uomulloddu quopout. Sº I uſ [O]
qušnos og snutt ), “outbu oup, Jo Käoſoul Kho att) Jo potſ.[to] od
on spºuyun Kut, JI syſttrup, suoSKrT put : KošuptºLI to ‘oatſáuilt. H
‘ooãuTuTI ‘KUnquoo Ultroopſis ouſ, O, Snoſ AOId Utoqqºl A SUAA
outbu ou I, ‘on.b5ušHI Jo Spùù)-OM, KITUGUI put ‘suolo[dº]S
oul Jo quos out. KEIOULIOJ ‘Utoo.(f) puolls ‘puſ. Uſono.IO ‘IIIH
[[OASmIN Jo SjöIUTUTI ou Sopulouſ KostIIOH Jo IISTIt'd on I
"NGISNYIOTI
(“I’ll Moſ' 'O Ka ‘ttoqo-IS [utt[5],to utt tu(\ll)
* II.) Iſh HO VºIS Nºl () iſ
* * * *.
g | ##&iſ...º.º.
* º * * * ~
* * \", , , # #ºpºr-º-
* g 4 \ ,
^ # s
* . . . . . . . . . ,
* * * ". . . . / ; , , f *,
* . . ‘. ...’, sº * , "," , i., v. º ‘A’." ( , , , , , , ,
. . .e : º ºš. 2^! ; ºr “
#, "...º.º.º.º.º. .
ſº § fº § W” jš. §§§ ‘. i. *::: #, . .
*** *ść §§ § *& # . .
$ºf ºrst. º §tº $.
tº as §§§ #
º fº... º º sº º t zºº º Sºfiñº. º º Yºkº,
t º §§§ºğıºğığAA §
,-ºº: §3. - Kºi... • º y §§§ º º §§ §: º * -- . . . . º w §
-*. à la r: - º - º º Sº º & : ' ', Nº. ºf
*: § | º - § § º: § w # º." ~ § s."
, fiſſiº § 3,8; ºº:: º wº ‘s } * *
tº 'º § Wºº sºlº
§§ §§ §§§ {\\\\
* Is . ; º; § º §§ * §§ ** Sº
º iº §§ º * .# * : *
tº Hº: sº swº
º .* . . -: - §§ º º
*ś §
§§§ §
; º §
§ -
yº § §§§ { * * . . . . . Sºº
º º º §§ - * . . . . . . * * º
#: ºšššš- *.
ºś”
-ºš
º
* § §
~. ſº º
* § § º §
: tº
º, A. Nº
§§§
§§§º
º iº
sº -
Fº
º
\}:
\ º º º - § k. - - - - -
Wºº ºr
§ § º ºr º **
tº: tº: *
wº
*** *.
t
º º
*† ºu º ºr.
t; § §§
§ 3.” ;,
g º 4,”
šº §: . -
- • gº - -- - - . . . . … -
§s *º-º-º-, - . . .
vº. ... - .
*


































426 HIGEIGATE.
been discovered. The bishops had a palace on this manor,
from which are dated several acts previous to the fourteenth
century. The more ancient building, occasionally occupied by
the prelates, is supposed to have stood On Lodge Hill, which
is situated at the eastern extremity of Lord Mansfield’s wood,
and the remains of a moat are still to be seen in a contiguous
field. Norden, in the reign of Elizabeth, describes this ele-
vation as ‘a hill or fort in Hornsey Park, which is called
Lodge Hill, for that thereon, sometime, stood a lodge, when
the park was replenished with deer; but it seemeth by the
foundations, that it was rather a castle than a lodge, for the
hill is at this day trenched with two deep ditches, now old
and overgrown with bushes. The rubble thereof, as brick,
tile, and Cornish slate, are in heaps yet to be seen, which
ruins are of great antiquity, as may appear by the Oaks at
this day standing, above a hundred years in growth, upon
the very foundations of the building.’
A succeeding palace was burnt down in Bishop Aylmer’s
time, who was elevated to the see in 1576. This house
Strype supposes to have stood at Hornsey.
In the great park at Haringay, Or Hornsey, the nobles in
Richard II.’s time assembled to oppose his extreme favourit-
ism towards Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whom he had
created Duke of Ireland, and towards the Earl of Suffolk.
Amongst these were the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of
Arundel, Warwick, Derby and Nottingham, and several
others. This formidable demonstration alarmed the King,
who requested a meeting at Westminster, where he re-
ceived them kindly, gave them fair words, took them into
his chamber, and make them drink together. He agreed to
send the favourites from court, but it was not for long.
Richard could not so easily lay aside the weaknesses which
ultimately discrowned him.
HORNSEY. 427
Another curious circumstance took place in Hornsey Park,
at a later date—1441—in the reign of Henry VI. The
Duchess of Gloucester was tried for practising by sorcery
against the Ring’s life. And amongst her alleged accom-
plices were Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen’s, and
Roger Bolingbroke, an astrologer. It was affirmed in court
that Bolingbroke had devised necromantic means for wasting
and destroying the King’s person, and that Southwell had
said masses in the Lodge of Hornsey Park over the instru-
ments which were to be used for that purpose. The story
of this strange charge will be familiar to the reader both in
the reign of Henry VI. and in Shakspeare’s drama of the
same King.
In those times of fierce factions and very slender moral
principle, with a weak monarch on the throne, Scenes were
continually transacting amongst the powerful nobles or
princes of the blood, which would make the hair of moderns
stand on end. The two great kinsmen of Henry VI., the
Cardinal Beaufort, the same whom Shakspeare represents to
us as dying and “making no sign,” and his uncle, Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester, had, during the King’s minority, kept
around him a fierce contest for pre-eminence. Gloucester
was warm-tempered but generous, and greatly beloved by
the people, who called him “the good Duke Humphrey.” He
is said to have been better educated than most princes of his
time; to have been fond of men of talent, and to have
founded one of the first public libraries in England. The
Cardinal was a very different man–cold, calculating and
unscrupulous in his ambition. He was intriguing for the
Papal tiara, and was not a man to be particular as to the
means by which to remove any one who stood in any manner
in his path. The Duke of Gloucester was his rival for the
possession of the person of the young King; and thus there
428 HIGHGATE.
is every reason to believe he set on foot the intrigue for the
destruction of the Duke of Gloucester’s influence, and even
of himself, which catastrophe indeed soon followed.
The first object was to strike at his domestic happiness,
and at the same time, at his esteem with the King. The
Duke had married Eleanor Cobham, the daughter of Lord
Reginald Cobham, who had in the first place been his mis-
tress. Though he had made her his wife, her enemies never
forgot her original connection with the Duke, and instead
of her legitimate title, persisted in calling her Dame Eleanor
Cobham. She is represented as a bold, ambitious, dissolute
and avaricious woman. That is the portrait drawn by her
enemies, and they did not stop there. The last attack of the
Duke on the Cardinal, which seemed to aim at once at his
life and honour, roused the crafty churchman to a deadly
scheme of revenge. He called in that ecclesiastical ma-
chinery which in those ages could so readily be brought
to bear as an object of coercion. His emissaries, whom he
had everywhere, and especially in the Duke’s household, re-
ported that the Duchess had private meetings with One Roger
Bolingbroke, a priest, who was a reputed necromancer, and
with Margery Jourdemain, the celebrated witch of Eye. On
this fact, Beaufort resolved to found a charge, which should
strike a fatal blow at the domestic peace and at the public
favour of Gloucester.
The fact was that Bolingbroke was the Duke’s chaplain, a
man of great Science, and especially addicted to astronomy,
and its then common accompaniment, astrology, with the
casting of nativities and the like. The Duke was extremely
fond of the society of learned men, and held frequent dis-
courses with the chaplain on the arts then popular. Sud-
denly, and immediately following his accusation of the
Cardinal, he found his wife, to whom he was greatly attached,
E[ORNSTEY. 4.29
accused of high treason, “for that she by Sorcery and en-
chantment, intended to destroy the King, to the intent to
advance and to promote her husband to the crown.”
Bolingbroke was arrested, and being accused of necro-
mancy, was exhibited on a platform in St. Paul’s Church-
yard, with the instruments of his art; for he is declared by a
writer of his time to have been the most celebrated astronomer
and necromancer in the world. He was dressed in a won-
drous robe, pretended to be that in which he practised his
art, bearing in his right hand a sword, and in his left a
sceptre, and seated on a chair, on the four corners of which
were fixed four swords, and on the points of the Swords four
images of copper.
On the arrest of Bolingbroke, the Duchess of Gloucester,
aware of the real direction of the intended blow, took refuge
in the sanctuary at Westminster. Here she was brought
face to face with Bolingbroke, who is made to say that it
was at her instigation that he first applied to the study of
magic; a very improbable circumstance, the more natural
one being that his knowledge of astrology had tempted the
Duchess to make dangerous inquiries, namely, whether the
Ring or the Duke would be the longer liver, and whether
there appeared any chance of the envied and maligned Dame
IEleanor Cobham wearing a crown.
Besides the Duchess and Bolingbroke, there were arrested
as accomplices, Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Paul’s, Hum,
a priest, and Margery Jourdemain, the witch. The Duchess
was examined in St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and charged with having obtained
love-philters, to secure the affection of her husband. But a
much more terrible and absurd charge was that she had
procured from Southwell and Bolingbroke a wax figure,
which was so moulded by art, that when placed before the
430 HIGEIGATE.
fire, as it melted away, the King’s marrow would dry up and
his life fade away. It was at the bishop’s lodge, in Hornsey
Park, that the necromantic ceremonies were performed by
Bolingbroke for the preparation of the fatal waxen figures,
and where Southwell said mass over them, to give them a
greater potency.
Light-and-twenty such charges were preferred against the
Duchess of Gloucester and her alleged associates, some of
which she is said to have admitted, but the majority and the
worst to have denied ; and on such ridiculous pleas, she was
condemned, on three days of the week, to walk bareheaded,
and bearing a lighted taper in her hand, through the streets
of London, and afterwards to be confined for life in the Isle
of Man, in the custody of Sir John Stanley. The unfortunate
men of science were condemned to be hanged, drawn and
quartered at Tyburn. Bolingbroke suffered the sentence,
stoutly protesting his innocence; Southwell died in prison;
and Hum received a royal pardon. Margery Jourdemain
was burnt as a witch in Smithfield. As for the Duchess, the
people, who attributed the whole of this atrocious proceeding
to the Cardinal, and the other enemies of the Duke, instead
of insulting her in her penance, followed her with deep
sympathy and respect, and Only the more attached them-
selves to the Duke as the victim of so ruthless a conspiracy.
Gloucester himself, prostrated, as it were, by this stunning
blow, said little, let it take its course, and brooded over it in
silent grief. Shakspeare makes the weak and helpless King
Henry thus express his knowledge that it was a base faction
which thus pursued Gloucester:—
Ah, uncle Humphrey ! in thy face I see
The map of honour, truth, and loyalty;
And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come,
That e'er I proved thee false, or fear'd thy faith.
EIORNSEY. 431
What low'ring star now envies thy estate,
That these great lords, and Margaret our queen,
Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?
Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong.
The fortunes of our ill-fated monarchs seem to have been
curiously connected with this park of Hornsey; amongst
them, the poor smothered boy, King Edward W. His
uncle, Richard of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., had
kidnapped him at Stoney-Stratford from his nearest rela-
tives, and was conducting him to London, in order to mur-
der him in the Tower with his brother Richard, the infant
Duke of York. The monster uncle was conducting the young
Ring with a strong force towards London, and at Hornsey
Park he was met by the Lord Mayor of London and Cor-
poration, in scarlet, and attended by 500 citizens, all in violet,
who joined the royal procession. The Duke, habited, like
all his followers, in mourning for the brother whose children
he had determined in his heart to destroy, rode before the
Ring cap in hand, bowing low to the people, and pointing
out the King to their notice, who rode in a mantle of purple
velvet. Yet, with all this pretended devotion to his nephew,
Richard had already sent the executioner to behead some of
his nearest relatives and friends—Lord Gray, Sir Richard
Waughan, and Sir Richard Hawse, without warrant or trial,
in that blood-stained dem, Pontefract Castle. Scarcely did
he arrive in London, when, with equally little ceremony, he
struck off the heads of his uncle, Lord Rivers, and his chief
supporter, Lord Hastings. It was a fine morning, May 4,
1483, when the young and doomed King rode through
Highgate, thus attended by all the pomp of treachery. All
mature looked happy and beautiful, but a cold dread lay on
the hearts of the loyal people who had come out to meet and
welcome him, only too soon to prove that the dread was not
in vain.
4.32 HIGHGATE.
A very different monarch, Henry VII., was also met here
by the citizens of London, on his return from a successful
Scottish war.
Amongst the monuments in Hornsey Church to men and
women of station and name in their time, now pretty well
forgotten, is that of Samuel Buckley, the editor of ‘Thuanus,’
who died in 1741. Amongst the tombs in the churchyard is
that of the poet Rogers. He is buried in the family vault,
and an inscription upon it records the date of birth and
death of the poet, adding that he was ‘author of the “Plea-
sures of Memory,”’ but not specifying to what class of litera-
ture the work belongs. The following are the inscriptions
on the face of the tomb :—‘In this vault lie the remains of
Henry Rogers, Esq., of Highbury Terrace; died December 25,
1832, aged 58. Also of Sarah Rogers, of the Regent’s Park,
sister of the above; died January 29, 1855, aged 82. Also of
Samuel Rogers, author of the “Pleasures of Memory,” brother
of the above-named Henry and Sarah Rogers, born at New-
ington Green, July 30, 1763, died at St. James's Place,
Westminster, December 18, 1855.”
Amongst the rectors of Hornsey was Thomas Westfield,
who resigned the living in 1637, afterwards Bishop of
Bristol, the most nervous of men. His biographer says that
‘ he never, though almost fifty years a preacher, went up
into the pulpit but he trembled; and never preached before
the King but once, and then he fainted.” Yet he was held
in such esteem by all parties, that on May 13, 1643, the
committee for sequestrating the estates of delinquents, being
informed that his tenants refused to pay his rents as Bishop
of Bristol, speedily compelled them, and granted him a safe
conduct for his journey to Bristol with his family, being a
man of great learning and merit, and advanced in years.
His successor at Hornsey, Thomas Lant, did not meet with
EIORNSEY. 433
quite such agreeable treatment. He was turned out of his
living and house by the Puritans with great cruelty, they
not allowing him even to procure a place of retirement.
Samuel Bendy, rector in 1659, petitioned the Committee,
setting forth that his income was only 921., out of which he
had to pay 16l. to the wife and children of the late incumbent.
The committee made him recompense.
Dr. Lewis Atterbury, brother of Bishop Atterbury, whom
we have mentioned at Highgate, was collated to the rectory
of Hornsey in 1719. William Cole, the Cambridge anti-
quary, was rector of Hornsey, and died in 1782. He held
the rectory only one year—1749.
Amongst eminent persons who have lived or died at
Hornsey, Reginald Gray, of Ruthin, Earl of Kent, died there
March 17, 1573.
John Lightfoot, the learned commentator and Hebraist,
went to reside at Hornsey in the year 1628, for the purpose
of being near London, where he might have access to the
library at Sion College. One of his works is dated from his
study at Hornsey. As John Lightfoot is stated to have
been born in 1602, and to have published his first work,
entitled ‘Erubbim; or, Miscellanies Christian and Judaical,’
in 1629, he could be only 27 at the time, and went to live at
Hornsey when only 28 years of age. He was a zealous pro-
moter of the Polyglott Bible, and at the Restoration was
appointed one of the assistants at the Savoy Conference. In
1675 he became Vice-chancellor of Cambridge. For biblical
learning he is said to have had few equals.
The Parish Church of Hornsey, dedicated to St. Mary,
appears by the arms of Savage and Warham, two succeed-
ing bishops of London, which are carved on the tower, to
have been built about the year 1500.
| E
ISLINGTON.
OLID CFIUlrCH.
(From Nelson's ‘History of Islington.")
ISLINGTON.
MANY names and many derivations of name have been as-
signed to Islington. Isendune, Isendone, Iseltone, Hisselton,
Hyseldone, Yseldon and Eyseldon, are the various forms of
the name which present themselves for Islington at various
periods. Of these, Tsendune, Tsendon, and Iseltone occur
in “Doomsday Book,” and Isendone in the most ancient
records of the church of St. Paul’s. Lysons, and others,
think that this means the Hill of Iron, because various
chalybeate springs are found in this neighbourhood. The
name, however, of Iseldon occurring in “Doomsday Book,”
induces Sharon Turner to derive it from Ysseldune, or the
down of the Yssel, supposed to be the original name of the
IRiver of Wells, which fell into the Fleet River. Mr. Tom-
lins, in his ‘Antiquarian Perambulation of Islington,’ thinks
that Ysel, or Eysel, is the same as Ousel, the diminutive of
Ouse or Eyse, the British for either a river or water, and,
therefore, means the town of the river. Skinner prefers to

4.38 ISILING TON.
derive it from Gisel, a hostage, in Anglo-Saxon; but though
there are entries in the Great Pipe Roll of Henry II. and of
John, of sending hostages from London to Lichfield, there
is no known direct authority for asserting Islington to have
been a fort for the retention of hostages.
Strype, in his edition of “Stowe’s Surrey, 1755, calls the
parish that of ‘’Tseldon, corruptly, or commonly called, Isling-
ton.” Stowe himself, in his ‘Survey of London, 1598, calls it
Isledon. Yet, as early as the reign of Edward TV., in the
Year-book Mich. 21, Ed. IV., fol. 73, it is called Islington.
|Houghton suggests a derivation from the British word Ishel,
lower, and don from twyn, a fortified enclosure, indicating a
tower or fort lower than others; a suggestion made feasible
by the higher position of Hampstead and Highgate beyond
it. Again, in the “Turnament of Tottenham,’ Hisselton
is the name given it, plainly a corruption of Iseldon or
Yseldon :-
IIither came all the men of that contray,
Of Hisselton, of Highgate, and of Iſacknay.
Whichever of these derivations be the correct one, I
leave the reader to decide, for nothing is so uncertain as
derivations, which so frequently are plausible, but as fre-
quently uncertain. Of all things derivations are the most
pliable. . -
Islington, till almost a recent period, was a village standing
isolated in open fields. Lysons says the parish is three miles
one furlong in length, two miles one furlong in breadth, ten
miles and One half in circumference, and contains, exclusive
of houses, gardens and wastes, 2,699 acres 37 perches of land,
of which 22 acres only were arable, and about 10 nursery-
grounds. When “Doomsday Book’ was compiled, part of
the parish was arable, part common pasture, and the rest
().J., D C H U R (; liſ. -|34)
consisted of woodland, Oak, and beech, affording pannage
for 60 Swine. The population then consisted of only twenty-
Seven persons and their families, who were chiefly shepherds,
herdsmen, and tillers of the ground.
From earliest times Islington seems to have stood amidst
extensive open fields, the resort of shepherds and graziers.
The church stood in a field on the highest part of the town,
and not far from the woods. It was dedicated to St. Mary,
and was considered to be of very ancient date ; some ima-
gining that there had been a church there from the Saxon
times. When the old structure was pulled down to erect
the present one, in 1751, it was in a very ruinous state, but
the tower was so strongly cemented as to require gunpowder
to rend it to pieces. Of the church more amon—our present
concern is with the open fields. ‘Such was the jealousy of
the inhabitants of London of encroachments, and being couped
up in inclosures, that in 1514, finding themselves grieved with
the inclosures of the common fields about Islington, Hoxton,
Shoreditch, and other places near the city, whereby they
could not be at liberty to exercise their bows, nor other pas-
times in those fields, as aforetime they had been accustomed,
they assembled themselves one morning, and went with
Spades and shovels unto the same fields, and there, like
diligent workmen, so bestirred themselves, that within a
short space all the hedges about those towns were cut down,
and the ditches filled. The King's Counsail coming to the
Grey Friars to understand what was meant by this, were
so answered by the Mayor and Counsail of the citie, that the
matter was dismissed; and so when the Workmen had done
their work, they came home in quiet manner, and the fields
were never after hedged.'' - -
Down to Charles T.I.'s time, little enclosure round London
| JIolinshead's Chronicle, vol. iii. f. 1494.
440 ISILINGTON.
and especially on its north side, seems to have taken place.
Lord Macaulay says:–“Whoever examines the maps of
London which were published towards the close of the
reign of Charles II., will see, that only the enclosure of
the present capital still existed. The town did, just as
now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. On
the north cattle fed, and sportsmen wandered with dogs
and guns over the site of the borough of Marylebone, and
Over far the greater part of the space now covered by the
boroughs of Finsbury and of the Tower Hamlets. Islington
was almost a solitude ; and poets loved to contrast its
silence and repose with the din and turmoil of the monster
London.’
The word monster, shows that Macaulay had Cowley in
his mind on this occasion :-
Methinks I see
The monster London laugh at me;
I should at thee too, foolish city,
But let thy wicked ones from out thee go,
And all the fools that court thee so,
E’en thou, who dost thy millions boast,
A village less than Islington will grow,
A solitude almost."
We find, by an Order in Council, of Sept. 6, 1666, issued
immediately after the great fire in this same reign, that the
fields about Islington were crowded with the thousands of
people who had fled, out of the burning city with what of
their effects they could save. John Evelyn, in his ‘Diary,’
on Sept. 5, says: — ‘The poore inhabitants were dispersed
about St. George’s Fields and Moor Fields, as far as High-
gate, and several miles in circle, some under tents, some
under miserable huts and hovells, many without a rag, or
| Cowley's Poems, p. 95.
OLD CHURCH. 441
any necessary utensils, bed or board, who from delicatenesse,
riches, and early accommodations in stately and well-
furnished houses, were now reduced to extremest misery and
poverty.”
The next day, he visited this awful scene again, and says:
— ‘I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one
might have seene 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees,
dispersed and lying along by their heapes of what they could
save from the fire, deploring their losses, and though ready
to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny
for relief, which to me appeared a stranger sight than any I
had yet beheld. His Majesty and Council indeede tooke all
imaginable care for their reliefe by proclamation for the
country to come in and refresh them with provisions. In
the midst of all this calamity and confusion, there was, I
know not how, an alarme begun, that the French and Dutch,
with whom we were now in hostility, were not only landed,
but even entering the citty. There was in truth some days
before greate suspicion of those two nations joining; and
now, that they had been the occasion of firing the toume.
This report did so terrifie, that on a suddaine, there was
such an uproare and tumult, that they ran from their goods,
and taking what weapons they could come at, they could
not be stopped from falling on some of those nations whom
they casually met, without sense or reason. The clamour
and peril grew so excessive, that it made the whole Court
agonized, and they did with infinite pains and greate dif-
fićulty reduce and appease the people, sending troopes and
soldiers and guards to cause them to retire into the fields
again, where they were watched all this night. I left
them pretty quiet, and came home sufficiently weary and
broken. Their spirits thus a little calmed, and the affright
abated, they now began to repaire into the suburbs about
4.42 ISILING TON.
the citty, where such as had friends or opportunity got
shelter.”
Wild as were these scenes, there were much ruder ones at
an earlier day in the same locality, where those found there
did not hesitate to ‘ask for a penny,’ nor for any number
of pemmies. The liberty offered by these open lands induced
persons travelling with an equipage, often to turn aside from
the deep and miry highways, and take the nearest route
across the fields to their point of destination. Thus we
read that in July, 1561, Queen Elizabeth went from the
Tower through Houndsditch to the Spittle, and down Hog
Lane, over the fields to the Charterhouse. From thence, in
a few days, she took her way, “over the fields,’ to the Savoy;
and shortly after, she came from Enfield to St. James’s.
On this occasion, the hedges and ditches between Isling-
ton and the Palace were cut down to make the meat way for
her.
Strype relates a curious occurrence on a similar cross-
country trip of Elizabeth’s, just twenty years later in the
same neighbourhood. “Beyond Aldersgate Bars, leaving
the Charter House on the left hand, stretches up towards
Iseldon, commonly called Islington; a country town hard
by, which in the former age was esteemed to be so plea-
santly seated, that, in 1581, Queen Elizabeth, in one of the
12 days, on am airing, will that way to take the air, where
near the town she was environed with a number of begging
rogues, as beggars usually haunt such places, which gave
the Queen much disturbance. Whereupon Mr. Stone, one
of the footmen, came in all haste to the Lord Mayor, and to
Fleetwood, the Recorder, and told them the same. That
same night did the Recorder send out warrants into the
same quarter, and into Westminster and the Duchy, and in
the morning he went out himself and took that day seventy-
ISLINGTON FIELDs. - 443
four rogues, whereof some were blind, and yet great usurers
and very rich. Upon Twelfth Day, the Recorder met the
Governor of Bridewell, and they examined together all the
above said seventy-four rogues, and gave them substantial
payment; and the strongest they bestowed in the Milne and
the Lighters; the rest were dismissed with a promise of
double payment if they were met with again.”
sºsºlºs
--- ś ####|| Nº. :*:: ****
| {}}
|*|xi|{{\tº º!]
;: lºſſº:=ºllº
mºre. , Wº
fººl! jiſ RºtºWº:
º fit i º º
{{| . #: º º: If
º Jºzº D -
". i º º Aº
&23
§
OLD ANGEL INN.
(From a Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
In the reign of Elizabeth, Gerard, the herbalist, used to
frequent those fields to collect the herbs and flowers that he
needed. He speaks of three kinds of orchises growing in
those fields, where there was a bowling-green under a few
old shabby oaks. The fields to which he refers are supposed
to be those called the Commandry Mantels, and other maintels
lying between Islington, Barnsbury, and Clerkenwell. At
this time there was a shepherd’s hut and sheep-pens mear the
spot on which the Angel Inn now stands. In an indenture
















































444 ISLINGTON.
of 1700, the Angel Inn is represented as standing in the
fields, not far from this shipcote, or sheep-house. There is
said to have been an Angel Inn on the spot for more than
200 years.
In the fields between Islington and Finsbury, and between
Islington and Newington Green, the archers used to exercise
#
3.
§JC
§º| º
ºiR
3.
º
ſ
º*
f(4.#
g º
§:
º
ſº & w ;2 ſ
| &
// º
$% y, &
%=& --~ ãº
(Ø- º © \º.
?_*Nº *š Šiš.
/2 TV serº º
"º ſº $3.
/* (> ºf ~sº 3|
--- º
§
Żës:
2-- º -
- * %2 ºrt-->
sº *: —=I- §
w
* Gººs
_232–~~~CŞrºss-
ARCHER OF THE TIME OF CHARLES I.
(From a Woodcut in Gervase Markham's ‘Art of Archerie, 1634, in the British Museum.)
their craft, and practise with their bow from time immemo-
rial, of which much information may be found in Highmore's
‘History of the Artillery Company,’ Davies Barrington's
“Practice of Archery,” Nichol’s ‘History and Antiquities of
Canonbury House at Islington.’


















AIR CHERY IN ISLINGTON FIELDS. 445
In fact, the fields all to the north of London, especially
about Islington, have from the earliest times been a favourite
resort of the Londoners for open-air exercise and sport.
Fitzstephen, who wrote in the time of Henry T.I., tells us
that in the afternoons the youth of the city were accustomed
to go out into the fields, with their teachers, to play at ball,
the scholars of every school having their particular balls;
whilst ‘the ancient and wealthy citizens came on horseback
to see these youngsters contending at their sport ; that ex-
ercises on horseback, to qualify them for military life, were
practised every Friday in Lent, and that on these occasions
the youth of the city came out in great numbers. He adds
that they were fond of exercising their hawks there, and
their dogs in the sports of the field; so that there must have
been plenty of game so near London as that. Stow says the
fields of the northern environs of London were “commodious
for the citizens therein to walke, shoote, and otherwise to re-
create and refresh their dulled spirits, in the sweete and whole-
some ayre.’ That the Officers of the city, sheriffs, the porters
of the King’s beame Orweighing-house, and others of the city,
were in the habit of challenging ‘all men in the suburbs to
wrestle, shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight, for games
at Clerkenwell and Finsbury Fields.”
The Londoners claimed the fields betwixt Shoreditch,
Hoxton, and Islington, known as Finsbury Fields, especially
for the practice with the long-bow. The importance of
maintaining the Supremacy of the English bowmen was duly
appreciated by all the Norman kings, as repeated enactments
from the Conquest downward amply show. In 1865, Edward
ITT. made proclamation that the citizens on all occasions of
leisure, or on holidays, should practise with bows and arrows,
pellets and bolts, and forbidding them to waste their time
‘in throwing of stones, handball, football, bandyball, lam-
4,46 ISLINGTON.
buck, or cock-fighting, or other such vain plays, which have
no profit in them.” In 1892, an Act was passed to oblige
servants to shoot with bows and arrows on Sundays and
holidays : knowing, as expressed by Sir John Fortescue, an
eminent lawyer of Henry VI.'s reign, “that the mighte of
the realme of England standyth upon archers.” -
Henry VIII. was a zealous practiser of the long-bow, as
of most other athletic sports. In the twenty-ninth year of
his reign, he granted a patent to Sir Christopher Morris,
|Master of the Ordnance, and others, that they should be
overseers of the science of artillery, “to wit, long-bowes,
cross-bowes, and hand gommes; with liberty for them and
their fraternity to exercise shooting at all manner of marks
and butts, and at the game of the popinjay, and other games,
as at fowl and fowls, as well in the city and suburbs as in all
other places. This patent appears to be the origin of the City
Artillery Company. In it was a remarkable clause—namely,
that when any one was shooting at a known and accustomed
mark, and before discharging his arrow, pronounced the
archer’s usual word, ‘I’ast,’ any one passing shall be wounded
or slain, the archer shall not be impeached or troubled for
such mischance. Henry compelled every man to furnish his
son at the age of seven with a bow and two arrows; and an
Act of the sixth year of his reign obliges every man, except
clergy and judges, to shoot at butts. Arthur, the eldest
brother of Henry, had been equally fond of archery, whence
an expert bowman was styled Prince Arthur. Kingsland
and King Henry’s Walk, between Newington Green and
Ball's Pond, testify to the resort of Bluff Harry to these
favourite haunts and amusements of the Londoners.
In a shooting match at Windsor, King Henry, near the
close of the combat, observing One of his guard, named
Barlo, preparing to shoot, said to him, ‘’Beat them all, and
LEVELT,ING OF ENCILOSUIRES. 447
thou shalt be Duke of Archers.’ Barlo succeeded, and Henry
named him Duke of Shoreditch, the place that he came from.
The Duke of Shoreditch descended for several generations
with the captainship of the London Archers. Other distin-
guished archers won the titles of Marquises of Islington,
Hoxton, and Shacklewell, Earl of Pancras, &c.
Hall, in his “Chronicle,” says “that about the sixth of
FIenry VIII., the inhabitants of the towns about London,
as Tseldon, Hoxton, Shoreditch, and others, had so enclosed
the common fields by hedges and ditches, that neither the
young men of the city might shoote, nor the ancient persons
walke, for their pleasure in those fields, but that either their
bowes and arrows were taken away or broken, Or the honest
persons arrested or indicted, saying that no Londoner ought
to go out of the city but in the highways. This saying so
grieved the Londoners, that suddainly this yeere a great
number of the city assembled themselves in a morning; and
a turner, in a foole’s coate came crying thorow the city,
“Shovels and Spades | Shovel and Spades l’” So many of
the people followed that it was wonder to behold; and within
a short space all the hedges about the city were cut down,
and the ditches filled up, and everything made plaine, such
was the diligence of these workmen.” The rioters having
thus effected their purpose, returned quietly to their re-
spective homes; “after which,’ says Hall, ‘those fields were
never hedged.”
A grand shooting-match was celebrated in Smithfield in
1583, under the direction of the Duke of Shoreditch, Captain
of the London Archers, assisted by his several officers,
Marquises of Clerkenwell, Islington, Hoxton, Shacklewell, &c.,
which was attended by 3,000 archers, and lasted two days.
On the second day the victors were mounted on horseback,
448 ISILINGTON.
and conducted away in triumph, escorted by 200 torch-
bearers. .
Paul Hentzer, in his travels in England in the reign of
Elizabeth, observes that the English still made great use of
bows and arrows, though other authorities show that the
art had much declined; the bowyers, fletchers, stringers,
and arrowhead makers complained to Government of the
decay of their trade; and Stow informs us that through
the enclosing of the fields, the archers had to creep into
bowling-alleys and ordinary dicing-houses nearer home,
where they found room enough to hazard them at unlawful
games. James I. endeavoured to revive archery, and issued
letters patent to the Lord Mayor of London, the Lord
Chancellor, and other distinguished persons, amongst whom
was Sir Thomas Fowler of Islington, to survey the open
grounds within two miles around the city, formerly appro-
priated to such exercises, and to see them put in proper
order as in the reign of Henry VIII. Charles I. issued a
like Order, commanding the enclosure of the grounds to be
prevented, and the mounds to be levelled wherever they
obstructed the view from one mark to another. The marks,
of which there were in the Finsbury Fields no fewer than
160, were placed at varying and uncertain distances, and
they were called rovers, from the practice of roving and
ranging across the fields and shooting at these marks, a
practice much preferred by ancient archers to pricking, or
shooting at a given mark from a certain distance. A print
of an archer on the frontispiece of a rare tract in the British
Museum—‘Gervase Markham’s Art of Archerie, London, 1634,”
has been generally regarded as a representation of Charles I.
This, and another woodcut of an archer in full costume, which
adorns the Finsbury Archers’ ticket of admission to the meet-
ing of the Society of Archerie at Drapers' Hall, Throgmorton
AIRCEIBRS OF FINSETURY. 449
Street, July 24, 1676, are given by Nelson in his ‘History of
Islington.” The members on receiving this ticket from Mr.
William Wood, a celebrated archer, author of the tract
entitled the ‘Bowman’s Glory; or, Archery Revived,” and
|Marshal of the Regiment of Archers, were each to pay
him two and sixpence. -
During the Rebellion the practice of archery had been
neglected. Charles II. again patronised it, and in 1682 there
was a grand meeting of the Finsbury archers, at which the
King was present, and when the old titles of Duke of Shore-
ditch, Marquis of Islington, &c., were again bestowed on
the most skilful.
Pepys in his ‘Diary,” May 12, 1667, says:– I walked over
the fields to Kingsland and back again; a walk, I think,
I had not taken these twenty years; but puts me in mind
of my boy’s time, when I boarded at Kingsland, and came to
shoot with my bow and arrow in these fields. A very pretty
place it is.’ Sir William Davenant, in his poem, ‘The Long
Vacation,” describes the lawyers and proctors having their
shooting matches in the suburban fields:– -
Each with solemn oath agree
To meet in fields of Finsburie.
With loymes in canvas bow-case tied,
Where arrows stick in mickle pride;
With hats turned up and bow in hand,
All day most fiercely there they stand,
Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme—
Sol sets for fear they'll shoot at him.
But the Robin Hood ballads bring Clymme of the Clough,
Adam Bell, and William of Cloudesley bodily on the scene
with their great leader— &
The King is into Finsbury Field
Marching in battle array,
And after follows Robin Hood,
And all his yeomen gay.
G. G.
450 ISLINGTON.
So jealous were the chartered company of archers, which
to a late period formed a division of the Artillery Company,
that they never omitted to knock down and destroy every
fence or mound raised within the limits of their several
practising grounds. Hatton says, “They do by prescription
march over all the ground from the artillery-ground to
Islington and Sir George Whitmore's, levelling down gates,
etc., that obstruct them in their marches.” In Henry VIII.'s
time, their privileges extended from Perelow’s Pool, now
called Peerless Pool, to Islington Common. Other places
had similar rights, as Tothill Fields, St. James’s Fields,
Hyde Park, Mile End, Clerkenwell Fields, Hogsden, or Hox-
ton Fields; and those places which have the words Butts
affixed, as Newington Butts, Lambeth Butts, were noted for
the practice of the long-bow, and had shooting marks, or
butts.
Highmore, in his ‘History of the Artillery Company,” gives
us repeated accounts of the marches of the company to de-
stroy the obstructions which were continually rising in their
chartered grounds. Such he describes as taking place in
1782 and 1784, 1786 and 1791, and overturning all opposi-
tion, or compelling the encroachers to compound and pay
for the accommodations they had usurped.
The distance at which a skilful archer could hit a mark
is something wonderful. The longest distances between the
marks in these fields were nineteen score, or 380 yards; the
shortest nine score, or 180 yards. A curious fact is related
of Topham, ‘the strong man of Islington,’ who could bend a
stout poker round his neck, and do greater feats. He ridi-
culed the long-bow in a public-house amongst archers as a
plaything only fit for children. The archers laid him a bowl
of punch that he could not draw the arrow two-thirds of its
length, and on trial, he lamentably failed. Such are the
marvels of practice.
OLD AIMUSIEMIENT'S AT ISLINGTON. 451
These privileges have, for the most part, long been lost,
from the decay of archery, and the spread of bricks and
mortar. Stowe in his time lamented over the uncouth, but
most persevering, encroachments of the citizens. “After-
wards wee saw the thing in worse case than ever, by means
of inclosure for gardens, wherein are builded many faire
Summer-houses; and, as in other places of the suburbs, some
of them like Midsummer pageants, with towers, turrets and
chimney-tops, not so much for use or profit, as for show and
pleasure of men’s minds.” He ridicules their names as–
ICirbie's Castle, and Fisher's Folly,
Spinila's Pleasure, and Megse's Glory.
Though archery died out, pleasure continued to live, and
sought its aliment at Islington. The spas, the wells, and the
public-houses, with their refreshments, music, and dancing,
were the attractions. Full pictures of these are to be found
in such productions as ‘The Walks of Islington and Hogs-
den, with the Humours of Wood Street Couples: a Comedy,
by Thomas Jordan, gent.,’ 1641; ‘Drunken Barnaby’s Four
Journeys to the North of England,’ in the middle of the
seventeenth century; “The Merry Milkmaid of Islington,
or the Rambling Gallants defeated,’ acted at Newmarket;
Ned Ward’s “Walk to Islington, with a description of the
New Tunbridge Wells and Sadler's Music-house,” and George
Colman’s ‘Spleen, or Islington Spa,’ acted at Drury Lane
in 1756. In this satirical piece, Colman’s description of the
citizen’s country house at Islington, and the bustle occa-
sioned by packing up the meats’ tongues and cold chicken,
preparatory to his wife’s journey thither, by the coach-and-
three, from the end of Cheapside, is amusing.
We have already spoken of this class of amusements when
speaking of the Wells of Islington. Bonnel Thornton, in
several papers in the ‘Connoisseur,’ has described the Sun-
G G 2
452 ISLINGTON.
day excursions of the citizens to this village, to drink ale and
Smoke their pipes; and Goldsmith has celebrated the tea-
parties, and the hot rolls and butter at White Conduit
House. Nobody enjoyed such holiday trips into the country
near London more than Goldsmith. In what he called his
* Shoemaker’s Holidays,’ he often turned his steps towards
- º, 1:
2 . . .” - ;
# =ir IIHF: #
àiºſ;ſſ;
jºr §|| #| ||Él;
* : *, ** º: º * |s
**** ------ * ºf&
ºči - * * º *** º
>$. zºº"...ºniº $
ºff. f t º ;4 º #: --
º $. çº wº, * **, * *
--- # w
- - - . . . ." ºś -- " :*
• . . 2------ * Rºº, Yºr, º, ...<
& W. A …twº. :*:::: *** ºr 2---- gº ºs
ºść
* &.
fººtº:
º
- º §§§ 3º
º: º
º:Sºº
OLD SADLER's WELLs.
(From a scarce Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
Islington. Three or four of his intimate friends, says the
‘European Magazine, rendezvoused at his chambers to break-
fast about ten o’clock in the morning; at eleven they pro-
ceeded up the City Road, and through the fields to Highbury
Barn to dinner. About six in the evening they adjourned
to White Conduit House to drink tea, and concluded the
evening by supping at the Grecian or Temple Exchange
Coffee-house, or at the Globe in Fleet Street. There was a
very good ordinary of two dishes and pastry kept at High-
bury Barn at this time, at 10d. per head, including a penny
to the waiter; and the company generally consisted of literary
characters, a few Templars, and some citizens who had left

ISLINGTON DAIIRIES AND STYLLABUIBS. 453
off trade. The whole expense of this day’s féte never ex-
ceeded a crown, and oftener from 3s. 6d. to 4s., for which
the party obtained good air and exercise, good living, the
example of simple manners, and good conversation.
Let us conclude these Islington villeggiaturas of the Lon-
doners by Sir William Davenant's mention of them in his
* Long Vacation.’
Now, damsel young, that dwells in Cheap,
Tor very joy begins to leap ;
Her elbow small she oft doth rub,
Tickled with hope of syllabub;
For mother, who does gold maintaine
On thumb, and keys in silver chaine,
In snow-white clout wrapt nook of pye,
Fat capon's wing, and rabbit's thigh :
And said to hackney coachman, Go,
Take shillings six—say, Aye or no ;
Whither ? says he—quoth she, Thy teame
Shall drive to place where groweth CREAMI.
I3ut husband gray now comes to stall,
For 'prentice notched he strait doth call.—
Where's dame? quoth he—quoth son of shop,
She's gone her cake in milke to sop,
Ho! ho!—to Islington, enough,
Tetch Job, my son, and our dog Ruffe ;
Tor there in pond, through mire and muck,
We'll cry, “hay, duck—there Ruffe—hay, duck I'
Islington was always famed for dairies, and it was a great
treat for the citizens and their children to see cows actually
grazing in the fields, and actual milk-maids milking them,
and to have the luxuries of new milk from the cow ; creams,
custards, syllabubs, and the like rural dainties. The open-
ness of the neighbourhood, and its elevation, gave them a
great idea of its healthiness, and great numbers not only
resorted there for a day’s rural enjoyment, but for lodgings.
From the great number of such visitors, Islington was
familiarly called the ‘London Hospital,” and Dr. Hunter re-
lates an amusing anecdote in connection with this subject:-
454. ISLINGTON.
“A lady in advanced age, and declining state of health, went
by the advice of her physician to take lodgings in Islington.
She agreed for a suite of rooms; and coming down stairs,
observed that the banisters were much out of repair.
“These,” she said, “ must be mended before I can think of
coming to live here.” “Madam,” answered the landlady,
“that will answer no purpose, as the undertaker’s men, in
bringing down the coffins, are continually breaking the
banisters.” The old lady had heard enough : she hastily
declined the apartments.’
The open fields of merry Islington, and of the country
round it, are now dense and populous districts of the
‘monster London.” It is not many years since I used to
walk from Highgate to Ball's Pond, chiefly through open
fields, where the new Cattle Market stands, on the ancient
site of Copenhagen Fields, if not of Copenhagen House
itself, thence by the site of the present City Prison, near
Upper Holloway, and onwards by Canonbury House, still
through green fields, where now Beauvoir Town presents its
densely serried streets. The open fields and all their citizen
pleasures and healthy exercises are gone, and cricket is the
only athletic practice now witnessed where a few patches of
free space permit it. -
Not only the open-air games, but many traces of past
history, are obliterated by the spread of houses. Where
should we now find any remains of the entrenchments
referred to in the following curious statement? During the
Civil War, especially in 1642 and 1643, the London Militia
marched out, and made entrenched camps at the different
roads leading from the north towards the City, to defend the
metropolis from the invasion of the King and his cavaliers.
The ‘Perfect Diurnal’ of the day states:—‘ October, 1642, the
Militia made trenches and ramparts near all the highways
PONDS, CONDUITS, AND RIVERS. 455
beyond Islington, Mile End, St. Pancras, &c.—May 8, 1643,
the work in the fields and trenches round the city goes on
almain. Many thousands of men, women, and servants go
out daily to work; and this day there went out a great
Inumber of the Common Council, and divers other chief men
of the city, with the greatest part of the trained bands, with
Spades, shovels, pickaxes, &c.—May 9, this day many thou-
Sands of citizens, their wives and families, went out to dig,
and all the porters in and about the city, to the number of
2,000.-May 23, 5,000 feltmakers and cappers went to work
at the trenches; near 3,000 porters, and a great company of
men, women, and children.—May 24, four or five thousand
shoemakers.-June 6, 6,000 tailors.” Probably some of these
trenches, before they were obliterated by the progress of
building, were imagined to be traces of much more ancient
Calmps.
PONDS, CONDUITS, AND RIVERS.
From these elevated lands drained springs and water-
courses, which were assisted by art to furnish water to the
metropolis. Of the various wells which became noted as
places of resort, I have already spoken; but a word more
may be added regarding the ponds and conduits, and the
New River.
Various neighbourhoods of London had their ducking-
ponds—i.e., ponds where the Londoners went with dogs,
and hunted down unfortunate ducks that were procured
for the purpose. In Henry VIII.'s time there were ducking-
ponds in St. Botolph Without, Aldgate. The author of
* Merrie England’ speaks of a ducking-pond in Mayfair in
1748; and there was one at Limehouse, &c. The ducking-
ponds at Islington lay chiefly at the back of Islington, and
are described as descending in succession (as do the ponds
456 - ISLINGTON.
at present at Highgate and Hampstead) almost from Liver-
pool Road to Lady Huntingdom’s Chapel, Exmouth Street,
Spa, Fields. On the site of this chapel stood, more than a
century ago, a house of entertainment, called Ducking-Pond
House; and the present burial-ground was, at that time, the
actual pond. In a field lying between Islington and Hollo-
way, whereon Felix Terrace has been built, was a ducking-
pond. Where Cloudesley Terrace stands were deep ponds;
where Albert Street now stands, that is, on the north side of
the old site of White Conduit House, and again, at the north
end of Claremont Place, were ponds. One of these, called
Wheel, or Wheal Pond, was a very dangerous One, and the
parish registers record the names of numerous people who
were drowned in it. Howell, Ben Jonson, Davenant, and
Pepys have all celebrated these ponds. Howell, in his
‘Londonopolis,” in 1657, speaking of the out-of-door exercises
of the Londoners, says:–“ For healthful corporeal recrea-
tions, and harmless pastimes, London may go in the van to
any place that I ever saw yet. Go and walk in the fields,
you shall see some shooting at long marks, some at butts;
Some bowling upon dainty pleasant greens; some upon bares;
some wrestling, some throwing the barre, some the stone;
Some jumping, some running; some with their dogs at duck-
ing-ponds.” Ben Jonson makes one of his characters say:-
* Because I dwell at Hogsden (Hoxton), I shall keep company
with none but the archers of Finsbury, or the citizens that
come a-ducking to Islington ponds; a fine jest i faith !’
There are old prints representing these ducking sports.
Bepys, in his ‘Diary,” March 27, 1664, says: —“I walked
through the ducking-pond fields, but they are so altered
since my father used to carry us to Islington to the old
man’s at the King’s Head, to eat cakes and ale, that I did
not know where was the ducking-pond, nor where I was.”
TEIB NEW RIVER,. º 457
The water from these ponds was conveyed to the Priory of
St. John’s, Clerkenwell, and the Charter-House. Various
other parts of London were supplied from these springs,
and from Highbury—as Aldermanbury, St. Giles's-without-
Cripplegate, Shoreditch, Cold Bath Fields, and Clerkenwell.
Much of the waste water passed into the Fleet Ditch; but
since the cutting of the Regent’s Canal, commenced in 1812,
most of these sources must have been absorbed by it. The
great event in the matter of water supply, which superseded
the ponds and old conduits, was, however, the cutting of
THE NEW RIVER,
For this grand scheme, by which all the north of London
is supplied with fine pure water, we are indebted to the
enterprise and mechanical genius of Sir Hugh Middleton.
Sir Hugh, originally simple Hugh Middleton, was a native
of Denbigh, in North Wales. His father was the governor
of Denbigh Castle during the reign of Edward VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth. Hugh was the sixth son, and had to make
his way in the world.
The date of his birth is unknown, and very little is pre-
served regarding his early years. We find him established
as a goldsmith in London, and yet he had continued his
connection with Wales, and had acquired a large property
by the working of copper mines there. It is supposed that
his experience in mining, levelling, draining, and embank-
ing, had qualified him for carrying out his great work, the
formation of the New River. London had, up to his time,
been very inadequately supplied with good water; but the
eye of Hugh Middleton perceived how the springs of the
Chadwell and the Amwell, near Ware, in Hertfordshire,
might be conducted to the metropolis, and he made an
458 ISLINGTON.
offer to effect this to the citizens of London. The offer was
accepted, and, on April 20, 1608, he commenced this great
work—much greater than it would be if done at the present
time, with all our acquired knowledge of civil engineering.
The distance from London by the road was about twenty
miles, but the route which he found it necessary to take, for
the proper level of his river, was upwards of thirty-eight
miles. He had in some places to make cuttings for his
channel thirty or forty feet deep, and the porous nature of
the strata through which these cuttings passed caused him
many difficulties, but perhaps the crossing of valleys below
his level caused him more. Over these the river had to be
carried in wooden aqueducts, supported by wooden bearers,
twenty feet high ; and the construction of these, as well as
the numerous bridges, about 200, which had to be erected
for the accommodation of the proprietors of lands through
which the stream was carried, occasioned an expenditure of
time and money beyond the constructor’s calculation. The
part of the New River, about half way between Highbury and
Hornsey, carried in one of these wooden aqueducts, was
thence called the Boarded River. This was destroyed in
1776, and the river was then carried over an earthen em-
bankment, and through a channel lined with clay. Besides
the obstacles which nature interposed, there were still more
thrown in his way by the selfish interests of influential indi-
viduals. Hugh Middleton had stipulated to complete the
work in four years, but these causes compelled him to solicit
an extension of the time, which was granted. But these
vexatious delays had not only consumed his time, but his
funds. His large property was exhausted by the under-
taking, and he applied to the people of London, who were
to reap the great benefit of his enterprise, but he found no
response. In his difficulty, Middleton applied to James I.,
THE NIEW RIVER,. 459
who agreed to advance money to the amount of half the
total expenditure, on condition of half the shares being
made over to him. The agreement for this purpose was
signed on May 2, 1612, and by this assistance the work was
brought to completion on September 29, 1613, or in five
years and five months from the commencement of the under-
taking. On that day, which also saw the brother of Hugh,
Sir Thomas Middleton, elected Lord Mayor for the ensuing
year, the stream was admitted into the reservoir prepared
for it at Sadler’s Wells, near Pentonville. The total cost of
the work was about 500,000l. Middleton was knighted in
honour of his great achievement; but it was a costly honour,
for this noble gift to the great city for a long time did not
seem to be appreciated. During eighteen years after its
completion it produced no dividend, and the dividend of
the nineteenth year was but 11!. 19s. 6d. On each share.
To Sir Hugh, his success became, in reality, his ruin. He
was compelled to sell most of his shares, and support himself.
as an engineer.
The New River was not the only great work of Sir Hugh
Middleton. In 1622 he was created a baronet, and the
motives for conferring this honour are enumerated in the
patent. First, for the construction of this New River, and
the inestimable benefit to London; second, for the gaining
of a great quantity of land from the sea at Brading Haven,
in the Isle of Wight—a work represented as one of stu-
pendous labour; and, thirdly, for the discovery and profit-
able working of a rich silver mine in the county of Cardigan.
King James, with a very commendable liberality, remitted
the usual fine on the creation of a baronetcy, namely,
1,095l.; and, in 1636, Charles I. regranted to Sir Hugh the
whole of King James’s shares, for an annual rent of 500l.
Notwithstanding this, Sir Hugh Middleton, with the too
*NOJº) NITSI 09%
t; oºndop Kºuſoſ Kutu O.I.BTIS tº Jo S).It'd [Buonouſ otout to oA)
JO SIOSSøSSod oul Tºul pooloop ‘II/I uſ ‘todawoo IOIſaoutºuſ)
b.IOT ‘S).It'd [butoplot...] up pſos uooq OAUTI Sottus osotſ, Jo
9tuOS St “put pºd [[I]s SI ‘Kubduroſ) oun on settus XIS-KAIIII]
où) JO (IInqol out, UO Kinsbø.I.L. It Aoyſ ouſ). On 10A9 to] pſed od Ol
‘II SøFIBUIO Kq polytºndrºs unutte Iod 100g ou.I. 'Stop,tnoo Jo
ootlonguſ outl quoAold on ‘Tuoulošuutºut out, try otbūs Kut, utop
bop.nſoxo StºA ‘āuTyſ ouſ: Ol pſos StºA Uſoſt|A ‘ĀqapouT Toulo attſ,
"polio'U14t SI ſubduTOO oth Jo quouTutoA03 oup, qoſt A On Osotſ]
9.I.U put ‘sorbuS STOInquoApV oth poſſeo out ‘SIbnpſAIpuſ
quoto.jſp O1 pIOS SpitſbA.101ſt put JIOSUIT IOJ UO]oſpp. WI
TÉn H IIS ſq poAIosot AIIEIII:3pto so.It IIs oth Jo Kłopout otiuſ,
"ToyºAA IOAINT torT OUT
JO 9Sm pologiqso.IUIn poupºldo Sbu KubdūIOO ouſ, ‘uouſ, ooliſs
‘Āqnuub upg|Too tº Jo quouTKud oun uo “quouTulptud Jo low ut:
Áq ‘83/I Iboſ ouſ UT pollos OtoAA ToyºA Jo qunourt, uſûl too b
O). Kubduloſ) to ATI AoN oth Jo Stupelo oup) “3upnstro Uſoſtôniſ
oul pub “JoJºA Trott) Jo J.L.Bd Jo Uſoſlot;U)Sqt out, Ol bor I IOAII
oul Jo STO]oſtdo.[d out) Jo Oottºsºso.1 out, Jo Oottombosuoo III
‘loſt A on 1 Jo UOIºnqJ.I]sp put uOHºogſ.Ind ot|] [I] put, ‘boſſ
IoAIT OUT UIOIJ 3UIAAOTIOq Kq ‘ToyºAA Jo Kiddus populouſ3ng out)
UIT IOAIT out, Jo quouro5uutºut put poq out, UT STUIOUIOAOIdult
Kubuſ oppuſ Stu Kubduroſ) out, ‘SIBOK Jo Sso150.Id oth Uſ “ostnoo
JO 7000'03 Jo Spitt: Adn qt 5uTIOS (Ioaq 0Attſ Sø.It'TIS ‘troU1
oolTIS '0.1 buſs Iðd 1937°FT TO ‘āUTEIons 7000'000“I Jo Splºdin
qt [tº][duo Tſotſ] popndol Kubdutoo ouſ ‘oju ăuoi ‘19 K. “ITUI
O] ) SOUTU uoIIBJ oAbū ol prºs Ole SOIUUIs ouſ, quT] ‘pſed Utoo
-U00 out, otojoq q. SpA 3UOI OS ºnq : [[O'Bo '7000°/ KTTÜott Jo
on IUA TEUTUIOU ouſ, Jo quouTooutouTUIOo ouſ) ||U trooq oAUTI SnuI
Sorbus [butºr.IO OAl-KhutoAOS ouſ, Jo Jobo “1000'009 quoqū
ăuţoq 10ATI AON out, Jo UOI, butto] ouſ, Jo Soo TºuréITO ouT,
"Sootlººsuino.Iſo quogſp IIT KITUIt'ſ SnOTountſ
tº Joſ put ‘tood pop ‘SIOjotºjouaq oſqnd Jo O'ºtſ UIOUIUIOo
THE NICW RIVER,. 4,61
person to represent them in the government of the Company;
whereupon every person so deputed becomes capable of being
elected as one of the twenty-nine representatives of the
whole; the twenty-nine governing shares representing the
original number of proprietors, namely, Sir Hugh Middleton
and the twenty-eight persons to whom he sold so many of
his shares.
Lewis, in his ‘History of Islington,’ denies that Sir Hugh
Middleton was at his death in the state of indigence com-
monly represented, as he bequeathed several large sums of
money, and thirteen New River shares, besides other pro-
perty. The family, however, became pensioners on the
Goldsmiths’ Company. Lady Middleton, the wife of one of
the descendants of Sir Hugh, had a pension of 20l. from the
company, which was continued to her son, Sir Hugh, who
was the last direct male heir of the family, and with whom
the title expired. This man was a low drunkard, and was
boarded by a Mr. Harvey, of Chigwell, at a farm-house
there, where he died. Yet, in 1808, the sum of 50l. was
granted by the Corporation of London to a male descendant
of the family in distressed circumstances. Another de-
scendant, Jabez Middleton, had a pension of 52l. per annum
from the same body till his death, March 27, 1828; and in
July of the same year, Mrs. Jane Middleton Bowyers had 30l.
a year allotted her, which annuity was reduced to 7s. per
week in September, when Mrs. Plummer, another of the
family, had also an allowance of 7s. per week. After that,
the Corporation passed a resolution not to grant any more
relief to Middleton descendants. Nelson says that some of
the family had solicited the New River Company for assist-
ance, but with what result he does not state.
Certainly, neither London nor the New River Company
make a very splendid figure in their treatment of Sir Hugh
462 ISILINGTON.
Middleton and his family. The city, with all its wealthy
merchants, left him in the midst of his great undertaking,
so far as it was concerned, to perish with his half-executed
enterprise. They were deaf to all his entreaties for help,
and his representations of the vast benefits to result from
his labour. King James stepped in, and saved both the New
River and its creator—one of the wisest and most liberal
things which the Scottish Solomon ever did. But the river
completed, and become as profitable to the Company as
invaluable to the metropolis, we have the above poor boons
conferred on the family of the maker of the river, then fallen
into decay; and a resolution on the part of the Goldsmiths’
Company to be troubled no more with the necessities of these
unhappy descendants of the great benefactor of London.
True, the Goldsmiths’ Company was not the only one on
which the real claims lay, but the New River Company, of
whose benefactions we have no account. It is not a very
splendid story.
Lately the Company has greatly extended its resources of
water, as well as its water sale. It has purchased the pro-
perty of the Highgate and Hampstead Ponds Company, and
that of the Artesian Well Company, which proved a failure,
and having thus monopolised the water supply of nearly
all North London, the public has complained of its being
inclined to exercise its power somewhat despotically.
It may be well for all concerned to look back to the scene
of the opening of this beneficent stream, when the joyous
anticipations, long since so fully realised, were not so much
for private gain as public benefit. Stowe gives the following
account :— -
“Being brought to the intended cisterne, but the water not
as yet admitted entrance thereinto, on Michaelmasse day,
in anno 1613, being the day when Sir Thomas Middleton,
THE NEW RIVER,. 463
brother to the said Sir Hugh Middleton, was elected Lord
Maior of London for the yeere ensuing ; in the afternoone of
the same daye, Sir John Swinnerton, Knt., and Lord Maior of
London, accompanied with the said Sir Thomas, Sir Henry
Montague, Knt., Recorder of London, and many of the
worthy Aldermen, rode to see the cisterne, and first issu-
ing of the water thereinto, which was performed in this
IY) 2UE)]].6T --—
“A troope of labourers, to the number of sixty or more,
well apparelled, and wearing green Monmouth caps, all
alike, carrying spades, shovels, pickaxes, and such like in-
struments of laborious imployment, marching after drummes
twice or thrice about the cisterne, presented themselves
before the mount, where the Lord Maior, Aldermen, and a
worthy company beside, stood to behold them : and One man,
on behalf of the rest, delivered this speech:-
Long have we laboured, long desired and prayed
For this great work's perfection; and by th' aid
Of Heaven and good men's wishes, ’tis at length
Happily conquered by cost, art, and strength.
And after five yeeres' deare expence, in dayes,
Travaile and paines, beside the infinite wayes
Of malice, envy, false suggestions,
Able to daunt the spirits of mighty ones
In wealth and courage, this a work so rare,
Only by one man's industry, cost and care,
Is brought to blest effect; so much withstood,
His only aime the citie's general good.
And where before many unjust complaints,
Enviously seated, causéd oft restraints,
Stops and great crosses, to our master's charge,
And the work's himdrance; Favour now at large
Spreads herself open to him, and commends
To admiration, both his paines and ends—
The King's most gracious love. Perfection draws
Tavour from Princes, and from all applause.
Then, worthy Magistrates, to whose content,
Next to the State's, all this great care was bent ;
And for the public good, which grace requires,
Your loves and furtherance chiefly he desires,
464. ISLINGTON.
To cherish these proceedings, which may give
Courage to some that may hereafter live,
To practice deedes of goodness, and of fame,
And gladly light their actions by his name.
At which words the flood-gates flew open, the stream ran
gallantly into the cisterne, drummes and trumpets sounding
in triumphal manner, and a brave peale of chambers gave
full issue to the intended entertainment.’"
In Goldsmiths' Hall there is a portrait of Sir Hugh
Middleton, to which company he belonged, and to which he
bequeathed a share in the New River towards the relief of its
poor members; so that the small sum of money which this
company doled out to Sir Hugh’s descendants, when they fell
into poverty, was drawn from funds which he himself had
endowed them with. Under these circumstances, the paucity
of the relief, and the passing of a resolution to give his de-
scendants no more, are much to be regretted.
REMARKABLE BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS.
The parish of Islington contains six districts, or liberties,
named from the manner in which they are situated, namely—
St. John of Jerusalem,
Upper Barnsbury,
Lower Barnsbury,
Canonbury,
The Prebend, and
Highbury, or Newington Barrow.
It contains also the hamlets of Upper and Lower Holloway,
Ball's Pond, Battle-bridge, the City Gardens, Kingsland
Green, and the greater part of Newington Green. It is
also divided into eight ecclesiastical districts, namely –St.
Mary’s, St. John’s, St. Paul’s, Holy Trinity, St. Peter’s, St.
James’s, All Saints, and St. Stephen’s. Without concerning
| Stowe's Survey, p. 13.
IREMAIR.KABLE BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS. 465
myself very much with the topography of these different
divisions, I shall endeavour to collect out of them an account
of their most ancient or remarkable buildings, institutions,
historical facts and historical characters. y
One of the oldest establishments at the foot of Highgate
Bill, just above Holloway, and near to where Whittington’s
Stone is placed, was a Lazar-house, or hospital for lepers.
This was one of four such hospitals erected at some distance
out of London for the reception of people afflicted with the
leprosy, or, as it was called, ‘the linemless disease.’ This
phrase denotes the cause of leprosy—the wearing of woollen
garments next the skin, so that, not having these garments
regularly changed and washed, but wearing them on till
they were saturated with perspiration and dirt, the skin
became diseased. On the introduction of linen and frequent
washing this loathsome disease rapidly disappeared. One
William Pole, yeoman of the Crown to King Edward IV.,
being afflicted with leprosy, the King gave him a piece of
land to build the hospital upon, in 1473. The chapel at-
tached to it was dedicated to St. Anthony, and the hospital
is supposed to have been chiefly supported by offerings of
votaries at the chapel. After the Reformation, the house
appears to have become a poor-house. In an appointment
of a keeper of this house by Elizabeth, in 1589, it is called
an alms-house, and is described as having ‘Orchards, gardens,
lands, tenements, meadows, pastures,’ &c. The orchard and
garden attached were described as very well planted. The
place was broken up and the property sold by Cromwell's
government, in the same year in which he became Protector
—1658. Further particulars of this institution may be found
in Tomlin’s ‘Perambulation of Islington.”
Mr. Tomlin thinks that the old Whittington Stone was
merely the basement of a cross Once standing there, of which
EI H.
466 ISLINGTON.
he gives a woodcut, and that this part of the story of Whit-
tington is a myth. But why so 9 The basement of a cross
by the wayside, from which the cross itself was broken, is
just the sort of seat which a wayfarer would avail himself of.
CIROMWELL’S BIOUSE AT UPPER HOLLOWAY.
In Nelson’s time there were some old houses which ap-
peared to have belonged to persons of eminence on the
north side of the road at Upper Holloway. In One of them,
which became the Crown public-house, and which has long
disappeared, there was a tradition that Cromwell had lived.
Nelson doubts Cromwell ever having a house here, but thinks
he might visit his friend, Sir Arthur Haselrigge, who, un-
doubtedly, had a residence in Islington, as appears by the
following entry in the journals of the House of Commons,
May 21, 1664–5. “Sir Arthur Hesilrigge, by command of
the House, related the circumstance of an assault made on
him by the Earl of Stamford, and Henry Polton and Matthew
Patsall, his servants, in the highway leading from Perpoole
Lane, Clerkenwell, as he was peaceably riding from the
House of Commons to his house in Islington, by striking
him with a drawn sword, and other offensive instruments,
and was enjoined to keep the peace, and not to send or re-
ceive any challenge.”
The dangers of the road between London and such sub-
urban villages as Islington were extraordinary in those and
later times. Nelson says that as late as 1770, and later, the
roads were so dangerous betwixt Islington and London, that
few ventured back to London in the evening, but stayed in the
village all night at the Angel, the Lion, or the Pied Bull.
Even in the heart of the villages robberies were committed;
both carriages and foot passengers were frequently stopped
CROMWELL’s HOUSE, UPPER HOLLOWAY. 467
in the most daring manner; and it was usual for people
walking from the city in the evening to wait at the end of
St. John Street till a sufficient party were collected, who
were escorted to Islington by an armed patrol appointed
for that purpose. The annals of the Old Bailey abound with
instances of delinquents who were apprehended for robberies
and murders committed in that neighbourhood. A quarto
sheet, published in 1674, bore the title, ‘Four great and
horrible murders; or, Bloody News from Islington : being a
full and true relation how a woman’s brains were knocked
out by her own father, robbed, and her throat cut, on Tues-
day the 5th of February ; a man beaten to death the 8th of
the same month,’ &c.
This is not, however, more extraordinary than that mur-
der and personal robberies are of nightly and almost daily
occurrence in the most frequented streets of London at the
present day. The Hornsey Road was formerly called Devil’s
or Du Val’s Lane, and there used to be a moated house in it,
called the Devil's House. It has been supposed the old name
of Devil’s Lane was changed into Du Val’s Lane, in conse-
quence of Du Val, a famous highwayman, frequenting that
locality. The “Memoirs of Du Val’ state that this worthy was
executed at Tyburn January 21, 1669, in his 27th year. That
he lay in state in Tangier Tavern, St. Giles’s, and was buried
in the middle aisle of Covent Garden Church. That his fune-
ral was attended with many flambeaux, and a numerous train
of mourners, “whereof most were of the beautiful sex.” Such
hero-worshippers deserved to be robbed. Butler, author of
* Hudibras,” wrote “A Pindaric Ode to the happy memory of
the most renowned Du Val,’ in which he says:— -
JHe, like a lord o' the manor, seized upon
Whatever happened in his way,
As lawful weft and stray,
And after, by the custom, kept it as his own ;
H II 2
468 - ISLINGTON.
and says that had he gone on a little longer, he “would have
starved the mighty town, by cutting off its supplies through
the wagoners, drovers, &c.” Dick Turpin, too, practised on
coaches and chaises at Holloway and in the back lames of
Islington in May 1737.
At Upper Holloway, in those times, the ‘Mother Red Cap,'
celebrated by Drunken Barnaby, was a great resort of plea-
sure-seekers. The ‘Mother Red Cap' was a favourite sign in
those days. “Red Cap,” says Tomlin, ‘appears in old road-
books about four miles beyond Coleshill, Warwickshire;’ and
John Buncle pathetically recurs to ‘the merry dancings we
had at “Mother Red Cap's,” in Back Lane, Dublin.” Also
in the play of the ‘Merry Milkmaid of Islington,’ enter
Artezim as Mother Red Cap. There is also the well-known
‘Mother Red Cap at Camden Town, by the junction of the
roads to Highgate and Hampstead. Drunken Barnaby, at
‘Mother Red Cap at Holloway, found very bad company:-
Veni Holloway, Pileum rubrum
In cohortem muliebrem ;
Me Adomidem vocant omnes
Meretrices Babylonis:
Pangunt, tingunt, molliunt, mulcent,
Et egentem foris pulsant, &c.
At Upper Holloway, the “Half Moon' was also a noted
public-house. These houses were noted for cheese-cakes,
as noticed in a ‘Journey to Nottingham,’ printed in the
* Gentleman’s Magazine of September, 1743:-
Through Holloway, famous for cakes, we onward tend.
‘Holloway cheese-cakes’ was one of the London cries; they
were sold by a man on horseback : and in ‘Jack Drum’s
Entertainment,’ 4to, 1601, in a random Song, the festive
character of these suburbs is denoted:—
Life of Buncle, vol. i. p. 104. Ed. 1825.
EITGBIBUTRY HOUSE. 469
Let us be seene on Hygate greene
To dance to the honour of Holloway.
Since we are come hither, let's spare no leather,
To dance for the honour of Holloway.
Holloway was the suburban residence of the Blount family,
already mentioned under the head of Highgate. Their
country seat was at Tittenhanger, in Hertfordshire. They
lived here for the greater part of the seventeenth century,
and Sir Henry and his two sons, Sir Thomas and Charles,
were all distinguished both as public men and writers.
Charles Blount, the author of ‘Anima Mundi,” and various
other works full of the spirit of liberty and free-thinking, as
well as translator of the first two books of ‘The Life of
Apollonius Tyanaeus ' by Philostratus, committed suicide in
consequence of his deceased wife’s sister refusing to marry
him, after an adverse opinion as to the legality of such a
union had been pronounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury
and other divines. The old Manor House, their residence,
was standing till within a few years.
EHIGHBURY HOUSE.
Highbury, famous for springs and conduits which used to
supply part of the city before the making of the New River,
has always been famous for its elevated situation, and its
fine views over Stamford Hill, Epping Forest, Hornsey Wood,
Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Highgate, Caen Wood, Hamp-
stead, and Primrose Hill. The water from the Highbury
springs was conveyed as far as the White Conduit and
St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, and carried from the conduit to the
private houses by men called water-bearers, in vessels called
tankards holding about three gallons each. Ben Jonson, in
his comedy of “Every Man in his Humour,’ introduces one
Cob as a water-bearer. Women also were water-bearers,
470 ISI,IN GTON.
who carried it in pails. The Corporation of London were
fond of making a day to visit the springs, on the 18th of
September, when, according to Strype, they went attended
by dogs, and hunted a hare or a fox, sometimes both, before
dinner, at the head of the conduit.
Gerard, the English botanist of the sixteenth century, as
before remarked, ranged the woods of Highbury, Islington,
and Hornsey in search of plants. In his ‘Herbal, or General
History of Plants,’ a work which contributed to diffuse a
taste for botany, he says:–“ Saw-wort groweth in woods and
shadowy places, and sometimes in meadows. Likewise I
have seen it grow in great abundance in the wood adjoining
to Islington, within half a mile from the further end of the
town.’ ‘The alder tree (Alnus migra sive frangula) groweth
in moist woods and copses; I have found great plenty of it
in a wood a mile from Islington, in the way thence towards
a small village called Harnsey.’
No doubt, there were before the year 1607, in which
Gerard died, a vast variety of plants and trees growing all
over the districts of Islington, Highbury, Hornsey, and
Highgate, where now only houses stand. At a Compara-
tively recent period Hampstead Heath produced rare plants,
of which Park presents us with a catalogue, but for which
you must now go to a much greater distance. -
The Manor of Highbury, formerly called Tollenton, was
granted by the Conqueror to One Ranulf, when the manorial
rights were valued in the Doomsday Book at 40s. per
annum. On the east side of Du Val’s Lane was a moated
site, supposed to have been that of the original Manor House,
called Tollenton House or Lower Place, before the Manor
House was removed to higher ground, thence called High-
bury. The spot on which the Manor House was re-erected
was supposed to be the site of a Roman camp. It acquired
F[[G. H.B.U.R.Y FIOU STE. 471
the additional name of Newington Barrow, antiquaries being
divided in opinion as to whether the word Barrow came from
Burgus, a camp, or from Alice de Barowe, who was lady of
the manor in the thirteenth century, and in the year 1271
made it over with the whole lordship to the Priory of
St. John of Jerusalem. The antiquaries do not seem to
have had an idea that the word might come from the
British, who might have raised a barrow there on the site
of Some battle before the Roman epoch.
The Manor House of Highbury appears to have been the
favourite summer retreat of the Priors of St. John. Jack
Straw, however, demolished it for them in Wat Tyler’s re-
bellion. According to Stowe, the haughtiness and ambition
of the Knights Hospitallers, and the excessive riches they
had accumulated, gave such offence to the cornmon people at
this period, that, in the insurrection under Wat Tyler, in the
year 1381, after totally consuming with fire their magnificent
priory in St. John Street, near Smithfield, ‘ causing it to
burne by the space of seven dayes together, not suffering
any to quench it,” a detachment of the insurgents proceeded
with the same intention to the Prior’s country house at
|Highbury. Jack Straw is stated to have headed this de-
tachment, the number, according to Hollinshed, being 20,000,
who ‘tooke in hand to ruinate that house; ' from which cir-
cumstance, and from his probably having made it a temporary
station for himself and his followers, it was ever afterwards
called Jack Straw’s Castle. -
The rebels found the house so substantially built of stone,
that it was a tough job for them, after the fire had done its
work, to pull the walls to pieces by main force. They seem,
however, to have gone to work with right good will; and,
having finished the house, they resolved to finish the Prior
too. They marched to the Tower of Tondom, in which he
472 ISLINGTON.
had taken refuge, and, no doubt, thought himself pretty
safe ; but the rebels surrounded the Tower, took it, and
brought out the Prior, together with Simon Sudbury, Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, John Legg, one of the King’s sergeants-
at-arms, and William Appledore, the King's Confessor, and
beheaded them. On Tower Hill. After William Walworth
had killed Wat Tyler, and the rebels were dispersed, the
King knighted Walworth and three other citizens; and
“upon the sand-hills towards Iseldone were created the
Earls Marshall and Pembroke ; and shortly afterwards,
Nicholas Twyford and Adam Francis, Aldermen, were made
Rnights.” The dagger with which Walworth stabbed Wat
Tyler, Lewis says, was in the possession of Mr. Aldworth, a
vintner at Islington, in 1730.
After the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry
VIII., he granted the Manor of Highbury to Thomas, Lord
Cromwell, on whose attainder it returned to the crown.
Edward VI. settled it on his sister, afterwards Queen Mary.
James T. settled it on his son Henry, Prince of Wales. It
was on the death of the Prince of Wales settled on Prince
Charles, who, on becoming Charles I., sold it to Sir Allan
Apsley, in 1629. From that time the manor passed by sale
to a number of successive proprietors.
One of the most noted and frequented places in this neigh-
bourhood for some generations past is
EIIGHBURY BARN.
On the ancient site of Highbury Barn, or Farm belonging
to the Manor House, Originally rose a small ale and cake
house. Barn, it seems, amongst milk-dealers, was synony-
mous with farm or dairy, whence the term barn-measure as
* Howe's Chromºcle.
F[IGHIBUIR, Y BAIR.N. 4,73
applied to milk in contradistinction to that by which it is
retailed to the public. At some little distance northward
was another dairy farm, called Cream Hall. To these places
the Londoners, as we have stated, flocked to drink milk
warm from the cow, and to eat cakes dipped in cream, cus-
tards, syllabubs, &c. All about Islington were localities
celebrated for these rural dainties. From an ale and cake
house Highbury Barn grew into a tavern with tea-gardens.
As the trade increased, Nelson says that the extensive barn
belonging to the farm was added to the premises, and, being
fitted up handsomely, became the principal room of the
tavern. There the Court Baron for the manor was held. A
Mr. Willoughby, who died in 1785, made a wonderful increase
in the trade of the place. His son added a bowling-green,
trap-ball grounds, and tea-gardens. He added a hop plan-
tation and brewery, and prepared public dinners for corporate
bodies, public charities, clubs, and other societies; so that it
had a greater number of visitors than any similar place in
London or its environs. It could accommodate from 1,500
to 2,000 persons at once; 800 people were known to sit
down to a hot dinner together, on which occasion seventy
geese were seen roasting at one fire. The Ancient Free-
masons in 1808 sat down 500 in number to dinner there.
One of the most singular societies which used to dine
annually at this tavern for many years was one of Protes-
tant Dissenters, who took the name of ‘The Highbury So-
ciety.” On the day when a Bill, called the Schism Bill, was
to have been passed, which aimed at the privileges of all
religious denominations not in conformity with the Esta-
blished Church, Queen Anne died, and there was an end of it.
To commemorate this fortunate event, the Society was formed,
and used first to hold its meetings at Copenhagen House. So
far back, however, as 1740, Highbury Barn was the place of
474 ISILINGTON.
their rendezvous, and their mode of proceeding there was in
a style singularly simple and even juvenile. They used to
meet in Moorfields at one o’clock, and walk on to Dettingen
Bridge, where the house called the “Shepherd and Shepherd-
ess’ was afterwards built. Here they chalked the initials of
their names on a post for the information of such as might
follow. They then proceeded to Highbury, and to beguile
the way, it was their custom in turn to bowl a ball of ivory
at objects in their path. This ball was presented to the So-
ciety by Mr. William Field. After a light refreshment—and
it must have been very light, for it only cost eightpence, and
was accompanied by neither wine, punch, nor tea—they pro-
ceeded to the field to practise a peculiar game, called Hop-
ball, which has been the great amusement of the Society
from time immemorial at their meetings. This game is not
used elsewhere in the neighbourhood of London, but one
resembling it is practised in the west of England, whence it
was probably introduced by members, natives of that quarter
of the kingdom. In fact, there were numbers of West-of-
England men among these Dissenters. The ball used on .
these occasions was worsted Stitched over with silk or pack-
thread, and was gratuitously furnished by some member of
the Society.
In the report of a committee on the rise and progress of
this Society, printed in 1808, it is stated that ‘ the following
toast is always given at their anniversary dinner in August,
viz.: The glorious First of August, with the immortal me-
mory of King William and his good Queen Mary, not for-
getting Corporal John, and a fig for the Bishop of Cork, that
bottle-stopper.’
Corporal John was intended for John, Duke of Marlborough,
the great friend of the Protestant and Whig interest. ‘The
Society,” adds Nelson, “dime together weekly, on Saturday,
HIGHEURY BARN. º 475
from November to March, and consists at this time of be-
tween forty and fifty members.” An engraving from an
original portrait by Thomas Stevens was published of Mr.
Stephen Ponder, the treasurer of the Society, usually called
Father Ponder, who died May 8, 1816, aged 71 years.
This Society appears to have ceased to exist for some
years. An authority on such subjects thinks it was dis-
solved about the year 1833.
Highbury Barn, the scene of these and many other festive
celebrations, is still a great place of public entertainment,
combining an hotel, public gardens, and a regularly licensed
theatre, as well as a dancing saloon. A ticket to the theatre,
it seems, entitles the possessor to admittance to the dancing-
Saloon, where all persons so introduced can join in the dances
from ten to twelve o’clock P.M. In fact, the sober inhabi-
tants of the neighbourhood regard this section of the High-
bury Barn entertainments, with its musical band, and the
occasional fireworks in the gardens, as a grand source of
demoralization to the neighbourhood, as well as of disturb-
ance to the families of regular houses.
The Sluice House, Eel-pie House, and Hornsey Wood House,
those ancient haunts of fishermen and lovers of rurality, are
now gone or going. These places were formerly, and so late
as the time of William Hone, great places of attraction to
anglers and pleasure-takers, especially on Palm Sunday,
when Hornsey Wood was ravaged for palms. It was a plea-
sant walk from Highbury Barn by the river to these places.
Not a trace of Hornsey Wood House remains; the Sluice
House is about to disappear, and great alterations are making
in the river in the formation of the new place of public recrea-
tion, called Finsbury Park. In fact, the whole neighbour-
hood has undergone, or is undergoing, the same process of
modernizing metamorphosis as the greater part of the vici-
47 (5 ISLINGTON.
… ilſº
º: , -
Śląsº
g * M. º. f* : … ?"
... a tº ſº 2 : -
º: ºf .
:#ff sº;
- w º ºſmºlº,
* 3: tº } N sº § §§
ºğlº | * 5 § ~ *. §
ºtº Klººr\º). fººtº §§ "
º tº tº - º *A & Q. . P º ſº \r.
#|| º #!º §.
ſ ſº sº & §§ º º º º *", &
º gºſº ޺ § 'f
$ J. J., -, - . . . sº flººrºº tºº ##1%
. £ºg. º º | ? § { *Nº. **.*.*.*. * zºº.º.wjīntº:
Yºğsº
gº º •. ... ." * * * -
tº 8 . " º Évê; ; *
*... 2.
§§
º º: e
IIO le NS1, Y \\ () Ol) li () USl.
(From an Original Drawing in the possession of J. E. Gardner, lºsq.)
nity of London for scores of miles round. Of Highbury
Place, Highbury Terrace and College we shall have occasion
to mention distinguished inhabitants.
HIGHIBURY COLLEGE.
Many of the early Dissenters being connected with the
City of London by business, settled about Islington, High-
bury, Hackney, and Stoke Newington. Their schools would
plant themselves in the same localities. Consequently, we
find that one of their earliest academies for theological
students was at Islington, conducted by Theophilus Gale, an
eminent minister and writer, and Mr. Rowe, who during the
Commonwealth was a preacher at Westminster Abbey.
The son of this Mr. Rowe, the Rev. Thomas Rowe, minister
of the Independent Meeting House in Haberdashers’ Hall,
afterwards, in conjunction with Mr. John Eames, conducted

















IIIGHIBUTRY COLLEGE. 4,77
a more celebrated theological academy in London, in which
Dr. Watts was educated. At Islington also the Rev. Thomas
Dolittle, minister of the Monkwell Street Chapel, had at
one time a similar academy, and amongst his pupils the
celebrated Matthew Henry, the Bible commentator. At
Newington, Daniel Defoe finished his education in another
Dissenting academy, conducted by a Mr. Morton.
THE CONGREGATIONALIST COLLEGE at Highbury, an off-
shoot from the one at Homerton, was built in 1825, and
opened in September 1826, under the superintendence of Drs.
Harris, Burder, and Halley, for the education of ministers of
that persuasion. Amongst the distinguished men whom this
college produced, are the popular minister of Rowland Hill’s
Chapel, Blackfriars Road, the Rev. Newman Hall, and Mr.
George Macdonald, the distinguished poet, lecturer, and
novelist. Mr. Macdonald, however, had previously graduated
at the University of Aberdeen, and had there taken his
degree of M.A. In 1850 the buildings and property of the
College of Highbury were disposed of to the Metropolitan
Church of England Training Institution, and the business
of the College transferred to New College, St. John’s Wood,
into which the three Dissenting Colleges of Homerton,
Coward, and Highbury were consolidated.
CANONEURY.
The spot in Canonbury round which the chief historical
interest gathers is Canonbury House, or Tower, as it is now
frequently called, from its square tower, the principal part
of which yet remains. The manor, which used often to
be printed Canbury and Cambray or Chambray, was early
in possession of the Berners family, after whom Barnsbury
takes its name. By them it was granted to the Priory of
4,78 ISLINGTON.
St. Bartholomew in West Smithfield. On the dissolution of
the monasteries it was granted by Henry VIII. to Lord
Cromwell along with Highbury. On his death Anne of
Cleves, whose ill-starred wedding with Henry had been
Cromwell’s work, and became his ruin, was dowered out of
the wreck of his fortunes, and had an annuity of 20l. a year
out of this manor. Edward VI. granted the manor for
certain considerations to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick,
CANON BURY TOWER.
(From a Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
a branch of whose family had a lease of the neighbouring
manor of Stoke Newington. Dudley, who became Duke of
Northumberland, aiming at securing the crown for his son,
Lord Guildford Dudley, by a marriage with Lady Jane Grey,
lost his head, and the manor reverting to the crown, was
conferred by Queen Mary on Thomas, Lord Wentworth, who
alienated it to Sir John Spencer, an alderman and cloth-
worker of London, who was Lord Mayor in 1594. Sir John

CAIN ON BURY. 4.79
*
was reputed the richest commoner of his time, and during
his mayoralty showed himself on several occasions bold in re-
sisting interferences of the crown in City affairs. For one such
resistance he received a menacing message from Lord Trea-
surer Burleigh, which, however, did by no means daunt him.
The town residence of Sir John Spencer was Crosby Hall,
the fine old house on the east side of Bishopsgate Street,
which had been built by Sir John Crosby, and was some
time the residence of the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards
Richard III. Sir John held his mayoralty there, and lodged
and splendidly entertained the French Ambassador there in
1603, then Marquis de Rosny, afterwards the celebrated Duke
of Sully, who arrived with a superb train soon after the acces-
sion of James I.
Sir John’s country house, however, was this Canonbury
House. It was a very fine and extensive house, as shown by
a scarce print published by Boydell about 1760, from which,
I suppose, is copied the engraving in Nelson’s ‘Islington,”
facing p. 244. The site is one amongst the multitudinous
proofs of the ecclesiastical eye for situation. It was built
on this spot for the Prior of the Canons of St. Bartholomew,
and rebuilt by William Bolton, the last Prior but one, who
had scarcely finished it at his death in 1532. The tower of
brick still remaining was part of his work, as was shown by
his rebus, a bolt in a tun, visible in several parts of the
building some years ago. About the house at that time
were extensive gardens, a fine old park, and beyond Open
country. From the top of the tower a most extensive view
was obtained over London, to Highgate and Hampstead in
one direction, over Greenwich and the winding Thames in
another. Sir John Spencer altered, enlarged, and beautified
this place greatly.
The greatness of Sir John drew upon him dangerous eyes,
480 ISILINGTON.
and a plot was laid to kidnap him as he rode daily from his
place of business in Bishopsgate Street over the moors to
Canonbury. We have the fact related in a curious pamphlet,
entitled ‘The Vanity of the Lives and Passions of Men,” by
D. Papillon, gent., 1651. It is as follows:—‘In Queen
Elizabeth’s days, a pirate of Dunkirk laid a plot with twelve
of his mates to carry away Sir John Spencer; which if he
had done, fifty thousand pounds would not have redeemed
him. He came over the seas in a shallop with twelve
musketiers, and in the night came into Barking Creek, and
left the shallop in the custody of six of his men, and with
the other six came as far as Islington, and there hid them
in ditches, near the path in which Sir John always came to
his house; but, by the providence of God, Sir John, upon
some extraordinary occasion, was forced to stay in London
that night, otherwise they had taken him away; and they,
fearing they should be discovered, in the night time came to
their shallop, and so came safe to Dunkirk again.”
But a more successful pirate than the man of Dunkirk
appeared in the person of Lord William Compton, Lord
President of Wales, and the second of the title. Sir John
Spencer had but One child, a daughter, heiress to all his
wealth, said by some to amount to as much as 800,000l.—a
stupendous sum in those days. This bold young spark
managed to win the goodwill of Miss Spencer, and smuggled
her away in a baker's basket. The truth of this fact is
attested by a painting of the elopement in this manner,
preserved at Castle Ashby, the seat of the Marquis of North-
ampton, the descendant of this marriage, and possessor, in
consequence, of the manor of Canonbury.
For some time, however, it appeared probable that Lord
Compton was more sure of the lady than of the fortune. Sir
John Spencer was so incensed at the elopement, that he dis-
CANONIBUTRY. 481
carded his daughter, and vowed that he would cut her off
with a shilling. In this strait, Queen Elizabeth, who was
no favourer of marriages in general, came to the rescue, and
invited Sir John to stand sponsor with her to the first child
of a young couple abandoned by their father. Sir John
accepted the office, and declared that as he had renounced
his own daughter for her disobedience, he would adopt this
boy, her Majesty’s protégé, in her stead. The Queen took
him at his word, and on meeting the young parents, he
found that he had adopted his own grandson.
Sir John died in 1609, and Lord Compton was so over-
whelmed by the immensity of the wealth falling to him, that
he lost his senses. In a letter of March 22, 1609, given in
Winwood’s ‘State Papers, vol. iii. p. 136, a Mr. Beaulieu
tells Mr. Trumbull that ‘the poor lord is not like, if God do
not help him, to carry it away for nothing ; or to grow very
rich thereby, being in great danger to lose his witts for the
same; whereof, being at the very first newes, either through
the vehement apprehension of joy for such a plentiful succes-
sion, or of carefulness how to take it up and dispose it,
somewhat distracted, and afterwards naturally well restored,
he is now of late fallen again, but more deeply, into the same
frenzy; so that there seemeth little hope of such a recovery.
And what shall these thousands and millions avail him, if he
come to lose, if not his soul, at least his witts and reason 2
‘It is a faire and ample subject for a divine to course 'riches,
and a notable example to the world not to wooe or trust too
much in them.”
In another letter, the same gentleman says that he was
become so frantic, that it was necessary to keep him bound;
and that the administration of his goods and lands was com-
mitted to the Lord Chamberlain, Privy Seal, and Worcester.
Lord Compton, however, did eventually recover his senses;
I I -
482 ISLINGTON.
and certainly the following letter addressed to him by his
wife, no longer crumpled up in the baker’s basket, but
assuming her full height and dignity, was admirably adap-
ted to act as a sedative. Who shall not say that his lordship
owed the return of his sober senses to it, and to a continued
course of the same cooling regimen? The letter has no date,
but appears to have been written pretty soon after the great
windfall. It was first printed in the ‘European Magazine *
for June, 1782:—
‘My SWEET LIFE,-Now I have declared to you my mind
for the settling of your state, I suppose it were best for me
to bethink or consider with myself, what allowance were
meetest for me. For considering what care I have had of
your estate, and how respectfully I dealt with those which,
by the laws of God, of nature, and of civil polity, wit, religion,
government, and honesty, you, my dear, are bound to, I pray
and beseech you to grant me 1,600l. per annum, quarterly to
be paid.
‘Also, I would, besides that allowance for my apparel,
have 600l. added yearly, quarterly to be paid, for the per-
formance of charitable works; and for these things I would
not, neither will be, accountable for.
* Also, I will have three horses for my own saddle, that
mone shall dare to lend or borrow ; none lend but I, none
borrow but you.
* Also, I will have two gentlewomen, lest one should be
sick, or have some other lett; also believe that it is an un-
decent thing for a gentlewoman to stand mumping alone,
when God hath blessed their lord and lady with a great estate.
* Also, when I will a-hunting, or hawking, or travel from
one house to another, I will have them attending me ; SO, for
either of those said women, I must and will have for either
of them a horse.
CANONIBURY. 483
‘Also, I will have six or eight gentlemen. And I will
have my two coaches, one lined with velvet to myself, with
four very fair horses; and a coach for my women, lined with
sweet cloth ; one laced with gold, the other with scarlet, and
laced with watchet lace and silver, with four good horses.
* Also, I will have two coachmen, one for my own coach,
the other for my women. *
* Also, at any time when I travel, I will be allowed not
Only carroches and spare horses for me and my women, but I
will have such carriages as shall be fitting for all, orderly,
not pestering my things with my women’s, nor theirs with
chambermaids, nor theirs with wash-maids. r
* Also for laundresses, when I travel, I will have them
sent away before with the carriages, to see all safe; and the
chambermaids I will have to go before with the greens,' that
the chambers may be ready, sweet and clean.
* Also, for that it is indecent to crowd up myself with my
gentleman-usher in my coach: I will have him to have a
decent horse to attend me either in city or country; and I
must have two footmen; and my desire is, that you defray
all the charges for me.
“And for myself, besides my yearly allowance, I would
have twenty gowns of apparel, six of them excellent good
ones, eight of them for the country, and six other of them
very excellent good Ones.
* Also, I would have to put in my purse 2,000l. and 200l. ;
and so for you to pay my debts.
* Also, I would have 6,000l. to buy me jewels, and 4,000l.
to buy me a pearl chain.
* Now, seeing I am so reasonable unto you, I pray you to
find my children apparel, and their schooling, and also my
servants—men and women—their wages.
| Green rushes for the floors,
I I 2
484 ISLINGTON.
* Also, I will have my houses furnished, and all my lodg-
ing-chambers to be suited with all such furniture as is fit, as
beds, stools, chairs, suitable cushions, carpets, silver warm-
ing-pans, cupboards of plate, fair hangings and such like:
so for my drawing-chambers in all houses, I will have them
delicately furnished, both with hangings, couch, canopy,
glass, carpet, chair-cushions, and all things thereunto be-
longing.
* Also, my desire is, that you shall pay all my debts, build
Ashley-house, and purchase lands; and lend no money—as
you love God—to the Lord Chamberlain," who would have
all, perhaps your life, from you. Remember his son, my
Lord Warden,” what entertainment he gave me when you
were at Tiltyard. If you were dead, he said, he would be a
husband, a father, a brother: and he said he would marry me.
I protest, I grieve to see the poor man have so little wit and
homesty to use his, friend so vilely. Also he fed me with
untruths concerning the Charter-house; but that is the
least : he wished me much harm. You know him. God
keep you and me from such as he is
* So now that I have declared to you what I would have,
and what that is that I would not have, when you be an earl,
I pray you to allow 1,000l. more than I now desire, and
double attendance.
‘Your loving wife,
* ELIZA COMPTON.”
A glorious letter! A grand, managing, and stately lady!
who, if she inherited a million of money, knew how to spend
it in a princely manner; and to have everything in order
| Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, Lord Treasurer; one of the Committee of Lord
Compton's estate.
* Theophilus, Lord Howard of Walden, who succeeded his father as Earl of
Suffolk.
CANONElJ.R.Y. 485
and in keeping with her dignity, not forgetting that of her
husband, and of the whole family. Lord Compton, On
the digestion of this letter, continued in his senses ever
afterwards. His loving wife had ballasted his boat so effec-
tually, that it could not fail to ride steadily. He became an
earl, as she expected, being created Earl of Northampton in
1618, and, no doubt, she got her extra 1,000l. per annum
and double attendance.
As London, under the names of Canonbury and Islington,
came crowding up about this house and its ample gardens
and fair lakes, the proprietors began to desert it for more
distant Ones ; it became the house of the steward, and the
chambers were let as lodgings to gentlemen from London
who sought suburban quiet. Newbery, the publisher, had
rooms in it, and Goldsmith used to visit him there. As dif-
ficulties pressed on Goldsmith, he would remain hidden
there for weeks, giving out that he was away in Yorkshire,
or elsewhere. He came to like Canonbury House so much,
that he had summer lodgings in it, and his literary friends
used to visit him there. Sam Johnson, no doubt, showed
his ponderous figure there frequently. He and his asso-
ciates would adjourn to the Crown Tavern in the Lower
Road, and be very jolly. It is said that he wrote the ‘De-
serted Willage,’ the “Traveller,’ and part of the ‘Vicar of
Wakefield,” in Canonbury Tower.
Washington Irving visited Canonbury Tower because
Goldsmith had inhabited it. He says: —“I was shown the
very apartment. It was a relic of the original style of the
castle, with panelled wainscot and Gothic windows. I was
pleased with its air of antiquity and its having been the resi-
dence of poor Goldy.”
Irving located his “Poor Devil Author’ there, and described
what he himself, no doubt, saw. “Sunday came, and with
486 ISLINGTON.
it the whole city world, swarming about Canonbury Castle.
I could not open my window but I was stunned with shouts
and noises from the cricket-ground; the late quiet road
beneath my window was alive with the tread of feet and the
clack of tongues; and to complete my misery, I found that
my quiet retreat was absolutely a show-house, being shown
to strangers at sixpence a head. There was a perpetual
tramping upstairs of citizens and their families to look about
the country from the top of the tower, and to take a peep
at the city through the telescope, to try if they could discern
their own chimnies.” -
Besides Goldsmith, other literary men had lodgings Occa-
sionally in the tower—Smart, the poet; Chambers, author
of the “Cyclopædia ; * Humphreys, author of ‘Canons,’ a
poem, ‘Ulysses,’ an opera, and translator of “Spectacle de la
Nature.”
IHere Humphreys breathed his last, the Muse's friend,
And Chambers found his mighty labours end.
See on the distant plain, majestic shows
Old Canonbury's tower, an ancient pile,
To various fates assigned; and where by turns
Meanness and grandeur have alternato reigned.
Thither in latter days hath genius fled
Trom yonder city to repine and die.
There the sweet bard of Auburn sate, and tuned
The plaintive moanings of his village dirge.
There learned Chambers treasured lore for man,
And Newbery there his A B C for babes.
William Home was fond of a stroll to Canonbury Tower,
and has left us in his ‘Everyday Book a very good woodcut
of it.
At an earlier date, 1600, Sir Arthur Atye, public orator to
the University of Oxford, lived there. Lord Chancellor
Egerton, afterwards Lord Ellesmere, and Wiscount Brackley
resided there from and after 1605. Sir Francis Bacon, Lord
Verulam, when Attorney-General, in 1616, became lessee
NEWINGTON GREEN. 487
from Lord and Lady Compton. And in 1625 Lord Keeper
Coventry made Canonbury House his residence for several
years, that is, to 1635. Lord Derby visited Lord Coventry
at Canonbury House in the last-named year, and was
‘detained by the greatest snow he ever saw in England.’
William Fielding, Earl of Denbigh, died at Canonbury
House in 1688. Arthur Onslow, the Speaker of the House
of Commons in 1761, sought for health at the tower. Many
distinguished and historical characters have inhabited this
old house since Queen Elizabeth used to visit it and hunt
there. Where are the woods and heaths which lay around
it now? Cut down, fenced in, and covered with a dense
town, one mass with Islington, and Islington with London.
The old tower itself is hemmed in and shut up amidst
houses.
NEWINGTON GREEN
is one of the old places of the parish, and has had ancient
houses and distinguished inhabitants. It had till of late
years a still out-of-the-way look, surrounded in most parts
by large Old trees, and green lanes led to it from most sides.
Population and houses have now crowded up to it on all sides.
On the south side used to stand the large mansion of the
Nſildmay family, now altered and converted into two or three
dwellings. Sir Henry Mildmay in the reign of Charles I.
obtained this house with its park, gardens, &c., of more than
forty acres, and extending nearly to Ball’s Pond, with his
wife, the daughter of Alderman Halliday, who had lived
there. Sir Henry Mildmay was one of the judges of King
Charles, and his property was, therefore, forfeited at the
Restoration, except this of Newington Green, which had
been settled by the careful alderman on his daughter,
Lady Mildmay, and descended to her posterity. Sir Henry's
488 ISLINGTON.
brother, Anthony, was on the opposite side in the civil War,
and was so much attached to Charles, that he attended him
on the scaffold, as one of his confidential servants, and was
one of the number who superintended the interment of his
remains at Windsor. In this house were, and probably still
are, handsomely wainscotted rooms, carved chimney-pieces,
and stuccoed ceilings, one of these having the initials J. R.,
those of King James, very likely commemorating a visit of
his to the family of Sir William Halliday, who, besides the
daughter married to Sir Henry Mildmay, had another,
married to Sir Edward Hungerford. :
There used to be a very old house at the north-east corner
of the Green, which has long ago given way to some modern
ones, which tradition says used to be occupied by Henry
VIII. ; or, when he came there with many attendants, these
occupied this old house, and he himself the large one after-
wards belonging to the Mildmays. That Henry was fond of
this neighbourhood, no doubt on account of the hunting
which it afforded, as well as of witnessing archery, bull-
baiting, and bear-baiting, is well known, and the walk pro-
ceeding from the south-east corner of the Green to the
turnpike road by Ball's Pond still bears the name of “ King
Henry’s Walk,” though now a street.
Here also lived the unfortunate Henry Algernon Percy,
Earl of Northumberland, who incurred the monarch’s dis-
pleasure by being attached to Anne Boleyn before Henry
ever saw her. He was the lamb that had muddied the
stream to this brutal despot by drinking out of it below him.
There is a letter extant, dated from Newington Green, May
13, in the twenty-eighth year of Henry’s reign, in which the
Earl of Northumberland wishes damnation on himself if ever
there were any contract or promise of marriage betwixt Anne
Boleyn and himself. Nevertheless, Whatever formal contract
NEWINGTON GREEN. 489
there might or might not have been between them, there
was undoubtedly a warm attachment, and, no doubt, mutual
promises. Henry Percy was in attendance on Cardinal Wol-
sey, and the lion-hearted and lion-taloned monarch soon be-
came aware of this attachment, and severely snubbed Wolsey
for permitting it, and sent him to break off all hopes on the
part of the young lord. He in his turn was severely snubbed
by Wolsey, and as Wolsey had got a great fright, he gave
young Percy a great fright, and the poor young fellow had to
write this letter to Thomas, Lord Cromwell, disavowing, on
pain of damnation, the sacred affection and hope of his life.
Harry Tudor, however, was not to be satisfied with any pro-
testations, however solemn or awful. He made Wolsey send
for the Earl, and they forced him into a marriage with Lady
Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, for whom
he had no affection. Little did Wolsey imagine that this
evil deed would in the end work his own ruin; but Anne
Boleyn, who seems to have had a devoted love for Henry
Percy, never forgot the Cardinal’s part in it. From her,
there is no doubt, came the damning whispers against Wolsey
which raised the deadly malice of the King against him.
We are told that she and her father worked incessantly for
his ruin; and he had a significant reminder of the fact, when
Henry sent for him from his palace of Cawood, in Yorkshire,
to complete his destruction. The person sent to execute this
office was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Wolsey
at first hoped that, as the Earl had been brought up amongst
his retainers, his presence was a sign of the King’s returning
favour. The Earl’s salutation—‘My Lord, I arrest you of
high treason l’ struck him dumb, and must have shown him
the finger of Anne Boleyn in his fate. In this Newington
Green at that day, there must have been a sad heart, which,
amidst all the insignia of station, felt the heavy remembrance
4.90 ISILINGTON.
of a rudely torn-up happiness. And he was doomed to feel
still the diabolical malice of the greatest monster of lust,
ferocity, and ruffianism that ever sate upon a throne. The
Tudor who revelled in the blood of wives and nobles, had
the consummate barbarity to appoint the Earl of Northum-
berland one of Anne’s judges. Not content with having torn
her from him, he resolved that he should sit to destroy her;
but the trial was too much for Percy’s feelings. He was
seized with such agitation and illness in the court, that he
was obliged to quit it, before the arraignment of Lord
Rochford, Anne Boleyn's brother, and died a few months
afterwards.
Northumberland is said “prodigally to have given away a
great part of his lands and inheritance to the King and
others.” Under what pressure was this done? Probably.
something of the same kind as that under which he gave to
the King the woman of his heart | The King, no doubt,
wanted these lands, and in Henry VIII. to want anything
was to have it.
A gold ring, set with diamonds, was found nearly fifty
years ago behind Mildmay House, two feet deep in the
earth, supposed to have belonged to some lady of Henry
VIII.’s Court.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHAPEL at Newington Green, which
dates from 1708, has a history of considerable interest. Like
most other Presbyterian chapels in England, it found its
Congregation go over at a particular crisis to Unitarianism,
to which it still adheres. It has had a succession of able
ministers, some of whom are of world notoriety, and to whom
we shall return in the notices of our great men. Amongst
these were Dr. Price and Mr. Rochemont Barbauld. To Dr.
Price there is an inscription tablet in the chapel, as follows:
—‘To the memory of Richard Price, D.D., F.R.S., born at
NEWINGTON GREEN. ' 491
Tynton, Glamorganshire, Feb. 23rd, 1723; died at Hack-
ney, Middlesex, April 19th, 1791. Theologian, philosopher,
mathematician; friend to freedom, as to virtue; brother of
man; lover of truth, as of God. His eminent talents were
matched by his integrity, simplicity, and goodness of heart;
his moral dignity by his profound humility. Few have been
more useful in their generation, or more valued by the wise
and good : none more pure and disinterested. Honoured be
his name: imitated his example.”
This inscription was written by the Rev. Thomas Crom-
well, a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, and his biographer,
till recently minister of this chapel.
There is also a commemorative tablet—“In memory of
Anna Laetitia Barbauld, daughter of John Aikin, M.D., and
wife of the Rev. Rochemont Barbauld, formerly the respected
minister of this congregation. She was born at Kibworth,
in Leicestershire, 20th of June, 1743, and died at Stoke
Newington, 9th of March, 1825.’ A just and well-deserved
eulogism follows.
ISLINGTON GREEN, OLD QUEEN'S LIEAD, PIED BULL, &c.
The Green, which once had its watch-house, its cage, its
engine-house and pair of stocks, and was the refuge of dust
heaps and rubbish, now presents the appearance of an en-
closed shrubbery. Since the passing of the Reform Bill, it
has been made the place of election. There are, or were,
several houses of note and antiquity in the vicinity of the
Green. In the Lower Street, opposite the end of Cross
Street, was a house called
492 ISLINGTON.
THE FISHER HOUSE,
having been the residence of Sir Thomas Fisher about the
commencement of the seventeenth century. The arms of
Fisher and Fowler were over opposite doors on the landing-
place of the grand staircase. Anthony Wood says that
Ezekiel Tongue, author of several tracts against the
Papists, kept an academy there, teaching young ladies
Latin and Greek in the large gallery of the house. Since
that it became occupied as a lunatic asylum.
The Fowlers, lords of the manor of Barnsbury, had a house
nearly opposite to Fisher House.
THE FOWLER HOUSE.
The family of Fowler was a very considerable one in the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Sir Thomas Fowler, Knt.,
was deputy-lieutenant of the county of Middlesex, and one
of the jurors on the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603.
His son Thomas was created a baronet in 1628; and on his
death, his brother Edmund Fowler succeeded to the title,
which in him became extinct, and the family name and
property passed to Sir Thomas Fisher, who married the
daughter of the second Sir Thomas Fowler, which explains
the union of the arms on the Fisher House. On a ceiling of
this house were the arms and initials of Queen Elizabeth
and the date 1595. There were also the arms of Sir Thomas
Fowler, and of Jane, his wife. Tittle of these, however, if
anything, according to Tomlin, now remains; a Dissenting
chapel standing on the site of the Fowler House. The me-
mory of these ancient houses is still perpetuated by prints,
of which good ones exist in the first edition of Nelson's
“Islington.”
THE OLD QUEEN’s HEAD. 493
What has survived is a small building in a small street
called Allen Street, and which bears the traditional name of
Queen Elizabeth’s Lodge. This is not more than fifteen feet
Square, and therefore has puzzled people by such a name.
It formerly stood at the extremity of the garden belonging
to the Fowler House, and probably being at that time the
lodge of Sir Thomas Fowler's house, Elizabeth passed through
it on visiting there ; or she might occupy the house some
time on her sojourn in Islington.
:** .
ºÉ-
ºº:-
º:º----
-.:
*- #
i* *
:-3.
|
º
-.s
i--
.:
º.º
.-
-:
-
* * *
t -
Đ
ºn
ſº
§ 3.3
sº
#iarrari- " -- ºr: in ºr T.",
* * * * * , Fººl ºf º 'º 4
§: sº Hºuſ *; ſº :
- lſº flºº
lºſiºſ";
º'ſ. ',
ſºrrº
ãº...º.º. * -- - - - -
=-&f==º §º ** #2. --, -- ~ (.. :… . . ." - - --
*gºſº
*:… -** - - - - -
* T - - - - -- - ~ *
... . . . . . . " * * * * = . *- : * *
t º, & . 9..] [...v. - -
º: 4...º. - ‘. . . . .''…. r < * : ...”..tº 1-7 º' -- ºr ---- -... ." . .” - I. º.º. “
Pºrk ºfflºi. ' '...
.--'º.2 ---.3"sº-s:--- ºr "-- - - - . .”... . . . . . * F--- - - --- - . . --- - -
** -º-;" -> *- : ...- :.º. … ----. § 3 -: - 24
OLD QUEEN’s HEAD.
(From a Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
THE OLD QUEEN'S HEAD.
The “Queen’s Head” in the Lower Street, at the corner of
Queen’s Head Lane, is supposed to have been Originally a
gentleman’s house, and Mr. Ellis, in his “Campagna of Lon-
don,’ p. 96, says that, according to tradition, it was the
residence of Lord Treasurer Burleigh, when the Queen was
here. Tradition adds, that not only Essex, her favourite,
resided occasionally here, but that the Queen herself did.


- 494 ISLINGTON.
Ellis says, that there were formerly in a yard of a neigh-
bouring tenement two lions carved in wood, the supporters
of the Cecil arms, confirming the belief of the Cecil family
having possessed the place. It has been supposed that Sir
Walter Raleigh converted this house into an inn, when he
obtained his licence from Queen Elizabeth “for keeping
taverns and retailing wine throughout England,’ and that
he gave it the name of the “Queen’s Head,” in honour of his
royal mistress. Possibly, the house had fallen into decay,
for, at one time, Queen Elizabeth’s saddler is stated to have
lived in it. - -
When Brewer compiled his ‘Beauties of England and
Wales,” in 1816, the “Queen’s Head’ was one of the most
perfect specimens of ancient domestic architecture remain-
ing in the environs of London. It was a strong wood and
plaster building of three stories, projecting over each other,
and forming bay windows in front, supported by brackets
and carved figures. The centre protruded several feet be-
yond the rest of the front, and formed a commodious porch,
to which there was a descent of several steps. The super-
structure was supported by caryatides of carved oak, crowned
with Ionic scrolls, standing on each side of the entrance.
The interior was in the ancient style of oak panelled wain-
scot, stuccoed ceilings, and carved chimney-pieces. The
stone slab over the fire-place of a front room on the ground
floor had a classical design of Diana, and Actaeon in
relief, with mutilated figures of Bacchus, Venus, &c. This
ancient building was pulled down in 1829, and a new house,
still called the old ‘Queen’s Head,” erected on the site.
º:
º
.
mirrºr ſº
• , º iº. -
|Élºſiºjºſº,
! “F” . i § t! | it'ſ... -
- sl: “ . . .) ~~~
ºº::::::::: *
º * *
,, ...}}|...tº lºº!'ſ
i' 'i'i - # in t
|\ººl'ſ.
|| # #
It!
ſ:
#2s.
ſº º
PIED BUT, L,
(From Nelson's “JHistory of Islington.')
THE PIED BULL.
Not far from the Green also stands an old house strongly
affirmed to have been the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh.
It is, and has been for a great many years, a public-house,
called the ‘Pied Bull.’ It has undergone many alterations,
and the last time I saw it was still undergoing such. There
are no arms or direct indications of Sir Walter’s possession
of this house. The arms emblazoned on a window were
those of Sir John Miller, impaling those of Gregg of Suffolk;
but it is supposed that those of Sir Walter may have occu-
pied the same place, and have been erased for Miller’s ; for
the border enclosing the arms consisted of two mermaids,
each crested with a globe, and as many sea-horses support-
ing a bunch of green leaves over the shield; and the lower
part contained a green and grey parrot. These representa-















496 ISLINGTON.
tions of maritime and tropical emblems seem allusive to Sir
Walter’s transatlantic adventures, and the green leaves were
imagined to be those of tobacco, which he introduced. But
these really seem to be the arms of Sir Francis Drake.
There was a chimney-piece in the ‘Pied Bull’ ornamented
with a representation of Faith, Hope, and Charity, with
their usual insignia, in niches, surrounded by a border of
cherubim, fruit, and foliage. Above the figure of Charity,
which occupied the centre, were two Cupids suspending a
crown, and beneath were the supporters of the royal arms in
a couchant position. This was a conceit of the artist in
compliment to the maiden Queen. The ceiling also con-
tained a personification of the five senses in stucco, with the
name of each in Latin underneath. In the window were
also arms of Porter and Pennythorne. In the ‘Life of Sir
Walter Raleigh,” by Oldys and Birch, it is stated that the
tenant, at that time, affirmed that his landlord possessed
old account-books which put it beyond all doubt that the
house did belong to Sir Walter, with fourteen acres of land.
There can, therefore, remain no question as to its having been
the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh. At what time it be-
came an inn does not appear. Good views of the ‘ Pied Bull’
exist in Nelson’s ‘ Islington.’
WARD’S PLACE.
The buildings bearing this name, between Lower Chapel
Street and Paradise Place, occupy the site of an old house
which was pulled down in 1800. There was a tradition that
it had been called Hunsden House, from having been the resi-
dence of Henry Carey, cousin of Queen Elizabeth, created by
her Lord Hunsden. On the front of the old house, abutting
on Lower Street, was inscribed King John’s Place, and
THE OLD AND NEW PARISH CHURCEI. 497
tradition asserted it to have been an occasional residence of
that monarch, than which nothing could be more natural,
for John was fond of hunting and had hunting-lodges in
various parts of the kingdom, either as Prince or King. It
appears that Sir Thomas Lovell, Knt., rebuilt the house, which
remained till 1800; and from armorial bearings of Dudley
executed in the stained glass of one of the windows, there is
little doubt that it belonged at one time to Robert, Earl of
Leicester, Queen Elizabeth’s unprincipled favourite, and is
another proof of how much that Queen frequented this
neighbourhood, thus necessitating her courtiers to have
houses here too. It afterwards became the property of Sir
Robert Ducy, Bart., the banker to Charles I. The house was
distinguished for its stained-glass windows illustrating the
Scripture subjects of the ‘Faithful Steward,’ the ‘ Prodigal
Son,” Apostles and Saints. It had also a splendid chimney-
piece, containing the arms of the City of London with those
of Lovell quartering Muswell, or Mosell; the arms of the
Priory of St. John of Jerusalem; of Gardeners of London,
Grocers; and of the Company of Merchant Adventurers.
THE OLD AND NEW PARISH CHURCH.
Amongst the dozen or more churches and chapels of ease,
in different parts of Islington, four of which, St. Paul’s near
Ball's Pond, St. Peter's, Trinity, and St. John’s, were erected
by Charles Barry, Esq., architect of the New Houses of
Parliament, we must devote a few words to the old and new
church of St. Mary, because they are matters of history.
The old church is supposed to have been built about 1483,
from an inscription on the steeple discovered when pulling
it down in 1751. The remains of many people of note who
E. E.
498 ISILINGTON.
had lived in the place lay in the interior. Amongst these
were the ashes of Lady Alice Owen, who erected the school
and almshouses in St. John Street Road, Clerkenwell; various
members of the Fowler family; of Sir Nicholas Kempe,
member of the High Commission Court under Charles I.,
and a son of Sir Harbottle Grimston, a leading politician of
Cromwell’s time, and speaker of what was called the “Healing
Parliament.”
In the churchyard lay the dust of Richard Cloudesley,
who, out of an uneasy conscience, as Purlet in ‘De Miraculis
Naturae suggests, ‘ on yº score of some sinne by him per-
adventure committed,” left various bequests to this and
other churches, for masses, requiems, and great wax candles
to “burn at the Sacryng of the mass.’ The most valuable of
these bequests was that of the Stoney Field of fourteen acres,
or, as stated later, sixteen acres, and something more. This
land in Henry VIII.'s time was valued at 4!. per annum; in
1809, upon an application from the Corporation of London,
to purchase it as an eligible spot for a cattle market, it was
valued at 22,8931. 15s. Its rental has been employed in
repairing the parish church and the three new ones. It is
now worth vastly more, being covered with streets and
squares, including Cloudesley Square, Cloudesley Terrace,
Stonefield Street, &c. -
Within the PRESENT PARISH CHURCH, amongst the nume-
rous remains of many eminent citizens and their wives, lie
those of the only daughter of Lord Delamere, who died in
1717. In the south aisle is a marble tablet in memory of
Dr. Hawes, the founder of the Humane Society, which says
that he was ‘ buried near these walls,” meaning, doubtless,
outside of them. There is a cross against the wall of the
north aisle in memory of Margaret Saville, one of the
Fowlers of Islington, and wife of Sir Henry Saville of
THE OLD AND NEW PARISH CHURCH. 499
Yorkshire, supposed to be the father of the more celebrated
Sir George Saville.
In the churchyard there are inscriptions to the memory of
Sir John Mordaunt, late of Tangier, knight banneret, who
died in 1723. There is an inscription on a vault, recording
the burial there of John Nichols the printer, author of the
‘History of Leicestershire,’ and editor for nearly half a
century of the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine.” His two wives and
several children, as well as other members of his family,
Occupy the same tomb, or have a record upon it.
In the Register are some curious entries. We find that,
in 1593, 106 persons died of the plague in Islington; and in
1665, 593 persons, 94 dying in one week.
Sir William Perriam, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer,
in the reign of Elizabeth, was married at this church to
Margery Huchyson, April 6, 1562.
Sir Henry Yelverton, Solicitor and Attorney-General to
King James, was as a child baptised in this church in 1566.
Lady Worcester, the daughter of Sir Anthony Browne,
standard-bearer to Henry VII., and ancestor of the Lords
Browne and Montagu, was buried here in 1584. She was
widow of the Earl of Worcester, who died in 1549.
Many members of the families of Fowler and Fisher lie
buried in this church.
|Richard, a son of Sir Thomas Holte, of Aston, in Warwick-
shire, was baptised October 2, 1604; Katharine, his daughter,
was buried August 3, 1605. .A.
Ann Compton, daughter of Lord William Compton, and
wife of Ulick Burgh, Marquis of Clanricard, baptised
Sept. 6, 1605.
Several of the family of Sir James Stonehouse married or
buried here. The Stonehouse family were for many years
impropriators of the rectory.
k K 2
* NOTH) NITSI 009
‘909] ‘9 “10O (IoImtſo SITI) III posſ] dº?q
STA ‘opSmut JO TOTTIIId B sp.tº Miloju ‘utſoſ (IOS sprſ putt “IO)
-juſtSI qu poATI ‘oſsmüI (IO toyſ. A polluſclo[00 ouſ, ‘pto] Kuld
‘IIoIIſoqoiſ S. TºnourtroTN III pou.Toolroo
5uſoq Ioj polmooxo piſt: ‘SKoſſoſ offpnſ Kd pottutoptroo Inoq
O.IOM “Tſuruſuſog Lotſhold Spù put, ‘Tºmo K 01bumſ).Toſtin SITIT,
‘999'ſ ‘83 “10O posſ] dºg “3trºl AoE.I truſtſtrog Jo IOS “utºpſiAA
‘ošed KIOAO "SOUTIt uſ ... tſu[It]IIgſ, S. tropuſt:0
100T.TOO O". Oſgºt trooq oAbū ol “Soſtmbuſ [poſtO)SIH , SIII uſ
‘poSSojo.[d oll 'SSINI (IºTopLUH ot!) uſ poA:1080.Idiott: ‘IO)5uſſsſ
UIO.I] poºp Ol't' Iſopuſ M JO OM) .8.10)].OT, SIII "[I]9qºzº[GI Jo
uároſ oſſ, 5trºmp trouttſ It'd. Jo SIBILImoſ, où.) Jo IOInnt, où)
“K.Tºmb ſhut quo.13 E SUM (IOUTIS TIS 'posſ]ditºl OSTB “SOMOGI (Iouris
TIS, Jo toytºntºp tº put “posſ]duq ‘ĀſhūOAOO Todooyſ pionſ
otſ) Jo UOS B SPAA Osotſ, 1s5utouTV upo.Intſo SIUſ) tº “posſ]duq IO
poſing ‘port.It UT JO poſtoſtri otoM oſſ) Jo Oſdood Totſ]o ſtreſſ
‘OI91 ‘zz II,[d V ototi poſſinq St.M.
u0,103T ‘OS XLIBou (IB5IOIN put ‘pollº St.M (IO)103T (IoITIM
up ‘Utt:3.10ſ pitt: Mpº'ſ otto put ‘UIO].todºſ IIIoſ IIS JO (IOS ‘Uttoſ
qXIM]oq oſot ootſd XIOO] [omp Toulout tºok duTAOIOJ oth UT
'609T ‘OT locutoAON poſing OtoA Kotſ.I.
‘Āſdot put of utopſûtio ouſ, St IIoM St, *u.015uTIST Jo KIO)SIH ,
s.SIAA or I (Iſ punoj od MºUT SITIL "outſ] qtl1.1 qt, Ottſtºſs tº Oq 0.10A
ouſA ‘Sºučguyſ “tto),THILAA of Too!) TIS put 1.It'Moſs Souttſ TIS
trooMºoq ‘IIopuorſ Tºotſ quânoj KToºtſ opt:(IUIOO B Jo put[Ugſ
opºuouTuT W., outſ, oth qu pousſland SEA Ototſ], “OAt 13
otro III poſinq od on UIoTI) poropto Soult'ſ ‘Häno.III) Totſ]o
–ut ouo Uſºſ.put poſio.Ltºmb “put I'loos Jo Tolmsbotſ, pIOr] ‘otſ)
-uulgſ ptorſ Jo (IOS Sopſo put: “I Sourt'ſ O1 (IOspoš ‘ltºons
Sourtſ put ‘UO1ſt IIAA p.IOT JO (IOS ‘ttoqqºlīAA 03:009 IIS
'gz91 ‘97. IIIdy posſ, duq ‘MooutKOI KIIIoH TIS Jo Uſos ºutſoſ
‘809 I ‘6 ‘q9JI
poptibul ‘IIoMAtºmos KittſN pitt: “quyſ ‘līānoosv Kruopſ US
I09 * EIO'Iſl] Iſ) IISIYIV CI M (IN. CINW (ITO GIFIL
Touſſo put ‘ošpſ.Iqumſ, ‘uds ‘Ulugſ “pulouſ.I.K..] §urſ) tº ſuit uO put
‘TIt poxy] upw toºt. A uouTutoo 5uryuu:30.Idurº UO ‘Toyotºutſo
[populouſo tº Jo SXLIOM Smoºtt'A Jo Tottºn't StºA of "Käoſtºl
-ouTIN Jo u101SKS B sp.tºwo, KUSSGI, S.] pollstroIO poſtISubil
of Sogoroos udyoto; Suot.It'A Jo todulotu put 'Sº I'll SUM.
out 0.10t|A ‘putläuſ'ſ up oAII. On out to put: “uſ” ſt'ſ ubuloyl ou'l
poounouot ºnq ‘ūOqsſrſ Jº XIIIout tº trooq putſ or 'toudosoſºlid
[8tm1 but put sºutouſo on not ult: St.M Suðutiloš BWI (IºuſouKH
UTOſ "A0I UII Uſ] top SIII III]. Upod tº oppsø, Oſ, ponuſ]uoo
put ‘8/9I O OP9ſ utoſ; burſtſo uſ poſio.Abdº ouſA ‘SIOUTIIoãuſN
qusoſ ouſ, Jo OAT) blot tº Osſe StºA off 'Sput] S StrobúIoš
-BIN Jo 10.10AOosp oth ‘StroutilošūTN Opuburb.IOJI poltſ.ſqoloo
où.) Jo IOSpub.13-180.13 SEM osomân).IOJ op|U}[Ibuſa.I SIMI,
'06/I ‘g I Kruniqoiſ poſind ‘StrobúIoãuſN op (IºuſouKH truſoſ
‘SXLIOM TOUI)0
put “UOISS000ms [tºdo'ſ oth Jo KIO)SIH IOUS V , Jo IOII]ut
pút ‘loo.Ins on Båstopſ V uſ to] stupur U. S.It:0K KAJIJ SUA KUSpurſ
‘IIN '891. I ‘g Kºnſ poſinq ‘ouſAIp 3uſinſuouſ U “urſtſ ox|II ‘put
‘ū.InqXIOUIgE JO puroſiſ on burrºuſ UIU ‘Ābspurrſ IIIIoſ Aoºſ ouT.
ºutſu tºod I put ‘Auouſ].toduſ SUA out, ‘UOSUIU[of
pſes ."osn'good ,—xfoot S!!! IIodin loop spºt ºnd put ‘ssuſ3poſ
IIAAO S. troSutſoſ III “Oſlo, B (ITIM (IAAOp poxſootDI UOSUIU[of
‘ICI tuouſ& put “1000'0'ſ U1.1OAA SUAA ouſ yºu!] SUOq 0) postm
OUAA ‘IOIOSMOOC out). OttºodSO Jo Suſtulot out) or 0.10H
"[b][dsOH XOJ IIbuIS out, Jo IOTuqſ)SIII otſ) St.A put ºurnooſ.
opt: A Tuo;s&I.I., où Jo , ; oottu.II III SIOAUTI, , Jo Journe
SUA OſOOJ ICI 3G/ I ‘g Oullſ' poſiuq ‘OIOOCI 1.10(IOM ‘ICL
‘IV/I ‘6I ‘AON
poſing ‘SXLIOM S.UOO'Bq ptor JO (IOI) ſpo ut; Jo put: “[[0] Sto
-opio utt[of IAS ăuţutoottoo otokuoluo song, jo IOTIbo
put, “do[SIC] juſtmſulotſ tº ‘tſ.Inqxiouſ I (ITIOſ po)”.Iqoloo otſ.I.
'069'ſ ‘OI ‘ān-V poſinq ‘spoq Tſotſ) (Iſ (918) topunt[] Jo
dulo tº Ka poſtp[ ‘to 180EI 104tſälltºp rouſ put, ‘poolſ) buttusns
502 ISILINGTON.
waters. He was well known in the Netherlands, where he
bad been a canon, and was master of Portuguese, Spanish,
Italian, English, French, Latin, and some Dutch. He lived
in lodgings in Islington, and desired to be buried very
privately.
Thomas Cooke, buried August 30, 1811, aged eighty-five.
IHe was called the Miser of Pentonville, and died with the
reputation of never having helped a single individual, or
done any single act of good through his whole life. But
he bequeathed 127,205l., and that chiefly to charitable in-
stitutions. There is a life of him by W. Chamberlaine.
The Rev. John Pridden, buried April 12, 1825. Mr.
Pridden was son-in-law to Nichols, editor and proprietor of
the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ and assisted him in his topo-
graphical pursuits. He spent thirty years of his life in
making an epitome of the six volumes of the rolls of Parlia-
ment; but what he deserves a notice here for especially is,
that he surveyed the ground betwixt Snow Hill and Holborn,
and submitted to the Corporation the plan of a handsome
bridge to connect them. The Corporation highly com-
mended the plan, but left it to the citizens of the present
day to carry out. r
We now come to the most extraordinary entry of all—
that of the baptism of Olive, soi-disamt Duchess of Cumber-
land.
MIRS, OTLIVIA. SERRIES.
The present generation has seen Mrs. Ryves, the daughter
of Olivia Serres, spending her life in endeavouring to esta-
blish the claims which her mother advanced to be the
grand-daughter of the Duke of Cumberland, brother of
George III. Mrs. Ryves has brought her case before the
Courts of Justice repeatedly, and finally in 1866 (?), with
very little Satisfaction. It has long been quite clear that
80% “SGISISIGIS WIAITO "Sº IJN
“SSouſoup 1s.Ig STUI Ka ‘put[[oduino
Jo ox{n(I ‘Moſtopoliſ K.IttoH 01BI ouſ, Jo JoJuántºp Áſuo ‘OATIO
|posſ] deq ‘9 qdos ‘Izg|I,-: SUITO] 3UIAAOIIo] ouſ] up podo[0A0p
ÁEUboſo Sput]s [O]] UUI oth otou A ‘Tolstäo.1 UISTIBd ouſ, OTUI
dood on Iolju Kup ouſ, UIotſ) poſ SSoutoAITISImbuſ 5uſAId OSOHA
oSOUT O1 (IAAOUXI outbooq 10.109s out! III] pogºtáun pourſ but
-01 Krols/ſul spuſ) Ág popoxo KATSOL.Ino ouT, Sãuſpoooo..[d
otſ, p.1000. On XIIoſo USITUd oth IOJ putos O1 UIOAO KIUSS000U qſ
qušnotſ, 5urſ.Abu Toul KhUpd oth ‘tſotnuſo out, UT OUTI) ouTOS 019A
‘putopſ] tou put ‘Āpuſ ouſ] ‘UOSIEd. otil, ‘Tºlſt, où l’º putuſ
..It'ſ IOU AOlsoq O] quoqu SEAA Apt, oùl populou Oo AAOU SEA
qſ UIOUIAA UIO put ‘ošt, Iou JTBUI utt[] O.IOUI hott Jo AOIIo] §uno Á
3uſuſsup tº Kd Tºboo ouſ, Jo ºno popubu ‘AljJ ºnoqu AT]uo.I
-Eddie ‘ouTup possoſp-TIOAA ‘Āſh;IOd B 5uroos UIO popoxo (Ionut
SUAA STUIETIqtuuſ 5uſ.Inoquêrou out, Jo Kºſsoſano ouſ I, p.I.U.K.
-IIoInt[o out) Jo O'B5 ou! O! UOAIT) sp.TUATOlyū IIOOS St.A
UſoſtIAA ‘0] U.[no ot]. Jo IOop ouſ]. It jumpu U1s poAIOSqo SUAA
‘xlub.I. Jo UOsted tº Jo AT]uo.I.Eddie “offer.IIbo oth ‘suſ Kºps.Intſ.I.
UO ‘UOOUIOTO] ouſ uſ XIooſo.o UtøAoſo quoq W ‘O3b SKup May
tº Uſolutio (1013utts I qu Ootſd XIOO] Uſoſt[AA ‘SSoouT.Id umo.6
-117ſ tº Jo UIST] dug otſ, Jo ‘Attapuodsø.I.IOO U UIO.J OAbū oAA
IIoſt|A ‘UOInt:10.1 3up/AOLIO.j oth qu posmuſt put posſ.Idiſms od
IIIAA onqud otll-‘9NINGILSIIHO TVXOMI,-: Udº.15t.It'd spun
potboddº ‘Izs] ‘g I Toquio)doS ‘todºdsAoû . ToIOAUTI, , où)
III 'topUItd osmot[ U “OUTIIAA 1.10(IOM JO toºlſ?ntºp oun St.
3|0|AIGAA qu posſ]dug trooq Kouºuſ toll UT 3UIAbu ‘pubploq
-UInſ) Jo Oxn(I oth Jo Toluśntºp ouſ) SE posſ] dºg SUA pub
‘Ut:0K Uluſu-Killo] IoTI III ‘ūOlăuţISI ‘s, KILIN “S 10 poſteodde
ÁTuoppins ous ‘Tºns.Ind SIU[] uſ so.Inquo Apt. Toti Jo OSInoo ouſ)
III 'oïmºbu KTO]oſp?ITUOO Tſoul pub SSoundulo Iſoul oos on
[ſº] IIbo ouo Ou ‘sutſulo Osotſ, 5uſtſdutoºtloo Uſ put surguſo
oAISSooons Toul OAOId O, Shutoutnoop Jo JoãTO] old tâût ſopuſ ut:
SUAA outs 'XIII.U.I SIU 9tſ) Jo IO]SOduiſ Ug SUA SOLIOS STIN
504, \ ISTINGTON.
Mrs. Serres figures in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ in
1814, vol. lxxxiv. part 1, as the advocate of her grandfather,
Dr. Wilmot, being Junius, but there is no claim in these
letters of her being the daughter of the Duke of Cumber-
land. But in 1820, six years afterwards, she had pondered
out a new phase of her story, and presented a petition to
the House of Commons, July 11, as Princess of Cumberland.
In October, 1821, she placarded the walls of London with
a statement, that not being able to get a payment of 15,000l.
left her by George III.-a fact which, she said, had been
proved by law—she was then under arrest for debt. She
dated from 45 ICing Street, Soho, signing ‘Olive.”
We now see the object of the baptism in the preceding
month at Islington. In June 1822, her claims were argued
by Dr. Dodson and Dr. Haggard in the Prerogative Court,
and they were replied to by Dr. Lushington, and the Court
decided that the application did not come within its jurisdic-
tion. In court with Mrs. Serres appeared a gentleman
calling himself Captain Fitz-Stratherne, cousin of the Prin-
cess Olive.
In the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for 1822, part ii. p. 34,
Mrs. Serres relates that in the beginning of June of that
year the late Earl of Warwick appeared to her with a large
sealed packet in his hand. Whether he left this packet or
not, she does not say ; but we may infer that the packet
contained the documents of which she afterwards made so
Imuch use. -
In an article following this extraordinary letter, it is stated
that she had recently issued, from her apartments on Ludgate
Hill, a proposal to publish by subscription two volumes of
poems, in which she repeats the story of the 15,000l. left by
George III., and the refusal on the part of Government to
pay it her. This article then goes on to show the contradic-
G09 “SGI’ISISIS WIAITO ‘S'IN
up popp III of 100%) 'smſunſ Jo IOUTn3 poumsold out 3uſ
-]oodso.I / ISI III optand out 3UTArooop trooq 0Abū ‘SnuI oUS
‘ūlūq [BK0I Toul Aoux] ous yet!) 3UT) ſtupt: “Sntſ.I. ipoſ.I.I.EUI
toAoti stºw put “ofoun toti SpA Tour(IAA ‘ICI BII] ‘tolje Sruok
OA). ‘ISI up 5uſºuls Kloſſand lotſ pug oA ‘10.100s pub.t5 stul
Jo ošpopMAOIUI tou 3upulºst|||Alou ‘nox ‘tolſ, typutſià Ioll
publiſoquimo Jo OxnCI OUT pub ‘tonuſ ºntºp SITI qud ‘40UIIAA ‘ICI
JO 000Tu out) |OU SEA ous quuſ) UAAOUXI oppūI Smull SUA ºr bul
but ‘SIU[] O1 KIOAITISOd otOAAS outs ‘Uhlſd snoRIASnIII tou Jo
q9,109s ouſ poſt,0A0I GISI UT MOTAAIBAA Jo ITUGI OU) ºbuº, “unoo
-Ot, UAO Lou On 3trip.IOoot: ‘oſop).It oth up pox|IbuIol ST TI
* e ‘qūbout
uox10ſq b Jo quoAu00 t uſ pop put ‘poqſtosop og 04 4ou
ontºs t uſ oottº.J. O.1 poAoAUIOO SUA pub ‘Iopuolo.I.I OUT OATIO
O) untiq OAU3 ‘pouſ Updxo Tou SI upſuſAA UIOI) obsu'81). Injpgolp
OUIOS UIOIJ pologns I/I UII ‘OUITIAA ICIJO aſ IAA ‘IXISA01BIUIO.T
SSoottºld ou.I. Jºnoo ouſ) |nogº stroStod Aaj tº Ol KTUIO unwoux.
SUA ošūIIIBUI SIUIL (Zopp W ‘IJN tº put, ‘To AIBAA plorſ sp.IUAA
-Iolye ‘OXIOO.IgE p.IOT JO ooutoso.Id orſ, UI ‘totſo.IV prorſ Jo Osnouſ
où l’b 'ſoul.TIAA ICI Aq poſitbur otoA Kotī, ‘A9/I “UoTBIN Jo IIHF
oul IIo ‘Abū I, poſſ UAOId publioquinſ) Jo OxnCI oth ostnoo Jo
qnq ‘Toulouſ Lou Jo pubul Toul quários publioquinº) Jo ox{n(I out,
put XIOIAA.I.UAA. JO [IBGI OUI) UAOC ºbu I, ‘UIOI) bompo IOU UEO O.IBO
quo.13 poAOlsoq Josuiſtſ ouſAA “JouTIAA ICI Jo Jolsºs put ‘ou Kºd
upºndeo Jo aſſM ‘ouſed saw Ág dn quânoid sua ous quil,
"put[od Jo Ouo.III] out, UO SUITBIo putſ ‘ostnoo Jo “put ‘ošup.I
-IUUI SIUI) Jo IO)tān'Up ouſl SbA J[OSIouſ ous quin pUIt? : put[OcI
Jo 5uly ‘Sntisſutºs Jo Ioºsſs ‘psAA01BIUOJ SSoou III on 1 O1
popuruu Koyuapid sua hourſ.A to ºutſ, “Iz81jo “K.Ibuſunriſ
USITIIgſ, où uſ ‘Ulotſ.I. 'MOAAIBAA JO ‘OUIIIAA 1.19qOM “Tou-10.Iq
SIU Jo Ionuţānup oth Josiouſ āuſoq (oti jo (totill "pop[IbuI
10Aou put ‘snºunſ Jo IOIII]nt, où 5uſoq JourUAA ICI Jo ‘As.III
‘opuu.I putſ outs ‘outſ] O1 outſ] UIOIJ ‘ûoſt|A Sluouro, B}s KIO)
506 ISILINGTON.
January, 1820, and Mrs. Serres made her claims on his will
in the ensuing session of Parliament.
The ‘Leeds Mercury’ published an article given in the
above account, most convincingly exposing the contradictions
of her statements at different times. It gives the baptismal
registry of Olive's birth at the parish church of St. Nicholas,
Warwick:-‘April 15, 1772, baptised, Olive, daughter of
Robert and Anna Maria, Wilmot.” Yet Olive asserted that
she was baptised in London in 1821, as daughter of the
Duke of Cumberland. We have just seen how this was
done. Well does the ‘Leeds Mercury’ say:—‘The lady was
famed for dealing in documentary evidence; but, unfortu-
nately for herself, the writers of all her documents always
happen to die before their letters and certificates are pro-
duced.” The pretended will of George III. was not his
acknowledged will, or a codicil to it; but, like all Mrs.
Serres's documents, was written on an odd scrap of paper,
which seemed to have been carried in the pocket till the
edges were worn off, and which she had pasted on another
paper. It was as follows:—
* George R.
- ‘St. James's.
“In case of Our Royal demise, we give and bequeath to
Olive, our brother of Cumberland’s daughter, the sum of
Fifteen Thousand Pounds, commanding our heir and suc-
cessor to pay the sum privately to our said niece, for her
use, as a recompense for the misfortunes she may have
known through her father. June 2, 1774.
‘CHATHAM.
“Witness—J. Dunning.’ WARWICK.
Mrs. Serres managed to impose on the Duke of Kent, who
allowed to her and to her daughter, Mrs. Ryves, 400l. a year,
which was paid to them by the late Robert Owen, of Lanark.
MIR.S. OLIVIA SERIRES, 507
At his death three years’ payments were found to have been
made by Robert Owen which had not been refunded, owing
to the death of the Duke of Kent. His son, the present
Hon. Robert Dale Owen, received this money from the
Crown when in England in 1860, on agreeing to give up
all letters and other documents connected with these pay-
ments, which he did.
On June 18, 1823, Sir Gerard Noel, in the House of Com-
mons, moved that the petition of Mrs. Serres for the granting
of her claims on the will of George III. should be taken into
consideration. This motion was seconded by Joseph Hume,
when Sir Robert Peel, amid the laughter of the House,
stripped away all the pretence of the soi-disant Princess of
Cumberland, by the most convincing facts and dates, and
the motion was withdrawn. Before this time Mrs. Serres
had set up her carriage, assumed the royal arms and livery,
and with these paraded boldly before the public. The result
of the discussion in the House of Commons was to lop the
Olive-branch from the royal tree on which she had endea-
voured to engraft herself. But her daughter, Mrs. Ryves,
being educated in a belief of these papers by her mother,
and confirmed in the assurance of their truth by the annuity
from the Duke of Kent, has prosecuted her supposed claims
only to make them the misery of her life, leaving her in a
poverty the more hard to bear after the indulgence of such
splendid hopes. The schemes of her mother, undoubtedly,
constituted one of the most daring and persevering attempts
at public imposition in history.
* See the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xciii. part 1, p. 637.
508 {SLINGTON,
THE ANGEL INN.
The ancient house, which was pulled down in 1819 to make
way for the present one, exhibited the usual features of a
large old country inn, having a long front, with an over-
hanging tiled roof, and two rows of windows, twelve in each
row, independent of those in the basement story. The prin-
cipal entrance was beneath a projection, which extended
along a portion of the front, and had a wooden gallery at
the top. The inn yard, approached by a gateway in the
centre, was nearly a quadrangle, having double galleries,
supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with Carya-
tides and other figures. These galleries had, doubtless, been
often thronged with spectators of dramatic entertainments,
at the period when inn-yards were customarily employed
for such purposes.
PRIORY OF ST. JOEIN OF JERUSAILEM.
In Clerkenwell there are two reminders of the past that
crave a brief notice—the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem
and Dame Alice Owen’s Hospital. As we approach the old
archway at St. John's Square, Clerkenwell, we are not only
reminded of Edward Cave and his ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’
of his great contributor, Dr. Johnson, and of those times, but
of a far earlier age, when the Knights Hospitallers were living
in their magnificent house there, of which this single Gothic
archway is the sole remains. That archway is a standing
monitor of the inevitable tendency of institutions which in
their hour of prime seem to bid defiance to time and opinion.
The Knights Hospitallers rose from the smallest beginnings,
and under the humblest pretences. After the taking of
Jerusalem in 1099 by Godfrey of Bouillon, they offered them-
PRIORY OF ST. JOHN OF JEB,USAILEMI. 509
selves as ‘servants of the poor, servants of the Hospital of
Jerusalem.” Their professed object was merely to nurse the
wounded; then they advanced to the assumed duty of keep-
ing Open the highways to the Holy Sepulchre, and so must
be armed and mounted; but so poor were they, in reality or
pretence, that they adopted for their seal the representation
of two men riding on One horse. They made a solemn vow
of poverty, chastity, celibacy, and mortification of the flesh.
But as the superstition of the times soon offered them wealth
and lands, they readily accepted them, and became one of
the most haughty, cruel, and domineering bodies in Christen-
dom. They appear to have been instituted in Jerusalem in
1048, and were not long in reaching England. One John
Briset is said to have been the founder of the Priory in
Clerkenwell, about 1100. They were not long in acquiring
a considerable part of the manor of Barnsbury; a knight's
fee in Islington, supposed to be the lands constituting part
of the manor betwixt Tollington Lane and the western ex-
tremity of the parish ; and the Manor of Highbury, reaching
from Smithfield to the parish of Hornsey, and including the
whole of the parish of St. John and part of that of St. James,
Clerkenwell; a tract of land contiguous to their house, up-
wards of twelve miles in circumference, and which they con-
tinued to possess till the time of the Dissolution. In a record
of the possessions of this order, in the year 1873, the follow-
ing occurs:–West Smithfield, Finchley, Islington, Kentish
Town, and Canonbury Manor. The Lord Prior had prece-
dence of all the lay barons in Parliament, and chief power
over all the preceptors and lesser barons of the order through-
out England.
Who could have believed that so stately, powerful, and
rich a body could ever be overturned, and only a single arch
of their magnificent house remain to tell the tale? Yet the
510 - ISLINGTON.
insolent pride and villanies of this Order had given them
some rubs, both at home and abroad. At the dissolution
of the religious houses, they were found to have lands in
England of the yearly value of 2,385l. 12s. 8d., and about
the year 1240 they are said to have possessed 19,000 lord-
ships or manors in different parts of Christendom. Such a
holy corporation must have felt persuaded that it should last
for ever. But its end, like that of every spiritual corpora-
tion, must come when it has first ripened and then rotted in
men’s opinions. King Henry came, and with him their end.
Henry VIII. turned the noble Priory into a coach-house for
‘ his toyles and tents for hunting and for war; and Somer-
set, the Protector in the reign of Edward VI., blew up the
church with gunpowder, together with its ‘great bell-tower,
a most curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and
° and Somer-
enameled, to the great beautifying of the city;
set carried away the stone thereof to build his palace in the
Strand. -
Such are the lessons of history; and they should teach the
members of institutions founded on human opinion merely,
that however mighty and flourishing they may appear at a
given time, a breath can, and some day will, overthrow
them, as it overthrew the Church of Rome when it seemed
fixed for ever in this country.
Islington seems to have been a very land of Goshen for
conventual institutions. Formerly the following monastic
bodies had estates in this parish :-
The Nunnery of Clerkenwell.
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.
The Priory of St. Bartholomew, London.
The Abbey of Vale Royal, Cheshire.
The Priory of St. Mary Spital, or New Hospital of our
Lady without Bishopsgate, London.
DAME OWEN’s HOSPITAL AND SCHOOLS. 511
DAME OWIEN'S HOSPITAL AND SCHOOLS.
Formerly, on the east side of St. John's Street, Clerken-
well, stood a low range of brick buildings; they were the
Free School and Almshouses of Lady Owen. The alms-
houses accommodated ten poor women, each having a single
apartment and a small garden behind. The school accom-
modated thirty boys. Over the entrance gate was a stone
bearing an inscription, stating that the six Almshouses and
Free Grammar School were built and endowed by Lady
Alice Owen in 1613, under the government of the Worshipful
Company of Brewers of the City of London.
In 1840–1, these buildings having become dilapidated, the
trustees pulled them down, and erected new ones in Owen
Street, the School and Master’s House on one side of the
street, the Almshouses on the other. The buildings are of
red brick with stone coping, and are handsome, light, and
airy. There are twelve almshouses of two rooms each, with
a centre accommodating two inmates, so that fourteen in-
stead of the Original ten poor women are provided for : seven
from Islington, seven from Clerkenwell. Each of them,
besides her house, receives 8s. per week, and at Christmas
10s. 6d. to purchase coals. They have each a gown every
two years. The school accommodates eighty-five boys, who
are taught reading, Writing, and accounts; of whom four-
fifths are from Islington and one-fifth from Clerkenwell.
And what induced Dame Owen to leave this excellent en-
dowment? The story is well worth telling, for it belongs to
the simple times when people believed in a special Pro-
vidence. This Alice Owen was a native of Islington, and
some accounts state her to have been a poor girl, who went
to milk her master’s cows in the open fields. Other ac-
counts have it that she was a Miss Wilks, a daughter of
512 ISLINGTON.
a gentleman of considerable landed property. The most
prevailing version is the following:—“In the reign of Queen
Mary it was an exercise for archers to shoot with their
bows and arrows at butts. This part of Islington was at
that time all open fields and pasture land; and on the same
spot of ground where the school (the old one) now stands,
was a woman milking a cow. The Lady Owen, then a
maiden gentlewoman, walking by with her maid servant, Ob-
served the woman a-milking, and had a mind to try the
cow’s paps, whether she could milk, which she did, and at
her withdrawing from the cow an arrow was shot through
the crown of her hat (at which time high-crowned hats were
in fashion), which so startled her that she then declared,
that if she lived to be a lady, she would erect something on
that very spot of ground, in commemoration of the great
mercy shown by the Almighty in that astonishing de-
liverance. This passed on till she became a widow lady;
her servant at the time this accident happened, being still
with the lady, reminded her of her former words; her
answer was, she remembered the affair, and would fulfil
her promise; upon which she purchased the land from the
“Welsh Harp ’’ to the “Turk's Head,” Islington Road, and
built thereupon, as appears with the arrows fixed on the
top.”
The foundress, it seems, was thrice married, her last
husband being Sir Thomas Owen, one of the Justices of the
Court of Common Pleas, whence her title. She founded the
school and hospital three years before her death, which
latter event took place in 1613, and she was buried in
Islington Church, where there is a monument to her
memory. On pulling down the old almshouses, two of the
original arrows that she had fixed on the top of her building,
showing the truth of the story, were found in the wall, and
HISTORICAT, FACTS CONNECTED WITH ISILINGTON. 513
are now in the Master’s care. When that archer in Isling-
ton Fields ‘drew a bow at a venture,” little did he think
that his arrow was winged with a livelihood for fourteen poor
women, and education for nearly a hundred boys of his
neighbourhood, for all time to come.
EIISTORICAL FACTS CONNECTED WITH ISLINGTON.
The earliest historical event of any importance connected
with the parish of Islington, is that of a great battle fought
betwixt the Romans and the British under Queen Boadicea.
That such a battle was fought somewhere near London, is
attested by Tacitus : tradition locates the event at Battle-
bridge, thence so named. Some critics have endeavoured to
remove the site of the battle from this neighbourhood to
Epping Forest, for which there is no authority whatever, and
nothing, indeed, as a plea for such a supposition, but the
description of the ground which they cannot make agree with
that of the Roman historian—‘Locum arctis faucibus et à
tergo silvă clausum ; ”
and ‘Angustias loci pro munimento.”
(‘A place with a narrow approach, and with a wood at its
back;’) (‘having the narrow boundaries of the situation as a
defence ’). A critic in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for May
1824, thinks that the valley at Battle-bridge was not so marrow
as thus described, but we prefer following a fixed tradition
on such occasions to critical fancies indulged in more than
1,800 years after the event. The character of ground in that
length of time, near a large and ever-growing city, changes
wonderfully. Roman London itself is some fifteen or twenty
feet under the present city, and the valleys on the northern
side of it must have greatly changed their appearance from
the washing down of soil from the hills, and the accumulation
of débris in them. Here tradition places this great and
L L
* NOAL:) NITSI y IQ
putſ ‘onpuoo stu popuoso ous uous put uoub powopºw
où) “boopbogI Jo Kºtodo.[d pub quouTutoA03 out, Uto pozſos puu
‘ootſ[AOId out Jo IOTUInootd or ‘snutſooCI sultſ) solutiqourſ.[..I.
où Aq poliſoſ ojoA put ‘polloMo. pull ſuool out, Jo odºt)
où QūII) ([[It] lušnotg. SEA SAAout ‘put[s] out) Jo UOſluono!
oul O.Inoes O1 put ‘UOSITIE3 tº Xg on Solnsbout 3upſe, “To Ao
-Moti'sbA on asſºw 'soaotá áuguinq Iſotº pure spºnſor oth
but ulouſ poſo.I]sop pub “SUO)IIgſ popujinjur où pox{ot}]]'8 out
“SybOQ pouTO]]oq-qug uſ [OAO 5uTSSOIO 'bosolòu V. Jo put[s]
oul Uſ quo.110.1 SUI Trouſ). On Sysoſtd [n].IoMod. OSoul ons.Ind Ol
bouTUI Tolop ‘Spin(CI ot! Jo UtorybāInsuſ otºl O1 SUIOTIIgſ out, Jo
Ooug|SISOI ŠuſtoAoSIod out 5uſ]nqūlū ‘OION topum ‘uſtºſ.ſg
UT Soo.IOJ UrbūIOM OUT JO IOpUIUUIUIOo ouſ, ‘Snuſnud. SmIU[O]ons
—: 0SQUI) 0,1\} . STUUUIV, STUI JO XIOOC (ITUIo91.Ino] ouſ) (II ‘Sunſop I,
O] §upp.10000 “ofºtº SIUT JO Soottonbostoo put Sosnto out.T.
- ‘Āſīunoo tou put;
SIonuţānup tou Jo SãUOIAA out, pub ‘siduo.IAA UIAAO Lotſ of troAt
O] )duo','!'t u0))03.[O]-oq-01-10Aou qug ‘[n]ssooonsum ‘snopuod
-nqs tº optºut “spo.1 UIUUIOSI out, UTOIJ 3uppooſq., “Boop bogI
uðon() oIOUT pub ‘oãpſ.IQ-0||bg. SI quTII, UTEA III oAOUIQ.I Ol
soſ.T.) on to ouſ, Jo Utød oul ‘toulošO] UIQUE, JO IIT IOU ‘oAOute.I
O] oſqu Urooq OMBTI Sošubüo Khū3ruI osoul Jo Ouou quuM.
'uoſ).Uſndod Kºſo Snoſostrooun out! Jo Jooy ouſ U(189ttoq SouTUTIL
oul O'l opſ, XITUp Sp 3UTIOI ‘XA1s uoppit tº 5uTuTOOOG JIOS]]
hoopil oup) put ‘IoMos puno.13.1opun quo.15 B on KUAA šup.A13
‘poteoddespp Osſº Sbu ‘outºu ouſ oottou A ‘looſ 10ATI OUT
toAO of pſig out.I. sIIOdo.[10UI Šumptrol Ko-IOAo oth Ka poſtd.II]
-xo put pou.InlaoAO KITEnpº.13 IIooq oAbū olnquTI IIoo.13 pub
Suttºo.Ins ‘soot] ‘Splog isſºu M ‘ºods ouſ) [OAO potoAOU SETI onlyū00
Kpooſq put oolog quul Jo out; oth STB9K 008“I Ubu, otout [O]
quuſ, OS : 00 UId XIOO] qſ qtl11 [9 KºſutºſłSITIO Jo It:0K OUT UI SUAA
qI ‘pot.Inooo q qqmop ou 3Abū oA oxiouſ put ‘UOIſ, but oth IIo
so㺠Toy ox{OA uptuoyſ ouſ, polloaſt HoſtEA outo ‘oºd oAsſoop
Č, 'I ‘I
Jouſ put, ‘Stoluićnup tou ‘JIostou Jo SãuO.LA out, Jo [Upool
où Kq losuo out! On Urotſ] 5urſ, butput: ‘SMut, oùn 5uolt, opol
‘Stoltānub OAA) Toti Ka popuolje “loſtutto Iot uſ boopbogI
‘Udu.In In Trotſ, SSouth IAA quâput
Áou] T'uuſ, ‘upuld out, uo ‘subuoyſ out, Jo Juo/J up optoſutos
tº UI soilſtut] put SOAIA Trouſ UTIAA poptoſ “SUO3UAA IIotſ)
polsod Kotſ.I. 'SUOISSO.Iddo put solinſul Tsed [[B 1OJ of u0A9.1
[In] tº put ‘KIO]oſ A Jo KhUTE].100 UT St. 5urnpinxo put 5uTuous
‘sossutu posmjuoo uſ to ourbo suojig ou.I. oAtosol u susdoon
boul.I.E-qtārī SūI put ‘ātūAA Toto UIO KTTEAbo oth ‘otºutoo outl
UI KITUtſuſ SIU polsod of Tuolj Urſ SuluolonS UIQUOIddu Kluto
p|noo Kulotto ouT, ‘ootſuo:5uoA Trotſ, O, utou, Jo 0000, poog
-IIobs put, ‘punoy OQ O1 O.I.OAA SUBUIOM alouſAA SUOI)09.IIb [[U UI
p.IOMS pub org poſt.Ito Kotſ.I., “I poxious put poZºos ‘(S.U.BqIV
“S) umpuruInto A. O.1 polio.UUUUI put[ ‘Toquint oſqpotouſ ut:
O) poſ[0AAS AAOUI put[ 0SQUIL SUIOTTIgE OUT THUAAt 01 poA[OSOI
ou ‘Utout 0000I KTUIO UAIA ‘otoul put ‘SIII put spooA Kol
papuno.I.Lus put ‘Utobotddu Syſ up AOLUUUI UOITISOd tº polooſes
oPI aſ pubjep on quonoduloouſ sooto) 5uguſtulot AQI su Haj
ouſ ‘SILBO.Lao Jo quojop ouſ put: ‘SnutſooCI Jo quâIII oth O1
ăuţAAO qud : JIOSUITUI AJIJIOJ O1 pasodo.[d out otolpaw ‘UtoptrorI.
O] soup.I.UUI poo.IOJ Aq potto1stu SnIIIolons SISITO SIT, uſ
'uoul&thunoo (IAO sº put stropig (Inoq Jo
sos.Ino ouſ, Kol pons.Ind ‘Auguſºu OO ou! O! pop, “IOAOI out Jo
osmºgo ouſ, StºA out quul ofqſsues ‘StutſooCI Snºo ºpto Ms
oup) on KTUIt]ur où duſºnd ‘uoiáol Unuſu out, JO peou on 1
qu ‘sſrºotoo smºod poleoſop put poétºua Kou.I. souse uſ
puno. IIB K.I]unoo oth 5uſſel “I quinq put XIOO] ‘(101souſoſo O)
ununpopouteſ) Jo IOSHITB3 put, UAO1 UEuroSI oun poxiotºu
Kou.I. 'Iou quoddins on KIlotoos posſuTOId SonºS 5uſtnoq
-U3rou Toujo ouſl, solubqouſ.T.I., ou, Jo pit, où uſ poſſeo put
‘Snooſqns toū posmot pºtſ booſpºoq “ooutoğuoA Top 5urſuing
'poſtmououſsºp Stojūānup OA) tou put ‘spot unſaw uoluoq tou
GIG * NOTH) NITSI EIIIM CIGIAI, OGINNOO SALOWüI TV OISIONUSIEI
516 ISLINGTON.
people. Suetonius, on his side, harangued his troops on their
past glory, on the alternative being to conquer or die, and
on the grand fact that the greatest victories had been
frequently won by the smallest numbers. He gave the
charge, and his battalions advanced in the form of a wedge,
cutting through the immense multitude before them, and
dividing them into two bodies. The cavalry advanced on
each side, bearing down all before them with their spears,
and the light troops followed, killing all that came in their
way. The Britons, at first furious and determined, were
soon thrown into confusion by the steady and murderous
advance of the Roman host, and gave way and fled. But
their wagons stopped their way, and driven one on another
in hopeless chaos, the Romans made a terrible and promis-
cuous havoc of them. The cattle mixed with the frantic mob,
fell with their drivers, and added to the heaps of the slain.
Neither sex nor age was spared. According to the Roman
writers, 80,000 Britons were put to the sword, whilst of the
Romans only about 400 were slain, and as many wounded.
Boadicea, seeing that all was lost, ended her unhappy ex-
istence by poison. Such was the bloody struggle which
through so many centuries has left its name on Battle-bridge.
An evidence of the presence of the Romans on this spot was
found some years ago in the skeleton of an elephant.
Elephants were used by the Romans in their war in Britain,
and Polyaenus mentions the effect one of them had in forcing
the passage of the Thames by Julius Caesar.
LLEwBLLYN PRINCE or wales AT ISLINGTON.
The following curious note relative to the causes of the
disturbances in Wales during the reign of Edward I. occurs
in the Mostyn Papers concerning that period, and is quoted
by Carte, in his ‘History of England.’ The Snowdon barons
ARREST OF KING HIENIRY WI. AT ISLINGTON. 517
had accompanied Llewellyn to London, and joined their
homage with that of their prince. These with their nume-
rous trains were quartered at Islington, and well enter-
tained. Unhappily they could not drink the wine and ale
of London; the English bread they slighted; and the
environs afforded not milk enough for their party. Their
pride, too, was disgusted at the continual staring of the
Londoners, who followed them in crowds to stare at their
uncommon garb. “No l’ chorused the indignant Britons;
* We will never again visit Islington except as conquerors.”
And from that instant they resolved to take up arms.
ARREST OF HENRY WI. AT IS LINGTON.
In 1465 the unfortunate Henry VI., into whose fate
Shakspeare has thrown so much poetry, was brought through
Islington a captive, on his way to the Tower. For twelve
months after the battle of Hexham, where he suffered a
thorough defeat, and whence his queen, Margaret of Anjou,
managed to escape to France, Henry had wandered from
place to place amongst the friends of the House of Lan-
caster in Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Yorkshire. At
the various halls and castles where he sojourned, tradition
has to this day retained the memory of his presence. There
are “Ring Henry’s Chamber and “King Henry’s Parlour'
still pointed out, the bath that he used, and the boot, spoon,
and glove that he left with his host, Sir Hugh Pudsay, at
Bolton Hall, Yorkshire. He was at length betrayed by
Cantlow, a monk of Abingdom, and was taken by the
servants of Sir John Harrington, as he sat at dinner at
Waddington Hall. He was treated with the utmost indig-
nity on his way to London. He was mounted on a miserable
hack, his legs being tied in his stirrups, and an insult-
ing placard fixed on his back. At Islington Warwick met
* NIOULº) NITSI 8IQ
“Korod uoulošIV put UIO)3up/AoN oxſons Jo IOUbut ouſ) plotſ
OUAA ‘XIoIAAIBAA Jo IIBGI ‘Kolpn(I OtoAA Osotſ, 3UOUTV "pop[SOI
qīnoo Spù Jo KhHRGOU [Edrouſ.[d ouſ, Jo [BIOAOS ſpruſo A oltºpoul
-Uuſ STI put USITBd Uſoſtſ M III ‘ū013utts I popsiA AT]uombol]
*IIIA X SINGIFI
“Tºru I ºut ULIopſt: “[It’AIOTod (IIIoſ IIS
poqqmp ouſ ‘UtopUIOT put UO15uTIST trooAqoq put: ; qūānux ‘Utop
-IIOT JO IOM'But ‘out.TOH UIETITIAA IIS poqqmp ouſ troll w ‘uſt uO
puolyt. On ‘KIOATI oud (II put ‘Mot:(losiouſ IIO II* ‘UtopUOT Jo Kºſo
oul Jo StouduTuToo Tedfountd put “syntous ‘uouſ topſt, ‘To Kºut
ot|] Ka LIB, I KosUIOH (II Tour St.A ‘Squo.toUpt SIU put [out
-ups quoquTurſ Jo quojop out, Tolſt; ‘UIOpUIOT O1 UI.Inq9. STU TIO
“IIA X*INGIH
'pool]]|t|3TUXI
Jo Imottou ou" (ITIA poptº Moſt OtoA put “ound to] pooã SIII uo
UOInt[n]ºtöttoo Jo Sso1ppt. It UTItſ potaſſo OTA “Mºſſ) out, Jo
uoultopſy pub TOKEN p.IOT OUT Kq ‘ûonſporous put trop[OSAGI
u09Aloq “hout SEA toyu uoos ‘Totonbuoo optunº.10 otout sºu
“AI (IºIVMACIGI
‘.IOMOL OUT OT polonpūOO SbAA Sntſ] put, ‘SoHoq SOSIOU THOTI)
Topun poſſ, loaf Trotſ, petſ OUA ‘uoliol|| 3uno K put ‘oſpođ
‘ICI ‘IOspur M. Jo UBOCI ‘āuTuubj\ ‘IOI. Kg popubduTOoot St.A
of .ipolugout spionſ out onſuls on ATInoſ op ok “Hoosio]
put (IJOOSIOI, ‘UOISS0.Idzo ouſ, OT LInto opni U Jo AAOIq ou! Kol
posno.I ‘IOAOAOII “SUAA out ‘ssouxſoout southm ou. In A KuruIOuï
SIU[] IIB 3uſampuſ . . [O][8,1] tº pIOUſog i Uſostoſ) juostolſ.I.,
3up/to ‘UOIaj UOUIUIo9 tº Utooq pºll out JI St. ‘KIOIIId oul puno.I
soutſ; oo.Itſ] [IBUT Kdd'etſun out poſ Urotſ] put ‘looj SItſ UIO.J.
uoxtºn Sinds q(13 Spu put on ‘olduſ'Uzo SIU Aq puburūIOO STI
ootoſuo OT, uſû On loodso.1 out AOUIS on SIO) bloods Šuláuo.III.]
oup, 3upubutuiOO Ka Josutſu poob.15sp put ‘ātrix UIoIIBJ ou?
QUEEN MARY—BURNING OF PROTESTANTS. 519
Earl of Northumberland, who, as we have stated, had an
ancient mansion at Newington Green, whence he wrote the
letter regarding Anne Boleyn which we have quoted.
QUEEN MARY. —BljRNING OF PROTESTANTS.
In 1557 Queen Mary sent her pensioners in grand proces-
sion to meet the ambassador of the King of Muscovy at
Islington.
In the same year several Protestants, who had assembled
for religious worship at the ‘Saracen's Head,” at Islington,
under pretence of seeing a play acted there, on the third
Sunday in Advent, were arrested by the Vice-Chamberlain
of the Queen’s household, and committed to prison. Of
these persons John Rough, who had been a preacher among
the Black Friars at Stirling, and afterwards chaplain to the
Earl of Arran, and an intimate friend of John Knox, was
burnt at the stake in Smithfield, and four of the others
were burnt in one fire at Islington. Fox, in his ‘Acts and
Monuments,’ says these four others were Richard Roth,
Ralph Allerton, James Austoo, and Margery Austoo. They
were burnt on the 15th of September of that year. The
infamous Bishop Bonner charged them with the heinous
offence of reading the Communion Book, and using the
fashion of the latter days of Edward VI. Fox relates the
treacherous manner in which about forty persons were ap-
prehended for Protestant worship:—‘June 27, 1558, secretly
in a back close, in a field by the town of Islington, were col-
lected and assembled together a certain company of godly
and innocent persons, to the number of forty men and
women; who, there sitting together at prayer, and virtu-
ously occupied in the meditation of God’s holy word, first
cometh a certain man to them unknown, who, looking over
unto them, so stayed and Saluted them, saying they looked
520 ISLINGTON,
like men who meant no hurt. Then one of the said company
asked the main if he could tell whose close that was, and
whether they might be so bold there to sit. “Yea,” said he,
“for ye seem to me such persons as intend no harme,” and
so departed. Within a quarter of an hour after cometh the
constable of Islington, named King, warded with six or seven
others, accompanying him on the same business; one with a
long bow, another with a bill, and others with their weapons
likewise. The which six or seven persons the said constable
left a little behind him, in a close place, there to be ready if
need should be, while he, with one with him, should go view
them before; who, so doing, came through them, looking
and finding what they were doing, and what bookes they
had ; and so going a little forward, and returning back
againe, bade them deliver their bookes. They understand-
ing that he was constable, refused not so to do; with that
cometh forth the residue of his fellows above touched, who
bade them stand and not depart. They answered again
they would be obedient, and ready to go whithersoever they
would have them. And so they were first carried to a brew-
house but a little way off, while that some of the said soldiers
ran to the justice next at hand; but that justice not being
at home, they were had to Sir Roger Cholmley. In the
meantime some of the women, being of the same number of
the aforesaid forty persons, escaped away from them, some
in the close, some before they came to the brewhouse; for so
they were carried, ten with one man, eight with another,
and with some more, with some less, in such sort that it was
not hard for them to escape that would. In fine, they that
were carried to Sir Roger Cholmley were twenty-seven;
which Sir Roger Cholmley and the recorder taking their
names in a bill, and calling them one by one, so many as
answered their names he sent to Newgate; in the which
QUEEN ELIZABETH.—THE EARL OF ESSEX. 521
Inumber of them that answered and that were sent to New-
gate were twenty-two.
‘These two-and-twenty were in the said prison of Newgate
seven weeks before they were examined, to whom word was
sent by Alexander the keeper, that if they would hear mass
they should all be delivered. Of these foresaid twenty-two
were burned thirteen; in Smithfield, seven ; at Brainford,
six.’
One is sorry to find Sir Roger Cholmeley, the founder of
the Highgate Grammar School, engaged in such a terrible
business as this: a tool of the bloody bigotry of the time.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. -
We have made mention of the visits of Elizabeth to
Islington and Canonbury; her having the hedges cut down
for the passage of her coach across the fields; her besetment
with a troop of sturdy beggars; and of the association of her
name with various places in this neighbourhood. To keep
the district rural she forbade the erection of any further
buildings within a distance of three miles from the City
gates. Her unfortunate favourite,
THE EARL OF ESSEX,
when he set out to occupy the post of Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, passed through Islington, attended by a splendid
retinue of noblemen and gentlemen on horseback. Hume
says, “Essex left London in the month of March, attended
with the acclamations of the populace ; and what did him
more honour, accompanied by a numerous train of nobility
and gentry, who, from affection to his person, had attached
themselves to his fortunes, and sought fame and military
experience under so renowned a commander.” To see a Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland now setting out for his government
522 ISLINGTON.
with his suite on horseback, would be as astonishing as to
see him come speedily back to have his head taken off at
the will of the monarch. There is some difference betwixt
now and then, betwixt Tudor and Guelph.
JAMES I.
When James approached London to take the crown in
1603, he was met at Stamford Hill by the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen of the City in their robes of state, accompanied by
five hundred of the principal citizens on horseback, gor-
geously apparelled, who hailed his arrival, and escorted
him through the fields of Islington to the Charter House.
John Saville, who delivered a congratulatory address to the
Ring at Theobalds, which he soon after published, with
some particulars of the King's entry into London, states as
follows:— &
“After his Majestie was come from Kingsland there
begun a division among the people which way his Highness
would take when he came at Islington, but in fine he came
the higher way by the west end of the church; which streete
hath ever since been, and I gesse ever will be, called King’s
Street, by the inhabitants of the same. When his High-
mess had passed Islington and another place called New
Rents, and entered into a close called Wood’s Close, by a
way that was cut of purpose through the bancke, for his
Majestie’s more convenient passage into the Charterhouse
Garden; the people that were there assembled I compare to
nothing more conveniently than to imagine every grasse to
have been metamorphosed into a man, in a moment, the
multitude was so marvellous, amongste whome were the
children of the Hospital singing, orderly placed for his
Majestie's coming along through them, but all displaced by
reason of the rudeness of such a multitude.”
CEIARLES I. 523
CHARLES I.,
on his return from Scotland in 1641, where he had been
endeavouring to conciliate the discontent, which had arisen
among his Scottish subjects, on his route towards the capital,
passed through Islington, accompanied by the Queen, the
Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York, and, attended by a
splendid cavalcade, entered the City by Moorgate. It was
the last time that he ever did enter London except as a
prisoner. Matters were fast coming to a crisis with this
stiff-necked and slippery king. His right-hand champion
of despotism, the Earl of Strafford, had paid on the block for
his treason to the nation. Laud the great ritualist, and as
great a tyrant, was awaiting the same fate. By the follow-
ing Summer Charles had consummated his offences against
the liberties of the people. He had entered the House of
Commons and endeavoured to seize five of the most patriotic
members that ever sat there : John Hampden, Pym, Hollis,
Haselrigge, and Strode. Failing in this attempt, Charles
had stolen away northward, hoping to receive an army from
Scotland, to put down his indignant subjects. He set up a
military court at York, coquetted with the fleet, and hung
like a thunder-cloud over the districts north of the capital.
In May and June the people of London, animated by the
spirit and proclamations of Parliament, set about to fortify
every line of approach to the City. We have already noticed
how men, women, and children, all works and trades, turned
out with spades and picks, and cast up embankments, and
made trenches by every highway from the north. The train-
bands; the porters, with their wives and children, 3,000 in
number; 5,000 feltmakers and cappers; 5,000 shoemakers;
6,000 tailors, all digging and delving as one man, to preserve
their freedom from the myrmidons of a king gluttonous of
524. ISLl NGTON.
power and of a monstrous self-will. Besides numerous de-
fences thrown up round Islington, they made a battery and
breastwork at Mount Hill in Goswell Street Road; another
at St. John’s ; a large fort, with four half bulwarks, at the
New River Upper Pond, and a small redoubt near Islington
Pound. This evidence of the spirit of London firing up
made the melancholy desperado retire to Nottingham, and
set up his standard, which the winds of a warning heaven
blew down speedily and vainly, for the Stuart soul was in
every generation warning-proof.
OLIVER CROMWELL.
Oliver Cromwell’s fate was not unconnected with Isling-
ton. Here lived, in his unambitious days, one of his most
highly-favoured officers as a drayman, and afterwards as
stoker at the brewery of Islington. Having joined the
parliamentary army, he soon rose in Cromwell’s favour, who
made him a colonel of dragoons, and put much trust in him.
‘Colonel Okey,” says the ‘Magna, Britannia,” “was a person of
more bulk than brains, and more strength than wit,” just the
sort of man for a brewer’s drayman. The man, however,
had sense and honesty enough to perceive and despise the
aim of Cromwell at the regal power which he had himself
put down as an offence. On the trial of the King, Crom-
well, without consulting Okey, put his name down as one
of the judges, and compelled him to act, which cost him
his head. The execution of the King over, however, Okey
determined to have no more to do with the Protector, but
fled to Holland, where he lived till the Restoration, when
he was seized by Sir George Downing, Minister of Charles II.
at the Hague, and, with Miles Corbet and John Banksteap,
sent to London and there executed. This bit of grace, how-
OLIVER, CIROM WIELL. 525
ever, was accorded to his remains by Charles the Dissolute :
his body was not quartered, and hung on different city gates,
as those of the others were, but given to his relatives for
burial, “ because in his last speech he had spoken dutifully of
his Majesty.’
Sir Arthur Haselrigge, member of parliament for the
county of Leicester, and a great friend of Cromwell’s, was
an inhabitant of this parish, as we shall more fully mention
in another place.
The parliamentary general Skippon, who was desperately
wounded at the battle of Naseby, had a critical adventure
in passing through Islington, On his way to London. Vicar,
in his ‘England’s Worthies,” gives this quaint account of the
affair:-‘After this renowned commander had lyen a while
at Northampton town, or thereabout, for the dressing of his
wounds, and it being held fit by the parliament, who took
tender care of him, to remove him thence to London, for the
more hopeful care, this brave gentleman being, with all
easiest convenience, put into a horse-litter to be brought to
London, and coming to Islington, a tour, little more than a
mile from London; it pleased the Lord that it should so fall
out, to the greater setting forth of his power and providence,
that in the said tour, a great mastiffe dog, on a suddain,
ran most fiercely out of a house, fell furiously upon one of
the horses that carried the litter, seized him behind, and
made the horse fling and fly about, and beat and shake the
litter up and down, too and fro, in a most dangerous man-
ner, shaking the gentleman’s Sorely wounded body thereby,
and ready continually to overthrow the litter, and greatly
endanger the noble gentleman’s life; all which while there
being no possible means to beat off the dog, or make him
leave his hold of the horse, till they ran him through with a g
sword and killed him; which as soon as they could, they
526 ISLINGTON.
did, and so brought this noble gentleman to his house in
Bartholomew the Great.”
The author adds, that notwithstanding ‘this terrible
brunt,” the general suffered very little, and prayers being
put up in all the churches in London, and Mr. Trapham, a
famous surgeon, employed, he was completely cured, “thus
making it manifest that God had reserved him graciously
unto yet more glorious works.’
But this was not the last connection of Cromwell’s for-
tunes with Islington. His assumption of the Supreme power
had deeply exasperated the friends of the monarchy, and
various conspiracies were set on foot against his life. At the
head of one of these was a Major Henshaw, who came over
from Paris in 1654, and proposed to assassinate Cromwell at
Hampton Court. His plan was to get thirty stout men for
the purpose. A young enthusiastic gentleman, named Gerard,
undertook to procure twenty-five of them, and Colonel Finch
and Henshaw were to bring the other five. Vowell, a school-
master of Islington, was very zealous in the plot, and en-
gaged in procuring arms, and Billingsley, a butcher of
Smithfield, engaged to seize the troopers’ horses grazing in
Islington Fields. The soldiers were to be then fallen upon
at the mews; Charles II. proclaimed; Rupert was to appear
with a large force of royalists, English, Irish, and Scotch,
and there was to be a general rising. Saturday, May 20,
was fixed for Cromwell’s assassination; but before this wild
scheme could be accomplished, forty of the conspirators were
seized, some of them in their beds. Vowell was hanged, and
Gerard, on his own request, as a gentleman, was beheaded
on July 10.
THE FIRE OF LONDON. 527
THE FIRE OF LONDON.
We have already described the strange scene of the burnt-
out inhabitants of London, congregated with their effects in
the fields of Islington. Since then political meetings have
at times drawn great numbers of Londoners into the fields
about Islington. Copenhagen House, and the fields about
it called Copenhagen Fields, have borne that name, accord-
ing to tradition, since the King of Denmark paid his visit to
㺠§ .
- º, º
ºf "fºlläW. º-
% º º
º," y ..." º
º wº º,
COPENHAGEN EIOUSE.
(From an Old Print in Mr. Gardner's Collection.)
his brother-in-law, James I. The house is said to have been
opened by a Dame, and to have been much frequented by his
countrymen living in London on account of business, or other-
wise. Cooper-Hagen is the name given to the place in the
map in Camden’s ‘Britannia,’ published in 1695. It became a
great tea-house and resort of the Londoners to play at skittles
and Dutch-pins. It commanded a splendid view over the

528 ISI/INGTON.
metropolis and the immense western suburb, the heights
of Highgate and Hampstead, and the rich intervening mea-
dows. In 1826, the landlady told William Home, that at the
time of the London riots in 1780, the mob, on its way to
burn down Lord Mansfield’s house at Caen Wood, passed by
her house, and so alarmed her, that she applied to Justice
Hyde, who sent a party of soldiers to protect her till the riots
were over. On one occasion, this landlady, Mrs. Harrington,
had a most daring burglary perpetrated on the house, the
interest of which, however, brought an increase of visitors;
her landlord enlarged the premises, and it became a great
fives-playing place.
Copenhagen House became still more noted for the meet-
ings of the London Corresponding Society, an association of
the full-length reformers of the day, who hoped to reap great
benefit from the examples of the French revolutionists. On Oc-
tober 26, 1795, no fewer than 40,000 people are said to have
been collected there, and various speakers addressed them
from their different platforms. Some of these called on their
hearers to note the circumstance of the King’s going to the
House of Parliament on the 29th. On that day an immense
crowd assembled in the park; the King was shot at, and
was very rudely treated, but escaped unhurt. It would
appear from this that there were persons present at this
meeting who were in the secret of this plot, but some of the
speakers must have been men of a different stamp, for we
have a speech of John Thelwall, well known for his trial on
a charge of treason with Hardy and Horne Tooke, made at
this great meeting in Copenhagen Fields, in which he asserts
peaceful discussion, and not tumultuary violence, to be the
means for redressing public grievances. Thelwall seems to
have been a frequent speaker at these meetings. They were
continued till the volunteers were called out to disperse them.
CATTLE MATRIKETS. 529
In April, 1834, the Trades' Unions selected Copenhagen
Fields for their great meeting, in order to form a procession
to Whitehall, to present an address to His Majesty, signed by
260,000 Unionists, on behalf of their fellows at Dorchester,
convicted of administering unlawful oaths. Conspicuous
amongst the leaders of this meeting, which mustered 40,000
strong, were Robert Owen, of Lanark, and the Rev. Dr.
Wade—the latter clad in full canonicals, having his sacred
robe of black silk with a crimson collar round his neck. In
this style the monster procession marched through London,
but Lord Melbourne refused to receive the address.
CATTLE IMARECETS.
A large section of these Copenhagen Fields, where the
Londoners sought amusement and the graver exercise of
political agitation, is now occupied by the New Cattle Mar-
ket. The enormous inconvenience, cruelty, and public danger
occasioned by driving the weekly hosts of cattle and sheep
through the crowded streets of the metropolis, had long been
a subject of discussion and serious reflection amongst the
metropolitan public. A Mr. Perkins, of Bletchingley, in Sur-
rey, seized the opportunity to remove the public difficulty
by a bold speculation. He projected and built a new cattle
market near Ball’s Pond, at a cost of 100,000l. It was com-
menced in 1833, by sanction of an Act of Parliament, and
completed in 1836. The object of Mr. Perkins was good,
but it was destined not to be profitable, for he received
determined opposition from the City authorities, and the
site was too near London to obviate, for any considerable
period, the mischief it was intended to remedy. It was soon
surrounded by a dense population. It was extinguished by
an Act of Parliament, to make way for the city scheme of a
market in Copenhagen Fields. For this purpose, Copenhagen
M. M.
530 ISILINGTON.
Bouse and Fields, to the extent of seventy-five acres, were
purchased by the Corporation of London, and converted
into the present New Cattle Market, which was opened June
13, 1855. Commodious as is this site, it has the fault of
being too near London. It is already environed by houses,
and must become more and more so. Eventually, the Lon-
don abattoirs must be placed away in the country, and the
meat sent up by railway.
NEW PRISONS BTUILT.
Pentonville Prison was commenced in 1840, as an experi-
ment of a model prison, in which an improved discipline
could be carried out. The first stone was laid on April 10 of
that year by Lord Lansdowne, attended by several members
of Parliament, and other gentlemen interested in the im-
provement of prison discipline. He also laid the foundation
stone of the New City Prison, which superseded the Compter,
at Holloway, and which was opened October 6, 1832.
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO HAVE LIVED IN THE PARISH
OF ISLINGTON.
Owing to the vicinity of London, a considerable number
of men and women of distinction for their talents, or other-
wise, have, at one time or another, lived in and around
Islington. I shall give a few brief notices of the most re-
markable of them. One of the earliest of them was
JoBIN, SECOND BARON BERNERS.—This nobleman was the
descendant of the Berners family, who were for many gene-
rations proprietors of the manor of Bernersbury—or, as now
called, Barnsbury—of Canonbury, and some parts of that of
St. John of Jerusalem. These possessions, or part of them,
they held in the reign of Richard II. The aunt of Lord
John Bouchier Berners, the translator of ‘Froissart,” was the
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 531
celebrated Dame Juliana Berners, author of the famous
“Treatise on Hawking,’ printed in 1481, and who is, therefore,
One of the earliest female authors of England. Dame Julia
is reported to have been Prioress of Sopewell Nunnery, in
Hertfordshire, and is stated to have been living in 1460. Hol-
ingshed places her at the close of the reign of Edward IV.,
and calls her ‘Julian Bemes, a gentlewoman endued with
excellent giftes bothe of body and minde, who wrote certain
treatises of hawking and hunting, delighting greatly hirself
in those exercises and pastimes. She wrote also a book of
the laws of armes and knowledge apperteyning to heraldes.”
Wynkyn de Worde calls these ‘Treatyses perteynyng to
Hawkynge, Huntynge, and Fyshyne with an Angle ; and
also a right noble Treatyse of the Lygnage of Cot Armours,
endynge with a Treatyse which specyfyeth of Blasynge of
Armys.” In the treatise on heraldry, Dame Juliana pro-
fesses to teach ‘how gentylmen shall be knowen from un-
- gentylmen.” These works were printed at the Abbey of St.
Alban’s, on which the nunnery of Sopewell was dependent.
In 1810, a fac-simile edition of that of Wynkyn de Worde
was printed by Mr. Hazlewood, consisting of 150 copies.
Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, is ranked by
Fuller as the fourth literary nobleman of England; his
predecessors being, Lord Cobham, Tiptoft Earl of Worcester,
and Lord Rivers. Lord Berners was a great traveller, as well
as an accomplished scholar. He sate in the eleventh Parlia-
ment of Henry VII., and accompanied that monarch to the
siege of Boulogne in 1492. He took an active part in Sup-
pressing an insurrection in Cornwall, headed by Michael
Joseph, a blacksmith, and Flammock, a lawyer, and after-
wards supported by Lord Audley. He was high in favour
with Henry VIII. ; was captain of pioneers at the siege of
Terrouenne, in 1513; two years afterwards he was made
M M 2
532 ISLINGTON.
Chancellor of the Exchequer for life; and in 1514, was one
of the splendid train appointed to attend Princess Mary, the
Ring’s sister, to Abbeville, on her way to be married to
Louis XII. of France. He afterwards accompanied John
Rite, Archbishop of Armagh, in an embassy to Spain, to
congratulate Ring Charles on his accession.
His great work, the translation of the ‘Chronicles of
Froissart,’ was undertaken by command of the King, and
was the first historical work of magnitude in the English
language. It became the most popular book of that and
the next age, and was only superseded in Ordinary use by
the translation of Mr. Johnes. A reprint of Lord Berners’
translation was published by Mr. Utterson in 1812.
Besides Froissart, Lord Berners translated from the
French the ‘History of Arthur Little Britain; the ‘His-
tory of Huon of Bourdeux;' and the ‘Golden Boke of Marcus
Aurelius.” From the Spanish, “The Castle of Love.’ He
also wrote a work on the ‘Duties of the Inhabitants of
Calais,’ of which town he was governor in his later years;
and a comedy called “Ite in Vineam mean,’ which was
usually acted in the great church of Calais after vespers.
Lord Berners died in 1532, when his title became extinct,
and his property passed to his sole surviving daughter, who
was married to Edmund Knyvet, Esq., of Ashwellthorpe,
in Norfolk. The manor of Barnsbury passed to the Fowler
family, but the title of Lord Berners was revived, in the
descendant of Lord Berners, the translator, in 1832, but
again in the female line, and under the name of Wilson.
How few, in hearing the familiar name of Barnsbury, connect
its possession with the noble translator of the “Chronicles of
Froissart.”
SIR HENRY YELVERTON was a judge of much note under
King James I. He was baptised at St. Mary’s Church,
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 533
in Islington, July 7, 1566, and most probably was born
there, though said to have been born at Easton Mauduit, in
Northamptonshire, his father's estate. He was successively
Solicitor and attorney-general, and a judge of the Court of
Common Pleas under James. He did not, before arriving
at the bench, escape some trouble and imprisonment in the
Tower, through, in some manner, crossing the interests of
the Duke of Buckingham; but made his apology, and es-
caped with a fine of 4,000l., and regained his liberty. He
died in 1629–30, and was buried at Easton Mauduit.
ROBERT BROWN, FoundER OF THE SECT OF THE BROWN-
IST.S.–Amongst the earliest lecturers of the parish of Is-
lington stands the name of this clergyman, who founded the
sect of the Brownists, out of which developed the numerous
and influential body of the Independents. He is said to
have commenced his campaign against the principle and
practices of an endowed church about 1580, and having
preached to a Dutch congregation in Norwich, he made
many converts to his views. Persecution compelled him to
flee to Holland, where, at Middleburgh, he had a body of
proselytes. On his return to England he renewed his
preaching against the Establishment, and was excommu-
nicated by the Bishop of Peterborough; but, remarkable
enough, he renounced the principle of separation in or about
the year 1590, and accepted the living of Achurch, in
Northamptonshire. Fuller says that he kept a curate to do
the work of the parish, and that though he opposed his
parishioners in judgment, he was willing to take their tithes.
In fact, Fuller says that he led an idle and dissolute life,
had a wife with whom he did not live for many years, and a
church in which he never preached. Neither Neal nor
|Mosheim give him a good character. He was nearly related
to the Lord Treasurer Cecil, and his advice and persuasion
534 ISILINGTON.
may have induced him to take a church living so contrary
to his principles, and endeavour to be quiet ; but as Byron
Says, L
Quiet to quick spirits is a hell.
And so Brown found it. He quarrelled with his parish-
ioners, struck the constable for demanding a rate from him,
was summoned before the magistrate, and committed to
Northampton Gaol. He was at the time so decrepid, that he
was carried thither on a feather-bed in a cart; where, boast-
ing that he had been put into thirty-two prisons, in some of
which he could not see his hand at noonday, he died, in the
year 1636, and in the eighty-first year of his age.
According to Adams, in his “Dictionary of All Religions,”
the principles of Brown were common to Nonconformists
long before his time. That he only by his vehement style of
preaching, and by his works, “The Life and Manners of
True Christians,’ and ‘A Treatise of Reformation without
Tarrying for Amy,” made them more known. To the prim-
ciples already proclaimed, rather than to Brown, the In-
dependents owe their origin.
BISHOP STILLINGFLEET.—This celebrated prelate was a
prebendary of Islington, but does not seem ever to have
resided there.
JoHN BAGFORD.—An antiquary, and great collector of
Old English books, prints, &c., whose collections are in the
British Museum, died at Islington, May 15, 1716.
ADDISON is said to have resided, or lodged rather, at
Islington, on the strength of an asserted date from this place
of his paper in the ‘Spectator,” No. 393, to which, on refer-
ence, I find no date at all.
DE FOE, however, undoubtedly was educated there, at the
Nonconformist seminary. Four years under the Rev. Mr.
Morton there appears to be all the education that he received.
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 535
His father, a butcher in St. Giles, was not rich, and being a
dissenter, educated his son as such. De Foe was, there-
fore, a dissenter in religion, a radical in politics, and a
violent opponent of the Stuarts and of Queen Anne's govern-
ment. These principles paved his way through life with
continual martyrdoms. He narrowly escaped being hanged
by Jeffreys for engaging in the rebellion of Monmouth. For
his satirical pamphlet, ‘The Shortest Way with the Dis-
senters,” which was treated by the dissenters as serious advice
to the Government to make away with them, whilst it really
was a satire on their treatment by the Government and the
Church, he was imprisoned as for a seditious libel, put in the
pillory, and fined. He declared it robbed him of 3,500l.
After more than a year's imprisonment, and the reduction of
his family to destitution, he was still watched, after being
set at large, and a scheme set on foot to kidnap him, and
compel him into the ranks of the army. He had one short
glimpse of political favour, when he was sent as a Commis-
sioner to Scotland to promote the Union, and again he was
fined and imprisoned for two pamphlets: “What if the Queen
should Die?’ and ‘What if the Pretender should Come?’
Never was there a more busy, scrambling, wrestling life than
that of De Foe. Writing political pamphlets, tracts on
political economy, manufacturing of bricks and pantiles,
editing a newspaper; writing novels and a history of the
Plague in London, he struck upon one conception, that of
his ‘Bobinson Crusoe,” which of itself made him immortal,
and the fountain of wonderful delight to all young and
adventurous minds for all ages. De Foe kept up his fight
for freedom and truth for seventy years, and died in the
parish of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate.
EDMUND HALLEY, THE ASTRONOMER.—Halley, the cele-
brated astronomer-royal, went to reside in Islington in 1682,
536 ISLINGTON.
on his marriage with Mary, daughter of Mr. Tooke, auditor
of the Exchequer, and fitted up an observatory there for astro-
nomical purposes; and he continued to reside there till 1696.
Halley has been ranked next to Newton. He rendered essen-
tial services in the department of astronomy; and amongst
these was a voyage to St. Helena in 1676, where he made
a catalogue and map of 350 stars of the Southern hemi-
sphere, besides adding an observation of the transit of Mer-
cury over the sun’s disc, and other valuable items of know-
ledge. He afterwards went to Dantzic, and to France, and
other parts of the Continent on errands of a like kind. On
his road to Paris he was the first to witness the return of
the celebrated comet of 1680 from perihelion, after its dis-
appearance in the preceding month. From his observations
On this event, Newton verified his deductions in his ‘Prin-
cipia,’ of a comet’s orbit from the theory of gravitation.
He stimulated Newton to the publication of the ‘Principia,”
and superintended the printing of it. In 1698 he was sent
out by William III. to observe the variations of the com-
pass, to settle the latitude and longitude of various places of
the American settlements, and to discover land south of the
Western Ocean. He continued his voyage till September,
1700. He visited, in the course of this voyage, the Canaries,
Madeira, Cape de Verd Islands, St. Helena, Barbadoes, and
Brazils. He afterwards was sent twice to the coast of the
Adriatic to assist in the formation and repair of harbours.
A still greater feat is attributed to him by Dr. Sykes, the
then Hebrew Professor at Cambridge—that of completing a
translation of a rare tract of Apollonius Pergaeus from the
Arabic, of which he was entirely ignorant, and of making
two important corrections in the text. If this be true, he
must have been more clairvoyant than the celebrated Swe-
denborg. In November, 1703, he became Professor of Geo-
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 537
metry at Oxford. About 1713 he removed to London, and
became Secretary to the Royal Society. The ‘Society’s
Transactions,’ from 1686 to 1692, had already, as assistant-
secretary, been Superintended by him. In this connection,
Halley, in alliance with Newton, unfortunately for both
their reputations, became concerned in the arbitrary and
dishonest conduct towards Flamstead, the then astronomer-
royal, which all lovers of science must for ever deplore.
Their breaking open the seal of his catalogue of the fixed
stars, and appropriating them, and printing them under the
name of Halley, with the title of ‘Historia Coelestis,’ ‘the
unacknowledged use of his extensive lunar observations, and
their rude and insolent conduct to Flamstead, furnished one
of the most melancholy stories in the history of science, and
one fully proved by Mr. Francis Baily in his ‘Account of
the Rev. John Flamstead.”
Halley is also accused of equal unfairness towards Leib-
nitz. Not less disgraceful is his recorded conduct towards
Robert Hook, in removing his name from observations on a
comet in his ‘Synopsis Cometica,’ and substituting that of
Auzout; Hook, it is supposed, having offended him after the
first correct publication of the fact.
Halley was the son of a soap-boiler, of Winchester Street,
London; but he was born at Haggerston, October 29, 1656.
Bis contributions to the science of astronomy are—1. The
discovery and the detection of the amount of what is called
the long inequality of Jupiter and Saturn, which he confi-
dently expected would be shown to be a consequence of the
law of gravitation, as was afterwards done. 2. The detec-
tion, by comparison of ancient and modern observations of
eclipses, of the slow acceleration of the moon’s mean motion.
3. The first prediction of the return of a comet, that
called after him, ‘Halley’s Comet.” 4. The explanation of
538 Nº
ISLINGTON.
the appearance of Venus at particular seasons, arising out of
the now well-known method of estimating the brilliancy of
the planet. 5. The recommendation to observe the transit
of Venus for the determination of the sun’s parallax. Halley
died at Greenwich Observatory, in January, 1741-42, in his
86th year.
TOPHAM, THE STRONG MAN.—At the south-east corner of
Gadd’s Row, now St. Alban’s Place, formerly lived a man
whose feats of strength are only exceeded by those of a
Samson or a Hercules. This Thomas Topham was the son
of a carpenter, and followed his father’s trade till he was of
age. At the age of twenty-four he became the host of the
“Red Lion,” near the old Hospital of St. Luke. This location
he had no doubt chosen because, as Pennant observes,
‘Moorfields was the gymnasium of our Capital; and the
famous ring, over which Old Vinegar presided, was the
great resort of cudgellers, wrestlers, back-sword players,
and boxers, from all parts of the metropolis. Here he gave
the first exhibition of his amazing strength, by lying on his
back and, placing his feet against the low wall which divided
Upper from Lower Moorfields, pulled against a horse. He
afterwards pulled against two horses; but his legs being
placed horizontally, instead of rising parallel to the traces of
the horses, he was jerked from his position, and had one of
his knees much hurt. Dr. Desaguliers, who was considered,
from his knowledge of mechanics, a good authority, says,
that had he been in a proper position, he might have kept
his position against the pulling of four horses without the
least inconvenience. -
On another occasion he proved his strength against a
horse, to the great amusement of a crowd. A race being
run on the Hackney Road, a fellow with a horse and cart
interrupted the pleasures of the spectators by keeping close
R.E.MARKABLE PERSON'S WEIO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 539
to the contending parties. Topham suddenly stepped into
the road, seized the tail of the cart, and in spite of all the
fellow’s exertions in whipping his horse to get forward,
drew it back. The man was in a towering rage, but dared
not apply his lash to a person of such prodigious strength,
and the crowd were in the highest delight at the spectacle.
Dr. Desaguliers says he himself saw him perform the fol-
lowing feats:—By the strength of his fingers he rolled up a
very strong and huge pewter dish of the hardest metal. He
broke seven or eight pieces of a tobacco-pipe by the force of
his middle finger, having laid them on his first and third
finger. Having thrust the bowl of a strong tobacco-pipe
under his garter, his legs being bent, he broke it to pieces
by the mere action of his muscles, without altering the posi-
tion of his legs. Another bowl of this kind he broke between
his first and second finger, by pressing them together side-
ways. He took an iron poker, about a yard long and three
inches round, and struck upon his left arm, between the
elbow and the wrist, as though he had no feeling, till he
bent the poker to nearly a right angle. With such another
poker, holding the ends of it in his hands, and the middle
of it at the back of his neck, he brought both ends of it
together before him; and, what was yet more difficult, he
pulled it almost straight again. He broke a rope of two
inches circumference, though, in consequence of his awkward
manner, he was obliged to exert four times the strength
that was necessary. He lifted a rolling-stone of 800 pounds
weight with his hands only, standing in a frame above it,
and taking hold of a chain that was fastened to it."
Probably the exercise of these feats drew his attention
from his business, for he failed at the ‘Red Lion, and after-
* See A Course of Experimental Philosophy, by J. T. Desaguliers, LL.D. F.R.S.,
4to. (1763) vol. i. p. 289.
540 ISLINGTON.
wards took the ‘Duke’s Head” at Islington. A print in
Kirby’s “Wonderful Museum,’ 8vo. 1803, represents Top-
ham performing the amazing feat of lifting three hogsheads
of water, weighing 1,831 pounds, by means of a wooden stage
on which he stood over the hogsheads. This he performed
publicly in Cold Bath Fields, on May 28, 1741, before Ad-
miral Vernon and thousands of spectators, in commemora-
tion of the taking of Portobello.
Topham not only travelled to exhibit his marvellous
powers, but he was fond of an eartempore lark. On his way
home one night, finding a watchman asleep in his box, he
lifted man, box, and all upon his shoulders, and carried his
load with the greatest ease into Bunhill Fields burying-
ground, where he set it down, to the great amazement of
the watchman on awaking. On another occasion, sitting at
the open window of a public-house, a butcher happened to
pass with half an ox on his back. Suddenly stretching out
his arm, Topham lifted the load from the butcher’s back into
the room, to the man’s infinite amazement.
Going once on board a vessel lying in the river from the
West Indies, he picked up a cocoa-nut and cracked it at the
ear of a sailor, just as One might crack an egg-shell, giving
the sailor a great fright. That shrewd observer, William
Hutton, the historian of Derby, Saw Topham there, and re-
lates many marvels of his performances. Alderman Cooper,
on his application for a permission to exhibit at a shilling a
head, requested him to strip that he might see whether he
exhibited muscular development corresponding to the fame
of his doings, and he was astonished at the sight of his arms
and thighs. He appeared nearly five feet ten inches high,
and walked with a slight limp, the consequence of his hurt
when pulling against the two horses. Hutton says he could
lift two hundredweight with his little finger, and move it
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 541
gently over his head. He lifted an oak table six feet long
with his teeth, though half a hundredweight was hung to
the extremity. He broke a rope fastened to the floor that
would sustain twenty hundredweight ; took up Mr. Cham-
bers, Vicar of All Saints, who weighed twenty-seven stone,
and raised him with one hand. His head being laid on One
chair and his feet on another, four people, fourteen stone
each, sate upon his body, whom he heaved at pleasure.
* Being a master of music, adds Mr. Hutton, “he enter-
tained the company with Mad Tom. I heard him sing a
solo to the organ in St. Warburgh’s Church, then the only
organ in Derby; but though he might perform with judg-
ment, the voice was more terrible than sweet, and scarcely
seemed human. Though of a pacific temper, and having
the appearance of a gentleman, he was liable to the insults
of the rude. The ostler at the Virgin’s Inn, where he stayed,
having offended him, he took one of the kitchen spits from
the maintel-piece, and bent it round the fellow’s neck like a
handkerchief, but as he did not choose to tuck the ends
into the ostler’s bosom, the cumbrous Ornament excited the
laughter of the company, till he condescended to untie his
iron Cravat.”
In “The Eccentric Minor,” preceding the account of Top-
ham, there is an engraving of this scene. Hutton says,
that Topham had lifted his own horse over a turnpike gate,
through which the keeper would not let him pass without
an exorbitant toll; and that he carried away the beam of a
house, as a soldier carries his firelock.
Two quarrelsome fellows who came to his house would
insist on fighting him. Topham, weary of their bravadoes,
took each by the neck and knocked their heads together as
he would have done those of two boys, till they very humbly
begged his pardon, and prayed him to cease. -
542 ISLINGTON.
It is a curious coincidence that this modern Samson had
also his Delilah, in the person of a faithless wife, whose
infidelities drove him to desperation, in a fit of which he
beat her unmercifully, stabbed her in the breast, and then
inflicted several wounds upon himself with the same weapon,
of which he died in a few days, in the prime of life, on
August 10, 1749. This occurred at a public-house in Hog
Lane, Shoreditch, which he kept, having left Islington.
Unquestionably Thomas Topham, the strong man of Isling-
ton, was one of the most powerful men that ever lived.
JoBN BANKs, a bookseller and writer of some eminence,
died at Islington, April 9, 1751. The work he is best
known by is ‘The Critical Review of the Life of Oliver
Cromwell,” which has often been reprinted.
MRs. FoESTER, GRANDDAUGHTER OF MILTON, kept a
chandler’s shop at Lower Holloway for some years, and died
at Islington, May 9, 1754, in the sixty-sixth year of her age.
In her the family of the author of ‘Paradise Lost’ became
extinct. She had lived many years in indigence, and at last
sank under the weight of poverty and the infirmities of age.
It does not appear that her grandfather’s admirers took
any notice of her till 1750, when on April 5 of that year
* Comus ' was represented at Drury Lane Theatre with a
new prologue by Dr. Johnson, spoken by Garrick, for her
benefit, which produced her 1801. Dr. Johnson says she had
so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did
not know what was intended when a benefit was offered her.
She knew little of her grandfather, and that little was not
good. She told of his harshness to his daughters, and his
refusal to have them taught to write; but in opposition to
other accounts, represented him as delicate, though temperate
in his diet.
This is a fine specimen of how nobility is acquired and
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 543
rewarded in this country. If a man adds a grand enlarge-
ment to the perpetual fame of his country by an achievement
of literary powers, he gets ten pounds for his work, and his
posterity are suffered to sink into poverty, ignorance, and
extinction. If he kills men enough, or sells himself suffi-
ciently to the ministers of the day, or talks loud enough in
the courts of law, he is put into the peerage, an estate
is frequently bought for him at the national cost, and his
posterity continue to revel in affluence and distinction. What
numbers of such nobility have we on the benches of our
House of Lords; but the descendants of our greatest geniuses,
the founders of the brightest and most universal glory of the
nation—where are they P But the tree produces fruit of its
own kind; the spirit and sentiment of a nation are seen in
its rewards. What it really values it recognises; what it
does not value, however it may profess to own it, it does not
reward.
CoLLINS, THE POET, whose lot fell in evil times, those
called, as if in exquisite ridicule, the Augustan Age of
England, spent some time at Islington. His noble Odes,
pronounced by no mean critic ‘ only inferior to the divine
lyrics of Milton.” Dr. Johnson says, “Poor dear Collins ! I
have often been near his state, and have it, therefore, in
great commiseration.’
Collins died at Chichester, June 12, 1759. He had lived
for some years there in the Cloisters with his sister. Some–
times he was so insane as to “run howling about the aisles
of the cathedral like a houseless dog.” Yet there he wrote
his splendid “Ode on the Superstitions of Scotland,” which,
with his other odes, will ever keep their charmed hold on
the English mind. Perhaps no lyrical poet has ever com-
bined so much imagination, so much delicate feeling, and so
much music in a dozen lines as Collins in his—
tion tº M IIdosoſ oſ, sºup spli potisſuſ, or otolia tonsolioſto
4t UTIII ||SIA O1 post SULOTIT. AA out, Unog ºutput quoqu noire M
IIdosoſ oſ ojo. A uo"Jo IIostIIIoſ IITſutspot) pºp osſe ot se
‘g|IFBQ ouſ, UIOT). UITU ponoso I ou trou M ‘poptod to LIBo (It qt.
oùop petſ ouſ St, *tuguſ II)[A OSITInt;dulAs on KTULUUAA pontin[IOo
9II ºnq. ‘ū013 (UIST jal on Tolſt; Suſſoo Ats 10Aoû (IOSTITIOſ
‘Sox{Cºsſut SIUI
Štú09.I.IOo AT][It] stoo SUA ou l'Eq, III ÁIquitosſuſ os Anq ‘urſtſ
O] pºol qug ATOS 8 ‘Toº Sottopuſ) ºb “Spitt:Atolj W Urſúſ Ol oſqigſ
où Jo 3Upºol out St. Jonut OS UIII pouloos 5uſt 10N 'Isoq
où) SI q ºnq, ‘SUIIIOO pſes "MOOCſ ouo qud OAUTI I, IOOUIQs
O] Kilbo uolpUIo St. Uſons ‘luourºsol, ISILºuiſ IIe St. A qI q.
Jo quârs tº posse ‘Stolno Jo uſeul (; Jo tropubdutoo uosolſo ou?
SUA XIOOC ºbt[AA AAOUXI On Snor.Ino ‘UOSUIU[oſ i Mood outo quq
p'UUI OFI ‘UIII UTIOſ Ol posſuto Id put[ OUAA ‘IO)SIS STUI TOJ ‘prus
où ‘āui) tº ‘urſtſ punoj u Osutlof ICI otollſ, 'IIonduits] uſ
UIAAOp poſ)]OS UI.In 10.1 SITI (IO put ‘ootſu. I up Inoſ, t, optºut ouſ
‘S]].TIds SITI osſº.I put outloos OT, ultſ IOJ 5utſpºA SUAA. Khrubs
-III put “soatou oAmisuos spu (to ATInjAAt 5uſIon SpA looſéolt
SIUIL Sopdoo pIOSUIn otºl Tſe Tuinq putſ out uOſlºušºpuſ STI
UI put, ‘SSold out, UUIO.J. pºop |Soult UIoIIT) put SopC) SIII
‘otout, ‘ºlutiouſ 5uldooA B “[[OAp OT,
‘Utdo, ollu At II bus ulopoo.IJ puy
: Kuo Iſou) Sdt.LA Juuſº Jún, ou, SSOIq OL
‘Kuld ultijud tº ‘Souloo Inouo II otoul,
: juns si of Up Iſoul u00Sun Sutto.J. Kgſ
: junt SI [Ioux tou] spuuli Kuty &I
"pot" (OAO 9Auuſ q30J S,&out I titºul,
‘pos to 100AS tº SSoup II bus otolin ous
: pluouſ poAOIIBUI Iſou') Moop O' Sulujo'I
‘ploo Stojug KAop unſa ‘āuilds uot M.
iºsoſq Sousſa S.KIAutloo Tſoul IIT Kaſ
‘180.1 on Muls ou.A ‘0Atºld ouſ dools AOH
*9 FM. I. 'IWGIX GIEIT, NI NSIIALI'IAA. GICIO
* NIOUL’É) NITISI Fºg
REMARKABLE PERSONs who LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 545
Johnson says: —‘How little can we venture to exult in any
intellectual powers or literary attainments, when we con-
sider the fate of poor Collins ! I knew him a few years ago
full of hopes and projects—versed in many languages, high
in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible
mind is now under the government of those who lately
would not have been able to comprehend the least and most
narrow of its designs. Poor dear Collins !”
COLLEY CIBBER—One of our most prolific and successful
dramatic authors, and Poet Laureate to George T.I., lived
and died in Islington, next to the ‘Castle” public-house
and tea-gardens, mentioned in the twenty-sixth paper of
the “Connoisseur.” Besides tragedies and comedies to the
number of twenty-five, some of which still continue to be
played as stock pieces, Cibber adapted Molière’s ‘Tartuffe '
to the English stage, under the name of ‘The Nonjuror,”
which has again been remodelled as the “Hypocrite.” Cibber
was one of those on whom Pope fell foul in the “Dunciad,’
and on whom many others vented their envy on his becom-
ing Poet Laureate; but he had the sense to take it all in
good part. He wrote an “Apology” for his own life; and
two extraordinary epistles to his lampooner, Pope. He died
in 1757. His son Theophilus, who followed in his father’s
dramatic career, but at a great distance as to merit, was
drowned on his passage to Ireland in the year of his father’s
death.
Lewis tells us that Charlotte Charke, the youngest daughter
of Cibber, kept a public-house at Islington, where she died
in 1760; that is only three years after her father. The
education that she had received was more suitable to a boy
than a girl; and as she grew up she followed the same plan,
being found more generally in the stable than the parlour,
and a more perfect mistress of the currycomb than the
N N
546 ISLINGTON.
needle. She had a splendid equipage, and numerous Ser-
vants at her command; yet, unmindful of her advantages
and extravagant in her habits, her life was passed in the
extremest distress. After her marriage with Mr. Richard
Charke, an eminent violin-player, of dissolute character,
from whom she shortly separated, she applied to the stage,
apparently from inclination as well as necessity, and expe-
rienced miseries of a kind of which no one who knows
anything of the character of a strolling company of actors
can be ignorant. In 1755 she came to London, where she
published the ‘Narrative of her own Life.” By her conduct
she seems to have incurred the lasting alienation of her
father’s regard.
ALEXANDER CRUDEN, author of the ‘Concordance.”— At
a house in Camden Passage, near the west end of Camden
Street, and, at an earlier period, Upper Street, Old Para-
dise Row, lived Alexander Cruden, the author of the ‘Con-
cordance of the Old and New Testaments.” In this gentle-
man we have a curious proof of how much of insanity and
sound practical sense can exist in the same person. That
Mr. Cruden was actually insane, but with a harmless though
sometimes rather intrusive insanity, there can be no doubt.
Eccentricity is the mild term for his idiosyncrasy, but does
not reach to the full extent of his condition. He was the
second son of Mr. William Cruden, a merchant, and chief
magistrate of Aberdeen, where he was born, in 1701. He
commenced his education at the Grammar School of Aber-
deen, where he had for schoolfellows the Earl Marischal
and his brother, the celebrated Field-Marshal Keith. He
afterwards entered the Marischal College with a view to the
ministry. At the age of eighteen, he became attached
to the daughter of a clergyman of Aberdeen, who refused
him, and this at once brought out the latent excitability of
IREMAIRIKABILE PERSON'S WHO LIVED IN ISILINGTON. 547
his temperament. He became outrageous, forced his way
into her father’s house to see her, and the father Ordered
his doors to be closed against him. This had such an
irritating effect upon him, that he was obliged to be kept in
confinement for a considerable time. The conduct of the
lady soon showed that he had had an excellent escape in
her rejection of him, but he never lost the sense of injury
he had received. He now gave up all intention of entering
the pulpit, and proceeded to London, where he became a
private tutor, attending several families, and preparing
youths for the University. He went as tutor for some
time to the Isle of Man, and in 1732 returned to London,
and commenced as a corrector of the press and as a book-
seller. His shop was under the Royal Exchange, and whilst
living there, he met with a severe shock on calling at the
house of a gentleman, where the door was opened by the
woman of his love, now a woman in peculiar circumstances
of disgrace. -
In 1733 he began his great work, the ‘Concordance of the
Scriptures,’ a work of immense labour, and which bears all
the evidence of clear and wise exercise of his faculties. All
his eccentricities were exhibited in his life; in his grand
work he manifested nothing but sober intelligence and
steady exertion. The amount of labour and care which his
persevering research has opened to all Biblical enquirers is
beyond calculation. He had expectation of patronage from
Queen Caroline, and dedicated the work to her; but she died
a few days before the publication, and he suffered a severe
loss and disappointment. He had pursued his labour upon it
with such ardour, instead of continuing his teaching and em-
ploying his leisure hours on his compilation, that through the
queen’s death, and the slow sale at first, he became involved
in debt, and was compelled to close his shop. He was now
N N 2
548 ISLINGTON.
without employment, without friends, and without hope.
He had conferred an immense benefit on the world, and the
world yet knew nothing of it. The effect upon his mind
was such that it was necessary to send him to a private
madhouse at Bethnal Green. His conduct in the asylum
was harmless, but singular. On regaining his liberty he
published a pamphlet entitled, “The London Citizen ex-
tremely injured : giving an Account of his Adventures
during the time of his severe and long Campaign at Bethnal-
Green for Nine Weeks and Six Days; the Citizen being
sent there in March 1738, by Robert Wightman, a moto-
riously conceited, whimsical Man; where he was chained,
handcuffed, strait-waistcoated, and imprisoned, etc. etc.’
IIe also commenced an action against Dr. Munro and other
defendants, which was tried at Westminster in 1738, but
the verdict was given against him. He published an ac-
count of this at the time, with remarks on the management
of private madhouses, which certainly needed great reforms,
but Cruden’s reputation was not likely to give proper force
to his statements. He dedicated the work to the King.
After this, Mr. Cruden, who certainly never appeared in-
same in the eyes of his employer, returned to correcting the
press, and superintended the publication of several editions
of the Greek and Roman classics, which were executed
with great accuracy. In this employment he spent several
years, making himself of great use to the booksellers in all
departments where scholarship was needed. His manners
were inoffensive ; he was found to be trustworthy, and
was most punctual in the fulfilment of his engagements.
Again, however, his old attack of insanity came upon him,
and he was for the third time shut up in an asylum. On
his release, he again published a statement of his case
under the title of ‘The Adventures of Alexander the Cor-
REMARIKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISILINGTON. 549
rector, in three Parts.” Maitland, in his ‘History of Lon-
don,’ vol. i. p. 712, says that ‘Alexander Cruden, citizen
and stationer, much disordered in mind, and lately patient
in a madhouse, insisted on being put in nomination at the
election for city representatives in the year 1754; ” but adds
in a note, “In order to efface any ill impressions which may
be made of this gentleman, it is an act of justice to ac-
quaint the world that, upon the strictest enquiry, we find
him to be a person of Sound morals, unaffected piety, and
a sincere well-wisher to all good men, and the useful author
of the best Concordance in any language of the Bible.”
‘The only circumstances,’ says Nelson, ‘by which he was
convicted of lunacy in the general opinion, were those which
might have in former ages convicted persons of higher dis-
tinction. These were an extraordinary zeal for doing good
in wāys not generally adopted by mankind. He seems to
have considered himself appointed as a general reformer ;
and in his attempts to reform, he departed from accustomed
rules, and was sometimes irregular in invading the province of
the Divine and the Legislator. But in the mammer of doing
even these things real insanity may evince itself. No sound
person could expect to accomplish what he now attempted.
On coming out of the asylum in 1753, he insisted that those
who had been the means of his confinement should submit
to be imprisoned in Newgate, in compensation of the injuries
they had brought upon him. To his sister he proposed what
he thought very mild terms—namely, the choice of four
prisons–Newgate, Reading, and Aylesbury Gaols, and the
prison in Windsor Castle. This as a good-humoured joke
might look like a clear idea of intimating poetical justice,
but Crudem was perfectly serious in the matter; and as his
relatives did not show any disposition to incarcerate them-
selves in penance, he commenced actions against his sister
550 ISLINGTON.
and three others, which were tried in February, 1754. He
laid his damages at 10,000l. None but a madman, however
innocent an one, could hope for success in such an attempt.
When the verdict was against him, as it was sure to be, he
again published the account of their trial in a sixpenny
pamphlet, dedicated once more to the King, and went to
Windsor to present it, but was refused admittance. Not
discouraged by these repeated rebuffs, he solicited the honour
of knighthood, and, of course, with the same result. His
madness now took the form of endeavouring to induce or
oblige people to keep the Sabbath according to his own
notions. He went to exhort all whom he found walking in
the streets on Sundays to go home and keep the day holy.
He took a violent aversion to John Wilkes, then in the
height of his popularity, and used to traverse the streets
with a piece of wet sponge to wipe from walls and shutters
the celebrated No. 45 wherever he found it chalked up.
Not content with this, he wrote a pamphlet against Wilkes.
All words and phrases injurious to good morals he also ex-
punged from the public walls; and he would enter any mob
or tumultuous assembly of people, without the authority of
a magistrate, and in a solemn and commanding manner
desire the contending parties to depart quietly to their
homes, which, from his venerable appearance, and the
mildness of his address, would often produce the desired
effect.”
During all this time Mr. Cruden was pursuing his profes-
sion as a corrector of the press, and in enlarging and im-
proving his ‘Concordance with the most same and exemplary
propriety. He was fortunate enough to be allowed to present
a copy of his second edition of the ‘Concordance' to the
Ring in person, though he did not get knighted for it, as
probably he hoped. He was at this time corrector of the
REMAIRIKABLE PERSON S W BIO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 551
press to the ‘Public Advertiser,” the newspaper of Mr.
Henry Woodfall, in which the stinging epistles of Junius
appeared. His mania of philanthropy, for such it was, how-
ever commendable, had now also a great triumph, and it
was a wonderful one in that age. He managed by incessant
and undaunted applications to the Earl of Halifax, then
Secretary of State, to get the sentence of one Richard Potter,
who was tried and convicted for uttering, knowing it to be
forged, a seaman’s will, commuted to transportation. Such
a success was amazing, for no crime was more inflexibly ex-
piated on the gallows at that period. But Cruden represented
Potter as a poor ignorant creature, who knew no better, and
was in reality the tool of another; and he exerted himself
with the man to instruct him in the principles of religion,
and convert him to a good member of society. He prayed
with him, conversed with him on the true ends of life, and
to all appearance with much success. He completed his
Christian benevolence to this man by clothing and feeding
him, and preparing him for his new life in another hemi-
sphere. In token of his gratitude, Mr. Cruden presented
to the Earl of Halifax a copy of the second edition of his
‘Concordance,” to which was prefixed an elegant Latin
dedication to his lordship. -
Delighted with his success, Cruden continued his labours
amongst the prisoners in Newgate. He visited them every
day, gave them New Testaments, catechisms, &c., instructed
them, and bestowed small pecuniary rewards On the most per-
severing. He was doomed to disappointment, for he found
his books exchanged for money, and the money expended in
drink; and he abandoned his noble design in despair. But
his example was not lost. At a later day, Mrs. Fry, and the
ladies of the Society of Friends, took up the good work, and
brought it at the same time under the influence of men of
552 ISLINGTON.
political influence ; so that out of this humble beginning,
reform of our prisons has developed.
Mr. Cruden, to extend the knowledge of what might be
done amongst convicts, published ‘The History of Richard
Potter.” He also, in returning one Sunday evening from a
place of worship, cast his eye on the face of a man in which, to
his quick glance, misery and despair were profoundly scored.
He immediately fell into conversation with him, and in the
end drew from him the confession that the deep destitution
of his family had driven him to the contemplation of suicide.
He expostulated with him on the wickedness of his inten-
tions, and did not rest till he had afforded him such assist-
ance as restored him to peace and comfort.
In 1769, Mr. Cruden returned to his native city, Aberdeen.
There he set himself with great ardour to reform his towns–
people. He gave a lecture in a public hall, and exhorted all
of every rank to mend their ways. He had the fourth com-
mandment printed in the form of a handbill, and distributed
to all persons that he met in the streets on Sunday. For
young people he had his pockets full of tracts, and some of
them of considerable price, which he gave to all who pro-
mised to read them. He was very winning in his manner
with children, but to some persons his simply presenting a
tract was an act of satire. To a conceited young clergyman
he gave the little catechism used by children in Scotland,
called the ‘Mother’s Catechism, dedicated to the young and
ignorant.” -
After a year’s labour of this kind at Aberdeen, he re-
turned to London, and resumed his lodgings in Camden
Street, where he died, November 1, 1770, in the sixty-ninth
year of his age. He left 5l. per annum to assist in educating
a student at the Marischal College.
In the heart of Alexander Cruden there was no insanity.
TIEMARIKABILE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISTINGTON. 553
It was animated by a zealous love of mankind, but his head
had that touch of disorder which gave an odd character to his
proceedings, and he had that indomitable tenacity of pur-
pose which is generally a symptom of lunacy. In his later
years, he suddenly stepped up to a young lady who was
walking with a gentleman in the street, and made her an
offer. Such absurd outbreaks of fancy are decisive of dis-
Order of mind. The miracle is, that in his great work, ‘The
Comcordance,” not a trace of his malady appeared. He
compiled also a Concordance of Milton’s works—a labour of
scarcely less extent than that of his ‘Concordance.’ He
compiled, moreover, “An Account of the History and Excel-
lency of the Scriptures,’ and a Scriptural dictionary, or
‘ Guide to the Holy Scriptures.’ He was an Independent,
and for the greater part of his life attended Dr. Guise’s
meetings; but after Dr. Guise became superannuated, he
attended Dr. Conder’s chapel, on the Pavement, Moorfields,
going to Dr. Guise's old chapel on the first Sunday in every
month, when the Sacrament was administered. Undoubtedly,
Alexander Cruden was one of the most extraordinary men
who ever lived in Islington.
JAMES BURGH, author of ‘Dignity of Human Nature,’
“Political Disquisitions,’ and other works, lived in Colebrooke
Row, Islington. In the same row lived JoHN ALLINGHAM, a
wine merchant and dramatic writer; Dr. NICHOLAS ROBIN-
SON, a celebrated physician and medical writer, died at Is-
lington. ISAAC RITSON, a young man who died at the age
of twenty-seven, who translated “Homer’s Hymn to Venus,’
Hesiod’s ‘Theogony,’ and was author of various produc-
tions, also lived in Islington; and many other men of about
the same literary rank.
Jose.PH AND MRS. COLLYER.—Joseph Collyer was the trans-
lator of Klopstock’s ‘Messiah, and of ‘Noah, another work
554 ISLINGTON.
from the German. Mrs. Mary Collyer, his wife, had also the
reputation of having translated Gesner's popular romance,
“The Death of Abel,’ from the same language; but Nelson,
in his second edition of the ‘History of Islington,’ says that
it was not done by her, but by a Mr. Mackay, who gave it
to Mr. Collyer, who was a printer, of Plough Court, Fetter
Lane, who affixed the dedication to Queen Charlotte, just
then arrived in England, as translated by Mary Collyer, a
widow, to provide by its sale for her children. A copy was
sent to the Queen, and graciously received; but the Queen
expressing a desire to see the widow, Mrs. Collyer, who knew
no language but her own, took care not to appear.
This Mr. and Mrs. Collyer resided in Islington. Their
son Joseph was a celebrated engraver in the stippled style.
He was senior associate engraver of the Royal Academy,
and his works are conceived in his own peculiar style of art.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.—We have already noticed that Gold-
Smith was fond of making holiday visits to Islington and
Eighbury, and that he had also lodgings occasionally in
Canonbury Tower, where he was near his publisher, Mr. New-
bery, and where he is said to have written part of his ‘Vicar
of Wakefield, the whole of his ‘Deserted Village,’ and probably
his “Traveller.” Having in my “Homes and Haunts of the
Poets’ related the incidents of Goldsmith’s residence here, I
now merely transcribe those passages:—‘In 1762 Goldsmith
quitted Wine-office Court, and took lodgings in the house of
a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, in Islington. This was to be near
his friend, Mr. Newbery. Here he continued till 1764,
chiefly employed upon job-work for Newbery; of which the
most important was, “Letters of a Nobleman to his Son,”
and the “History of England.” He used to relieve the
monotony of his life by weekly visits to the Literary Club,
of which Johnson, Burke, and Sir Joshua Reynolds were
REMAIRRABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISILINGTON. 555
principal members, and which was held at the Turk’s Head,
Gerrard Street, Soho, -
‘Here, there is every reason to believe, occurred the event
already alluded to, the threat of arrest, and the sale of the
MS. of the “Vicar of Wakefield” by Johnson to liberate
him. Of this story there have been various versions. Mrs.
Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins, Cumberland, and Boswell, all
relate it; all profess to have heard it from Johnson, and
yet each tells it very differently. In all these stories, how-
ever, there is a landlady demanding arrears of rent, and
bailiffs waiting to arrest if the money were not forth-
coming. All agree that Goldsmith was drinking, most of
them say Madeira, to drown his vexation; and Cumberland
adds, that the landlady proposed the alternative of pay-
ment or marriage. Whether the latter point were really in-
cluded in the demand, is not ever likely to be known; but
that Mrs. Fleming, who went by the name of Goldsmith’s
hostess, and is thus painted by Hogarth, was the woman in
question I think there can be little doubt ; though Prior,
the biographer, would fain exempt her from the charge, and
suppose the scene to occur in some temporary lodging.
There does not appear the Smallest ground for such a Sup-
position. All facts point to this place and person. Gold-
Smith had been here for a year and a half; for Prior himself
gives the particulars of this landlady’s bill reaching to
June 22. As it occurred in this year, and about this time;
for it is expressly stated that the “Vicar of Wakefield”
was kept about two years by the bookseller unpublished—
and it was not published till the end of March, 1766–it
could not possibly happen anywhere else. He could not
have left Mrs. Fleming, or if he had, he could not have
been away long enough to accumulate any alarming score.
|Here, on the contrary, everything indicates that he was
556 ISLINGTON,
in debt and difficulty. He had been at least a year and a
half here, and might, and probably had run a good way into
his landlady’s books. The biographer states expressly that
Goldsmith was in great difficulties, and for some months
invisible—said to have made a trip into Yorkshire. The bio-
grapher also shows that Newbery, the bookseller, generally
paid the landlady for Goldsmith ; but it came out that Gold-
Smith was now also very far bellind with Newbery, owing
him no less than 111!. ; and next comes an obvious dislocation
with Newbery himself. It is a fact which does not seem to
have struck the biographer, that when Johnson sold the MS.
of the “Vicar of Wakefield,” he did not sell it to Newbery,
though Newbery was not only Goldsmith’s publisher, but his
own. He went and sold it to a nephew of Newbery’s, Mr.
Francis Newbery, of Paternoster Row. Now there must
have been a reason for this ; and what so likely as that
Goldsmith, having run too deeply into debt, had alarmed
Newbery—publishers are careful men—that he not only had
refused to advance more, but had withdrawn his guarantee
to the landlady. This being the case, Goldsmith would be
at his wit’s end. With long arrears of rent and board, for
Mrs. Fleming found that too, and the security withdrawn by
Newbery, she would be alarmed, and insist on Goldsmith’s
paying. To Newbery he could not fly, and in his despair he
sent for Johnson. Johnson sold the novel, but not to
Newbery. With him it would only have gone to reduce the
standing claim ; with another, it would bring what was
wanted, instant cash. What confirms this view of the case
is, the fact, that immediately after this Goldsmith did quit
his old landlady and return to London.
‘Canonbury Tower, or Canonbury House, as it is indif-
ferently called, is often said to have been a residence of Gold-
Smith, and the room is shown which he used to occupy, and
R.E.M.A.R.R.A.BLE PERSONS WIHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 557
where it is said he wrote the “Deserted Village.” The
reason, besides, that it was near Newbery, given for Gold-
Smith going to live at Islington, is, that it was a pleasant
village. When Goldsmith’s difficulties increased, probably
he found it convenient to hide from his creditors in the
tower, where he lay concealed for days and weeks. Very
probably he was there all the time he was said to be in
Yorkshire. He is supposed to have made a visit to the
tower in 1767, when his permanent abode was in the Temple;
but he had apartments for the summer in Canonbury Tower,
and was visited there by most of his literary friends. On
many of these occasions they adjourned to a social dinner at
the “Crown '' in the Lower Road, where tradition states
them to have been very jolly. These periods admit of part of
the “Vicar of Wakefield,” and of the whole of the “Deserted
Village’ being written here.”
DR. RICHARD PRICE.-On the western side of Newington
Green, in the Parish of Islington, lived at one time this dis-
tinguished Nonconformist minister, who made so prominent
a figure during the periods of the American War and the
French Revolution, by the ardour of his spirit of liberty, and
at the same time by his profound skill in financial calcula-
tions.
Dr. Price, as stated, was born at Tynton, in Glamorganshire,
February 23, 1723, a son of a second marriage, with his living
to make in the world. On arriving in London he obtained,
through the influence of a paternal uncle, admission to a
Dissenting academy, where he pursued his studies in mathe-
matics, philosophy, and theology. In 1743 he engaged him-
self as chaplain and companion of the family of Mr. Sheath-
field, of Stoke Newington. In this family he continued
thirteen years, and soon after the death of his patron became
morning preacher at the chapel on Newington Green. He
558 ISLINGTON.
married in 1757, and in the following year acquired a great
reputation by the publication of his first work, ‘Review of
the Principal Questions and Difficulties of Morals.” In 1767
a number of gentlemen of the legal profession consulted him
on a plan for securing annuities to their widows. This
turned his attention to such plans, and led him to the
discovery of the generally defective system on which life
assurance Societies and the like were based. His treatise on
* Reversionary Payments,’ 1769, quickly destroyed a number
of the most rotten of them, and produced a reform of the
rest. On such subjects Dr. Price became the great authority,
publishing ‘Short and Easy Theories for finding in all cases
the difference between the Value of Annuities payable yearly,
half-yearly, quarterly, and monthly: ' and “On the Proper
Method of calculating the Value of Reversions depending on
Survivorship.’ His ‘Northampton Tables’ were, till recently,
the common basis of Calculations of life assurance companies,
and were superseded only by an actual alteration in the
ratio of mortality, owing to the more healthy modes of life,
which he himself was one of the first to bring about by
his remarks on the different effects on population and lon-
gevity betwixt town and country; on the insalubrity of marshy
situations, etc.
The American War aroused him to the defence of human
liberties, and his ‘Observations on Civil Liberty, and the
Justice and Policy of the War with America,’ placed him in
the foremost ranks of liberal philosophers. The French
Revolution strengthened these principles in him, but did not,
as in many other cases, shake his deeply-seated religious
convictions. He had vigorous but friendly contests with
Dr. Priestley on materialism, necessity, etc., and ably vindi-
cated the immortality of the soul, and the doctrines of
revealed religion. He was the friend of Howard the Philan-
REMAIRRAIBT/E PERSON'S WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 559
thropist, Priestley, Franklin, and most of the prominent
reformers of the time. Pitt consulted him on the best mode
of liquidating the National Debt, the result of which is said
to have been the adoption of the Sinking Fund. Dr. Price
died in 1791, having passed through an active existence and
an amount of usefulness rarely accomplished by one man.
His works are numerous. In the Presbyterian Chapel at
Stoke Newington there is an inscription to his memory,
designating him justly, as ‘Theologian, Philosopher, Mathe-
matician; Friend to Freedom as to Virtue; Brother of Man;
Lover of Truth as of God.”
About the same period lived or died at Islington a number
of men of much merit and considerable distinction. The
Rev. GEORGE MARRIOTT, rector of Twinstead, in Essex, and
lecturer of St. Luke's, Old Street, died at Islington in 1798.
|He had been chaplain to the British Factory, in Sweden,
and was the author of several poems.—The Rev. JoHN PAL-
MER lived at Islington some years, and died there in 1790.
He was author of a ‘Defence of the Liberty of Man as a
Moral Agent,” in reply to Priestley, and various other works
of a religious character.
MARY WooDSTONECRAFT taught a day-school at Newington
Green when she was twenty-four years of age, and there
made the acquaintance of Dr. Richard Price, in whom she
must have found a congenial soul, so far as freedom and
human progress were concerned. As authoress of the
“Rights of Woman,” the wife of William Godwin, the
author of ‘Caleb Williams’ and of ‘Political Justice,” the
mother of Mrs. Shelley, this remarkable woman has a host
of titles to immortality. Though much and severely criti-
cised for her opinions in her own day, every year since has
been bringing her theories nearer and nearer to practical
realities; and we now see such men as John Stuart Mill,
560 ISLINGTON,
John Ruskin, and a multitude of profoundly enlightened
men, calling on the nation to concede to woman those rights
which Mary Godwin so eloquently advocated. She died in
August, 1797, and her remains lie in Old St. Pancras
churchyard.
BARON D’AGUILAR.—One of the most extraordinary, and
at the same time most cruel and revolting wretches who ever
lived anywhere, resided at No. 21 in Camden Street, Isling-
ton. This was a Portuguese Jew, named Baron Ephraim
Lopez Pereira D’Aguilar. He had also a small yard and
barn for many years on the west bank of the New River, at
the place where it emerges from beneath the road near the
south end of Colebrooke Row. The subject of our present
notice was the son of Baron Diego D’Aguilar, a Portu-
guese Jew, who died in England in 1759. He was born
at Vienna, about the year 1740, and on the death of his
father succeeded to his title and estates. In 1757 he was
naturalised, and about the same time married the daughter
of Moses Mendez Da Costa, Esq., a rich merchant, of Lon-
don. Miss Da Costa’s large fortune was luckily settled on
herself previous to their marriage. He had two daughters
by this lady, who, on their mother’s death, which occurred
in 1763, inherited her property.
In the year 1767 Baron D’Aguilar married his second
wife, the widow of Benjamin Da Costa, Esq., a merchant.
During his first, and a short portion of his second marriage,
the Baron lived in great splendour in the house built by his
father-in-law, Mendez da Costa, in Broad Street Buildings.
He kept an elegant establishment of carriages, horses, and,
as he often boasted, of between twenty and thirty servants.
All at once, however, he began to change his mode of living.
The plea was the loss of a considerable estate in America,
through the war; but this loss demanded no such extra-
REMAIR, KABLE PERSON S W HO LIVED IN ISILINGTON. 561
ordinary retrenchment. Perhaps the real cause was his
dissatisfaction with his second wife. She is reported to
have been a good and accomplished woman, and probably
was much too refined for so base and sordid a wretch as he
eventually proved to be. His wife's large fortune was, with
Jewish care, also settled securely on herself. Whatever was
the cause, however, he threw up his house in Broad Street,
withdrew from his family connections and the gay world,
and assumed an air of poverty. With this change came
also a change in his habits. He grew rapidly mean, pen-
urious, dirty, and disgusting in his manners. He treated
his wife with the utmost brutality; locked her up in a hay-
loft, starved and insulted her. For this conduct he was
successfully prosecuted in the Court of King’s Bench. Dur-
ing the trial he appeared with the utmost unconcern in open
court; and when the verdict was against him, impudently
petitioned the Bench to cause his wife to pay half the ex-
penses, on account of his poverty. He was in reality extremely
rich. -
The Baroness D’Aguilar died six or seven years before her
miserable husband. Whilst she was living, he took a house
in Shaftesbury Place, Aldersgate Street, as well as the one
in Camden Street, Islington. In these houses he kept a
number of women whom he had seduced, and by whom he
had numerous illegitimate children. These women and
their families all lived together in these abodes of infamy.
Besides these houses he had two at Bethnal Green, crammed
with the costly furniture which he removed from Broad
Street Buildings, and which he never used afterwards. He
had also a mansion at Twickenham, which he used to call
his country-house; but this, too, was shut up, and a man,
on a small monthly pittance, kept an eye over it. Besides
these he had another shut-up house at Sydenham, with a
O O
562 ISLINGTON.
few cattle on the premises; but these he suffered to be
really starved to death, the man who had care of them, a
poor shoemaker, having kept them alive as long as he could,
but as he could neither get to see nor hear from the baron,
they all perished.
But the perfection of his cruelty to animals was seen on
a farm which he had at Islington, and which acquired the
name of ‘Starvation Farm.’ The baron carefully apportioned
the food which his cattle was allowed, and frequently gave
it them with his own hands; but it was so miserably defi-
cient, that the poor creatures perished piecemeal. Their
stalls and yard were never cleaned out, and were literally
one great dung-hill. When any of them died, he ordered
the man who had charge of them to bury them in the heap
of manure, and at his death it is reported that the remains
of nearly forty carcases of such starved-to-death creatures
were found in the accumulated refuse-heap of years. On
One occasion the man sold the body of a starved calf to a
vendor of dog’s meat; but he summoned the man before
a magistrate for embezzling his property, had 1s. 10d.
deducted from his wages—the amount received for the dead
calf—and then he turned him away.
Such was the ravenous famine amongst his stock on this
* Starvation Farm,” that the animals attacked and devoured
each other. The pigs chased and devoured the famished
and skeleton fowls. There was no society then for the
protection of animals, or the baron would have been ar-
rested in his detestable career; but the populace in their
indignation hooted and pelted the miserable baron when-
ever they could get a sight of him on the premises, which
was in a squalid dress, covered with filth. In Granger’s
*Wonderful Museum’ there are portraits of Baron D’Aguilar,
and a view of ‘Starvation Farm.’
B.E.M.A.R.KABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 563
On one occasion he villainously had the carcase of one of
his starved cattle slyly thrown into the New River, and
narrowly escaped a prosecution for it. At this farm he kept
locked up his old favourite coach, a cumbrous machine
drawn in his gala days by four horses, which now passed a
miserable hungry existence on ‘Starvation Farm.’
“Having,’ says Nelson, “totally forsaken all genteel society,
and given himself up to the most wretched and abandoned
pursuits, he never cared to see any of his family, or his
former respectable connections. He would sarcastically tell
his sons-in-law that they were gentlemen, and not fit asso-
ciates for him ; and his daughters that they were too fine
to sit in his company. The large estate which he lost in
America, he never attempted to recover ; nor would he suffer
any person to interfere in the business, though with a pro-
bability of success. He is said to have been an excellent
scholar; to have written with great elegance and facility;
and he had some of his natural children educated under the
first masters, and behaved towards them with the greatest
paternal kindness.
“In his last illness, notwithstanding the severity of the
weather, and the dangerous nature of his complaint, he would
not allow a fire in his house, nor admit a doctor into his
presence; but he followed the prescriptions of a medical man,
to whom he sent every day a fee of One guinea, with a state-
ment of his symptoms. His youngest daughter affectionately
sent several times in his last moments, begging permission
to see him, but with dreadful imprecations, to which he was
much addicted, he declared she should never enter his
presence. He died at his house in Shaftesbury Place, on
March 16, 1802, at the age of sixty-two. His body was
removed to Islington, and thence carried to the Jews’
Burial-ground at Mile-End.
O O 2
564 ISLINGTON.
“Thus lived and died the Baron D’Aguilar, who possessed
both the means and the ability for the exercise of virtuous
and munificent actions; but whose life was, for the most
part, absorbed in habits the most unnatural, inhuman, and
degrading. He left two legitimate daughters, who, by his
dying intestate, administered, and came into possession of
all his property, while a number of poor objects, who had
natural claims on his protection, and who had been Sup-
ported by him in his lifetime, were left altogether destitute.
‘The Baron’s effects at Islington were sold by auction,
which lasted two days; his stock of lean cattle sold for
128l., and his favourite coach, which was almost dropping
to pieces, was bought for 7l., for the sake of the springs.
He had a valuable library in Shaftesbury Place, consisting
of Hebrew, English, and foreign literature, which was also
sold. His diamonds, jewels, &c., were reported to be worth
30,000l. ; and his plate consisted of seven hundredweight,
in articles of various descriptions. He had, moreover, a
stock of about forty bags of cochineal, and twelve bags of
fine indigo, probably worth near 10,000l. These articles he
had purchased many years before his death on speculation,
resolving never to part with them until he had a desirable
profit. The total bulk of his property is supposed to have
been upwards of 200,000l.’
On what system, social, physical or metaphysical, are we
to explain these enigmas of the human race? Is it a pecu-
liar species of insanity which takes a pleasure in whatever
is low, vile, degrading, and cruel 9 Are such persons pos-
sessed by unclean spirits? Or is it avarice, which, Overcoming
the early fondness for social station and display, brings to
light the really preponderating elements of their character 9
Avarice, filth, and cruelty usually hold together by a pri-
maºval and powerful affinity. Baron D’Aguilar was not only
REMAIRIKABLE PERSONS WEIO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 565
cruel to animals, but still more so to human beings, and pre-
eminently to his own mistresses and children. He was kind
and affectionate, we are told, to his natural children; but
after educating them highly, and rendering them the more
sensitive to the impressions of poverty and neglect, he left
them to these miseries at his death with the most heartless
indifference. The real causes which go to the production of
these revolting characters seem to defy the profoundest
powers of intellectual analysis. We are compelled to content
ourselves with the assertion of the inspired Hebrew—‘The
human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked.”
About this period and shortly after, lived or died in Isling-
ton a number of persons of a certain amount of distinction. A
Mr. ALEXANDER AUBERT, a merchant of London, lived in Ts-
lington many years, and was buried there in 1805. Mr. Aubert
appears to have been a very accomplished man, and very in-
fluential amongst his neighbours. He was wealthy, and was
made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Islington Volunteers in 1792.
IIe was on friendly terms with William Pitt, Lord Melville,
George Rose, and the leading Conservatives of his time, and
occasionally entertained them at his house at Highbury, where
he had an observatory. But the circumstance which will
longest preserve his memory, is that he was a zealous friend
and patron of Smeaton, the engineer. Under his directions
chiefly, Smeaton enlarged and improved the harbour of Rams-
gate. He revised and corrected for publication Smeaton's
account of the building of Eddystone Lighthouse, and pro-
moted his interests in every possible way.
ABRAHAM NEWLAND, the celebrated manager of the Bank
of England, also resided at Highbury many years. This
gentleman, whose name for so many years figured on the
notes of the Bank of England of a value, taken altogether,
566 ISLINGTON.
almost incalculable, was the son of a baker in Castle Street,
in Southwark. He was educated for the counting-house,
and in his eighteenth year took his seat as a clerk in the
Bank of England, whose chief cashier he was destined to
become. Abraham Newland was a bachelor, and of careful
habits. Of course, therefore, he became very rich ; but he
continued to lead a citizen sort of life, which would greatly
astonish gentlemen of his class and affluence now. At fifteen
minutes past nine o’clock in the morning Mr. Newland was
constantly seen at his desk in the Bank, and was never ab-
sent from his duty until three in the afternoon. Though he
possessed a handsome house in a fine situation, with ample
grounds, and though the surrounding country was most
pleasant and inviting, he never enjoyed the pleasures it
afforded for many hours at a time; for while he retained his
situation at the Bank, he constantly kept his apartments in
that building. His usual practice was to repair to Highbury
in his carriage after dinner, drink tea with his housekeeper,
amd afterwards perambulate the path along the front of the
houses, or take a walk on the gravel-way leading to High-
bury Barn, returning invariably to London to sleep ! -
This extraordinary specimen of a plodding citizen, who
preferred the air of London to that of the country, who
balanced his household books every evening before he went
to bed, and who, with a property of 130,000l., spent only a
few hundreds a year, did contemplate, ever and anon, or—
ganising an establishment of a more commanding character,
and actually on the scale of 6,000l. per annum. But it was
merely a dream—he never did it; but he did prevail on him-
self to retire from business, and resign his situation, on Sep-
tember 17, 1807, whereupon, like many another old plodder,
with no other interest or passion in the world but business,
he immediately collapsed—died out and disappeared—on
REMAIRIKABILE PERSON'S WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 567
November 21 of the same year, or in two months and three
days from his renouncing the habits of a life of nearly sixty
years His actual age was seventy-seven years.
It is scarcely necessary to say that this bank automaton
was in politics what is called a King’s man; that is, that he
worshipped the government by whose business he grew
rich, but that he had forgotten to worship anything higher,
being, says his biographer, in this respect only like too
many more who are so devoted to manufacturing wealth, that
they even forget there is a God, and therefore but dimly
believe in Him. The witty song of Charles Dibdin, junr.,
sung at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, will always perpetuate
the name of this curiosity of Threadneedle Street :-
There ne'er was a name so bandied by Fame,
Through air, through ocean, and thro' land,
As one that is wrote on every bank-note:
You muct all know Abraham Newland 1
Oh Abraham Newland,
Notified Abraham Newland 1
I've heard people say, ‘sham Abraham’ you may,
Eut you musn't sham Abraham Newland.
DR. WILLIAM HAWEs, Foun DER OF THE ROYAL HUMANE
SOCIETY.—If the Royal Literary Fund owes its origin to a
Dissenting minister of Highgate, Islington possesses as great
an honour in being the birthplace of the founder of the
Royal Humane Society. William Hawes, M.D., who first
projected, and was from its establishment to the termination
of his life the chief supporter of this excellent Society, was
born in this place in 1736. His father for many years
kept the house formerly called ‘Job’s House,’ but better
known as ‘The Old Thatched House Tavern,” during whose
time it was burnt down and rebuilt on the same site, and
again was pulled down on the formation of Halton Street.
He received the early part of his education in the seminary
568 - ISILINGTON, - .
of homest John Shield, in Islington, and completed it at St.
Paul’s School. On the expiration of his apprenticeship to
Mr. Cansan at Vauxhall, he became assistant to Mr. Dicks
in the Strand, whom he succeeded in business. In 1773 he
began to attract public notice by his incessant endeavours to
awake a general attention to the resuscitation of drowned
persons. With the usual slowness of the English people to
receive new ideas, no effect had been produced by the many
zealous articles during the preceding thirty years which had
appeared in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ recommending
this practice. With all this preparation for his humane
labours, Dr. Hawes found his endeavours to save the lives of
his countrymen who had the misfortune to get drowned, not
merely received with indifference, but with ridicule, animo–
sity, and opposition. He was treated, as such enlightened
innovators always are, as a silly enthusiast, as a man seeking
notoriety by attempting extraordinary and absurd achieve-
ments. The recovery of people apparently drowned was
declared, even by medical men, an impossibility. TJr. Hawes,
however, was made of the true stuff; one of those men
whom Providence raises up and maintains by his omnipotent
spirit to do the so-called impossible in defiance of prejudice
and persecution. He took the surest measures of obtaining
opportunity to prove the practicability of resuscitation, by
advertising rewards to persons who, between Westminster
and London Bridges, should, within a certain time after the
accident, rescue drowned persons from the water, and bring
them ashore to places appointed for their reception, notice
being immediately given to him, and prompt means used
for their recovery. For twelve months Dr. Hawes continued
to pay these rewards himself, and case after case of success-
ful recovery being effected and made known, the public
mind was at length effectually aroused to the reality of such
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 569
recovery, and to the immense good to be done by its regular
practice. Dr. Cogan, the well-known translator of the
works of Camper, and author of religious and philosophical
works, remonstrated with Dr. Hawes on the ruin to his
private fortune which the continuance of his rewards for the
recovery of drowned persons would bring upon him, recom-
mending that they should form a society for this special
purpose. Dr. Hawes accepted the idea. They agreed each
to bring forward fifteen friends to a meeting at the ‘Chapter
Coffee House,” in 1774, and there and then THE HUMANE
SoCIETY was established. In the following year an excellent
sermon, preached at St. Bride’s Church by the Rev. R.
Harrison, excited a considerable interest in its behalf. The
personal exertions of Dr. Hawes were, however, still con-
stantly demanded to sustain and extend the sympathy with
the Society’s labours, without which there would probably
at this moment be none of those kindred institutions now
planted in India, America, and throughout Europe, where-
ever, indeed, there are great rivers or other waters.
The mind of Dr. Hawes was incessantly at work to pre-
vent loss of life in various ways. In 1774 he published
“An Account of Dr. Goldsmith’s last Tilness,” whose death
he ascribed to the improper administration of a popular
medicine, and pointed out the danger of using powerful
drugs. In 1777 appeared his “Address on Premature Death
and Premature Interment,’ which he distributed extensively,
to awaken a salutary caution in the public mind against the
interment of persons supposed to be dead before it had been
clearly ascertained that they were so. This was a subject
which had long dwelt in his mind, even before that of the
resuscitation from drowning. Still, at this time, we are as
a people too careless on this subject. The Germans in many
places have houses appointed for the reception of persons
570 ISLINGTON.
who, though apparently dead, show no signs of decom-
position. The dead are not buried so soon in England as in
Imany other countries, but in all cases where there is not
an absolute certainty of death having taken place, the body
should be kept till signs of decomposition appear.
At the General Court of the Directors of the Humane
Society in 1776, Dr. Towers presiding, the Society had to
congratulate itself on the number of successful and astonish-
ing cases of recovery from drowning, and high encomiums
were pronounced on the invaluable labours of Dr. Hawes
and his colleague, Dr. Cogan. In 1780 “An Examination
of the Rev. John Wesley’s Primitive Physic,” by Dr. Hawes,
had reached a third edition. In the recommendation of
popular remedies by the venerable founder of the Metho-
dist Society, Dr. Hawes saw much danger to those who put
great faith in him, and exposed with much irony, as well
as serious argument, the absurdity of many of the nostra.
recommended by him to popular use. In 1781 he removed to
Palgrave Place, and commenced practice there as a physician,
having long possessed a diploma of M.D. In this year he
presented an address to the Legislature on the importance
of the Humane Society; and an address to the King and
Parliament with observations on the General Bills of Mor-
tality. These publications greatly raised his reputation both
as a man of science and benevolence. In that year, too,
he was elected Physician to the Surrey Dispensary, and
immediately commenced a series of lectures on everything
connected with suspended animation, being the first person
who ever introduced the subject into medical education.
These lectures extended to the following topics : — The
Causes of suspended animation, and the most effective modes
of recovery. The Sundry derangements which suspend the
action of the principal vital organs, the brain, the lungs, and
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 571
the heart, with the best means of reviving their functions.
An enquiry into the effects of animal, vegetable, and mineral
poisons; their power of suddenly destroying the vital func-
tions, and the most approved methods of preventing or
neutralising their action. On modes of recovering people
from syncope, inebriation, drowning, Suffocation, cold or
lightning. Remarks on still-born infants, and the most
efficacious modes of restoring vital action. The various
symptoms of apparent death occasionally occurring in acute
diseases; measures for surmounting these ; and, lastly, signs
of death which are real and those which are dubious. In
short, Dr. Hawes devoted his whole intellectual energies
to counteracting the approach of death, through various
channels. He closed his lectures by proposing prize medals,
gold and silver, to be awarded to those who most effectively
promoted these objects. In October 1782 the first gold
medal was conferred on Dr. Richard Pearson, of Birming-
ham, and the silver medal on a writer under the name of
* Humanitas.” Since then, similar medals bestowed by the
Medical Society have given rise to the invaluable works of
Pearson, Goodwin, Coleman, Kite, Fothergill, &c. -
In 1793, when the cotton manufactures had superseded
those of silk, and the artisans of Spitalfields were reduced
to starvation, Chiefly through his exertions, and a letter
which he published on the occasion, 1,200 families were
Snatched from ruin. In 1796 he published the ‘Trans-
actions of the Royal Humane Society from 1774 to 1784,” with
a dedication to the King. Dr. Hawes had the satisfaction
of not only seeing the most successful operations of the
Society in London, but of assisting to found others in Edin-
burgh, Manchester, Bath, &c., and of corresponding with the
founders of that of Massachusetts in the United States of
America, and in almost every quarter of the globe. In the
572 - - - - - - ISILINGTON.
midst of these philanthropic labours he died, on December 5,
1808, in Spital Square, in his seventy-third year. His
remains were deposited in the new cemetery attached to the
churchyard at Islington. His funeral was attended by the
leading members of the Royal Humane Society, amongst
whom were Dr. Lettsom and other eminent medical men.
The Society erected a marble tablet to his memory in the
church. Few are the men who have left the earth having
more nobly discharged their duty to mankind.
The youngest brother of Dr. Hawes, Benjamin Hawes,
also a native of Islington, was scarcely less meritorious.
IHe acquired a large fortune in the indigo trade in Thames
Street, and bestowed his wealth with a liberal hand in
relieving the distresses of his fellow-creatures. Many de-
serving men struggling with adversity received considerable
transfers of bank-stock from him, but without being able to
discover their benefactor. He took a zealous interest in the
suppression of the slave trade, and in a letter to Mr. Wilber-
force, he offered to sacrifice several thousands a-year towards
a plan for compelling the Powers of Europe to abandon that
detestable traffic. In all these cases he stipulated for the
concealment of his name. He was for forty-eight years a
liberal subscriber to the Humane Society founded by his
brother. He died at Worthing suddenly, when out walking,
in 1822; and bequeathed, after the death of his niece,
24,000l. to twenty different benevolent institutions—1,000l.
to each. -
About the same period lived or died at Islington several
men of distinction to whom we may give a brief notice.
JAMEs ELPHINston, a critic and author of philological works.
He was the uncle of Dr. Strahan, vicar of Islington, by the
marriage of his sister with Mr. Straham, the great printer.
He accompanied Carte, the historian, in a tour through
R.E.M.A.R.K.A. BILIE PERSON S WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 573
Bolland and Brabant to Paris. He was a great admirer of
Dr. Johnson, and zealously promoted the circulation of ‘The
Rambler' in Edinburgh. In 1753 he left Scotland and
settled at Brompton, and afterwards at Kensington, where
he kept a large school. He translated Racine, the younger’s,
poem on ‘Religion,’ and wrote poems of his own; but his
great distinction was the anticipation of the present system
of phonography, or spelling of words according to their pro-
nunciation. In later life he lived at Islington, but died at
Hammersmith in 1809, aged eighty-seven.
JosLPH WHITE, a collector of Saxon coins, and a naturalist,
died at Islington in 1810. Sir BROOK Boo'ſ HBY, the trans-
lator of ‘Sappho,” and author of Some poems, resided at
Islington about this time, though his ancestral estate was at
Ashbourne, in Derbyshire.
WILLIAM HUNTINGTON, one of the most extraordinary men
of his time, lived at a house called ‘Hermes Hill,’ which
had been the residence of a Dr. Valangin, a noted Swiss
physician. This house was near the White Conduit spring,
which passed by White Conduit House to the Priory of St.
John, Clerkenwell, and to the Charter House. Huntington
was originally a coalheaver, and gloried in the name. He
has related his story in his book called ‘The Bank of Faith.”
Pſe was born of peasant parents, in Kent, in 1744, and in his
youth worked as a labourer and became a coalheaver. At
one period of his life he fell into infidelity and wickedness,
but becoming converted, he joined the Calvinistic Methodists,
and became a very powerful and original preacher amongst
them. He preached at One time at Margaret Street, in
London; at Richmond, at Ditton, at Cobham, at Woking, at
Warplesdon, and at Farnham, in Surrey, and used to walk to
all these places; but feeling it at last too much for his
strength, he got a horse. He had the most profound faith in
574, ISLINGTON.
the efficacy of prayer, calling it ‘the Almighty Power of the
Prayer of Faith,’ and he records the most extraordinary
instances of his being rescued from utter distress by the
answers to his prayers. Whilst living at Hermes Hill, in
1811, the spring of the conduit having become choked, he
attempted to clear it for the use of the neighbouring inhabi-
tants, but the low mob, who disliked his homely and honest
appeals to them to mend their ways, came in the night and
flung whole loads of earth and rubbish into it, and again
choked it and rendered it otherwise unfit for use. Hun-
tington, after the death of his first wife, who had passed
through the deepest depths of poverty and tribulation with
him, married the wealthy relict of Sir James Sanderson, a
London alderman, and passed the latter part of his life in
affluence. He died in 1813, and was buried at Lewes; and,
no doubt, remembering such attacks on him as that for
endeavouring to clear the conduit spring at Islington, he
dictated, a few days before his death, the following epitaph
for himself, which appears on his gravestone:– Here lies
the Coalheaver, who departed this life July 1, 1813, in the
60th year of his age, beloved of his God, but abhorred by
men. The Omniscient Judge, at the Grand Assize, shall
ratify and confirm this to the confusion of many thousands;
for England and its metropolis shall know that there has
been a prophet among them.—W. H. S. S.’
The REV. TIMOTHY PRIEST LEY resided and died at his
daughter’s house in Lower Street. Timothy Priestley is
distinguished as the brother of the celebrated Dr. Priestley
rather than for anything else. He was first minister of
Kipping, in Yorkshire, and afterwards of the Independent
congregation in Cannon Street, Manchester; and, lastly, of
the Independent Chapel in Jewin Street, London. He died
in April, 1814, aged eighty years.
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 575
THOMAS SKINNER SURR, a somewhat voluminous novelist,
was, for some years, an inhabitant of Islington. He wrote
‘Christ’s Hospital,” a poem ; “George Barnwell,’ ‘Splendid
Misery,’ ‘A Winter in London,’ and the ‘Magic of Wealth,’
novels. He was a clerk in the Bank of England, and married
a Miss Griffiths, a sister-in-law of Sir Richard Phillips.
JoBN THURSTON and ROBERT BRANSTON, the distin-
guished engravers, lived at Holloway, near Lorraine Place.
Mr. Thurston was a native of Scarborough, and originally a
copper-plate engraver. Under the late James Heath, he
engraved the two celebrated plates of the “Death of Major
Pierson,’ and the “Dead Soldier.” He turned his attention
to designing on wood, and became One of the best wood-
engravers of his time. Being of a retiring disposition, he
was personally little known beyond the circle of his family
and immediate friends. He was of a delicate constitution,
and close application to his art is supposed to have shortened
his days. He died at Holloway, in 1821, aged forty-eight,
and was buried in Islington churchyard.
Robert Branston also commenced as a Copper-plate en-
graver, besides which he was an heraldic painter. He was a
native of Lynn, in Norfolk. In 1802 he came to London
and adopted the profession of a wood-engraver. His style
of engraving was peculiarly his own. He engraved human
figures and indoor scenes with great precision and clearness,
but in trees and natural scenery he was not so successful.
Some of his productions are to be found in the ‘History of
England,’ published by Scholey; in Bloomfield’s “Wild
Flowers,’ and other literary works; but the finest specimen
of his skill is a large cut of the ‘Cave of Despair’ in Savage's
* Hints on Decorative Painting.’
THOMAS DAVISON, the excellent printer of Whitefriars,
Eleet Street, had his printer’s ink and lamp-black manu-
576 ISLINGTON.
factory in the Hornsey Road, near Mount Pleasant; still,
we believe, conducted by Messrs. Shackell and Co.
|MR. and MRs. BARBAULD have been already noticed as
residents of this parish, by Mr. Barbauld's connection as
minister with the Unitarian Chapel at Newington Green,
and by a memorial tablet to Mrs. Barbauld in that chapel.
JoBN NICHOLS, PRINTER AND PROPRIETOR OF THE “GEN-
TLEMAN’s MAGAZINE.’—John Nichols is one of the most dis-
tinguished men which Islington has produced, for there he
was born on February 2, 1744. He was educated at the
academy of Mr. John Shield, who seems not only to have
been the chief keeper of a school at Islington, but merito-
riously anxious to promote the talents of such amongst his
pupils as showed any. Mr. Nichols was intended for the
navy, but the death of his maternal uncle, Lieutenant
Wilmot, put an end to this design, and he was apprenticed
to the celebrated printer William Bowyer, whose renown as
a topographer he was destined widely to diffuse. Mr.
|Bowyer early conceived a great regard for young Nichols,
cultivated his literary talents, and in 1766 took him into
partnership, and destined him for his successor. Previous to
this he had published poems, amongst them one on Isling-
ton. From the period of his becoming partner of Mr.
Bowyer to his death, he continued to produce elaborate his–
torical, biographical, topographical and antiquarian books,
with unremitting energy and astounding industry. In
1755 he published a valuable supplementary volume to Dr.
Hawksworth’s edition of Dean Swift’s ‘Works; ' and in the
following year, the “Original Works, in Prose and Verse,
of William King, LL.D.’ In 1778 he became a shareholder
in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,” which he continued to edit
for nearly half a century. In 1779, in connection with
Dr. Ducarel, he published the ‘History of the Abbey of Bec,
R.E.M.A.R.KABT,E PERSON'S WIFIO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 57.7
near Rouen; ' and “Some Account of the Alien Priories.”
Another coadjutor in these works, Richard Gough, the cele-
brated antiquary, became a close and life-long friend of
Mr. Nichols. In 1780 he published a very curious ‘Collec-
tion of Royal Wills,” aided by the same friends. Whilst
compiling these great works, he also made and published a
‘Collection of Miscellaneous Poems,’ to which, in 1782, he
added four other volumes. On the suggestion, and with the
assistance of Mr. Gough, he began in 1780 to publish the
‘Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica,’ a work which grew
into eight large quarto volumes, including many articles of
British topography, MS. or printed, which were in danger
of becoming lost Or were grown scarce.
In 1781 appeared ‘Biographical Anecdotes of William
Hogarth,’ of which four editions were published between that
date and 1817; and, in the latter year, he published the
“Biographical Memoirs of William Ged, including a parti-
cular account of his Progress in the Art of Block-printing.’
In 1782 he produced the first volume of his ‘Anecdotes of
Bowyer and his Literary Friends,’ 4to, which, under the
name of ‘Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,’
gradually grew to ten volumes 8vo; to which he afterwards
added six more, under the title of “Illustrations of the Lite-
rary History of the Eighteenth Century.’ This may be
considered the great work of Mr. Nichols’ life. It contains
accounts of all the principal works of the great authors of
the time which Mr. Bowyer printed; but those who expect
a collection of chatty anecdotes of the men of that period
will find themselves disappointed. Then followed his work,
ranking in bulk and reputation next to his ‘Literary Amec-
dotes,’ the ‘History of Leicestershire,” which, from 1782 to
1815, grew to four large volumes. During the period in
which he was producing the ‘History of Leicestershire,” he
P P
"NOL}) NITISI 8/9
‘āUInuitd put, eInjº.[O]ll pilos Jo Strºlſ.I. Jeſúſo ouſ]
Jo outo KTLIFE,Leo SbAA SIOTIOIN Ululoſ "KITUIt] SIU Jo Stoquettſ
Touno Kubul pub quoulton III SIU Sp1000.1 p.I.E.Kuſolutio out, UI
quio, W ‘olou Jo Utout tou]o put ‘OXIOOL 'AA ‘SIOUITBURO Laput,
-Xo1 W ‘ūInoSmIN USITT.IgE OUT JO ‘SIIIGI &IUIoH, IIS Kd popuð11t,
SbA [BIOUInj STH IIIOq SUAA out 0.toUA Osmouſ ot|] UIOIJ Spitºſ
Aaj B ATIO ‘p.I.EKTIOInt[O IO)3trºls.I tri po.110]III SEA or ‘OAA)
-Kyū3ro pošt: ‘ūbo.15 tº to USIS tº quouſ]|A potſdro put ‘sooux.
SIUI UO XIUIns KTUtoppns out ‘pod On SITU)s du du ſpoooo..Id SUAA
où se ‘928I “93 toduroAON UIO put: £ 228L Ád pololdutoo otoAA
oSoul, "sonopoolTV KTBIOTIT, put . O.TITISIOlsooran Jo KIO)SIII,
SIUI UAIA KIOAT100 UTO TUIOAA pub “SputoTaj SIU UIOJ ‘ootLBºsTSSt.
boTruTITUIn Jo S.Iajo put, ‘Kulºdu.IXs [bſp.too soul oth poArooo.I
oII “ootLE.I.OAOSIod STI IO STITIds SITI XI bo.Iq ‘ToAOAAOU ‘OUI ppp
Jølst Sºp pub.13 SIULL squoquoo oſqunſuA Trotſ, ITU TITIAA ‘o.Ig
Áq Sosnotta.[BAA put oogo-3UITUTId SIU Jo UOIloninsep out, Ka
‘608T KIbn Idol uſ UTIII XIOO].10A0 ound.IOJSIUI SnoquouTOUI otout
Tºy B pub : UšIII, SIU poinqo'big UtopUAA ‘0.18mbS uOIT poºl uſ
‘oogo-àu Inupid SIUI uſ [IBJ U pull out 108T KIbnub'ſ UI FOSI
uſ oogld XIOO] Uſoſ UAA ‘ĀubduTOO Stottoſ).U1s ouſ, Jo 101st IN
bonooſo od On UOTTIquit SIUI Jo quitouſ ouſ) ºr pottloop put ‘Utop
-UOT JO (IOI) BIOd.IOO oth Jo Ioquiouſ b St. Josurſt USInău Insp
O! ouTI) puno) SIOUIOIN IN. S.InOqb| |StºA esoul IIb pluTW
‘stoùù'ěUI put KUIdu.I3OId Jo OAT1b.I]SnIII Solotl II.]]A “Toſºl, ,
oul Jo Utoppa UB popo OSIB of "put[äuſ UI SouTII, TUIoTºuw
Jo SOSUIodzGI put SIOULUEIN out! Jo SUIOI) E.I.T.SmIII, put: "UO]
–5ulisſ Jo USITBd oth Jo qunooot ouTOS (ITIA ‘ĀInquou'BO Jo solº
-Inbiºuſ V put ÁIOTSIH, alſ, otoA osalſ, Sopºsag| "Ol'ſ ‘SIOA #
.*]sldſ out, Sourt'ſ Jo SOSS013oid , où ‘Ol'ſ ‘SIOA g . ThoqbZIGI
Uoonſ) Jo SUOISSooo...] [BKoºl pub Søssø.130.I.T., ouſ, "ootſbd
Uloquib I Jo Sopmbſ][IV put KIO'sſ H, 9tſ] ."oouſopuodso.L.IOO
S.A.Inq.[O]] W dousſa , .ºluourºso.I. Io9.19 s, to KAogſ, 3upnio
-u ‘SNIOA toujo uoAos-Klioſ utt[] to Aaj out popo to 010.[A
º, di di
où III po/CoIduro StºA out Kod B SW '99/I ‘gg ounſ uo ‘upt:00
-Kouxſobu tº uſ utoq àuſoq Jo outn|log Tºpmäuſs oun put unſus
‘IIN out T 30.J. osmot[-o][qnd . AOIN. Koplºgſ, ou, Ibout
‘oot.I.T0ſ, UIbuIdod ‘8 ‘ON qu poAII “UInosm]N usinſ.[g] out ºu
Słupid oul Jo Iodoo-I SIBOK Kūbut IOJ ‘HIIINS SVNOHI, NHoſ
'Aouſ HooligoToo Jo Houq out quosnout uſ
0UIſ) ouTOS poAIL Suſumſ Jo Stoy) or I, où.) Jo put “Josſ].10ApV
OHQudſ, où.) Jo Ionuţid out, Jo Toulo.IQ put: ‘Ion.TOdo I KIBAutout
-BILIBd quotö out “[It’ſpoo M IIIB/IIIAA 'spoºl pnpuo() opt AA
ul tº uodo our ul său Inaoul od.It I plou On posm out, sºul
III IIIH (INVTAOSI "Aoyſ ouT, KInquoo quoso.Id oul urū), A
olouſ pullos [tº] ſuity tº OAUUI NOLKWTO put, ‘Iſlá)09| “IGIGI*Iſlg|
Jo SouTutſ ouſ I, ‘Slo"SITITUI juſtioSSIOI quouTuTo snoRIBA Jo
ootropºsal out? OSTB trooq 0Abū K.Inquián H. pUIB UO15unts|
‘92) ...[O]Sud poul.IOJONIS, Ion Xbg|, Jo
IIOInſpo (Tº put “KºſUIET)SITUIO Jo Sootſoppa I oth Uo so.Inqoor I,
... : quouT) UOO OUI) LIO Ino I, W , , ; ULOI) noox{I SIUL 01 SnOIA0II
Kºp out, UIBuju IIIogſ utioſ TITIA UIOI) EstoAUIOO B Jo Ooughs
-qns , : Suoultos Jo SouLn[OA OAq polistſquid of I Tolob.Letſo
snouTuTuTo A quu Aouros tº Jo IOUI) ut, UE SUA (IOSIIAA dous;9|
- ‘UIO15urisſ Jo Ito A St.
oot.Id SIII XIOO] ‘ūOSIIAA IoIII'BOI Aoºſ out, “IOS STUI put: “Uºmoſe()
JO dousiq Sº Loq9H dousiq popooooms ou Zg&I UT ‘UO)5uTISI
Jo IBOIA out,000 ou ‘ūtūtº T1S ICI Jo OSB000p on] UO ‘628T
up put $ 608T UI UTIII popo.000ms out ‘AAONI p.10.jpeg| “s, UIUIOſ
“S UIO.J. [1000 UN Jo quouro.1110.1 ou? IIO ‘otſusp.top-O uſ
‘uolio AA Toulo N put, Ioddſ, Jo ontºmo (IoII] : Kottus uſ ‘Koſsºſ
put ultuſqouſ) ye ‘Too O TWI O] optino outbood out uOI) buip.IO
spu UO "sozi.[d [8,10AoS pourſ tº put JIostuſu polismäuſ']
-SIp KTušiū ol O.I.O.UA ‘p.IOJXO ‘II'BH. S. punuipGI “S Jo Ibdio
-upid-oo!A uooq pºli uosº AA UN “s, KIBIN S Jo Tuol A SEA
où allou A ‘uO15UTIST III Stottonusſted SIII Ád pouloomsø IIonut
Ubut t SUAA “OI’OI agg I UI put: “W'IN “NOSTIAA TCIINVOI
619 * NOL}) NITISI NI OIGIAIT OFIM SNIOS'IGIdſ. GITISIWYI?IWIWISISI
580 ISLINGTON.
studio of Nollekens, the sculptor, where he continued three
years. He became a student of the Royal Academy, and
was celebrated for his fine innitations of Rembrandt and
Ostade; and copied several of the small pictures of Gains-
borough, who kindly noticed him. His chief reputation,
however, rests on the publication of several topographical
works:—‘Antiquities of London and its Environs,’ ‘Re-
marks on Rural Scenery, with Etchings of Cottages,”
‘Antiquities of Westminster,’ ‘Ancient Topography of Lon-
don,’ ‘Vagabondiana; or, Anecdotes of Mendicant Wan-
derers through the Streets of London, with Portraits of the
most Remarkable,” and “ Nollekens and his Times.’ Some
of the topographical works contain engravings of topogra-
phical objects which no longer exist; and “Nollekens and his
Times’ includes memoirs of Roubiliac, Hogarth, Reynolds,
T'useli, Flaxman, Blake, &c. Mr. Smith died March 3, 1833.
NELSON, the historian of Islington, lived and died at the
house at the corner of Cumberland Street, on Islington
Green.
JosłPH GRIMALDI, the inimitable pantomimic clown, lived
at No. 33, Southampton Street, Pentonville. He was the
son of Signor Grimaldi, an artiste noted for his humour
and eccentricities, who by day followed the profession of a
dentist, and by night that of ballet-master at Drury Lane.
For a period of forty years Grimaldi, the clown, delighted
the laughter-loving audiences of Drury Lane, Covent Garden,
and Sadler's Wells with a rich buffoonery peculiarly his own.
He died in 1827, and Charles Dickens became his genial
biographer.
SAMUEL ROGERS, THE POET.-We have already mentioned
the interment of the poet Rogers in the family vault in
Hornsey churchyard. We have here to note his birth and
early youth, the scene of which was Newington Green. The
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 581
house in which Samuel Rogers was born is the first old
house that presents itself on the west side proceeding from
Ball's Pond. The date of his birth is July 30, 1763. His
father, Thomas Rogers, and his maternal grandfather, Daniel
Radford, were trustees for the Newington Green Presbyterian
Chapel, which trust devolved on the poet. The poet and his
family were, it thus appears, closely connected with the Uni-
tarian congregation meeting there. This Daniel Radford
was grandson of the distinguished Philip Henry, one of the
ejected ministers, and father of Matthew Henry—the cele-
brated author of the ‘Exposition of the Bible,” and other
theological and critical works—Nonconformist minister of
Hackney. By this line, the mother of the poet was a direct
descendant of Philip Henry. Mr. Rogers’s father was from
Worcestershire, a banker in London, which business Mr.
Rogers retained, so that he was always independent of the
barren heights of Parnassus, and could afford to bring out his
works in fine style and beautifully illustrated. Besides, Mr.
Rogers was celebrated for giving excellent dinners and break-
fasts to literary men; and what critic would think of quar-
relling with a good dinner or even breakfast 2 Yet some one
in ‘ Griffiths’ Monthly Review,’ who had probably been over-
looked in these invitations, on the first occasion of Rogers
appearing in print, that is, on the publication of his “Ode to
Superstition, and other Poems,” said:—‘Mr. Rogers writes
very pretty prose, but he should never think of meddling
with verse !” The result showed that this censor should
never have thought of meddling with criticism.
Mr. Rogers’s future works are too familiar to the public
to require particular reference: his ‘Pleasures of Memory,’
“An Epistle and other Poems,’ ‘The Voyage of Columbus,’
‘Jacqueline,” “Human Life,” and, lastly, in 1830, when sixty-
seven years of age, his ‘Italy.' All his poems are distin-
582 ISILINGTON.
guished not only by a calm flow of diction and of feeling,
but by an exquisite perception of the beauties and amenities
of nature. There is, however, a very marked difference of
style betwixt his earlier and later productions. The earlier
ones are formed on the model of Pope : the latter ones have
rhythm more peculiarly his own.
On quitting Newington Green, Mr. Rogers took chambers
in the Temple, where he continued to reside five years. In
1800 he removed to 22, St. James's Place, overlooking the
Green Park, where he lived for more than half a century,
and, indeed, till his decease. In this house he wrote all his
poems, except the “Pleasures of Memory,’ the ‘Epistle,’ and
* Ode to Superstition ; and here he was visited by a vast
number of the chief authors of the time, amongst them
Byron, Scott, Moore, Crabbe, Fox, Campbell, Wordsworth,
Southey, Coleridge, &c. There also the Queen occasionally
made him a morning visit. There he died, December 18,
1855; and his sister, who had lived with him, preceded
him only on January 29 of the same year. His collection of
pictures, antiquities, marbles, works of art and vertà of dif-
ferent kinds, books, plate, &c., were disposed of by Messrs.
Christie and Mansom, in a sale of twenty-two days, and
produced the sum of 50,148l. 14s. 8d.
CHARLEs LAMB.—Lamb and his sister lived for some years
at Islington, on the banks of the New River, where George
Dyer, the editor of the ‘Cambridge Edition of the Classics,”
and, in fact, that of “Walpy,” for he compiled all this vast work
except the preface—a work of 141 volumes—visited him.
Dyer became blind through his immense labours and over-
use of his eyesight; and, whilst he was in a state of pur-
blindness, walked one day, on leaving Lamb's cottage, right
into the river, and narrowly escaped drowning. Lamb used
to quiz Dyer’s simple-mindedness, but had a great regard
§ º ".
==|º
Fº | :
V.
§ | SS
jū. -
tººl; iirrº #:-ºº:
...; zºº
- § §: & § tº § . º
§§§ §§ §l | ſº; º;
Nº. §§ º; # ºf ' '. Wººl, º &_º -->
- - - V. º gº ºff. * †. | º *RS
- . % º $ “. . jºi. Y. º 's \\
º t sº *: " . . . .º.º. º. & \
§ jºjº
§§ §§§§§
* º: § l #|Nº|| || tº § º §§ ſ
gºš § Nº §§º. $º
§§§ ºś
§§ §§ §§§ ºš §
{\{\}. §§§ ºlº §§ §
§§§ ºğ §º: º \\\
N º §§ Nº [. º º # º: § º lº
Wº Nº tº fºllº
§ & º
º s º 5.
§
§§
º
º
lº º
* *
tº \
*, *-º
Nº. N
* * wº
• ~. &
,w
N
W
º
- S. - ſº
§ º
º #. ſº
tº § sº
Rºß
º:3: Sº
º; wº {
º
|
º
G
cit ARLEs l'AMI5's Hous].
(From an Original Drawing by J. W. Archer, in the possession of W. Twopeny, Esq.)
for him, and ranked him amongst the best-hearted of man-
kind. Lamb was born in London, and educated at Christ's
Hospital, where Coleridge was at the same time; and from
this date commenced the friendship of these two men of
genius, and continued to the end.
Lamb in his youth was attached to a young lady of Isling-
ton, whom he commemorated in his early verses as ‘the
fair-haired maid.’ It was his delight to visit her, and enjoy
stroll with her through the fields at Islington; but an here-
ditary taint of insanity showing itself in him, and his sister
becoming, ever and anon, confirmedly insane, and unhappily
killing her mother in one of her paroxysms, he magnani-
mously gave up all idea of marrying, and devoted his leisure









































584 - ISLINGTON.
hours to literature and to the care of his sister. Though a
simple clerk in the India House, Lamb’s genius, quaint
humour, and bonhommie, made his society sought after by the
greatest minds of his age. Besides Coleridge, Southey, Words-
worth, Hazlitt, Rogers, Godwin, Barry Cornwall, Crabbe,
Robinson, Sir Thomas Talfourd, and Moxon, the poet and
publisher of poets, were his most intimate friends, and many
of them constant visitors at his house, on the genial even-
ings which were spent there. His ‘Essays, by Elia, ’ afford
the best idea of the man and his character, as much as of
his genius. There was a quaint and racy humour about
both his conversation and his writing, which were perfectly
his own. His curious answer to one of the heads of the
India House, who delicately reminded him of his habit of
going late to office, is an unsurpassable specimen of his
wit—‘Yes, that is very true; but then you see how early I
go away !’
Charles Lamb was one of the most distinguished of the
contributors to the ‘London Magazine,” in which Hazlitt,
Bowring, Barry Cornwall, and other of the leading literary
men of the day were writers; and amongst them that ex-
traordinary literary fop and poisoner, Wainwright, who con-
tributed under the name of James Weathercock. How such
men as Lamb and Proctor could admire the flashy articles
of this man is amazing ; but the rogue revealed his real
character by poisoning his sister-in-law, and it is pretty
certain his father and mother-in-law, for their property, or
for sums for which he had insured their lives. He had in-
sured the life of his sister-in-law, a fine healthy young
woman, in different offices for 30,000l., and immediately
afterwards she died suddenly. It was then recollected that
his father-in-law and mother-in-law had also, in full ap-
parent health, died suddenly. The assurance offices refused
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 585
to pay the sums insured on the life of his sister-in-law, and
Wainwright, though the charge of murder could not be
Substantiated, the nature and mode of action of Strychnine
being then little known, was transported for life to Tas-
mania, where he died. Lord Lytton has worked Wain-
wright up in ‘The Children of the Night,’ and an account
of him is given by Talfourd in his ‘Life and Letters of
Charles Lamb.”
Besides his ‘Essays,” Lamb gained considerable reputa-
tion by his poetry and by his ‘Tales from Shakspeare.’
Amongst the old English authors he luxuriated. His sister
|Mary, the author of the beautiful stories of “Mrs. Lester's
School,” also is said to have assisted him in his “ Adventures
of Ulysses and other things. He wrote also ‘Rosamond
Gray,” “John Woodville,’ a tragedy, and “Specimens of
English Dramatic Writers, who lived about the time of
Shakspeare, with Notes.” Amid the many sorrows and se-
vere trials of Charles Lamb, aggravated by much poverty
in early life, he had the satisfaction of growing into com-
parative eace, and thus of not being under the necessity of
writing for support. From this cause we have probably
fewer works by him, but better. On his retirement from
the India House he received an annuity of 450l. a-year in
lieu of his salary, which had risen to 700l. a-year. After
leaving Islington, he removed to Edmonton, where he died
in 1834.
SIR. RICHARD PHILLIPS.–In one of the detached houses
opposite to Lorraine Place once lived the well-known pub-
lisher and author, Sir Richard Phillips. Sir Richard had
passed through many dangers and adventures before he
arrived at the dignity of knighthood. As a boy, he was
brought up by his uncle, a brewer in Oxford Street; but not
liking the trade, he determined to seek out a new track for
586. IST,IN GTON.
himself. One of the first places which he procured was
that of usher in a school at Chester. We next find him at
Teicester, installed as schoolmaster, and also keeping a
Small shop for the sale of hosiery. He was still, however,
aiming at a literary life, and conceived the idea of establish-
ing a newspaper. The ‘Leicester Herald was the result of
this speculation, and his republican principles having in-
troduced him to Dr. Priestley, that remarkable man became
his chief writer. To his newspaper he added the business
of a bookseller; in fact, at that time of day, the country
newspaper generally issued from the bookseller’s shop.
But these were arbitrary times: the ‘Rights of Man,” by
Thomas Paine, had excited a strong feeling of radicalism,
and in many towns domiciliary visits were made by the
magistrates to hunt out this alarming book, and all copies
of it that could be found were collected and publicly burnt.
Mr. Phillips was convicted of selling this work, and was
committed for twelve months to Leicester Gaol. There he
fell under the surveillance of the famous fat gaoler, Daniel
Lambert, who, as fat men usually are, was a mild-tempered
individual, and treated him very kindly.
This treatment by his townsmen seems to have greatly
disgusted Mr. Phillips; he felt that he was moving in too
contracted a sphere for a person of his liberal ideas, and he
betook himself to the great centre of activity—London.
There he commenced the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ a journal
which he continued to edit for many years. He was fortu-
nate to secure the able assistance in its management of Dr.
Aikin; and he numbered on his literary staff Dr. Walcot,
|Mr. Belsham, Capel Lofft, Dr. Mavor, editor of a popular
collection of ‘Voyages and Travels;” Sir John Carr, also
author of ‘Travels in Ireland, Scotland, &c.; Pratt, the
poet; and his brother-in-law, Mr. Surr. In 1807 he was
RIEMARKABLE PERSON'S WHO I,IVED IN ISLINGTON. 587
elected one of the Sheriffs of London; and, on presenting a
corporation address to the King, he was offered the honour
of knighthood, and accepted it, much to the surprise of his
republican friends and readers. Sir Richard, however, made
a good sheriff, and exerted himself to introduce reforms into
the city, and particularly into the prisons, where they were
much needed. During this time of public office and popu-
larity, the affairs of Sir Richard were not in a prosperous
condition; and in the following year, 1809, they came to a
crisis. His large publishing establishment was broken up,
and his effects sold. He managed, however, to buy in,
through a friend, the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ and some of his
most valuable copyrights, and these became his chief support
during the remainder of his life. He died at Brighton in
his seventy-third year.
Amongst the publications of Sir Richard were various
School books: “A Letter on the Duties of a Sheriff of Lon-
don,’ ‘Treatise on the Powers and Duties of Juries,” “Golden
Rules for Jurymen,” “On Stramonium as a Remedy for
Asthma,’ ‘A Morning Walk from London to Kew,’ and
‘Twelve Essays on the Proximate Causes of the Phenomena
of Nature, developing new principles of Universal Causation.’
Sir Richard imagined that he had disproved the laws of
nature as explained by Newton, and penetrated deeper into
the system of the universe than former natural philosophers
and theologians. Public opinion has not supported his
theories. He is believed to have drawn his ideas on these
subjects very much from the speculations of Euler, the Ger-
man natural philosopher, especially as enunciated in his
* Lettres à une princesse d’Allemagne Sur quelques sujets de
Physique et de Philosophie.”
Sir Richard was also one of the earliest vegetarians. The
only time that I ever saw him was one on which he called
588 ISLINGTON.
to obtain some information in furtherance of a work which
he had in hand. We were just sitting down to dinner, and
invited him to partake; but no sooner had he seated him-
self, than, to our consternation, he informed us that he never
ate meat. We expressed our apprehension that he would not
be able to make a dinner, and Ordered up the pudding as the
only resource. “Don’t make any alteration in your arrange-
lments for me,’ said the vegetarian knight, ‘I see a very
good first course before me.” There was a roast goose on
the table, and a sauce-tureen of apple-sauce. With the
greatest coolness in the world, Sir Richard took up the
sauce, turned it all out upon his plate, and quickly dis-
patched it, pronouncing it very good. With equal appetite
and equal disregard of the wants of others, he made a
vigorous attack on the rest of the vegetables, and raised our
wonder at , the digestive capacity of a then, to us, new
animal of the granivorous order. After dinner, Sir Richard
preferred his literary inquiries, and on certain books being
named as the best sources, he begged to know whether we
had them, and then to borrow them. We saw one after
another descend into capacious and Ominously gaping out-
side pockets in his coat, destined never to reissue from those
gulfs within our reach or range of vision. Such was our sole
experience of Sir Richard Phillips. We discovered that as
he had, soi-disant, discovered new laws of nature, he had
equally discovered new laws of morals and social intercourse.
Sir Richard was one of the “Curiosities of Literature.”
MISS HANNAH LAWRENCE.--This lady, the author of
* London in the Olden Time;’ of “Memoirs of the Queens
of England from the Twelfth' to the Sixteenth Century;’
and of ‘History of Women in England,” still resides at
22, Albion Terrace, Barnsbury. Miss Lawrence has also
been an extensive contributor to the periodical literature of
REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO LIVED IN ISLINGTON. 589
the day, especially to the ‘Athenaeum ” and “ British Quar-
terly Review,’ in which her criticisms are as remarkable for
their fair impartiality as for their historic research.
DR. JACKSON, the present Bishop of London, is connected
with Islington, by having held as his first appointment the
head-mastership of Islington Proprietary School.
Here we wind up our volume. We have reached the limit
of the Northern Heights of London; and I think the reader
will confess that, in ranging all these pleasant heights, we
have found an extraordinary wealth of persons and things of
great interest. The metropolis below has sent up a certain
portion of its most prominent and peculiar people for our
more particular observation. Historic events are scattered
over these hills in considerable numbers. Authors, artists,
actors, seekers of pleasure, and seekers of purses, on foot and
on horseback, have exerted their varied talents and tastes on
this elevated theatre. Men and women, too, whose eccen-
tricities were curbed by the densely-thronged life below,
have come hither and expanded their idiosyncracies, as pea-
cocks and turkeys expand their tails before a select number
of their own kind. Misers have counted their gold in still
corners; Dick Turpin and Co. have counted other people’s
more openly; domestic tyrants have reigned in melancholy
glory over impotent victims; poets have fled from noise and
duns to perfect those flowers of the spirit which are trampled
upon by the iron heels of landlords and their horny-fingered
emissaries. Speculative engineers have worked out the good
of London at the cost of their own fortunes; and great
lawyers—a species of ant-eaters, which live by putting out
long tongues and licking up all the silly contentious flies
that settle on them—have sought quiet green retreats here,
in which at ease to digest the gatherings of Westminster
590 - ISLINGTON,
Hall. A Baron D’Aguilar; a simple, gentle, maniacal Alex-
ander Cruden; a Sir Hugh Middleton; a quaint Charles
Lamb; a poetic and sarcastic Sam Rogers; an Oliver Gold-
smith in his tower, and a Hawes on the border of the New
River, pondering on the means of resuscitating the drowned ;
and the earlier spectacles of rising or falling Kings ; of
Henry VIII., figuring amongst the bowmen of Finsbury
Fields; Elizabeth with her Walsinghams, Burleighs and
Raleighs about her; or George II. fortifying his suburbs
against the discrowned Stuarts—all these have contributed
their parts to our entertainment; and having done so much
for the present and very appreciative generation, we also have
done our best to perpetuate their sayings and doings, their
labours and their pastimes, their gifts and graces, unto
THE END.
I, ONDON : PRINTED BY
SPOTTIS WOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 2 3
.AND PAR LIAMENT STREET J J .
sºvº •
|
T*/ OF MICHIGAN
3.9819.9%'.5%.
UNIVERS!
-========
-=======
-=====
--◄=======
--◄=-_}
--◄-_°
--◄-►
----~--~
）========
*=====
----， -）
！=<！--~~~~ -->
！=•-，*
！=~--~
！=~--~
！=~----*
-=~&=-
a-）：-）
-=====
<！-- ==æ.
-===
-（---）
-==~：=<！--*
--~=->
œ--~--
-（======
（~~~~