THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
c
THE THAMES
AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
VOL. I.
LONDON t
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
THE THAMES
AND ITS TRIBUTAEIES;
RAMBLES AMONG THE RIVERS.
BY CHARLES MACKAY,
AUTHOR OF "THE HOPE OF THE WORLD," ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
tit rfltnarn to fecr
1840.
PREFACE.
THE banks of our river abound with scenes
which are hallowed by the recollections of his-
tory, romance, and poetry ; and to recal these
recollections in the very spots where the events
occurred, to jog his reader's memory, and to
act the part of a gossiping, not a prosy, fellow
traveller, has been the design of the author in
the following pages. He hopes that in the
prosecution of this design, if he be not found
learned, he will not be considered dull. He
may have dwelt upon familiar things ; but the
man whose object is to remind, rather than to
instruct to suggest what may have been for-
gotten, rather than to tell what is new, could
not well do otherwise.
In a work of this kind, complete accuracy is
unattainable ; but the author has endeavoured
to be as near to it as the most diligent and un-
tiring research could bring him. Those who
VOL. i. b
VI PREFACE.
are acquainted with similar studies, and who
know the immense number of volumes that are
often to be consulted upon some trivial point,
will make allowances for any occasional lapses
which they may discover; and those who do
not know, because they have never tried how
difficult it is to be exact amid a great variety
of subjects and of authorities, will accept this
as an excuse if they should light upon any
omission, taking the author's word for it, that
he has striven hard to be accurate. In conclu-
sion, he can only say with the accomplished
author of the " Pleasures of Memory/' in the
introduction to his " Italy," " That wherever
he came, he could not but remember, nor is he
conscious of having slept over any ground that
had been ' dignified by wisdom, bravery, or
virtue.' "
The author takes this opportunity of making
his acknowledgments to Mr. J. Gilbert, the
artist, and Mr. T. Gilks, the engraver, for their
elegant designs for the frontispieces of these
volumes, and for the charming wood engrav-
ings that are so liberally interspersed.
AUGUST 19th, 1840.
CONTENTS
OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction to the subject. The blessings of Water.
The Poetry of Rivers. Old London Bridge. The New
Bridge. Reminiscences of Southwark. The Globe Theatre.
The Bear Garden. Paris Garden. Old Houses of the
Nobility. ..... Page 1
CHAPTER II.
Doctors' Commons. The Fleet Ditch. The Temple
Gardens. Ancient and Modern Templars. Somerset
House and Waterloo Bridge. Romance of Modern Lon-
don. The Savoy Palace. Henry the Eighth's Tourna-
ment and Festival at Durham House. The Adelphi.
Whitehall. 26
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
Westminster Bridge. The Houses of Parliament.
Anecdote of James the First. Westminster Abbey.
Lambeth Palace. Flight of Queen Mary D'Este. Palaces
and Hovels. Vauxhall Gardens. Sports at Battersea.
Evans the Astrologer. Chelsea Hospital. Reminiscences
of Chelsea. Battersea. A Song. The River Wandle.
The Mayor of Garratt. Putney. Cardinal Wolsey and
his Fool. ..... Page 52
CHAPTER IV.
The Two Sisters. Poets of Barn Elms. Loutherbourg
the Artist. Hogarth's Epitaph. English love of Trees
and Flowers. Residence of Joe Miller. Vanity in Death.
Reminiscences of Mortlake. Queen Elizabeth and the
Alchymist. Pleasant Controversy between Swift and Part-
ridge. Dirty Brentford. Anecdote of George II Kew
Gardens. Sion House. Isleworth. 85
CHAPTER V.
Approach to Richmond. The grave of the poet Thom-
son. Wit among the Tombstones. Richmond Palace.
The Battle of the Gnats. View from Richmond Hill. A
Song by Mallet. Gay, the poet. Traditions of Ham
House. Eel-pie Island. The Poetical Sawyer. Anec-
dote of Edmund Kean. . . . 123
CONTENTS. XI
CHAPTER VI.
Twickenham. The Poet's Grave. Pope's Grotto.
Relics of Genius. Strawberry Hill. Etymology and Chro-
nology. The Heart of Paul Whitehead. Swans upon the
Thames. The tragical story of Edwy and Elgiva. An
odd petition of the inhabitants of Kingston. . Page 149
CHAPTER VII.
The Thames at Hampton Court. The Rape of the Lock.
Magnificence of Wolsey. The loves of Lord Surrey and
the fair Geraldine. Royal Inhabitants of Hampton Court.
The Picture Gallery A Cook's Philosophy. The Maze. 1 75
CHAPTER VIII.
The River Mole. Esher and Claremont Cobham
The Trout of Leatherhead. English Scenery. The Cellars
of Dorking. An old custom. Guildford and the River
Wey. The Mother's Dream. A story of a Jack Newark
Abbey. The amorous Monks ; a tradition of the Wey. A
punning Epitaph. Return to the Thames. . 204
CHAPTER IX.
Moulsey Hurst. Garrick's Villa. Walton-upon-Thames.
Lilly the Astrologer. A Puritan's Sermon. Oatlands.
Cowey Stakes. Shepperton. . . . 230
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
Poets of the Thames. Burial Place of Henry the Sixth
at Chertsey Abbey. Retirement of Cowley. A walk on
Cooper's Hill. Sir John Denham. Runny mead and Magna
Charta Island. London Stone. Jurisdiction of the Lord
Mayor upon the Thames. The River Colne. Reminis-
cences of Milton. .... Page 255
CHAPTER XL
Approach to Windsor. The Ducking of Sir John Falstaff.
View from the Castle Terrace. William of Wykeham
and his Kidnappers. Royal Captives in the Castle. The
Loves of James of Scotland and the Lady Jane Beaufort.
Imprisonment of the Earl of Surrey. . . 274
CHAPTER XII.
Royal Tombs in St. George's Chapel. The Persians at
Windsor. Windsor Forest. Herne's Oak. Eton College.
The Montem. Monkey Island. The Vicar of Bray.
The Town of Maidenhead. Claude Duval. Cliefden. 294
CHAPTER XIII.
Hedsor. Cookham. The River Wick. Great Marlow.
The Poet Shelley at the Groves of Bisham. The Rakes
of Medmenham Abbey. Lady Place, Hurley. Lord
Lovelace and the Revolution of 1688. Hambleton. Faw-
CONTENTS. XI
ley Court Ancient and Modern Antiques. Henley.
Pan and Lodona. The River Loddon. Sunning Hill.
Reading. ..... Page 325
CHAPTER XIV.
The River Kennett. The ruins of Silchester. Newbury.
Donnington Castle and the Poet Chaucer. Chaucer's
Oak. Caversham. Purley Hall. Wallingford. The
poetical Fiction of the Thame and Isis. . . 349
CHAPTER XV.
Abingdon and its Bridge. Nuneham Courtney The
Carfax. Oxford and its University. . . 369
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Engraved Title-page . to precede the general Title.
Old London Bridge . . . Pag e 13
Globe Theatre, Bankside ... 25
St. Paul's Cathedral .... 27
Temple Gardens .... 32
Waterloo Bridge . . . .86
Savoy Palace . . . . . 41
Whitehall . . . . . .51
The New Houses of Parliament . . 56
Westminster Abbey .... 60
Lambeth Palace .... 63
Chelsea Hospital . . . . .71
Hammersmith Bridge .... 96
Kew Palace . . . . .115
Isleworth Church . . . . 122
Richmond Church ..... 125
Richmond Hill .... 140
Twickenham Ait . . . . .148
Pope's Villa . . . . 155
Strawberry Hill ..... 162
Kingston ..... 174
Hampton Court . . . . .194
The Maze at Hampton Court . . . 203
Wolsey's Tower at Esher Place . . . 208
Claremont ..... 209
Chertsey ...... 254
Cowley's House at Chertsey . . . 260
Windsor Castle .... 278
Herne's Oak [now standing] . . . 390
Herne's Oak [the disputed tree] . . . 302
Eton College ..... 310
Maidenhead . . . . .319
Donnington Castle .... 359
View of Oxford . . . 377
THE
THAMES AND ITS TRIBUTARIES,
CHAPTER I.
Introduction to the subject. The blessings of Water. The
Poetry of Rivers. Old London Bridge. The New Bridge.
Reminiscences of Southwark. The Globe Theatre.
The Bear Garden. Paris Gaiden. Old Houses of the
Nobility.
AN speaks of the " Mother
Earth," from whence he came,
and whither he returns ; but,
after all, the honour of his
^l-j? 5 ^ maternity belongs to WATER.
Earth is but the nurse of another's progeny ;
she merely nourishes the children of a more
prolific element, by whom she herself is fed
and clothed in return. Water is the universal
mother, the beneficent, the all fructifying,
beautiful to the eye, refreshing to the touch,
pleasant to the palate, and musical to the
ear. What should we be without her ? We
have only to imagine the condition of the
VOL. i. B
2 THE BLESSINGS OF WATER.
moon, and the question is answered. Men
with great telescopes, who have looked over
her surface, and examined every hole and
cranny in her, have decided that, for want
of water, she is nothing but a dry and unin-
habitable rock. There is neither salt water
nor fresh in all her extent. She is the
abode of no living thing, the Gehenna of
desolation, the mere skeleton of a world,
which the sun may light, but cannot warm.
No wonder that she looks so pale and woe-
begone as she sails along the sky, and that
lovers and poets, ignorant of her peculiar mis-
fortune, have so often asked her the reason of
her sorrow. I' faith, they would be sorry too,
if they had no more moisture in their compo-
sition than she has.
We may pity the idolatry, but cannot con-
demn the feelings, which led mankind in the
early ages to pay divine honours to the ocean
and the streams. It was soon recognised that
water was the grand reservoir of health, the
source of plenty, the beautifier, the preserver,
and the renovator of the world. Venus, rising
from the sea-froth in immortal loveliness, typi-
fies its uses and beneficence : water was the
first parent of that goddess, who was after-
wards to become the mother of love and the
THE BLESSINGS OF WATER. 3
emblem of fruitfulness. Poseidon in the Greek,
and Neptune in the Roman mythology, ranked
among the benevolent gods; and the ocean-
queen Amphitrite was adorned with a love-
liness only second to that of Venus. In other
parts of the world, Ocean, from its immensity,
was more an object of terror ; but rivers have
everywhere been the objects of love and adora-
tion. A sect of the ancient Persians reverenced
them so highly, that they deemed it sacrilege
to pollute them. For countless ages the dwel-
lers by the Ganges have looked upon it as a
god, and have deemed it the summit of human
felicity to be permitted to expire upon its
banks. The Egyptian still esteems the Nile
above all earthly blessings; and the Abyssinian
worships it as a divinity. Superstition has
peopled these and a thousand other streams
with a variety of beings, or personified them
in human shapes, the better to pay them
homage.
Rivers all over the world are rich in remem-
brances. To them are attached all the poetry
and romance of a nation. Popular superstition
clings around them, and every mile of their
course is celebrated for some incident, is the
scene of a desperate adventure, a mournful
legend, or an old song. What a swarm of
B2
4 CELEBRATED RIVERS.
pleasant thoughts rise upon the memory at
the sole mention of the Rhine ! what a host
of recollections are recalled by the name of the
Danube, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Meuse,
the Seine, the Loire, the Tagus, the Guadal-
quiver ! even the low-banked and unpic-
turesque Elbe and Scheldt are dear as house-
hold things to the neighbouring people. Their
praises are sung in a hundred different idioms ;
and the fair maidens who have dwelt upon
their banks, and become celebrated for their
beauty, their cruelty, or their woe, have had
their names mingled with that of the river in
the indissoluble bands of national song.
To the man who has a catholic faith in po-
etry, every river in Scotland may be said to
be holy water. Liddell, and Tweed, and Dee,
Tiviot, and Tay, and Forth, and doleful
Yarrow, sanctified by a hundred songs. Poetry
and romance have thrown a charm around
them, and tourists from every land are familiar
with their history. Great writers have thought
it a labour of love to collect into one focus all
the scattered memoranda and fleeting scraps of
ballads relating to them, until those insignifi-
cant streams have become richer than any of
our isle in recollections which shall never fade.
" And what has been done for these, shall
A PILGRIMAGE UP THE THAMES. 5
none be found to do for thee, O Thames ? "
said we to ourselves, as we thought of these
things, one fine summer morning. " Art thou
of so little consequence among the rivers, that
no one will undertake to explore thee from
Cotteswold to the sea, and in a patient but
enthusiastic spirit gather together all thy me-
morabilia?" There being no person present,
we looked round our study with an air of satis-
faction, and exclaimed, " We will do it. We
have been cabined and cribbed amid smoke too
long : we pine for a ramble among the hills,
and a gulp of the sweet air. We will go, in
search of wisdom and of health, along the
banks of the Thames, and drink its pure water
from its fountain-head among the hills of
Gloucestershire."
It is in this pilgrimage, O gentle reader,
that we ask thee to accompany us. We will
be as entertaining a cicerone as we can. We
will not bore thee, if we can help it, by telling
thee too many things that thou knowest al-
ready ; and if we do now and then touch upon
them, we may take a different view of them
from any thou hast yet been accustomed to,
and throw a new light upon an old picture.
If thou art a lover of poetry, a delighter in
old songs, thou art a reader after our own
6 A PILGRIMAGE UP THE THAMES.
heart, and thou shalt be as pleased with us as
we are with thee. If thou art an antiquary,
we also have some sneaking affection for thy
hobby, and will now and then throw thee a
tit-bit for it. If thou art an angler, and fishest
with a rod, we will show thee all the best places
in the river from Vauxhall Bridge to Crick-
lade ; or, if thou preferest to cast thy nets, we
will accompany thee from London Bridge to
Margate. If thou lovest water-sports, we will
discourse to thee on that subject, and tell thee
a thing or two worth knowing about river-
pageants, boat-races, and sailing-matches, and
something also about some rare old games of
the water, which have now fallen into disuse.
If thou art a mere skimmer of books, a lover
of small talk and pleasant gossip, even in that
case we shall not be caviare to thee. And
last of all, if thou art an Utilitarian and a Po-
litical Economist, which we hope not, we may
take it into our heads to throw a crumb of
comfort even to thee, and furnish thee with
a fact or two for thy edification, wherewithal
thou mayest build up a theory if thou feelest
inclined.
Not only do we propose to explore Thames,
" Great father of the British floods,"
but all his tributary streams,
TRIBUTARIES OF THE THAMES. 7
" The winding Isis, and the fruitful Thame ;
The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned ;
The Loddon slow, with verdant alders crowned :
Coin, whose dark streams his flowery islands lave ;
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave :
The blue transparent Vandalis appears ;
The gulfy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;
And sullen Mole that hides his diving flood ;
And silent Darent stained with Danish blood ;"
and other rivers, which did not come within
the circuit of Pope's song ; the Medway, whose
bridal is so sweetly sung in the " Faerie
Queene," and who is also celebrated in the
Polyolbion, with
" Teise, clear Beult, and Lenn, who bear her limber train :''
and many others, which contribute their min-
gled waters to the Thames.
This, O reader, is our intent. We go as an
inoffensive tourist, in search of traditions, in
search of antiquities, in search of poetry, in
search of fresh breezes, in search of fish. Some-
times we may travel at railroad speed, and at
others linger about for days in one spot, saun-
tering over the hills, sitting under trees by
the river side, but conning all the while some-
thing for thy edification and amusement.
Being, for our sins, a dweller among the
smoke, our journey must perforce commence
from London. From London Bridge, then,
8 OLD LONDON BRIDGE.
we shall proceed upwards to the hills of Cottes-
wold, availing ourselves of the steam-boat as
far as it will carry us, but, for the most part,
tramping it leisurely and independently, after
the old fashion, with our stout shoes on, and
an oaken cudgel in our fist, a miniature edi-
tion of the Fairy Queen in one pocket, and
Shakspeare's neglected but delicious poems
in the other. When we have in this manner
explored Thames and all his tributaries to the
west, we shall return eastward, taking another
glimpse of London, and follow his windings
to the sea, diverging to the right hand or to
the left, wherever there is a pleasant view to
be had, a relic to be seen, or an old ballad to
be elucidated.
And now, reader, thou hast only to fancy
thyself at London Bridge, on board the Rich-
mond steam-boat, awaiting the bell to ring
as the signal for starting. Here we are, then,
over the very spot where the old bridge stood
for nearly a thousand years. The waters roll
over its site, steam-boats, barges, and wherries
are moored over its foundations, and its juvenile
successor, a thing of yesterday, rears its head
proudly, close alongside. In the interval of
time that separates the erection of the two
structures, how vast are the changes the world
OLD LONDON BRIDGE. 9
has seen ! The physical world has seen none ;
the tides still roll, and the seasons still succeed
each other in the same order ; but the mind
of man that world which rules the world
how immense the progress it has made ! Even
while that old bridge lasted, man stepped from
barbarism to civilization. Hardly one of the
countless thousands that now pour in living
streams from morning till night over the path-
way of its successor, has time to waste a thought
on the old one, or the lesson it might teach
him. Its duration was that of twenty gene-
rations of mankind ; it seemed built to defy
time and the elements, and yet it has crumbled
at last. Becoming old and frail, it stood in
people's way; and being kicked by one, and
insulted by another, it was pulled to pieces
without regret, twenty or thirty years, per-
haps, before the time when it would have
fallen to ruin of its own accord. All this
time the river has run below, unchanged and
unchangeable, the same as it flowed thousands
of years ago, when the now busy thorough-
fares on either side were swamps inhabited
only by the frog and the bittern, and when
painted savages prowled about the places
that are now the marts of commerce and the
emporium of the world.
10 OLD LONDON BRIDGE.
A complete resumt of the manners and cha-
racter of the people of England might be
made from the various epocha in the age
of the old bridge. First, it was a crazy
wooden structure, lined on each side with rows
of dirty wooden huts, such as befitted a rude
age, and a people just emerging from barba-
rism. Itinerant dealers in all kinds of goods,
spread out their wares on the pathway, making
a market of the thoroughfare, and blocking
it up with cattle to sell, or waggon-loads of
provender. The bridge, while in this pri-
mitive state, was destroyed many times by
fire, and as many times built up again. Once,
in the reign of William Rufus, it was carried
away by a flood, and its fragments swept into
the sea. The continual expense of these re-
novations induced the citizens, under the su-
perintendence of Peter of Colechurch, to build
it up of stone. This was some improvement ;
but the houses on each side remained as poor
and miserable as before, dirty outside, and pes-
tilential within. Such was its state during the
long unhappy centuries of feudalism. What
a strange spectacle it must have afforded at
that time ! what an emblem of all the motley
characteristics of the ruled and the rulers !
Wooden huts and mud floors for the people,
OLD LONDON BRIDGE. 11
handsome stone chapels and oratories, adorned
with pictures, statues, and stained glass, for
the clergy, and drawbridges, portcullises, and
all the paraphernalia of attack and defence at
either end, to show a government founded upon
might rather than right, and to mark the general
insecurity of the times; while, to crown all, the
awful gate towards Southwark, but overlook-
ing the stream, upon which, for a period of
nearly three hundred years, it was rare for the
passenger to go by without seeing a human
head stuck upon a pike, blackening and rotting
in the sun.
The head of the noble Sir William Wallace
was for many months exposed from this spot.
In 1471, after the defeat of the famous Fal-
conbridge, who made an attack upon London,
his head and nine others were stuck upon the
bridge together, upon ten spears, where they
remained visible to all comers, till the elements
and the carrion crows had left nothing of them
but the bones.
At a later period the head of the pious
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was stuck up
here, along with that of the philosophic Sir
Thomas More.
The legs of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the son of
the well-known poet of the same name, were ex-
12 OLD LONDON BRIDGE.
hibited from the same spot, during the reign
of Mary. Even the Mayors of London had
almost as much power to kill and destroy as
the Kings and Queens, so reckless was the age
of the life of man. In 1335, the Mayor, one
Andrew Aubrey, ordered seven skinners and
fishmongers, whose only offence was rioting
in the streets, aggravated by personal insult
to himself, to be beheaded without form of
trial. Their heads were also exposed on the
bridge, and the Mayor was not called to ac-
count for his conduct. Jack Cade, in the hot
fervour of his first successes, imitated this fine
example, and set up Lord Saye's head at the
same place, little thinking how soon his own
would bear it company. The top of the gate
used to be like a butcher's shambles, covered
with the heads and quarters of unhappy
wretches. Hentzner, the German traveller, who
visited England in the reign of Elizabeth,
states that, in the year 1598, he counted no
less than thirty heads upon this awful gate.
In an old map of the city, published in the
preceding year, the heads are represented
in clusters, numerous as the grapes upon a
bunch ! The following is a view of the gate
as it appeared previous to its demolition in
1757.
OLD LONDON BRIDGE.
How different are the glories of the new
bridge. It also is adorned with human heads,
but live ones, thousands at a time, passing
and repassing continually to and fro. Of the
millions of heads that crowd it every year,
busy in making money or taking pleasure, not
one dreads the executioner's knife. Every
man's head is his own ; and if either King or
Lord Mayor dare to meddle with it, it is at
his peril. We have luckily passed the age
when law-makers could be law-breakers, and
14 NEW LONDON BRIDGE.
every man walks in security. While these
human heads adorn, no wooden hovels dis-
figure the new bridge, or block up the view
of the water. Such a view as the one from
that place was never meant to be hidden. The
" unbounded Thames, that flows for all man-
kind," and into whose port " whole nations
enter with every tide," bearing with them
the wealth of either hemisphere, is a sight
that only needs to be seen to be wondered at.
And if there is a sight from John o' Groat's
house to the Land's End of which an English-
man may be proud, it is that. Other sights
which we can show to the stranger may reflect
more credit upon the land, but that does ho-
nour to the men, and is unequalled among any
other nation on the globe.
The history of the New Bridge is soon told.
The narrowness of several of the arches of the
old bridge it contained nineteen in all caused
the tide to flow through them with a velocity
extremely dangerous to small craft, and acci-
dents were of daily occurrence. It was at first
contemplated to repair the bridge and throw
two or three of these small arches into one, but
this idea was soon abandoned, and it was re-
solved to build a new one. On the 6th of
June 1823, the House of Commons voted the
NEW LONDON BRIDGE. 15
sum of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds
for the purpose, and an extra tax of six-
pence per ton having been imposed upon all
coals entering the port of London, to provide
additional funds, the works were soon after-
wards commenced. The plan of Mr. Rennie,
was adopted, and the foundation-stone was
laid with all the pomp usual upon such
great occasions, by the Lord Mayor, Mr.
Garratt, in the presence of the Duke of
York and a great assemblage of distinguished
persons, and all the city functionaries. The
bridge was completed in six years, and was
opened in great state by King William the
Fourth on the 1st of August 1831. The King
was accompanied by his Queen Adelaide, by
her present Majesty, then Princess Victoria;
and her illustrious mother, the Duchess of
Kent, the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland,
the Duke of Sussex, the Duke and Duchess
of Gloucester, the Duke of Wellington, and
a long array of noble and celebrated indivi-
duals. A short detail of the ceremonies ob-
served may not be uninteresting. Every ves-
sel in the river, every steeple, every house-top,
every eminence that commanded a view was
crowded with spectators, and to increase the
beauty of the scene, the day was remarkably
16 NEW LONDON BRIDGE.
fine. When the King and Queen arrived on
the bridge they were met by the Lord Mayor
and the Lady Mayoress, the former of whom
presented his Majesty with the Sword of State,
the Lady Mayoress at the same time present-
ing the Queen with a flower. According to
the old formality, the Lord Mayor was desired
to keep his sword, as it was in such good
hands, and the procession began. Preceded by
the Duke of Devonshire (the Lord Chamber-
lain) walking backwards according to the eti-
quette, his Majesty arm-in-arm with the Queen,
and followed by the royal family, the great
officers of state, and his court, the members of
the corporation of London, and the ambassa-
dors, or other illustrious visitors, walked slowly
over the bridge to the South wark side, amid
the firing of cannon, and the joyous ringing of
all the bells in the metropolis. Here his Ma-
jesty witnessed the ascent of a balloon, and
then returned to the city side to a pavilion
erected on the bridge, where a sumptuous col-
lation was prepared at the expense of the City.
After the repast, and when the usual toasts
had been given, the Lord Mayor, with a suit-
able address, presented the King with a golden
cup ; on receiving which his Majesty made the
following short but very appropriate speech :
NEW LONDON BRIDGE. 17
" I cannot but refer on this occasion to the
great work which has been accomplished by
the city of London. The city of London has
ever been renowned for its magnificent im-
provements ; and we are commemorating a
most extraordinary instance of their skill and
talent. I shall propose the source from which
this vast improvement sprung The trade and
commerce of the city of London." The toast,
of course, was enthusiastically honoured, and
soon afterwards the festivities terminated. His
Majesty then entered the barge prepared for
him, and was rowed up the river to Somerset-
house, where he disembarked.
The demolition of the old bridge was imme-
diately commenced, and within a few months
not a vestige of it remained.
But the signal-bell has rung, and our steam-
boat proceeds up the ancient highway of the
city towards Westminster, in the track of all
the Lord Mayors since Norman, in the year
1454. This worthy functionary was very fond
of the water, and first began the custom, regu-
larly continued since his day, of proceeding to
Westminster Hall by water, with a grand city
pageant. The boatmen took him in great af-
fection in consequence, and one of them wrote
a song upon him, the burden of which was,
VOL. i. c
18 VIEW FROM LONDON BRIDGE.
" Row thy boat, Norman,
Row to thy Leman."
What a formidable array of steeples is to
be seen as we get out of sight of the shipping !
No city in Europe can show such a forest of
ships, or such a forest of steeples, as London.
The most prominent object in the view is St.
Paul's, rearing his head, as fat and saucy as if
he were a bishop with forty thousand a-year.
Around him are gathered the inferior digni-
taries of the Church, some of them looking in
good condition enough, but most of them as
tall and thin as if they had a wife and six
children, and only a curacy of eighty pounds
a-year to support them.
What a contrast there is now, and always
has been, both in the character and appearance
of the two sides of the river. The London
side, high and well-built, thickly studded with
spires and public edifices, and resounding with
all the noise of the operations of a various in-
dustry ; the Southwark and Lambeth side, low
and flat, and meanly built, with scarcely an
edifice higher than a coal-shed or timber-yard,
and a population with a squalid, dejected, and
debauched look, offering a remarkable contrast
to the cheerfulness and activity visible on the
faces of the Londoners. The situation upon
SOUTHWARK. 19
the low swamp is, no doubt, one cause of the
unhealthy appearance of the dwellers on the
south of the Thames ; but the dissolute rake-
hellish appearance of the lower orders of them
must be otherwise accounted for. From a
very early age, Southwark and Lambeth, and
the former especially, were the great sinks and
common receptacles of all the vice and immo-
rality of London. Up to the year 1328, South-
wark had been independent of the jurisdiction
of London, a sort of neutral ground, which
the law could not reach, and, in consequence,
the abode of thieves and abandoned characters
of every kind. They used to sally forth in
bands of one and two hundreds at a time, to
rob in the city ; and the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen for the time being had not unfre-
quently to keep watch upon the bridge for
nights together, at the head of a troop of
armed men, to prevent their inroads. The
thieves, however, upon these occasions took
to their boats at midnight, and rowing up the
river, landed at Westminster, and drove all
before them with as much valour, and as great
impunity as a border chieftain upon a foray
into Cumberland. These things induced the
magistrates of London to apply to Edward
the Third for a grant of Southwark. The
c 2
20 SOUTHWARK.
request was complied with, and the vicious
place brought under the rule of the city.
Driven in some measure from this nest, the
thieves took refuge in Lambeth, and still set
the authorities at defiance. From that day to
this the two boroughs have had the same cha-
racter, and been known as the favourite resort
of thieves and vagabonds of every description.
It was here, under the jurisdiction of the Bishop
of Winchester, that all the stews existed for
centuries, being licensed by that prelate for a
fee.
Their inhabitants and frequenters were long
known in London as the " Bishop of Winches-
ter's birds." Players also, then ranking with
these and similar characters, under the common
designation of " vagabonds," flocked to the
same spot, together with fraudulent bankrupts,
swindlers, debtors, and all men who had misun-
derstandings with the law, and were fearful
of clearing them up, lest their goods and
bodies might be demanded in expiation.
Here, in former days, stood the privileged
" Mint" and " Clink ;" and here in the present
day stands the privileged " Bench," within
whose "Rules" are congregated the same vi-
cious and demoralized class of people that aU
ways inhabited it. Stews also abound, though
THE GLOBE THEATRE. 21
no bishop receives fees from them ; and penny
theatres, where the performers are indeed va-
gabonds, and the audience thieves.
But the low shore of Southwark has more
agreeable reminiscences. It was here, near the
spot still called Bankside, that stood the Globe
Theatre at the commencement of the seven-
teenth century; the theatre of which Shaks-
peare was in part proprietor, where some of his
plays were first produced, and where he himself
performed in them. It was of an octagonal form,
partly covered with thatch, as we learn from
the account of Stowe, who says, that in the year
1613, ten years after it was first licensed to
Shakspeare and Burbage, and the rest, the
thatch took fire by the negligent discharge of a
piece of ordnance, and in a very short time the
whole building was consumed. The house was
o
filled with people to witness the representation
of Henry the Eighth, but they all escaped un-
hurt. This was the end of Shakspeare's the-
atre. It was rebuilt, apparently, in a similar
style, early in the following year.
Besides this, there were three other theatres
on the Bankside, called the Rose, the Hope,
and the Swan. These appear to have been, for
some undiscovered reason, called private the-
atres. There was this difference between them
22 PARIS GARDEN.
and the Globe and other public theatres ; the
latter were open to the sky, except over the
stage and galleries ; but the private theatres
were completely covered in from the weather.
On the roof of all of them, whether public
or private, a flag was always hoisted to mark
the time of the performances.
Two other places of amusement on the
river-side deserve to be mentioned ; the Paris
Garden, and the Bear Garden, in which, be-
sides dramatic entertainments of an inferior
class, there were combats of animals. Ben
Jonson is reproached by Dekker, with hav-
ing been so degraded as to perform at Paris
Garden. These places always seem to have
been in bad repute, even when they flourished
most. Crowley, a rhymer of the reign of
Henry the Eighth, thus speaks of Paris Gar-
den.
What folly is this to keep with danger
A great mastiff dog and foul ugly bear,
And to this anent, to see them two fight
With terrible tearings, a full ugly sight ;
And methinks these men are most fools of all
Whose store of money is but very small,
And yet every Sunday they will surely spend
One penny or two, the Bearward's living to mend.
At Paris Garden each Sunday a man shall not fail,
To find two or three hundred for the Bearward's vale,
BAYNAHD'S CASTLE. 23
One halfpenny a piece they use for to give,
When some have not more in their purses, I believe.
Well, at the last day their conscience will declare,
That the poor ought to have all that they may spare ;
If you, therefore, go to see a bear fight,
Be sure God his curse will upon you light."
Pennant, who quotes these verses, seems to
consider the last two lines as a prophecy of the
calamity that happened at the Garden in the
year 1582. An accident, Heaven directed, says
he, befell the spectators ; the scaffolding, crowd-
ed with people, suddenly fell, and more than a
hundred persons were killed or severely wound-
ed. The Bear Garden, notwithstanding its
name, was chiefly used for bull-baiting.
Sailing onwards to the Southwark or iron-
bridge we pass on the Middlesex shore many
places, now wharfs and warehouses, which were
formerly the abodes of nobles, or palaces and
fortresses. Here stood the famous Baynard's
Castle, where Richard the Third pretended
such coyness to accept the crown ; Cold or Cole
Harbour, the residence of the celebrated Hum-
phrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex,
in the reign of Edward the Third ; of the
Earls of Huntingdon, in the time of Richard
the Second; and of the Earls of Cambridge
shortly afterwards. It was also inhabited by
Henry the Fifth when he was Prince of
24 THE ERBER.
Wales, and by Tonstal Bishop of Durham, in
the reign of Henry the Eighth. Not a vestige
of it now exists. Dowgate Hill, near this spot,
was formerly the port or water-gate of the city,
where, in the Saxon times, all vessels pro-
ceeded to unload their cargoes. As early as
the time of the Romans there was here a gate
for passengers who wanted to cross the ferry.
The little rivulet of Walbrook, clear in the
days of barbarism, but rendered filthy as Lon-
don grew civilized, runs into the Thames
at this place. It takes its rise to the north of
Moorfields, and gives its name to one of the
most considerable streets of ancient London.
Near Dow-gate stood the ancient palace, called
for distinction the Erber or Harbour ; a corrup-
tion, probably, of Herberge, an inn. It was a
large building, inhabited in the reign of Ed-
ward the Third by the noble family of Scroope,
from whom it came into the possession of the
as noble family of Neville. The Earl of Salis-
bury, father-in-law to Warwick, the '* king-
maker," lodged here with five hundred of his
retainers, in the famous congress of the barons,
after the defeat of the Larjcasterian party at
the battle of St. Alban's, when Henry the
Sixth was deposed and Edward the Fourth
ascended the throne in his stead. It was in
THE ERBER. 25
the latter reign inhabited for a short time by
George Duke of Clarence, brother of the king,
and the same whose death in the butt of
malmsey in the Tower, has rendered his name
and title familiar to all the readers of history.
After his murder the palace reverted to the
crown, but it was restored by Henry the
Eighth to the unfortunate daughter of Cla-
rence, Margaret Countess of Salisbury, who
was beheaded in the Tower in her old age, for
the crime of being mother to Cardinal Pole.
The building was, after a long interval, pur-
chased by the Drapers' Company, but has been
long since pulled down.
THE GLOBE THEATRE, BANKSIDE.
CHAPTER II.
Doctors' Commons. The Fleet Ditch. The Temple
Gardens. Ancient and Modern Templars. Somerset
House and Waterloo Bridge. Romance of Modern
London. The Savoy Palace. Henry the Eighth's
Tournament and Festival at Durham House. The
Adelphi. Whitehall.
FTER passing the Southwark
iron-bridge, completed in the
year 1818, we arrive at Doc-
tors' Commons, famous as the
residence of ecclesiastical law-
yers, and the seat of the ecclesiastical judges.
It was at one time in contemplation to
have pulled down all the houses between
the river and St. Paul's church at this spot,
and to have thrown open that magnificent
edifice to public view from the stream. If
the project had been carried into effect, the
improvement to the banks of the Thames
would have been great, and a beautiful pros-
pect would have been obtained. But as the
projectors, in answer to the " cui bono," of the
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDHAL. 27
capitalists, had no other reply than " beauty,"
the project soon fell to the ground. It was
found to be expensive, and not likely to be
productive.
One cannot, however, help regretting that so
fine a project was not carried into execution.
The beautiful Cathedral is not at present to be
seen from a favourable point of view in any
part of London, either by land or water. The
most favourable is from Black friars' Bridge.
Shall we linger to describe an edifice that
all the world is acquainted with ? Shall we di-
28 FLEET DITCH.
late upon the glories of its architecture ; the
fame of the great statesmen, orators, patriots,
and poets, whose monuments are within its
walls ? Shall we remind the passer-by of the fine
thought to the memory of its great builder,
" Lector, si monuraentum requiris, circumspice ? "
or expatiate upon things connected with the
history of this edifice, that are familiar, or
ought to be, to every Englishman ? No ; we
will pass on with silent admiration, or perhaps,
a reiteration of our regret that so magnificent a
building, and so hallowed a site, should be shut
from the sight, when at an expense, inconsi-
derable in comparison with the vastness of
the improvement, a view might be obtained,
worthy alike of this great capital, and of the
finest Protestant church in the world.
Close adjoining to Blackfriars' bridge the
dirtiest of the tributaries of the Thames runs
into the sovereign river the Fleet formerly
called a river itself, but now and for ages past
degraded to a ditch ; covered over in all its
course through London, as something too of-
fensive to be seen. Pope in his Dunciad has
celebrated it in the following lines.
Fleet Ditch with disemboguing streams
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames.
The king of dykes 1 than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
TEMPLE GARDENS. 29
At the time when Pope wrote, the ditch
was open to the gaze of all the world, and it is
said the corporation were so shamed by the
verses, that they soon afterwards carried into
effect the improvement, of arching it over and
forming Fleet Market the present Farringdon
Street upon its site ; a plan which had been
for years in contemplation, but continually
postponed upon one pretence or another.
A little further up the stream, to the west of
Blackfriars 1 Bridge, stands the precinct of the
White Friars, the ancient "Alsatia" of the
thieves and debtors, and famous to most read-
ers, from the graphic and entertaining descrip-
tion given of it by Sir Walter Scott. It is
now chiefly inhabited by coal-merchants, and
retains not one of its former privileges. We
next arrive at a different scene. A plot of
fresh green grass an oasis of trees and verdure
amid the wilderness of brick and mortar that
encompass it on every side. The houses that
form this pleasant square are high and regular,
and have a solemn and sedate look, befitting
the antiquity and historical sanctity of their
site, and the grave character of the people that
inhabit them. Here are the Temple Gardens,
sacred to the Goddess of Strife. Their former
occupants, the Knights Templars, were quar-
30 TEMPLE GARDENS.
relsome folk enough, God knows ; and the new
tenants of their abode keep themselves respect-
able out of the proceeds of quarrels, fatten upon
quarrels, and buy themselves wigs and gowns
out of them. Woe betide the wight whom they
entangle in their meshes ! They will put the
vulture of litigation in him to gnaw out his
entrails, and will tie a millstone round his neck,
which they call " COSTS," to drag him down to
ruin. In those gloomy chambers, so pleasantly
situated, sits LAW, as upon a throne. Sweet
are all the purlieus of the spot : flowers blos-
som, trees cast a refreshing shade, and a foun-
tain maketh a pleasant murmur all the year;
but each room in that precinct is a den inhabit-
ed by a black spider, who sucks the blood
of foolish flies who, by quarrelling and fight-
ing, struggle themselves into the toils. It is
fair outside, to make the world believe that it
is the abode of justice and equity ; but its
beauty is but a cheat and a lure, to hide from
too common observers the revenge, rapacity,
and roguery that lie beneath the surface.
Hoity toity ! quoth we to ourselves what
a fuss about nothing! What a gross injustice
we have given utterance to ! What a foul libel
we have penned upon that learned and eminent
body ! and all for the sake of what ? For the
TEMPLE GARDENS. 31
mere sake of saying something pungent or ill-
natured, which with many people is all the
same. Forgive us, O shades of learned Sir
Thomas More, of upright Sir Matthew Hale,
of philosophic Lord Bacon ! forgive us, spirits
of Clarendon, Camden, and Mansfield! forgive
us, living Denman, Tindal, Brougham, that we
should have so slandered the profession of
which ye have been or are the ornaments !
Wit, worth, and wisdom are associated with
your names, and with hundreds of others, both
alive and dead, whom we could specify, if
there were any need for it.
" We never were known for a railer,
In fun all this slander we spoke ;
For a lawyer, as well as a sailor,
Is not above taking a joke."
It is in these gardens that Shakspeare, in the
First Part of his Henry the Sixth, has laid
the scene of the first quarrel of the rival houses
of York and Lancaster, and where the red and
the white roses, the badges afterwards of bloody
wars, were first plucked, and where Warwick
is made to prophesy,
The brawl to day
Grown to this faction in the Temple garden,
Shall send between the red rose and the white,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night."
TEMPLE GARDENS.
Whether the immortal bard had the authority
of any tradition current in his day, or whether
the scene was thus laid with the licence usually
claimed by, and allowed to, poets, is not known
with certainty.
Sailing onwards from the Temple we arrive
opposite Arundel Street, leading down from
the Strand. Here formerly stood Hampton
Place, the Episcopal residence of the Bishops
of Bath and Wells. It was granted by King
Edward the Sixth to his uncle, Lord Seymour
of Sudely, who changed its name to Seymour
Place. Upon his attainder and execution it
SOMERSET HOUSE. 33
was purchased by the Earl of Arundel, who
once more changed its name. It then came by
marriage into the possession of the family of
the Duke of Norfolk. It was in his time "a
large and old-built house, with a spacious yard
for stabling towards the Strand, and with a
gate to enclose it, where there was a porter's
lodge, and a large fair garden towards the
Thames." When the great Duke de Sully,
then Marquis de Rosny, was ambassador in
England, this house was set apart for his ac-
commodation, and he mentions it as one of
the finest and most commodious in London.
The house was pulled down about the middle
of the seventeenth century. The family name
and titles are still retained for the streets which
arose upon its site ; Norfolk Street, Surrey
Street, and others.
A short distance beyond is Somerset House,
a large pile of building, chiefly used now as
government offices, except one wing, recent-
ly added, which is occupied by the officers and
scholars of King's College, London. Somerset
House took its name from the Duke of So-
merset, Lord Protector during the reign of
Edward the Sixth ; it is not, however, the
building erected by that princely nobleman,
but a mere modern edifice erected in the
VOL. I. D
34 SOMERSET HOUSE.
reign of George the Third, undei the super-
intendence of Sir William Chambers. The
architect of the original fabric was John of
Padua. After the attainder of Somerset it
devolved to the crown, and Queen Elizabeth
frequently inhabited it. Anne of Denmark,
Queen of James the First, held her court here,
and so did Catharine, Queen of Charles the
Second. It at last became appropriated of
right to the Queens Dowager, and was fre-
quently appointed for the reception of ambassa-
dors, whom the monarchs delighted especially
to honour. The Venetian ambassador made a
grand public entry into old Somerset House in
1763, a short time before it was pulled down.
In the quadrangle opposite the Strand en-
trance, stands the gigantic piece of bronze ex-
ecuted by Bacon, the principal figure of which
is an allegorical representation of the Thames.
Immediately adjoining is Waterloo Bridge,
the finest of the many fine structures that span
the bosom of the Thames within metropolitan
limits. Around its arches clings half the ro-
mance of modern London. It is the English
" Bridge of Sighs," the ' Pons Asinorum," the
" Lover's Leap," the " Arch of Suicide," and
well deserves all these appellations. Many a
sad and too true tale might be told, the be-
WATERLOO BRIDGE. 35
ginning and end of which would be " Wa-
terloo Bridge." It is a favourite spot for love
assignations ; and a still more favourite spot
for those who long to cast off the load of
existence, and cannot wait, through sorrow,
until the Almighty Giver takes away his gift.
Its comparative loneliness renders it convenient
for both purposes. The penny toll keeps off
the inquisitive and unmannerly crowd; and the
foolish can love or the mad can die with less
observation from the passers than they could
find anywhere else so close to the heart of
London. To many a poor girl the assignation
over one arch of Waterloo Bridge is but the
prelude to the fatal leap from another. Here
they begin, and here they end, after a long
course of intermediate crime and sorrow, the
unhappy story of their loves. Here, also, wary
and practised courtezans lie in wait for the Asini,
so abundant in London, and who justify its
appellation of the Pons Asinorum. Here fools
become entrapped, and wise men too some-
times, the one losing their money, and the other
their money and self-respect. But, with all its
vice, Waterloo Bridge is pre-eminently the
" Bridge of Sorrow." There is less of the ludi-
crous to be seen from its smooth highway than
from almost any other in the metropolis. The
36
VIEW FROM
people of London continually hear of unhappy
men and women who throw themselves from
its arches, and as often of the finding of bodies
in the water, which may have lain there for
weeks, no one knowing how or when they
came there, no one being able to distinguish
their lineaments. But, often as these things
are heard of, few are aware of the real number
of victims that choose this spot to close an un-
happy career, few know that, taking one year
with another, the average number of suicides
committed from this place is about thirty.
Notwithstanding these gloomy associations,
Waterloo Bridge is a pleasant spot. Any one
WATERLOO BRIDGE. 37
who wishes to enjoy a panoramic view un-
equalled of its kind in Europe, has only to
proceed thither, just at the first faint peep of
dawn, and he will be gratified. A more lovely
prospect of a city it is impossible to imagine
than that which will burst upon him as he
draws near to the middle arch. Scores of tall
spires, unseen during the day, are distinctly
seen at that hour, each of which seems to
mount upwards to double its usual height,
standing out in bold relief against the clear
blue sky. Even the windows of distant
houses, no longer, as in the noon-tide view,
blended together in one undistinguishable
mass, seern larger and nearer, and more clear-
ly defined ; every chimney-pot stands alone,
tracing against the smokeless sky a perfect
outline. Eastward, the view embraces the
whole of ancient London, from " the towers of
Julius" to its junction with Westminster at
Temple Bar. Directly opposite stands Somer-
set House, by far the most prominent, and,
the most elegant building, St. Paul's excepted,
in all the panorama ; while to the west rise the
hoary towers of Westminster Abbey, with,
far in the distance, glimpses of the hills of Sur-
rey crowned with verdure. The Thames, which
flows in a crescent-shaped course, adds that pe-
38 SAVOY PALACE.
culiar charm which water always affords to a
landscape. If the visiter has time, he will do
well to linger for a few hours on the spot till all
the fires are lighted, and the haze of noon ap-
proaches. He will gradually see many objects
disappear from the view. First of all, the
hills of Surrey will be undistinguishable in the
distance ; steeples far away in the north and
east of London will vanish as if by magic ;
houses half a mile off, in which you might at
first have been able to count the panes of
glass in the windows, will agglomerate into
shapeless masses of brick. After a time, the
manufactories and gas-works, belching out vo-
lumes of smoke, will darken all the atmo-
sphere ; steam-boats plying continually to and
fro will add their quota to the general im-
purity of the air; while all these mingling
together will form that dense cloud which
habitually hangs over London, and excludes
its inhabitants from the fair share of sunshine
to which all men are entitled.
While thus gossipping with thee, O reader,
we have passed under the arch, and arrived
at a spot which was once famous in the annals
of England. A number of coal-wharfs mark
the site of the palace of the Savoy, the resi-
dence of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
SAVOY PALACE. 39
and the poet Chaucer. The building was pil-
laged by a London mob in the year 1376,
when the Duke narrowly escaped with his life.
It was during the excitement occasioned by
the citation of Wickliffe, when John of Gaunt,
on account of the disorderly behaviour of the
Londoners, had moved in Parliament that
there should be no more a Lord Mayor of
London, and that the government of the city
should in future be delivered over to the mi-
litary, and for the time being to Lord Percy,
the Chief Marshal of England. The Lon-
doners immediately arose in arms, destroyed
the Marshalsea, where Lord Percy resided, and
then proceeded to the Savoy, swearing to take
the life of the Duke of Lancaster for threaten-
ing their liberties, and insulting their bishop in
St. Paul's church, in the matter of Wickliffe.
They threw all the costly furniture into the
river, made a complete wreck of the building,
and killed, in a very barbarous manner, a priest
whom they mistook for Lord Percy in dis-
guise. Percy himself and the Duke of Lan-
cancaster were dining that day at the house
of a rich merchant named John of Ypres, and
escaped to Lambeth, by rowing up the river,
at the very time that the populace were seek-
ing them in every corner of the Savoy. Five
40 SAVOY PALACE.
years afterwards the Savoy was attacked by
the rebels under Wat Tyler, and reduced
to ashes with all its valuable furniture. In
the reign of Henry the Seventh, an hospital
was founded here; it was dedicated to St.
John the Baptist, and consisted of a master
and four brethren, who were to be in priest's
orders, and officiate alternately, by standing at
the gate and looking out for objects of charity,
who were to be taken in and fed. To tra-
vellers they were bound to afford one night's
lodging, a letter of recommendation to the next
hospital on his road, and as much money as
would enable him to reach it. This hospital
was suppressed by Edward the Sixth, and the
furniture given to the Hospitals of Bridewell
and St. Thomas. It was restored by Queen
Mary to its original uses, and more liberally
endowed than ever it had been before. In the
first year of Queen Anne, commissioners, con-
sisting of seven temporal and seven spiritual
lords, were appointed to visit the hospital and
report upon it. By their recommendation the
brethren or chaplains were dismissed, and the
hospital dissolved. According to the plates
published by the Society of Antiquaries in
1750, the building was large and commodious.
The front towards the Thames contained seve-
SAVOY PALACE.
41
ral projections and two rows of angular mul-
lioned windows. To the north was the Friary ;
a court formed of the walls of the body of the
Hospital, whose ground- plan was in the shape
of the cross. At the west end was a guard-
house, used for many years afterwards as a
receptacle for deserters, and the quarters for
thirty men and non-commissioned officers.
This was secured by a strong buttress, and
had a gateway embellished with the arms of
Henry the Seventh. The descent from the
Strand was by two flights of stone steps,
42 SALISBURY HOUSE.
nearly to the depth of three stories of a dwell-
ing-house. The approaches to the Waterloo
Bridge cleared away a great part of it. The
chapel still remains, having been substantially
repaired by King George the First, in the
year 1721, at his sole expense. Cowley the
poet was long a candidate for the mastership
of the Hospital, but he never obtained it. The
foregoing is a view of it as it stood in Cowley's
time.
At a few yards distant are Cecil and Salisbury
Streets, leading from the Strand to the Thames.
They are the site of Salisbury House, built
by Sir Robert Cecil, created Earl of Salisbury
by King James the First. The edifice, which
was very large, was afterwards divided into
two parts, the one called Great, and the other
Little Salisbury House ; the first being inha-
bited by the Earl and his family, and the
latter being let out to different persons. An-
other part, next Great Salisbury House, was
converted into an Exchange in the time of
George the First and Second, consisting of
one long room, extending from the Strand to
the river ; with shops for the sale of fancy
goods on each side. At the end there was a
handsome flight of steps to the water. The
place, somehow or other, acquired a bad name ;
DURHAM PLACE. 43
our ancestors chose it as a spot for assignations
with frail fair ones ; and all the respectable
inhabitants in a short time deserted it.
In the spot, where now a long dirty lane
wends its obscure course from the Strand to
the Thames, stood, in the reign of Henry the
Eighth, a magnificent palace, called Durham
Place. The modern range of the Adelphi
Terrace also occupies a portion of its site. In
the year 1540 a grand tournament was held
at Westminster under the auspices of the King,
who had sent challenges and invitations to all
the doughtiest knights of France, Flanders,
Scotland, and Spain, to be present at the sports.
After the diversions of each day, the King, with
his newly married and already hated Queen,
Anne of Cleves, repaired to Durham Place,
where a magnificent feast was given. On the
last day not only the combatants and all the
lords and ladies of the court, but the members
of both Houses of Parliament, the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen of London, and all foreigners
of distinction were invited. The King gave to
each of the challengers and his heirs for ever
in reward of his activity and valour, a yearly
revenue of one hundred marks out of the
lands pertaining to the hospital of St. John
of Jerusalem.
44 DURHAM PLACE.
Edward the Sixth appointed it as a mint
for the coinage of money under the manage-
ment of Sir William Sherington, and the in-
fluence of the ambitious Lord Seymour of
Sudeley. It was one of the charges brought
against the latter that he intended to coin
money here for his own purposes, and to aid
him in his designs upon the throne. The
place afterwards became the residence of the
equally ambitious Dudley, Earl of Northum-
berland ; where, in the year 1553, he solem-
nized, with the greatest magnificence, the mar-
riages of three of his family : Lord Guildford
Dudley, his son, with the unfortunate Lady
Jane Gray ; Lady Katharine Dudley, his daugh-
ter, with the Earl of Huntingdon ; and Lady
Katharine Gray, sister of Lady Jane, with the
Lord Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke.
The fate of nearly all these personages was to
perish upon the scaffold, the prime cause of
their ill fortune being the ambition of their
father ; whose own sire, Dudley the extor-
tioner, died a similar death. Durham Place
was one of the palaces occasionally inhabited
by Queen Elizabeth. She granted the use of
apartments in it, for a time, to Sir Walter Ra-
leigh, who is said to have composed here some
chapters of his famous History of the World.
"THE WHITE MILLINER." 45
Part of the stables connected with this
building were taken down in the early part
of the reign of King James, and an Exchange
upon the plan of the Royal Exchange, called
Britain's Burse, erected upon the site. It be-
came a place of fashionable resort until the
reign of Queen Anne. In her time it was
the scene of a romantic incident, which created
much interest and conversation. The chief
walk was appropriated to milliners and semp-
stresses, and one of them, a new-comer, was
observed for several days to appear always
dressed in white, and wore a white mask.
The fashionable loungers, whose curiosity was
excited by the mystery, endeavoured in vain
to obtain a sight of her face, and all the town
talked of " the White Milliner" It was after-
wards discovered that she was the Duchess of
Tyrconnell, widow of Richard Talbot, Lord
Deputy of Ireland under King James the
Second, who being reduced to great distress,
had endeavoured to support herself by the
little trade of the Exchange. As soon as her
condition was ascertained, her relations ap-
peared and provided otherwise for her.
Nearly all the ancient structure of Dur-
ham Place was pulled down, and the Messrs.
Adam, four brothers, builders, erected the
46 VILLIERS, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.
Terrace and the neighbouring streets, which
is called after them, the Adelphi.
Adjoining is the site of York House, in-
habited, formerly, by Charles Brandon, Duke
of Suffolk, and the Lord Chancellor Bacon.
It afterwards became the residence of the fa-
mous George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
who rebuilt it in a more magnificent manner.
The gateway still standing at the end of Buck-
ingham Street, a full view of which is ob-
tained from the river, is the onlv remnant of
V
the palace. It was built by Inigo Jones, and
is much admired. The palace was bestowed
by the Long Parliament upon General Fair-
fax, whose daughter and heiress marrying the
second George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
it was thus restored to the family of its ori-
ginal proprietors. It was soon afterwards dis-
posed of and pulled down, and several streets
laid out upon its site, and named after one
or other of the words in the name and title
of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham ;
there being George Street, Villiers Street, Duke
Street, Of Alley, and Buckingham Street. In
a large house at the corner of Buckingham
Street, then called York Buildings, resided the
Czar Peter the Great, when he visited Lon-
don in 1698, and where he and the Marquis
CUPER'S GARDENS. 47
of Carmarthen, Lord President of the Council,
used to spend their evenings in drinking " hot
pepper and brandy."
Nearly opposite, on the site now occupied
by the timber-wharfs of the Belvidere Road,
formerly stood a celebrated place of public re-
sort, called Cuper's Gardens, famous, at the
end of the seventeenth and beginning of the
eighteenth century, for its grand displays of
fire-works. It was not, however, the resort of
respectable company, but of the abandoned of
both sexes. The place took its name from one
Boy dell Cuper, who had been gardener in the
service of Lord Arundel, and who rented the
ground of his lordship. When Arundel House
was pulled down to make way for the street of
the same name, already mentioned, a number of
the statues which had once adorned that edi-
fice, but which had been accidentally or other-
wise mutilated, came into the possession of
Cuper, who set them up in different parts of
his gardens.
In the river opposite was moored an im-
mense barge, by some said to have been as
bulky as the hull of a man-of-war, which was
known by the name of " The Folly." It was
the resort of even a worse description of per-
sons than those who frequented the Gardens
on shore.
48 THE FOLLY.
In one of Tom D'Urfey's songs called " A
Touch of the Times," published in 1719, the
Folly is thus mentioned :
" When ' Drapers' smugg'd 'Prentices,
With Exchange Girls mostly jolly,
After shop was shut up,
Could sail to the Folly."
In a MS. note in Sir John Hawkins's own
copy of his History of Music, now in the Bri-
tish Museum, it is stated that " this edifice was
built of timber, and divided into sundry rooms,
with a platform and balustrade at top, which
floated on the Thames above London Bridge,
and was called the Folly : a view of it, an-
chored opposite Somerset House, is given in
Strype's Stow, Book 4th, p. 105 ; and the Hu-
mours of it were described by Ward in ^his
London Spy. At first it was resorted to for
refreshment by persons of fashion ; and Queen
Mary with some of her courtiers, had once the
curiosity to visit it ; but it sunk into a recep-
tacle for companies of loose and disorderly peo-
ple, for the purposes of drinking and promis-
cuous dancing; and at length becoming scan-
dalous, the building was suffered to decay, and
the materials thereof became fire-wood." See
vol. v. p. 352.
Passing Hungerford Market, and North um-
WHITEHALL. 49
berland House, the residence of the present
Duke, and the only one remaining of the old
noble residences that formerly skirted the
Thames, we arrive at a pleasant green spot,
rising like another oasis amid surrounding
dust.
It is a fair lawn, neatly trimmed, and di-
vided into compartments by little walls. In
the rear rises a row of goodly modern houses,
the abodes of ministers, and ex-ministers, and
" lords of high degree." But it is not so much
for what it exhibits, as for what it hides,
that it is remarkable. The row of houses
screens Whitehall and its historical purlieus
from the view. Just behind the house with
the bow-windows, inhabited by Sir Robert
Peel, is the spot where Charles the First was
beheaded. In a nook close by, as if pur-
posely hidden from the view of the world,
there is a very good statue of a very bad
King. Unknown to the thousands of Lon-
don, James the Second rears his brazen head
in a corner, ashamed apparently, even in his
effigies, to affront the eyes of the nation he
misgoverned.
The Banqueting House of Whitehall stands
on the site of York House, chiefly famous as
having been the town residence of Cardinal
VOL. I. E
50 WHITEHALL.
Wolsey. It was originally erected by that
powerful nobleman, Hubert de Burgh, Earl of
Kent and Lord High Justiciary of England,
in the troublous times of Henry the Third.
It was bequeathed by him to the Black Friars
of Holborn ; and, after a short interval, sold
by them to the Archbishop of York. It re-
mained the residence of the prelates of that
see, and bore their name, until the time of
Wolsey ; after whose fall it was seized by the
all-grasping Henry, and made an appendage to
the royal palace of Westminster, which ex-
tended, along the banks of the river, from
hence to the Houses of Parliament.
In Elizabeth's time there were great doings
here on several occasions, as the curious reader
may see in the pages of Holinshed and Stowe.
Fortresses and bowers were made for this
" perfect beau tie," a red-haired woman of
forty-nine, which were vigorously attacked
by knights representing Desire, typical of the
great admiration her personal charms, more
than the majesty of her station, excited.
Tournaments were also instituted, together
with maskings and revels, and various other
mummeries.
In the time of her successor the old palace
had become so ruinous that it was determined
WHITEHALL.
51
to rebuild it. James the First intrusted the
design to Inigo Jones, who built the edifice
now known by the name of the Banqueting
House, a representation of which is given
below, and which was only intended as a part,
and a very small one, of a more magnificent
conception. The palace was to have consisted
of four fronts, each with an entrance between
two square towers. Within were to have been
one large central court and five smaller ones,
and between two of the latter was to have been
a handsome circus, with an arcade below. The
whole length of the palace was to have been
1152 feet, and its depth 874 feet. The times
which succeeded those of James were not fa-
vourable for such designs and expenses as
these, and the palace was never completed.
CHAPTER III.
Westminster Bridge. The Houses of Parliament. Anec-
dote of James the First. Westminster Abbey. Lam-
beth Palace. Flight of Queen Mary D'Este. Palaces and
Hovels. Vauxhall Gardens. Sports at Battersea.
Evans the Astrologer. Chelsea Hospital. Reminis-
cences of Chelsea. Battersea. A Song. The River
Wandle. The Mayor of Garratt. Putney. Anecdote
of Cardinal Wolsey and his Fool.
|| t TILL sailing up the stream, we
next pass under the arches of
Westminster Bridge. This edi-
fice was commenced in 1738, and
finished in 1750. The Corporation of London
had a notion that it would injure the trade of
the city ; and while the bill relating to it under-
went discussion in the legislature, they opposed
it by every means in their power. For many
years afterwards, London aldermen thought it
pollution to go over it, and passed by it as
saucily and with as much contempt as a dog
would by a " stinking brock." So highly was
the bridge esteemed by its projectors, that
WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. 53
they procured the admission of a clause into
the act of Parliament, by which the punish-
ment of death without benefit of clergy was
declared against any one who should wilfully
deface or injure it. Dogs also were kept off
it with as much rigour as they are now excluded
from Kensington Gardens. It does not appear,
however, that dog or man was ever hanged
either for defiling or defacing the precious
structure.
" O happy age ! O good old times gone by I
Even dogs might howl, and pipe their sorrowing eye,
Were ye restored 1"
And now we are clear of the bridge, the
river opens out before us in a longer sweep,
and we arrive in front of the open space oppo-
site to Westminster Hall, known by the name
of Palace Yard, so called from its having
been the court of the old palace of Westmin-
ster. Of all the remarkable sites in Eng-
land, this and its neighbourhood is doubt-
less the most remarkable; and no other place
upon the Thames, not even the princely towers
and purlieus of Windsor itself, can vie with
these in the recollections they recall or the
emotions which they excite. There stands yet
survivor amid calamity the elegant Hall
and the entrances to the Chief Courts of Jus-
54 THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
tice of this kingdom, courts in which Gas-
coigne, More, Hale, Bacon, Camden, Holt,
Coke, Mansfield, Eldon, Brougham, and a host
of other eminent and learned men, have pre-
sided. There also are the ruins of the Houses
of Lords and Commons, burnt down in the
year 1834, where the liberties of England were
gained, gradually but surely, through long cen-
turies of doubt and darkness. There began the
struggle for freedom, which never ceased till its
object was won. There was heard the eloquent
patriotism of all the patriots that have arisen
in our land since the days of Pym, Holies, and
Hampden ; there was tyranny resisted by the
tongue and the vote, stronger weapons in a
right cause than the glaive or the gun ;
there was the right established the wrong
cast down civilisation extended and slavery
abolished. There, in former days, were to
be seen and heard a Cranmer, a Strafford,
a Laud, and a Cromwell. Nearer our own
age, a Maryborough, a Harley, a Walpole,
a Bolingbroke, and a Chatham. Nearer still, a
Pitt, a Fox, a Burke, a Grattan, and a Sheri-
dan ; and (men of yesterday) a Canning, a
Mackintosh, a Wilberforce, and a Romilly ;
with many others who have written their
names for good or for evil on the page of his-
THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. 55
tory. And here too, in our own day, walking
and breathing among us, are to be seen, in their
appointed season, a Wellington, a Brougham, a
Den man, a Melbourne, a Russell, a Durham, a
Peel, and an O'Connell, with hundreds more of
great, though of lesser, note, whose names are
inscribed already in the great book of history,
but whose deeds are not yet ended ; and who
are destined, perhaps, hereafter to make a still
greater figure in the annals of the mightiest
empire the world ever saw.
Great was the sorrow of every lover of his
country when the ancient seats of the British
legislature were destroyed though they were
but stones, and brick and mortar, and wood,
they were hallowed in the hearts of English-
men. Who could help regretting that the very
boards upon which Chatham and Pitt and Fox
and Burke and Canning trod could never more
be trodden by the admirers of their worth,
and that the walls that re-echoed to their words,
or to the approving cheers of their delighted
auditory, had crumbled in the flame ? Not
one, who had a thought to bestow upon the
matter.
The legislature now assemble in that heavy-
looking building, something like a barn, the
top of which may be seen from the river as
56 THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
we pass. Hundreds of workmen are, however,
busily employed in preparing the terrace,
taken from the bed of the river, upon which
the future Houses of Parliament are to stand.
The design of Mr. Barry is worthy of its
object; and, when completed, promises to be
a fit seat for the British legislature.
-~'^% l -j
.:-.
This spot was, originally, the most desolate
and barren of any in the neighbourhood of
London. In the time of the Romans, it was
a waste, overgrown with weeds and thorns,
bounded on two sides by a dirty stream, after-
wards called the Long Ditch. One of the first
buildings erected upon it was a minster, un-
dertaken by the converted King Sibert, in the
ANECDOTE OF JAMES I. 5?
year 610. To this minster the now famous
city of Westminster owes all its greatness,
and even its name. The seat of a bishop, it
soon drew a busy population around it, who
built upon and cultivated the waste, and in
process of time filled up the ditch. King
Rufus was the next to add to its dignity by
the erection of his handsome banqueting-hall,
where he used to keep his Christmas in great
style with his court and retainers. Then the
Judges began to hold their sittings there, and
finally the Parliaments, until, in the course
of time, all these advantages made Westmin-
ster the first city of the empire. A good story
is related of James the First and one of the
Lords Mayor, in reference to the prosperity
of the twin cities, and which, for its happy
quiet laudation of the Thames, it would be
unpardonable to omit. James being in want
of twenty thousand pounds, applied to the
corporation of London for a loan of that sum.
The corporation refused, upon which the King
in high dudgeon sent for the Lord Mayor and
some of the aldermen, and, rating them in
severe terms for their disloyalty, insisted upon
their raising the money for him. " Please
your majesty," said the Lord Mayor, " we
cannot lend you what we have not got."
58 WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
" You must get it," replied the King. " We
cannot," said the Lord Mayor. " I '11 compel
you," rejoined the King. " But you cannot
compel us," retorted the Lord Mayor. "No!"
exclaimed the King ; " then I '11 ruin your
city for ever. I '11 make a desert of West-
minster. I '11 remove my courts of law, my
parliament, and my court to York or to Ox-
ford, and then what will become of you?"
"Please your Majesty," rejoined the Lord
Mayor, meekly, " you may remove yourself
and your courts wherever you please; but
there will always be this consolation for the
poor merchants of London, you cannot take
the Thames along with you."
How shall we speak of the venerable Abbey ?
A recent author says, in his admiration, that
the fabric, or at least that part of it known as
Henry the Seventh's Chapel, appears to have
been put together " by the fingers of angels,
under the immediate superintendence of Om-
nipotence !" Without being so sublime, or
so ridiculous, we must allow the beauty of the
edifice, and be impressed with a solemn and
religious veneration at the thought of the uses
to which it has been applied, the great events
of which it has been the witness, and the ashes
of the illustrious dead which have mouldered
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 59
within its walls. Here are crowned the mo-
narchs of England ; and here, all their pomp
and power and vanity away, they moulder like
their subjcts. Not to mention earlier monarchs,
here, side by side, lie Elizabeth and Mary the
oppressor and the oppressed, the destroyer and
her victim. Here, a few feet apart, are the
funeral mementos of Fox and Pitt. Here, by
their graves, is the place of which Scott sings,
in strains which would have immortalized his
memory had he written nothing else :
" Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings ;
Where stiff the hand and still the tongue
Of those who fought and spoke and sung ;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke again
' All peace on earth, good will to meu,'
If ever, from an English heart
O here let prejudice depart.
*****
Genius and Taste and Talent gone,
For ever tomb'd beneath the stone,
Where taming thought to human pride
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'T will trickle to his rival's bier ;
O'er Pitt's the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox's shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry
' Here let their discord with them die.
60 WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
* Speak not for those a separate doom
' Whom Fate made brothers in the tomb ;
' But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like again?'"
Here also lie the ashes of many of the lights
of song ; and here stand the monuments which
a grateful and admiring posterity has erected
to them, and to many more whose bones crum-
ble in other earth, rendering the corner in
which they are a holy spot, only to be entered
with love and reverence. The most conspicu-
ous are those of Shakspeare, Chaucer, Spenser,
Ben Jonson, Milton, Butler, Addison, Prior,
LAMBETH PALACE. 61
Dryden, Rowe, Gay, Thomson, West, Gold-
smith, and Gray ; besides those of Handel and
Garrick, who may also claim to rank among
the poets ; the first, from the sisterhood of his
art ; and the second, as being in soul a poet, or
he could not have been a great actor.
But we must leave Westminster and all its
reminiscences behind us, for they are too many
for our purpose, and would occupy as much
space as we have to bestow upon the Thames
itself, and continue our course upward to Vaux-
hall Bridge. On the left, is the grey and vene-
rable palace of Lambeth, the residence of the
Archbishops of Canterbury almost ever since
the Norman Conquest. How many recollec-
tions are excited by the mention of this spot !
Here Wat Tyler vented his fury. Here
were the Lollards imprisoned in the tower
which still bears their name. Here the unfor-
tunate Earl of Essex was imprisoned by Queen
Elizabeth, before his final commitment to the
Tower. Here also Archbishop Laud was
attacked by the riotous London 'prentices, a
short time before his execution. At this
place also the bigots under Lord George Gor-
don vented their insane fury. Close by the
same spot, under the walls of St. Mary's
Church, the unfortunate Mary D'Este remained
62 THE FLIGHT OF MARY D'ESTE.
hidden, with her infant son, in the midst of
the bitter storm of the 6th of December 1688,
for a whole hour, awaiting a coach to convey
her, a fugitive and an outcast, from the land
where she had reigned as a queen ; an incident
which gave occasion to the following ballad.
THE FLIGHT OF MARY D'ESTE.
Cold was the night, and dark the sky,
And thick the rain did fall,
When a lady waved her hand, and cried
To a boatman at Whitehall,
<f Oh, speed thee, boatman, speed thee well
Across the stormy Thames,
And bear me safely from the foes
Of me, and my young James.
" Oh, speed me safely from their spite ;
I '11 give a golden fee
If this poor baby at my breast
Be still preserved to me I "
" I '11 take thy fee, O lady bright,
And all my best employ,
Part for thy sake, part for thy fee,
Part for thy pretty boy.
" 'Tis true, the night is dark and cold,
And winds and waters roar ;
But, were it ten times wilder still,
I 'd row you safe ashore."
THE FLIGHT OF MARY D'ESTE. 63
The lady thanked him with her eyes,
From which the tears fell fast,
And the boatman wrapp'd her in his cloak,
To shield her from the blast.
Away they went, through driving sleet,
Across the angry Thames,
While still she sobb'd and sigh'd, " Alas !
God help unhappy James !
" God help thee, also, O my son,
And thy poor mother, too,
Sad outcast from the regal halls,
And heritage thy due.
" The bitter winds that round us blow
Are not so rude and chill
As wrath of foes, and scorn of friends,
Conspiring to our ill.
64 THE FLIGHT OF MARY D'ESTE.
" Oh, speed thee, boatman, speed thee well,
And should we reach the shore,
For the dear sake of this poor child
I '11 thank thee evermore."
Amid the pelting rain at last
They near'd the 'bishop's wall,
And as the lady stepp'd on land
Still did her tears down fall.
She look'd around her anxiously
Some shelter to obtain,
Then clasp'd her infant closer still,
To shield it from the rain.
Alas, poor mother I far nor near
A shelter could be seen ;
Beggars were snug that bitter night,
But houseless was the Queen.
And still she made a piteous moan,
" Unkind, ye storms I ye be ;
But not so cruel as my foes
To my young James and me.
" Oh, who would wish to fill a throne,
To be cast down so low ?
Oh, who would wear a monarch's crown,
At the price of so much woe ?
" Would that I were but safe again
On France's ocean strand,
I 'd never quit that shore again
To come to cold England."
THE FLIGHT OF MARY D'ESTE. 65
Thus underneath the churchyard wall,
All drenched to the bone,
The Queen of England sat an hour,
Sighing, and making moan ;
But God, that hears the wretch's cry,
Did not forsake her quite ;
And friends were found that saw her safe,
Before the morning light.
On good ship-board, at Gravesend moor'd,
She lay, with her young James,
While a fair fresh gale fill'd every sail,
And bore them from the -Thames.
On the right of us now is the singular-look-
ing Church of St. John the Evangelist; of
which Lord Chesterfield used to say that "it
put him in mind of an elephant thrown on its
back, with its four feet erect in the air." The
late Charles Mathews had a similar saying,
which perhaps he borrowed from the simile of
Lord Chesterfield, which was, that " it put him
in mind of a large dining-table turned upside
down, with its four legs and castors in the air."
A short distance beyond this abused building
is the gloomy Penitentiary of Milbank, des-
tined for the reception and reformation of con-
victs, the most dreary, desolate-looking build-
ing to be seen on the banks of Thames, in all its
course from Coteswold to the Nore. On the
VOL. i. F
66 THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOR.
other side of the stream are the low shores
of ancient Lambeth. How squalid and how
miserable they look ! and how well do the
lines of Pope, written more than a hundred
and twenty years ago, describe their present
appearance :
In every town where Thamis rolls his tide
A narrow pass there is, with houses low,
Where ever and anon the stream is dyed,
And many a boat soft sliding to and fro,
There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,
The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall
And on the broken pavement here and there
Doth many a rotten sprat and herring lie ;
A brandy and tobacco shop is near,
And hens, and dogs, and hogs are feeding by ;
And here a sailor's jacket hangs to dry.
At every door are sun-burnt matrons seen
Mending old nets to catch the scaly fry,
Now singing shrill, and scolding oft between
Scold answers foul-mouth'd scold: bad neighbourhood I ween.
Such place hath Deptford, navy-building town ;
Woolwich, and Wapping, smelling strong of pitch ;
Such Lambeth
The years that have rolled by since the time
of Pope, have made little or no difference in the
habits or habitations of the poor. The progress
of civilisation does nothing for them. Noble
VAUXHALL. 67
mansions may lift themselves on either side,
bridges may be built, railways constructed ;
but the dwellings of the poor experience no im-
provement. A thousand years effect nothing
more for them than to change the wigwam
into the hovel, and at the latter point they
stop. It is hard to say whether their change
of habits is even so much in their favour. As
" noble savages," they had at least the advan-
tages of health and fresh air ; as independent
labourers, doomed to the gas-work or the fac-
tory, they have neither, besides wanting the
contentment which was the lot of their naked
progenitors of the woods and wilds. However,
this is merely a hint for the political economists,
and has nothing to do with Vauxhall, at which
point we have now arrived, and caught, for the
first time since we left London Bridge, a view
of the green fields and the open country. Of
Vauxhall it self there is little to say, except that
in its churchyard are buried the Tradescants,
so well known, in the seventeenth century, for
their museum. But its Gardens, a glimpse of
whose tree-tops we can just obtain from the
river, how shall we describe them ? Where
in all England is there a spot more renowned
among pleasure-seekers than
" This beauteous garden, but by vice maintained,"
F 2
68 VAUXHALL GARDENS.
as Addison, paraphrasing Juvenal, expresses it?
Famous is Vauxhall in all the country round
for its pleasant walks, its snug alcoves, its
comic singers, its innumerable lamps, its big
balloons, its midnight fireworks, its thin slices,
its dear potations, its greedy waiters, and its
ladies fair and kind, and abounding with every
charm, except the greatest which can adorn
their sex, and the want of which renders their
beauty coarse, their kindness selfish, and their
very presence an offence to the well-minded.
Pepys, in his " Diary," under date of 1 667, says,
" I went by water to Fox-hall, and there walk-
ed in Spring Gardens. A great deal of com-
pany ; the weather and gardens pleasant, and
cheap going thither ; for a man may go to
spend what he will, or nothing ; all is one.
But to hear the nightingale and other birds,
and here fiddles and there a harp, and here
a Jew's trump and here laughing, and there
fine people walking, is very diverting." In Ad-
dison's time, Spring Gardens, as they were still
called, continued to be noted for their night-
ingales and their sirens ; and Sir Roger de
Coverley is represented as having wished there
were more of the former and fewer of the
latter, in which case he would have been a
better customer. But in our days there are no
BATTERSEA FIELDS. 69
nightingales, and the sirens have it all to them-
selves. But let that pass. If the age will
not mend its manners, it is no fault of ours ;
and we must take Vauxhall, like other things,
as we find it. Sterner moralists than we are,
or wish to be, have thought it a pleasant place,
and the old guide-books invariably designate it
" an earthly paradise." Addison called it a Ma-
hometan paradise, choosing the epithet, no
doubt, from the numerous houris before men-
tioned, and the admixture of sensual and intel-
lectual enjoyments which it afforded. In our
day its claim to so high a character cannot be
supported: it is the paradise only of servant
girls and apprentices.
On the opposite bank of the river the coun-
try is open, and we obtain a view of the
western suburbs of the great capital. Further
up the stream, to the left, we arrive opposite to
the Red House, Battersea Fields, a spot which
is noted for amusements of a very different
kind. Here men assemble frequently during
the summer months and murder pigeons, call-
ing it sport.
These fields also are the scene of the marvel-
lous adventure which befell Evans the astrolo-
ger, in the year 1663, as related in Lilly's Me-
moirs of his Life and Times. This Evans re-
70 EVANS, THE ASTROLOGER.
sided in the Minories, and being visited one
day by Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby,
was desired by them to raise a ghost. Evans
drew the magic circle accordingly, and stepping
inside with his visiters, commenced his invoca-
tions. " Not having," quoth Lilly, " made any
suffumigation, the spirits were vexed," and re-
solving to punish him for his neglect, whisked
him out of the circle in an instant, carried him
up the chimney, over the houses, over St.
Paul's, over Westminster Abbey, arid right
over the Thames, until they arrived at Batter-
sea Causeway, where they bumped him down
from the height of a few hundred feet, and left
him to die or recover, as he thought best. He
chose the latter course, and was found the next
morning by a countryman, of whom he in-
quired where he was, and how far from Lon-
don ? On being informed, he explained that
he had been drinking with some friends in
Battersea the previous night ; that he had got
drunk, and did not know what he did with
himself afterwards ; an explanation which was
perfectly satisfactory to the countryman, and
will, no doubt, be so to the modern reader.
It was not satisfactory, however, to Lilly, who
was a great stickler for the truth of the super-
natural version of the story.
CHELSEA HOSPITAL.
71
On the opposite shore of the river stands
Chelsea Hospital, the last refuge of the old
soldier.
Englishmen are justly proud of this establish-
ment, though being a sea-faring people they
rank it after Greenwich Hospital, which holds
the first and highest place in their affections.
It is a plain brick building, and occupies three
sides of a spacious quadrangle, which is open
on the south side, and in the centre of which is
a statue of Charles the Second, in very inap-
propriate Roman costume. The ordinary num-
ber of in-pensioners is four hundred and se-
72 CHELSEA HOSPITAL.
venty-six, consisting of twenty-six captains,
thirty-two sergeants, thirty-two corporals, six-
teen drummers, three hundred and thirty-six
private soldiers, and thirty-four light horsemen.
The number of out-pensioners is unlimited,
having pensions varying from three shillings
to a guinea per week. The average number is
about eighty thousand, who are dispersed over
the three kingdoms, exercising their usual oc-
cupations, but liable to be called upon to per-
form garrison duty in time of war.
The history of this building is odd enough.
The college, founded by a charter of James
the First, in the year 1610, was intended as
a seminary for polemical divines, who were to
be employed in opposing the doctrines of pa-
pists and sectaries. Skilful combatants they
were in the war of words ; but fate had de-
creed the spot as a dwelling-place for com-
batants of another description. A king might
intend it for a nursery to train up men in
the art of opposing his enemies by the argu-
ments of the tongue and the pen ; but fate
had said it should be the nursery of those
who had employed their lives in using the
arguments of the sword and the gun. The
original scheme was not productive of much
benefit ; and the college having become tenant-
REMINISCENCES OF CHELSEA. 73
less, it was granted in the year 1669 to the
Royal Society. It was again tenantless in
the year 1680, and was fixed upon as the site
of the present edifice. The foundation-stone
was laid by Charles the Second, in 1682, and
it was built from the design of Sir Christo-
pher Wren. There is a tradition that it was
owing to the influence of the beauteous Eleanor
Gwynne that Charles the Second was induced
to establish this institution, and the old sol-
diers to this day speak of her memory with
the utmost respect.
The village of Chelsea abounds in reminis-
cences, having been the residence of Sir
Thomas More, of Holbein, of Pym, of St.
Evremond, of Sir Robert Walpole, of Addison,
of Sir Hans Sloane, and also of Nell Gwynne
and the Duchess of Mazarin, the mistresses
of Charles the Second, with a hundred other
personages, celebrated for their virtue, their
genius, their patriotism, their benevolence, or
their beauty. There is an air of antiquity
and sobriety about that portion of it which
is seen from the river that is highly pleasing.
The solemn, unassuming church, the sedate
houses, and the venerable trees on Cheyne
Walk, (so named from Lord Cheyne, formerly
Lord of the Manor,) throw a charm around it
74 DON SALTERO'S
quite delightful to the eye, which has dwelt too
long upon the flaunting elegance of modern
buildings, and the prim precision of new streets,
that never by any chance afford room for a tree
to grow upon them, and rarely within sight
of them. The visitor's eye cannot fail to re-
mark about the middle of the walk a tavern,
inscribed with large letters along its front,
" Don Saltero's 1695." This is the place ce-
lebrated in No. 34 of the Tatler, which was
opened in the year above-mentioned by one
Salter, a barber, made a don by the facetious
Admiral Munden, who, having cruised for a
long period on the coasts of Spain, had con-
tracted a habit of donning all his acquaintance,
and putting a final o to their names. This
barber had a taste for natural history, and
adorned his coffee-room with stuffed birds,
reptiles, and dried beetles ; and the singularity
of his taste, for a person in his condition of
life, drew him many customers. The Tatler
describes the room as being covered with " ten
thousand gimcracks on the walls and ceiling,"
and Don Saltero himself as a sage-looking
man, of a thin and meagre aspect. Its ap-
pearance is somewhat different now. The
gimcracks, the old curiosities of the don, have
dwindled away to two, which still ornament
COFFEE-HOUSE. 75
the walls, an old map of London and its en-
virons ; a painting of a ferocious Welshman
with a Bardolphian nose riding on a goat, and
armed with a leek and a red-herring, instead
of sword and gun ; and a label here and there
about ginger-beer and soda-water. Instead of
the meagre-looking sage, a bluff waiter enters
at your summons, upon whose character you
cannot speculate, so dull is he, and so like the
thousands you may daily meet. The old host
offered, on the contrary, a very fertile subject
for the theorist. " Why," said the Tatler,
" should a barber, and Don Saltero among the
rest, be for ever a politician, a musician, and
a physician ?" Ah, why, indeed ? who can
tell ? To this day the barber is still the same.
Go into a barber's anywhere, no matter in what
district, and it is ten to one you will hear the
sounds either of a fiddle or a guitar, or see the
instruments hanging up somewhere. You will
also find him a politician, or if not a politician,
a great friend and small critic of the drama.
Had we the space, and it were a part of our
subject, we could discourse upon this matter,
lengthily if not learnedly, and also upon an-
other question equally luminous, which has
puzzled philosophers for many ages, " Why
do all old women wear red cloaks?" But
76 SIR THOMAS MORE.
we refrain, and continue our reminiscences
of Chelsea.
In a house fronting the river, and on the
site of the present Beaufort Buildings, Sir
Thomas More resided in the year 1520.
Erasmus, who was his frequent guest, de-
scribes it as having been " neither mean
nor subject to envy, yet magnificent enough.
There he conversed with his wife, his son, his
daughter-in-law, his three daughters and their
husbands, with eleven grandchildren. There
was not any man living," continues Erasmus,
" who was so affectionate to his children as
he ; and he loveth his old wife as well as if
she were a young maid." Here Holbein shared
this great man's hospitality for three years ; and
here also the royal brute his master, when he
was in the mood to do him honour, came in
regal state, and sometimes privately, to dine
with him. Here also the noble-minded daugh-
ter of the philosopher buried the grey head of
her unfortunate father, after having at the risk
of her life stolen it, or caused it to be stolen,
(stealing in this case was a virtue,) from the
pike on which it was fixed at London Bridge,
by order of Henry the Eighth. If there are
occasions in which the insensible sod can be-
come hallowed and consecrated, an incident
RANELAGH GARDENS. 77
like this ought in all true hearts to render it
holy for evermore. The head remained there
for a few hours only in a leaden box, and was
removed by his daughter to the family vault
of her husband, Mr. Roper, at St. Dunstan's,
Canterbury. The body was buried at Chelsea,
in the south side of the chancel. The house
in which this great man resided was pulled
down by Sir Hans Sloane in 1740.
In a place now called the Stable Yard, Nell
Gwynne formerly resided. It was afterwards
inhabited by Sir Robert Walpole. The pre-
mises were bought by Government in the year
1808, and pulled down. The infirmary, an
adjunct to the Royal Hospital, built from the
design of Sir John Soane, now stands upon
the site. Close by resided the Duchess of
Mazarin, where she gave those famous dra-
matic and musical entertainments to all the gay,
the witty, and the gallant of the age, which
became the first precursors of the Italian
Opera. It should not be forgotten that Chel-
sea also was the site of the well-known Rane-
lagh Gardens, where our ancestors used to
congregate for amusements something similar
to those which are now to be seen at Va^ux-
hall. The first regatta that ever took place on
the Thames, was exhibited in front of Rane-
78 BOTANIC GARDENS.
lagh Gardens on the 23rd of June 1775. The
public papers of that day speak of it as an
entirely novel species of amusement in JEng-
land, recently introduced from Venice, and
which attracted a vast crowd of spectators.
The second regatta took place fourteen days
afterwards, at Oatlands, near Weybridge, then
the seat of the Duke of Newcastle, at which
the Prince of Wales, the Princess Amelia, and
a great number of fashionable personages at-
tended.
We should not omit to state that at Chel-
sea, fronting the river, and just at the begin-
ning of Cheyne Walk, are the celebrated Bo-
tanic Gardens of the Apothecaries Company,
established in the seventeenth century, and of
which frequent mention is made in Evelyn's
Diary. When Doctor, afterwards Sir Hans
Sloane, purchased the manor of Chelsea from
Lord Cheyne, in the year 1712, he received
the rent for these gardens as part of the pro-
perty ; but a few years afterwards he gene-
rously settled them upon the society, in per-
petuity, at the nominal rent of five pounds per
annum, upon the following conditions, that it
should at all times be continued as a physic
garden, for the manifestation of the power,
wisdom, and goodness of God in creation, and
SIR HANS SLOAN E. 79
that the apprentices might learn to distinguish
good and useful plants from hurtful ones re-
sembling them ; also that fifty specimens of
different plants should be delivered annually
to the Royal Society, until they amounted
to two thousand ; in default of which, the
Royal Society might appropriate the whole
ground to their own use at the same rent, and
on delivering the specified number of plants
to the College of Physicians.
A handsome statue of Sir Hans Sloane, the
great benefactor of Chelsea, and of his coun-
try too, as his Museum (the origin of the
British Museum) will testify, was executed
by Rysbrach, in 1737, and placed in the cen-
tre walk of the gardens, facing the build-
ing, by order of the society. Sir Joseph
Banks is said to have studied the first prin-
ciples of Botany in this garden. When he was
a young man, and resided at Chelsea with his
mother, he used to spend the early morning,
from five to eight o'clock, when others, less
intent on self-improvement, were in bed and
asleep, in trying experiments on vafious aqua-
tic and other plants. Renown was at last the
reward of his perseverance.
Of the bridge connecting Chelsea with Bat-
tersea, useful, no doubt, but certainly not very
80 BATTERSEA.
ornamental, it is unnecessary to say more than
merely mention the fact of its existence. Bat-
tersea, whose simple unpretending church-
steeple peeps modestly from amid surround-
ing houses, requires more notice. Here at one
time Pope had a favourite study fronting the
Thames, in which he composed his " Essay on
Man ;" and here was born the celebrated
Lord Bolingbroke. At the east end of the
church is a window in which are three por-
traits, all of the family of St. John, the an-
cestors of the Bolingbrokes. Among them
is no less a personage than Queen Elizabeth,
whose relationship to the family is thus ex-
plained. The father of Anne Boleyn, Thomas
Earl of Wiltshire, was great grandfather of the
wife of Sir John St. John, the first baronet !
Truly the relationship is not very close, but
it is quite sufficient for vanity to make a
boast of.
Among the monuments in the church is one
to the memory of the great Lord Bolingbroke,
finely executed by Roubilliac, the epitaph up-
on which mentions, " his zeal to maintain the
liberty and restore the ancient prosperity of
Great Britain." Another monument, with a
singular inscription, is to the memory of one
Sir Edward Winter, an East India Captain
BATTERSEA. 81
in the reign of Charles the Second, who seems
to have outsamsoned Samson in his exploits.
Being in the woods in India he was attacked
by a tiger, when placing himself on the edge
of a deep pool of water, he waited quietly
till the beast sprang at him, when he caught
him in his arms, fell back with him into the
water, then stood upright upon him and kept
him under water till he was drowned. Nor
was this his only feat, if his epitaph speak
truly in the following lines :
Alone, unarm'd, a tiger he oppress'd,
And crush'd to death the monster of a beast ;
Thrice twenty mounted Moors he overthrew,
Singly on foot some wounded, some he slew,
Dispersed the rest what more could Samson do ?
The etymology of the word Battersea has
often puzzled commentators. Doctors have
differed as to whether St. Patrick or St. Peter,
or plain Batter Pudding, or even butter, should
have the honour of bestowing a name upon
the village. Aubrey derives it from St. Pa-
trick, it having, in William the Conqueror's
time, been written Patrice-cey, afterwards Bat-
trichsey, and then Battersea. Lysons battles
in favour of St. Peter, and the etymology
seems plain enough ; Petersea, Pattersea, Bat-
tersea ; which is rendered more likely to be
VOL. I. G
82 BATTERSEA.
the true one, by the manor having once be-
longed to the abbey of St. Peter's, at Chertsey.
This village used to be famous for asparagus.
The following song was written in praise of a
bright-eyed daughter of the spot :
Of all the broad rivers that flow to the ocean,
There 's none to compare, native Thames I unto thee ;
And gladly for ever,
Thou smooth-rolling river,
I 'd dwell on thy green banks at fair Battersea.
'T was there I was born, and 't is there I will linger,
And there shall the place of my burial be,
If fortune, caressing,
Will grant but one blessing,
The heart of the maiden of fair Battersea.
I seek not to wander by Tiber or Arno,
Or castle-crown'd rivers in far Germanie ;
To me, Oh I far dearer,
And brighter, and clearer,
The Thames as it rimples at fair Battersea.
Contentment and Hope, spreading charms all around them,
Have hallow'd the spot since she smiled upon me
O Love ! thy joys lend us,
O Fortune, befriend us,
We '11 yet make an Eden of fair Battersea.
A little farther on to the left, a small stream
discharges itself into the Thames. This is the
RIVER WANDLE. 83
Wandle, the " blue transparent Vandalis " of
Pope, and famous for trout. Pleasant places
there are on its banks, between Carshalton and
Wandsworth, where the angler may take his
station, and be rewarded with something more
substantial than mere nibbles. The stream is
also renowned for the great number of dye-
houses and manufacturing establishments upon
its banks. Poetry, too, has striven to celebrate
it. Witness the following ditty, made upon
some charmer, whose beauty seems to have
been the only witchcraft that she used :
Sweet little witch of the Wandle !
Come to my bosom and fondle;
I love thee sincerely,
I '11 cherish thee dearly,
Sweet little witch of the Wandle !
Sweet little witch of the Wandle !
All our life long let us fondle ;
Ne'er will I leave thee,
Ne'er will I grieve thee,
Sweet little witch of the Wandle 1
Close by Wandsworth is a long lane, the
name of which has become famous in all the
country, since Foote wrote his admirable bur-
lesque, " The Mayor of Garratt." Garratt
84 THE MAYOR OF GARRATT.
Lane runs parallel for a considerable distance
with the river Wandle, and used to be the
scene, in former years, of the election of a
mock member of parliament, whenever there
was a general election. The Mayor of Garratt
was the name given to their president by a
club of small tradesmen, who had formed an
association about the year 1760, to prevent
encroachments upon the neighbouring com-
mon. Both before and after Foote had given
celebrity to the name, a mayor was elected
by all the ragamuffins of the vicinity, who
assembled in a public-house for that purpose ;
and later still, a member of parliament was
elected instead of the mayor. Upon these
occasions, there was generally a goodly array
of candidates, who had their proposers and
seconders, and made long burlesque speeches
in the regular form. Thousands of persons
from London used to meet in the lane, to
the great profit of the innkeepers, who wil-
lingly paid all the expenses of flags, placards,
and hustings. But these proceedings, which
commenced in good humour, ended very often
in broken heads and limbs; and the magis-
tracy, scandalised by the scenes of debauchery,
drunkenness, and robbery that were so fre-
quent, determined to put a stop to the exhi-
PUTNEY. 85
bition ; and it was finally suppressed about
the year 1796.*
The next place we arrive at is Putney,
famous as the head-quarters of Cromwell's
army, when the royal forces were stationed
at Hampton Court. Putney was also the
birth-place of the other and less celebrated
Cromwell, Earl of Essex, whose father Was a
blacksmith in the village. Drayton, in his
Legend of Thomas Cromwell, says, there was
an unusual tide of the river at his birth, which
was thought to predict his future greatness :
Twice flow'd proud Thames, as at my coming woo'd,
Striking the wondering borderers with fear,
And the pale Genius of that aged flood
To my sick mother, labouring, did appear,
And with a countenance much distracted stood,
Threatening the fruit her pained womb should bear.
There used to be a ferry at Putney in very
early ages. It is mentioned in Domesday
Book as yielding an annual toll of twenty
shillings to the lord of the manor. When
the bridge was built in 1729, the ferry yielded
to the proprietor about four hundred pounds
per annum, and was sold for eight thousand
pounds. The spot has always been famous
* A full account of all the ceremonies may be found in
Hone's Every Day Book.
86 CARDINAL WOLSEY.
for its fishery, and, according to Lysons, is
mentioned as early as the time of the Con-
quest. In 1663, the annual rent of the fishery
was the three best salmon caught in the
months of March, April, and May. When
the estates of Sir Theodore Janssen, the noted
South Sea director, and lord of the manor of
Putney, were sold, the fishery was let for six
pounds per annum. It is still a favourite spot
for anglers. The salmon are not reckoned very
plentiful now-a-days ; but there are great quan-
tities of very fine smelts, as well as shad, roach,
dace, barbels, gudgeons, and eels.
It was formerly the custom for persons tra-
velling to the west of England from London to
proceed as far as Putney by water, and then
take coach. We learn from Stowe, that when
Cardinal Wolsey was dismissed from the chan-
cellorship, he sailed from York Place (White-
hall) to Putney, on his way to Hampton Court,
to the great disappointment " of the wavering
and newfangled multitude," who expected that
he would have been committed to the Tower.
So great was the crowd when he embarked at
Privy Stairs, that, according to Stowe, a man
might have walked up and down on the
Thames, so covered was it with boats filled
with the people of London. The scene that
CARDINAL WOLSEY. 87
took place on his arrival will always render
Putney a memorable spot. As he mounted
his mule, and all his gentlemen took horse to
proceed to Hampton, he espied a man riding
in great haste down the hill into the village.
The horseman turned out to be one Master
Norris, charged with a message from the King
to the Cardinal, bidding him be of good cheer,
for that his present disgrace was not so much
the result of the King's indignation as a mea-
sure of policy to satisfy some persons, over
whose heads he should yet arise in new splen-
dour. " When the Cardinal," to use the quaint
and forcible language of Stowe, " had heard
Master Norris report these good and comfort-
able words of the King, he quickly lighted
from his mule all alone, as though he had
been the youngest of his men, and inconti-
nently kneeled down in the dirt upon both
his knees, holding up his hands for joy of the
King's most comfortable message. Master
Norris lighted also, espying him so soon upon
his knees, and kneeled by him, and took him
in his arms and asked him how he did, calling
upon him to credit his message. ' Master
Norris,' quoth he, * when I consider the joyful
news that you have brought me, I could do
no less than greatly rejoice. Every word
88
CARDINAL WOLSEY.
pierces so my heart, that the sudden joy sur-
mounted my memory, having no regard or
respect to the place ; but I thought it my
duty, that in the same place where I received
this comfort, to laud and praise God upon
my knees, and most humbly to render unto
my sovereign lord my most hearty thanks for
the same.' And as he was talking thus upon
his knees to Master Norris, he would have
pulled off a velvet night-cap, which he wore
under his black hat and scarlet cap, but he
could not undo the knot under his chin :
CARDINAL WOLSEY. 89
wherefore with violence he rent his laces off
his cap, and pulled the said cap from his
head, and kneeled bareheaded. This done, he
mounted again on his mule, and so rode forth
the high way up into the town."
But we must conclude the story. When they
arrived at Putney Heath, Master Norris pre-
sented the Cardinal with a ring, telling him
that the King had sent it as a token of his
good will. " Oh !" exclaimed the ambitious
old man, " if I were lord of all this realm,
Master Norris, the one half thereof would be
too small a reward to you for your pains and
good news." He then presented him with a
gold chain which he usually wore round his
neck, with a gold cross, in which was inclosed
a small fragment of the true cross on which
Jesus was crucified. " Wear this about your
neck continually for my sake," said he, " and
remember me to the King when ye shall see
opportunity." Upon this, Master Norris took
his departure ; but the Cardinal was still un-
satisfied, and before he was out of sight sent
one of his gentlemen in all haste to bring him
back again. " I am very sorry," said he,
" that I have no token to send to the King ;
but if you will at my request present the King
with this poor fool, I trust he will accept
90 CARDINAL WOLSEY.
him, for he is for a nobleman's pleasure, for-
sooth, worth one thousand pounds." " So
Master Norris " [we again quote Stowe,]
" took the fool, with whom my lord was
fain to send six of his tallest yeomen to help
him to convey the fool to the court : for the
poor fool took on like a tyrant, rather than
he would have departed from my lord. But,
notwithstanding, they conveyed him, and so
brought him to the court, where the King
received him very gladly." This fool, from
the value set upon him, appears to have been
a fool after the fashion of him in Shakspeare,
whom Jacques met in the forest,
" A fool a fool a motley fool
A noble fool a worthy fool."
The Cardinal, for aught we know to the con-
trary, might have concealed a deep meaning
under his present : " You will not take wise
men into your favour, O King, therefore take
this fool." The fool's head, however, we are
justified in believing, would not have been
of much worth, if Henry had perceived the
satire. At all events, the fool showed that he
had some sense, by his dislike to enter the ser-
vice of a King whose propensity to taking off
heads was so remarkable.
PUTNEY. 91
Among other reminiscences of Putney, we
must not omit that it was the birth-place of
the great historian Gibbon, and that Pitt died
on Putney Heath. Here also, in a small house
near the bridge, resided the novelist Richard-
son, and here he wrote part of " Sir Charles
Grandison."
CHAPTER IV.
The Two Sisters. Poets of Barn Elms. Loutherbourg the
Artist. Hogarth's Epitaph. English love of Trees and
Flowers. Residence of Joe Miller. Vanity in Death.
Reminiscences of Mortlake. Queen Elizabeth and the
Alchymist. Pleasant Controversy between Swift and
Partridge. Dirty Brentford. Anecdote of George II.
Kew Gardens. Sion House. Isleworth.
IHE churches of Fulham and
Putney, which look meekly
towards each other from the
two sides of the river, are
said to have been built by
two sisters. This, however, is but a foolish
tradition. Grose, in his Provincial Glossary,
says, the story was, that they had but one
hammer between them, which they inter-
changed by throwing it across the river, on a
word agreed upon between them. She on the
Surrey side made use of the words, " Put it
nigh /" and she on the opposite shore, "Heave
it full home ," whence the churches, and from
FULHAM AND PUTNEY. 93
them the villages, were called Putnigh and
Fullhome, since corrupted to Putney and
Fulham.
Both churches are of great antiquity ; and,
although it is not easy to fix precisely the date
of their foundation, it is probable that it was
shortly after the Conquest. The stone tower
of Putney church is supposed to have been
erected in the fifteenth century. Fulham has
been known since the Conquest as the manor
and residence of the Bishops of London, many
of whom lie buried in the church. There are
several monuments here to the memory of
men who were celebrated in their day for their
piety or their learning. There is also one to
the memory of Dr. Butts, physician to King
Henry the Eighth, who is known neither for
his learning nor his piety, but who is familiar
to the reader of Shakspeare from the part he
plays in the drama of that name. Such is the
influence of genius, such is the homage that
some enthusiastic hearts are ever ready to pay
it, that Fulham has had its pilgrims for no
other reason than this. The mention made of
Dr. Butts by the great bard is small enough,
but is sufficient with these to draw them hither,
as to a shrine.
From Fulham the Thames bends towards
94 BARN ELMS.
Hammersmith, and as we sail upwards we pass
through lines of tall trees, and through banks
all covered with clusters of wild flowers to the
very edge of the water. On the Surrey shore
is Barn, or Barnes, Elms, famous as having been
the residence of Sir Francis Walsingham, of the
unfortunate Earl of Essex, of Cowley, and of
Tonson the bookseller. The latter built a gal-
lery here for the accommodation of the Kit-cat
Club, and adorned the walls with their por-
traits, which have, however, been since re-
moved. The poet Hughes, a man who in his
day boasted many admirers, but whom three
good judges, Pope, Swift, and Dr. Johnson,
classed as " one of the mediocribus," strove to
celebrate the noble trees that give name to this
place by some encomiastic verses. A taste of
their quality is afforded by the concluding
lines.
" Ye verdant elms, that towering grace this grove,
Be sacred still to beauty and to love,
Nor thunder break, nor lightning glare between
Your twisted boughs
The grateful sun will every morning rise
Propitious here, saluting from the skies
Your lofty tops, indulged with sweetest air,
And every spring your losses he '11 repair,
Nor his own laurels more shall be his care."
It says but little for the taste of the age that
POETS OF THE THAMES. 95
such twaddle as this should ever have been
considered poetry. We of this century are
more difficult to please in the matter; and
Master Hughes, had he lived among us, would
not have been considered one of the second,
but of the seventh-rate poets.
We are, however, approaching a part of the
Thames that teems with reminiscences of true
poets. For the next fifteen or twenty miles
of our course, there is hardly a spot on either
shore which is not associated with the names
of Cowley, Denham, Pope, Gay, Collins,
Thomson, or the predecessors and contempora-
ries of these writers. The very stones and
trees on the Thames' banks " prate of their
whereabouts," and whisper in the ear of the
lover of song, " Here Cowley lived," " here
Pope wrote, or here he took the air in a boat,"
" here is Thomson buried," or, " here Den-
ham stood when he imagined the beautiful
eulogium upon the river, which has been
so often quoted," and here King William
"showed Swift how to cut asparagus in the
Dutch way." We must not, however, di-
gress, but mention all these things in their
proper places.
As we draw near to the elegant suspension
bridge of Hammersmith, we pass the site
HAMMERSMITH SUSPENSION BRIDGE.
of the once celebrated Brandenburg House,
where the luckless consort of George the
Fourth ended her unhappy life. Here, during
the popular excitement occasioned by the trial
in the House of Lords, thousands of persons
proceeded daily to carry their addresses of con-
fidence or of sympathy. Sometimes as many
as thirty thousand people were known to set
out from London on this errand, in carriages,
on horseback, and on foot, preceded by bands
of music, and bearing banners, or emblems of
the various trades that formed the procession.
After her death, the place, odious in the eyes
LOUTHERBOURG THE ARTIST. 97
of George the Fourth, was purchased by that
monarch, and razed to the ground. Some
traces of the wall and a portion of the gate
alone remain to mark the place where it stood.
It was once the property of Prince Rupert,
by whojn it was given to the beautiful Mrs.
Hughes, an actress, by whose charms his heart
was captured. It was also inhabited at one
time by the Margravine of Anspach.
Hammersmith is famous for a nunnery esta-
blished in the seventeenth century. About fif-
teen years ago, the place was noted in London
as the scene where an awful ghost played his
antics, to the great alarm of many silly people.
At the end of the last century, Loutherbourg
the artist resided here, and drew great crowds
to his house by an exhibition something akin to
the mummeries of animal magnetism as now
practised. He pretended to cure all diseases
by the mere laying on of the hands, aided by
prayer; and it is mentioned that as many as
three thousand people at a time waited around
his garden, expecting to be relieved of their in-
firmities by this wonderful artist. But of all
the reminiscences attached to Hammersmith,
the most interesting is, that Thomson the poet
once made it his dwelling-place, and composed
part of his " Seasons" there, in a tavern called
VOL. i. H
98 HOGARTH'S EPITAPH.
the Dove Coffeehouse. Thomson, for the last
twenty years of his life, was a constant haunter
of the Thames ; he lived, died, and was buried
on the banks of his favourite river. It may be
said, indeed, without any disparagement to the
Thames, that it killed this sweet poet and ami-
able man ; for he caught a severe cold upon the
water, when sailing in an open boat from Lon-
don to Kew, which, being neglected, proved
fatal a short time afterwards.
Chiswick is the next place we arrive at,
Chiswick, the burial place of Hogarth, and
where a monument is raised to his memory, for
which his friend Garrick wrote the following
inscription :
" Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reached the noblest point, of art ;
Whose pictured morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart.
If genius fire thee, reader, stay ;
If nature move theej drop a tear;
If neither touch thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here."
This epitaph has been very much admired, but
it is by no means a favourable specimen of that
kind of composition. The first two lines are
tame and prosaic, and the word "farewell" is
inappropriately made use of. To say "fare-
ENGLISH VILLAS. 99
well " to the ashes of the dead is natural to
those who look for the last time on the face of
one they loved ; but the object of an epitaph
being merely to inform the reader of the great
or the good man who moulders below, there is
no necessity for the word of leave-taking.
The thought in the last stanza is much better,
and, were it not for the unreasonable request
that we should weep over the spot, would be
perfect. Men cannot weep that their predeces-
sors have died. We may sigh that neither vir-
tue nor genius can escape the common lot of
humanity, but no more. We cannot weep.
Admiration claims no such homage ; and, if it
did, we could not pay it.
In this churchyard are buried also, Mary, the
daughter of Oliver Cromwell ; Ugo Foscolo ;
Barbara Villiers Duchess of Cleveland ; Judith,
the wife of Sir James Thornhill, the painter;
their daughter, married to the immortal Ho-
garth ; Loutherbourg, the magnetiser and artist,
already mentioned ; and Kent, the famous ar-
chitect and gardener.
A little further up the stream stands Chis-
wick House, the seat of the Duke of Devon-
shire, almost hidden from the view by the tall
trees amid which it is embowered. From this
point upwards there is a constant succession of
H 2
100 LOVE OF TREES AND FLOWERS.
elegant villas, only to look at which is enough
to satisfy the traveller that he is indeed in
England. Such neatness, such cleanliness,
such taste, such variety of flower and tree
peeping from behind or springing on either
side ; such ivy-covered walls, and such comfort
visibly dwelling over all, meet the gaze of the
passer-by nowhere else but in England. We
have sailed up other rivers in our time, have
seen the castles of the Rhine, the chateaux of
the Seine, and the villas of the Elbe, the
Scheldt, and the Meuse ; but never have we
met with scenes of such elegant luxury as all
England is dotted with. There is more appre-
ciation of the simple loveliness of nature here
than in any other country in the world ; even
our poorest cots embellish their poverty, and
render it more endurable by nicely-trimmed
gardens both in front and rear. Flowers and
trees are the poor man's luxuries in England.
The gew-gaws of art are beyond his reach ; but
roses and lilies, violets, hyacinths, blue-bells,
anemones, and all the tribes whose very names
are pleasant, adorn his humble windows, and
show the taste of the indweller as well as the
rich vases, golden time-pieces, or choice paint-
ings, that solicit our admiration in the chambers
of the rich. How different it is in most of
ENGLISH VILLAS. 101
the countries on the Continent, especially in
Germany, France, and Belgium ! There, nei-
ther rich nor poor have that love for verdure
and flowers, which is so characteristic of all
classes of Englishmen. Their rivers show no
such embowered villas and cottages on their
banks as ours ; the country-houses of their
gentry are naked and tasteless in comparison,
and their cottages are miserable huts, around
whose doors or windows the honeysuckle
never crept, and where even a flower-pot is
an unusual visiter.
We shall not attempt here to point out all
the villas that adorn the Thames ; for we have
not undertaken these rambles to make a mere
guide-book. Now and then we shall signalize
some among them, which are dear to the me-
mory of all friends of their country, from their
having been inhabited by the great statesmen,
historians, or poets of time gone by, but no
more. All the rest we shall pass with silent
admiration, leaving those whose curiosity may
not be satisfied until they know the name of
every tenant of every house they see, to consult
the pages of some accurate guide-book. We
sail in search of more hidden things, of reminis-
cences of poetry and the poets, of scraps of
legendary lore, and the relics of antiquity. We
102 BARNES AND MORTLAKE.
go also in search of rural nooks, where we may
inhale the fresh breezes, and, by filling our ears
with the sweet song of the birds, and the mur-
mur of the trees and waters, get rid of the eter-
nal hum of the crowded thoroughfares we have
left. We go to satisfy the longings we had
formed
" In lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities:"
for, (to continue the fine lines of Wordsworth,
written also upon revisiting a river,) we are
among the number of those who are
" The lovers of the meadows, and the woods,
And mountains, and of all that we behold
From this green earth ; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half create,
And what perceive "
And see ; our style is as rambling as our sub-
ject, and we have wandered away from Chis-
wick House and the villas near it, without men-
tioning the fact that on that spot died two of
the most illustrious men of modern history.
Charles James Fox and George Canning both
expired within its walls, and both in their life-
time passed many hours in its elegant retire-
ment.
The cluster of houses immediately past the
DR. DEE, THE ALCHYMIST. 103
wall of this domain is the hamlet of Strand-on-
the-green, where Joe Miller, the putative father
of thousands of other men's jokes, resided and
died. His remains, however, are not interred
here, but in the burial-ground of St. Clement
Danes, in Portugal-street, London. *
On the other side of the river are the adjoin-
ing villages of Barnes and Mortlake. In the
churchyard of Barnes is a tomb, which is a sin-
gular example of the fond follies that men
sometimes commit in death, and strive to per-
petuate beyond it. It is to the memory of one
Edward Rose, a citizen of London, who died
in 1653, and left twenty pounds for the pur-
chase of an acre of land for the poor of the vil-
lage, upon condition that a number of rose-
trees should be planted around his grave, kept
in flourishing condition, and renewed for ever.
May his roses flourish ! All we can say is,
that we can but smile or sigh, or both, to think
that even death cannot put conceit out of coun-
tenance.
The village of Mortlake is celebrated as hav-
ing been the residence of one of the most sin-
gular characters of the sixteenth century. Dr.
John Dee, the astrologer and alchymist, and
one of the pioneers of the Rosicrucian philo-
sophy, (if philosophy so wild and visionary a
104 DR. DEE, AND THE ANGELS.
system can be called,) lived here for many years,
and was buried in the chancel of the church.
The ancient people of the village more than a
century after his death, which took place in
1608, pointed out the exact spot where his ashes
lay ; but the curious inquirer would now seek
in vain to discover it. Queen Elizabeth always
treated Dr. Dee with marked consideration,
and, when she ascended the throne, sent her
favourite Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester,
to consult him on a lucky day for her coro-
nation. She occasionally visited him at Mort-
lake, and is once said to have expressed a desire
to be instructed by him in the secrets of astro-
logy and alchymy. She devoutly believed that
he would one day discover the philosopher's
stone, an object to which all his abilities, and
he was not without a good portion, were di-
rected. All the money he gained by telling
fortunes, predicting lucky and unlucky days,
and casting nativities, was melted away in his
furnaces, in the futile search for the stone, or
the elixir, which was to change pokers and
tongs, pots and kettles, and even the pump in
his back-yard, into pure gold. Thus, though
he gained immense sums of money, he was al-
ways poor ; and when Count Laski, a wealthy
Pole, who was travelling in England, desirous
DR. DEE, AND THE ANGELS. 105
of making his acquaintance, sent him word that
he would come and dine with him, Dee was
obliged to apply to Queen Elizabeth to borrow
money to treat the stranger with becoming
hospitality. Elizabeth sympathised with his
distress, and sent him twenty pounds immedi-
ately.
It was shortly before he received this visit
that he made a grand discovery. He firmly
believed that by means of a small black stone
with a shining surface, and cut in the form of
a diamond, which he possessed, he could hold
converse with the elementary spirits, and be
instructed by them in all the secrets of science,
and all the mysteries of nature. He has him-
self left a most extraordinary narrative of his
conversations with the spirits ; part of which
was published after his death by Dr. Casaubon,
and the remainder of which may still be seen
among the manuscripts in the British Museum.
He says, that as he was one day in November,
1582, sitting in his study at Mortlake, engaged
in fervent prayer, the angel Uriel appeared at
his window, and gave him a translucent stone,
with which he might summon the angels, and
ask them questions whenever he pleased. He
also says that an angel appeared to him in the
form of a beautiful little maiden, who slid grace-
106 MORTLAKE.
fully and fluttered her wings among the leaves
of his books. The conversations which, as he
informs us, he held with this and with many
other spirits, were of the most puerile kind,
but in Dee's opinion they were full of truth,
wisdom, and philosophy, and contained precepts
which, if the world had followed, would have
saved it from the horrors of many bitter and
bloody revolutions. He soon found that he
could not converse with his attendant spirits
and note down at the same time what they said,
and he therefore engaged another fortune-teller
and alchymist, named Kelly, to act as his seer,
and converse with the spirits, while he devoted
himself to reporting their heavenly talk. Kelly
humoured the whim or the insanity of his
principal, and soon rendered himself so neces-
sary that Dee received him into his family,
esteemed him as his friend, and was proud of
him as his disciple.
When Count Laski came, the two worthies
showed him all their wonders. The Pole was
highly delighted with the conversation and ac-
quirements of the doctor, and listened with
eagerness to his promises that he would find
the philosopher's stone for him, and make him
the wealthiest man the world ever saw. The
doctor was as much pleased with his guest,
DR. DEE, THE ALCHYMIST. 107
whom he knew to be rich and powerful ; and
he and Kelly formed the design of fasten-
ing themselves upon him, and living sumptu-
ously at his expense until they found the phi-
losopher's stone. Laski, after great pretended
difficulties, was admitted to the conversations
with the spirits, and finally impressed with such
high notions of the learning and genius of
both Dee and Kelly, that he invited them to
reside with him on his estates near Cracow.
The astrologers desired nothing better ; and
Dee especially was anxious to quit England,
where he imagined he was not safe, the mob a
short time before having threatened to break
into his house, and destroy his library, and all
his philosophical apparatus. This threat, we
may mention by the way, was afterwards car-
ried into execution.
They all left England secretly Dee being
afraid of offending Elizabeth, and reached
the estates of Laski in safety. The astro-
logers resided with him for no more than
a month ; for his finances were in such a
state of disorder, and they were such expen-
sive guests that he could not maintain them ;
and, as he soon abandoned his hopes of the
philosopher's stone, he took the earliest op-
portunity of sending them about their busi-
108 DR. DEE, THE ALCHYMIST.
ness. They next fastened themselves upon
the Emperor Rudolph, and afterwards upon
Stephen, king of Poland. They drew consi-
derable sums from the exchequer of the latter,
leading him on with false hopes of inexhaust-
ible wealth and boundless dominion, until he
grew weary of seeing such vast outlay, and
receiving no return for it except in empty
promises. Elizabeth felt the loss of her astro-
loger, and sent for him at various times during
the six years that he was on the Continent.
At last his affairs beginning to look gloomy,
having quarrelled with Kelly, offended or dis-
gusted all his former patrons, and more than
once run the risk of perpetual imprisonment,
he closed with her offers, and determined to
return to England. He set out from Trebona
in the spring of 1589, travelling in great splen-
dour, with a train of three coaches, and a large
quantity of baggage. Immediately on his ar-
rival, Elizabeth gave him audience at Rich-
mond, and promised to see to his fortunes.
Little, however, was done; for, sanguine as
the queen may at one time have been that
Dee would discover the philosopher's stone,
she soon saw reason to doubt his capabilities.
But she never wholly withdrew her favour
from him, and, on his repeated applications
MORTLAKE. 109
for relief, appointed a committee of the privy
council to inquire into the state of his affairs,
and see what could be done for him. Dee
then made a claim for the destruction of his
books and implements by the mob at Mortlake
soon after he took his departure, and further-
more stated that he considered the Queen his
debtor for the expense of his journey home
from the Continent, which he said he would
not have undertaken unless at her special com-
mand. Elizabeth, however, would not acknow-
ledge her liability, but sent Dee a small sum
by way of charity. He at last, upon his re-
presentation that he was starving, obtained of
her the Chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral,
which office he held for one year, and then ex-
changed for the wardenship of the College at
Manchester. He was now more than seventy
years of age ; and, becoming unable to perform
with any activity the duties of his station, he
resigned it after seven years, hoping that a
pension would be granted to him. In this
hope he was disappointed. He then retired to
Mortlake, and lived upon the bounty of the
Queen. After her death he tried to propitiate
King James I. ; but that monarch took no no-
tice of him whatever, and he died in 1608 in a
state but little removed from absolute penury.
110 PLEASANT CONTROVERSY
His companion Kelly did not live so long;
but, being sentenced to perpetual imprisonment
by some German potentate, who by that means
attempted to extort from him the pretended
secret of gold-making, he endeavoured to es-
cape from his dungeon by leaping from a high
window, and killed himself by the fall.
In Mortlake churchyard also lies interred
another singular character ; no less a man than
the famous Partridge, the almanack-maker,
whose death was so pleasantly predicted by
Swift under the name of Bickerstaff, and so
logically and valiantly maintained to be true,
in spite of the assertions of the party most
concerned that he was " still alive and kick-
ing." Partridge, as is well known, was ori-
ginally a cobbler, and a very ignorant man ;
but his reputation was great among a certain
class of people, and his predictions, both of
the weather and of events in general, were
looked to with great respect and anxiety.
Swift's wit about this fellow kept the town
in a good humour for a long time, to the great
mortification and anger of Partridge. Let us
hear how Swift maintained the living man to
be dead, and how logically he proved it. " An
objection has been made," quoth he, " to an
article in my predictions, which foretold the
BETWEEN SWIFT AND PARTRIDGE. Ill
death of Mr. Partridge to happen on March
29, 1708. This he is pleased to contradict ab-
solutely in the almanack he has published in
the present year, and in that ungentlemanly
manner (pardon the expression) as I have above
related. In that work he very roundly as-
serts, ' that he is not only now alive, but was
likewise alive upon that very 29th of March
when I foretold he should die.' This is the
subject of the present controversy between us,
which I design to handle with all brevity, per-
spicuity, and calmness. In this dispute I am
sensible the eyes, not only of England but of
all Europe, will be upon us ; and the learned
in every country will, I doubt not, take part
on that side where they find most appearance
of truth and reason. * * * My first argument
is this. Above a thousand gentlemen having
bought his almanack for this year, merely to
find what he said against me, at every line they
read they would lift up their eyes, and cry out,
betwixt rage and laughter, * They were sure
no man alive ever wrote such damned stuff as
this !' Now I never heard that opinion dis-
puted. So that Mr. Partridge lies under a
dilemma, either of disowning his almanack, or
of confessing himself to be * no man alive'
But now, if an uninformed ignorant carcase
112 SWIFT AND PARTRIDGE.
walks about, and is pleased to call itself Par-
tridge, Mr. Bickerstaff does not think him-
self any way answerable for that. Secondly,
Mr. Partridge pretends to tell fortunes, and
recover stolen goods, which all the parish says
he must do by conversing with the devil and
other evil spirits ; and no wise man will ever
allow that he could converse personally with
either till after he was dead. Thirdly, I will
prove him to be dead out of his own alma-
nack, and from the very passage which he
produces to make us think he is alive. He
there says that ' he is not only now alive, but
was also alive upon that very 29th of March
which I foretold he should die on.' By this
he declares his opinion, that a man may be
alive now who was not alive a twelvemonth
ago. And indeed there lies the sophistry of
his argument. He dares not assert that he
was ever alive since the 29th of March, but
that he is now alive, and so was on that day.
I grant the latter, for he did not die till night,
as appears by the printed account of his death,
in * a letter to a lord ; ' and whether he is since
revived, I leave the world to judge. This, in-
deed, is perfect cavilling, and I am ashamed
to dwell any longer upon it. Fourthly, I will
appeal to Mr. Partridge whether it be proba-
SWIFT AND PARTRIDGE. 113
ble I could have been so indiscreet as to begin
my predictions with the only falsehood that
was ever alleged against them, and this in an
affair at home, where I had so many oppor-
tunities to be exact, and must have given such
advantages against me to a person of Mr. Par-
tridge's wit and learning." ***** There is
one objection against Mr. Partridge's death
which I have sometimes met with, though
indeed very slightly offered, that is, that he
still continues to write almanacks. But this
is no more than what is common to all of
that profession : Gadbury, Poor Robin, Dove,
Wing, and several others, do yearly publish
their almanacks, though several of them have
been dead since before the Revolution." One
cannot help thinking that Partridge was a
most incredulous man to have refused belief
in his own death after such proofs as these.
But argument was thrown away upon him ;
and to give Bickerstaff the lie direct, he ac-
tually knocked down and beat in the street,
opposite his own door, a poor fellow who was
crying about the town a ballad entitled, " A
full and true account of the death of Dr. Par-
tridge." Alas ! poor Partridge ! he is now
dead enough a mere lump of clay in the
churchyard of Mortlake the gibes of a thou-
VOL. i. I
114 KEW BRIDGE.
sand Swifts can trouble him no more. A
stronger adversary has silenced the arguments
both of him and his tormentor, and the ashes
of the quack and cobbler have mouldered away
like those of the wit and the philosopher, and
he who should compare the two would find no
difference between them. The " grim foe," as
he is wrongly called, has settled the dispute,
and reduced them both to that EQUALITY, a
knowledge of whose inevitable approach exalts
the humble and pulls down the proud. And
yet, after all, how impotent is death ! Swift
and Partridge are gone, but their thoughts
are with us still. Even in this world, which
may be called Death's own domain, man sets
his dart at defiance. The minds of the living
can hold converse when they please with the
minds of the dead. Their thoughts die not
with them, nor ours with us ; and, in spite of
death, we can call them from their " misty
shrouds," to instruct us with their wisdom, or
amuse us with their wit.
But we are again rambling, and, i' faith,
writing a homily, instead of looking at both
banks of the Thames, and pointing out the me-
morabilia of each spot as we pass it. Our di-
gression has brought us to Kew Bridge, and,
begging the reader's indulgence, we proceed
with our task. This handsome bridge, first
KEW PALACE. 115
opened in 1790, was built from a design of
Mr. Paine, who was also the architect of some
other bridges over the river. It contains seven
stone arches. Kew church was erected in the
reign of Queen Anne, when Kew, anciently
called Kay hough, and a hamlet to Kingston,
was united .to Petersham, with which it now
forms one vicarage. In the cemetery lie the
remains of the celebrated Gainsborough, the
artist, who died in 1788, and also those of
the equally celebrated Zoffany, who died in
1810.
The chief attractions of Kew at the present
time, are the palace and gardens. The palace
116 KEW GARDENS.
is in the nominal occupation of the King of
Hanover, who retains it as an appendage to
his British Dukedom of Cumberland. The
palace first came into the occupation of the
royal family of England in the reign of George
the First. The Prince of Wales, afterwards
George the Second, then took a long lease of
it, from Mr. Molineux, who had been his pri-
vate secretary. The Prince frequently resided
in it during the summer months, and Thorn-
son, the poet, then an inhabitant of his fa-
vourite Richmond, about three quarters of a
mile distant, was always welcome to his table.
Sir William Chambers, the architect of So-
merset House, laid out the grounds and formed
the Botanic Garden and Conservatory for the
Princess Dowager of Wales, the mother of
George the Third, about the year 1760.
Here this Princess ended her days; upon which
occasion the poet Goldsmith wrote an ode, en-
titled " Threnodia Augustalis," in which occur
the following lines in praise of the scenery of
Kew:
<( Fast by that shore where Thame's translucent stream
Reflects new glories on his breast;
Where splendid as the youthful poet's dream
He forms a scene beyond Elysium blest.
Where sculptured elegance and native grace
Unite to stamp the beauties of the place,
KEW GARDENS. 117
While sweetly blending, still are seen
The wavy lawn, the sloping green,
While novelty with cautious cunning
Through every maze of fancy running,
From China borrows aid to deck the scene."
George the Third himself afterwards resided
here occasionally, and here George the Fourth,
when a child, received the first rudiments of
his education under the superintendence of
Dr. Markham, afterwards Archbishop of York.
In this house also, the aged Queen Charlotte,
his mother, died in 1818. Besides the palace
there is another smaller mansion on Kew
Green, inhabited by his Royal Highness the
Duke of Cambridge.
The pleasure gardens, which are opened for
public inspection on Sundays only, contain
several handsome buildings. The principal
and most prominent is the Chinese Pagoda,
ten stories high, of an octagonal shape, and
built after the models of similar edifices in
China. The whole height is nearly one hun-
dred and sixty-three feet ; and the top com-
mands a very extensive and beautiful view
of the surrounding country. Closely adjoin-
ing is the mosque, another octagonal build-
ing ornamented with a large dome, and con-
taining three entrances, over each of which
118 DIRTY BRENTFORD.
is inscribed an extract in Arabic from the
Koran, in characters of gold. Various other
fantastical buildings are dispersed in various
parts of the grounds, the chief of which are
the Temple of Bellona, the Temple of Pan, the
Temple of Eolus, and the Temple of Solitude.
There are also the House of Confucius, the
Theatre of Augusta, and the Temple of Are-
thusa. On a hill stands a small building called
the Temple of Victory, erected in commemo-
ration of the battle of Minden in 1759. The
Conservatory, a large and handsome structure,
contains a choice collection of indigenous and
exotic flowers and plants.
Immediately through the bridge there is a
lovely ait, or island, behind which is dirty
Brentford, the county town of Middlesex, si-
tuated upon the little river Brent, from which
it takes its name. Gay, in his epistle to the
Earl of Burlington, celebrates it as
" Brentford, tedious town,
For dirty streets and white-legged chickens known ;"
and Thomson in his " Castle of Indolence,"
as
" Brentford town, a town of mud,"
where pigs driven to market could find abun-
dance of congenial mire to sport and wal-
SION HOUSE. 119
low in. A common saying relative to this
town, is to say of a man with a very red face,
that he is like the Red Lion of Brentford;
an allusion to the sign of the principal inn,
where the lion is " exceedingly red," as lions
upon sign-posts generally are. This place is
chiefly famous for a severe skirmish which was
fought here in 1642 between the Royal and
Parliamentary armies, in which the former were
victorious. George the Second admired Brent-
ford greatly ; it was so dirty and ill paved, that
it put him in mind of the towns in his native
country. " I like to ride dro 1 Brentford," said
his Majesty, " it ish so like Hanoversh !"
On the left of us, as we proceed up the
river, extend the gardens of Kew, and on
the right is the princely domain of the Duke
of Northumberland. Sion House is a naked
heavy-looking building. It stands near the
site of a nunnery, founded in the reign of
Henry the Fifth, " in honour of the Holy
Trinity, the glorious Virgin Mary, the Apos-
tles and Disciples of God, and all Saints,
especially St. Bridget." It was one of the first
religious establishments suppressed by Henry
the Eighth, his ire being particularly directed
against the sisterhood for the countenance they
had afforded Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid
120 SIGN HOUSE.
of Kent. It was alleged against Sir Thomas
More that he visited this impostor at Sion
House. After the death of Henry, who re-
served it for his own use, it was given by
Edward the Sixth to the Protector Somerset,
and, on his attainder arid execution, to the
Duke of Northumberland. Lady Jane Grey,
that ill-starred Queen of a few days, resided
here when she was urged to accept the crown.
Her acceptance of it led to her own death,
and that of the Duke of Northumberland,
when the building once more reverted to the
Crown, and was restored by Queen Mary to
the sisters " of all the Saints, and especially of
St. Bridget." Elizabeth, however, dispossessed
them, and gave Sion to the Earl of Northum-
berland, and it has ever since remained in the
family.
There is a tradition that, before the dissolu-
tion of the religious houses, the monks at Rich-
mond caused a tunnel to be made under the
Thames to Sion, that they might visit the nuns
clandestinely. The same story is related in
connection with various other places, and was
no doubt coined to serve its purposes in the
time of Henry the Eighth. The same legend,
and apparently the original one on which all
the others are founded, as will be seen here-
ISLEWORTH. 121
after in our account of the river Wey, is told
of the monks of Ockham and the nuns of
Newark Abbey.
Isleworth, a village adjoining the gardens of
Sion, was at one time called Thistleworth, as we
learn from the Surveys published prior to the
year 1769. It was here, during the turbulent
and long reign of Henry the Third, that the
insurgent barons held their head-quarters for a
considerable time, under the well-known Simon
de Mountfort Earl of Leicester. There was at
this time a royal palace, or summer-house, in
the village, in the occupation of Richard
Earl of Cornwall, the nominal King of Rome,
and brother to Henry the Third. In these
struggles the Londoners sided with the barons ;
and, being incensed against the King, and his
son Prince Edward, who had broken into the
treasury of the Knights Templars in Fleet-
street, and abstracted 1000/. they ultimately
made a diversion on their own account, and
marched in crowds to Isleworth, where they
razed to the ground the stately palace of the
King's brother. It was never afterwards re-
built, and it is supposed that Sion House stands
nearly upon its site.
The church of Isleworth, which stands close
to the river's brink, is a mean-looking edifice ;
122
ISLEWORTH CHURCH.
relieved, however, and rendered more pictur-
esque, by the clustering ivy which creeps up
its venerable tower. It was rebuilt in the year
1706. The village itself is now insignificant,
and is chiefly inhabited by market-gardeners.
The environs contain some handsome villas.
123
CHAPTER V.
Approach to Richmond. The grave of the poet Thomson.
Wit among the Tombstones. Richmond Palace. The
Battle of the Gnats. View from Richmond Hill A
Song by Mallet. Gay, the poet. Traditions of Ham
House. Eel-pie Island. The Poetical Sawyer. Anec-
dote of Edmund Kean.
S we passed Kew bridge our
mind was filled with a multi-
tude of confused thoughts, re-
miniscences intricately blended,
of poetry and the poets ; of
Jeanie Deans, and the Duke of Argyll ; of
Richmond Hill, and the charms of its far-famed
lass; and of " maids of honour" the chief deli-
cacies of the place, which, with a carnivorous
appetite, we longed to devour. But, as we
approached nearer, our thoughts finally fixed
themselves upon James Thomson, the delight-
ful bard of " The Seasons," to whose memory
the whole place is hallowed. We remembered,
and quoted to ourselves, the ode of his friend
Collins,
124 APPROACH TO RICHMOND.
" In yonder grave a Druid lies :
Where slowly winds the stealing wave,
The year's best sweets shall duteous rise
To deck their, poet's sylvan grave.
Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore
When Thames in summer wreaths is drest,
And oft suspend the dashing oar,
To bid thy gentle spirit rest."
We were thus musing, when a merry strain
broke in upon our meditations. The band
which had accompanied the steam-boat from
London, struck up the familiar air, " The lass
of Richmond Hill;" a custom which has been
observed ever since steam-boats have plied in
this part of the river, to give us notice that we
were at our journey's end.
Without stopping to ascend the hill, we
struck at once into the lower parts of the vil-
lage, and, by dint of inquiry, found ourselves
in a few moments in front of the ancient,
humble, but, in our eyes, beautiful church of
Richmond. We forthwith strolled through the
churchyard, in search of the sexton, or door-
keeper, that we might give him his fee, and be
admitted into the church. One of the first
objects that caught our attention was a neat
marble tablet upon the wall, with a medallion
head sculptured upon it, and inscribed with the
RICHMOND CHURCH.
125
simple words, " Edmund Kean, died May
1833, aged 46. A memorial erected by his son,
Charles John Kean, 1839." We paused a mo-
ment, and took off our hat, for we are of the
number of those who pay reverence to the in-
animate sod, and the senseless ashes beneath it,
if those ashes have ever been warmed by the
soul of genius, or of goodness. We are also of
the number of those who are critical in monu-
mental inscriptions, and we considered this
brief one for awhile, and, owning that it was
enough, passed on. After inquiry at one of the
126 THE GRAVE OF THOMSON.
cottages that skirt the churchyard, we were di-
rected next door, to the pew-opener, and that
personage readily undertook to escort us over
her little building; as important to her, and
containing monuments as magnificent, and as
well worth looking at, as either St. Paul's or
Westminster Abbey. If we were pleased with
the outside appearance of the church, we were
still better pleased when we entered within.
It is an old-fashioned edifice, just large enough
for a village, with a fine organ, well-covered
pews, and walls almost hidden by monumental
tablets, and the whole looking as grand and
modest as true piety itself.
Our cicerone, like one who was well accustom-
ed to her task, was leading us round the church,
beginning from the beginning, and showing
us in due order the tombs of the worthies
of Richmond, when we broke in upon her esta-
blished practice, and requested her to point out
at once the grave of the poet Thomson. She
led the way immediately to the darkest corner
of the church, when, opening a pew-door, she
bade us enter. We had heard much talk of
the munificence of the Earl of Buchan in erect-
ing a memorial over the poet's ashes, and we
looked around us accordingly for some hand-
some piece of monumental marble, which might
THE GRAVE OF THOMSON. 127
be worthy of the donor, and sufficient for its
avowed purpose, the satisfaction of the bard's
admirers. We could not conceal the expres-
sion of our disappointment, when the pew-
opener, bidding us mount upon the seat of the
pew, pointed out to us a piece of copper about
eighteen inches square, so out of the reach of
the ordinary observer, so blackened by time
and so incrusted by the damp and the dirt,
that it was quite impossible to read one line
of the inscription.
" Then you have not many visiters to this
tomb?" said we to the pew-opener.
" Oh, yes, we have," replied she ; " but they
are not so particular as you, sir: not one in a
hundred cares to read the inscription ; they
just look at it from below, and pass on."
We took out our pocket-handkerchief, and
began to rub the verdigrise from the copper
as the pew-opener spoke; which, she observ-
ing, mounted also upon the bench, and taking
her own handkerchief from her pocket, rubbed
away with as much earnestness as we did. The
dirt was an inch thick upon it; besides which,
the letters were of the same colour as the plate
on which they are engraven, so that, after all,
we were afraid we should be obliged to give
over the attempt as quite hopeless.
128 THE GRAVE OF THOMSON.
" There," she said, " now I think you will
be able to read it," as the rust, by a vigorous
application of her hands, was transferred from
the tablet to her handkerchief. " I think you
might manage to make it out, if you are parti-
cularly anxious about it."
We tried again accordingly, and, with some
trouble, read the following inscription.
"In the earth below this tablet are the remains of James
Thomson, author of the beautiful poems, entitled, ' The
Seasons,' ' The Castle of Indolence,' &c. who died at Rich-
mond on the 22nd of August, and was buried there on the
29th, O.S. 1748. The Earl of Buchan, unwilling that so
good a man, and sweet a poet, should be without a memo-
rial, has denoted the place of his interment, for the satisfac-
tion of his admirers, in the year of our Lord 1792.
" Father of light and life ! Thou good supreme !
Oh ! teach me what is good. Teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit, and feed my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss ! "
" We wish," said we to ourselves, " that his
lordship's taste had been as good as his inten-
tions, and that, instead of this trumpery piece
of brass, which cannot have cost him much
more than five pounds, he had put up a mar-
ble tablet, which one might have read without
all this scrubbing." If we had continued our
RICHMOND CHURCH. 129
soliloquy much longer, we should have found
fault not only with the taste and liberality,
but with the motives of his lordship ; but we
were saved from the uncharitableness by the
pew -opener, who broke in upon our medi-
tation to remind us that immediately under
the pew on which we stood lay the ashes of
the poet.
" What, was he buried within the church ? "
said we.
" No," replied the pew-opener, " on the out-
side, just against the wall ; but the church has
been enlarged since that day to make room for
the organ ; so that the wall passes right across
his coffin, and cuts the body in two, as it
were."
" Cuts the body in two !" repeated we; " and
did no charitable soul, when this thing was
proposed, so much as hint that the church
might have been made a few inches larger,
so that the whole body might have been
brought inside?**
" I never inquired," said the pew-opener.
" But, surely, sir, you '11 go and see the grave
of the great Mary Ann Yates ? Lord bless
you, sir, more people go to see that grave than
any other in the church !"
"The great Mary Ann Yates!" said we in
VOL. i. K
130 RICHMOND CHURCH.
some perplexity ; for, to our shame be it spoken,
we had forgotten the name, and we did not
like to expose our ignorance to the pew-opener.
" Oh, by all means," said we, making the best
of the matter, and following our conductress
to the other end of the church towards the
communion-table.
" There," said the pew-opener, removing a
small mat with her foot, and directing our
attention to a plain slab on the floor, " there
lies the body. Of course you 've heard of her?"
We said nothing, but made a feint of being
so engrossed with the epitaph as not to have
heard the inquiry.
" She was very celebrated, I 've been told,"
added she, after a pause ; " and, indeed, I 've
heard that Mrs. Siddons wasn't anything like
equal to her,"
This observation enlightened us ; our igno-
rance was cleared up. We gazed upon the
grave of the tragic actress so greatly admired in
her day. " And such," thought we, " is fame ;
a mere matter of circles and classes. Pilgrims
come to the tomb of a person celebrated in
one sphere, who are ignorant that in the next
grave sleeps one who was just as celebrated
in another, and who do not even know that
such a person ever existed. The worshippers
A LOVER OF PEACE. 131
of poetry never heard of the actress ; the ad-
mirers of the actress, in all probability, never
heard of the poet, and so on, through all the
various ranks and denominations of society."
We were thus cogitating, when the pew-
opener told us that she had some other very
fine tombs to show us, and with such an em-
phasis upon the word jine, as impressed us
with the notion that she would think we
slighted her monuments, (and she was evi-
dently proud of them,) if we refused to look
at them. We went round accordingly, and
up into the galleries, where several tablets were
pointed out to us, with warm eulogiums upon
the sculptured cherubim, or other ornaments
that supported them. But one only struck us
as remarkable, a plain blue stone, with a Latin
inscription to the memory of Robert Lewes,
a Cambro-Briton and a lawyer, who died in
the year 1649, " and who," said the epitaph,
" was such a great lover of peace and quiet,
that when a contention began in his body be-
tween life and death, he immediately gave up
the ghost to end the dispute." There is wit
and humour even in the grave. There is an
entertaining French work, entitled " Des grands
Hommes qui sont marts en plaisantant" One
as entertaining might be made upon the sub-
K 2
132 ROSEDALE HOUSE.
ject of " Wit among the tombstones." It
would not be uninstructive either, and would
afford numberless illustrations of that unac-
countable propensity of many people to choose
the most solemn things as the objects of their
merriment. The richest comedy ever penned
fails to excite more laughter than the lugu-
brious jokes of the grave-diggers in Hamlet ;
and sextons, mutes, and undertakers, are the
legitimate butts of the jester and caricaturist
all over the world.
Having lingered, in the church until we had
satisfied our curiosity, we proceeded towards
Rosedale House, where Thomson resided, and
where the chair on which he sat, the table on
which he wrote, and the peg on which he
hung his hat, are religiously preserved, as re-
lics of departed genius. The house, after the
poet's death, was purchased by a Mr. Ross,
who had so much veneration for his memory
that he forbore to pull it down, though small
and inconvenient, but enlarged and repaired it,
at an expense of nine thousand pounds. It
was afterwards inhabited by the Honourable
Mrs. Boscawen, the widow of the admiral,
who participated in this feeling of her pre-
decessor, and repaired the alcove in the gar-
den, where the poet used to write in fine wea-
ROSEDALE HOUSE. 133
ther. Within it she replaced his table, and in-
scribed over the entrance,
" Here Thomson sung the seasons, and their change."
Over the back seat at this table hangs a board,
upon one side of which are the following words :
" James Thomson died at this place, August
22nd, 1748 ;" and, upon the other, a longer
memorial, with a strange and unpleasing affec-
tation of fine writing about it, which runs as
follows : " Within this pleasing retirement,
allured by the music of the nightingale, which
warbled in soft unison to the melody of his
soul, in unaffected cheerfulness, and genial
though simple elegance, lived James Thomson.
Sensibly alive to all the beauties of nature, he
painted their images as they rose in review,
and poured the whole profusion of them into
his inimitable * Seasons.' Warmed with intense
devotion to the Sovereign of the Universe, its
flame glowing through all his compositions, an-
imated with unbounded benevolence, with the
tenderest social sensibility, he never gave one
moment's pain to any of his fellow-creatures,
save by his death, which happened at this place
on the 22nd of August, 1748."
From Rosedale House, the present name of
this dwelling, we strolled up Kew Foot-Lane,
134 RICHMOND PALACE.
and soon arrived at the Green, a large open
space, which does not belie its name, sur-
roimded with many comfortable-looking houses*
and rows of venerable trees.
The ancient palace of the Kings of England
stood upon this spot. There is little of it left
now except the gateway, and that little offers
nothing to satisfy the gaze of any but the
mere antiquary. It does not look old and
venerable enough for the lover of the pic-
turesque, being so patched up by and wedged
in between surrounding houses as to have al-
most lost its distinctive character. Several
Kings and Queens of England lived and died
upon this spot : Edward the First and Second
resided here ; and Edward the Third died here,
deserted in that last hour by all the flatterers
and parasites who had fattened upon his
bounty ; even Alice Pierce, the mistress of his
bosom, flying from his side, and leaving him
to die with no more attendance than if he had
been a beggar, giving up the ghost in a ditch.
" When he lay," says the old Chronicle, "on his
sick couch, he talked continually of hunting
and hawking, and such trifles, and trusted to
the soothing assurances of the Lady Alice
that he would not die. As soon as she saw
that the disease was mortal, that his memory
THE BATTLE OF THE GNATS. 135
failed him, and that his death might be hourly
expected, she took the valuable rings off his
fingers, and bade him adieu. All his servants
also forsook him and fled. Thus he remained
for some hours quite helpless, and almost
speechless, until a priest by chance arriving,
administered the last consolations of religion.
The King understood him, and murmuring
indistinctly the word Jesus, pressed a crucifix
to his breast and died." Richard the Second,
the next King, passed much of his time
at this manor ; in whose days, at Sheen, as
we are informed by that minute chronicler,
Stowe, " there was a great fighting among
the gnats ! They were so thick gathered,"
says he, " that the air was darkened with
them, and they fought and made a great
battle. Two parts of them being slain, fell
down to the ground, the third part having got
the victory, flew away, no man knew whither.
The number of the dead was such that they
might be swept up with besoms, and bushels
filled with them." With what a gusto does
the old historian describe this battle ! how per-
suaded he seems of its truth ! and, with what
a relish for the marvellous, and expectation to
find the same in his reader, does he note every
circumstance ! Many of the battles between
136 RICHMOND PALACE.
the rival houses of York and Lancaster are
dismissed by him with hardly more notice.
Anne, the Queen of Richard the Second,
died in this building. She was so tenderly
beloved by her husband, that he cursed the
place where she died, and would never after-
wards inhabit it. The very sight of the build-
ing so moved him to grief, that he gave di-
rections that it should be pulled down. The
order was only partially executed, but the
building remained in a ruinous condition until
the time of Henry the Fifth, who repaired it,
and founded three religious houses near it. It
was destroyed by fire in the reign of Henry
the Seventh, who built it up again more mag-
nificently than before, and first altered the
name of the village from Sheen to Richmond,
the name of his own earldom, which it has ever
since borne. Henry the Eighth also resided
here in the early part of his reign, and once
instituted a grand tournament on the Green,
at which he fought in disguise, and where one
of the combatants was accidentally killed. He
afterwards exchanged it with Wolsey, for the
more magnificent palace of Hampton Court ;
but, after the fall and death of that minister,
the place reverted to the crown. Elizabeth was
confined in it for a short time, during the reign
of her sister, and here she died broken-hearted
RICHMOND HILL. 137
for the death of the Earl of Essex. Her body
was removed from Richmond Palace to White-
hall by water. Upon this occasion some courtly
rhyme-weaver, whose name is unknown, wrote
the following verses which, in the " Remaines
concerning Brittaine," are praised as being in-
deed " passionate doleful lines."
" The Queene was brought by water to White-hall,
At every stroke the oares teares let fall :
More clung about the barge,Jish under water
Wept out their eyes, and swome blinde after;
I tliinko the bargemen might with easier thighes
Have rowed her thither in her people's eyes,
For howsoere, thus much my thoughts have scan'd,
She 'd come by water had she come by land."
During the dissensions of the revolution, Rich-
mond Palace met some rough treatment from
the hands of republicans, and the greater part
of it was pulled down. It has never since held
up its head in the world, but has gradually
pined away to its present condition.
There are few, and those few must be in-
sensible to the charms of natural beauty, who
ever pass Richmond without ascending its
far-famed hill, and gazing upon the landscape
which stretches beneath it. How beautiful is
the oft-quoted exclamation of the poet :
" Enchanting vale, beyond whate'er the muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung I
138 RICHMOND HILL.
O vale of bliss ; O softly-swelling hills,
On which the Power of cultivation lies.
And joys to see the wonder of his toil :
Heavens ! what a goodly prospect spreads around
Of hills and dales, and woods and lawns, and spires,
And glittering towns, and gilded streams I "
We have read many descriptions of this fa-
vourite spot ; and before we had seen it we
were almost afraid to visit it, for, like Words-
worth and the Yarrow, " we had a vision of
our own," and dreaded lest the reality should
" undo it." But curiosity was at last triumph-
ant, and we went, and found the reality more
lovely than the pictures which had been drawn
of it either by the pencil or the pen. The
first time we ever ascended the hill, the land*
scape was illumined by the rays of a bright
noon-tide sun, and the waters of the Thames,
stretching out right before us, were illumined
with a long streak of light, and the far forests
gleamed in the radiancy as their boughs were
waved to and fro by a strong, but pleasant,
south-west wind. Distant Windsor was visi-
ble ; and, hundreds of neat villas, and other
pleasing objects, gratified the eye, to whichever
side it turned ; the Thames freshening and en-
livening the whole. As we stood, the sky be-
came overcast ; dark clouds arose upon the ho-
rizon ; the wind blew colder than its wont ;
RICHMOND HILL. 139
while a few large drops of rain gave notice of an
impending storm. The Terrace was soon bare
of its visitors : all sought shelter from the rain ;
but we remained to watch the tempest, and the
changes it wrought upon the landscape. It
was glorious to see how the trees waved, like
fields of corn, as the storm blew over them, and
the smart showers whirled around; now hiding
one spot by the thickness of the rain, and now
wheeling past another, and obscuring it in like
manner. The distant heights were no longer
visible, and we could just see the Thames
winding at the foot of the hill, and curling
itself into tiny waves under the breath of the
storm. The blossoms of the wild chestnut
trees fell thick around us, diffusing a more
delicious fragrance through the air; and the
very dust of the ground seemed odorous as
the moisture fell upon it. Suddenly there
was a flash right over Windsor Castle, and all
its towers were perceptible for an instant, and
then hidden again. Successive flashes illumin-
ed other spots; and, while the rain was pier-
cing through our garments we had no other
thought than a strong desire to become an
artist by the inspiration of the moment, and at
one touch of our pencil to fasten upon enduring
canvass a faithful representation of the scene.
140
RICHMOND HILL.
It was admiration of this spot that inspired
the now-neglected Mallet, the friend of Thom-
son, and a dweller in the neighbourhood, to
write that beautiful song of his in praise of the
Thames, which deserves to be better known.
" Where Thames, along the daisy'd meads,
His wave, in lucid mazes leads,
Silent, slow, serenely flowing,
Wealth on either shore bestowing,
There, in a sare, though small retreat,
Content and Love have fixed their seat ;
Love, that counts his duty pleasure ;
Content, that knows and hugs his treasure.
ABODES OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN. 141
" From art, from jealousy secure,
As faith unblamed, as friendship pure,
Vain opinion nobly scorning,
Virtue aiding, life adorning,
Fair Thames, along thy flowery side,
May those whom Truth and Reason guide,
All their tender hours improving,
Live like us, beloved and beloving !"
Descending the Terrace, and crossing the bridge,
how pleasant is the walk along the Middlesex
bank of the river to the village of Twicken-
ham, and its old grey church, where Pope lies
buried ! But, pleasanter still is it to take a
boat, and be rowed up the middle of the
stream, unlocking the stores of memory as we
pass, and saying to ourselves, " Here, on the
right, lived Bacon. Yonder, at West Sheen,
lived -Sir William Temple ; and there was born
the celebrated Stella ; and at the same place
Swift first made her acquaintance. And here,
again, is Marble Hill, where the beauteous
Lady Suffolk kept open house for all the wits
of the neighbourhood."
Among other reminiscences connected with
Richmond, which ought to be noticed ere we
leave it, is, that it was the residence at one
time of that luckless poet Richard Savage, and
that it was on his first visit to the noisy capital
from this quiet retreat, after he had resolved to
142 THE POET GAY.
leave it, and procure another lodging, that he
got involved in that unfortunate quarrel at
Robinson's Coffee house, Charing Cross, which
terminated in the death of a Mr. Sinclair, and
for which he was afterwards put on trial for
his life, before the ill-natured Judge Page, fa-
mous for " hard words and hanging."
Among the most conspicuous of the places
we pass there is a neat little rural hut, called
Gay's Summer-house, where, according to tra-
dition, that amiable poet wrote his celebrated
fables for the infant Duke of Cumberland,
currying court favour, but getting nothing
but neglect for his pains. " Dear Pope," he
wrote to his brother poet, " what a barren soil
I have been striving to produce something out
of! Why did I not take your advice before
my writing fables for the Duke, not to write
them, or rather to write them for some young
nobleman. It is my hard fate, I must get
nothing, write for or against them." Poor
Gay! Too well he knew, as Spenser so feel-
ingly sings in his Mother Hubbard's Tale,
" What hell it was in suing, long to bide,
To lose good days, that might be better spent ;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow ;
HAM HOUSE. 143
To fret the soul with crosses and with cares ;
To eat the heart through comfortless despairs ;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone ! "
Yet one cannot help thinking, after all, that it
served him right ; for, according to his own
confession, he was ready to wield his pen either
for or against the court, as might be most pro-
fitable. Who but must regret that a man of
genius should ever have been reduced to so
pitiful an extremity ? Who but must sigh that
he should, even to his bosom friend, have
made' such a confession ?
At a short distance beyond Gay's Summer-
house, and on the same side of the river, stands
Ham House, formerly the residence of the
noted Duke of Lauderdale, and where he and
his four colleagues, Clifford, Ashley, Bucking-
ham, and Arlington, held those secret meetings,
which acquired for them a name infamous in
English history, the Cabal, a word which their
initials happened to compose. In the house,
now the residence of the Countess of Dysart,
are preserved many memorials of the Lauder-
dale family. According to tradition, this is
one of the places in which Charles the Second
took refuge after the battle of Worcester ; and
it is also said that the great gate leading to the
144 EEL-PIE ISLAND.
Ham avenue, has never been opened to any
meaner visiter since the hour when the fugi-
tive King, after he left the wood of Boscabel,
was admitted within it for a night's shelter.
Another tradition, which is still more question-
able, asserts that here also, as at Boscabel, he
hid himself among the branches of an oak to
escape a party of his eager pursuers. A shat-
tered trunk of a tree in Ham Lane was for-
merly shown to the visiter as the identical royal
oak ; and a fair which is annually held on the
spot on the 29th of May, has tended to counte-
nance the belief among the people of the neigh*
bourhood, who have no notion that any incre-
dulous and too precise examiner into dates and
facts should deprive them of their traditions.
However, " truth is strong," and truth compels
us to say, that their royal oak is only a coun-
terfeit.
Just before we arrive at Twickenham, there
is a small island in the middle of the river,
called by some " Twickenham Ait," but better
known to the people of London as " Eel-pie
Island." The tavern upon the island is fa-
mous for its eels, and the mode of dressing
them, and during the summer season is visited
by great crowds from the metropolis. Clubs,
benefit societies, trades' unions, and other con-
EEL-PIE ISLAND. 145
federations, frequently proceed thither, each
member with his wife and children, or his
sweetheart, to feast upon the dainties of the
spot. On a fine Sunday especially, Eel-pie
Island is in all its glory, thronged with "spruce
citizens," "washed artisans," and "smug ap-
prentices," who repair hither, as Byron has it
" to gulp their weekly air,"
" And o'er the Thames to row the ribbon'd fair,"
or to wander in the Park, which, thanks to the
public spirit of one humble individual, is still
open to every pedestrian. Though somewhat
of an episode, the history of the right of way
through this pleasant park is deserving of men-
tion. In the year 1758, the Princess Amelia,
daughter of George the Second, who was
ranger, thought fit to exclude the public ; but
an action was brought against her by Mr.
John Lewis, a brewer, and inhabitant of Rich-
mond, which he gained, and the Princess was
forced to knock down her barriers. The public
right has never since been disputed, and the
memory of the patriotic brewer is still highly
esteemed in all the neighbourhood, and his
portraits sought after, as memorials of his cou-
rage and perseverance.
But to return again to Eel-pie Island. The
VOL. i. L
146 ANECDOTE OF KEAN.
place was the favourite resort of Kean for a
few months before his death. The boatman
we were fortunate enough to hire was the boat-
man generally employed by the great actor ;
and from him we learned, that after the fa-
tigues of the night were over at the theatre, he
often caused himself to be rowed to Eel-pie
Island, and was there left to wander about by
moonlight till two or three o'clock in the
morning. The tavern used at that time to be
frequented by a poetical sawyer of Twicken-
ham, whose poetry Kean greatly admired. The
first time he heard the sawyer's rhymes, he was
so delighted that he made him a present of two
sovereigns, and urged him to venture upon the
dangerous seas of authorship. By his advice the
sawyer rushed into print, and published a two-
penny volume upon the beauties of Eel-pie
Island, the delights of pie-eating, and various
other matters of local and general interest.
Kean at this time was so weak, that it was ne-
cessary to lift him in and out of the wherry,
a circumstance which excited the boatman's
curiosity to go and see him in Richard the
Third at the Richmond theatre. "There was
some difference then, I reckon," said the honest
fellow ; " so much, that I was almost frightened
at him. He seemed on the stage to be as
ANECDOTE OF KEAN. 147
strong as a giant, and strutted about so bravely,
that I could scarcely believe it was the same
man. Next morning he would come into my
boat with a bottle of brandy in his coat-pocket,
as weak as a child, until he had drunk about
half the brandy, when he plucked up a little.
One morning he came on board, I shall never
forget him, he was crying like a child, and
sobbing as if his heart was breaking, 'twas the
morning when his 'lady 'ran away from him,
and he told me all about it as well as he could
for his tears. He had a bottle of brandy with
him then. He gave me a quartern of it, and
drank all the rest before we got to Twicken-
ham, and then he was much better. But he
was never the same man afterwards ; he said his
heart was broken ; and I believe it was, for he
never held up his head again, poor fellow !"
We thought the boatman (we should men-
tion his name George Cripps) seemed af-
fected at the thought, and we asked if Kean
had been kind to him.
" Many 's the time," replied he, " that I have
carried him in my arms in and out of the boat,
as if he were a baby : but he wasn't particu-
larly kind. He always paid me my fare, and
never grumbled at it, and was very familiar
and free-like. But all the watermen were fond
L 2
148 TWICKENHAM AIT.
of him. He gave a new boat and a purse of
sovereigns to be rowed for every year."
" Ah ! that accounts for it."
" When he died," continued the boatman,
" a great many of the watermen subscribed
their little mite towards his monument."
" Was there much gathered ?"
" About seven or eight hundred pounds, I
think," replied the boatman ; " and it was to
have been placed in Richmond church ; but
we hear nothing of it now, or whether it's
ever to be erected at all. But here we are,
sir, at Twickenham church ; and if you please
to step ashore, I '11 wait for you, and then row
you up to the Grotto."
This was exactly the arrangement that suited
us, and we walked into the dusty village of
Twickenham, to pay our homage at the grave
of Pope.
149
CHAPTER VI.
Twickenham. The Poet's Grave. Pope's Grotto. Relics
of Genius. Strawberry Hill. Etymology and Chrono-
logy. The Heart of Paul Whitehead. Swans upon the
Thames. The tragical story of Edwy and Elgiva. An
odd petition of the inhabitants of Kingston.
OW simple, neat, quiet, and un-
assuming are all the village
churches of England ! It is
worth a man's while, whose
unlucky destiny compels him
to fritter himself away among brick walls for
six days of the week, to walk out on a Sun-
day morning ten or twelve miles to church,
far away from the tumult and the dust, to
some secluded hamlet or village, where he
may worship his Maker, not more earnestly,
indeed, but more refreshed in mind and body,
than he could in one of the more pompous
temples of the metropolis, where saucy wealth
elbows him still, and where he cannot pro-
cure a seat, unless he gives evidence of his
gentility by the tender of a shilling. It was
150 VILLAGE CHURCHES.
not Sunday when we strayed into Twicken-
ham church : but even in its emptiness we
could not help contrasting its unostentatious
sanctity, its meek elegance, to the more spa-
cious places in town, and forming, but not
expressing, a slight wish that we lived in a
village. We checked it, however, almost as
soon as it was formed ; for we thought, after
all, that if we lived in a village, we should
not so much prize a country walk, or have
such affection for a country church as now,
when we wander forth from busy London,
thirsting after the fresh air, and pining for the
verdure and the simplicity of rural spots, and
enjoying them so much the more for our long
and forced abstinence. Perhaps it was the
knowledge that we were at the grave of a
great poet that made us take so sudden a
liking to village churches in general, and to
Twickenham church above all others. It ought
not to have been so, we are aware. The mere
fact that the remains of a clay creature, of
more than common note, was lying within
its precincts, was no true motive for any ad-
ditional reverence to the temple of God but
so it was. Even Westminster Abbey itself
and all its treasured ashes ought, strictly speak-
ing, to inspire no more awe than the humblest
TWICKENHAM CHURCH. 151
chapel where the Great Spirit is truly wor-
shipped; but the memory of the illustrious
dead a sort of half persuasion that their dim
ghosts, though unseen, may be hovering above
us, works upon the fancy in spite of the rea-
son, telling us that
" Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted holy ground,"
and forcing us into more solemn reverence than
we might otherwise feel. Some such influence
it was, no doubt, that impressed us with un-
wonted awe, as we wandered alone from tomb-
stone to tombstone in search of the tablet to
the memory of Pope. We were without the
aid, or, as it very often happens, the impedi-
ment of a professional guide to point out to us
the " thought-deservingnesses" (to borrow an
expressive German phrase) of the spot. Our
eyes, however, soon caught a view of a very
large tablet in the gallery, with a Latin in-
scription, to the memory of Alexander Pope.
We ascended accordingly, and found that it
was the one erected by the poet to the me-
mory of his father and mother. His own was
not far off, and was equally ostentatious as re-
garded size, being about three times larger
than any other tablets in the church. The in-
scription, also in Latin, bore that it was erected
152 POPE'S EPITAPH.
to the Poet's memory by his friend the Bishop
of Gloucester. Underneath, in English, follow
Pope's own lines, " for one who would not be
buried in Westminster Abbey,"
Poeta loquitur.
" Heroes and kings, your distance keep,
In peace let one poor poet sleep,
Who never flatter'd folks like you
Let Horace blush and Virgil too."
Here again, thought we, is vanity in death.
Horace and Virgil were no greater courtiers
to rank and wealth than Pope was. In fact,
it may be questioned whether they were so
much so ; for among all the literati of the age,
Pope stands pre-eminent for his constant re-
spect to title. If he did not flatter heroes,
he flattered lords, and would have been
sorry indeed if they had kept at a distance
from him when he was living. But in every
sense the inscription is faulty and singularly
inappropriate. While we stood uncovered at
the spot, and while these thoughts passed ra-
pidly through our mind, we remembered that
the fault of this bad taste, if such it were, was
not chargeable upon Pope, but upon his friend
the bishop, who had erected the monument.
In short, the epitaph was written by Pope in
a fit " of that ambitious petulance," (to use the
words of Johnson,) " with which he affected
to insult the great," and ought never to have
POPE'S VILLA. 153
been placed upon his grave-stone. With this
impression we turned again to the memorial
that Pope himself had erected to his parents,
and there we found no such evidences of va-
nity. The inscription was simple and unpre-
tending, and set forth, in terms such as a son
should use, the piety and the probity of the
honoured dead. So, venting our harmless dis-
pleasure upon Warburton, and exonerating
Pope from all offence, we strolled down to the
river side, where our boatman was awaiting us.
In a few minutes more we reached the
building now known as Pope's villa. The
poet's residence itself has been demolished,
with the exception of the grotto near which
it stood. Much indignation has been lavished
upon Lady Howe, who pulled down the ori-
ginal building, and erected the present en-
larged edifice by the side of it. She has been
accused of barbarism, want of feeling, deadness
of soul, Vandalism, and many other offences.
We will not join in this mouthing of the
pack ; because, however much she may have
destroyed of the poet's dwelling, she has left
the grotto for the reverence of posterity, by
far the most valuable part of it, containing the
rooms in which he was accustomed to study,
and in which he entertained his friends, his
St. John and his Marchmont, with his wisdom
154 POPE'S VILLA.
and his wit. There was formerly a willow
tree overhanging the river, which has also
been removed ; but, with the destruction of
this, Lady Howe is not chargeable. So nu-
merous were the visiters, and such pilferers
were they, where a relic was concerned, that
the tree was soon stripped both of leaves and
branches. Slips of it were sent for from all
parts of the world ; and the owner was at last
so pestered, that she was obliged in self-defence
to uproot the tree, and make a relic of it, which
would not entail so much trouble upon its
possessor. Nothing but the root now remains,
which is safely housed in the grotto : forming
a substance too hard to be taken away in little
bits by the penknife of the visiter, and too
bulky to be carried off entire. Visiters for-
merly used to play the same tricks with the
very stones and spars of the grotto ; but, upon
inquiry of our guide, we were informed that
such was not the case now to any great extent,
although occasionally a person is detected try-
ing to notch off a flint or a shell, and a lady
holding an open reticule ready to receive it.
The following is a view of the actual villa of
the poet, taken from a print after Rysbrach, in
the collection of George IV. now in the British
Museum.
POPE'S GROTTO.
lf>5
The grotto was made by Pope about the year
1715. " Being," as Dr. Johnson says, " under
the necessity of making a subterraneous pas-
sage to a garden on the other side of the road,
he adorned it with fossil bodies, and dignified
it with the title of a grotto, a place of silence
and retreat, from which he endeavoured to
persuade his friends and himself that cares and
passions could be excluded. * * * The exca-
vation was necessary as an entrance to his
garden ; and, as some men try to be proud of
their defects, he extracted an ornament from
an inconvenience, and vanity produced a grot-
156 POPE'S GROTTO.
to, where necessity enforced a passage." And
quite right too. It was a little spark of the
true philosophy, after all ; and men in general
would be much happier if they would imitate
the example, and extract ornaments from all
their inconveniences, and good out of all their
evils. Some years after its construction, Pope
wrote the following lines in reference to his
grotto, which some of the guide-books inform
us are actually inscribed upon it. We made
diligent search, and were not able to discover
them.
" Thou who shall stop where Thames' translucent wave
Shines, a broad mirror, through the shady cave,
Where lingering drops from mineral roofs distil,
And pointed crystals break the sparkling rill ;
Unpolish'd gems no ray on pride bestow,
And latent metals innocently glow.
Approach ! great Nature studiously behold,
And eye the mine, without a wish for gold !
Approach I but awful. Lo I the Egerian grot,
Where, nobly pensive, St. John sat and thought,
Where British sighs from dying Wyndham stole,
And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's
soul.
Let such, such only, tread this sacred floor,
Who dare to love their country and be poor."
Mentally repeating these lines, we entered the
grotto, and were first shown by the gardener
who has charge of the villa, and who officiated
as the cicerone, into the cell on the left hand
POPE'S GROTTO. 157
side, which used to be the study. At every con-
venient place, and wherever the stones presented
a surface sufficiently large, visiters had scratch-
ed their names ; but we noticed none of any note
among the defacers. At the end, upon a pedes-
tal, was a plaster bust of the poet. The cell on
the right hand side used to be the kitchen, at
least so said our guide, and in this is placed the
root of the willow-tree, with a skull upon it.
We took the latter in our hands, and found it to
be a plaster cast from the veritable skull of the
poet, which was disturbed accidentally a few
years ago, upon digging a grave in Twicken-
ham churchyard ; it struck us as being re-
markably small. The skull was re-buried with
due reverence, after the cast had been taken.
In this cell the present proprietor has placed
a statue of honest John Bunyan, which, when
we saw it, put us in mind of the well-known
lines upon the spider in amber,
" Not that the thing was either rich or rare,
One wondered how the devil it came there."
To our mind, it marred the uniformity of the
grotto. In that place, Bunyan seemed an in-
truder upon the privacy of Pope, and we
wished the statue of the good Christian had
been placed somewhere else, no matter where,
and we would have gone to visit it, and paid
it all honour.
158 POPE'S GROTTO.
Though some of the " pointed crystals" al-
luded to in the lines above quoted still remain,
the " sparkling rill" trickles no more. The in-
genious contrivance hy which the roof was
transformed into a sort of camera obscura has
been removed, and the fragments of mirrors
that still remain have experienced so many of
the buffettings of time, that they have lost
their original brilliancy, and reflect but indis-
tinct images of the passing objects on the
river.
In the garden on the other side of the road,
and to which the grotto forms the passage, are
two tall cedar-trees, which according to our
friend the gardener, who laid claim to a know-
ledge of such matters, must be about a hun-
dred years old. If so, they must have been
planted in the time of Pope, perhaps by the
bard himself. Hitherto, however, they have
escaped that reputation, which, if it became
general or well-authenticated, might perchance
be the means in a short time of denuding them
of all their verdure, like their predecessor the
willow.
But perchance, ere these lines meet the eye
of the reader, the poet's grotto will exist no
more. The villa has been already advertised
for sale, and rumours of an intention to pull it
RELICS OF GENIUS. 159
down have long been rife, and generally be-
lieved. What lover of English literature but
must regret that it should be in the power of
any man to interfere with a spot that ought to
be classic ground to every Englishman ! But
they order these matters better in Continental
Europe. The house where Raphael first drew
breath is religiously preserved by the govern-
ment, and its existence pointed out by a tablet
and inscription ; and Italy abounds with such
memorials. France and Switzerland are equally
enlightened in this respect ; and even Holland,
reproached so much as a mere trading nation,
takes care to point out to her sons the dwell-
ing-places, or birth-places of the great men who
shed a lustre on her ancient annals. But Eng-
land unwisely neglects these things. The street
where Milton was born has no memorial upon
it to draw the eyes of passengers to the spot;
the birth-place of Sir Thomas More, at only a
few yards distance from that of Milton, is
equally disregarded ; and unless by a monu-
ment in St. Paul's or Westminster Abbey,
which are not always accessible, there are few
or no memorials of our great men. It is vain
to hope, unless Pope's villa falls into the hands
of an enlightened purchaser, that it will . be
preserved, or that even a stone will be erected
160 POPE'S LAST ILLNESS.
to mark the spot, and to say " HERE POPE
SUNG."
As we walked along the terrace, we noticed
more particularly than we did when we en-
tered, the flight of steps leading to the water.
This, said we, must be the place where Martha
Blount, the best-beloved of the poet, made use
of that unfeeling expression about his death,
which Johnson has preserved to her eternal
discredit. " While he (Pope) was yet capable
of amusement and conversation," says the bio-
grapher, " as he was one day sitting in the
air, with Lord Bolingbroke and Lord March-
mont, he saw his favourite, Martha Blount, at
the bottom of the terrace, and asked Lord Bo-
lingbroke to go and hand her up. Boling-
broke, not liking his errand, crossed his legs
and sat still ; but Lord Marchmont, who was
younger and less captious, waited on the lady,
who, when he came to her, asked, ' What, is
he not dead yet?' It does not appear that this
thoughtless and unkind expression ever reached
the ear of Pope ; but he took her general in-
attention and neglect of him in his days of
sickness and decay very deeply to heart. She
who had sat a loving and enraptured listener,
when his faculties were in all their brightness,
turned away from him not only with neglect,
POPE'S LAST ILLNESS. 161
but with scorn, in the time of his tribulation.
How unlike her sex in general,
" Who still are the kindest
When fortune is blindest,
And brightest in love 'raid the darkness of fate."
Alas ! poor Pope ! alas ! for the boasted intel-
lect of our kind. What can be more affecting,
or afford more matter for solemn thought, than
the last hours of this great man. " On the
6th of May, 1744," says Johnson, " he was all
day delirious, which he mentioned four days
afterwards as a sufficient humiliation of the
vanity of man. He afterwards complained of
seeing things as through a curtain, and in false
colours ; and one day, in the presence of Dods-
ley, asked what arm it was that came out of
the wall ? He said that his greatest incon-
venience was inability to think. Bolingbroke
sometimes wept over him in this state of help-
less decay, and was told by Spence, that Pope,
at the intermission of his deliriousness, was al-
ways saying something kind either of his pre-
sent or absent friends, and that his humanity
seemed to have survived his understanding."
Almost his last expressions were, " There is
nothing meritorious but virtue and friendship :
friendship itself is only a part of virtue."
We were thinking of these things, and were
VOL. i. M
162
STRAWBERRY HILL.
so wrapt in them, that we hardly noticed that
we had re-entered the boat, and were only re-
called to a consciousness of surrounding ob-
jects by the voice of our boatman, who stopped
on his oars, and called out that we were at
Strawberry Hill.
This place also abounds with reminiscences
of a great man. It was originally a very
small house, built about the year 1698, by
a coachman, and let as a lodging house. Colly
Gibber was at one time a tenant of it, and
there wrote one of his comedies, " The Re-
STRAWBERRY HILL. 163
fusal ; or the Lady's Philosophy." It was some
years afterwards let on lease to Mrs. Chevenix,
a toy woman ; from whose possession it came into
that of Horace Walpole, its most illustrious
occupier, who amused himself for many years
in enlarging and beautifying it, and made quite
a plaything of it. Writing to his friend, Ge-
neral Con way, on the 8th of June, 1747, and
dating from this place, he says, " You perceive
that I have got into a new camp, and have left
my tub at Windsor. It is a little plaything
house that I have got out of this Chevenix's
shop, and is the prettiest bauble you ever saw.
It is set in enamelled meadows, with filigree
hedges ;
A small Euphrates through the piece is rolled,
And little fishes wave their wings of gold.
Two delightful roads, that you would call
dusty, supply me continually with coaches,
and chaises ; and barges, as solemn as Barons
of the Exchequer, move under my window.
Richmond Hill and Ham Walks bound my
prospect ; but, thank God ! the Thames is be-
tween me and the Duchess of Queensbury.
Dowagers, as plenty as flounders, inhabit all
around; and Pope's ghost is just now skim-
ming under my window by a most poetical
moonlight."
M 2
164 STRAWBERRY HILL.
Horace Walpole succeeded in making a very
pretty residence of it, and stored it with " fouth
of auld nick-nackets," pictures, busts, and
antiques of every description. There were
scarcely any of his contemporaries eminent
for their wit or their learning, who were not
at one time or another his guests here.
Between this place and Teddington is the
cottage given by Walpole to Mrs. Clive, the
actress. At her death he placed an urn in the
gardens, with this inscription
" Ye Smiles and Jests still hover round,
This is Mirth's consecrated ground;
Here lived the laughter-loving dame,
A matchless actress, Clive her name.
The comic Muse with her retired,
And shed a tear when she expired."
Teddington is a small place, chiefly re-
markable for the first or last lock upon the
Thames, in aid of the navigation. Etymo-
logists found an explanation of the name of
this village, and plumed themselves mightily
upon their cleverness. The tides flow up no
further than Teddington, and therefore, said
they, the derivation of the word is obvious,
" Tide-ending-town from whence, by corrup-
tion and abbreviation, Tide-ing-ton Ted-
dington." This was all very satisfactory : there
TEDDINGTON. 165
was not a word to be said against it. Un-
luckily, however, Mr. Lysons, one of your
men of dates and figures, one of those people
whose provoking exactitude so often upsets
theories, discovered that the original name of
the place was not Teddington, but Totyngton.
After this, the etymologists had nothing to
say for themselves ; " a plain tale put them
down," unless, like the French philosopher, in
similar circumstances, they consoled themselves
with the reflection that it was very unbecom-
ing in a fact to rise up in opposition to their
theory.
Among the most celebrated residents of Ted-
dington were the Earl of Leicester, the favou-
rite of Elizabeth ; Penn the Quaker ; and Paul
Whitehead the poet. The last is buried in
Teddington church, with the exception of
his heart, which was removed to High Wy-
combe, and deposited in a mausoleum belong-
ing to his patron, the Lord le Despencer.
Paul bequeathed fifty pounds for the urn
which was to contain it. The ceremony of de-
positing it in the mausoleum was curious. It
was attended from the house by a military
procession, and a choir of vocalists. Dr. Arne
composed a piece of music for the occasion to
166 PAUL WHITEHEAD.
the following poetry we beg pardon, " words"
which were sung as the urn was deposited :
" From earth to heaven Paul Whitehead's soul is fled !
Refulgent glories beam about his head !
His Muse concording with resounding strings,
Gives angel's words to praise the King of kings."
The ceremony itself was sufficiently absurd;
but these lines were the topping absurdity of
all.
At this place we dismissed our boatman ;
and, landing on the Surrey shore, walked on
towards Kingston, sometimes stopping by the
river's brink to watch the minnows at the
bottom of the water, (for it is as clear as
crystal,) scudding away in shoals as we ap-
proached them, and sometimes in idle mood
watching the swans disporting themselves, or
turning over the leaves of our favourite Spen-
cer, to find the lines which describe them :
" See the fair swans on Thamis' lovely side,
The which do trim their pennons silver bright ;
In shining ranks they down the waters glide ;
Oft have mine eyes devoured the gallant sight I"
There are great numbers of these birds upon
the river. They are under the special guar-
dianship of the Lord Mayor of London, who
annually, either by himself or deputy, goes up
the river in his state barge, accompanied by
SWANS UPON THE THAMES. 16?
the Vintners and Dyers, to mark the young
ones which ceremony bears the name of swan-
hopping. The legislature has often made these
swans its peculiar care. By an act of Edward
the Fourth, it was declared a felony, punish-
able with imprisonment for a year and a day,
and a fine at the King's will, to steal their
eggs ; and at this time, and so late as dur-
ing Hentzner's visit to England, in the reign of
Elizabeth, there were great numbers of them in
the Thames opposite Bankside and Westminster
Hall. A curious custom at one time existed
with regard to the stealing of these birds,
which is mentioned in Coke's Reports. Who-
ever stole a swan, lawfully marked, in any
open or common river, was mulcted in the
following manner : The swan was taken and
hung by the beak from the roof of any house,
so that the feet just touched the ground.
Wheat was then poured over the head of the
swan, until there was a pyramid of it from
the floor sufficient to cover and hide the bird
completely. A like quantity of wheat, or its
value, was the fine to be paid to the owner.
Upon our arrival at the ancient town of
Kingston, we proceeded straight to the mar-
ket-place, the spot where, nearly a thousand
years ago, the old Saxon monarchs of England
168 CORONATIONS AT KINGSTON.
were crowned in sight of all the people. Eg-
bert, the first King of all England, held a
grand council here in the year 838; and, in
the records of that event, the town is styled
" Kynyngeston, that famous place." The fol-
lowing is a list of the kings crowned here,
most of them on a raised platform in the open
air, and the rest in the church. Edward the
Elder, in the year 900 ; Athelstan, in 925 ;
Edmund, in 940; Edred, in 946; Edwy, in
955 ; Edward the Martyr, in 975 ; and Ethel-
red, in 978, Kingston, although the fact has
been overlooked by nearly every writer, was
the scene of one of the most romantic inci-
dents in early English history the loves and
misfortunes of Edwy and Elgiva. It gives
one but a poor notion of the value of history,
or the fidelity of historians, to consult about a
dozen writers for a record of the same event.
Your hero, or principal personage, is called
a monster by one, a saint by another, or a fool
by a third : the actions of his life are exag-
gerated in their good parts by one, and in
their evil by the next ; while another, per-
haps, dismisses him and his whole career as
altogether insignificant and unworthy of no-
tice. It is a hard matter to get at the truth,
even upon the most trivial point, and you are
EDWY AND ELGIVA. 169
tempted to sweep your dozen of historians
from your table at a blow of your hand, and
whistle the chorus of the old ballad, " Tanta-
ra-rara rogues all ! " Upon reading the touch-
ing history of King Edwy and his bride, as
recorded in Hume, we turned to Osborne,
Stowe, Grafton, Holinshed, Harding, William
of Malmsbury, Fabian, Rapin, and others;
but the only facts that seemed to be really
well established were, that Edwy was a King
of England, and that he banished Saint Dun-
stan from his dominions. All the rest was
a mass of confusion. A chaos of antagonist
opinions, assertions, and denials, or a most
scandalous conflict, in which Hatred, Super-
stition, Revenge, Self-interest, Party Motives,
Carelessness, and Indolence, all set upon poor
Truth, shouting and hallooing, with a view
to prevent her voice from being heard at all
amid their hubbub. To Hume's account,
therefore, we adhered ; not because it is the
most interesting and romantic, but because it
is the most fair and probable ; merely supplying
such particulars of the scene of the tragedy as
he has left unnoticed.
King Edwy, in his seventeenth year, was
crowned with great magnificence in the mar-
ket-place of Kingston. He was of a handsome
170 A LEGEND OF KINGSTON.
figure and a most amiable disposition. Be-
fore his accession he had been smitten with
the charms of Elgiva, a noble lady, his kins-
woman, whom he married secretly, in spite
of the fulminations of Saint Dunstan, and Odo,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had re-
presented to him that their relationship was
too near to allow of their union. Upon the
day of his coronation a grand feast was pre-
pared for all the nobles ; but the king, dis-
liking their rude merriment arid drunkenness,
took an early opportunity to withdraw, and
spend the remainder of the day in the more
congenial society of his best-beloved Elgiva.
The nobles, after he was gone, expressed great
dissatisfaction at the indignity with which they
were treated in being abandoned by their en-
tertainer; and Saint Dunstan, best known to
posterity as the devil's nose pincher, was de-
puted by the rest to bring back the monarch
to the table. Saint Dunstan, who was in all
probability drunk at the time, readily under-
took the mission, and accompanied by Odo,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also
highly indignant at the disrespect Edwy had
shown to the church, rushed into the royal
apartment, and found the king dallying with
his bride. The brutal Dunstan immediately
EDWY AND ELGIVA. 1?1
tore him from her arms, and, applying an op-
probrious epithet to the Queen, dragged the
young monarch by force into the banquetting-
hall of the nobles. It was not to be expected
that any woman, however mild her temper,
could forgive so deep an insult as this, and
Elgiva exercised all the influence she possessed
over her husband's mind to bring about the
ruin of the presuming and unmannerly priest.
An opportunity was soon found ; charges were
brought against him, from which he could not
clear himself, and he was finally banished from
the kingdom, and forced to take refuge in
Flanders. But the Archbishop of Canterbury
still remained behind. The unhappy Elgiva,
in espousing the King, had gained to herself
a host of troubles and of enemies ; and, instead
of intimidating, had only embittered the latter
by the means she had adopted. Intrigues were
fomented against the young couple, who had
loved so well, but so unwisely. The Queen,
all fresh in youth, and all radiant in her beauty,
was seized by the archbishop, at the head of
a party of ruffians, and held forcibly upon
the ground, while a wretch with a hot iron
burnt her "damask cheeks" to obliterate the
traces of that transcendant loveliness which had
set enmity between the civil and ecclesiastical
172 A LEGEND OF KINGSTON.
power. She was then carried away to the sea-
coast, and hidden for some days, till an op-
portunity was found to convey her to Ireland.
She remained in that country for some months,
when she effected her escape. The scars on
her face had healed : the brutal work had not
been effectually done, and she shone in as
great beauty as ever, and was hastening to
Kingston, to the embraces of her royal spouse,
when she was intercepted at Gloucester by the
spies of the relentless archbishop. At this
time revolt was openly declared against the
authority of Edwy, and, to show him how
strong and how reckless the conspirators were,
the archbishop gave orders that the unhappy
princess should be put to death by the most
horrible tortures which could be devised. It
was finally resolved that she should be ham-
strung. The cruel sentence was carried into
execution, and the poor queen was left to lin-
ger on a couch of straw, without nourishment
or attendance of any sort, until death put a
period to her sufferings a few days afterwards.
Edwy was soon afterwards deposed. He did
not long survive his Elgiva: crownless, and
what to him was worse wifeless, he died of a
broken heart before he attained his twentieth
year.
KINGSTON CHURCH. 173
Portraits of all these old Saxon kings, and
of Edwy among the rest, used formerly to
adorn the walls of Kingston Church, and we
procured admission into the sacred edifice with
the full expectation of seeing them, upon the
faith of guide-books which we had consulted.
We ascertained, however, that our guides were
not to be trusted, the portraits having been remov-
ed to Windsor Castle more than a century ago.
We also made inquiry after another relic
the stone upon which these old monarchs were
crowned, and which formerly stood in the
market-place. We were informed that it was
at present in the safe custody of the mayor,
where it will remain until the new town-hall is
completed ; in which it is proposed to set apart
an honourable place for it. This may be now
considered as the only relic and that but a
poor one, which Kingston possesses of all its
former grandeur. Part of the chapel in which
the coronation ceremony was sometimes per-
formed, fell down in the year 1730, and has
not been rebuilt in its former style, but merely
patched up to keep the wind and the rain
out. The site of the chapel adjoining the
church is the same ; but the original edifice,
which saw the inauguration of Athelstan and
Edwy, must have long since disappeared.
174 KINGSTON.
Kingston at one time sent members to par-
liament ; but the practice of elections, very
different to what it is now, imposing upon the
constituent body, and not upon the candidates,
the necessity of spending money, the good peo-
ple grumbled at the expense, and finally prayed
to be relieved from it for evermore by a formal
petition to King Edward III. The prayer was
granted; and Kingston, penny-wise and pound-
foolish, has dwindled away into a very in-
considerable place.
A small, but very clear stream, called the
Hog's Mill river, runs into the Thames at
Kingston. It takes its rise near Ewell, and
is much frequented by anglers
175
CHAPTER VII.
The Thames at Hampton Court. The Rape of the Lock.
Magnificence of Wolsey. The loves of Lord Surrey
and the fair Geraldine. Royal Inhabitants of Hampton
Court. A Cook's Philosophy. The Maze.
HE lover of poetry, as he sails
from Kingston to Hampton
Court, will not fail to remem-
ber, that upon these waters
Pope has laid the scene of his
beautiful " Rape of the Lock." It was here,
" While melting music stole along the sky,"
that Mrs. Arabella Fermor, the Belinda of the
song, was rowed in her gilded barge, the love-
liest of the lovely, with her fair nymphs and
well-dressed youths around her, and the " adven-
turous Baron" Lord Petre, already planning the
larceny which gave such offence to the fair one
and her family, but which, adorned by the
luxuriant fancy of the poet, was the means of
giving such delight to all the world besides.
176 THE RAPE OF THE LOCK.
Since that time, the Thames at Hampton has
been a haunted spot, sacred to the sylphs and
all the bright militia of the sky. For their in-
vention Pope is entitled to greater credit than
he has ever yet received ; for, notwithstanding
his own assertion, and the acquiescence of
Johnson and other critics, who did not know
German, he borrowed nothing but their names
from the Rosicrucians, a fact of which any
one will be convinced who will take the trouble
to read the " Chiave del Gabimtto del Cabaliere
Borri" or the philosophical romance, " The
Count de Gabalis," by the Abbe de Villars.
The scenery upon both shores of the Thames
is here truly beautiful. Cardinal Wblsey saw
and became enamoured of it, when it had no-
thing but its own natural charms to recom-
mend it, and resolved to fix his permanent
abode among scenes so lovely. While yet the
manor of Hampton belonged to the Knights
of St. John of Jerusalem, Wolsey, whose at-
tendance upon the King at Hanworth drew
him frequently to the neighbourhood, and who
must have constantly passed it on his way
to Esher, a place which belonged to his bishop-
rick of Winchester, took a liking to the spot,
and chose it as the future site of the finest
palace that had ever yet been erected in Eng-
WOLSEY AT HAMPTON COURT. 177
land. He took a lease of the manor, which
extended at that time from Ditton to Walton,
on the Surrey shore, and included Hampton,
part of Hanworth, Teddington, and Hounslow
Heath, in Middlesex, from the Prior of St.
John, and began his magnificent building in
the year 1515. He had been upwards of ten
years employed upon it, when the vastness of
the design began to excite the admiration and
envy of all who beheld it. His enemies took
occasion of the remarks that were universally
made, to stir up the jealousy of the King
against his minister; and Henry asked him
why he had built a palace so far surpassing
any of those belonging to his sovereign. The
Cardinal, prompt at an expedient, but ever
princely, replied, that he was merely trying to
construct a residence worthy to be given ta
a King of England. The wrath of the tyrant
was appeased, and in exchange for the magnifi-
cent gift, he gave Wolsey permission to reside
in the royal manor and palace of Richmond.
Wolsey, however, continued to reside occasion-
ally in that part of the palace of Hampton
Court which was already built; for Henry
knew too well the fine taste of the Cardinal
in architecture to permit any meaner hand to
complete what he had begun. Although h^
VOL. i. N
178 WOLSEY AT HAMPTON COURT.
thus lived in the palace as a mere tenant, he
was in most respects as much its master as
if it still remained his own. It was here he
gave his magnificent festivals, and particularly
that great one to the French ambassadors, of
which so minute an account has been handed
down to us by Cavendish, a gentleman of his
household, and his biographer. The festival
was given in the year 1528, after the con-
clusion of a solemn peace between England,
France, and the Emperor of Germany. The
ambassadors were successively entertained at
Greenwich, London, Richmond, Hampton, and
Windsor. The King entertained them at
Greenwich, the Lord Mayor in London, the
King again at his park in Richmond, and
Wolsey at Hampton Court. The reception
that Wolsey gave them was by far the most
magnificent. The account handed down to us
by the minute and accurate historian, gives us
a grand idea of the power and splendour of
that proud churchman. The rich hangings of
arras, the massive silver and gold plate, the
regiments of tall yeomen in gay liveries that
waited upon the guests, the glare of the
torches, the costliness and excellence of the
wines, the savour of the meats, and the super-
abundance of everything, are all set forth very
WOLSEY AT HAMPTON COURT. 179
eloquently by honest old Stowe, who seems to
have imagined that no feast ever given in the
world before could have equalled the Cardi-
nal's. After describing all these things in a
style and language of most agreeable roughness
and simplicity, he continues, " The trumpets
were blowen to warn to supper ; the officers dis-
creetely conducted these noblemen from their
chambers into the chamber where they should
sup, and caused them there to sit downe ; and
that done, their service came uppe in such abun-
dance, both costly and full of subtleties, and
with such a pleasant noise of instruments of music,
that the Frenchmen (as it seemed) were rapte into
a heavenly paradise. The Cardinall was not yet
come, but they were all merrie and pleasant.
Before the second course, the Cardinall came
in booted and spurred, all sodainely amongst
them, and bade them ' Preface ! ' [much good
may it do you ! ] at whose coming there was a
great joye, with rising everie man from his
place. The Cardinall caused them to sit still
and keep their roomes ; and, being in his appa-
rell as he rode t called for a chaire and sat in
the midst of the high table. Anone came up
the second course, with so many dishes, sub-
tleties, and devices, above a hundred in num-
ber, which were of so goodly proportion and
N 2
180 WOLSEY AT HAMPTON COURT,
costlie, that I think the Frenchmen never saw
the like. The wonder was no less than it was
worthie indeed. There were castles, with
images the same as in Paul's church, for the
quantity as well counterfeited as the painter
should have painted it on a cloth or wall.
There were beasts, birds, and personages, most
lively made and counterfeited, some fighting
with swords, some with guns and cross-bowes,
some vaulting and leaping, some dancing with
ladies, some on horses in complete harnesse,
jousting with long and sharp speares, with
many more devices. Among all other was a
chess-board made of spiced plate, with men
thereof the same ; and for the good proportion,
and because the Frenchmen be verie expert in
that play, my Lord Cardinall gave the same
to a gentleman of France, commanding there
should be made a goodlie case for the preserva-
tion thereof in all haste, that he might convey
the same into his countrey. Then took my
lord a bowle of gold filled with ippocrass, and
putting off his cappe, said, ' I drink to the
King my sovereign lord, and next unto the
King your master,' and therewith drank a good
draught. And when he had done, he desired
the grand master to pledge him, cup and all,
THE FALL OF WOLSEY. 181
the which was well worth five hundred marks,
and so caused all the lords to pledge these two
royal princes. Then went the cups so merriely
about, that many of the Frenchmen were fain
to be led to their beds."
In less than two short years afterwards, what
a change came over the fortunes of the minister !
To quote again the words of the same his-
torian, Wolsey, being in disgrace, left London,
and having no house of his own to go to,
" rode straight to Esher, which is a house be-
longing to the bishoprick of Winchester, not
far from Hampton Court, where my lord and
his family continued for the space of three or
four weekes, without either beds, sheetes, table-
clothes, or dishes to eate their meate in, or
wherewith to buye anie. Howbeit there was
good provision of victual, and of beer and
wine ; but my lord was compelled of necessitie
to borrowe of Master Arundel, and of the
Bishop of Carlisle, plate and dishes both to
drinke and eate his meate in."
It was then when, to use his own words to
his attached servants who thronged around
him, " he had nothing left him but the bare
clothes on his back," that he first began to be
really convinced that
182 HENRY VIII. AT HAMPTON COURT.
" He had touch 'd the highest point of all his greatness,
And from the full meridian of his glory
Was hastening to his setting, and to fall
Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
No man to see him more I"
Wolsey was again taken into favour, and again
disgraced, and died before the palace was com-
pleted. Henry continued the work with great
vigour, and was always much attached to the
place. He took a sort of dislike to it after the
death of his favourite wife, the Lady Jane Sey-
mour, who expired within its walls two days
after giving birth to King Edward the Sixth.
With more grief than might have been ex-
pected from so mere an animal, he could not
bear to look at the palace for several weeks,
and retired to mourn his loss in private, cling-
ing pertinaciously to the garments of sable ?
and refusing to be comforted. But the fit soon
wore off; he found himself another wife, in
the person of Anne of Cleves, " a great Flan-
ders mare," as he called her; a compliment
which she might have returned with as much
elegance, and with more justice, by calling him
a "great English hog." He never tired of
her, for the good reason he always hated her.
She was allowed to reside at Hampton Court,
until all the preparations were made for her
divorce, when the King, according to Stowe,
THE FAIR GERALDINE. 183
wishing to get rid of her, " caused her to re-
move to Richmond, persuading her it should
be more for her health and pleasure, by reason
of the cleare and open air there."
His next Queen, Catherine Howard, was for
a while judged worthy to appear at his festivals
in Hampton Court; but, being anything but
a discreet woman, and her husband growing
tired of her, she was divorced by the most
summary of all divorces, the executioner's
knife. The new Queen, Catherine Parr, was
married in a very short time afterwards, with
great pomp and rejoicings at Hampton Court.
The ceremony was performed in July, 1543 ;
and, from that period to the death of Henry,
the palace was a constant scene of gaiety.
It was in one of these festivals that the
poetic Earl of Surrey,
" The flower of knighthood nipt as soon as blown,
Melting all hearts but Geraldine's alone,"
first became, or thought himself, enamoured of
the fair lady, whose name is almost as famous
in connection with his, as that of Laura with
the amorous Petrarch's. In his description and
praise of her, he says,
" Foster'd she was with milk of Irish breast :
Her sire an earl her dame of princes' blood.
From tender years in Britain doth she rest
With kynge's child, where tasteth costly food,
184 THE FAIR GERALDINE.
Hunsdon did first present her to my eyen,
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight :
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine."
The story of the great love entertained by
this agreeable poet and accomplished gentle-
man for the beautiful Geraldine, has been much
commented on, and forms a romantic episode
in his unfortunate life. It would be much
more romantic if it were true as tradition has
handed it down to us. He is said to have
written her name and some amorous verses
upon a window at Hampton Court, to have
excited thereby the jealousy of the King,
and finally to have been brought to the scaf-
fold, from that among many other causes.
The name of the lady whom he has celebrated
was for a long time unknown, until Horace
Walpole, in his " Catalogue of Royal and
Noble Authors," proved that she was the
Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, (daughter of that
Earl of Kildare who died a prisoner in the
Tower in the year 1535,) and one of the maids
of honour of the Princess Mary. When Sur-
rey first saw her he was a married man, living
affectionately with his wife, and the fair Ge-
raldine was a mere child of thirteen years of
age. Surrey himself was in his twenty-fourth
year. There is no doubt that he was struck
THE FAIR GERALDINE. 185
with her beauty, and that he has celebrated
her in the tenderest amorous poetry. Whether
he loved her is quite another question. It
should be remembered that Surrey's great mas-
ter in the art of poetry was Petrarch, whom
he devoutly and enthusiastically studied ; and
that, effectually to imitate him, it was neces-
sary that he should have a lady-love, upon
whose imaginary coldness or slights he might
pour out the whole flow of his amorous ver-
sification.
There is not the slightest evidence to show
that his attachment, if the name can be be-
stowed upon a mere conceit, ever went be-
yond this, or was anything more than admi-
ration, sedulously encouraged for the sake of
rhyming. Cowley, who was never in love
but once, and then had not resolution enough
to tell his passion, thought himself bound, as
a true poet, to pay some homage at the shrine,
and published " The Mistress," a collection of
amorous poems, addressed to an imaginary
beauty. Something of the same kind was
the much-talked-of love of Surrey for the
young Geraldine. She was married in her
fifteenth year to Sir Anthony Brown ; but
Surrey continued to rhyme, without offending
either his own wife, or the lady's husband,
186 THE FAIR GERALDINE.
a circumstance which serves to show that the
persons most concerned were fully aware of the
real state of the case. The assertion that Henry
VIII. took any jealousy or dislike to Surrey
on account of it is quite unfounded. The
noble poet first saw the Lady Geraldine in
1541. In the following year, so high was he
in his sovereign's favour, that he was made a
Knight of the Garter. On the invasion of
France in 1544 by Henry, the vanguard of
the army was commanded by the Duke of
Norfolk, Surrey's father, while Surrey himself
was appointed to the honourable post of Mar-
shal of England.
During the progress of the war he was made
commander of Guines, and afterwards of Bou-
logne; in which latter post, in consequence of
a panic terror among his men, he was defeated
by the French. It was this circumstance, and
not his pretended love for Geraldine, that first
lessened the good opinion which his sovereign
entertained of him. The real cause of his con-
demnation and death has not been very clearly
ascertained; but it is quite absurd to suppose
that Henry's jealousy of him in the matter of
Geraldine had anything whatever to do with it.
The romantic story told of Surrey and his
fair Geraldine in connection with the famous
THE FAIR GERALDINE. 187
astrologer and magician Cornelius Agrippa is
equally without foundation. It is related that
Surrey being in Germany called upon the ma-
gician to witness the extraordinary powers of
his art, of which all the world was speaking,
and that Agrippa showed him, in a magic mir-
ror, Henry VIII. and his lords hunting in
Windsor Forest; and afterwards the fair Ge-
raldine reclining upon a couch. The legend
has been versified by Sir Walter Scott, in the
' Lay of the Last Minstrel."
" Dark was the vaulted room of Gramarye,
To which the wizard led the gallant knight,
Save that before a mirror huge and high
A hallow'd taper shed a glimmering light
On mystic implements of magic might,
On cross, and character, and talisman,
And Almagest and altar nothing bright,
For fitful was the lustre, pale and wan,
As watch-light by the bed of some departing man.
But soon within that mirror huge and high
Was seen a half-emitted light to gleam,
And forms upon its breast the earl 'gan spy
Cloudy and indistinct as feverish dream.
Till slow arranging, and defined, they seem
To form a lordly and a lofty room,
Part lighted by a lamp with silver beam,
Placed by a couch of Agra's silken loom,
And part by moonshine pale, and part was hid in gloom.
188 THE FAIR GERALDINE.
Fair all the pageant, but how passing fair
The slender form which lay on couch of Ind ;
O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair,
Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined.
All in her night-robe loose she lay reclined,
And pensive read, from tablet eburnine,
Some strain that seem'd her inmost soul to find
That favoured strain was raptured Surrey's line,
That fair and lovely form the lady Geraldine."
The legend, which has been thus adorned with
the graces that Sir Walter Scott's pen bestowed
upon any subject upon which it was employed,
and which has been also alluded to by Pope and
other poets, was first related by Thomas Nash,
the dramatist, in his " Adventures of Jack
Wilton," printed in 1593, and states, in addi-
tion to the circumstances above detailed, that
Surrey mentioned the fair Geraldine by name
to the magician, and desired to know what she
was doing at that instant, and with whom she
talked. That Cornelius Agrippa, or any other
astrologer and pretended magician, could have
imposed on Surrey by the aid of a magic lan-
tern is probable enough ; and, if the dates
agreed, we might believe that he did so. But it
happens that Cornelius Agrippa died in the
year 1534, when the fair Geraldine was only
in her sixth year, and seven years before the
Earl of Surrey, whose love-verses, addressed to
HAMPTON COURT. 189
her, she was supposed to be reading, ever heard
of her existence ! So much for romance.
Edward VI. often resided at Hampton Court.
The inhabitants of the neighbourhood were
much attached to him, being proud that their
village was the birth-place of the King. When
there was a rumour that the Protector Somer-
set entertained a design to seize his person,
they armed, unsolicited, for his defence ; a
proof of their devotion, which Edward strove
to repay by relieving them from the inconve-
nience and annoyance of the royal chase, which
inclosed a vast extent of country, and which
had been formed in the latter years of his
father's life, when he was old and fat, and un-
able to ride far in search of his sport. Mary
and her husband, Philip, passed their honey-
moon at Hampton Court, and afterwards gave
a grand entertainment to the Princess Eliza-
beth, the presumptive heiress to the crown.
Elizabeth, on her accession, also resided occa-
sionally at Hampton Court ; and there is a tra-
dition that Shakspeare made his very first
appearance on any stage before her, in a little
apartment of the palace set apart for theatrical
representations.
In the reign of James, Hampton Court was
the place of meeting of the celebrated confe-
190 ROYAL INHABITANTS
rence on faith and discipline, between the
divines of the Church of England and the
Puritans, and in which the sign of the cross in
baptism, the ring in marriage, the use of the
surplice, and the bowing at the name of Jesus,
were severally attacked by the one, and de-
fended by the other party. James presided, to
his own great delight, over their deliberations,
and gave so much satisfaction to the Church of
England, that he was declared by the courtly
Archbishop of Canterbury to be a man who
delivered his judgments by the special assist-
ance of the Spirit of God !
During the prevalence of a severe plague in
London, Charles I. and his family took refuge
in this palace, where it was thought the air was
more wholesome than in any other part of
England. Fifteen years afterwards he was
driven here by a pest of a different description,
the riotous apprentices of the capital. In the
year 1647, this place became, for a third time,
his temporary prison for a few months, prior to
his unfortunate escape to the Isle of Wight ;
an event which associates this building with
the most remarkable incident in British his-
tory.
After the execution of the King, Cromwell
occasionally resided here. The Long Parlia-
OF HAMPTON COURT. 191
ment had issued their orders for the sale of the
house and grounds ; but the order was stayed,
and it was voted as a residence for the Lord
Protector. Here, in 1657, his daughter, Mary,
was married to the Lord Falconbridge ; and
here, also, in the year succeeding, his favourite
daughter, Mrs. Claypole, expired, to the great
grief of her sire.
At the Restoration, Hampton Court was
given, as a reward to the great instrument of
that event, Monk, Duke of Albemarle. He
wisely accepted a sum of money instead of a
palace, which he had not revenues sufficient to
inhabit in becoming state, and the place once
more reverted to the Crown. Charles II, and
his brother, both occasionally visited Hampton,
and resided in it for months at a time ; but,
it was not until the reign of William and
Mary that the palace again acquired the im-
portance which it had in some measure lost
since the days of the eighth Henry.
William III. and his illustrious consort were
alike partial to this residence ; and under their
superintendence various alterations were made
from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren.
Three of the old courts built by Wolsey were
pulled down, the present state-rooms and stair-
cases were erected, and the pleasure-gardens
192 ROYAL INHABITANTS
laid out in the Dutch style, with the long-
canal, to put his Majesty in mind of his native
country. The canal is forty feet broad, and
more than half a mile in length ; and were it
not quite so straight as the Dutch taste impera-
tively commands, would be a very pleasing ob-
ject in the view from the gardens. In this
favourite residence, William, as is well known,
met his death. He was riding from Kensing-
ton to Hampton Court ; and when he had
arrived in his own grounds, his horse stumbled,
and the King was thrown to the ground with
such violence as to fracture his collar-bone.
Being of a weakened constitution, he died from
the effects of the accident fifteen days after-
wards. The spot in the gardens is still shown
where his horse stumbled.
Queen Anne spent much of her time in this
palace, where, according to Pope, she some-
times took counsel, and sometimes tea. Pope
himself was a frequent visiter to the gardens,
where he used to amuse himself in walking
about for hours at a time, sometimes alone,
and sometimes in company with an agreeable
maid of honour, Miss Lepel, afterwards Lady
Hervey.
George I. gave several grand entertainments
here, and had plays performed for the amuse-
HAMPTON COURT. 193
ment of his visiters. George II. had similar
tastes; and, in the year 1718, caused Wolsey's
grand Hall to be fitted up as a theatre, for
the performance of Shakspeare's plays. Among
others, it is recorded that " Henry VIII,"
showing the fall of Wolsey, was enacted
by the express command of his Majesty.
During the life-time of this monarch he allow-
ed his son, the Prince of Wales, and the father
of George III, to reside occasionally at Hamp-
ton Court. George III. was more partial to
Windsor ; and, though he visited Hampton,
never slept in it. It has never since been ho-
noured by the residence of the Kings of Eng-
land. William IV. when Duke of Clarence,
was appointed ranger of Bushy Park, adjoin-
ing, in 1797, and steward of the honour ; and
the former office is still held by his widow, the
Dowager Queen Adelaide, who has a pretty
residence in the Park.
Thanks to the liberality and kind feeling of
the Government, the palace, with its pictorial
treasures, is open five days in the week, for the
inspection of the public. Three pleasant hours
were those which we passed in the state apart-
ments, looking first at the portrait of one de-
parted King or Hero, and then at another ; or
viewing the resemblances of the fair and the
VOL. i. o
194
THE PICTURES AT
witty, who captivated the heart, or pleased the
vanity of the susceptible Charles, or at the
more unfortunate Jane Shore, who enslaved the
affections of a truer lover, King Edward IV.
Catalogues of all the pictures are to be pro-
cured for a trifling sum at the palace. It would
take a week to go through the various rooms,
and make proper acquaintance with each pic-
ture worthy of being known ; but there are
some few that more particularly strike the
stranger's attention on a short visit. Perhaps
the collection of portraits in the apartment call-
ed William the Third's Bed-room, representing
HAMPTON COURT.
the gay dames of the Court of Charles II, (most
of them painted by Sir Peter Lely,) attract as
much curiosity as any in the whole collection.
Among others are the violent Castlemaine, after-
wards Duchess of Cleveland; the patient and
neglected Queen Catharine ; the beauteous and
beloved Duchess of Richmond; the virtuous
Countess de Grammont ; the frail but kind-
hearted Eleanor Gwynne; the fair but shallow
Mrs. Middleton ; and the unfortunate Lady
Denham, married at eighteen to a man of se-
venty-nine, and, after a short life of guilt and
sorrow, dying from a dose of poison infused
into her chocolate; the Duchesses of Ports-
mouth and Somerset, painted by Verelst; the
Countesses of Sunderland, Northumberland, De
Grammont, Ossory, and five or six others, by
Lely. There is an air of meretriciousness and
vulgarity about most of these portraits by Lely :
they are beautiful certainly, but the animal pre-
dominates in them.
One of the most interesting pictures in the
collection, to him who knows the history at-
tached to it, is that of the Countess of Lennox,
painted by Holbein, and placed in the Queen's
Audience Chamber. This lady, before her mar-
riage with the Earl of Lennox, was a bright
ornament of the Court of Henry VIII, where
o2
196 THE PICTURES AT
she was known as the Lady Margaret Douglas.
She was the daughter of the Queen of Scots,
and niece of Henry VIII. A true love story
is told of her early life. She inspired Lord
Thomas Howard with the most passionate love,
and this nobleman demanded her in marriage of
the King. Henry was so indignant that his
niece should have looked with an eye of favour
upon one whom he considered so unsuitable a
match, that he committed them both as pri-
soners to the Tower. Poor Lord Thomas
Howard died of a broken heart two years after-
wards in that fortress, and then, and not till
then, the lady was released. She became by
her marriage with the Earl of Lennox, mother
to Lord Darnley, and in consequence, grand-
mother of King James I.
Another remarkable picture, which is placed
in the room called the Queen's Gallery, is " the
Field of the Cloth of Gold," by Holbein, repre-
senting the celebrated meeting of Henry VIII.
and Francis I, and painted at the express de-
sire of the former monarch. " The picture,"
says the official catalogue, " was duly transferred
as an inheritance to succeeding princes, till the
Commonwealth, when the Parliament proposed
to sell it to the King of France. The Earl of
Pembroke being apprized of it, and resolved
HAMPTON COURT. 197
that so great a treasure of art and history should
not leave the country, secretly cut out the
Head of Henry VIII. before the arrangements
were completed, and the French ambassador,
finding the picture mutilated, refused to ratify
the bargain. After the Restoration, the Earl
gave the head (which he had carefully pre-
served) to Charles II, who caused it to be
replaced; and so skilfully was it done, that
the blemish can scarcely be discovered, except
by viewing the picture in a side light."
In the same gallery are half a dozen portraits
of Queen Elizabeth, taken from her childhood
to her old age, including the first taken of
her by Holbein, and the one supposed to be
the last, by Mark Gerrard. Appropriately,
within a short distance in the same apartments,
are the portraits of the men whose names are
intimately connected with her reign, the Earls
of Leicester and Nottingham, Sir Nicholas
Bacon, and Sir Francis Walsingham.
Over the fire-place in the King's first Pre-
sence Chamber, is a portrait of James, first
Marquis of Hamilton, by Mytens. This is
the nobleman so well known for his devoted
attachment to the unfortunate Mary Queen
of Scots. One of the last acts of that Prin-
cess was to transmit a ring to the Marquis,
198 THE PICTURES AT
as a token of her regard and gratitude, which
is still treasured as an heir-loom in this noble
family.
In the Audience Chamber is the portrait of
a remarkable woman who was for a long time a
great favourite with the people of England, and
whose head is still a popular sign for public-
houses in some parts of the country the Prin-
cess Elizabeth, daughter of James I. and after-
wards Queen of Bohemia. On her marriage, it
is upon record, so expensive were the entertain-
ments, that 9000 sterling were expended in
fire- works alone, displayed in one night upon
the Thames opposite the Palace of Whitehall.
This picture, painted by G. Honthorst, repre-
sents her in a green dress, embroidered with
silver. This amiable Princess was in the Low
Countries called " the Queen of Hearts." It is
by right of their descent from her that the
present royal family of England sit upon the
throne.
The story of the attachment formed for her
in her widowhood by the chivalrous Lord Cra-
ven, that staunch old soldier of Gustavus, is
well known. They were supposed to have
been privately married.
Another portrait to which the guides, before
the introduction into the palace of the better
HAMPTON COURT. 199
behaved and less garrulous police, invariably
drew the attention of the visiter, is that of
Duns Scotus, by Spagnoletto, in the room
known as the Public Dining-Room. John
Duns, called Duns Scotus, because he was
born in Scotland, lived in the early part of the
sixteenth century, and was educated at Merton
College, Oxford. Archbishop Spots wood, in
his History of the Church of Scotland, men-
tions several instances of his peculiar powers of
fasting. He was imprisoned by Henry VIII.
for declaiming against the divorce of that mo-
narch from his queen, Catharine of Arragon.
With the present portrait the tradition is associ-
ated, that Duns, being engaged in translating
the Scriptures, vowed to abstain from all food
till his task was completed, and that he expired
while engaged on the last chapter of the Reve-
lations.
But of all the treasures in Hampton Court,
the Cartoons of Raphael are the most to be
prized. Each of them has been called an epic
poem, and artists consider that the phrase is
no exaggeration of their extraordinary merits.
They were designed by Raphael, to serve as
patterns for tapestry to decorate the Papal Cha-
pel, for Pope Leo X, and represent subjects
taken from the Evangelists and Acts of the
200 THE ROYAL BEDS.
Apostles. They were painted about the year
1520, and the tapestry was executed at the
famous manufactory at Arras, in Flanders.
The Cartoons, so called because they were
painted on sheets of paper, were bought for
Charles I. by Rubens. It has long been a
subject of regret among the admirers of these
beautiful works of art, that they are in a col-
lection not immediately accessible to students in
London. It was at one time in contemplation
to have them removed to the National Gal-
lery in Trafalgar Square ; but as there was a
danger the removal might destroy them, the
design was abandoned.
As we walked leisurely through the various
apartments, we noticed that of the royal beds,
which are still preserved there in the same
state as when their occupants were alive,
those of William III, Queen Anne, and George
II, attracted much more attention from many
people than the pictures. One couple espe-
cially we noticed, apparently servant-girls, who
stopped before each bed for several minutes.
They took no notice whatever of the pictures ;
and we were curious to hear what remarks they
made. We kept as close to them as possible,
for that purpose ; and, when they stopped op-
posite the state-bed of Queen Anne, we listen-
THE ROYAL BEDS. 201
ed to their conversation, and heard a piece of
very common, but very true and valuable phi-
losophy, which we did not expect.
" Oh ! a very fine bed, to be sure !" said one ;
"and must have cost a thousand guineas, all
complete."
" I shouldn't wonder," replied the other ;
" but, Lord ! what does it matter ? A hundred
years hence, and you and I will sleep in as
good a bed as Queen Anne. Queens and poor
cooks all sleep in the grave at last."
If there is one thing more than another
which we hate as impertinent and ungentle-
manly, it is to turn round after passing a wo-
man, and look her in the face ; but we could
not repress our curiosity to have a glance at the
face of this one. We expected to find some
pensive pretty countenance, and a bright intel-
ligent eye; but we were disappointed. The
speaker was a vulgar little woman, with a snub-
nose almost hidden between a pair of such fat
red cheeks as we have seldom seen, and her
little grey eyes looked dull and sleepy. " ' Tis
a pity we looked," was our first thought ; but
we discouraged it with the reflection that beauty
and philosophy were not necessarily companions,
and that this ugly cook-maid was, perhaps, as
kind as she was sensible.
202 THE WILDERNESS.
Having lingered so long in the interior, we
took a stroll into the gardens, that we might
glance at all the curiosities of the place. Pass-
ing the tennis-court, the finest in England, we
entered by a small gate into a place called the
" Wilderness/' laid out originally under the
direction of King William III. to hide the
somewhat unseemly and irregular brick walls
at this side of the palace. This part of the
gardens is arranged into the most natural wild-
ness ; and, during a hot summer's day, is a
delightful retreat, cool as water, and all alive
with the music of a thousand birds.
While here, we could not, of course, refrain
from visiting the famous Maze, also formed by
King William III. We tried our skill to
discover the secret of the labyrinth, and saw
many boys and girls, and not a few children of
growth, and of both sexes, busily engaged in
the same attempt, shouting and laughing each
at the failure of the other, and panting with
the unusual exertion. We were not more suc-
cessful than the rest, until we took the little
guide-book usually sold in the palace, out of
our pocket, when, after some little difficulty,
we unravelled the mystery by the aid of the
map and a pencil. It is full of passages, which
lead to nothing, and a pleasant spot, we should
THE MAZE.
203
think, for frolicsome lovers, either just before, or
in the first fortnight of, the honeymoon. For
our parts we saw no fun in it, more especially
as we were growing hungry, and had visions of
luncheon dancing before our eyes. We there-
fore took a hasty farewell of the Maze and the
Palace, and proceeded to the Toy inn, where
that repast awaited us.
204
CHAPTER VIII.
The River Mole. Esher and Claremont. Cobham. The
Trout of Leatherhead. English Scenery. The Cellars
of Dorking. An old custom Guildford and the River
Wey. The Mother's Dream. A story of a Jack.
Newark Abbey. The amorous Monks ; a tradition of the
Wey. A punning Epitaph. Return to the Thames.
EARLY opposite to Hampton
Court, the river Mole pays the
tribute of its waters to the
Thames. Pope, in his " Wind-
sor Forest," calls it " the sullen
Mole, that hides his diving
flood," from an erroneous notion that it runs
under ground for a considerable distance, near
Leatherhead. It is also celebrated by Thom-
son, in his fine description of the view from
Richmond Hill.
" Here let us trace the matchless vale of Thames
Fair winding up, to where the muses haunt,
THE RIVER MOLE. 205
In Twitnam's bowers, to royal Hampton's pile,
To Claremont's terraced height and Esher's groves.
By the soft windings of the silent Mole."
The river well deserves to be called the
silent, but scarcely the sullen, for the scenery
on its banks is some of the finest in Eng-
land ; and its silence, as some bard, whose
name we have forgotten, fancifully expresses it,
seems to be that of pleasure ; and its slowness,
a natural lingering amid scenes of such sweet
simplicity as those through which it glides.
It is anything but sullen; and if the most
sullen man in England would, as we did, take
a day's ramble upon its banks, he would, if
he had any soul at all in him, be cured of
his sullenness for a month at least, by the con-
templation of its woodland treasures, its sylvan
nooks, and its simple, sequestered, and elegant
villages. It is a calm and equable river, un-
like that apostrophised by the poet,
" That is as busy as a bee,
The frothy, sparkling river Dee,
With whom 'tis ever washing day ;
For its little frisky floods
Are boiling, toiling, crossing and tossing
And flinging about the suds ! "
Unlike the Dee, the Mole holds on the pa-
tient course of a philosopher, enjoying the good
206 THE RIVER MOLE.
things that falls in its way, and being in no
bustle,
" Nor inclined to travel fast
Unto that salt and bitter sea,
That must swallow it up at last."
It runs a very tortuous course, and is formed
by the junction of several small springs on the
borders of Sussex and Surrey. It is for many
miles an inconsiderable brook, until it reaches
Dorking, where it first acquires the importance
of a river.
It was just dawn on a summer's day, and
not too warm, when we commenced our ram-
ble on its banks. We determined to trace it up
to Dorking, through Leatherhead, Mickleham,
and all that lovely country, and then to strike
across the pleasant range of hills, a continuation
of those known by the name of the Hog's-back,
to Guildford, from whence we might trace
downwards another river,
" The chalky Wey that rolls a milky wave,"
until it also pours its tributary waters into the
Thames at Weybridge.
In pursuance of this plan, we made Hamp-
ton Court our point of departure, and crossing
the bridge strolled down towards Esher. Like
most of the villages that lie within a circuit
ESHER PLACE. 207
of fifty miles of the metropolis, Esher is clean,
quiet, and agreeable. It is, however, not re-
markable in itself, but owes all its renown to
its contiguity to Esher Place, once the resi-
dence of Wolsey ; and to Claremont House,
where the Princess Charlotte resided during
her brief period of wedded life, and where she
died in childbed, in November 1817.
Esher Place occupies the site of the ancient
edifice in which the great Cardinal occasionally
resided, and whither he withdrew without a
bed to lie upon, or a plate to eat his dinner out
of, when he was in disgrace with his imperious
master. Here,
Deserted in his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed,
he remained for some weeks in a state of the
utmost distress of mind, receiving neither from
philosophy nor from that which is of more
value religion, any aid or consolation to re-
store his lost peace. His letters written here he
usually subscribed (sign of his great distress)
"With a rude hand and sorrowful heart,
" T. CARD LIS EBOR. miserrimus.^
They are said to be hardly legible from the ex-
citement of mind under which they were writ-
WOLSEYS TOWER.
ten his hand trembled so, that he could not
form the characters.
The old building in which he resided was
pulled down more than seventy years ago by
Mr. Pelham, with the exception of the two
towers, and rebuilt by that gentleman at a
great expense, in the same style of architecture
as before. The greater part of it was again
pulled down by Mr. Spicer, who rebuilt the
edifice as it now stands. The following view
represents the celebrated Wolsey's Tower, the
only remaining portion of the original building.
Claremont, a short distance south of Esher,
was originally erected by Sir John Vanbrugh,
and then came into the possession of the Earl
of Clare, afterwards Duke of Newcastle, from
CLAREMONT. 209
whom it took its name, and who enlarged and
beautified it. Sir Samuel Garth wrote a poem
on the occasion, in imitation, as he says in his
preface, of Denham's descriptive poem upon
Cooper's Hill, and Pope's upon Windsor Forest ;
but as far inferior in style, in thought, in ima-
gery, and in everything that constitutes true
poetry, to those elegant compositions, as a street
ballad is to Paradise Lost.
After the death of the Earl of Clare, the place
was purchased by Lord Clive, who pulled it
down, and erected a more elegant villa upon
its site. It afterwards became the property
of the Viscount Gal way, and still later of
the Earl of Tyrconnel. The last-mentioned
nobleman sold the estate to Mr. Ellis, from
whom it was purchased by the Government,
as a residence for the Prince of Saxe-Co-
VOL. i. p
210 LETHERIIEAD.
bourg and the Princess Charlotte. The me-
lancholy death of the Princess within its walls,
has hallowed the spot in British eyes, and a
mournful interest will long continue to attach
to it. A Gothic summer-house in the garden,
which she loved to frequent, has been con-
verted into a mausoleum, and inscribed to her
memory by the affection of her survivor.
From Claremont the Mole passes through
private enclosures, and is lost to the wayfarer
until he arrives at Cobham. This village is a
great resort of anglers, the river containing
abundance of pike, trout, gudgeons, dace, and
eels. The village was in ancient days the pro-
perty of the abbots of Chertsey. One of them,
a lover of good living, and of the gentle craft,
made a fish-pond at great expense, which is
said to have been a mile in circumference, but
which is now choked up. There are here two
neat bridges over the Mole. The first bridge
was erected by the good Matilda, queen of
Henry the First, more than seven hundred
years ago, in consequence of the death of one
of her maids of honour, who was unfortunately
drowned in passing the ford. It was the same
benevolent lady who built the bridge of Strat-
ford le Bow, near London.
From Cobham to Letherhead the high road
LETHERHEAD. 211
runs occasionally in sight of the Mole, which it
crosses by a bridge at Stoke d'Abernon, a
pretty village, celebrated for its extensive com-
mon and its fine oak trees. Letherhead is an-
other pleasant spot an insignificant village
it may be called in England ; but if by any
magic trick it could be conveyed suddenly by
night across the seas, and let down in Ger-
many, Belgium, or indeed in France, it would
by the villagers of those nations be accounted a
town, or a royal residence. Continental na-
tions may rival or excel us in the splendour of
their cities, but their villages are mere collec-
tions of savage wigwams in comparison with
ours. Letherhead is mentioned in Domesday
Book, and frequently in later documents. It
contains a picturesque old church, abounding
in monuments with quaint inscriptions; and a
neat bridge of fourteen small arches over the
Mole. There is an old house, which has, how-
ever, been several times renovated, called the
Mansion House, noted as the residence at one
time of the infamous Judge Jefferies. Near the
bridge is an old-fashioned public-house, said to
be the identical house formerly kept by Eleanor
Humming, celebrated by Skelton, Poet Lau-
reate of the reigns of Henry Seventh and
Eighth, in his poem entitled "The Tunning
p 2
212 LETHERHEAD.
of Ely nor Humming, the noted Ale-wife of
England." She appears to have been noted for
her good ale only, and not for her good looks.
In an old, and now scarce woodcut, she is
represented as a harsh ugly woman. Under
the print there is the following inscription:
" When Skelton wore the laurel crown,
My ale put all the ale-wives down."
This cabaret was most likely the resort, when
the King resided at Nonsuch, of the underlings
of the court the players, the jesters, the scul-
lions, the poets, and other vagabonds of the
same description.
Letherhead is noted above all things for its
very excellent trout. How long it has enjoyed
this reputation it is difficult to say. The ear-
liest notice we remember of its fame, in this
respect, is in Lilly's Memoirs of his Life and
Times ; from which it appears, that it was the
resort of the Londoners during the time of the
Long Parliament. Lilly relates that Sir Bui-
strode Whitelocke being ill, he prophesied,
from a certain inspection, which delicacy will
not allow us to explain, that the honourable
member would recover, but by means of a
surfeit would dangerously relapse within a
month ; " the which he did," says Lilly, " by
ENGLISH SCENERY. 213
eating too many trouts at Mr. Sand's house
near Letherhead." In all the old topogra-
phical books, the trouts of Letherhead are
invariably mentioned. To test the accuracy
of the information, we made up to a quiet,
respectable, old gentleman, whom we observed
sitting on the grass under a tree, handling his
rod in a style which showed us that he was
a veteran and inveterate angler, and asked him
politely what he was fishing for? "Trout,
sir trout !" was the reply.
The walk from Letherhead through Mickle-
ham, Norbury Park, and up a byroad to the
summit of Boxhill, is one of the most beau-
tiful we ever traversed. ' It is too much the
fashion to praise the scenery of Italy and
Switzerland, and to decry the less grand but
still lovely scenery of our own country. We
have seen persons cock up their noses with
contempt at the mention of an English land-
scape; abuse in good-set terms our English
sky, as the dullest and cloudiest, and most
capricious of skies; and hint about the deep
blue of an Italian heaven the grand moun-
tains, and the castle-crowned rivers of the
Continent, who, on being closely pressed, .have
acknowledged after all that they had never
set foot out of their own country. To such
214 ENGLISH SCENERY.
we would recommend a maxim, that admira-
tion, like charity, should begin at home, and
if they are dwellers amid the smoke of the
metropolis, a walk through the county of
Surrey would cure them of their affectation,
if they had any relish for fine scenery at all.
If they did not find skies as blue, they would
find meadows of a more delicious green than
are to be met with on the Continent; and
if they found no mountains capped with
snow, they would see hills clothed with ver-
dure ; and one (Leith Hill) nine hundred
and ninety-three feet high, and commanding a
prospect the most varied and beautiful that
imagination can conceive woods and parks,
and elegant villas; a gentle river; fields of
waving corn; valleys, some crimson with clover,
others white with daisies, and some yellow with
buttercups ; and all, both hill and plain, giving
pleasant evidence of comfort and civilisation.
The Englishman who has travelled to some
purpose, and really observed the countries
through which he has passed, becomes too wise
to join in the unmeaning depreciation above
referred to.
The village of Mickleham, at the foot
of Boxhill, is a sweet rural spot, with a
modest and venerable church. To the man
MICKLEHAM. 215
who delights in recollections of the past, it
offers few attractions; but to the man who
wishes to enjoy the present, there cannot be
many more attractive spots in all England.
Norbury Park, adjoining, is one of the finest
seats in the county. The river Mole runs
through the grounds ; and although occa-
sionally in very hot weather its channel is
almost dry, it generally contains sufficient
water to be the most pleasing ornament of
the landscape. The views from the windows
of the dwelling-house are exceedingly beau-
tiful; and the walls of the saloon, painted by
Barrett, are so managed as to appear a con-
tinuation of the prospect. About three miles
to the south-east rises Boxhill, nearly five
hundred feet above the level of the Mole,
and from whence the windings of the river
may be traced for many miles. Just below
is seen the solemn-looking town of Dorking,
with the commanding eminence of Leith Hill,
about six miles beyond it. To the right,
the range of hills leading to Guildford and
Farnham, and on the left, Betchworth, Rei-
gate, and all that beautiful country. Descend-
ing this hill, we cross the Mole and arrive
at Dorking. This little town, famous for
its poultry and butter, has a remarkably neat
216 DORKING.
and clean appearance. It is situate on a tract
of soft sandy rock-stone, in which cellars are
dug, noted for their extreme coolness, and
very valuable for the preservation of wine.
These cellars are very numerous. The most
remarkable is on the side of an eminence call-
ed Butter Hill, the descent to which is by a
sort of staircase, containing upwards of fifty
steps.
Dorking is mentioned in the Domesday Sur-
vey, and is said to have been destroyed by
the Danes, and rebuilt in the time of William
the Conqueror. The manor is now the pro-
perty of the Duke of Norfolk, and the church
is one of the burial-places of that noble family.
A curious custom prevails, or until very lately
did prevail here, that if the father dies intes-
tate, the youngest son succeeds to the estate.
This custom is stated, with great probability, to
have arisen in the feudal ages, when the ba-
rons were free to claim and enforce that de-
testable right of passing the first night with the
newly married bride of any of their vassals ;
the " respectable droit dejambage" as the French
songster calls it in his admirable satire, entitled
the " Projects of a good old Baron." It does
not appear that the right was often enforced ; it
was too atrocious, and affronted the common
GUILDFORD. 217
sense of even the feudal age. The good peo-
ple of Dorking, were, however, quite right in
taking the means they did, to insure their
estates to their own offspring.
The stranger at Dorking will find much to
interest him ; the walks in the neighbourhood
are fine and the air bracing. But the ramble
among the hills over the Hog's-back, to Guild-
ford, is the most delightful of all. We now
lose sight of the Mole, and approach its plea-
sant sister the Wey ; less beautiful, it is true,
and passing through a country less picturesque,
but still worthy of a visit, and offering many
reminiscences to the man who takes pleasure
in local histories and traditions. The distance
is not above eight miles between the Mole and
the Wey, and the road is for the most part on
a beautiful ridge, from which, at every turn,
some pleasant view may be obtained. Guild-
ford is situated upon the Wey, and its antiqui-
ties, alone, afford ample materials for a volume.
It has a solemn and venerable air a demure
grace about it, which bespeak it as a place that
was once of historical importance. It contains
three parish churches, Trinity, St. Mary, and
St. Nicholas. Great part of the first- mentioned
fell down in 1745, but was afterwards rebuilt.
It contains several monuments, by far the most
218 A MOTHER'S DREAM.
remarkable of which is to the memory of a
very remarkable man, a native of the town,
George Abbot, who was Archbishop of Can-
terbury, at the commencement of the seven-
teenth century. He was the son of a poor
cloth-worker of Guildford, and had five bro-
thers, most of whom rose to distinction ; one,
Robert, being Bishop of Salisbury ; and the
youngest, Maurice, Lord Mayor of London,
and the first person who received the honour
of knighthood from King Charles the First.
A singular story is told of the cause of the
good fortune of these brothers. When the
mother was five or six months advanced in
pregnancy with George, she dreamed that an
angel appeared to her, and told her that if she
caught a jack in the river Wey, and ate it, the
child in the womb would be a boy, who would
rise to the highest dignities in the state. The
poor woman told her dream to her neighbours,
and was advised to try and catch a jack in the
river, and see what would come of it. She
paid no attention to the advice; but, some days
afterwards, as she let down a pail into the
stream to procure water for domestic uses, she,
to her great surprise and delight, brought up
a very fine jack, which, says the story, " she
cooked for her dinner that very day." When
A MOTHER'S DREAM. 219
her son was born, all the gossips of Guildford
looked upon the promise of the dream as half
accomplished, and amused themselves by spe-
culating whether the greatness of the "little
stranger" would be achieved in the law, the
church, or the army. The circumstance being
the general topic of conversation in the county,
two gentlemen of wealth and station offered to
stand sponsors for the child, and look to his
future fortunes, if they found him worthy.
He was found worthy. He made great pro-
gress in his studies, and conducted himself most
creditably in every situation in which he was
placed. He was sent to the University of Ox-
ford, where he distinguished himself as one of
the first scholars of the time. His mother's
dream was producing its good effect; the fire
of ambition was kindled in his soul ; and being
endowed with genius, and with another quality
which is often a great deal more valuable per-
severance he rose gradually to renown and ad-
vancement. In 1599, being then in his thirty-
seventh year, he was made Dean of Winches-
ter ; and in the year following, Vice Chancel-
lor of the University of Oxford. He was one
of the divines employed in the reign of King
James, in the new translation of the Bible, and
by the interest of his friends, the Earls of Dor-
220 ARCHBISHOP ABBOT.
set and Dunbar, was advanced to the dignity
of Bishop of Lichfield. He was shortly trans-
lated to the see of London, and lastly, in 1611,
to the Archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, which
he occupied for twenty-two years. It was
chiefly by his interest that his brother attained
a dignity almost equal to his own ; and that
another brother, Maurice, established himself
as a merchant in London, where the highest
honour that his fellow-citizens could bestow,
was conferred upon him. Many persons have
treated this story as apocryphal. Without en-
tering the lists either for or against it, we can
only say, that marvellous as it appears, it is not
improbable. Predictions are very often the
cause of their own fulfilment. Many circum-
stances as trifling as this dream of a jack, have
had a powerful influence upon the fate of men
who have achieved greatness. Many, per-
chance, if we knew the secret history of their
hearts, might have remained sluggards, or quite
inert, and never have achieved greatness at all,
if it had not been for the fond prediction of
some doting mother, or nurse, enraptured with
their ruddy cheeks and their curly hair. Who
can deny, that to a youth of high capacity, the
prophecy of his preferment would lead him in
after-life to struggle for it ? There have been
ARCHBISHOP ABBOT. 221
many such instances, both before and since the
time of George Abbot. Guildford abounds in
reminiscences of this prelate. Opposite the
church is Trinity Hospital, founded by him in
the year 1619. He settled lands upon it, to
the annual value of 300 ; a third of which
sum was to be employed in setting the poor
to work, and the other two portions to be
appropriated to the maintenance of a master,
twelve poor brethren, and eight poor sisters,
to wear blue coats and gowns, and have an
allowance of two shillings and sixpence a week.
The hospital is of a quadrangular form, with a
noble tower-gate, crowned with four turrets at
the entrance. The chapel attached is spacious
and lofty, ornamented with two beautiful Go-
thic windows of stained glass, representing
Scriptural subjects. It has been said errone-
ously, that the Archbishop erected this hospital
as an atonement for the involuntary homicide
which he committed while hunting, and which
proved a source of great sorrow and discomfort
to him during the rest of his life. The acci-
dent happened in 1621, two years after the
foundation of the hospital. Being invited by
Lord Zouch to hunt in Bramshill Park, he
took up a cross-bow to make a shot at a buck;
but unfortunately hit the keeper, who had run
222 ARCHBISHOP ABBOT.
in among the herd of deer to bring them up to
a fairer mark. The arrow pierced the left arm;
and dividing the large axillary vessels, caused
almost instantaneous death. The Archbishop
was in the deepest affliction: the event caused
quite a commotion in the Church ; for by the
canon law, he was tainted, and rendered incapa-
ble of performing any sacred function ; and
by the common law, his personal estate was
forfeited to the King. James I. acted with
much kindness, and wrote the Archbishop
a letter with his own hand, saying, " that he
would not add affliction to his sorrow, or take
one farthing from his chattels and movables."
The doctors of ecclesiastical law were consulted
upon the course to be adopted; and after some
delay, it was finally agreed that the King
should grant him a full pardon for the homi-
cide, under the broad seal, and restore him
to all his ecclesiastical authority. A commis-
sion of eight bishops, instituted for the pur-
pose, at the same time granted him a dispensa-
tion in full form.
The Archbishop retired to his native Guild-
ford during the progress of these debates, and
passed his time in prayer and fasting. He
instituted a monthly fast in memory of the
accident, which he religiously observed during
THE MONKS OF THE WEY. 223
the remainder of his life, and settled an an-
nuity of 20 upon the widow of the deceased.
Passing along the high road from Guildford,
and descending the current of the Wey, we
arrive at the green of Ripley, famous formerly,
and we believe still, for its cricket-matches. A
little further on is Ockham, the seat of the
Earl of Lovelace ; and at the distance of about
a mile on the opposite bank of the Wey, the
ruins of Newark Abbey. It is the popular
belief that the monks of Newark did not al-
ways keep the vow of chastity, which they
solemnly took upon entering those sacred walls.
The story of their amours, and of the sad fate
that befell them, is contained in the following
ballad, entitled
THE MONKS OF THE WEY,
A true and impartial Relation of the wonderful Tunnel of
Neivark Abbey, and of the untimely end of several glwstly
bretliren.
The Monks of the Wey seldom sang any psalms,
And little they thought of religious qualms.
Ranting, rollicking, frolicsome, gay,
Jolly old boys were the Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la! Lara-la I
To the sweet nuns of Ockham devoting their cares,
They had but short time for their beads and their prayers.
224 THE MONKS OF THE WEY.
For the love of the maidens they sigh'd night and day,
And neglected devotion these Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la! Lara-la!
And happy, i'faith, might these monks have been
If the river had not rolled between
Their abbey dark and the convent grey
That stood on the opposite side of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la! Lara-la I
For daily they sigh'd, and nightly they pined,
Little to anchorite rules inclined ;
So smitten with beauty's charms were they,
These rollicking, frolicsome Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la !
But the scandal was great in the country near,
They dared not row across for fear,
And they could not swim, so fat were they,
These oily amorous Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la I Lara-la I
Loudly they groan'd for their fate so hard,
From the smiles of these beautiful maids debarr'd,
Till a brother hit on a plan to stay
The woe of these heart-broken Monks of the Wey !
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la !
" Nothing" quoth he, " should true love sunder,
Since we cannot go over, let us go under !
Boats and bridges shall yield to clay,
We 'II dig a tunnel beneath the Wey"
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la !
To it they went with right good will,
With spade and shovel, and pike and bill,
THE MONKS OF THE WEY. 225
And from evening's close till the dawn of day,
They worked like miners all under the Wey.
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la I
And every night as their work begun,
Each sang of the charms of his favourite nun.
How surprised they will be, and how happy," said they,
When we pop in upon them from under the Wey."
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la f
And for months they kept grubbing and making no sound,
Like other black moles darkly under the ground ;
And no one suspected such going astray,
So sly were these amorous Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la I Lara-la I
At last their fine work was brought near to a close,
And early one morn from their pallets they rose,
And met in their tunnel, with lights, to survey,
If they 'd scooped a free passage right under the Wey.
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la !
But, alas, for their fate ! as they smirk'd and they smiled,
To think how completely the world was beguiled,
The river broke in, and it grieves me to say,
It drown'd all the frolicsome Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la !
O churchmen ! beware of the lures of the flesh,
The net of the devil hath many a mesh ;
And remember, whenever you 're tempted to stray,
The fate that befell the poor Monks of the Wey.
Tra-lala-la ! Lara-la !
There are different versions of the above
story, and we must confess, that the one most
VOL. I. Q
226 OCKHAM.
generally received is directly at variance with
ours, as regards the catastrophe. But if our bal-
lad be not in accordance with the justice of his-
tory, it accords with poetical justice at all events.
No ballad could ever have been made upon it
with anything like a decent climax, if it had
been necessary to state that the monks visited
the nuns in this clandestine manner for several
years, and were never punished for it. If our
account of the matter be not true, the more 's
the pity, and so there's an end of it.
Ockham Park was purchased by the Lord
Chancellor King in 1711, and is now the seat
of his descendant, the Earl of Lovelace, and his
Countess the daughter of Byron. In the vil-
lage church there is a handsome monument to
the memory of the first Lord. In the church-
yard, some wag, whose wit was not awed even
by Death, has inscribed the following on the
grave-stone of one Spong, a carpenter :
Though many a sturdy oak he laid along,
Fell'd by Death's surer hatchet, here lies Spong :
Posts oft he made, yet ne'er a place could get,
And lived by railing, though he had no wit :
Old saws he had, although no antiquarian,
And stiles corrected, yet was no grammarian.
Long lived he Ockham's premier architect,
And lasting as his fame, a tomb t'erect
In vain we seek an artist such as he,
Whose pales and gates were for eternity.
DEATH OF JOSEPH SPENCE. 227
It is a pity the author of these verses should
have spoiled them ; the play upon the words in
the first part is amusing enough ; the conclu-
sion is absolute nonsense.
As we descend the current of the river from
this place, the distance between the Mole and
the Wey becomes less at every step, until at
Wisly Common they approach so near as to
be scarcely a mile asunder. The high road
skirting Pain's Hill crosses the road at Cob-
ham, and to follow the windings of the Wey,
the traveller must take to the byroads on the
left-hand, and so on to Byfleet, a small place,
where it is said there was formerly a royal
palace, but of which there are no remains.
Henry VIII. when an infant, was, according to
tradition, nursed in this village. The court at
the. time resided at Greenwich, and the royal
bantling was probably sent away, for the ad-
vantage of the pure air of Surrey, or perhaps,
because he was even then obstreperous.
Byfleet was the residence of Joseph Spence, so
well-known for his anecdotes of Pope. He was
rector of Great Horwood in Buckinghamshire,
but only visited that place once a year. He
lost his life in his own garden at Byfleet in a
melancholy manner. He was found dead on
the 20th of August 1768, lying upon his face
Q2
228 HAM HOUSE.
in a small canal where the water was not of
sufficient depth to cover his head or any part
of his body. It was supposed that he fell in an
apoplectic fit, and was suffocated by the water.
Dr. Warton visited Spence at By fleet in 1754,
and obtained from him many particulars re-
lating to Pope, which he afterwards published.
Byfleet is situate on a smaller branch of the
Wey, the main current of the river flowing
about three quarters of a mile to the left. Fol-
lowing either branch, on which there is nothing
remarkable, we arrive at Weybridge, a consider-
able village, that takes its name from the bridge
over the stream. There are some fine seats in
the neighbourhood : Oatlands, of which we
shall have occasion to speak hereafter; Ham
House, and Woburn Farm. Ham House,
which has often been confounded by .the
Guide-books, with the Ham House near Rich-
mond, the seat of the Countess of Dysart, is an
old building, seated amid tall and venerable
trees. It belonged originally to the family of
Howard, but was granted by James the Second
to Catharine, the daughter of Sir Charles Sed-
ley, whom he had seduced, and then created
Countess of Dorchester. She afterwards mar-
ried the Earl of Portmore, whose descendant is
still the proprietor of Ham, and many monu-
HAM HOUSE. 229
ments of whose family are to be seen in the
church of Weybridge. James the Second pass-
ed much of his time here with his fair mistress;
and a passage is shown, in which he is said to
have concealed himself on the advance of the
Prince of Orange. This, however, seems to be
a mistake. James being at Whitehall, was ad-
vised, or, more properly speaking, ordered, to
take refuge in Ham House ; but it was at the
Ham House near Richmond, then the seat of
the Duchess of Lauderdale ; but he was appre-
hensive that he would not be in safety so near
London, and therefore obtained permission to
retire to Rochester.
Within a short distance of this place, the
Wey discharges his waters into the lap of his
suzerain. Thus we have once more reached
the Thames, after our ramble upon the banks
of its pleasant tributaries. We find, however,
that between the junction of the Mole and the
Thames, which was our point of departure, and
the spot at which we have now arrived, we
have left unseen an interesting portion of the
principal river. We must, therefore, retrace
our steps to Hampton Court, and follow the
Thames upwards, without further diverging.
230
CHAPTER IX.
Moulsey Hurst Garrick's Villa. Walton-upon-Thames.
Lilly the Astrologer. A Puritan's Sermon. Oatlands.
Coway Stakes. Shepperton.
I
|EFORE we diverged down the
pleasant banks of the Mole, and
returned again to the Thames
by the waters of the Wey, our
point of departure was Hamp-
ton Court. To that point, therefore, we must
again return, and proceed upwards for a while,
without going astray to the one side or the
other. Nearly opposite to the palace is the
pretty village of Thames Ditton, with its
" Swan," a sign that all true anglers are ac-
quainted with. Upon the same, or Surrey
bank, extends a common called Moulsey Hurst,
famous as the scene where all the ruffians, rich
and poor, of the metropolis, formerly assembled
to see one man beat another to death with his
fists. Now that the glory of pugilism is de-
parted, Moulsey Hurst has become a lonely
WALTON. 231
place. The races which are annually held upon
it, contribute a little to keep up its acquaint-
ance with the refuse of London the gamblers,
the swindlers, and the blacklegs ; but for the
rest of the year it is a quiet spot enough, and
void of offence.
On the other side of the river, just beyond
the bridge, is the villa erected by Garrick. In
the little summer-house, or " Temple," which
has a pleasing appearance, viewed from the
stream, he placed an admired statue of Shak-
speare, the great bard, in the light of whose
glory his own memory will shine to the latest
times. The statue has been since removed to
the British Museum. A little further on is
the village of Hampton, with its lock and weir,
on passing which, there is a succession of small
aits, beautiful isles of swans, until we reach
Sunbury, a favourite resort of anglers, but
offering nothing to delay the steps of the ram-
bler. Walton, on the Surrey shore, is more
remarkable. Its church contains several cu-
rious monuments, and also the grave of the
famous astrologer William Lilly, already men-
tioned in the course of our peregrinations.
Lilly resided for forty-five years in this pa-
rish. He first took a house at Hersham, a
hamlet to Walton, in the year 1636, where he
23-2 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
remained till his death, at a good old age, in
comfortable circumstances ; consulted by peo-
ple of all classes, upon the secrets of futurity,
and even by the assembled Commons of Eng-
land upon the same subject. This singular man
has left us a record of his own life, which is
one of the most amusing compositions in the
English language. He was born in the year
1602, at Dise worth, in the county of Leicester,
in which parish his father and his progenitors
had long been farmers. Of his infancy, Lilly
remembered little ; " only," said he, " I do re-
member that in the fourth year of my age I
had the measles." His mother always intended
that he should be a scholar, in the hope that he
might some day restore the fortunes of the fa-
mily, which were not the most flourishing. He
studied Latin and Greek at a village school
until his fourteenth year, but made small pro-
gress. This year, and Lilly very gravely chro-
nicles it, he had his eye nearly beaten out by
one of his school-mates; " a fellow of a swarth
black complexion. 1 ' The year after, as he no
less pompously informs us, he "ate too many
beech-nuts, and thereby got a surfeit, and after-
wards a fever." In his sixteenth year, he be-
gan to be sorely troubled in his dreams con-
cerning his salvation and damnation ; and in
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 233
the nights he frequently wept, prayed, and
mourned. Next year his mother died. She
seems to have been the guardian spirit of the
family, for after her death, everything went
wrong, and his father became so poor that he
could not pay for his schooling. The youth,
therefore, came home, where he lived in great
penury for a twelvemonth, and then went out
for a few months as a teacher, " until God's
providence provided better for him." His fa-
ther considered him a great burden, and a
good-for-nothing fellow, because he could ' not
hold the plough ; and when Lilly determined
to try his fortune in London, he bade him
depart, right glad to get rid of him. He had a
fortune of twenty shillings, and some friends,
" to his great comfort," scraped up ten shillings
more, and with this he walked to London, and
hired himself to one Gilbert Wright, Master of
the Salter's Company, but a very ignorant man.
It was Lilly's duty to go before his master to
church, "to clean the shoes, sweep the street,
weed the garden, scrape the trenchers, and
fetch water in large buckets from the Thames."
It was here that he first imbibed those notions
of astrology which afterwards raised him to
such notoriety. His mistress, who was about
seventy years old, was very jealous of her hus-
234 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
band, who was only sixty, and often consulted
astrologers and cunning men, to know whether
he spent his time with other women, and whe-
ther she should survive him. Lilly having ac-
companied her, or been present on some of
these occasions, " there was begot in him," says
he, "a little desire to learn something that
way ;" but having no money to buy books, he
was obliged to lay aside these notions until a
more favourable opportunity. This jealous old
lady, who was so anxious for her husband's
death, died before him, as she deserved. Her
malady was a cancer in the breast, and Lilly
performed the most menial and unpleasant of-
fices about her, till at last the old woman became
very grateful, and advised him, when she was
dead, " to help himself to whatever he pleased
out of his master's goods." Lilly affirms, that
he never obeyed this dying injunction of his
mistress ! but that she gave him five pounds in
old gold, and sent him to a private trunk of
hers at a friend's house, where she had hidden
one hundred pounds. Lilly proceeded thither,
rejoicing in his handsome legacy, but found to
his great sorrow, that somebody had been at
the trunk before him, and left it quite empty.
Under his mistress's arm, however, he found a
treasure, which more than repaid him for all his
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 235
care and attention. " This," says he, " was a lit-
tle scarlet bag, containing several sigils, some of
Jupiter in Trine ; others, of the nature of Ve-
nus ; some of iron, and one of pure angel gold,
of the bigness of a thirty-three shilling piece of
King James's coin. In the circumference on
one side was engraven, ' Vincit Leo de tribu
Judas Tetragrammaton J< ;' and within the
middle there was an holy lamb. In the other
circumference there was Amraphel and three
>J's, and in the middle, 'Sanctus Petrus et
Omega.' " This was a charm which had been
obtained from the well-known Dr. Forman, so
notorious in the horrible affair of Sir Thomas
Overbury, to preserve her husband from some
demons, who were always tempting him to cut
his throat. The possession of it fixed the fate
of William Lilly. From that hour he became
an astrologer.
After the death of his mistress, he lived, he
says, very comfortably with his master, and
having little to do, spent much of his time in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, playing at bowls with
Wat the cobbler, Dick the blacksmith, and
such like companions. This was his life, un-
til February 1625, when his master married
again, and in consideration of the faithful ser-
vices of Lilly, settled upon him an annuity of
236 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
twenty pounds for life, and still retained him
in his service. Thus things went on prospe-
rously, until his master's death, two years after-
wards, when they went on still more pros-
perously than before. His new mistress, who
had been twice married to old men, was sick
of them, and resolved, as Lilly says, " to be
cozened no more." She therefore looked about
for a young one for the third, and fixed her
eyes upon our astrologer. She was of a brown
ruddy complexion, corpulent, of mean stature,
and no education, but a very provident person,
and of good condition. She had many suitors
for her money, but she wanted a young man to
love her, although " he had never a penny."
Lilly soon saw by her eyes what her intentions
were; he plucked up a bold spirit, proposed,
and was accepted. He lived, he says, very
lovingly and comfortably with her. After he
had been married five years, he set himself to
study astrology in good earnest, being incited
thereto by the praise which he heard lavished
upon Evans the fortune-teller ; who was so
learned, that " he could make an Almanack ! "
Lilly determined that he also would make an
almanack, and for this purpose visited and dis-
coursed with all the astrologers and conjurors
of London, picking up a technical phrase from
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 237
one, a scrap of knowledge from another, and a
piece of cant from a third. In the midst of
these pursuits his wife died, and he came into
uncontrolled possession of about a thousand
pounds ; a sum which he thought inexhausti-
ble. He had now plenty of money to buy
astrological books, and studied so hard, that in
the course of two years he was quite a profi-
cient, and taught the science to others not so
well informed as himself. He did not long re-
main faithful to the memory of his first wife,
but in the second year of his widowhood
married another, " who brought him five
hundred pounds, and was of the nature of
Mars," as he says in his astrological language ;
meaning, it is to be supposed, that she was a
vixen and a termagant.
It was about this time that he first went to
reside near Walton, where he was considered a
very great man. He passed part of his time
here and part in London, for he did not like the
country as a constant residence ; " besides," as
he said, " there was money to be got in Lon-
don." He published at last, a sort of almanack,
the great object of his ambition, under the title
of " Merlinus Anglicus Junior." It appeared in
April 1644, and attracted some attention. In
the same year he published a treatise on " Su-
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
pernatural Sight ;" " The White King's Pro-
phecy ;" and " The Prophetical Merlin ;" and
next year "The Starry Messenger," and some
others. All these works contained ambiguous
prophecies and vague guesses; some of which
tallying pretty well with the truth, (after a
little stretching, which credulity is always
ready to allow,) raised his reputation very con-
siderably. He also made a good deal of money
by casting nativities ; and among others, cast
that of the unfortunate Earl of Strafford. He
had formerly, he says, been more of a cavalier
than a roundhead, and always did his utmost to
serve King Charles, by predicting for him the
best courses to pursue, and always speaking of
him in his prophecies with the utmost civility,
until he found out that the stars were against
him, when he, as in duty bound, followed their
example. He then became a roundhead, and in
great credit with the parliamentary army, for
which he predicted all manner of success and vic-
tory. When the head-quarters of Fairfax were
at Windsor, in 1647, Lilly was sent for, and
kindly welcomed by the general. He after-
wards, in company with Booker, a fellow as-
trologer, paid a visit to Hugh Peters, the cele-
brated chaplain of Cromwell, whom he found
sumptuously lodged in the castle, and busily en-
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 239
gaged in reading a new pamphlet that had just
come from London. Hugh Peters showed him
a passage, in which he was mentioned to the
following effect,-
" From the oracles of the Sibyls so silly,
And the cursed predictions of William Lilly,
Good Lord deliver us ! "
He had, he says, much conference with
Hugh Peters upon matters not to be divulged,
but which he hints were of state importance.
When Charles was detained at Hampton
Court, he sent one Madame Horewood to Lilly,
to consult him as to what part of England
he might most safely reside in. We have
only Lilly's authority for this assertion. He
consulted the stars, drew a figure, and discover-
ed that at some place in Essex, the name of
which the stars would not unfold, but which
was twenty miles from London, the King
might set his enemies at defiance, and remain
hidden as long as it pleased him. Madame
Horewood, being a woman of a sharp judg-
ment, remembered that there was a place in
Essex, with every convenience for his Ma-
jesty's reception. " But see the misfortune,"
quoth Lilly, " the King being guided by his
hard fate, went away westward," and the con-
240 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
sequence was, came to the scaffold. For his
prediction he got twenty pounds, which were
paid to him by Madame Horewood, out of a
thousand pounds that had been sent to the
King by Alderman Adams of London. He
afterwards, he says, furnished the King, by the
intermission of the same Madame Horewood,
with a saw and some aquafortis, by means of
which he sawed through the iron bars of his
chamber window in Carisbrook Castle, and
might have escaped from his enemies. But
the stars were against him as usual ; his heart
failed him, and he returned into captivity*
where there were no longer any bars to restrain
him. This story may be true, or it may not,
but the probability is, that it is false alto-
gether ; for a few pages further on in his Me-
moirs, Lilly informs us, that the King being
then in custody, took from his pocket the
almanack of one Captain Wharton, and re-
marked, that the Captain had predicted favour-
able weather. " Ay, but what saith his anta-
gonist, Mr. Lilly ? " said a bystander. " I do
not care for Lilly," said his Majesty; "he
hath been always against me, and is very bitter
in his expressions." The remark would not
have been made, if such intercourse as Lilly
pretends had ever taken place between them.
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 241
Lilly's predictions were like those of all his
fraternity ; framed in such a manner that, after
the event, a very little ingenuity could recon-
cile them. Thus he informs us, that he pre-
dicted the execution of Charles the First, in the
following words : " The lofty cedars begin to
divine that a thundering hurricane is at hand.
God elevates men contemptible." He conti-
nued his prophecies in this convenient ambi-
guity, and became of so great repute, that
at the siege of Colchester he was sent for to
encourage the drooping spirits of the soldiery,
by predicting a speedy victory to them. Some
of his predictions not being pleasant to the
Parliamentarians, he was summoned in 1651,
before a committee of the House, for averring
that the Parliament stood upon a tottering
foundation, and that the commonalty and sol-
diery would join together against them." He
got out of this scrape after thirteen days' im-
prisonment, by denying his almanack, as one
that had been interpolated by his enemies, and
by producing half-a-dozen copies, which he
had caused his printer to work off during the
night, and from which he had himself struck
out the objectionable passages !
In the year 1654 Lilly lost his second wife,
" for whose death he shed no tears." Seven
VOL. I. R
242 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
months afterwards he married a third time;
a woman with whom, he says, he had great
comfort, she being to him " like Jupiter in
Libra;" a phrase, we confess our inability to
understand. He was once or twice summoned
before the Middlesex justices sitting at Clerk-
enwell, by persons from whom he had taken
fees to aid in the recovery of stolen goods,
but on each occasion he came off with flying
colours.
Notwithstanding these little drawbacks to
his fame, he continued to be an important per-
sonage at Walton ; was made churchwarden
of the parish, and had such influence in the
town, as to be able to defeat any candidate
for a parochial office, against whom he set his
face.
After the restoration Lilly was examined by
the House of Commons, during the trial of
the regicides, as to his knowledge of the person
who had acted the part of executioner on the
King. The evidence he gave was to the effect,
that on the Sunday after that event, one Spavin,
secretary to Cromwell, came and dined with
him at Walton, along with some other persons,
and that the conversation turned upon the
King's behaviour on the scaffold, and who it
was that beheaded him. One said it was the
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 243
common hangman ; another, that it was Hugh
Peters ; and others again mentioned several
names. After dinner Spavin took Lilly by the
hand, and leading him to the window away
from the rest, said that they were all wrong ;
that Colonel Joice was the man who did it ; that
he (Spavin) was in the room where he fitted him-
self for the work, stood behind him when he
did it, and when done, went in again with him,
and that no man knew of the circumstances,
but Cromwell, Ireton, and himself. Lilly,
after giving this evidence, was detained some
days in the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms,
and then discharged. He was afterwards in
disgrace with the House, and was again im-
prisoned, but he sued out his pardon for all
offences, in the year 1660, representing himself
as a citizen and Salter of London. His pardon
was granted, and cost him, he says, thirteen
pounds six shillings and eight-pence.
His greatest triumph was now at hand. Af-
ter the great fire of London, he was summoned
before the house to give evidence, for having in
his " Monarchy or no Monarchy," a work pub-
lished some time previously, given a drawing
representing a large city in flames. The com-
mittee treated him with great civility ; asked
him if he could only predict the fire, and not
R 2
244 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
the causes of it ; whether he had foreseen the
year in which it was to take place, or known
only that such a fire would happen some time
or other ? He replied, that he made no scru-
tiny of the minor particulars, but only disco-
vered by his art, that London would be visit-
ed by a dreadful pestilence, and shortly after-
wards by a destroying fire. Upon this he
was dismissed, a greater man than ever he
was before, and almost bursting with his own
importance.
About this time he devoted much of his
attention to fairies and spirits, with whom, like
Dr. Dee, he imagined he could hold converse,
and by their means discover the future. He
usually looked for the spirits in crystals, and
spoke highly of the efficacy of an invocation
which he had learned from one Ellen Evans,
the daughter of his old tutor Evans ; the man
who was famous for the bump he received in
Battersea Causeway, in falling from the clouds.
The invocation was in the following words, the
conjuror all the while looking intently at the
crystal : " O Micol ! O tu Micol ! regina pig-
meorum veni ! " A friend of his, he says, went
into the Hurst-wood behind his house at Wal-
ton, and using this invocation, was gratified by
the appearance of a fairy. There was at first a
LILLY THE ASTROLOGER. 245
gentle murmuring wind, and after that, among
the hedges, a smart whirlwind, and by and by a
very strong blast of wind, which blew upon
the face of his friend, and then the queen of
the fairies appeared " in her most illustrious
glory." His friend was unable to endure the
sight of her effulgence, and prayed the fairy to
depart, lest he should be blinded. She was
very obliging, and departed immediately.
Lilly finally quitted London after the great
fire, to pass the remainder of his days at Wal-
ton, where he had become a landed proprietor.
He then added the practice of medicine to his
other pursuits, and met, as Elias Ashmole in-
forms us, with very good success. He rode to
Kingston every Saturday to attend the poor,
who came flocking to him from all parts. He
demanded no fee from them ; but from those
that were able, he occasionally received a shil-
ling or a half-crown, if it was offered. The
rich he would not attend unless he were ex-
ceedingly well paid for it. He died at Wal-
ton, in 1681, in the seventy-ninth year of his
age, and was buried in the chancel of the
church. A black marble tablet, still existing,
was shortly afterwards erected to his memory,
by Elias Ashmole, with the following inscrip-
tion.
246 LILLY THE ASTROLOGER.
Ne oblivione conteretur Urna
GULIELMI LILLII,
Astrologi peritissimi,
qui fatis cessit
Quinto Idus Junii Anno Christ! Juliano
MDCLXXXI.
Hoc illui posuit amoris monumentum
ELIAS ASHMOLE
Armiger.
Two elegies on his death one in Latin, the
other in English, were composed at the time,
by one George Smallridge, a Westminster scho-
lar, and are usually printed with Lilly's auto-
biography. " Now," said the poet,
" swords may safely come
From France or Rome fanatic plots at home.
Now an unseen and unexpected hand
By guidance of ill stars may hurt our land.
Unsafe alas ! because there 's none to show
How England may avert the fatal blow !"
Poor England, however, got on very well
without the astrologer ; it was of no use to
grieve for him ; so she dried her eyes and con-
soled herself for her quack, as King Henry in
the ballad, did for his hero.
Now God be with him, I do pray,
Since 'twill no better be,
I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred good as he I
SCENE IN WALTON CHURCH. 24?
It would have been strange, indeed, if in an
age of quacks, the loss of one should have
been so severely felt.
Among other monuments in Walton church,
is one executed by Roubiliac, and erected by
Grace, Countess of Middlesex, to the memory
of her father, the Lord Viscount Shannon,
commander of the forces in Ireland, who died
in 1740. In Walton church-yard occurred
that strange scene mentioned by Walker, in
his History of the Independents, and quoted
by Hume, in the notes to his History of the
Reign of Charles the First. It was during this
period that England ran riot ; and when " the
unco-guid and the rigidly righteous," bade fair
to overthrow religion altogether in the land, by
their stiff ungainly zeal, and their fleshless,
spiritless, and uncharitable fanaticism. A few
Sundays after the execution of Charles the
First, Mr. Faucett, the rector of Walton, was
preaching his evening sermon to his parishion-
ers, when a party of six soldiers suddenly en-
tered the church, one of them carrying a lan-
tern with a lighted candle in it, and four other
candles in his hand not lighted. This fellow
desired the preacher to come down immedi-
ately, and allow him to ascend the pulpit, for
he had a message direct from Almighty God,
248 A PURITAN'S SERMON.
to deliver to them. The preacher, however,
dangerous as it was in those days to thwart the
soldiery, refused to leave the pulpit, and the
major part of his congregation taking his part,
insisted that the soldiers should go out and not
disturb the service. After a long altercation,
the soldiers were induced to comply, and re-
tired into the church-yard, followed by a num-
ber of persons, curious to see the end of the
adventure. The man with the candles then
mounted upon one of the tomb-stones, the
other soldiers standing round him, and then
began one of those extraordinary discourses so
common at that day.
" Brethren," said the soldier, " I have had a
vision ! I have received a command from God,
which I must deliver to you upon pain of
eternal damnation to myself if I refuse to
speak, and eternal damnation to you, if you
refuse to hear. The command of God consists
of five lights ; the types of which you may
now behold, and which are as follow. The
Sabbath, says the Lord God, is abolished and
quite done away, as unnecessary, Jewish, and
merely ceremonial ; and here," continued the
soldier, " I ought to put out my first light, but
the wind is so high, that I cannot kindle it;
and not being able to kindle it, I cannot put it
A PURITAN'S SERMON. 249
out ! Secondly, the Lord God commands that
tithes be no longer paid, for they are a great
burden to the saints of God ; a discouragement
of industry and tillage, and altogether Jewish
and unnecessary ! And now, if I could kindle
it, I ought to put out the second light ! Third-
ly, the Lord God commands that all ministers
be abolished ; they are anti-christian, and no
longer of use, for Christ himself has descended
into the hearts of his saints, and his Spirit en-
lightens them with revelations and inspirations,
so that they have no need for preaching. And
here, if I did my duty properly, I ought to put
out the third light, but for the reason I have
already given you, it is impossible to do so!
Fourthly, the Lord God commands, that there
be no longer any magistrates in this land; they
are useless and good for nothing. Christ him-
self is amongst us, and has erected the kingdom
of his saints upon earth. Besides, these magis-
trates are all tyrants, and oppressors of the li-
berty of the saints, and tie them to laws and
ordinances which are a great evil and incon-
venience, and mere human invention. And
here you will be pleased to imagine that I put
out my fourth light ! "
The soldier then put his hand into his
pocket, and pulling out a little Bible, showed
250 A PURITAN'S SERMON.
it to the other soldiers and the people, saying,
" Here is a book which you hold in great vene-
ration, consisting of two parts, the Old and
New Testaments. I tell you, that it is the
command of the Lord God that this also
be abolished. It containeth nothing but the
mere beggarly rudiments only milk for babes.
Christ himself is in glory amongst us, and
imparts a further measure of his spirit to his
saints, than anything such a book as this can
afford. I am commanded to burn it before
your face!" The soldier then took the lan-
tern, and holding it up to the people, opened
it, and blew it out with a great puff, ex-
claiming, " And now my fifth light is extin-
guished!" He then took his departure with
his fellows.
The town of Walton (which we should not
omit to mention was the birth-place of Ad-
miral Rodney,) is celebrated for the remains of
a Roman encampment, covering about twelve
acres of land. There is a tradition, that the
Thames, which now runs to the north of the
town, formerly ran southward of it, in conse-
quence of the river making a new channel for
itself after a great inundation. The tradition,
however, rests upon no good authority.
OATLANDS. 251
Passing Walton Bridge we arrive at the
fine estate of Oatlands, now the residence of
Lord Francis Egerton, and formerly of the
Duke of York, for whom it was purchased of
the Duke of Newcastle. It was once a royal
domain, having been procured by Henry the
Eighth from the family of Rede, in exchange
for the Manor of Tanridge. Queen Elizabeth
frequently resided here ; and Charles the First
settled it on his Queen Henrietta Maria, whose
son, called Henry of Oatlands, was born here.
Charles the Second let the place on lease to the
Earl of St. Albans, and the lease expiring in
the reign of William the Third, that Prince
granted the fee simple to the Earl of Torring-
ton ; from whom, by bequest and alliance, it
came into the family of the Duke of New-
castle. The present building is of modern
date. The grotto, the finest in England, was
erected by the Duke of Newcastle, at a great
expense.
On the opposite side of the river are the
celebrated Coway-stakes, which, until of late
years, have been generally considered to mark
the spot where the Romans crossed the river,
under the command of Julius Caesar, to invade
the kingdom of Cassibelaunus. The Britons,
252 COWAY-STAKES.
drawn up on the Middlesex shore, drove stakes
into the bed of the river, and otherwise fenced
the bank to prevent the Romans from landing.
Bede, who wrote in the eighth century, says,
" the stakes at that time remaining, were as big
as a man's thigh." They are still visible occa-
sionally, as we were informed, on making in-
quiry at the spot; but we were not able to
obtain a sight of them. Mr. Speaker Onslow,
who resided in the neighbourhood, caused a
small portion to be cut from them, which he
converted into knife-handles, and preserved as
relics.
Many people are of opinion, that Chertsey, a
little higher up, was the place where the Ro-
mans crossed the river ; and others have brought
forward arguments to prove that it was at
Kingston. Truth, they say, often lies in the
juste milieu ; and in this instance at least, the juste
milieu has all antiquity and tradition, to say
nothing of the learned Camden, himself a host,
in its favour. The remains of the Roman en-
campment at Walton serve to support the
opinion that Coway-stakes was the place, and it
may be added as a corroboration, that in the
year 1725, some curious Roman wedges were
found at Oatlands, about twenty feet below the
SHEPPERTON. 253
surface, and under several substrata of yellow
and white sand.
Shepperton, a short distance beyond Coway-
stakes, is a pretty village, which has been long
famous as the resort of anglers from London.
In the parsonage-house close by the river's
brink, Erasmus once resided, before he remov-
ed to Chelsea to the house of his great friend,
Sir Thomas More. The then incumbent was
William Grocyn.
And now we have arrived at Chertsey, the
ancient and the poetical ; and before us are
Cooper's Hill, famed in song Runnymead in
history, and Windsor in both. For a ramble
amid scenes like these, we must renew our
acquaintance with Chaucer, Surrey, Cowley,
Denham, Pope, and scores of other poets, be-
sides revelling a whole evening with immor-
tal Shakspeare and his " Merry Wives." Having
done this, we may with fresh vigour tread this
classic soil, and start at every step some plea-
sant memory of the days gone past, and of the
choice spirits that have hallowed them ever-
more.
For wheresoe'er we turn our ravished eyes
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass us around,
And still we seem to walk on holy ground;
CHERTSEY.
For here the Muse so oft the harp has strung,
That not a hillock rears its head unsung;
Renowned in verse, each shady thicket grows,
And every stream in heavenly numbers flows.
255
CHAPTER X.
Poets of the Thames. Burial Place of Henry the Sixth at
Chertsey Abbey. Retirement of Cowley. A walk on
Cooper's Hill. Sir John Denham Runnymead and
Magna Charta Island. London Stone. Jurisdiction of
the Lord Mayor upon the Thames. The River Colne.
Reminiscences of Milton.
close of our last ramble left
us at Chertsey, our mind teem-
ing with reminiscences of Cow-
ley, of Denham, of Pope, of
Gray, of Surrey, and of Shaks-
peare, and of other poets, who
have made the banks of the Thames from this
place to Windsor, classic and holy ground ;
Chertsey, therefore, claims our first notice. It
is a place of considerable antiquity. Its once
famous Abbey for Benedictine monks, was
founded so early as the year 666, and flourished
till 1538, when it was dissolved by Henry the
Eighth. The abbots were persons of very
great importance in this part of the country ;
and though ranking below the bishops, they
256 BURIAL OF HENRY VI.
enjoyed privileges and wielded powers which
fell to the lot of very few of those dignitaries.
In the time of Bede, it is supposed that Chert-
sey and its abbey were surrounded by water,
from that venerable author's naming it Ceroti
Insula. The abbey had great possessions on the
Surrey shore of the Thames, and the- abbot
lived like a feudal chief. Within its cloisters
Henry the Sixth,
Poor key-cold figure of a holy king,
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster I
was buried without any funeral pomp. The
body was taken from the Tower, on the morn-
ing after his death, and carried through the
streets to Corn hill, accompanied by a troop of
soldiers, such as usually attended great crimi-
nals to the place of execution. It was the po-
pular belief at the time, and for many years
after, that the royal corpse bled afresh at St.
Paul's and Blackfriars, where the procession
stopped ; a tradition which Shakspeare has put
into the mouth of the Lady Anne, where she
exclaims, in the exasperation of her grief at the
presence of his murderer,
" See, see ! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh !
Blush I blush I thou lump of foul deformity !
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins ! "
DISAPPOINTMENTS OF COWLEY. 257
Stowe says, that at Blackfriars the body,
bare-faced in an open coffin, was put on board
a boat and rowed up the river to Chertsey
Abbey ; and Grafton, that it was buried there,
" without priest or clerk, torch or taper, singing
or saying." It was afterwards removed to
Windsor ; some say by Richard the Third, and
others, by Henry the Seventh, and re-interred
with royal pomp in a new vault in the chancel
at the south door of the chapel.
It was to Chertsey that the poet Cowley
retired in a fit of disgust at the unmerited
neglect of royalty. Hope deferred had made
his heart sick ; he had taken a physician's de-
gree, and fully qualified himself for the office of
master of the Hospital of the Savoy, which had
been promised him both by Charles the First
and Charles the Second, but his claims were
passed over at the Restoration. In a querulous
poem written at this time, he says,
" Kings have long hands, they say, and though I be
So distant, that may reach at length to me ! "
Broad as was the hint, the Court took no no-
tice of him. To add to his vexation, his old and
favourite comedy of "The Guardian," which
he had re-modelled, under the title of " Cutter
of Coleman-street," and produced upon the
VOL. i. s
258 DISAPPOINTMENTS OF COWLEY.
stage, was treated with great severity, and al-
leged by his enemies to be a satire upon that
Court, from which he still expected favours.
He was taunted at the same time in some sati-
rical verses, on the choice of a Laureate as the
" Savoy-missing Cowley, making apologies for
his bad play ;" and as the author, and still
worse, the printer of those pitiful verses, in-
scribed to " His Melancholy." The desire of
solitude came strongly upon him ; he pretend-
ed that he was weary of the " hum of men,"
satiated with the vile arts of courtly life, and
anxious to inhale the fresh breezes of the fields
and to live a life of study and seclusion, among
hills and woods, and pleasant streams. He
therefore withdrew from London ; first to
Barnes Elms, where he caught a violent cold
that never left him ; and then to Chertsey.
But " O fallacem hominem spem !" he carried
with him into his retirement the discontent
which is the bane of society, and in a still greater
degree that of seclusion; he forgot that happi-
ness was in the mind, and not in circumstances;
and the consequence was, that he was more
miserable than before. He had changed all the
habits of his previous life, and was too old to
acquire new ones ; he had left his former
friends, and was too morose and unaccommo-
DEATH OF COWLEY. 259
dating, too ill at ease within himself, to take
the trouble of attracting others, and he pined
away daily. In a letter to Dr. Sprat, quoted
by Dr. Johnson, as a warning to all those who
may pant for solitude, while led away by florid
and poetical descriptions of its charms, he says,
that the first night he settled in Chertsey, he
caught a violent cold that confined him to his
chamber for ten days, and that he afterwards
bruised his ribs by a fall in his fields, which
rendered it difficult for him to turn in his bed.
He could get no money from his tenants, and
his meadows were eaten up every night by cat-
tle turned in to prey upon him by his neigh-
bours. After a discontented residence of two
years, during which, however, he composed his
two last "Books of Plants," and planned se-
veral other works, he died of a violent defluc-
tion and stoppage in the throat, which he
caught by staying too long in the evening
among his haymakers in the meadows. Charles
the Second, true to the character so well and
wittily bestowed upon him, of " never doing
a wise thing, nor ever saying a foolish one,"
neglected Cowley, and broke his repeated pro-
mises to him during his life, but said, on the
news of his death reaching him, ' that Mr.
Cowley had not left a better man behind him
s 2
260
COWLEY'S HOUSE.
in England." And this was the poet's reward
not worth having, even had it not been
posthumous !
The house where Cowley died still exists.
It is called the Porch House, from its former
projecting entrance. The late Alderman Clark
of London, long inhabited the place, and took
great care to preserve it. The porch was taken
away by his direction, but the following in-
scription, now placed over the door, explains
the cause of the alteration. " The porch of this
house, which projected ten feet into the high-
way, was taken down in the year 1786, for the
safety and accommodation of the public." Im-
mediately underneath is the quotation from
Pope :
" Here, the last accents flowed from Cowley's tongue."
COOPER'S HILL. 261
Among the famous residents of the neigh-
bourhood of Chertsey, two especially deserve
remembrance. Charles James Fox, who inha-
bited a house on St. Anne's Hill, where his
widow still resides ; and Thomas Day, the au-
thor of " Sandford and Merton," who dwelt in
Anningsley, and whose eccentricities are still
spoken of by the neighbouring people. There
is a handsome stone bridge over the Thames at
Chertsey, which was built in 1785, by the coun-
ties of Surrey and Middlesex, at an expense of
13,000/. Laleham, on the other side of the
river, offers few attractions to draw us from
our course, compared to those which the Sur-
rey shore affords us. It contains a pretty villa,
belonging to the Earl of Lucan, which was in-
habited by Donna Maria, Queen of Portugal,
during her stay in this country. It is also a
favourite resort of anglers.
Proceeding up the left bank of the Thames
towards Egham, we arrive at Cooper's Hill.
" Where Denham, tuneful bard,
Charmed once the listening dryads with his song
Sublimely sweet :
or, as Pope says in verse, much more pleasing
than Somerville's,
262 COOPER'S HILL.
" The sequestered scenes,
The bowery mazes and surrounding greens,
On Thames's banks while fragrant breezes fill,
And where the Muses sport on Cooper's Hill.
On Cooper's Hill, eternal wreaths shall grow,
While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow !
Here his first lays majestic Denham sung."
Cooper's Hill is known, by name at least,
to all the lovers of English poetry. The father
of Sir John Denham, the author of the poem
of " Cooper's Hill," resided in dignity in the
parish of Egham, and the poet, though in youth
a rake, settled as he grew older into as respect-
able a man as his father. He was made sheriff
of Surrey in 1642, and afterwards governor of
Farnham Castle for the Royalists. A faithful
servant of the house of Stuart, he retired with
the royal family into France after the execution
of Charles I, and, at the Restoration, more for-
tunate than Cowley his brother bard, obtained
honours with profits attached to them, as a
reward for his fidelity.
Denham's "Cooper's Hill" was written at
Oxford in 1643, whither he had retired after he
resigned the onerous governorship of Farnham
Castle. Its success was very great, and detrac-
tion and envy spread abroad a report, to injure
the author, that he had not written it himself,
but had bought it of a poor curate for forty
COOPER'S HILL. 263
pounds. He outlived that rumour by many
years, disproving it moreover by his other writ-
ings, and chiefly by his Elegy on the Death
of Cow ley.
Until Pope took up the pen, no poem, pro-
duced in England, excited so much admiration
as " Cooper's Hill ;" even the critics who ma-
ligned the man, lauded the work as the hap-
piest effort of the national muse. And even
now, when Cowley, once thought a superior
poet, has sunk into almost universal neglect,
Denham still holds his place in the popular
estimation, and his verse is so well-known
as to have become hackneyed and quoted,
parrot-like, by rote, by thousands, who have
often heard his verses but never read them.
There needs no other proof of his merit; and
now, as we ascend the hill, and take our seat
upon the spot where it is supposed that the
poet stood when he imagined those lines upon
the Thames, the most beautiful eulogium, per-
haps, ever bestowed upon the river, the reader
will pardon us for quoting them. They may
be familiar to most, but they will bear repe-
tition ; and in these rambles of ours, which
profess to record not only the natural beauties
of the Thames, but the fine things which have
been said of it, their omission would be unpar-
264 COOPER'S HILL
donable. It is a pleasant task at any time to
take one's stand in a place described by a poet,
and, looking around on the landscape, to exa-
mine whether his description be as true as
it is poetical.
My eye descending from this hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays ;
Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons
By his old sire, to his embraces runs,
Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity.
Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold ;
His genuine and less guilty wealth t'xplore,
Search not his bottom but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing Spring ;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers who their infants overlay:
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil
The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil :
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows ;
First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,
But free and common as the sea or wind ;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers
Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours ;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants ;
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
RUNNYMEAD. 265
If all this were true in the time of Denham,
how much more applicable is it now, when for
one ship, or " flying tower," which then sailed
upon his waters, we have a hundred, and when
the new power of steam ploughs his waters
with her thousand busy wheels, and increases
fifty fold the wealth and the traffic which he
has so well described.
Descending Cooper's Hill we continue our
course towards Egham, in whose church a mo-
nument is erected to the memory of the poet's
father. The elder Sir John Denham was one
of the Barons of the Exchequer during the
reigns of James I. and Charles I, and is buried
here with his two wives. Among other monu-
ments deserving of a visit is one to the memory
of John de Rutherwick, abbot of Chertsey,
which is, however, more remarkable for its an-
tiquity than for any claims which its clay-cold
tenant ever possessed upon the attention of pos-
terity. Northward from this village, and on
the banks of the Thames, is Runnymead: a
place renowned in the annals of England,
where the Barons, " clad in complete steel,"
assembled to confer with King John upon the
Great Charter of English freedom, by which,
as Hume says, " very important liberties and
privileges were either granted or secured to
266 MAGNA CHARTA ISLAND.
every order of men in the kingdom ; to the
clergy, to the barons, and to the people." King
John lay with his small force in the little island
in the Thames, nearly opposite, and now called
Magna Charta Island, on which spot this fa-
mous charter was actually signed and sealed.
In the middle of the last century it was in-
tended to erect a triumphal column upon Run-
nymead, in celebration of this event ; and
Akenside, the author of " the Pleasures of the
Imagination," wrote the following inscription
to be sculptured on its base :
Thou who the verdant plain dost traverse here,
While Thames among his willows from thy view
Retires, O stranger ! stay thee, and the scene
Around contemplate well. This is the place
Where England's ancient barons, clad in arms
And stern with conquest, from their tyrant king
(Then rendered tame) did challenge and secure
The charter of thy freedom. Pass not on
Till thou hast blessed their memory, and paid
Those thanks which God appointed the reward
Of public virtue. And if chance thy home
Salute thee with a father's honoured name,
Go call thy sons; instruct them what a debt
They owe their ancestors, and make them swear
To pay it, by transmitting down entire
Those sacred rights to which themselves were born.
Egham races are annually held here in the
beginning of September, and are thought by
LONDON STONE. 267
many to have originally given name to this fa-
mous meadow. The name of Runny, or Run-
ning-mead, may or may not have been applied
to it as a race-course. Horse-racing was prac-
tised to some extent in England prior to the
reign of King John, as we learn from Fitz-
stephen's account of London in the time of
Henry II, that Smithfield was a great market
for fine horses, and that races not unfrequently
took place in London.
Returning towards Egham we cross the
Bridge connecting it with the populous town
of Staines in Middlesex. The name is gene-
rally allowed to be derived from the Saxon
staine or stone; but whether from the stone
which marks the jurisdiction of the Lord
Mayor of London upon the Thames, or from
the old Roman milliariurn which is plausibly
conjectured to have stood near the same spot,
is still a matter of dispute. Traces of a Roman
road passing through Staines have been dis-
covered. The London stone is still remaining
and is a remarkable piece of antiquity. It
stands northward of the bridge, near the junc-
tion of the little river Colne, and bears on a
moulding round the upper part the inscrip-
tion "GOD PRESERVE THE CITY OF LONDON,
A.D. 1280."
268 THE LORD MAYOR'S JURISDICTION.
Before the time of Richard I. the jurisdiction
of the magistracy of London over the Thames
was supposed to extend westward as far as the
river bore that name, but by a charter granted
in the eighth year of that monarch's reign, it
was attempted to define the limits with more
accuracy. Although Staines was not mention-
ed either in this charter, or in that of King
John, it was generally considered as the ex-
treme western limit of the Lord Mayor's juris-
diction. Several attempts were made to ex-
tend it towards Oxford, but the corporation
met with so much opposition, that they at last
relinquished the claim, and were content to
allow custom to stand instead of law.
By these and successive charters, the Lord
Mayor is empowered to act as conservator of the
river, to remove all obstructions to the navi-
gation, to prevent encroachments by wharfs or
buildings, to preserve the fishery, to seize un-
lawful nets, and to punish fishermen who
offend against any of the ordinances of the
city of London. The Lord Mayor annually
holds eight courts of Conservancy within the
counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and
Kent, in which, assisted by a jury, he punishes
offenders. The office of juror at these courts is
one greatly coveted by a certain description of
THE RIVER COLNE. 269
tradespeople, who love to feast at the public
expense, for they are hospitably regaled of the
best meats and wines by the Lord Mayor, and
some old stagers have been known to serve the
office four times a-year for forty years suc-
cessively.
The river Colne, which here flows into the
Thames, having passed through Watford, Hare-
field, Uxbridge, and Colnbrook, though a river
of small pretensions to beauty, is sacred to all
the admirers of genius. Upon its banks the
young Milton, ere his eyes were dimmed, ere
the total eclipse, which in his Samson Ago-
nistes he so beautifully deplores, had shut him
out from all hope of day, wandered alone to
dream, perchance, of those sublime works
which have made him the wonder and the
boast of England. After he left the university
he resided for five years with his father at
Horton, a little village about a mile from Coin-
brook. During this time he studied the Greek
and Roman writers with much assiduity,
snatching some sweet and stolen hours for the
cultivation of poetry. One of his first compo-
sitions, after settling at Horton, was the fine
sonnet written " on his being arrived to the
age of twenty-three," in which the ambition,
the presage of future greatness, and the sorrow
270 MILTON AT HAREFIELD.
that at that age he had as yet done nothing
worthy, are so feelingly and modestly express-
ed. Here, also, on the banks of Colne, he
wrote " II Penseroso," and " L' Allegro," poems
which Dr. Johnson truly says, " every man
reads with pleasure." And here also he wrote
" Lycidas," " The Masque of Comus," and the
" Arcades." He used to steal from severer
studies at Horton to visit the Countess Dowa-
ger of Derby at Harefield, about seven miles
further up the stream, to share the agreeable
conversation of that lady, and delight her with
some of the earliest blossoms of his poetic ge-
nius. It was for an entertainment at her house
that he wrote the Arcades ; the personages of
which were performed by some members of her
family, who appeared on the stage in pastoral
habits, representing shepherds, wood nymphs,
and genii of the groves. The Countess sat in
a chair of state as the rural queen, and the
shepherds celebrated her beauty,
Sitting like a goddess bright
In the centre of her light.
The rest of the Masque was written by an-
other hand, and, probably, is now lost. Next
year, in 1634, Milton, who still resided at Hor-
ton, flattered by the praises bestowed upon his
MILTON AT HAREFIELD. 271
fragment of Arcades, wrote the complete and
more beautiful Masque of Comus for an enter-
tainment at JLudlow Castle; the personages
being represented by the children of the Earl
of Bridgewater. Milton wrote it at the re-
quest of his friend, Henry Lawes, whom he
celebrates in one of his sonnets as the " first
who taught our English music how to span
words with just note and accent, and who
with smooth air could humour best our tongue."
Lawes was teacher of music in the family of
the Earl, and related to Milton an accident
which had befallen the Lady Alice, the Earl's
daughter, and requested him to write upon it.
The young lady passing Haywood Forest in
Herefordshire, with her brother, Lord Brack-
ley, and Mr. Egerton, missed her way in its
depths and was for a while lost, and upon this
incident the mask is founded. It does not ap-
pear that Milton left Horton to be present at
the representation ; but if he did, his biogra-
phers have neglected to inform us of the cir-
cumstance. He finally left this seclusion, being
weary of the country, in the year 1636 or
1637, and soon afterwards set out upon his
continental travels.
Not only the Colne but its tributary brooks
are sacred to the memory of Milton. In the
272 MILTON AT CHALFONT.
little village of Chalfont St. Giles washed by
the clear Misbourne that runs into the Colne,
near Uxbridge, the bard took refuge in the
year of the great plague of London. There is
a tradition that here he composed a part of his
Paradise Lost; but, if we may believe Johnson,
that grand poem was completed long before he
left London, and anything that may have been
done at Chalfont was only some slight correc-
tion. Elwood, the Quaker, who took the
house for him, relates that Milton showed him
there, for the first time, a complete copy of
the Paradise Lost. Elwood having perused it,
observed, " Thou hast said a great deal upon
Paradise lost: what hast thou to say upon
Paradise found ?" Two years afterwards Mil-
ton showed his friend his Paradise Regained.
" This,'' said he, " is owing to you, for you
put it into my head by the question you put
to me at Chalfont, which otherwise I had not
thought of."
Returning again to the Thames we find our-
selves within sight of Windsor, and feel all
its old associations rising rapidly upon us.
But they are too many to be compressed
within the limits of this chapter. They re-
quire a whole day's musing ; a morning
walk, a noon-tide meditation, and an even-
WINDSOR. 273
ing's dalliance with the old bards, or a no
less pleasant gossip with the quaint annalists
of the days of yore. This done, we shall re-
turn to Windsor.
VOL. I.
274
CHAPTER XI.
Approach to Windsor. The Ducking of Sir John Falstaff.
View from the Castle Terrace. William of Wykeham
and his Kidnappers. Royal Captives in the Castle.
The Loves of James of Scotland and the Lady Jane Beau-
fort. Imprisonment of the Earl of Surrey.
LD Windsor, which is the first
place on the Thames that
claims our notice after pass-
ing Egham and Staines, is of
comparatively small import-
ance. The rise of New Wind-
sor, two miles further up the stream, and more
immediately adjoining the castle, has thrown
it into the shade. Ever since the days of
Edward III, who first made the castle a resi-
dence fit for the Kings of England, it has
been neglected and forsaken, and its very
name so appropriated by its more flourishing
rival, that Windsor, without the adjective,
is universally held to mean the new town and
not the old.
DATCHET MEAD. 275
But Windsor, both new and old, must give
place in these rambles of ours to its magnifi-
cent castle, which, with its thousand recollec-
tions of the illustrious names of past ages,
claims all the thoughts and attention of the
curious traveller, as it rises proudly, as a mon-
arch should, over one of the fairest prospects
that eyes ever gazed upon.
Making the stream our pathway, we pass
under its superb walls, and by the green
meadows at its feet, not forgetting as we
are rowed along, that the little village to
our right is Datchet, famous wherever Shak-
speare is known as the scene where the
" Merry Wives" played their scurvy trick,
and inflicted the well-deserved punishment
upon the too fat, too amorous, too confid-
ing, and too villanous Sir John Falstaff,
thrown " hissing hot" into the cool surge from
the buck-basket, where he was coiled up amid
the dirty linen, " like a piece of butcher's offal
in a barrow." Then, stepping ashore at the
bridge that connects Windsor with Eton, we
ascend the hill upon which the castle is built,
and, taking a stroll upon the Terrace, indulge
our eyes with a long gaze upon the lovely
landscape that stretches out before us. It is
a summer's day the weather is fine the air
x2
276 VIEW FROM THE CASTLE TERRACE.
clear a cool west wind is blowing the trees
and flowers are redolent of perfume the
Thames flowing at our feet, shines in the sun-
light like a ribbon of gold upon a cloth of
green velvet, and every steeple upon which the
eye rests, every knoll, every cluster of trees
suggests some remembrance to the mind. Be-
neath is Eton,
With antique towers
That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade.
Further on is Slough, the residence of the
Herschells, father and son, the greatest as-
tronomers of modern times, and discoverers
of new worlds, as wonderful as our own.
Then there is the unpretending spire of Stoke
Pogis, in whose church-yard Gray lies buried,
and which is supposed to be the scene of that
beautiful Elegy, upon which his claims to our
admiration mainly rest no weak foundation
for his fame though he had written nothing
else. In the distance also may be seen Bea-
consfield, once the residence of Edmund Wal-
ler and Edmund Burke, names dear to the
literature of England, and where both of them
are buried. To the left, in the distance, is
Great Hampden, the birth and burial-place of
VIEW FROM THE CASTLE TERRACE. 277
the illustrious patriot of that name, a memento
to the monarchs of England, placed as if pur-
posely for ever within their sight, of the un-
constitutional encroachments which they should
avoid, and the free, proud, independent, spirit
of their subjects, which it is not only their
duty but their interest to foster, and not de-
spise. The piece of land, on which it was
attempted to levy the illegal ship-money, is
still shown. To the right of us lies Runny-
mead, still more renowned in the history of
British freedom ; beyond it, Cooper's Hill, sa-
cred to the memory of Denham, and around
it, Windsor Forest, of which Pope has so
sweetly sung, and where he passed his earliest
years. And among all rise villas and noble
mansions, thickly spread like stars on a frosty
night.
The view is universally admired, not only
for its associations, but for itself. The beau-
tiful diversity of hill and dale, of wood
and water, of meadow and grove, of town
and village, teeming with all the picturesque
land marks of civilization and with these only,
unobscured by the tall chimneys of gas-works,
and unspoiled in its pleasant ruralness by those
hugh square deformities, the manufactories,
with which civilization is compelled to sprinkle
278
WINDSOR CASTLE.
its path, renders it a scene of loveliness, unsur-
passed in England.
Turning reluctantly from the charms of na-
ture to those of art, we gaze upon the time-
honoured abode of a line of monarchs, and see,
perhaps, the standard of England, floating from
the round tower, to announce that the royal
lady who now wields the sceptre, is an in-
mate of its walls. The castle was built ori-
ginally by William the Conqueror, who pro-
cured the site from the Monks of Westminster,
to whom it was granted by the Saxon kings,
in exchange for some lands in Essex. The
Norman monarch celebrated his Christmas in
WINDSOR CASTLE. 279
his new fortress four years after the conquest
of England, and was much attached to the
spot on account of the fine hunting grounds,
which he laid out in the vicinity. Henry I.
made many additions to the building, and from
a mere hunting lodge, converted it into a pa-
lace. In the troublous time of King John,
that monarch was besieged in the castle by his
insurgent barons, and it was ceded to them by
treaty. John, however, when he found him-
self strong enough, surprised the castle again,
and made it the rallying point of his scattered
forces. During the long wars of Henry III.
and his barons, who were still more difficult
to manage than those of John, the castle was
taken and retaken several times. His son Ed-
ward succeeded at last in gaining possession,
and he kept it, till he himself ascended the
throne, when he often resided at Windsor,
where his Queen gave birth to four children.
But until the reign of Edward III, the palace
remained a comparatively small and insignifi-
cant edifice. This monarch, who was born in
it, commenced alterations and additions on a
very extensive scale, and entrusted the manage-
ment of the works to William of Wykeham, a
famous architect and ecclesiastic of that day.
He established the Order of the Garter, and
280 IMPRESSMENT OF WORKMEN.
built the magnificent hall of St. George as a
banquetting room for the Knights. He also
erected St. George's chapel, the keep, and seve-
ral additional towers, surrounding the whole
with a strong wall and rampart, encompassed
by a moat. The means by which he obtained
workmen were peculiar to that day, and would
find no favour with the artisans of our own
time, few of whom are aware how these things
were managed by our distant progenitors.
Masons and bricklayers were impressed in every
part of the country, with carts, horses, and
all necessary implements for the work. When
William of Wykeham, clerk of the works, was
in want of an additional hundred or so of men,
he informed the King, and his Majesty issued
his writs to the sheriffs of counties, command-
ing them under heavy penalties to catch the
requisite number, and forward them to Wind-
sor, to be duly delivered as per bill of lading,
like any other species of merchandise. In the
year 1360, nearly four hundred workmen were
impressed in this manner, to be employed at
the King's wages, which were considerably less
than they could have obtained elsewhere.
Many of them left their work clandestinely, to
the great hindrance of William of Wykeham.
Complaint having been made to the King, a
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CASTLE. 281
royal proclamation was issued, forbidding all
persons to employ the fugitives under a penalty
of a forfeiture of their goods and chattels, and
committal of the workmen to prison as rebels
against the King's authority. Many of these
conscripts having died of the plague in 1362,
new writs were issued to the sheriffs of six
counties, of which, three, York, Salop, and
Devon, were to provide sixty men each. The
total number required was three hundred and
two, who were all to be hewers of stone.
Next year, the architect was in want of gla-
ziers, and forthwith the press-gang captured
the necessary quantity. Painters and decora-
tors were in similar request, and continued to
be caught, like any other lawful prey, until
the castle was completed, somewhere about
the year 1374. Edward IV, Henry VII, and
Henry VIII. made some alterations and addi-
tions to. the castle, and Elizabeth raised the
fine north terrace, commanding that extensive
prospect over the Thames upon whose charms
we have already expatiated. She also added the
part known by the name of Queen Elizabeth's
Gallery. In the reign of Charles I. the castle,
garrisoned by the Parliamentary army, sustained
a siege from the royal forces, under the com-
mand of the king's nephew, Prince Rupert.
ROYAL CAPTIVES.
After the Restoration, every successive monarch,
until George III, carried into effect some ad-
dition or embellishment either in the exterior
or interior of this princely abode. George III.
out of his privy purse, restored St. George's
Chapel, and the north front of the upper ward;
and George IV. carried alterations into effect
by which the castle has become the magnifi-
cent structure that it now appears. The designs
of Mr. Wyatt, afterwards known as Sir Jef-
fery Wyattville, the new William of Wyke-
ham, were approved by the King, and adopted
by the legislature, which granted at different
times sums amounting to nearly 800,000 to
carry them into effect.
This slight sketch of the history of the mere
outer walls, must suffice; there are other his-
tories connected with this venerable pile which
claim the passing tribute of our attention.
And first of all, the royal captives who have
pined within it. In the reign of Edward III.
John, King of France, and David II. King of
Scotland, were imprisoned within its walls ;
but their captivity was not onerous: they were
allowed every indulgence and every luxury,
except the greatest of all, sweet liberty, being
permitted to hunt and hawk, and take what
other diversions might suit their humour.
JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. 283
In the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V, a
more illustrious prisoner was in thraldom within
it for no less a period than eighteen years,
James I. of Scotland, taken captive in his
eleventh year, and confined till his twenty-ninth,
who was not only an enlightened king, but an
amiable man, and a poet of the first order.
Amid the bards whom Scotia holds to fame,
She boasts, nor vainly boasts, her James's name.
And less, sweet bard, a crown thy glory shows,
Than the fair laurels that adorn thy brows I
His history, in connexion with Windsor
Castle, is touching and romantic. His old and
sorrow-stricken father, King Robert III. griev-
ing for the loss of one son, the Duke of Roth-
say, whose sad fate is so finely told by Sir Wal-
ter Scott in his "Fair Maid of Perth," and
dreading that his youngest darling, and only
surviving son, James, might share a similar fate,
thought it advisable to send him out of Scotland.
A governor being provided, the young prince
was sent to finish his education in France, but
the vessel in which the heir of Scotland was
embarked, had sailed no further than Flambo-
rough Head, when it was attacked by an English
cruiser, and all on board were taken prisoners.
Some say that the capture was made when the
284 JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND.
young prince and his suite landed to refresh
themselves at Flamborough, where they had
been driven by stress of weather. However this
may be, Henry IV, although a truce subsisted
at the time between the nations, resolved to
detain the royal child as a hostage for the future
good behaviour of his troublesome neighbour.
So overjoyed was that grim warrior at his good
fortune, that he relaxed so far, as to give utter-
ance to a pleasantry " His father was sending
him to learn French," quoth he; "by my troth,
he might as well have sent him to me ! I am
an excellent French scholar myself, and will see
to his instruction ;" and he kept his word. The
young prince was provided with the best mas-
ters, and made rapid progress in every polite
accomplishment; but his loss broke his father's
heart. It needed not that last calamity to em-
bitter the days of poor King Robert : he never
held up his head again, but pined away, and
died about a year afterwards.
But the captive himself, with the exception
of the loss of liberty, had nothing to complain
of. Every luxury was his, and every indul-
gence. He became well versed in all the lite-
rature of the age, and grew an excellent mu-
sician, a sweet poet, and expert in all the man-
ly accomplishments that befitted a prince. He
JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. 285
studied Chaucer, then recently deceased, and
made him his model, and produced poems,
little inferior to those of his master. In the
"Quair," or book, written shortly before his
return to Scotland, he informs us in elegant
rhymes, how he passed his time in capti-
vity, and how he fell in love with the beautiful
Lady Jane Beaufort, as she was walking with
her maid in the gardens of Windsor Castle.
And first of all, of his studies, and of his con-
solations in captivity. He studied, he says,
sometimes " until his eyne began to smart for
studying," but, until he fell in love, books were
his great delight, and especially one, " Boe-
tius on the consolations of Philosophy."
Whereas in ward full oft I did bewail
My deadly life, full of pain and penance,
Saying oft thus, ' What have I done to fail
Of freedom in this world and of plaisance ?'
The long dayis and the nightis eke
I would bewail my fortune in this wise,
For while against distress, comfort to seek,
My custom was on morning for to rise
Early as day, O happy exercise !
Me fell to mind of many divers thing
Of this and that, I cannot say wherefore,
But sleep, for craft, in earth might I no more,
So took a book to read upon a while.
286 JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND.
In rhymes still smoother and more elegant,
and in which we change nothing but the ortho-
graphy to make them a little more intelligible
to the general reader, he relates his state of
mind, when the beauteous Lady Jane first
shone upon his sight.
Bewailing in my chamber thus alone,
Despairing of all joy and remedie,
For, tired of my thought and woe-begone,
Then to the window gan I walk in hye, 1
To see the world and folk that went forbye,
As for the time, though I of mirthis food
Might have no more, to look it did me good.
Now was there made, fast by the touris wall,
A garden fair, and in the corner set
An arbour green with wandis long and small
Railed about, and so with trees ysett
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet,
That life 2 was none ywalking there forbye
That might within scarce any wight espy.
So thick the boughis and the leavis green
Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And middest every arbour might be seen
The sharp green sweetest juniper,
Growing so fair with branches here and there,
That as it seemed to a life 3 without,
The bowis spread the arbour all about.
And on the small green pleasant twistis 4 sat
The little sweete nightingale and sang,
So loud and clear the hymnis consecrate
1 In haste. 2 Any one, or person. 3 A person. 4 Twigs.
JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. 287
To love's own use, now soft, now loud among
That all the gardens and the wallis rang
Right of their song, and on the copill* next
Of their sweet harmony and lo ! the text
" Worship all ye, that lovers be, this May,
For of your bliss the kalends are begun,
And sing with us, ' Away, winter, away !
Come, summer, come ! the sweet season and sun !
Awake for shame, that have your heavenys won, 6
And amorously lift up your headis all,
Thank Love that list you to his mercy call.' "
When they this song had sung a little thraw,?
They stopped awhile, and therewith unafraid,
As I beheld and cast mine eyes below
From bough to bough they hopped and they played
And freshly in their birdly guise arrayed
Their feathers new and fret 8 them in the sun,
And thanked Love they had their matis won !
The royal poet, after pathetically lamenting
that he was doomed to be a captive while the
birds were free, continues :
And therewith cast I down my eyes again,
Whereas I saw, walking under the tower
Full secretly, new coming her to pleyne 9
The fairest, and the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw, methought, before that hour,
At which sudden abate, anon astart
The blood of all my body to my heart !
5 A word whose meaning is somewhat obscure, but sup-
posed to be some musical term. 6 That have won your
mates. 7 Time. 8 Decked. 9 To her prayers.
288 JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND.
* * * My wittis all
Were so o'ercome with pleasure and delight,
That suddenly my heart became her thrall
For ever of free will, for of menace 10
There was no semblance in her sweete face !
And in my head I drew right hastilie
And then eft soon I leaned it out again,
And saw her walk, that very womanlie,
With no wight more, but only women twaine,
Then 'gan I study in myself, and sayn,
" Ah, sweet ! are ye a worldly creature,
Or heavenly thing in likeness of our nature ?"
He then describes in eloquent, though partly
obsolete, language, her golden hair and rich at-
tire, adorned with fretwork of " perlis white,"
with many a diamond, emerald and sapphire
" And on her head a chaplet fresh of hue,
With plumis partly red and white and blue.
And above all
as well he wot
Beauty enough to make a world to doat !
This fair creature was the daughter of John
Earl of Somerset, and grand-daughter of John
of Gaunt ; and although we have no record of
their courtship, there is every reason to believe
that she looked with a favourable eye upon the
handsome and accomplished prince, then doubly
a captive. Their love was true, and the course
of it ran smoothly.
10 111 nature.
JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND. 289
In the year 1428, negotiations were com-
menced by Murdoch, Regent of Scotland, for
the liberation of the King, and Henry V.
agreed with but little difficulty. The sum of
40,000 was stipulated to be paid by Scotland,
not as ransom it was a disagreeable word but
as compensation for the maintenance and edu-
cation of the prince; and it was further agreed,
that he should marry some lady of the royal
blood of England, as a bond of peace and good-
will between the two countries.
The heart of James must have leaped for joy
within him at the latter proposal. He ac-
cepted it with eagerness, and named the Lady
Jane Beaufort as the object of his choice. The
lady on her part was quite as willing, and their
nuptials were celebrated with great pomp, first
at Windsor, and afterwards at London, the
bride receiving for her portion the sum of
10,000. She was a most faithful and attached
wife, and during the many cares, anxieties, and
troubles that beset the path of her royal part-
ner on his return into his own disturbed domi-
nions, was always the affectionate friend, the
kind adviser, and chief comfort of her lord.
His sad fate is well known. Her heroism and
devotion at that awful hour, when he was mur-
dered in her arms, is less so. When the assas-
VOL. i. u
290 JAMES I. OF SCOTLAND.
sins were clamouring at the entrance gate, a
young girl of the queen's attendants, the Lady
Katharine Douglas, put her slender arm through
the staple of the door to serve as a bolt, but
the frail impediment was snapped asunder like
a stick by the strong conspirators. James,
unarmed and defenceless, was let down into a
vault underneath by his heroic wife, but was
discovered and slain, pierced by eight-and-
twenty wounds. Nor did the queen escape
altogether. She was first stabbed by the dis-
appointed assassins, before they discovered the
king in the vault, and afterwards received two
wounds in interposing her body between her
lord and the bloody knife of his foes. Happily,
her wounds were not mortal. She lived long
enough to do justice upon the murderers, seve-
ral of whom were executed. The aged Earl
of Athol, one of the chief conspirators, was
crowned with a coronet of red hot iron, with the
inscription, " THIS is THE KING OF THE TRAITORS,"
and after suffering the most horrible tortures
for three days, was beheaded, and his quarters
sent to the chief cities of the kingdom.
Windsor Castle is also celebrated as the place
of durance of another, but less illustrious poet,
the Earl of Surrey, of whom we have already
discoursed at Hampton Court. What his of-
SURREY THE POET. 291
fence was is not known, but it appears to have
been trifling, as well as his punishment. Some
of his biographers say, that it was for no
crime more heinous than that of eating flesh
in Lent. It was here that he spent some of his
earlier years, roving through the green glades
of the forest with the young duke of Rich-
mond, son of Henry VIII. In a poem written
during his imprisonment, the Earl recals to
mind all the pleasures of his youth in Windsor
with the dear friend then dead, and remembers
to regret,
The large green courts where we were wont to rove
With eyes cast up unto the Maiden's Tower,
The palm-play where despoiled for the game
With dazzled eyes, oft we by gleams of love
Have missed the ball, and got sight of our dame
To bait her eyes, which kept the leads above.
The secret groves, which oft we made resound
Of pleasant plaint and of our ladies' praise ;
Recording oft what grace each one had found,
What hope of speed, what dread of long delays.
The wild forest, the clothed holts with green ;
With reins availed, and swiftly-breathed horse,
With cry of hounds and merry blasts between,
When we did chase the hart of fearful force.
All these delights of his youth came forcibly
to his mind as he pined a prisoner, and alone,
in the scenes associated with so much joy ;
but he strove at last, he says, to forget the
u2
292 WINDSOR CASTLE.
lesser sorrow of his captivity, by dwelling upon
the greater, the loss of his " noble fere," then
cold in the tomb. At Windsor also at a later
period, he dangled in the train of his celebrated
"Geraldine," writing smooth rhymes in her
praise; complaining of coldness, for which he
did not care; feigning raptures which he never
felt; and making, if the truth must be told,
somewhat of a fool of himself, and of the little
girl too. The story of his love, unlike that of
James Stuart for his beautiful Jane Beaufort,
has not the merit of truth and deep passion to
recommend it, however much it may have been
vaunted by other poets, who were content to
take tradition instead of history, as we have
already shown in a previous part of our pere-
grinations.
We have lingered so long in the pleasant
company of the poets, as to have left ourselves
but little time to dilate upon the curiosities of
the spot. But in this respect we decline to
become the Cicerone of the reader. To point
out all the objects that attract the eyes of a
visiter, would occupy a space which we should
be loth to bestow; and referring all who may
be interested in the fine works of art in the
Waterloo Chamber, or in the beautiful chapel
of St. George, to the guide books, which are
WINDSOR CASTLE. 293
sold in Windsor, and which will give all the
information the most particular can require, we
will stroll into the mausoleum of kings, and
see the place where they sleep well, " after life's
fitful fever ;" ramble into the parks and forest,
and then upwards again, in our prescribed
course, breasting the waters of the Thames.
294
CHAPTER XII.
Royal Tombs in St. George's Chapel. The Persians at
Windsor. Windsor Forest. Herne's Oak. Eton Col-
lege. Monkey Island. The Vicar of Bray. The Town
of Maidenhead. Claude Duval. Cliefden.
Collegiate chapel of St.
George, in Windsor Castle, not
the edifice built by Edward
III. with the same name, but
a more splendid building erect-
ed on its site, by Sir Reginald Bray, the
architect of that beautiful pile at Westminster
Abbey called Henry VHth's Chapel, is one of
the most beautiful structures of its kind in
the world. It is a scene of much pomp upon
the installation of a Knight of the Garter ; but
these are rare occasions, and a more solemn
interest dwells permanently within its walls.
Here are buried several of the Kings of Eng-
land. Amongst others ill-fated Henry VI ;
ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL. 295
And fast beside him once-feared Edward sleeps,
Whom not th' extended Albion could contain
From old Belerium to the northern main ;
The grave unites, where even the great find rest,
And blended lie th' oppressor and opprest.
York and Lancaster lie side by side ; the two
chiefs, who with their long wars decimated the
sons of England, and deluged her fields with
blood, mingle their clay together. In or under
the same chapel lie Henry VIII. and Queen
Jane Seymour. Charles I. is also buried here ;
" Obscure the place, and uninscribed the stone."
The coffin was opened by order of George
IV. during his Regency, when the body was
found in a remarkable state of preservation ;
the dissevered head being almost as fresh as
on the day when it was first interred. Lord
Byron wrote some bitter lines upon the
occasion : the most bitter, perhaps, that ever
flowed from his bitter pen. Here also are
buried George III. George IV. William IV.
the Dukes of York and Kent, and the Princess
Charlotte. The monument of the latter in
Urs wick's Chapel is a fine cenotaph in white
marble, which is universally admired for the
beauty of the design, and the excellence of
the execution.
296 THE PERSIANS AT WINDSOR.
It may be amusing after a sober, English
description of the Castle to hear how some
florid and enthusiastic Orientals have launched
out in its praise, with a profusion of imagery,
and an exaggeration, which approaches the sub-
lime. Three Persian Princes, Reeza Koolee
Meerza, Najaf Koolee Meerza, and Taymoor
Meerza, visited England in 1836, and in their
journal, printed for private circulation in 1839,
they related among many other extraordinary
sights, that they saw the Castle. They thus
described it :
" This superior palace is situated in a gar-
den, or park, fifty-two miles in circumference,
which is surrounded by a wall of iron bars, about
three yards and a half high. The park \\asforty
gates, splendidly wrought, and through it run seve-
ral fine streams like rose-water, and its trees are
most noble, producing a beautiful shade. The
carriage roads are so finely paved, that a per-
son might take his repose upon them. Roses
of every kind, and flowers of every hue, are
in this park. Its land is green, like emerald ;
its prospect is pleasure to the eye. Gazelles,
antelopes, and deers, are here in thousands.
Pheasants, partridges, woodcocks, and game of
every kind abound, all of which are enjoying
this delightful place. Nightingales, goldfinches,
THE PERSIANS AT WINDSOR. 297
and their associates, keep with their sweet
voices watch in this garden. It is naturally
carpeted with a beautiful green velvet. My
pen tells me do not proceed ; I am inca-
pable of describing it : it is Paradise. In
one part of this Eden, there is a hill, two
miles in circumference, on which the palace is
built ; it is about two thousand yards in height,
and affords a most beautiful view of the park.
The mind cannot but be astonished at this
splendid edifice, whose description exceeds the
power of human writers. * * Each of the kings
for two-hundred years past, has had a separate
palace in this castle, with distinct majestic splen-
dour of sovereignty, as may be now seen just as
they were when the sovereigns occupied them.
And whatever unique jewels each sovereign ob-
tained during his reign, are placed in his palace,
with his statue, either of marble, jasper, or por-
phyry, seated on a jewelled throne, so beautifully
made, that you might say, it is alive, and can
speak. One statue of a former king cost more
than twelve thousand tomans. * * All his mi-
nisters and officers of state during his reign
have also statues placed by him in the room,
each with the arms of the age, and appearing as
if they were alive. In the royal rooms of the late
kings, all are seated on their thrones and chairs
298 WINDSOR PARK.
of gold, embroidered with precious stones, which cost
millions of minted gold ; each has his crown on
his head of a hundred mauns of solid pure gold,
and adorned with precious stones, so magnificent
as to take the senses away. These crowns are
supported by chains of gold, and suspended over
the heads of the sovereigns"
And now Windsor Park invites us to a ram-
ble under its leafy shades, where Herne the
hunter hung himself, and where his troubled
ghost, as Shakspeare sings, was long supposed
to haunt, and the fairies to hold their midnight
revels. The little park on the north and east
sides of the castle is about four miles in cir-
cumference, and is famous for a row of beau-
tiful trees, said by the popular voice to have
been planted by Queen Elizabeth, and still
called " Queen Elizabeth's Walk." The great
park is on the south side of the town, and is
a fine enclosure plentifully stocked with deer,
and about fourteen miles in circumference.
Virginia water, a small stream which takes its
rise in the vicinity, flows through the park,
and has been formed into an artificial lake of
exceeding beauty about a mile in length,
bounded by a fine lawn and plantations, and
ornamented by a cascade. On its margin is a
pretty temple erected under the superintend-
HERNE'S OAK. 299
ance of George IV, and an imitation of a classic
ruin, consisting of columns of Corinthian mar-
ble, mocking decay most admirably. Virginia
Water abounds in fish, and after flowing
through the park, continues its course by
Thorpe and Chertsey, and falls into the
Thames near Weybridge. But the principal
glory of the park is the mention made of it
in " The Merry Wives of Windsor."
There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragged horns,
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle ;
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
Here it was, as every reader will remember,
that those really virtuous, but seemingly false
dames, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, aided
by that " Welsh devil," and " fritterer of Eng-
lish" Sir Hugh Evans, Mrs. Quickly, Pistol,
and " sweet Anne Page," played their last and
crowning trick upon the cordial rascal Sir John
Falstaff, burning him with their tapers to dis-
cover whether he were chaste, and pinching
him black and blue to the measure of their
"scornful rhyme," until the fat knight was
fain to give utterance to his dolour in excla-
mations unworthy of his knighthood. A great
300
H ERNE'S OAK.
controversy has recently arisen upon the exist-
ence or non-existence of the celebrated tree
under whose branches Shakspeare laid the scene
of this revelry. A tree still exists which is
pointed out as the identical Herne's oak, sap-
less, leafless, barkless, and hastening to its fall,
but carefully protected by a fence, that no
rude vandal hand may damage or destroy,
or cause its old trunk to crumble to its pa-
rent earth before its time. There are many
persons in Windsor who devoutly believe
this to be the tree of Shakspeare. Others,
HERNE'S OAK. 301
on the contrary, assert that Herne's oak was
accidentally cut down fifty or sixty years ago,
and that all this care is lavished upon a false
Dromio. The staunchest supporter of the
claims of the existing tree is Mr. Jesse, the
author of " Gleanings in Natural History,"
and those who do battle on the other side, are
*' The Quarterly Review," and the editor of
" The Pictorial Shakspeare."
The two latter are of opinion, supported on
what, at first sight, seems sufficient authority,
that George III, when a young man, gave or-
ders that several old, and, as they were repre-
sented to him, unsightly trees in the park,
should be cut down, and that the order was
immediately executed. He found soon after-
wards, to his great sorrow, that among those
trees, the remains of Herne's oak had been
destroyed. Mr. Benjamin West, the President
of the Royal Academy, was often heard to say,
that the King and royal family were very
much annoyed at the accident, and he himself
procured a large piece of one of its knotty
branches, to preserve it as a relic. Mr. Dela-
motte, his pupil, often saw this relic ; but what
has become of it now is not stated. It is also
said, upon the authority of Mr. Crofton Croker,
that the question was put to George III, in the
302
HERNE'S OAK.
year 1800, by Lady Ely, when the King replied,
that the tree had been really cut down as above
stated, and that he had been ever since sorry for
having inadvertently given such an order.
Samuel Ireland, in his " Picturesque Views
on the Thames," published in 1792, mentions
the tree as then standing, and gives a drawing
of it, a fac-simile of which is reproduced below.
It seems to be a copy of that made by
Mr. Ralph West, the son of the president.
Ireland says, that at that time there was a talk
of an intention to cut down the tree, which he
sincerely hoped was not true, and that the little
dell, "the pit hard by Herne's oak," where
HERNE'S OAK. 303
Anne Page and her troop of fairies couched
with obscured lights, had been partly filled up.
There is another tradition in Windsor, which
says that Herne's oak was not cut, but blown
down in a violent tempest. Mr. Jesse says, that
George IV. often repeated the story about his
father having cut down the tree; but he always
added, " that tree was supposed to be Herne's
oak, but it was not." From a careful exa-
mination of the evidence upon this subject,
which some few may consider unimportant,
but which the many who delight in poetry,
and who reverence everything connected with
the name of the great bard of England, will
consider as neither unimportant nor uninterest-
ing, it appears that George III. gave orders to
cut down a tree which, he believed afterwards,
to have been Herne's oak. Whether it were
Herne's oak remains a disputed point, and,
in all probability, will ever remain so. We
should be glad to believe with Mr. Jesse, that
it was not that the real tree still remains, and
is that which he has pointed out. As the law
says that it is better that one guilty man should
escape, than that one innocent person should
suffer ; so we say, that it is better we should
pay the tribute of our reverence and respect to
a false Herne's oak, than run the risk of neg-
lecting what may after all be the true one. We
304 BERNE'S OAK.
would not rob the oak still standing, of one of
the many pilgrims who resort beneath it, to
gaze
Upon its boughs all mossed with age,
And high top bald with grey antiquity.
They may be mistaken in their oak, but the
homage which they pay to genius is as sincere,
as creditable, and as valuable, as if its identity
were established beyond dispute.
One other circumstance connected with this
controversy, deserves to be stated. Many per-
sons, and among others, the Editor of " The Pic-
torial Shakspeare," imagine Herne's oak to have
been "an oak with great ragged horns/' and
as the tree which was cut down by order of
George III. had " great ragged horns," and the
tree pointed out by Mr. Jesse has not, they
are confirmed in their opinion, that the latter is
in error. The difference of a comma in the
text of Shakspeare will remove this difficulty.
Was it Herne the hunter, with "great ragged
horns," who walked about the oak, as the dis-
guise of Falstaff would lead us to believe? or
was it Herne the hunter, with a head like
ordinary mortals, who walked about an oak that
had branches " like great ragged horns ?" The
branching antlers which the wicked widows
prevailed upon Falstaff to wear, in imitation
H ERNE'S OAK. 305
of the supernatural hunter, inclines us to the
opinion, that the received reading of the pas-
sage is wrong, and that the "ragged horns"
were intended to describe Herne, and not his
oak.
Windsor Forest, which lies beyond the park,
is fifty-six miles in circuit, and abounds in
deer and game, having been enclosed originally
as a hunting ground by William the Conqueror.
It contains several pretty villages, and is watered
by a branch of the Loddon, and its tributary
brooks, and several other streams.
Binfield, within its bounds, was once very
generally supposed to have been the birth-place
of Pope, but Mr. Lysons stated, on the autho-
rity of Dr. Wilson, rector of the parish, that
the young poet was in his sixth year when he
first came to reside there with his parents, and
it has since been ascertained beyond doubt,
that he was born in London. It was at Bin-
field, however, that he composed his " Windsor
Forest." Upon one of the trees in a neigh-
bouring enclosure, under which it is supposed
he was fond of musing, is cut into the bark the
inscription, " HERE POPE SUNG."
East Hamstead, another village within the
same bounds, was the birth-place of Elijah
Fentor, the assistant of Pope in his translation
VOL. i. x
306 WINDSOR FOREST.
of Homer. At Okingham, or Wokingham,
close by, Swift, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot,
occasionally met ; and at the Rose Inn there,
they jointly composed the famous ballad, gene-
rally attributed to Gay alone, upon the charms
of Molly Mog, the landlord's daughter. So
lovely was she, said these wags, as " she smiled
on each guest like her liquor," that they swore
Were Virgil alive with his Phillis,
And writing another eclogue,
Both his Phillis and fair Amaryllis,
He 'd give up for sweet Molly Mog.
This heroine died in 1 766, having long outlived
the beauty which attracted so much mock
admiration.
Windsor Forest was the residence, for a
short time, of another poet, whose genius, long
neglected, is now beginning to receive more
appreciation. In the summer of 1815, as we
learn from the affectionate and affecting notes
to Mrs. Shelley's edition of her husband's works,
Shelley resided on Bishopsgate Heath, on the
borders of the forest, where he enjoyed seve-
ral months of comparative health and hap-
piness. While here he, as usual, passed much
of his time in his favourite diversion of boat-
ing, and went with a few friends on the same
exploratory expedition as ourselves, to visit the
SHELLEY IN WINDSOR FOREST. 307
sources of the Thames, performing the distance
from Windsor to Cricklade in an open wherry.
On his return, he composed that fine thoughtful
poem, "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude,"
spending his days under the oak shades of
Windsor Great Park, and copying from that
magnificent woodland, says Mrs. Shelley, the va-
rious descriptions of forest scenery in the poem.
How beautiful is one of them in particular:
The noon-day sun
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
A narrow vale embosoms.
******
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the poet's path, as led
By love or dream, or God, or mightier death,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank
Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate the oak,
Extending its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar overarching, frame
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang,
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
The grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
x2
308 SHELLEY IN WINDSOR FOREST.
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,
Uniting their close union : the woven leaves
Make net-work of the dark blue light of day
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
Minuter yet as beautiful.
* * * * * * *
Hither the poet came.
But we have lingered perhaps too long in
this light of song we must leave the glades so
beautifully pictured in this eloquent page, and
retracing our steps, turn again to the bosom of
old Thames, from which we have for a moment
strayed, and continue our course up the river.
We had almost forgotten that, besides Wind-
sor on its left, it has another spot on its right,
dear to all British hearts Eton. This fine old
college, hoary with years, rises solemnly upon
the banks of the Thames, one of the fairest ob-
jects that adorn its course, and suggests innu-
merable thoughts of the great and good men
who were educated within its walls.
Sacred is Eton to the memory of poor King
Henry. The good he did still lingers after
him ; but, strange to say, the seminary he
founded for the poor is become a college for
the rich, the most aristocratic perhaps of all the
ETON
309
schools of England. It was founded in the
year 1440, for the support of a provost, and
seven fellows, and the classical education of
seventy scholars, who, when properly qualified,
were to be annually elected to King's College
Cambridge, whither they were to be removed
by seniority as vacancies occurred. They are
also eligible for scholarships at Merton College
Oxford, and other endowments. Besides these,
there are generally three hundred boys, the sons
of rich men, who board at the masters' houses,
or within the bounds of the college, and pay
large sums for their education.
The Eton Montem, celebrated on Whit
Tuesday every third year, is a singular custom,
known so early as the time of Elizabeth, and
kept up, some say, for the benefit of the poor
scholars, if poor any of them can be called;
310 ETON MONTEM.
while others say with more truth, that it is kept
up merely for the frolic of the thing, and be-
cause it is old. In the neighbourhood of Eton,
at the village of Salthill, on the Bath road, is
a little eminence, supposed by some to have
been originally a Saxon barrow, which is the
scene of this triennial festivity. At nine in the
morning, the scholars begin to assemble, and
march three times round the play-yard of the
college ; after each fifth-form boy, marches a
lower boy carrying a pole. At ten they pro-
ceed ad montem, to the hill, in the best order
they can, which is generally in no order at
all. The collection of " salt," however, begins
at an earlier hour. The " salt-bearers" are but
two, but they have an almost unlimited num-
ber of " servitors" or " scouts," who from six
o'clock in the morning scour the country round
in search of contributions. No person is per-
mitted to pass without contributing something ;
a refusal might be unpleasant, and most are
willing to purchase immunity for the rest of
the day by giving according to their means, for
which they receive a ticket. The production
of this ensures them from further demands.
The salt-bearers sometimes levy their contri-
butions in a very extended circuit, being al-
lowed a horse and gig for the purpose.
ETON MONTEM. 311
If the Sovereign happen to be at Windsor,
the ceremony is usually honoured with her
presence, and by a contribution varying from
fifty to one hundred pounds. The money
generally amounts to four or five hundred
pounds, and has sometimes been as much as
eight hundred or a thousand pounds. When
all the spectators have paid their tribute, the
salt-bearers levy a contribution from every
boy in the college, of at least a shilling each,
which, as there are generally six hundred boys,
amounts always to thirty pounds, and some-
times to treble that sum. Besides the salt-
bearers and servitors, there is the captain of
the day, for whose supposed benefit the cere-
mony takes place, who must be a King's scho-
lar, and the head boy of the school. His dress
is always of the richest materials, and he is
attended by another boy, dressed in a marshal's
uniform, and carrying a baton. There are a
lieutenant and an ensign, and scores of ser-
geants and corporals, who must all of them be
King's scholars, and of the sixth form. All
these have an established uniform, but the salt-
bearers and servitors are allowed to dress as
they please, as Turks, Highlanders, Mohawks,
Chinese, or to wear any sort of fantastic or
nondescript costume. The fifth-form boys are
312 ETON MONTEM.
dressed in military coats, cocked-hats, white
trousers, boots, and a sword. The remainder
of the boys, called "lower boys," are dressed in
blue coats, white waistcoats and trousers, silk
stockings and pumps, and each carries a white
pole. On the arrival of the procession at Salt
Hill, where hundreds of gay equipages, and
thousands of spectators on foot are waiting,
the college flag, inscribed with the motto of the
day " Pro more et monte," is waved three times
by the ensign, who stands upon the summit
of the hill for the purpose. A grand dinner
is then given to the boys at the expense of
the captain, after which the scholars lounge
about and amuse themselves as they can till
about four o'clock, when there is another as-
semblage, or " absence" on the hill, and the
procession returns to Eton about five. The
next day there is another serious drain upon
the pockets of the captain, who provides a
splendid dejeuner & la fourchette to the first two
hundred boys in the college hall. It thus fre-
quently happens that the captain is not a
gainer by the collection which has been made
for him, though nominally the money is said
to be reserved for his support when he pro-
ceeds to the University.
In Hone's " Year Book," is a quotation from
ETON MONTEM. 313
the " Windsor Guide Book," which contains a
pleasant apology for this popular mummery.
"Out upon the eternal hunting for causes and
reasons!" says the writer. " I love the no-mean-
ing Eton Montem. I love to be asked for salt
by a pretty hoy in silk stockings and satin
doublet, though the custom has been called
something between begging and robbing. I
love the apologetical Mos pro lege, which defies
the police and the Mendicity Society. I love
the absurdity of a captain taking precedence of
a marshal, bearing a gilt baton at an angle of
forty-five degrees from his right hip ; and an
ensign flourishing a flag with the grace of a
tight-rope dancer ; and sergeants paged by fair-
skinned Indians and beardless Turks ; and cor-
porals in sashes and gorgets, guarded by inno-
cent pole-men in blue jackets and white trou-
sers. I love the mixture of real and mock
dignity, the Provost, in his cassock, clearing
the way for the Duchess of Leinster to see the
ensign make his bow, or the head master
gravely dispensing * leave of absence till nine'
to Counts of the Holy Roman Empire, and
Grand Seigniors. I love the crush in the clois-
ters, and the mob on the mount. I love the
clatter of carriages and plunging of horsemen.
I love the universal gaiety, from the peer who
314 ETON MONTEM.
smiles, and sighs that he is no longer an Eton
boy, to the country girl, who marvels that such
little gentlemen should have cocked hats and
real swords. Give me a montem with all its
tomfoolery; I had almost said, before a coro-
nation. It is a right English scene.".
The origin of this curious ceremony is lost
in the lapse of time ; various conjectures have
been formed about it, but whether it gave
name to the hill, or the hill to the ceremony,
is still undecided. It was said to be an old
custom in the time of Elizabeth, but nothing
certain was known about it even then. A
custom very similar still prevails in Prussia
and many parts of Germany, which possibly
may have had the same origin. It is not un-
common there to meet bands of young men,
respectably dressed, and well educated, who
stop the carriages on the public road, and beg
for money. They are seldom or ever refused,
except perhaps by strangers, who do not know
that these young men are apprentices, who
have served their time, and who are not allow-
ed to establish themselves in trade, until they
have made the tour of their country, and visit-
ed all its principal towns. The money thus
collected helps to set them up in a shop, and
many of them begin life, and prosper upon
ETON. 315
no other funds than those which are thus ac-
quired.
Proceeding up the Thames from Windsor
and Eton, towards Maidenhead, Marlow, and
Henley, we approach that part of the river which
is universally allowed to be the most lovely of all
its course. From Cotteswold down to the sea
it presents no scenes equal in rural loveliness
to these. Its banks, if not lofty, are high
enough to be imposing, and are altogether syl-
van and beautiful, offering, it is true, no rocks,
no mountains, no torrents, to the gaze of the
traveller, but, instead, pellucid waters, verdur-
ous hills and solemn woodlands, with here and
there glimpses of waving corn-fields and pas-
ture lands dotted with cattle. Here at all
seasons may be seen the Eton scholars, fishing,
or rowing, or bathing, as the weather invites,
and many perchance, like their predecessor the
old and now neglected poet, Phineas Fletcher,
learning to " weave the rhyme." Fletcher, the
author of " The Purple Island," a poem upon
the anatomy of the human frame, and a remark-
able specimen of talents misapplied, wrote seve-
ral lyrical pieces upon the pleasures of angling.
He was bred at Eton, and thus, in his first
Piscatory Eclogue, describes the pleasures of
the school-boys there in the days of Elizabeth.
316 THE VICAR OF BRAY.
When the raw blossom of my youth was yet
In my first childhood's green enclosure bound,
Of Aquadune I learned to fold my net,
And spread the sail, and beat the river round,
And withy labyrinths in straits to set,
Or guide my boat where Thames and Isis' heir
By lowly Eton glides, and Windsor proudly fair.
There while our thin nets dangling in the wind,
Hung on our oar-tops, I did learn to sing,
Among my peers, apt words to fitly bind
In numerous verse ; witness thou crystal spring
Where all the lads were pebbles wont to find,
And yon thick hazles that on Thames's brink
Did oft with dallying boughs, his silver waters drink.
Sailing leisurely upwards from Windsor and
Eton, in a pleasure boat, of which plenty are
to be had on hire, and tramping it sometimes
upon footways, at the water side, we pass
Monkey Island, and its fishing temple, erected
by the third Duke of Maryborough, and adorn-
ed with grotesque figures of the animal from
which the island takes its name, and arrive at
the little village of Bray, in Berkshire, famous
all over England for the accommodating vicar,
who once resided in it. Some have imagined
that the celebrated vicar was an Irishman, and
incumbent of Bray, near Dublin ; and others
have supposed that he lived in the time of
Charles II. Both these suppositions are erro-
neous, if we may rely, and there is no reason
why we should not, upon the statements of
THE VICAR OF BRAY. 317
excellent old Fuller, who informs us, in his
Worthies of England, that the vicar in question
was the incumbent of Bray upon the Thames,
and that he lived in the reigns of Henry VIII,
Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. He changed
his religion according to the ascendency of the
day : a Protestant to please one government, a
Catholic to please the next, and again Protest-
ant to keep on good terms with the third ;
arguing all the time, that he was consistent and
sincere to the one great fundamental maxim of
his life, which was upon no terms, if he could
help it, to part with his comfortable incum-
bency of Bray. The name of this astute and
worldly-minded ecclesiastic, is said to have been
Symon Symonds, and there is a well-known
song upon his tergiversations.
On the right of the river are the waving
woods of Taplow, hanging in picturesque
beauty over the stream, and associated in our
remembrance with the name of Elizabeth, who
during the reign of her sister, passed some time
in a sort of captivity in this place. There is a
large oak-tree in the park, which popular tradi-
tion, fond of attributing the origin of favourite
trees to favourite personages, maintains to have
been planted by that princess.
About the year 1760, a singular cave adjoin-
ing the Thames was discovered at this place.
318 MAIDENHEAD.
It was evidently not a natural hollow, but an
artificial excavation, but when, by whom, and
why it was formed, have never been explained.
It is ten feet wide, and nineteen feet high,
with an arched roof, and is situated on the de-
clivity of a chalky hill.
The Thames is here crossed by the magni-
ficent viaduct of the Great Western Railway,
with its two fine arches, each of one hundred
and twenty-eight feet span; and also by the
more ancient bridge of Maidenhead, with its
thirteen arches, both forming pleasing objects
in the view. The scene from the latter, north-
wards, towards Marlow, merits the abundant
admiration it has received.
Maidenhead is a clean, neat little town, now
rising into some importance, from the vicinity
of the railway station of the Great Western
Company. Its name, according to Leland, was
formerly South Allington, and by some it has
been called South Ealington and Sudlington.
The reason of the change to Maidenhead, or
when the change took place, is not known.
The town was incorporated about- the middle
of the fourteenth century, by Edward III, by
the name of the guild of ten brothers and sis-
ters of Maidenhithe, from which the present
name of Maidenhead is derived. The adjacent
common of Maidenhead Thicket, so called from
MAIDENHEAD.
319
its having been at one time covered with wood,
was noted during the seventeenth, and at the
commencement of the eighteenth century, for
the numerous highway robberies committed on
it. It was here that the notorious Claude
Duval sometimes distinguished himself, in
teaching English footpads to rob politely, and
where he himself occasionally, as Butler sings,
Made desperate attacks
Upon itinerant brigades
Of all professions, ranks, and trades,
On carriers' loads and pedlars' packs;
Making the undaunted waggoner obey,
And the fierce higgler contribution pay !
320 CLIEFDEN.
And quite as often levying his contributions
upon a superior class easing travellers upon
horses or in carriages of their gold, by the argu-
ment of the pistol ; and afterwards, when that
was found sufficiently cogent, treating them
with all imaginable courtesy and civility, such
as befitted a man who piqued himself upon
being as French in his manners as he was in
his name.
Turning to the other side of the stream, just
beyond the cluster of green islands in the
Thames, we see the pleasant woods of Cliefden,
and the site of the once magnificent residence
of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, now
occupied by the mansion of Sir George War-
render. The building, which was destroyed by
fire in the year 1795, will long be remem-
bered by the lines of Pope, and by the fine
description of Evelyn, the lover of forest trees.
To those who take delight in the loveliness
of rural scenery, and where is he who does not?
we would recommend an excursion to Cliefden.
The view, whether it be of the river, seen from
the summit of the wood; or the wood, seen
from the bosom of the water, will well repay
the visit of the rambler. The wood teems
with the melody of birds; and when we passed
by, on a fine summer's evening, we heard a
CLIEFDEN. 321
nightingale pouring forth her song with " full-
throated ease," and felt, in our inmost soul,
as we listened, the beauty of the poet's de-
scription :
Far and near her throbbing song
Floated, rose, or sunk along,
Low or loud serene, sedate
Plaintive peaceful passionate
Threaded all the darkened alleys,
Walled and roofed with scented leaves,
Echoed down the swarded valleys ;
Clomb the feather'd mountain cleaves;
Till upon the waters falling
In its sad and sweet decay,
Died in silence more enthralling
That delicious roundelay.
The charms of the spot have been duly appre-
ciated. It is a favourite resort for pic-nic par-
ties, for whom it has one other attraction, be-
sides those already mentioned a spring of
water near the river side, which is celebrated
for miles around for its beautiful transparency
and refreshing coolness.
The story connected with the ancient build-
ing, and to which Pope alludes, in his Epistle
to Lord Bathurst, is of the time of Charles II.
and is one of the most disgraceful incidents of
a disgraceful reign. The Duke of Buckingham
had debauched the Lady Shrewsbury, and was
challenged by her husband to mortal combat.
VOL. i. Y
322 CLIEFDEN.
Charles II. heard of the intended meeting, and
commanded the Duke of Albemarle to prevent
it, by confining Buckingham to his house, or
by any other means which he might think it
convenient to adopt. Albemarle, seeing the
King so resolved upon the matter, took no pre-
cautions at all, thinking that Charles would
manage it himself. Thus, between them both,
nothing was done, and the parties met at Barn
Elms, each attended by two seconds. Accord-
ing to the sanguinary practice of the age, the
seconds engaged as well as the principals. The
injured Shrewsbury was attended by Sir John
Talbot, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and
by his relative, Lord Bernard Howard; while
the seducer was accompanied by two of his
dependants, Sir John Jenkins and one Captain
Holmes. Lady Shrewsbury, the guilty cause
of all the mischief, stood close at hand in a
neighbouring thicket, disguised as a page, and
holding her paramour's horse to avoid suspicion.
The result of the encounter was, that Lord
Shrewsbury was run through the body, Sir
John Talbot severely wounded in both arms, and
Jenkins left dead on the field. Buckingham
received some slight wounds, and taking Lady
Shrewsbury in her page's dress into his carriage,
rode post haste to Cliefden, where they passed
CLIEFDEN. 323
the night together, the Duke hastening to her
arms, as we are informed by Pope, in the very
shirt which was discoloured with the blood of
her lord. Buckingham afterwards took her to
town with him, under the same roof with his
Duchess, who loudly protested against the in-
sult, declaring, that it was not for her and his
mistress to live together. " So I have been
thinking, Madam," replied Buckingham, "and
have therefore sent for your coach to convey
you to your father's."
Buckingham and the Countess of Shrews-
bury continued to reside together for many
years, principally at Cliefden, until their ex-
travagance in dissipating the fortune of the
young Earl, the son of the Countess, attracted
the attention of Parliament, and they were
forbidden to reside together under a penalty
of 10,000; and the control of the Shrews-
bury property was taken from a woman, who
was both unfit and unworthy to be intrusted
with it. And what was the end of it all to
one of them ?
In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, .
The floors of plaster, and the walls of dung,
On once a flock-bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red
y 2
324 CLIEFDEN.
Great Villiers lies I Alas I how changed from him
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim I
Gallant and gay in Cliefden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love.
No wit to flatter left of all his store,
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more :
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends I
And what was the fate of the other? History
and poetry have alike forgotten to say, thinking
her too insignificant for further mention. But
it should not have been so. If she died con-
vinced of her errors and repentant, her story,
painful as the first part of it might have been,
would have been worth recording, for the lesson
of its end. If she died as she lived, the record
would have been no less useful. In the one
case, it would have been an example ; in the
other, a warning.
At Cliefden House, at a later period, Thom-
son's Masque of Alfred was first performed
before the Prince of Wales, and, for the first
time in public, was played that noble strain of
" Rule Britannia," since become a national an-
them, that has often led our sailors to victory,
and increased the renown it was written to
celebrate.
325
CHAPTER XII.
Hedsor. Cookham. The River Wick. Great Marlow.
The Poet Shelley at the Groves of Bisham. The Rakes
of Medmenham Abbey. Lady Place, Hurley. Lord
Lovelace and the Revolution of 1688. Hambleton. Faw-
ley Court Ancient and Modern Antiques. Henley.
Pan and Lodona. The River Loddon. Sunning Hill.
Reading.
DJOINING the estate of Clief-
den is Hedsor Lodge, the seat of
Lord Boston, commanding pic-
turesque views in Buckingham-
shire and Berkshire. Proceed-
ing upwards to Cookham, we pass two consi-
derable aits or islands, formed by the division of
the stream. On the largest, comprising about
fifty-four acres, the late Sir George Young
erected a commodious villa in the year 1790,
which he called Formosa Place. Cookham is
a small but pleasant village, and was formerly
a market town. At a short distance beyond
it, on the opposite bank of the river, the little
rivulet, the Wick, which rises near, and gives
326 SHELLEY AT BISHAM.
name to High Wycombe, mingles its waters
with the Thames. Having passed this, we
arrive in sight of the town of Great Marlow,
in Buckinghamshire, with its neat suspension
bridge over the river. The scenery hereabouts
is pleasing and rural, and the tiny waterfall of
the stream caused by the obstruction of Marlow
weir, increases the beauty of the view. Shelley
resided in this town during the greater part
of the year 1817, as we learn from his accom-
plished and true-hearted editress, and the town
at that time being inhabited by a very poor
population, he left for awhile his lonely
reveries on the perfectibility of man, and
devoted some hours to the alleviation of the
actual poverty and misery that surrounded
him. He had a severe attack of ophthalmia
in the winter, caught while visiting a distressed
family in their squalid cottage. But when the
fit of poetry was upon him, he delighted to
glide along in his boat upon the Thames, among
the sedges and water lilies, under the beechen
groves of Bisham, that overhang the stream.
There he composed " The Revolt of Islam," and
part of " Rosalind and Helen," and ever as he
sailed his mind was full
Of love and wisdom, which would overflow
In converse wild, and sweet, and wonderful.
TRADITIONS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH. 327
Bisham Abbey, on the opposite bank, stands
close to the water's edge, and was formerly oc-
cupied by, and is still the property of Lord
Bexley. This abbey was one of those sup-
pressed by Henry VIII, who retained it for a
time for his own residence. One of the rooms
in it goes by the name of Queen Elizabeth's
Council Chamber, from the supposition that
she occasionally resided here after her accession.
The truth is, however, that in her time Bisham
Abbey was no longer royal property, having
been granted by Edward VI. to the Hoby
family.
It is curious to note, how fond the populace
are of connecting the name of some great per-
sonage with the spots they themselves inhabit.
Many of these traditions set probability at de-
fiance, yet will they linger in the popular
mind, and no refutation can eradicate them.
Thus the people of Bisham believe to this day
that Queen Elizabeth resided among them, and
insist, notwithstanding the opinion of all the
world to the contrary, that she died no maid.
They point out in their church a small mo-
nument with the sculptured figures of two
children, which they assert was erected by that
princess, in memory of twins, of which she was
delivered in that village. Of course they are
328 THE MONKS OF MEDMENHAM.
but the old women of both sexes who believe
this story ; but it has been current for nearly
two centuries and a half.
Passing Temple lock and weir, we arrive at
another abbey, on the Buckingham shore, as-
sociated with another piece of slander, which,
however, has more truth in it than the slander
of Bisham. Medmenham Abbey, in the mid-
dle of the last century, belonged to a noble
peer, a notorious Mohock of his day, who esta-
blished here a mock monastery under the title
of the Abbey of the Monks of St. Francis, in
which he and his rakish companions celebrated
many impure orgies. The motto of the fra-
ternity was " Fay ce que voudras," or " let each
man do as he likes," which still exists, inscribed
over the entrance. The abbey was then a
scene of unrestrained debauchery, of which the
anonymous author of Chrysal, or the Adven-
tures of a Guinea, strives to give his readers an
account in those volumes. They are doubtless
exaggerated. It is hard to imagine that men,
who, whatever were their vices, were not defi-
cient in common sense, would have been scared
almost to death by so palpable a hoax as that
alleged to have been played off upon them by a
fellow member, who introduced a baboon among
them, which they all, says he, actually mistook
THE MONKS OF MEDMENHA.M. 329
for the devil. In the year 1791, according to Sa-
muel Ireland, the abbey was occupied by a poor
family, who increased their scanty means by
showing the curious visiter the sole remaining
relic of these debauchees, an immense cradle, in
which it was customary to rock the full-grown
friars of the order, in some of the ceremonies of
their installation.
The abbey was founded in the reign of King
John, and was a cell to the Cistercian Monks
of Woburn. At the time of the dissolution it
was of very small importance. The return
made by Thomas Cromwell, and the commis-
sioners appointed by Henry VIII, purported
that it had only two monks, who had servants
none, woods none, debts none ; that the house
was wholly in ruins, and the value of the move-
able goods only one pound three shillings and
eightpence, besides the bells, which might be
worth two pounds one shilling and eight-
pence.
On the opposite shore of Berks is the
village of Hurley, remarkable for its beau-
tiful scenery, and the remains of its ancient
monastery, called Lady Place. It was found-
ed in the reign of William the Conqueror,
by Geoffry de Mandeville, and included
a cell for the Benedictine monks of West-
330 LADY PLACE.
minster Abbey. At the dissolution, Lady
Place was granted to the family of Chamber-
lain, from whom it came into the possession of
the family of Lovelace. Richard Lovelace
accompanied Sir Francis Drake on one of his
successful expeditions, when he gained as much
prize-money as enabled him to rebuild the pre-
sent edifice.
The house is now, or was lately, unoccupied ;
but when Samuel Ireland visited it in 1790 it
was in the possession of a Mr. Wilcox. He de-
scribes the grand saloon as being decorated in a
singular style, and reputed to be the work of
Salvator Rosa, and expressly executed for that
apartment. It was said, but Ireland could not
vouch for the truth of it, that the receipts of
Salvator Rosa for the work were in the hands
of the proprietor. This house is remarkable
for having been, when in the possession of
Lord Lovelace, in 1688, the place where secret
meetings of the nobility were held to devise
measures to call in the Prince of Orange.
Their meetings were held in the vault, and
Mr. Wilcox caused the following inscription
to be placed at the end.
" Dirt and ashes ! Mortality and vicissitude
to all. Be it remembered, the monastery of
Lady Place (of which this vault was the burial
LADY PLACE. 331
cavern,) was founded at the time of the great
Norman Revolution, by which the whole state
of England was changed.
Hi motus animorum, atque haec certamina tanta,
Pulveris exiqui jactu compressa quiescunt.
" Be it also remembered, that in this place,
six hundred years afterwards, the revolution of
1688 was begun. This house was then in the
possession of Lord Lovelace, by whom private
meetings of the nobility were assembled in this
vault, and several consultations for calling in
the Prince of Orange were likewise held in
this recess, on which account this vault was
visited by that powerful prince after he had
ascended the throne. It was visited by Gene-
ral Paoli in 1780, and by King George III. and
his Queen, on the 14th of November 1785.'*
Passing Hambleton lock and weirs, we arrive
at the pleasant village of the same name, only
remarkable for the very handsome monument
contained in the church to the memory of Sir
Cope D'Oyley. The monument is of alabaster,
and consists of twelve figures as large as life,
executed in a superior style. The inscription
bears, that it is to the memory of Sir Cope
D'Oyley, Martha his wife, and their five sons.
Sir Cope died in 1633. Under the figure of
the knight is an epitaph in rhyme, and under
332 SIR COPE D'OYLEY.
that of the lady is another, both of which are
epigrammatic, singular, and eccentric enough
to deserve repetition. The knight's is as fol-
lows
Ask not of me who's buried here
Goe ask the Commons ask the shiere.
Goe ask the Church, they'll tell thee who
As well as blubbered eyes can doe.
Goe ask the Herauld, ask the poore,
Thine ears shall hear enough to ask no more.
Then, if thine eyes bedew this sacred urne,
Each drop a tear will turn
T ' adorn his tombe, or if thou canst not vent,
Thou bringst more marble to his monument I
Here was a paragon of excellence! The wife
also had her good qualities as abundantly as
her lord. Thus saith the epitaph, in choice
doggrel :
Would'st thou, reader, draw to life
The perfect copy of a wife,
Read on, and then redeem from shame
That lost, that honorable name :
This dust was once in spirit a Jael,
Rebecca in grace, in heart an Abigail,
In works a Dorcas, to the church a Hanna,
And to her spouse a Susanna,
Prudently simple providently wary.
To the world a Martha, and to heaven a Mary.
At a short distance beyond this village, is
the elegant seat of Mr. Freeman, called Fawley
Court. It is a square edifice, built by Inigo
HENLEY-ON-THAMES. 333
Jones, and stands in the centre of an extensive
lawn, from which there are delightful views
over the rural valley of the Thames.
During the unhappy civil wars under Charles I,
Fawley Court experienced some rough usage
at the hands of a detachment of the royal army
that were billeted upon it. The dragoons, in
all probability suspecting the master to be a
Parliamentarian, made litters for their horses
out of sheaves of ripe wheat, destroyed his
library, and lit their pipes with the title deeds
of his estates, court-rolls, and other valuable
documents.
We are now in sight of Henley, on the
borders of Oxfordshire, called Henley -on-
Thames, to distinguish it from other towns of
the same name. The elegant stone bridge was
built in the year 1787, from a design of Mr.
Hay ward, who, however, did not live to see
the commencement of the structure he had
planned. It cost about ten thousand pounds.
It consists of five elliptical arches, ornamented
with a balustrade of stone work. The key-
stone of the centre arch is sculptured with a
head of Isis on one side, and with a head of
Thames on the other, both from the chisel of
the accomplished Mrs. Darner.
Henley is a town of considerable antiquity,
334 THE INNS AT HENLEY.
of which, however, it bears not the slightest
trace, having a jaunty and modern air, like a
thing of yesterday. It was upon the accom-
modation of one of its inns, but whether the
Bell or the Red Lion, it is now difficult to
determine, that the poet Shenstone wrote those
oft-quoted lines, which are a sad libel upon
English hospitality
Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn.
There are other stanzas less known, but they
are all in the same strain ; if Shenstone meant
and felt them, he was a very unfortunate man,
and knew not what it was to have a friend.
But he did not mean them. Half of the smart
things that are written in disparagement of
human nature, are written by people who do
not mean them ; and no doubt Shenstone would
have felt himself insulted, if anybody had
asked whether he did not give his brother
poet, the author of the " Seasons," when he
invited him to the Leasowes, a more cordial
welcome, than the mercenary greeting of an
inn. It is all very well, as Shenstone says, to
THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS. 335
" fly from falsehood's specious grin ;" but what
necessity is there to fly from plate, and what
connexion is there between plate and falsehood?
unless perhaps in plated copper. Shenstone
was in an ill-humour when he wrote; and his
praise of the inn of Henley must be taken for
no more than it is worth. We are of the other
opinion, and detest the civility and scorn it,
that is only to be purchased by half-a-crown to
the waiter.
Near Henley commences or ends the range
of hills reaching from this place through the
southern parts of Buckinghamshire, to Tring in
Hertfordshire, and known by the name of the
Chiltern Hills. The Stewardship of these
Hundreds, as they are called, is a well-known
legal fiction, by which a member of Parliament
is enabled to vacate his seat. By the law of
England, no man can resign honours, neither
can a member resign his seat; and also by the
law of England, any member accepting office
under the Crown, loses by that act his seat ; so
that when a member from ill health or any
other cause, wishes to resign, he accepts this
nominal office, and its nominal salary, and his
object is accomplished.
At a short distance from Henley, on the
336 DRUIDICAL TEMPLE.
other side of the Thames, is Park Place,
known as having been the occasional residence of
George IV. before he was called to the Regency.
At the close of the last century, it was the
property of General Conway, governor of the
island of Jersey, who made many improvements
in it. The mansion stands on a commanding
eminence, and is surrounded by a fine park, well
stocked with deer. But the chief attractions
of the spot are a modern antique, and an an-
cient antique, if we may use the terms with
propriety, which ornament different parts of the
ground. The modern antique is approached
by a subterraneous passage, leading to a valley
bordered with " sad cypress trees," where there
is a very pleasing imitation of the ruins of a
Roman amphitheatre covered with ivy. The
ancient antique is a Druidical temple, found in
the Island of Jersey while General Conway
was governor, and presented to him by the
inhabitants as a mark of their respect and es-
teem. The stones which compose the temple
are forty-five in number, and were all so care-
fully marked when taken down, as to make it
a matter of no difficulty to rebuild them pre-
cisely in their original form. The circumfer-
ence of the temple is about sixty-six feet, and
its height seven. It was discovered on the hill
PAN AND LODONA. 337
of St. Helier, in Jersey, on the 12th of August,
1785, and in the inclosure were found at the
same time two medals, one of the Emperor
Claudius, and the other of a date which it was
impossible to decipher.
Having passed the small village of Margrave,
on the Berkshire side, we arrive at the place
where the " Loddon slow " empties itself into
the Thames. This stream rises near Sherborne,
in Hampshire, and passes Strathfieldsaye, the
seat of the Duke of Wellington, then along the
borders of Windsor Forest, into the Thames.
In Pope's " Windsor Forest," he introduces
the Episode of Lodona; or the Nymph of the
Loddon, pursued by the God Pan.
Thy offspring Thames, (the fair Lodona named,)
She scorn'd the praise of Beauty and the care,
A belt her waist, a fillet binds her hair,
A painted quiver on her shoulder sounds,
And with her dart the flying deer she wounds.
It chanced as eager of the chase, the maid
Beyond the forest's verdant limits stray'd,
Pan saw and loved, and burning with desire,
Pursued her flight; her flight increased his fire.
Now fainting, sinking, pale the nymph appears!
Now close behind, his sounding step she hears,
And now his shadow reached her as she run,
His shadow lengthen'd by the setting sun,
VOL. I. Z
338 PAN AND LODONA.
And now his shorter breath, with sultry air,
Pants on her neck, and fans her parting hair.
In vain on father Thames she calls for aid,
Nor could Diana help her injured maid ;
Faint, breathless, thus she pray'd, nor pray'd in vain
" Ah, Cynthia! ah! though banish'd from thy train,
" Let me, oh let me, to the shades repair,
" My native shades, there weep, and murmur there."
She said, and melting as in tears she lay,
In a soft silver stream dissolved away ;
The silver stream her virgin coldness keeps,
For ever murmurs and for ever weeps,
Still bears the name the hapless virgin bore,
And bathes the forest where she ranged before.
The classical reader need hardly be reminded
of the more beautiful story of Alpheus and
Arethusa, one of the sweetest that ever had
hate for its foundation, from which the above
is imitated. The story has always been a fa-
vourite one with the poets ; but there is an
incongruity about it, as connected with the
Thames and Windsor Forest, which renders
Pope's adaptation of it unpleasing, although
it has many fine lines to recommend it.
With the groves of Shiplake on one side of
us, and Sunning Hill and the green heights
around on the other, we pass a pleasant ait in
the river, and disembark at Sunning Bridge.
This village is agreeably situated on a rising
ground, and is of considerable antiquity. It
READING ABBEY. 339
was formerly the see of a bishop, whose diocese
included the counties of Berks and Wilts.
The see was afterwards removed to Sherbourn,
and thence to Salisbury, whose bishop is now
Lord of the Manor of Sunning. The church
contains some ancient monuments, but they are
not remarkable. There is a pretty epitaph on
an infant of the family of Rich, who have a
seat here,
The father's air, the mother's look,
The sportive smile and pretty joke,
The rosy lips, sweet babbling grace,
The beauties of the mind and face,
And all the charms of infant souls,
This tomb within its bosom holds.
A short but pleasant walk by the river side
conducts us to the ancient town of Reading,
the most considerable in the county of Berks,
standing upon the Thames and Kennett. Read-
ing town and Castle were important places
before the Norman Conquest, and in the wars
of the Danes and Saxons several times suf-
fered severely. A small nunnery founded
here in the year 980 by Elfrida, mother-in-law
of King Edward the Martyr, in expiation of
the murder of her step-son, having been sup-
pressed by King Henry I, that monarch in 1120
or the following year, built a magnificent ab-
z 2
340 READING ABBEY.
bey, for two hundred Benedictine monks, and
dedicated it to *' the honour of God, our Lady,
and St. John the Evangelist." In this abbey,
part of the body of the King was interred eleven
years afterwards. He died at Rouen from a
surfeit of lampreys. His bowels were buried
in Rouen, and the corpse was then conveyed in
a bullock's hide to Reading, where it was in-
terred with great magnificence. The reason
of this wrapper, says Stowe, was that the efflu-
via from it was so strong, that some persons
died of it, and he especially cites a physician
employed in preparing the body for the last
ceremony. His daughter, the Empress Ma-
tilda, mother of King Henry II, and his se-
cond Queen, Adeliza, were also buried in this
abbey.
The abbots of this opulent foundation car-
ried their heads very high in the world, were
mitred, sat among the bishops in Parliament,
and exercised very extensive jurisdiction. The
last abbot, Hugh Faringdon, met a very com-
mon fate with abbots of King Henry the
VIHth's time. He was hanged, drawn, and
quartered at Reading, with two of his monks,
for refusing to surrender. He should have
known his probable fate, and learned prudence ;
for some score of abbots before his turn came,
READING ABBEY. 341
had suffered in the same manner, and for the
same reasons. The abbot of St. Alban's was
wiser, and surrendered quietly a few weeks
after the execution of his unhappy brother.
The abbey, when Camden wrote, was set
apart for the occasional residence of the King ;
but he did not often visit it. At the dissolu-
tion its revenues were valued at the sum of
one thousand nine hundred and thirty-eight
pound four shillings and threepence. Some re-
mains of it are still visible, including part of
our Lady's Chapel, and the refectory. The
latter was eighty feet long, and forty broad.
Great part of the walls, which were eight feet
in thickness, were removed by General Conway
about the year 1787, to form the bridge near
Park Place, on the road between Henley and
Wargrave.
Of Reading Castle, which Leland conjec-
tures to have stood at the west end of Castle
Street, no remains are now discoverable.
In the reign of King Henry II, in 1162,
there was a grand ordeal combat at Reading,
between Robert de Montfort, and the Earl
of Essex. The ground of quarrel was, that
De Montfort had accused Essex of having trai-
torously suffered the Royal Standard of Eng-
land to fall from his hands, in a skirmish with
342 AN ORDEAL COMBAT.
the Welsh, at Coleshill, five years previously.
Essex denied the imputation, and De Montfort
offered to prove its truth by single combat*
and the challenge was accepted. The King
declared his intention of being present, and the
lists were prepared at Reading. Upwards of
fifty thousand persons assembled on the day
appointed. Essex fought stoutly ; but, losing
his temper, he gave an advantage to his op-
ponent, which soon decided the struggle. He was
unhorsed, and so severely wounded that he lay
in the arena to all appearance dead. The fashion
was that the victor should cut off the head of
the vanquished, which De Montfort was about
to do, when, on the solicitations of the relatives,
the King interposed, and allowed them to carry
away the body for interment in the Abbey of
Reading. On their arrival at that place, they
found that Essex was not dead, but only stun-
ned, and under the care of the hospitable
monks like all their brethren of that age, well
skilled in medicine and surgery he was soon re-
stored to consciousness, and ultimately to health.
But his wounded mind was not so easily heal-
ed. He was disgraced in the world's eye, he
was vanquished, and therefore a traitor, in the
public opinion. He resolved not to return to
a world which would look down upon him;
SIEGE OF HEADING. 343
and taking the vows of the brotherhood, he
immured himself for the remainder of his life
within the walls of the abbey.
In the year 1218, a council was held here at
which Pandulph, the Pope's legate presided,
with the view of mediating between King John
and his barons. The town has also been fre-
quently the seat of councils and parliaments,
especially in the fifteenth century, when no
less than four parliaments were held between
the years 1439 and 1467. In the first year of
Charles I, on account of the plague that raged
in London, and which carried away at least
thirty-five thousand people, the courts of law
were removed to Reading, the Lord Chan-
cellor, and the judges of the King's Bench,
Exchequer, and Common Pleas, sitting in the
Town Hall, and in the Abbey.
But the greatest event in the history of
Reading is the siege it underwent by the Par-
liamentary army, under the command of the
Earl of Essex, in 1643. The besieging army
consisted of sixteen thousand foot, and three
thousand horse ; and the defenders of the town
under the Royalist governor, Sir Arthur As-
ton, consisted of but three thousand foot, and
three hundred horsemen. Sir Arthur was seri-
ously wounded at the commencement of the
344 SIEGE OF READING.
siege, when the command devolved upon Colo-
nel Richard Fielding. When Charles I. heard
of the critical situation of the town, he sent
Commissary Wilmot with a detachment of horse
to its relief. He managed to throw in an auxi-
liary party of five hundred men, with a con-
siderable supply of powder ; but Colonel Field-
ing, aware of the hopelessness of the struggle,
demanded a truce, with the design of effecting
a capitulation. In the mean time the King
advanced from Oxford, to relieve the place.
The Parliamentary army were vigorous in
their attacks, and were well supplied with pro-
visions by the zealous Londoners, on their part
fully aware of the importance of reducing this
stronghold of the King, the nearest to the Metro-
polis. A detachment under General Ruthven,
Earl of Bath, sent forward by command of the
King, to attack the Parliamentary army, with
the hope that the effort would be seconded by
the garrison of Reading, was driven back at
the bridge, and the next day the town capitu-
lated, Colonel Fielding having stipulated that
the garrison should be allowed to march out
with all the honours of war. He agreed at the
same time to deliver up all deserters. " This
last article," says Hume, " was thought so igno-
minious, and so prejudicial to the King's in-
PANIC AT READING. 345
terests, that the governor was tried by a coun-
cil of war, and sentenced to death for consent-
ing to it." This sentence was, however, remit-
ted afterwards by the King. The town suf-
fered great damage during the siege ; the fine
tower of St. Giles's Church, in particular, was
pierced by cannon ball, and rendered so inse-
cure, that it was necessary to repair it, lest it
should fall upon the heads of the passengers.
In the year 1688, a popular panic began at
Reading, which spread over a considerable part
of the kingdom. The cry was, that the Irish
disbanded soldiers of King James's army were
ravaging and burning wherever they came.
The roads at that time being none of the best,
and there being few newspapers to carry intel-
ligence into the towns and villages, each town
imagined that its neighbour was in flames, and
turned out its inhabitants to repel the mysteri-
ous and terrible marauders, of whom everybody
had heard, but whom no one ever saw. This
alarm was called the Irish panic.
Reading, which now manufactures ribbons
and pins, was formerly more celebrated for its
clothing manufactures. In the fifteenth cen-
tury, there were, it was calculated, one hundred
and forty clothiers in the town. In the reign
of Edward I, one Thomas Cole was popularly
346 MANUFACTURES OF READING.
known as " the rich clothier of Reading." The
celebrated Archbishop Laud, who was born in
this town on the 7th of October, 1573, was the
son of William Laud, a respectable clothier.
This trade declined at the commencement of
the eighteenth century.
Among other well-known persons who were
born at Reading, may be mentioned the Lord
Chief Justice Holt ; and in our own day, Tho-
mas Noon Talfourd, the author of " Ion," who,
though a poet, may also become a Lord Chief
Justice, of whom Reading is justly proud, and
who is at present member for the borough.
The town is divided into two parts by the
river Kennett, which is navigable westwards to
Newbury. By means of the Kennett and Avon
canal, a water communication is made between
the Thames and the Severn, from which this
town receives considerable benefit.
The prospect from the Forbury, an eminence
at the north-east side of the town, is very ex-
tensive, over the beautiful county of Oxford,
with its groves and parks, and pleasant waters,
and its country houses rising in rich profu-
sion from every knoll. On the south-west of
the town, is another eminence, which the geo-
logist will do well to visit. It is about four hun-
dred yards from the river Kennett, and is called
COLERIDGE AT READING. 347
Cat's-grove hill. A stratum of oyster-shells
runs through the hill. When the oysters are
taken out, the valves are closed as in the natu-
ral state, and on being opened, the animal is
found reduced to a powder. In the stratum
of sand, which runs above this, the bones and
teeth of large fish have been frequently found.
There is yet one more incident connected
with Reading, on which the future tourist will
delight to dwell. It was here that the poet
Coleridge was stationed as a dragoon, under
the name of Comberback, and here in a common
tap-room, amid the hubbub and noise of the bac-
chanalian troopers, he composed one of his finest
poems. This place also witnessed his emanci-
pation from the army. Nathaniel Ogle, the
son of the Dean of Winchester, and captain of
the troop, in which the soi-disant Comberback
served, going into the stables at Reading, ob-
served written upon the white-washed wall,
under one of the saddles, the mournful excla-
mation,
Eheu I quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem I
Struck with the novelty of such scholarship
and such sorrow in a common soldier, the cap-
tain inquired who had written it, and was in-
formed that it was Comberback. The future
348 COLERIDGE AT READING.
philosopher and poet was sent for; examined
in the spirit of sympathy and kindness as to
his real name and previous history, when all
the truth was elicited. His friends were soon
apprised of his situation, the runaway from
Jesus College, Cambridge, was recognised, and
a post-chaise having been sent for him to the
Bear Inn, Coleridge was whirled away from
the scene of his adversity, amid the congratu-
lations of the officers and soldiers. The poem
which he composed in the tap-room at Read-
ing, modestly entitled " Religious Musings,"
is perhaps his finest composition, and far supe-
rior to " Christabel," " Genevieve," or the " An-
cient Mariner," which seem to have pleased
the world from their very eccentricity, but
which do not abound in such noble thoughts
and philosophic aspirations as his " Musings."
349
CHAPTER XIV.
The river Kennett. The ruins of Silchester. Newbury.
Donnington Castle and the Poet Chaucer. Chaucer's
Oak. Caversham. Purley Hall. Wallingford. The
poetical Fiction of the Thame and Isis.
lITHIN a short distance of
Reading, and on the banks of
the Kennett, stand the ruins
of Donnington Castle, once
the abode of the father of
English poetry. This alone
would be sufficient to induce us, enthusiastic
lovers of the divine science of Homer, Shak-
speare, and Milton, to diverge from the straight
path of our course to visit it, had the river Ken-
nett no other reminiscences on which the ram-
bler might dwell with pleasure as he wandered
along its banks.
Leaving the Thames for a while, we will
thread the mazes of the
Kennett swift, for silver eels renowned,
as far as Newbury and Donnington, and then
back again to the suzerain river of our chief
350 RUINS OF SILCHESTER.
peregrination. The villages that lie between
Reading and Newbury, on either side of the
Kennett, offer little to stay the steps of the
traveller. Passing by Calcot, Theale, Jack's
Booth, the very fine seat of Mr. De Beauvoir,
Beenham, and Midgham, we arrive within a
very short distance of the remains of the an-
cient town of Silchester. This latter place,
now a farm-yard, is deserving the attention of
the philosopher and the antiquary, as having,
in the time of the Romans, been one of the
principal stations; as indeed were all the towns
preserving the name of Ceastre, Cester, or
Chester. The foundation . of the streets can
readily be traced running in parallel lines across
the area. The walls of the city, parts of which
are still standing, are exceedingly strong even
now, although they must have stood for at
least one thousand four hundred years. Mo-
dern brickmaking will bear no comparison with
the old. The shells of houses, as they are
rightly called, which are built now, almost like
Aladdin's palace in the course of a night, ap-
pear to the casual observer of their slim and
flimsy proportions, as if they would scarcely
last fourteen hundred days. Not so these ;
they seem yet as if they could endure the wind
and weather for a thousand years to come.
RUINS OF SILCHESTER. 351
The wall on the south side is the most perfect,
and is about twenty feet high, and appears
originally to have been about twenty -four feet
thick. At the distance of nearly one hundred
and fifty yards from the north-east angle of
the wall, are the remains of an amphitheatre,
similar to those which are to be seen near Dor-
chester. Its high banks are now covered with
trees, and it has two entrances. The bank or
wall is about sixty feet thick at the bottom, but
gradually decreases towards the summit, where
its thickness is but twelve feet. The area is
now a swamp. One deep part is still pointed
out, supposed to have been the den where the
wild beasts were kept, before they were let out
into the arena, to tear one another to pieces for
the gratification of the gentle colonists reviving
in the wastes and wildernesses of the new coun-
try to which they had emigrated, the civilized
and humanizing sports of polished Rome.
We have strayed a little out of our course,
but regain the Kennett by the by-roads up to
Aldermaston. Near Aldermaston, prettily si-
tuated on a hill, there is a fine view of the
windings of the river, and the various branches
into which it divides itself. Proceeding pa-
rallel with the line of the Kennett and Avon
Canal, but on the southern side of the river,
352 JACK OF NEW BURY.
through Brimpton, and over the waste of
Crookham Heath, we arrive at Newbury,
known to all men from the traditionary stories
of its great clothier, "Jack," and its battles
during the civil wars of Charles I. The river
Kennett crosses the town near the centre.
The principal streets are disposed nearly in the
form of the Roman Y, the angles branching
off from the market-place, and the foot of the
letter being formed by the village of Speen-
hamland, to which the town is united.
" Jack of Newbury," whose name was Winch-
comb, flourished in the reign of Henry VIII,
and was the greatest clothier of his age and
nation. He kept a hundred looms at work in
his house ; great things in those days, when
there was no steam to aid the shuttles, and
spare the strength of man, while it performed
a thousand times his labour. His house is now
taken down, and several smaller tenements
stand upon its site. He rebuilt the parish
church, and was, in many other respects, a
great benefactor to his native town. On the
invasion of England by the Scots, under their
monarch, in the year 1513, and when all
England zealously contributed both men and
money to repel the foe, considered so fierce
and barbarous, Jack of Newbury not only gave
JACK OF NEWBURY. 853
men and money, but, like a feudal lord, his
own services. He equipped one hundred men
at his sole expense, and marched at their head
in the royal armies, being present at the deci-
sive battle of Flodden Field, when the flowers
of Scottish chivalry "were a wede away, 1 ' as
the melancholy song says, alluding to the lone-
liness of Scottish fire-sides after that event.
Two of the most sanguinary battles fought
during the civil wars, between Charles I. and
his Parliament, occurred at Newbury. The
first was a few months after the siege of Read-
ing, already alluded to, when the Earl of Essex,
the general of the Parliamentary army, march-
ing from Gloucester towards London, found
Newbury occupied by the royal troops. He
had wished to avoid an action, on account of
the superiority of the royal cavalry, commanded
by Prince Rupert ; but now finding one inevit-
able, prepared for the attack. The militia,
composed chiefly of Londoners, who served
under the Earl of Essex, distinguished them-
selves greatly, and both sides fought with much
obstinacy, until night put an end to the engage-
ment, leaving the victory undecided. Next
morning the Earl of Essex proceeded on his
march to London, still harassed by the royal
troops in his rear, and was highly complimented
VOL. i. 2 A
354 PRESENTIMENT OF DEATH.
by the House of Commons for his courage and
conduct in the emergency. Among the noble-
men in the King's army who lost their lives in
this battle, were the Earls of Sunderland and
Carnarvon, and Lucius Cary Viscount Falk-
land. The virtues, learning, and accomplish-
ments of the latter are well known, and received
due appreciation both from his contemporaries
and from posterity. A singular instance of the
many which might be adduced of the fulfil-
ment of a presentiment of approaching death,
is told in the case of this nobleman. Ever
since the outbreak of the civil war, his natural
vivacity had forsaken him. He mourned for
the woes of his country ; became reserved and
melancholy ; and, unlike the other gallants and
cavaliers of the age, paid little or no attention
to the neatness or appropriateness of his attire.
For months before his death, his negligence
in this respect became the subject of remark
among his companions. On the morning of
the fatal battle of Newbury, he was observed,
however, to adorn himself with scrupulous
neatness, and pay an attention to outward show,
which had not been noticed in him for a long
time. On being asked the reason, he said he
did not wish that the enemy should find his
corpse in a slovenly or indecent situation. " I
BATTLE OF NEWBURY. 355
am weary," added he, " of the times, and I
foresee great miseries for my country ; but I
believe I shall be out of it all ere night." He
fell as he had predicted, covered with wounds.
He was only in the thirty-fourth year of
his age.
The second battle of Newbury was fought
in the following year. The Parliament desi-
rous of striking some decisive blow against the
King, elated by his recent successes in the west
of England, gave orders to their generals, the
Earls of Essex and Manchester, and Waller,
Cromwell, and Middleton, to join their forces
and attack the King. Charles took up his post
at Newbury, where, on the 27th of October,
1644, he was vigorously attacked by the Earl
of Manchester. The Parliamentary soldiers
very soon after their first onset, recovered seve-
ral pieces of cannon which had been taken from
them in Cornwall, which they embraced and
hugged in their arms, and kissed with tears of
joy, so great was their enthusiasm. Their next
onset was increased in impetuosity by this ex-
cited feeling, and they hewed down the royal
troops with great fury, and made much slaughter.
Night again intervening, brought a cessation
to the battle, and saved the honour of the
Royalists, who fell back upon Donnington
2 A 2
356 GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Castle, where they stationed the brave Colonel
Boyce with a large quantity of ammunition and
stores, and thence retreated to Wallingford and
Oxford. The Parliamentary forces then at-
tacked Colonel Boyce, and so shattered Don-
nington Castle with their artillery, that its
principal towers were thrown down, and the
place reduced to a ruin, which it has ever since
remained.
It was this castle that, two hundred and forty-
four years previously, was the chosen retire-
ment of Geoffrey Chaucer ; and, as such, its
ruins, though the work of civil warfare, and
not of time, are hallowed to the eyes and hearts
of all lovers of English literature. For the
greater part of his life, his residences appear to
have been the Savoy Palace in the Strand,
some apartments near the Custom-House of
London, and Woodstock Park, of which we
shall have occasion to speak hereafter, but the
last two years were passed at Donnington. He
seems to have chosen it for reasons of economy.
His constant friend, relative, and patron, John
of Gaunt, being dead, an unfriendly monarch
being upon the throne, and his pecuniary af-
fairs being in a state of some embarrassment, he
withdrew from the more public life he had
been in the habit of leading, to this seclusion,
AT DONNINGTON CASTLE. 357
only leaving it occasionally when summoned
to London on the business of some of his many
lawsuits. Henry IV, the son of his friend,
ascended the throne a few months after Chaucer
had hidden himself here, and this monarch was
not unmindful of him. The pipe of wine and
the annuity which he had enjoyed as poet-
laureate, and lost during the dissensions of
those unhappy times, were renewed and con-
firmed by Henry very soon after his accession,
and he also granted him an additional annuity
of forty marks. The poet did not live long
to enjoy them: he died on the 25th of Oc-
tober, 1400, the second year of his retirement
to Donnington some say at that castle, but
others, with more probability, at London, whi-
ther he had been summoned on some affair of
business.
Chaucer's son, Thomas, who was Speaker of
the House of Commons during the reigns of
Henry IV. and V, resided occasionally at Don-
nington, his principal seat being at Ewelm in
Oxfordshire. The daughter and heiress of this
gentleman married the famous William de la
Pole, Earl, and afterwards Duke of Suffolk
he who was so cruelly murdered in the Straits
of Dover, by two partisans of the House of
York, in the reign of Henry VI. The chief
358 THE CHAUCER FAMILY.
of this unfortunate family, and great-grandson
of Alice Chaucer, was Edmund de la Pole,
beheaded in the reign of Henry VIII. on a
charge of high treason against that monarch,
and against Henry VII. He was confined for
seven years in the Tower before he was brought
to execution. At his death, all the estates once
possessed by the Chaucer family reverted to
the Crown. Along with the title of Suffolk,
most of them were shortly afterwards bestowed
upon the favourite of Henry VIII, the famous
Charles Brandon.
Camden, who visited Donnington Castle long-
before the artillery of civil warfare had reduced
it to ruins, describes it in his time as a small
but neat castle, situate on the brow of a rising
hill, having an agreeable prospect, very light,
with windows on all sides. Evelyn, the lover
of trees, visited it when in its ruins, drawn
thither to view a large tree in the park, said,
according to tradition, to have been planted by
Chaucer, and under which he composed several
of his poems. Of this tree the philosopher has
left us a description in his well-known work.
The tradition, that Chaucer composed poems
under this tree, seems to be devoid of found-
ation. He was a very aged, a very busy, and
a very ailing man, when he first went to
DONNINGTON CASTLE.
359
Donnington, and the only poem that he wrote
during that period, was a short one entitled
" The good Counsaile of Chaucere," supposed to
have been written a few days before his death ;
and some of his biographers say, during the
few calm hours he enjoyed in the interval of
his last agonies. At such a time it is not
likely that the Bard went under a tree to com-
pose. It was at Woodstock, as we shall have
occasion to mention hereafter, that Chaucer
loved to meditate and compose under his own
360 CAVERSHAM.
trees. Evelyn says, that besides this tree at
Donnington, which was called Chaucer's Oak,
there were two others planted by the poet,
called the King's Oak and the Queen's Oak.
Some small remains of the castle, covered
with ivy, friend and adorner of decay, still so-
licit the attention of the wayfarer as he passes
this celebrated spot. Adjoining, a new house
has been erected, called Donnington Castle
House, the seat of the present proprietor of the
grounds. There is another mansion in the
neighbourhood, situated in a grove, called Don-
nington Grove, from which a pretty view may
be obtained of the old castle of Chaucer. These
grounds are watered by the Lambourrie, a
brook which runs into the Kennett.
We traced the stream no further, but re-
turned to Reading by the way we came, and
so across the bridge over the Thames to Caver-
sham. All the country lying between this
and Oxford is celebrated in the annals of the
civil wars of Charles I. At every step we
tread, we come upon some memento or remi-
niscence of those disastrous times. Caversham,
opposite to Reading, was for some weeks the
abode of Charles I, when he was a prisoner
of the army, and just prior to his removal
to Hampton Court Palace, from whence, as is
CAVEIISHAM. 361
so well known, he escaped to the Isle of Wight.
At Caversham, though a prisoner de facto, he
was treated with more respect and consideration
than he received as he came nearer to London.
All his friends were allowed access to him; his
correspondence with the Queen was not inter-
rupted, and his children were permitted to pass
several days with him. Cromwell, who was
then at Caversham, was present during the first
interview of Charles with his family, and con-
fessed afterwards that he had never witnessed
so tender a scene. Both friends and foes have
since agreed upon the private virtues of the
man, although opinions are as much undecided
as ever, as to the errors of the monarch. It
was here that Charles endeavoured to tempt
Cromwell with the Order of the Garter, and
the revival in his favour of the earldom, held
by a more virtuous Cromwell in the reign of
Henry VIII.
It was from Reading and Caversham that
the army, finding itself stronger than the Par-
liament, marched to London, to overawe that
body. They stopped mid-way on Hounslow
Heath, where that celebrated scene occurred,
when the Speakers of the two houses, Man-
chester and Lenthall, attended by eight peers,
and about sixty commoners, with maces and
362 PURLEY HALL.
all the paraphernalia of their office, claimed the
protection of the army; a protection granted
with shouts of joy. The army marched on to
chastise the Londoners, and a military despot-
ism forthwith began to establish itself.
From Caversham, proceeding up the now
narrow stream, we arrive at Purley Hall, a
gloomy-looking mansion, once the residence of
Warren Hastings. It is erroneously said, that
in this house John Home Tooke composed his
well-known philological work, " The Diver-
sions of Purley." Home Tooke never resided
here, but at another place called Purley, in
Surrey. From hence upwards to Walling-
ford, the county of Berkshire on the left, and
Oxfordshire on the right, is pleasant and pic-
turesque, abounding with villages and country
seats ; but the great bend of the river which
separates it from the high road between Ox-
ford and London, has the effect of rendering
it very tranquil and retired. The principal
villages which we must pass are, Mapledur-
ham, Pangbourn, Whitchurch, Goring, Streatly,
Moulsford, Little Stoke, and North Stoke.
In the year 1674, a melancholy loss of life
took place on the Thames between Goring and
Streatly, or as the latter was sometimes called,
Stately. There is a rare tract describing it,
LOSS OF LIFE AT GORING.
entitled " Sad and deplorable news from Ox-
fordsheir and Barksheir, being a true and la-
mentable relation of the drowning of about
sixty persons, men, women, and children, in
the lock, near Goring in Oxfordsheir, as they
were passing by water from Goring feast to
Stately jn Barksheir. Printed for R. Vaughan,
in the Little Old Bailey, 1674." The accident
occurred, to use the words of the author, " by
the watermen's imprudently rowing too near
the shore of the lock, when they were by the
force of the water, drawn down the lock,
where their boat being presently overwhelmed,
they were all turned into the pool, except four-
teen or fifteen, and unfortunately drowned.
And to show how vain all human aid is, when
destiny interposes, this happened in the view
of hundreds of people, then met at the feast
of Stately near this fatal lock, who found the
exercise of their pastime disturbed, and their
jollity dashed by this mournful disaster." The
author concludes his account of the cala-
mity by a solemn address to the reader, in
which he warns all people to believe that this
was one of the signs of the approach of the
Day of Judgment ! The press at this time
teemed with pamphlets of " Strange News,"
" Wonderful News," of " Battles in the Air,"
364 WALLINGFORD.
"Showers of Blood," "Showers of Toads,"
" Hailstones weighing three pounds," and inun-
dations, storms, and earthquakes, all thought
to foretell the speedy end of the world.
About two miles northward of North Stoke
is Wallingford, a town of the ancient Britons,
and as ancient probably as London itself.
There is here a very handsome stone bridge,
of nineteen arches, over the Thames. The
town is supposed by some antiquaries, to have
been the chief city of the Attrebattii, and
that called Calleva in the Itinerary of Anto-
ninus. It is also said to have been the royal
seat of Comius, a king of the Attrebattii. It
was formerly surrounded by a wall, and is said
to have possessed twelve or fourteen parish
churches, of which however only three remain.
Close to the river side stand the ruins of its
fine old castle, famous for the sieges it under-
went in the civil wars between Stephen and
Matilda. It was long held by the partisans of
the latter; and Stephen built a fort at Crow-
marsh, on the Oxfordshire side of the river, to
keep it in awe. It was here finally that the
compromise was made between the contending
parties, which put an end to the effusion of
blood, and by which Stephen was allowed to
retain the throne for his life, upon the under-
WALLINGFORD CASTLE. 365
standing that Henry, the son of Matilda, should
succeed him.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was crowned King
of the Romans in this town in the reign of
Henry III. The castle and its estates were
bestowed by Edward II. upon his favourite,
Piers Gaveston, who enjoyed them for five
years, until he was brought to the scaffold,
when they reverted to the Crown. They were
bestowed upon Hugh Despencer, the succeed-
ing favourite, with the title of Earl of Corn-
wall, which, ever since the time of Richard,
King of the Romans, had been an appendage
to these estates. He did not enjoy them long,
but died the same death as his predecessor, and
Wallingford Castle remained in the possession
of the Crown until the time of Henry VIII.
when, by means of Cardinal Wolsey, it was
granted to Christ Church College, Oxford.
The honour of Wallingford, separate from the
castle, remained in the Crown, and was bestowed
by James I. upon his queen, and afterwards
upon his son Prince Charles. The town had
begun to decline long before this time, having
suffered so severely from a plague in the year
1348, that it was more than half depopulated.
What trade it had was removed, and never
returned to it. In Leland's time it must have
366 WALLINGFORD.
offered a mournful spectacle. There were per-
sons then alive, who pointed out the places
where its fourteen parochial churches had for-
merly stood, and showed the remains of its
ancient burial grounds. At that time three
only of the fourteen churches remained, the
same number existing at this day. St. Peter's,
the most modern of these edifices, has a sin-
gular tower and spire, built at the sole expense
of Judge Blackstone, so well known for his
Commentaries on the Laws of England. The
Judge is buried here, and there is a handsome
monument to his memory.
Bensington or Benson, is a small village in
Oxfordshire, lying to the north of Walling-
ford. At a small distance from this place, for-
merly stood the castle of Ewelm, the residence
of Chaucer occasionally, but the principal seat
of his son Thomas, the Speaker, and afterwards
of his heiress and her husband, and their de-
scendants, the De la Poles. The situation not
being healthy, the original place was suffered
to fall into decay, and no traces of it now
exist.
Passing by Shillingford, and under the bridge
of the same name, we arrive at the junction of
the Thame and the Thames; or, as poets have
THAME AND ISIS. 367
loved to call it, the junction of the Thame and
the Isis a name by which the Thames at this
place is known by collegians. This name, from
its Grecian and euphonious sound, has long
been the favourite of the classical denizens of
Oxford, and it is a very common error to sup-
pose that their designation of the river is the
true one. Stowe seems to be the first writer
who gave the authority of an eminent reputa-
tion to this mistake. He says in his " Survey
of London," that the river is called Isis from
its source to Oxford, and that on its junction
with the Thame, it becomes Thame-isis or
Thames. But Stowe, usually so accurate, was
quite at fault here ; for in the very next sen-
tence, he says that the Thames begins at
Winchcombe, above Oxford; thus leaving all
the distance between Winchcombe and the junc-
tion of the Thame, about seventeen miles,
without any name at all. Camden is more
accurate, and proves from irrefragable testi-
mony of old documents, that the river, forty
miles west of Oxford, was always called the
Thames, or the Terns, and never the Isis. The
source of the river too is always called the
Thames' head, and never the Isis' head; so
that the question will not admit even of a
368 DORCHESTER.
dispute about it. Isis must therefore be con-
sidered only as the classical name of the
Thames, and not as another river.
Dorchester is seated upon the Thame, at a
short distance from its junction with the
Thames. It was formerly a town of some im-
portance, but is now an inconsiderable vil-
lage.
369
CHAPTER XV.
Abingdon and its Bridge. Nuneham Courtney. The Car-
fax. Oxford and its University.
BOVE the junction of the two
rivers, Thame and Thames, the
latter narrows considerably, and
the scenery loses much of its
beauty. Passing several ele-
gant villas at Burcot Clifton, or as it is some-
times called, Clifton and Long Wittenham,
we arrive at Sutton Courtney, where the
scenery becomes more varied, and from thence
onwards to Culham and Abingdon. The river
makes a considerable bend here, and the water
being very shallow, a new cut has been formed
a short distance below Culham Bridge, leading
in a more direct line to Abingdon. The lat-
ter is an ancient borough town, formerly of
great importance, and now a very considerable
place, as the county-town of Berkshire. It
consists of several well-formed streets, diverg-
VOL. i. 2 B
370 ABINGDON.
ing from a centre, in which stands the mar-
ket-house and Town-hall, and contains two
churches, dedicated to St. Nicholas and St.
Helen. Camden conjectures, so ancient is this
town, that synods were held in it in the year
742. It was formerly called Shovesham ; but
when its abbey was built, by Ciss, King of the
West Saxons, about the year 675, it acquired
the name of Abbendon, or the abbey town, from
whence its present designation. From " The
old booke of Abbendon," it appears that the
place " was in ancient times a famous city,
goodly to behold, full of riches, encompassed
with very fruitful fields, green meadows, spa-
cious pastures, and flocks of cattle abounding
with milk ; that the King kept his court here,
and hither people resorted, while consultations
were depending about the greatest and most
weighty affairs of the kingdom." By this
kingdom, we are only to understand Mercia,
of which it was one of the principal towns.
The abbey was destroyed by the Danes, but
was rebuilt by King Edgar ; and it is said that
William the Conqueror resided in it for a short
time, and also that his son Henry received the
principal part of his education from its monks.
Old Geoffry of Monmouth, so well-known for
his fabulous history of England, was one of
CULHAM BRIDGE. 371
the abbots of this foundation, and was buried
within its walls. In the reign of Henry V,
Abingdon acquired additional prosperity by the
erection of the bridge over the Thames at
Culham, and of another over the small stream
of the Ouse at Burford, a circumstance which
was commemorated in a Latin distich, formerly
inscribed on the great window, in the church of
St. Helen's, but which is now removed. The
following translation of part of a Latin poem,
on the subject of this bridge, is mentioned by
Elias Ashmole,
King Henry V, in the fifth of his reign,
At Burford and Culham did bridges build twain.
Between these two places, but from Abingdon most,
The King's highway now may be easily past.
In one thousand four hundred and ten more by six,
This so pious work did his Majesty fix ;
Ye passengers now, who shall travel this way,
Be sure that you mind for the founder to pray.
From some other barbarous rhymes on the
same matter, it appears that the gratitude of
the people of all this neighbourhood to the
King was very great. Culham was formerly a
cut-throat place, " which had caused many a
curse;" but the bridge improved its cha-
racter, and "all the country was the better,
and no man the worse."
2B 2
372 CULHAM BRIDGE.
Few folk there were that could that way wende
But they were awed or payed of their purse ;
Or if it were a beggar had bread in his bagge
He schulde be right soon ybid to go aboute,
And of the poor penniless that hiereward would habbe
A hood or a girdle, and let him go without.
Many moe mischieves there were, I say,
Culharn hithe hath caused many a curse ;
Yblessed be our keepers we have a better waye
Withouten any peny for cart or for horse.
Thus accorded the Kyng and the Covent,
And the commons of Abendoun as the Abbot wolde.
The first quotation fixes the year of the
erection ; and the following distich marks the
day :
Upon the day of St. Alban they began this game,
And John Hutchyns laid the first stone in the King's name.
The work was also considerably aided by the
liberality of Geoffry Barbour, a merchant of
Abingdon, who gave a thousand marks towards
it. The latter was buried in the abbey, but
his monument was removed at the dissolution
to the church of St. Helen's ; the abbey, with
most of its monuments, and among others that
of GeofTry of Monmouth, being demolished.
Its annual revenues, according to Dugdale,
amounted at the time to one thousand eight
hundred and seventy-six pounds.
There was a handsome cross in the Market-
NUNEHAM COURTNEY. 373
place of Abingdon, erected in the reign of
Henry VI. It was destroyed by the fanatics
during the civil wars before the Common-
wealth, when so many valuable relics of anti-
quity, because they were thought to be popish,
shared a similar fate and Charing Cross
among the rest. Abingdon was made a free
borough by Queen Mary I, to be governed by
a mayor, bailiffs, and aldermen, and ever since
that time has sent members to Parliament.
The church of St. Helen, the most promi-
nent object in the town, when viewed from the
river, was erected towards the close of the
thirteenth century, but has been much altered
and enlarged at different periods. The chief
trade of Abingdon is in malt and flour, and
there are also considerable manufactories of
sail-cloth.
A little stream, called the Ock, falls into the
Ouse, another small stream at a short distance
from Abingdon, and they both join the Thames
at the south of that town.
Northwards, on the other side of the river,
in Oxfordshire, is Nuneham Courtney, for-
merly the seat of the Earls of Harcourt, and
now of the Archbishop of York, the inheritor
of their name and property. From the windows
of this mansion, there are beautiful views in
374 THE CARFAX.
every direction ; to the north, are the spires
of the classic city of Oxford, and to the south,
Abingdon ; to the east, the fertile county of
Oxford ; and to the west, the rich vale of the
White Horse, and the downs of Berkshire.
The mansion was built by the Earl of Har-
court, in 1761. It is situated in a park of
about twelve hundred acres, extending along
the bank of the Thames, which park with the
gardens, was laid out under the superintend-
ence of the celebrated Brown, Capability
Brown, as he was nicknamed in his day. In
the garden, over the centre of the arch, was
a tablet, perhaps existing still, with an in-
scription from the pen of Andrew Marvel.
The mansion is situated on the rise of a hill,
with its front towards the west. The front is
of stone, joined by inflected corridors to the
projecting wings. The back has a handsome
bow window in the centre, supported by Ionic
pillars. The house contains a valuable collec-
tion of pictures, and some curious tapestry,
formerly in the possession of Horace Walpole.
The Earl of Harcourt, soon after his man-
sion was built, placed in the grounds a remark-
able piece of antiquity, known by the name of
Carfax, which formerly stood in the centre of the
High Street of Oxford. The name is supposed
VIEW OF OXFORD. 375
by some to have been derived from Carnifex; but
there is no evidence to show that it was ever
a place of execution. Others derive it from
Carrefour, from its having stood in a carrefour,
a place where four roads meet. Its history is
briefly told in the inscription placed upon it
by the Earl of Harcourt.
" This building, called Carfax, erected for a conduit at
Oxford, by Otho Nicholson in the year of our Lord 1610,
and taken down in the year 1787 to enlarge the High street,
was presented by the University to George Earl of Har-
court, who caused it to be placed here."
Passing Sandford Lock and Weir, and the
village of IfHey with its antique church, and
Shotover Hill, from whence there is a most
charming view over the city of learning, and
the rich adjacent country, we arrive within
sight of Oxford. Just beyond the green mea-
dows, where the small stream of the Cherwell
falls into the Thames, or the Isis as we must
call it while within these precincts, stands the
ancient and beautiful city, so rich in reminis-
cences to every English scholar, or man of re-
finement of taste, whether a scholar or not, in the
common acceptation of the word. The Thames
boasts not only its metropolis of trade, not
only its metropolis of legislation, not only its
seat of royalty, but its "city of the muses,"
376 VIEW OF OXFORD.
which is, perhaps, taken altogether, the most
beautiful of them all and certainly, as far as
remembrances are concerned, inferior to none.
Who, as he sees the students in their aca-
demical costume loitering about the elegant
streets, or observes them practising their fa-
vourite diversion of rowing upon the water,
does not recall to his mind the great men
departed, who, once in the same dress, and in
the very same places, followed the same pur-
suits; the statesmen, the divines, the orators,
the judges, and the poets, who shed a lustre
on the land of their birth, and the University
which gave them education ? A mere list of
them, dry as a catalogue, would fill more space
than we can afford to all our reminiscences of
the fair city. And the events of its history
are so well-known to almost every English-
man, that it seems needless to repeat them,
whether they relate to the times of King Al-
fred, of Roger Bacon, of Cardinal Wolsey, of
Cardinal Pole, or of Charles I, which may be
called the five great epochs of its existence,
or of our own. The little we may venture
to say upon the subject can have no novelty
for most readers, and if we dilate upon the
glories of its architecture, we shall be equally
following in an old track, and saying what
VIEW OF OXFORD.
377
has been said thousands of times before, by
every traveller who has visited Oxford, and
by every book which has attempted to de-
scribe it. The celebrity of the site has had the
effect of exciting so much attention, that not
a corner of the city has been left unexplored,
or an incident unnoticed, which is at all re-
markable in her ancient or modern annals.
London, so immense, and in many parts so
uninviting, has not been half so well explored as
Oxford, and many historical spots in the metro-
polis have thus been comparatively unnoticed,
378 ORIGIN OF OXFORD
a great advantage to the rambler, who goes
upon a journey of discovery, to find out all the
nooks remarkable as the scenes of interesting
events, or the abodes of celebrated men. But
in Oxford, everywhere so elegant, everywhere
so accessible, and moreover of such limited ex-
tent compared to London, there is no such
advantage ; so that we must be content to be-
come merely a retailer of old stories, or a sug-
gester of things which almost every person may
have once known, but which many may have
forgotten.
That Roger Bacon pursued his studies in
Oxford, and was persecuted as a magician ; that
King Alfred founded one college, and Cardinal
Wolsey another, and that in the troublous times
that preceded the Commonwealth, Oxford was
for a short period the Royalist metropolis of
England, none need even be reminded.
The following slight sketch of the history
of the city must therefore be taken, not be-
cause the reader will find it of much value, or
novelty, but because our Thames voyage would
be incomplete without it. Great have been
the discussions among the learned as to the an-
tiquity of Oxford, some claiming for it an ex-
istence of a thousand years prior to the time
of our Saviour, and ascribing its foundation to
ORIGIN OF OXFORD. 379
Memprick, King of the Britons, from whom
they say it was called Caer Memprick. Among
other fabulous names of Oxford may be men-
tioned Caer Bossa, Rhyd, Ychen, and Caer
Vortigern. It has also been called, from the
surpassing beauty of its position among the
hills, Bellositum and Beaumont. It acquired
the name of Oxenford from the Saxons, and
appears, if it existed at all before the Saxon
times, to have been a very inconsiderable place.
The University of Oxford was founded by
King Alfred in the year 886, who, it may
be mentioned by the way, was born almost
within sight of the city, at Wantage, only a
few miles on the other side of the Thames.
Oxford, however, appears to have been the
seat of learning before this period, for Grymbald
and John the Monk, established there by Alfred
in the year above mentioned, had to wage for
some time fierce war with the old students,
who did not approve of the new regulations
which they introduced. After three years,
Alfred himself was obliged to go in person to
Oxford to reconcile their differences, which, how-
ever, he failed in doing, and Grymbald shortly
afterwards retired to the monastery at Winches-
ter, also founded by this King. Alfred would
thus appear, not to have been the actual founder,
380 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
but the restorer of the University; but opinions
differ among the learned, as to which character
he is strictly entitled to. Without pretending
to cast any new light upon the subject, we can
but say that Alfred either founded or restored
University College, which is allowed on all hands
to be the most ancient of the twenty colleges
of the University. In the reign of Ethelred
(1002) the city and college were sacked and
burned by the Danes ; but were restored within
five years. The Saxon professors in the col-
lege, manifesting some opposition to the will
of William the Conqueror, as regarded teach-
ing the English language, that prince stopped
the stipends granted them by King Alfred,
upon which they fomented a rebellion in the
city that took the king some time and much
trouble to suppress.
The present University College was erected
in 1634. The Gothic hall is of more modern
date.
Baliol College was projected about the year
1260, by Sir John Baliol of Barnard Castle,
father of Baliol, King of Scotland, who settled
some annual exhibitions on certain poor scho-
lars, till he could provide a house and other
accommodations for them. He dying in 1269,
before his design could be executed, his widow,
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 381
the Lady Devergilla, hired a house in the town,
in which she placed her exhibitioners, consist-
ing of a principal and sixteen fellows. Here
they appeared to have remained for fifteen
years, when their patroness purchased a struc-
ture called St. Mary's Hall, which she rebuilt
at considerable expense, and which then ac-
quired the name of Baliol College.
Merton College, on the south side of the city,
was founded by Walter de Merton, Lord High
Chancellor in the reign of Henry III. The
college was originally established at Maiden in
Surrey, but as the liberal arts could only be
taught at the University, the students were
transferred to Oxford, where a hall was built
for them in 1267. The chapel of this college,
which is also the parish church of St. John,
was built in 1474, and contains the monument
of Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of the Bod-
leian library.
In a house opposite this college, not now
existing, was born, in 1631, the celebrated An-
thony a Wood, who laboured so much, and to
such good purpose, to illustrate his native city
and its university. His " Athena? Oxoniensis"
is a treasury of curious information ; but, like
many other great works, it procured the author
little renown in his life-time, and that little was
382 UNI\ 7 ERSITY OF OXFORD.
unpleasant, for it led to his expulsion from the
University. He is described by his biographer
in the introduction to the "Athenas Oxoniensis,"
as a person "who delighted to converse more
with the dead than the living ; and was, as it
were, dead to the world, and utterly unknown
in person to the generality of the scholars in
Oxford. He was so great an admirer of a soli-
tary and private life, that he frequented no
assemblies of the said University, had no com-
panion in bed or at board, in his studies, walks,
or journeys, nor held communication with any,
unless of some, and those very few, choice and
generous spirits ; and truly, all things consider-
ed, he was but a degree different from an as-
cetic. It was usual with him, for the most
part, to rise about four o'clock in the morning,
and to eat hardly anything till night, when,
after supper, he would go into some bye ale-
house in town, or else to one in some village
near, and there by himself take his pipe and
pot."
Honest Anthony, who also wrote " The His-
tory and Antiquities of Oxford," died in 1695,
in his sixty-fourth year, and was buried in his
well-beloved Oxford, where a monument is
erected to his memory, with the short inscrip-
tion, "H. S. E. Antonius Wood, Antiqua-
rius."
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 383
Exeter College, founded in 1314, is so named
from Walter Stapylton, Bishop of Exeter.
Oriel College, first called St. Mary's, and
afterwards King's College, was founded by King
Edward II. in 1324. To this society, whose
hall was inconvenient, Edward III. gave a larger
building, known by the name of 1'Oriel, pro-
bably from its long oriel window, and the col-
lege soon afterwards began to be exclusively
known by the same designation.
Queen's College, one of the most beautiful in
the University, was founded by Robert Eggles-
field, Confessor to Philippa, Queen of Edward
III, in 1340. It used to be the custom here
for the bursar on new year's day to present
each of the members with a needle and thread,
with the injunction, " take this and be thrifty."
This custom is said to have derived its origin
from the name of the founder Aiguille etjil
(needle and thread) from whence Egglesfield.
There is a story of Henry V, when Prince of
Wales, which is thought to have some con-
nection with this custom. Speed, the chro-
nicler, relates, that having offended his father,
" he came into his presence in a strange dis-
guise, being in a garment of blue satin, wrought
full of eylet holes, and at every eylet the
needle left hanging by the silk it was wrought
384 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
with." This story, says Mr. Hone in his " Year
Book," puzzled many a head to discover its
meaning, until Mr. G. S. Green of Oxford
published his conjectures in the Gentleman's
Magazine. " Prince Henry," says he, " having
been a student of Queen's College, his wearing
of this strange garment was probably designed
by him to express his academical character,
the properest habit he could appear in before
his father, who was greatly apprehensive of
some trouble from his son's active and ambi-
tious temper, and much afraid of his taking the
crown from him, as he did at last. The habit
of a scholar was very different from that of a
soldier in those days, that nothing could bet-
ter allay the King's suspicions, than this silent
declaration of attachment to literature and re-
nunciation of the sword." The explanation
seems anything but satisfactory, for there is
no pretence for saying that a dress stuck full
of needles was the academical costume, and if
the King saw a declaration of attachment to
literature in such masquerading, he probably
could see as far through a millstone as the
worthy antiquary himself, who has given us
so luminous an explanation. Popular tradition
was fond of attributing all sorts of mad-cap
tricks to the gallant Prince Henry, and this
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 385
seems one of them. In that day, as in ours, if a
man of station committed one excess, the voice
of the people soon accused him of a hundred.
The ceremony of the boar's head on Christmas-
day, is also peculiar to this college. The scho-
lars have a pleasant story to account for it.
One of them, some hundreds of years ago, when
boars were common in England, was attacked
by a very wild one, in the vicinity of Oxford,
while he was busily employed in reading Aris-
totle. Having no weapon to defend himself, he
took up his volume, and exclaiming " Graecum
est," (it is Greek,) choked the animal by ram-
ming it down his throat. The crabbed words
were too much for him, and the boar expired in
great agony.
New College was founded by the celebrated
William of Wykeham, the architect of Wind-
sor Castle, in 1379-
Lincoln College dates from 1427, in which
year it was founded by Richard Fleming, Bishop
of Lincoln.
All Souls arose ten years later. Its founder
was Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canter-
bury. There is an ancient custom in this col-
lege, of celebrating the discovery of a large mal-
lard or drake, in a drain or sewer, when the
foundation of the building was laid. This cele-
VOL. i. 2 c
386 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
bration takes place on the 14th day of January,
when the scholars dine in the hall, and sing
the following bacchanalian ditty :
Griffin, bustard, turkey, capon,
Let other hungry mortals gape on,
And on the bones their stomach fall hard,
But let All Souls' men have their mallard.
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping mallard !
The Romans once admired a gander
More than they did their chief commander,
Because he sav'd, if some don't fool us,
The place that 's called the head of Tolus.
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping mallard !
The poets feign Jove turned a swan,
But let them prove it if they can ;
As for our proof 'tis not at all hard,
For it was a swapping, swapping mallard!
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping mallard !
Therefore let us sing and dance a galliard
To the remembrance of the mallard,
And as the mallard dives in pool,
Let us dabble, dive, and duck in bowl I
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
Oh, by the blood of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping mallard !
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 387
The magnificent Magdalen College, at the foot
of the fine bridge of the same name over the
little river Cherwell, was founded in 1458, by
William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester. It
however owes its splendour to Cardinal Wolsey,
who, in the year 1492, being bursar and fellow
of the college, erected the lofty tower, so great
an ornament not only to the college but to the
city. The scholars had a May-day custom
here, which used formerly to attract great crowds
to witness it. The scholars assembled exactly
as the clock struck five, and chanted a Latin
hymn in honour of the May, when the bridge
was generally thronged with people to hear it.
A lamb was then roasted whole for breakfast
on the leads of the tower. This part of the
custom was abolished, and a dinner substituted,
at which lamb formed the principal fare.
Brazen Nose College was founded in the year
1511, by William Smith, Bishop of Lincoln,
and Chancellor of the University, and Richard
Sutton of Prestbury, near Macclesfield. They
gave it the name of Brazen Nose, from its
being built on the site of an ancient hall, com-
monly known by the same designation, which
it had received from a large brass nose upon the
gate.
Corpus Christi College was established only
2 c 2
388 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
two years after the last, under the patronage
of Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester.
Christ Church College is one of the now few
remaining testimonials of the magnificent taste
of Cardinal Wolsey. It was begun in the
year 1525, and was to have been called Car-
dinal College after its founder, but in conse-
quence of his fall before the completion of his
design, it was called King Henry VIHth's
College, until the year 1545, when it received
its present name. Samuel Ireland, in his " Pic-
turesque views on the Thames," pronounces an
opinion upon the architectural beauties of this
college with its fine church, in which every
one must agree. " Of its stately entrance, and
happy selection of Gothic proportions, too
much cannot be said in commendation. The
spacious and noble quadrangle inspires the
mind on a first view, with every idea of anci-
ent grandeur, and were there no other remains
of the Cardinal's princely mind, this alone
would bear lasting testimony to his unbound-
ed munificence. The beautiful roof of the
elegant staircase leading to the hall, is supported
only by a single pillar, which with the Gothic
fret-work in the ceiling of the spacious hall
above, and the vaulted roof of the choir par-
ticularly, said to have been constructed under
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 389
the direction of Wolsey, are truly deserving
of critical observation. The tower was designed
by Sir Christopher Wren, and harmonizes well
with the rest of the building." The church is
a cathedral which had formerly a bishop, but
is now governed by a dean, who is the head
of the college.
Trinity College was founded in 1555, by Sir
Thomas Pope, Lord Mayor of London. The
chapel was erected by Sir Christopher Wren,
in 1695, as well as one of the courts.
St. John Baptist College was founded in the
same year by Sir Thomas White, another citi-
zen and alderman of London.
Jesus College was founded in 1573, by Hugh
Price, Doctor of the Canon Law in the Univer-
sity, who procured a charter from Queen Eliza-
beth. The Queen agreed to furnish the tim-
ber for the building, on condition that she
should have the first nomination of the prin-
cipal, fellows, and scholars, and that it should
be called Jesus College.
Wadham College was founded by Nicholas
Wadham, " some time a gentleman commoner
in the University, and Dorothy his widow."
Mr. Wadham had formed the design of erect-
ing and endowing this college shortly before
he died, and by his will left money for that
390 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.
purpose. Accordingly, in 1609, Mrs. Wadham
purchased the site of a dissolved priory of the
canons of St. Austin, in the north skirts of the
town, and erected a noble quadrangle, adorned
with the statues of herself and her husband
over the western gate.
Pembroke College was founded by Thomas
Tisdale, Esq. and Dr. Richard Wightwick.
The first of these gentlemen, by his will dated
in 1610, left 5000 and considerable addi-
tions to his bequest being made by the latter,
the college was founded in 1624, and named
in honour of William Earl of Pembroke, then
chancellor of the University.
Worcester College was originally called Glou-
cester Hall, from its being a seminary for edu-
cating the monks of Gloucester. On the dis-
solution of the religious foundations, it fell
into the King's hands, and was given by Queen
Elizabeth to Mr. Doddington. It was pur-
chased of the latter gentleman by Sir Thomas
White, the same who founded the College of
St. John the Baptist, and by him annexed to
that institution. Being additionally endowed
in 1714 by Sir Thomas Cooke, of Astley, near
Worcester, it was erected into a separate col-
lege under its present name.
Hartford College , the twentieth, was originally
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 391
called Hartford Hall, from Elias de Hartford.
It was endowed by Dr. Richard Newton, in
1740, and erected into a college in that year.
Besides the twenty colleges, there are five
halls, which are neither endowed nor incorpo-
rated, but which are governed by their re-
spective principals, whose salaries arise from
the fees paid by students and the rental of
their lodgings. They are the remains of for-
mer academical houses, and are called St. Ed-
mund's, St. Magdalen's, St. Alban's, St. Mary's,
and New Inn Hall.
The University is governed by a chancellor,
(the Duke of Wellington,) a high steward, a
vice-chancellor, and two proctors, and returns
two members to Parliament. The city of
Oxford returns the same number. This ele-
gant metropolis of learning abounds with pub-
lic buildings, that rise up in every street, soli-
citing the notice of the traveller. Besides its
noble colleges and its churches, are the Bod-
leian Library, the Clarendon Printing Office,
the Radcliffe Library, the Theatre, the Ash-
molean Museum, the Observatory, the Physic
Gardens, which are all deserving of more than
casual attention, but which, as we do not write
a guide-book, we shall not describe, but merely
mention.
392 VTEW OF OXFORD.
The traveller who arrives in Oxford sud-
denly from London, may well be surprised at
the remarkable contrast. Stepping into one of
the comfortable carriages of the Great Western
Railway, after breakfast, he will arrive in time
for an early luncheon at the fairest city in
England, and, to use the words of a writer
in the Quarterly Review, " will come from
noise, and glare, and brilliancy, to a very dif-
ferent scene ; a mass of towers, pinnacles, and
spires, rising in the bosom of a valley from
groves which hide all buildings but such as
are consecrated to some wise and holy purpose ;
the same river which in the metropolis is co-
vered with a forest of masts and ships, here
gliding quietly through meadows, with scarce-
ly a sail upon it; dark and ancient edifices
clustered together in forms full of richness
and beauty, yet solid as if to last for ever,
such as become institutions raised, not for the
vanity of the builder, but for the benefit of
coming ages ; streets almost avenues of edifices
which elsewhere would pass for palaces, but
all of them dedicated to God ; thoughtfulness,
repose, and gravity in the countenances and
even dress of their inhabitants ; and mark, in*
stead of the stir and business of life, and the
roar of carriages, the sound of hourly bells,
" OXFORD NIGHT-CAPS." 393
calling men together to prayer." This is all
very well, and appears very true to the casual
observer; but it is only a description of the
surface of things. The solemn halls resound
sometimes with the voice of " uproarious' 5 jol-
lity. These men, looking so quiet in their
academical costumes, can be roysterers when
they will; they can fight, swear, smoke, row, and
drink, and love a horse-race or a gaming-table
better than they do the pages of Tacitus, or the
Bible. They are the men for " Rum Booze,''
" Rum Fustian," " Flip," " Swig," " Brown
Betty," " Pope," " Cardinal," " Bishop," " Lawn
Sleeves," and other Bacchanalian mixtures,
which all come under the one generic term
of " Oxford Night-caps," and a full account of
which may be found in a little tract, published
a few years ago under that title. However
these things do not strike the stranger, and
Oxford appears to him quiet, as the abode of
learning ought to be.
The High-street is considered the most beau-
tiful in the world. Even Dr. Waagen, fresh
as he was from the " Unter den Linden" of Ber-
lin, which the Prussians vaunt as the finest
in Europe, acknowledged the vast superiority
of Oxford. But it has other claims upon the
attention than those of mere beauty : here
394 THE OXFORD MEMORIAL.
Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, the three great
martyrs of Protestantism, suffered for consci-
ence' sake, and no reader of English history can
pass the street without remembering with me-
lancholy interest those events, and treading re-
verentially upon the hallowed ground. It was
here that Latimer exclaimed to Ridley, when
tied to the stake, " Be of good cheer, brother,
we shall this day kindle such a torch in Eng-
land, as I trust in God shall never be extin-
guished," And it was here that Cranmer, a
few months afterwards, performed that heroic
act of thrusting into the fire, and holding it
there till it was consumed, the right hand which
had signed his recantation, exclaiming all the
while, strong in soul, " This unworthy right
hand that did it! this unworthy right hand that
did it!"
No memorial has hitherto stood upon the
exact spot of the martyrdom, to point it out to
the respect of posterity ; but this want is now
about to be supplied. Funds have been sub-
scribed, plans have been sent in, and one finally
fixed upon for "The Martyrs' Memorial."
The design chosen, which is said to be pre-emi-
nently beautiful, is that of Messrs. Scott and
Moffatt, the former of whom is architect of
St. Mark's Church, at Summer Hill, Birming-
THE OXFORD MEMORIAL. 395
ham, and grandson of the Rev. Thomas Scott,
the author of the well-known Commentary on
the Holy Bible The monument will consist
of an elaborate hexagonal cross, of a character
corresponding with the crosses erected by Ed-
ward I. to the memory of Queen Eleanor, but
larger, and more richly decorated. The second
story will contain, in niches, on the alternate
sides, statues of the three martyrs, which
from the situation of the monument, will face
three different streets. The site chosen is
appropriate, being in front of the church
of St. Mary Magdalen, in which parish the
martyrdoms took place, and opposite to the
end of the very fine avenue Jeading from St.
Giles's to St. Mary Magdalen Church, which
will be highly favourable to the effect, when
approached from that direction. The height
of the cross will be about seventy feet, which
is about one-fourth higher than the majority of
the ancient crosses in this country. A portion
of the fund is also to be appropriated to the
erection of a new aisle to the church, and to
rendering the side opposite which the cross will
be placed, and which is much dilapidated, con-
formable in character to the cross. This aisle
is to be called the Martyrs' Aisle.
The patron saint of Oxford is St. Frides-
396 ST. FRIDESWYDE.
wyde; but the church formerly dedicated to
her, is now the Cathedral of Christ Church.
Her supposed relics were translated from an
obscure to a more public place in the church
in the year 1180, on which occasion it was re-
ported that divers miracles were performed :
the blind saw, the deaf heard, and the dumb
spoke in Oxford, as the bones were brought
into the light of day. The church was acci-
dentally burned down two years afterwards,
but the precious relics appear to have been
saved.
The houses of Oxford, at this time, says
Anthony a Wood, were built only of wood
and straw ; but afterwards they began to imi-
tate the people of London, where the con-
stant disastrous fires had led to the building of
houses of brick and stone. In the poorer dis-
tricts of Oxford, where the inhabitants could
not afford such expensive dwellings, it was
ordered that between every five or six houses
built in the old fashion of wood and straw,
there should be erected a strong brick or stone
wall to prevent the extension of any acci-
dental fire.
It was formerly the custom for the Chancel-
lor of the University and all the scholars, to
go in procession twice a year to the relics of
ST. FRIDESWYDE. 397
St. Frideswyde, once in the middle of Lent,
and once on the feast of Ascension. In the
year 1268, as they were marching through the
town towards the place where the holy bones
were preserved, a Jew, it is said, tore the cru-
cifix from the hands of the priest who carried
it, threw it on the ground, trampled on it, and
broke it to pieces. What became of the of-
fender is not stated ; but most likely, if there
is any truth at all in the story, he was not long
afterwards an inhabitant of this world. All
the Jews in Oxford were fined for the outrage,
and with the proceeds a marble cross was erect-
ed on the spot, near the entrance to the church,
with this inscription :
Quis meus auctor erat ? Judaei : quomodo ? Sumpto
Quis jussit ? Regnam : quo procurante ? Magistris
Cur ? Cruce pro fracta ligni : quo tempore ? Festo
Ascensus Domini : Quis erat locus ? hie ubi sisto.
This cross remained till the reign of Henry VI,
when it fell down, and was never restored.
One other reminiscence of the classical city,
and we have done. On a bridge called Folly
Bridge, there formerly stood a tower, said to
have been the residence of Friar Bacon, and to
which an ancient tradition was attached. The
bridge was built, according to Anthony a
Wood's account, as early as the Conquest, by
398 FRIAR BACON'S STUDY.
Robert D'Oyley, upon the site of one still
older ; and the tower known as Friar Bacon's
study, was at the south end. It was said of
this tower, that it would stand until a wiser
man than the friar passed under it : some re-
proach, it has been hinted, to the learning of
the University, for it stood several centuries,
though all the wise men of Oxford in their suc-
cessive generations passed beneath it. There
are no remains of it now ; it was found an
obstruction, and was pulled down somewhere
about the year 1780, to make room for other
improvements.
It was in this study that the friar was long
believed by the vulgar to have held converse
with the devil, and to have constructed that
famous brazen head, so renowned in the annals
of necromancy, in conjunction with another,
named Friar Bungay. The history of this
brazen head, that was to deliver oracles, was
one of the earliest works printed in England.
When they had finished their work, after
seven years' hard labour upon it, says the le-
gend, they were so exhausted that they lay
down to sleep, first charging their servant that
if it spoke he should waken them immedi-
ately. The servant being a clownish fellow,
paid but little attention, and the brazen head
THE BRAZEN HEAD. 399
spoke, and said, " Time is" There was a long
pause, and the head again spoke, and said in a
solemn voice, " Time was" Still no notice was
taken, the friars slept, unconscious of their
great loss, and after another long pause, a voice
pronounced " Time is passed" and immediately
with a noise as loud as thunder, the head fell
to pieces, and the friars awoke, and saw their
labour and art had been of no avail, and heard
a fierce storm of thunder and lightning, and
hail and wind, which raged over the city of
Oxford, to announce that the devil, who had
spoken in it, had taken his departure. A simi-
lar brazen head was also believed to have been
constructed at Oxford, by Dr. Robert Gros-
test, Grosse-tete, or Greathead, for his name is
variously written, who was Bishop of Lincoln
about the time that Roger Bacon flourished.
The earliest notice of this head appears as fol-
lows, in " Gower's Confessio Amantis."
For of the great clerk Grostest
I rede how redy that he was
Upon clergy an hede of brasse
To make and forge it for to tell
Of such thinges as befell,
And seven yeares businesse
He layd, but for the lacknesse
Of half a minute of an houre
Fro first that he began laboure,
He lost all that he had done.
400 OXFORD.
Some have gone so far as to say, and there
may be some truth in it, that Brazen Nose
College derives its name from one of these
brazen heads. Dr. Friend, in his " History of
Physic," says that Bacon drew articulate sounds
from the brazen head, by an artificial appli-
cation of the principles of natural philosophy.
Very likely he amused himself by frightening
the vulgar by experiments which now would
be perfectly intelligible, but which acquired for
him then a reputation which was far from
agreeable in its consequences to himself.
There is a water communication from Oxford
to many parts of the kingdom. Besides the
noble river eastward to London, it has a com-
munication with the Severn westward by
means of the Thames and Severn canal, and
with Wiltshire and Berkshire by means of the
Thames and the Kennett and the Avon canals,
and it also communicates with the Trent, the
Humber, and the Dee.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON : PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLF.Y,
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