CHAPTER IV.HIGHGATE.

If I were inclined to be dull, I would say Highgate is a village to the north of London, with an ancient history, a great deal of which the reader, if he be not a fool, can imagine, and with a very fine geological formation, indicative of salt-water where it is now very difficult to find fresh. In order, also, that I may not weary my reader, and establish a cheap reputation for a great deal of learning, I will frankly confess that Highgate, means High Gate, and nothing more. In old times, right away from Islington Turnpike-Gate to Enfield Chase, there was a magnificent forest, and part of this forest extended as far as Highgate. Down in the very heart of it, in Hornsey, the Bishop of London had a castle, and of the Park attached to it Highgate formed a part. When the old road to the north was found impassable, a new one was formed over the hill, and through the Bishop’s Park. In those days pious bishops levied toll; to collect this toll a gate was erected, and here was Highgate, and truly does it deserve the name. It is said the hill is 400 feetabove the top of St. Paul’s. Be this as it may, near London, a lovelier spot is rarely to be met with. Artists, poets, parties in search of the picturesque, cannot do better than visit Highgate. At every turn you come to the most beautiful prospects. When London will consume its own smoke, if that time ever does arrive, the view from Highgate, across the great city, will be the grandest in the world. On a clear day, standing in the Archway Road—that road esteemed such a wonder of engineering in its day, and forming such a disastrous property for its shareholders (the £50 shares may be bought at about 18s. a share)—you may see across the valley of the Thames as far as the Kent and Surrey hills looming obscurely in the distance. Close to the Archway Tavern, but on the other side of the road, is a lofty old-fashioned brick mansion, said to have been inhabited by Marshal Wade, the military hero who did so much for the wars of Scotland, and whose memory is still preserved in the following very remarkable couplet:

“Had you seen these roads before they were made,You would lift up your hands and bless General Wade.”

Well, from the top of this mansion you can see no less than seven English counties. The number seems almost fabulous, and if, in accordance with a well-established rule in such cases, we only believe half we hear, enough is left to convince us that the view is one of no common kind; all that is wanted to make the scene perfect is a little bit of water. From every part of thehill, in spite of builders and buildings, views of exquisite beauty may be obtained. Going down towards Kentish Town, the hill where her Majesty was nearly dashed to pieces by the running away of the horses of her carnage (her royal arms on a public-house still preserves the tradition and the memory of the man who saved her at the peril of his life), past where Mr. Bodkin the Barrister lives, past where William and Mary Howitt live, past where the rich Miss Burdett Coutts has a stately mansion, which, however, to the great grief of the neighbourhood, she rarely adorns with her presence, what pleasant views we have before us. It is the same going down past St. Joseph’s Retreat to Holloway; and in Swain’s Lane, another lane leading back to Kentish Town, you might fancy you were in Arcady itself. Again, stand on the brow of the hill, with your backs to London, looking far away to distant Harrow, or ancient Barnet, what a fair plain lies at your feet, clothed with cheerful villas, and looking bright and warm. “Upon this hill,” says Norden, “is most pleasant dwelling, yet not so pleasant as healthful, for the expert inhabitants there report that divers who have been long visited with sicknesse not curable by physicke, have in a short time repaired their health by that sweet salutary air.” In 1661, the Spanish Ambassador, Count Gondomar, excuses his absence from the English court on the plea that he had gone to his retreat in Highgate “to take the fresh aire.” The associations connected with Highgate are of the most interesting character. It wascoming up Highgate Hill that Dick Whittington heard the bells prophesying that if he would return he would be Lord Mayor of London; a public-house still marks the spot. It was at the bottom of Highgate Hill that the great Bacon—the wisest and not the meanest of mankind, that lie is at length exploded, and must disappear from history—caught the cold of which he died. “The cause of his Lordship’s death,” writes Aubrey, who professed to have received the information from Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, “was trying an experiment as he was taking the air in the coach with Dr. Winterbourne, a Scotchman, physician to the king. Towards Highgate snow lay on the ground, and it came into my Lord’s thoughts why flesh might not be preserved in snow as in salt. They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen and stuffed the body with snow, and my Lord did help to do it himself. The snow so chilled him that he immediately fell so ill that he could not return to his lodgings, but went to the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate, where they put him into a good bed warmed with a pan, but it was a damp bed, that had not been laid in for about a year before, which gave him such a cold, that in two or three days, as I remember, he (Hobbes) told me he died of suffocation.” The Arundel house here referred to does not seem to be the Arundel House still existing in Highgate, on the left-hand side as you come up the mainroad from Islington. The house now bearing that name is said to have been a residence of Nell Gwynne, and during that period was visited by the merry monarch himself. The creation of the title of Duke of St. Albans, which is related to have been obtained by Nell Gwynne in so extraordinary a manner from King Charles, is said to have taken place at this house. A marble bath, surrounded by curious and antique oak-work, is there associated with her name. As the house is now in the possession of a celebrated antiquarian, the Rev. James Yates, M.A., it is to be hoped that it will be as little modernised as possible. More hallowed memories appertain to the next house we come to.

Andrew Marvel, patriot, was born, 1620, at Kingston-upon-Hull. After taking his degree of B.A. at Trinity College, Cambridge, he went abroad, and at Rome he wrote the first of those satirical poems which obtained him such celebrity. In 1635, Marvel returned to England, rich in the friendship of Milton, who a couple of years after, thus introduced him to Bradshaw: “I present to you Mr. Marvel, laying aside those jealousies and that emulation which mine own condition might suggest to me by bringing in such a coadjutor.” “It was most likely,” writes Mrs. S. C. Hall, “during this period that he inhabited the cottage at Highgate, opposite to the house in which lived part of the family of Cromwell.” How Marvel became M.P. for his native town—how he was probably the last representative paid by his constituents, (a much better practice that thanours of representatives paying their constituents)—how his “Rehearsal Transposed,” a witty and sarcastic poem, not only humbled Parker, but, in the language of Bishop Burnet, “the whole party, for from the king down to the tradesman the book was read with pleasure,”—how he spurned the smiles of the venal court, and sleeps the sleep of the just in St. Giles-in-the-Fields, are facts known to all. Mason has made Marvel the hero of his “Ode to Independence,” and thus alludes to his incorruptible integrity:

“In awful poverty his honest museWalks forth vindictive through a venal land;In vain corruption sheds her golden dews,In vain oppression lifts her iron hand,—He scorns them both, and armed with truth alone,Bids lust and folly tremble on the throne.”

On the other side of the way is an old stately red-brick building, now a school, and well known as Cromwell House. I don’t find that Cromwell lived there, but assuredly his son-in-law, Ireton, did. His arms are elaborately carved on the ceiling of the state-rooms, the antique stair-case and apartments retain their originality of character, and the mansion is altogether one of very great interest. Mr. Prickett, in his History of Highgate, tells us Cromwell House is supposed to have been built by the Protector, whose name it bears, about the year 1630, as a residence for General Ireton, who married his daughter, and was one of the commanders of his army; it is, however, said to have been the residence of OliverCromwell himself, but no mention is made, either in history or his biography, of his ever having lived at Highgate. Tradition states there was a subterraneous passage from this house to the Mansion House, which stood where the new church now stands, but of its reality no proof has hitherto been adduced. Cromwell House was evidently built and internally ornamented in accordance with the taste of its military occupant. The staircase, which is of handsome proportions, is richly decorated with oaken carved figures, supposed to have been of persons in the General’s army, in their costumes, and the balustrades filled in with devices emblematical of warfare. From the platform on the top of the mansion may be seen a perfect panorama of the surrounding country.

On the hill was the house of Mr. Coniers, Bencher and Treasurer of the Middle Temple, from which, on the 3rd of June, 1611, the Lady Arabella escaped. Her sin was that she had married Mr. Seymour, afterwards Marquis of Hertford. Her fate was sad; she was recaptured and died in the Tower. Sir Richard Baker, author of “The Chronicles of the Kings of England,” resided at Highgate. Dr. Sacheverel, that foolish priest, died at Highgate. But a greater man than any we have yet named lived here. I speak of S. T. Coleridge, who lived in a red-brick house in the “Grove” twenty years, with his biographer, Mr. Gillman, which house is now inhabited by Mr. Blatherwick, surgeon. It is much to be regretted that Gillman’s Life was never completed, but a monumentin the new church, and a grave in the old churchyard, mark the philosopher’s connection with Highgate. Carlyle has given us a description of what he calls Coleridge’s philosophical moonshine. I met a lady who remembers the philosopher well, as a snuffy old gentleman, very fond of stroking her hair, and seeing her and another little girl practise their dancing lessons. On one occasion Irving came with the philosopher. As the great man’s clothes were very shabby, and as he took so much snuff as to make her sneeze whenever she went near him, my lady informant had rather a poor opinion of the author of “Christabel” and the “Ancient Mariner.” A contemporary writer, more akin in philosophy to Coleridge than Thomas Carlyle, and more able to appreciate the wondrous intellect of the man than the little lady to whom I have already referred, says, “I was in his company about three hours, and of that time he spoke during two and three-quarters. It would have been delightful to listen as attentively, and certainly as easy for him to speak just as well, for the next forty-eight hours. On the whole, his conversation, or rather monologue, is by far the most interesting I ever read or heard of. Dr. Johnson’s talk, with which it is obvious to compare it, seems to me immeasurably inferior. It is better balanced and squared, and more ponderous with epithets, but the spirit and flavour and fragrance, the knowledge and the genius, are all wanting. The one is a house of brick, the other a quarry of jasper. It is painful to observe in Coleridge, that with all the kindnessand glorious far-seeing intelligence of his eye, there is a glare in it, a light half-unearthly and morbid. It is the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner. His cheek too shows a flush of over-excitement, the ridge of a storm-cloud at sunset. When he dies, another, and the greatest of their race, will rejoin the few immortals, the ill-understood and ill-requited, who have walked this earth.” Had Coleridge ever a more genial visitant than the farmer-looking, but eloquent and philanthropic Chalmers, who in 1839 came from Scotland to London, and of course clomb up Highgate Hill to pay a visit to Coleridge, he says—“Half-an-hour with Coleridge was filled up without intermission by one continuous flow of eloquent discourse from that prince of talkers. He began, in answer to the common inquiries as to his health, by telling of a fit of insensibility in which, three weeks before, he had lain for thirty-five minutes. As sensibility returned, and before he had opened his eyes, he uttered a sentence about the fugacious nature of consciousness, from which he passed to a discussion of the singular relations between the soul and the body. Asking for Mr. Irving, but waiting for no reply, he poured out an eloquent tribute of his regard, mourning pathetically that such a man should be throwing himself away. Mr. Irving’s book on the ‘Human Nature of Christ’ in his analysis was minute to absurdity; one would imagine that the pickling and preserving were to follow, it was so like a cookery-book. Unfolding then his own scheme of the Apocalypse—talking of themighty contrast between its Christ and the Christ of the Gospel narrative, Mr. Coleridge said that Jesus did not come now as before, meek and gentle, healing the sick and feeding the hungry, and dispensing blessings all around; but he came on a white horse, and who were his attendants?—Famine and War and Pestilence.”

The poets have always been partial to Highgate. William and Mary Howitt live there at this day. Florence Nightingale has also there taken up her abode. The German religious reformer, Ronge, lives at the foot of Highgate Hill. Nicholas Rowe was educated there. It was in one of the lanes leading to Highgate that Coleridge met Keats and Hunt. “There is death in the hand,” said he to Hunt, as he shook hands with the author of Endymion. Painters and artists have also been partial to Highgate. George Morland would stay at the Bull, an inn still existing, weeks at a time, and, we may be sure, ran up very handsome scores. An incident that occurred to Hogarth while at Highgate made an artist of him. The tale is thus told by Walpole—“During his apprenticeship he set out one Sunday with two or three companions on an excursion to Highgate. The weather being very hot, they went into a public-house, where they had not been long before a quarrel arose between some persons in the same room; one of the disputants struck the other on the head with a quart pot and cut him very much; the blood running down the man’s face, together with the agony of the wound, which had distorted the features into a most hideous grin, presented Hogarth,who showed himself thus early apprised of the mode nature had intended he should pursue, with a subject too laughable to be overlooked. He drew out his pencil, and produced on the spot one of the most ludicrous figures that was ever seen. What rendered the piece the more valuable was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the man, with the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures in caricature of the principal persons gathered around him.” One of the names associated with Highgate I find to be that of Hogarth’s enemy, Wilkes, patriot or demagogue. In his Life I read, “Mr. Wilkes was of the Established Church, but after he was married he often went to Meeting. He lived in a splendid style, and kept a very elegant and sumptuous table for his friends. Among the numerous persons who visited this family were Mr. Mead, an eminent drysalter on London Bridge, with his wife and daughter, who, being also Dissenters, frequently went to the Meeting-house in Southwood Lane, Highgate, in Mr. Wilkes’s coach, which was always drawn by six horses, such was his love of external appearance.” Going still further back, more renowned characters appear on Highgate Hill. After the memorable battle of Bosworth Field, in which the usurper, Richard, had been slain, it was at Highgate that the victorious Richmond was met by the citizens of London on his triumphal approach to the metropolis. “He was met,” writes Lambert, “by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in scarlet robes, with a great number of citizens on horseback.” The Gunpowder Plot is also connectedwith this interesting locality. It is said, while that old villain, Guy Fawkes, was preparing “to blow up king and parliament, with Jehu and Powdire,” the rest of the conspirators had assembled on Highgate Hill to witness the catastrophe; indeed, a driver of the Barnet mail—I fear not the best authority in the world on antiquarian matters—went so far on one occasion as to point out to the writer a bit of an old wall, a little beyond Marvel’s house on the same side of the way, as a part of the identical house in which those very evil-disposed gentlemen met. A subterraneous way is also said to have existed from the site of the present church to Cromwell House, and thence to Islington. To me the story seems somewhat doubtful, but the reader is at full liberty to believe it or not as he likes. Let us now speak of the institutions of Highgate: the most modern is the cemetery, which was consecrated by the Lord Bishop of London in May, 1839, and has therefore the merit of being one of the first, as it is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in situation, of any near London. It contains about twenty acres of ground on the side of the hill facing the metropolis. The approach to it through Swain’s Lane conducts the visitor by a green lane rising gradually to the Gothic building which forms the entrance. Entering the grounds, the eye is struck by the taste everywhere displayed. Broad gravel paths on either side wind up the steep slope to the handsome new church of St. Michael’s, which is seen to great advantage from almost every part of the grounds. An hour may be very wellspent here musing on the dead. Good and bad, rogue and honest man, saint and sinner, here sleep side by side. John Sadleir, but too well known as M.P., and chairman of the London and County Bank, is buried here. Indeed all sects, and callings, and professions, have here their representative men. General Otway has one of the handsomest monuments in the grounds. One of the most tasteful is that of Lillywhite, the cricketer, erected by public subscription. Wombwell, known and admired in our childish days for his wonderful menagerie, reposes under a massive lion. One grave has a marble pillar bearing a horse all saddled and bridled. The inscription under commemorates the death of a lady, and commences thus,

“She’s gone, whose nerve could guide the swiftest steed.”

On inquiry we found the lady was the wife of a celebrated knacker, well skilled in the mysteries of horseflesh and the whip. Holman, the blind traveller, is buried in Highgate Cemetery, and very near him are the mortal remains of that prince of newspaper editors and proprietors, Stephen Rintoul. On the other side the cemetery is buried Bogue, the well-known publisher of Fleet Street. In the Catacombs are interred Liston, the greatest operator of his day, and Pierce Egan, a man as famous in his way. It was only a few months since Sir W. Charles Ross, the celebrated miniature painter, was buried here. Frank Stone sleeps in the same cemetery, as also does that well-remembered actress, Mrs. Warner. Haydn, well-known for his Dictionary of Dates, and Gilbert àBeckett, still remembered for his comic powers, are amongst the literary men that here await the resurrection morn. A fairer place in which to sleep it would be difficult to choose, in spite of the monstrous trophies of affectation, or ostentation, or affection all round,—in spite of the reminiscences of Cornhill and Cheapside, suggested by every other grave. As a ride, you had better pass by monuments unlooked at, they do but enumerate the virtues of the illustrious obscure, and the wealth of their survivors.

Of the past we now recall another relic, Lord Byron, in “Childe Harold,” writes,

“Some o’er thy Thamis row the ribbon’d fair,Others along the safer turnpike fly;Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,And many to the steep of Highgate hie.Ask ye, Bœotian shades! the reason why?’Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery,In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till mom.”

In the note from whence the above extract is taken, Lord Byron says he alludes to a ridiculous custom which formerly prevailed in Highgate of administering a burlesque oath to all travellers of the middling rank who stopped there. The party was sworn on a pair of horns fastened, never to kiss the maid when he could the mistress; never to eat brown bread when he could get white; never to drink small beer when he could getstrong; with many other injunctions of the kind, to all which was added the saving clause, “unless you like it best.” Lambert tells us, “the oath formerly was tendered to every person stopping at any of the public-houses of the village, which are very numerous, and mostly distinguished by a large pair of horns placed over the signs.” I need not add, no horns are seen now. When a person consented to be sworn, he laid his hand on a pair of horns fixed to a long staff, and the oath was administered. This ridiculous ceremony being over, the juror was to kiss the horns and pay a shilling for the oath, to be spent among the company to which he or she belonged. To complete the incongruous character of the ceremony, the father, for such was the style of the person administering the oath, officiated in a wig and gown, with the addition of a mask. The origin of this custom is completely lost, but it was so common at one time, that one man is said to have sworn one hundred and fifty in a day. It appears to have been the fashion to make up parties to Highgate for the purpose of taking the oath, and as a prerequisite for admission to certain convivial societies now no more, the freedom of Highgate was indispensable. The father facetiously said if the son, as the individual sworn was termed, was too poor to pay for wine himself, he was recommended to call for it at the first inn, and to place it to his father’s score, “and now, my good son,” the formula continued, “I wish you a safe journey through Highgate and this life.” If thefather’s good wishes were realized, one is almost inclined to regret that the ceremony exists no longer. Another ancient institution is the grammar school, founded in 1562 by Sir Roger Cholmeley, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and after that Chief Justice of the King’s Bench.

But we must leave Highgate, now the retreat of the wealthy citizen, and the great North Road, along which coaches galloped almost every minute, and along which lords and ladies posted, ere that frightful leveller, the railroad had been formed. By the Favourite omnibuses it is but a sixpenny ride to Highgate from the Bank, but in the good old times, the fare by the stage was half-a-crown. It would do aldermen good to go up its hill, and the city clerk or shopman cannot frequent it too much. Highgate has much the air of a provincial town. It has its Literary Institution, and its police office, and water-works, and gas, its seminaries for ingenious youth of either sex, and its shops filled with miscellaneous wares. The great city is creeping up the hill, and seeking to encircle it with its chains of brick, but it resists lustily, and with its quaint old houses, and fine old trees, will not assume a cockney appearance. I honour it for its obstinacy, and trust that it will be long before it shall have the wicked, busy, towny appearance of the Modern Babylon.

Barry Cornwall tells us that when he was a little boy he was told that the streets of London were all paved with gold; and it must be admitted that, to the youthful mind in general, the metropolis is a sort of Tom Tiddler’s ground, where gold and silver are to be picked up in handfuls any day. There is a good deal of exaggeration in this, undoubtedly. To many, London is dark and dismal as one of its own fogs, cold and stony as one of its own streets. The Earl of Shaftesbury, a few years back, calculated there were 30,000 ragged, houseless, homeless children in our streets. The number of persons who died last year in the streets of London, from want of the necessaries of life, would shock a Christian. Last year the total number of casual destitute paupers admitted into the workhouses of the metropolitan districts amounted to 53,221 males, 62,622 females, and 25,710 children. We cannot wonder at this when we remember that it is said 60,000 persons rise every morning utterly ignorant as to the wherewithal to feed and maintain themselvesfor the day. Wonderful are the shifts, and efforts, and ingenuities of this class. One summer-day, a lady-friend of the writer was driving in one of the pleasant green lanes of Hornsey, when she saw a poor woman gathering the broad leaves of the horse-chestnut. She asked her why she did so. The reply was that she got a living by selling them to the fruiterers in Covent Garden, who lined the baskets with them in which they placed their choicest specimens. One day it came out in evidence at a police-court, that a mother and her children earned a scanty subsistence by rising early in the morning, or rather late at night, and tearing down and selling as waste-paper, the broad sheets and placards with which the dead walls and boardings of our metropolis abound. The poor sick needlewomen, stitching for two-and-six-pence a-week, indicate in some quarters how hard is the London struggle for life. But one of the worst sights, I think, is that of women (a dozen may be seen at a time), all black and grimy, sifting the cinders and rubbish collected by the dustmen from various parts, and shot into one enormous heap.

The last dodge exposed for making money is amusing. A writer in theTimeswanted to know how it was we see advertisements in London papers for a million of postage-stamps. A writer in reply says all the stories about severe papas, who will not let their daughters marry till they have papered a room with them, are false. He says if the reader will go to some of the purlieus of the Borough (leaving his watch and purse at home) he willvery possibly be enlightened. He will be accosted by a hook-nosed man, who will pull out a greasy pocket-book, and produce some apparently new postage-stamps, not all joined together, but each one separate, and will offer them for sale at about 2d. a dozen. If the enterprising stranger looks very closely, indeed, into these stamps, he may perhaps detect a slight join in the middle. They are made by taking the halves which are unobliterated of two old stamps and joining them, regumming the backs and cleaning the faces. This practice is, it is said, carried on to a great extent, in the low neighbourhoods of Ratcliff-highway, and the Borough.

During the year 1858 it appears 10,004 persons died in the public institutions of London: 5,535 in the workhouses, 57 in the prisons, and 4,412 in hospitals. Of the latter number 317 belong to the Greenwich and the Chelsea hospitals, 211 to the military and naval hospitals. About one in six of the inhabitants of the metropolis dies in the public institutions, nearly one in eleven dies in the workhouses. Only think of the population of London. In 1857 that was estimated by the Registrar-General at 2,800,000; since then the population has gone on steadily increasing, and it may be fairly estimated that the London of to-day is more than equal to three Londons of 1801. Now, amidst this teeming population, what thousands of vicious, and rogues, and fools there must be; what thousands suddenly reduced from affluence to poverty; what thousands plunged into distress by sickness or the loss of friends, and parents, and other benefactors; tosuch what a place of pain, and daily mortification, and trial London must be!

But, on the other hand, from the time of Whittington and his cat, London has abounded with instances showing how, by industry and intelligence, and—let us trust—honesty, the poorest may rise to the possession of great wealth and honour. Indeed all the great city houses abound with examples. Poor lads have come up to town, friendless and moneyless, have been sober and steady, and firm against London allurements and vices, have improved the abilities and opportunities God has given them, and are now men of note and mark. The late Lord Mayor was but an office-lad in the firm of which he is now the head. Mr. Herbert Ingram, M.P. for Boston, and proprietor of theIllustrated News, blackened the shoes of one of his constituents. Mr. Anderson, of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and formerly M.P. for the Orkneys, rose in a similar manner. Sir Peter Laurie was originally in a humble position in life, so was Mr. Dillon, of the house of Dillon and Co. Our great Lord Chancellor, when employment was scarce and money ditto, held a post as reporter and theatrical critic on theMorning Chroniclenewspaper. Mr. Chaplin, the late Salisbury M.P., was an extraordinary instance of a man rising from the humblest rank. Before railways were in operation Mr. Chaplin had succeeded in making himself one of the largest coach proprietors in the kingdom. His establishment, from small beginnings, grew till, justbefore the opening of the London and North Western line, he was proprietor of sixty-four stage-coaches, worked by fifteen hundred horses, and giving yearly returns of more than half a million sterling. Mr. Cobden began life in a very subordinate position in a London warehouse. Sir William Cubitt when a lad worked at his father’s flour-mill. Michael Faraday, England’s most eminent chemist, was the son of a poor blacksmith. Sir Samuel Morton Peto worked for seven years as a carpenter, bricklayer, and mason, under his uncle, Mr. Henry Peto. The well-known Mr. Lindsay, M.P. for Sunderland, was a cabin boy. The editor of one morning paper rose quite from the ranks, and the editor of another well known journal used to be an errand-boy in the office before, by gigantic industry and perseverance, he attained his present high position. Mr. J. Fox, the eloquent M.P. for Oldham, and the “Publicola” of theWeekly Dispatch, worked in a Norwich factory. The great warehouses in Cheapside and Cannon-street, and elsewhere, are owned by men who mostly began life without a rap. Go to the beautiful villas at Norwood, at Highgate, at Richmond, and ask who lives there, and you will find that they are inhabited by men whose wealth is enormous, and whose career has been a marvellous success. Fortunes in London are made by trifles. I know a man who keeps a knacker’s yard, who lives out of town in a villa of exquisite beauty, and who drives horses which a prince might envy. Out of the profits of his vegetable pillsMorrison bought himself a nice estate. Mrs. Holloway drives one of the handsomest carriages you shall meet in the Strand. Sawyer and Strange, who the other day were respectable young men unknown to fame, paid the Crystal Palace Company upwards of £12,000, as per contract, for the liberty to supply refreshments for a few months. In the city there, at this time, may be seen the proprietor of a dining-room, who drives a handsome mail-phaeton and pair daily to town in the morning to do business, and back at night. Thackeray has a tale of a gentleman who married a young lady, drove his cab, and lived altogether in great style. The gentleman was very silent as to his occupation; he would not even communicate the secret to his wife. All that she knew was what was patent to all his neighbours—that he went in his Brougham in the morning, and returned at night. Even the mother-in-law, prying as she was, was unable to solve the mystery. At length, one day the unfortunate wife, going with her dear mamma into the city, in the person of a street sweeper clothed in rags, and covered with dirt, she recognised her lord and master, who decamped and was never heard of more. The story is comic, but not improbable, for London is so full of wealth, you have only to take your place, and it seems as if some of the golden shower must fall into your mouth. Mr. Thwaites, when examined before the Parliamentary Committee on the Embankment of the Thames, said, “The metropolis contributes very largely to the taxation of the country.The value of the property assessed under Schedule A, is £22,385,350, whilst the sum for the rest of the kingdom is £127,994,288; under Schedule D the metropolis shows £37,871,644, against £86,077,676. The gross estimated rental of the property of the metropolis assessed to the poor rates is £16,157,320, against £86,077,676 from the rest of the kingdom.” The speculations on the Stock Exchange embrace a national debt of 800 millions, railway shares to the extent of 300 millions, besides foreign stock, foreign railway shares, and miscellaneous investments of all kinds. Land has been sold in the neighbourhood of the Exchange and the Bank at the rate of a million pounds an acre. The rateable value of the property assessed to the poor rates in the districts of the metropolis in 1857 amounted to £11,167,678. A Parliamentary Return shows that the total ordinary receipts of the Corporation of the city for the year 1857 amounted to £905,298, the largest item being the coal duty, £64,238. The London omnibuses pay government a duty of no less than £70,200 a year. The Thames even, dirty and stinking as it is, is full of gold. One fact will place its commercial value in the clearest light. In 1856 the Customs’ duties entered as collected from all parts of the United Kingdom were £19,813,622, and of this large sum considerably more than half was collected in the port of London,—the Customs’ duties paid in the port of London alone being £12,287,591, a much larger sum than paid by all the remaining ports of the United Kingdom put together. No wonder that theLondoners are proud of the Thames. Why, even the very mudlarks—the boys who prowl in its mud on behalf of treasure-trove—earn, it is said, as much as £2,000 to £3,000 by that miserable employment in the course of a year.

But we stop. The magnitude of Loudon wealth and even crime can never be fully estimated. It is a boundless ocean, in which the brave, sturdy, steady swimmer—while the weak are borne away rapidly to destruction—may pick up precious pearls.

On Monday, Jan. 9, 1860, we formed part of a crowd who had assembled in the Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, to view the burial of the only man of our generation who, by means of his literary and oratorical efforts, has won for his brow a coronet. Of Babington Macaulay, as essayist, poet, orator, historian, statesman, we need not speak. What he was, and what he did, are patent to all the world. Born in 1800, the son of Zachary Macaulay, one of the brilliant band of anti-slavery agitators of which Mr. Wilberforce was the head, young Babington commenced life under favourable circumstances. At Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was educated, the world first heard of his wondrous talent. In 1830 he was returned by Lord Lansdowne for his borough of Calne; the Reform agitation was then at its height, and how bitterly, and fiercely, and eloquently Macaulay spoke we remember at this day. Then, in 1834, commenced his Indian exile, at the end of which he returned to Parliament with a competency.His Essays in the Edinburgh Review and his History were the chief business of his life. He might have shone as a poet had he not betaken himself to prose; but in this department he remained unrivalled, and the result was riches and fame. On one occasion, it is said, his publisher gave him a cheque for £20,000, and he was made by the Whigs a peer. His burial at Westminster Abbey, at the foot of Addison, was a fitting climax to his career of wondrous achievement and gorgeous success. Men most distinguished in literature—in science—in law—in statesmanship—in divinity—in rank—were present. The funeral was not as touching as might have been expected. It may be that the choral service itself interferes with the inner feeling of sadness the death of such a man arouses in every mind; it may be that the human voice is inadequate to express the power, and pathos, and majesty of the form of words used on such occasions; and it is certain that the many ladies present were dressed in the most unbefitting costumes, and that ribbons, and bonnets, and dresses of all the colours of the rainbow were quite out of keeping with the place and the occasion. The saddest sight, the one most suggestive of deep feeling, was that of one or two ladies, high up in a recess above the grave. They were real mourners. Indeed, it was said one of them was the sister of the deceased peer. Lord John Russell also exhibited an emotion for which the general public will scarce give him credit. At the grave he was so much overcome, that it seemed as if he would have fallen hadnot the Duke of Argyle held him up. Well might his Lordship be moved to tears. Could he keep from thinking, while standing there, how soon his own turn would come, and how well and worthily he, who slept the sleep of death in the plain coffin at his feet, had fought the battle of the Whigs in their palmy days? We looked back, as we stood there, to other days. We saw a theatre in Gower Street filled with intelligent youths. A winter session had been closed: all its work and competition were over; to the successful candidates prizes were to be awarded. The fathers and mothers, the friends and sisters of such had come together from far and near. Seated in a chair was a stout, mild, genial man, with face somewhat pale, and hair scant and inclined to grey. He rose, and was received with rapturous applause; he spoke in plain language—with little action, with a voice rather inclined to be harsh—of the bright future which rises before the rapt eye of youth. He spoke—and as he did so, as he mounted from one climax to another, every young heart filled and warmed with the speaker’s theme. That was Macaulay, just come from India, with an honourable competence, to consummate the fame as a man he had acquired in younger years. Again, we thought of that last speech in the House of Commons, when, at an early hour on a beautiful summer evening, the Parks, and Clubs, and Rotten Row had been deserted, for it had gone forth to the world that Macaulay was about to speak. Poor Joseph Hume had moved the adjournment of the debate,and, as a matter of right, was in possession of the House; but the calls for Macaulay on all sides were so numerous, that even that most good-natured of men, as Hume was, grew a little angry and remonstrated; but it was in vain that he sought the attention of the House: all were anxious for the next speaker, and no sooner had Hume sat down than Macaulay delivered, in his hurried feverish way, one of those speeches which not merely delight, but which influence men’s votes and opinions, and may be read with delight when the occasion which gave rise to them has long since passed away. We have heard much in favour of competition in the civil service, at home and in India, since then, but never was the argument more clearly put—more copiously illustrated, more clothed in grace and beauty; and then came a few short years of infirmity of body, of labour with the pen, and sudden death, and the burial at Westminster Abbey. Out of the thousands standing by the grave, few could ever expect to see the career of such another genius. He is gone, and we may not hope to see his work finished. In vain we call up him—

“Who left untold,The story of Cambuscan bold.”

Since then another public funeral has taken place in Westminster Abbey; only the other day we saw deposited there the ashes of Sir Charles Barry, and here, as year by year passes over our heads, richer, and dearer, and wider are the associations which cluster around that venerable pile. I don’t envy the man who can point asneer at Westminster Abbey; how placid and beautiful is the outside, how eloquently it speaks to the ambitious lawyer, the busy merchant, the statesman bent on fame, the beauty armed for conquest; what a testimony it bears to the religious spirit of the age which witnessed its erection, and of the brain or brains which conceived its magnificent design.

The Abbey is open to public inspection between the hours of eleven and three daily, and also in the summer months between four and six in the afternoon. The public are not admitted to view the monuments on Good Friday, Christmas Day, or fast days, or during the hours of Divine Service. The nave, transept, and cloisters are entirely free. The charge for admission to the rest of the Abbey, through which you are accompanied by a guide, is sixpence each person. The entrance is at the south transept, better known as Poet’s Corner. It will do you good to walk in there any Sunday during Divine Service. The appearance of the place is singularly striking. The white-robed choristers; the benches filled with well-dressed people the dark religious columns; the lofty and fretted roof; the marble monuments and busts looking down on you from every wall and corner; the gleams of mellow sunlight streaming in from richly painted windows—all tend to produce an effect such as you can find nowhere else—an effect of which you must be sensible if you care not for the rich notes of the organ, or sleep while the parson preaches.

The Abbey, originally a Benedictine monastery—the Minster west of St. Paul’s London—was founded originally in what was called Thorney Island, by Sebert, King of the East Saxons, 616. The patron Saint, Peter himself, is said to have consecrated it by night, and in a most miraculous manner. Till the time of Edward the Confessor the Abbey does not seem to have made much way; but the meek-minded Prince was led to give the Abbey a patronage which led to the building becoming what it is. It seems the Prince had been ill, and vowed to take a journey to the Holy Land if he should recover. But, as often is the case with vows made in sickness, the Prince, when well, found it exceedingly inconvenient to fulfil his vow. The only course left for him was to appeal to the Pope. The Holy Father, of course, was appealed to, and freed the pious king from his vow on one condition—that he should spend the money that the journey would have cost him in some religious building. The Prince, too happy to be freed from the consequences of this foolish vow, gladly promised to do so; and, whilst he was considering as to what building he should favour with his royal patronage, one of the monks of Westminster—rather an artful man, we imagine—was reported to have had a wonderful dream, in which no less a personage than St. Peter himself appeared to him, and charged him to take a message to the King, to the effect that his celestial saintship hoped he would not overlook the claims of Westminster. Of course, to so pious a prince as Edward,the saintly wish was law; and on Westminster were lavished the most princely sums. Succeeding kings followed in the same steps. Henry III. and his son, Edward I., rebuilt it nearly as we see it now. It is difficult to say what the building must have cost its royal patrons. In our own time, its repairs have amounted to an enormous sum.

As the last resting place of the great, Westminster Abbey must always be dear to Englishmen. It was a peerage or Westminster Abbey that urged Nelson on. Old Godfrey Kneller did not rate the honour of lying in Westminster Abbey quite so highly. “By God,” exclaimed the old painter, “I will not be buried in Westminster! They do bury fools there.” It is difficult to say on what principle the burials there take place. Byron’s monument was refused, though Thorwaldsen was the sculptor; and yet Prior has a staring one to himself—that Prior whose Chloe was an alehouse drab, and who was as far inferior to Byron in genius as a farthing rushlight to the morning star.

Another evil, to which public attention should be drawn, is the expense attending a funeral there. When Tom Campbell (would that he were alive to write war lyrics now!) was buried, the fees to the Dean and Chapter amounted to somewhere between five and six hundred pounds. Surely it ought not to be so. The Dean and Chapter are well paid enough as it is.

If, reader, pausing on the hallowed ground, you feel inclined to think of the past, remember that beneath yousleep many English statesmen,—Clarendon, the great Lord Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning; that there

“The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.Drop upon Fox’s grave the tear,’Twill trickle to his rival’s bier.”

Remember that—

“Bacon thereGives more than female beauty to a stone,And Chatham, eloquence to marble life;”

that of poets; Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Congreve, Addison, Sheridan, and Campbell, and others, there await the sound of the last trumpet; that old Sam Johnson there finds rest; that there the brain of a Newton has crumbled into dust; and, as if to shew that all distinctions are levelled by death, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and other favourites of the stage, are buried there. As a burial place Westminster Abbey resembles the world. We jostle one another precisely so in real life. “The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe.”

When Guizot visited London the principal thing that struck him was the nature and the extent of London Charities. Undoubtedly the English are a more charitable people than the French. When the ruinously low prices of the Funds forbade a loan, the loyalty-loan brought forth the name of a Lancashire cotton-spinner, the father of the lamented statesman, Sir Robert Peel, who subscribed £60,000; and when George the Third sent the Minister Pitt to compliment him on this truly loyal and patriotic subscription, he simply replied that another £60,000 would be forthcoming if it was wanted for the defence of the country. Did Napoleon, or any French monarch, ever possess such a patriotic subject? The spirit is still the same. What sums the nation subscribed for the relief of the wives and widows and orphans of the Crimean heroes. What an amount was raised at once for the victims of the Indian mutiny. An Englishman likes to make money, and makes many a sacrifice to do it; but then how lavishly and with whata princely hand he gives it. And in this respect the Londoner is a thorough Englishman—his charity covers a multitude of sins. I am aware some of this charity is of a doubtful character. A draper, for instance, may subscribe to the funds—of such an institution as that for early closing—a very handsome sum, merely as a good business advertisement; other tradesmen may and undoubtedly do the same. There is also a spirit of rivalry in these matters—if Smith saw Jones’ name down for £50, he, thinking he was as good as Smith any day, and perhaps a good deal better, puts his name down for £100. Somehow or other we can scarce do good things without introducing a little of the alloy of poor human nature; but London charities undoubtedly cover a multitude of sins.

Associations for the voluntary relief of distress, the reclamation of the criminal, and diffusion of Christian truth, are a noble characteristic of the English people. There is no city in the world possessing an equal number of charitable institutions to those of the British capital. Taking the whole of London, and not exempting, from their distance, such as may be correctly classed as metropolitan institutions, as Greenwich Hospital, &c., we find there are no less than 526 charitable institutions, exclusive of mere local endowments and trusts, parochial and local schools, &c.

According to Mr. Low, the charities comprise—

General medical hospitals.

Medical charities for special purposes.

General dispensaries.

Societies and institutions for the preservation of life and public morals.

Societies for reclaiming the fallen, and staying the progress of crime.

Societies for the relief of general destitution and distress.

Societies in connection with the Committee of the Reformatory and Refuge Unions.

Societies for relief of specific description.

Societies for aiding the resources of the industrious (exclusive of loan funds and savings’ banks).

Societies for the deaf and dumb, and the blind.

103

Colleges, hospitals, and institutions of almhouses for the aged.

Charitable pension societies.

Charitable and provident societies, chiefly for specified classes.

Asylums for orphan and other necessitous children.

Educational foundations.

Charitable modern ditto.

School societies, religious books, Church aiding and Christian visiting societies.

Bible and missionary societies.

526

(This includes parent societies only, and is quite exclusive of the numerous “auxiliaries,” &c.)

These charities annually disburse in aid of their respective objects the extraordinary amount of £1,764,733, of which upwards of £1,000,000 is raised annually by voluntary contributions; the remainder from funded property, sale of publications, &c.

The facility with which money can be raised in Londonfor charitable purposes is very astonishing. A short time back it was announced that the London Hospital had lost about £1,500 a year by the falling in of annuities. It was, therefore, necessary, if the Hospital was to continue its charities to the same extent as heretofore, that additional funds should be raised. In an incredibly short space of time £24,000 were collected. TheTimesmakes an appeal about Christmas time for the refuges of the destitute in the metropolis, and generally it raises somewhere about £10,000—a nice addition to the regular income of the societies. The Bishop of London, since he has been connected with his diocese, has consecrated 29 new churches, accommodating 90,000 persons, erected by voluntary subscriptions. We may depend upon it the various sects of dissenters are equally active in their way. During last year the Field Lane Refuge supplied 30,302 lodgings to 6,785 men and boys, who received 101,193 either six or eight ounce loaves of bread. At the same time 840 women were admitted during the year, to whom were supplied 10,028 lodgings, averaging 11 nights shelter to each person, by whom 14,755 loaves were consumed. On the whole it appears that 10,000 persons annually participate in the advantages of this institution, and 1,222 of the most forlorn and wretched creatures in London were taken from the streets and placed in a position where they might earn their own bread, and all this at the cost of 3s. 6d. each per annum. In 1851 the original Shoeblack Society sent five boys into the street to get an honestliving by cleaning boots rather than by picking and stealing, and now their number is about 350. Mr. Mayhew calculates the London charities at three millions and a half per annum. In estimating London charities we must not be unmindful of those required by law. According to a return published a couple of years since, I find, in the districts of the metropolis, the average amount expended for the relief of the poor was 1s. 6¾d. in the pound. The total number of casual destitute paupers admitted into the workhouses of the metropolitan districts during the year amounted to 53,221 males, 62,622 females, and 25,716 children. The quantity of food supplied to these paupers varies much in the several districts, as also the nature of the work required. In some cases no work at all is exacted from the casual poor, but where it is, the demand appears to be chiefly for picking oakum and breaking stones. In some cases the dietary includes bread and cheese, with gruel, and sometimes even the luxury of butter is added. In other cases bread and water (very meagre fare, and insufficient to support life for any length of time), are all that is allowed. Women suckling infants are supplied tea, broth, or gruel in lieu of water; we can scarce wonder the poor prefer going to jail. I have seen in jails, and convict establishments, dinners better served than are earned even by many of the industrious poor. I find during the last year the 339 agents of the London City Mission had paid 1,528,162 visits during the year; 117,443 of these visits beingto the sick and dying. By their means a large number of Bibles and Tracts had been distributed, 11,200 children had been sent to school, and 580 fallen females restored to virtue. At the annual meeting of the Ragged School Union it was stated that in 170 Ragged School institutions, there were 199 Sunday Schools, with 24,860 scholars; 146 day schools with 15,380 scholars, and 215 evening schools, with 9,050 scholars: of teachers 400 were paid, and 9,690 were voluntary. There were fifteen refuges in which 600 inmates were fed, lodged, clothed, and educated. The midnight meeting movement, of which we have heard so much, and respecting which opinions so much differ, according to its report, has been very successful; through the instrumentality of the committee seven meetings had been called; 1700 women had been addressed; 7500 scriptural cards and books had been circulated; and 107 had been reclaimed and placed in homes, through the agency of which, they would, it was hoped, be restored to society. In addition to these five had been restored to their friends, one to her husband, two placed in situations, and one had been married. In the general charities of England London has its share. It not merely takes the initiative but it subscribes by far the larger part. When the Crimean war broke out a fund was raised for the wives and families of the soldiers engaged in it, amounting to £121,139; £260,000 were subscribed for the relief of the victims of the Indian mutiny. Well it was inLondon that the most liberal donations were made. Again, look at the Religious Societies. In last year the income of the Church Missionary Society was £163,629. 1s. 4d.; of the Bible Society £162,020. 13s. 5d. Of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, £141,000. 5s. 11d. Of the London Missionary Society, £93,000. Thus gigantic and all-persuading are the charities of London. The almshouses erected by private individuals or public subscriptions are too numerous to be described, except we refer to the London Almshouses erected at Brixton to commemorate the passing of the Reform Bill; nor would I forget the Charter House with its jovial and grateful chorus:—

“Then blessed be the memoryOf good old Thomas Sutton,Who gave us lodging, learning,And he gave us beef and mutton.”

Nor Christ’s Hospital, with its annual income of £50,000; nor the Foundling Hospital, with its 500 children; nor Alleyn’s magnificent gift of Dulwich; nor the Bethlehem Hospital, with its income of nearly £30,000 a year; nor the Magdalene. But we must say a few words about the Hospitals; of the more than 500 Charitable Institutions of the metropolis, one quarter consists of general medical hospitals, medical charities for special purposes, dispensaries, &c. In 1859, in Bartholomew’s, I find there were patients admitted, cured, and discharged, 5,865 in, 86,480 out;in St. Thomas’s 4,114 in, 44,744 out; the Charing Cross Hospital has, I believe, on an average 1,000 inpatients, 17,000 out. Guy’s, with its annual income of £30,000, has an entire average of in and outpatients of 50,000. But we stop, the list is not exhausted, but we fear the patience of the reader is.

I am a great advocate of Pedestrianism, and take it to be a very honest way of getting through the world. If you ride in a carriage you may be upset; if you throw your leg across a horse’s back you may meet with the fate of Sir Robert Peel; and as to getting into a railway carriage, the fearful consequences of that require for their description a more vigorous pen than mine. I like to see a good walker; how delightful his appetite, how firm his muscle, how healthy his cheek, how splendid his condition. Has he a care, he walks it off; is ruin staring him in the face, only let him have a couple of hour’s walk, and he is in a condition to meet the great enemy of mankind himself. Has his friend betrayed him—are his hopes of fame, of wealth, of power blighted?—is his love’s young dream rudely broken? Let him away from the circles of men out on the green turf, with the blue sky of heaven above, and in a very little while the agony is over, and “Richard’s himself again.” Were it only for the sake of the active exercise it inculcatesand requires I would say—Long live the Rifle Corps movement. The other day a gallant little band in my own immediate neighbourhood set out for an evening’s march. They were in capital spirits; they were dressed in their Sunday best; they had a band playing at their head; a miscellaneous crowd, chiefly juvenile, with a few occasional females behind, brought up the rear. A deputy of the London Corporation and his brother formed part of the devoted troop. Gaily and amidst cheers they marched from the bosoms of their families, leaving “their girls behind them.” On they went, up-hill and down-hill, many a mile, amidst Hornsey’s pleasant green lanes, till at length the London deputy turned pale, and intimated—while his limbs appeared to sink beneath him, and his whole body was bathed in sweat—that he could stand it no longer. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. A halt was ordered—beer was sought for for the London deputy, and with considerable difficulty they got the martial hero home. Had that gallant man been a good pedestrian, would he not have scorned the beer, and laughed at the idea of rest? Look at Charles Dickens—I am sure he will forgive me the personality, as no harm is intended—why is he ever genial, ever fresh—as superior to the crowd who imitate his mannerism, but fail to catch his warm, sunny, human spirit, as the Koh-i-noor to its glass counterfeit, but because no man in town walks more than he? What a man for walking was the great Liston, foremost operator of his age. The late Lord Suffield, who fought allthe Lords, including the bench of Bishops, in order to win emancipation for the slave, was one of the most athletic men of his day. On one occasion he ran a distance of ten miles before the Norwich mail as a casual frolic, without any previous training, and he assured Sir George Stephen that he never experienced any inconvenience from it. When we talk of a man being weak on his pins, what does it imply but that he has been a rake, or a sot, or a fool who has cultivated the pocket or the brain at the expense of that machine, so fearfully and wonderfully made, we call man. The machine is made to wear well, it is man’s fault if it does not. The pedestrian alone keeps his in good repair; our long livers have mostly been great walkers. Taylor, the water-poet, says of old Parr—

“Good wholesome labour was his exercise,Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise,In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day,And to his team he whistled time away.”

People are getting more fond of physical exercise than they were. We may almost ask—Are we returned back to the days of the Iliad and the Odyssey? The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange greet Tom Sayers as if he were an emperor, and, it is said, peers and clergymen think it right to assist at a “mill.” We have heard so much about muscular Christianity—so much stress has been laid upon the adjective—that we seem in danger of forgetting the Christianity altogether. Undoubtedly our fathers are to blame in somerespect for this. Good Christians, thinking more of the next world than of this, merchants, and tradesmen, and even poor clerks, hastening to be rich, scholars aiming at fame, and mothers of a frugal turn, have set themselves against out-door life and out-door fun, and have done with sports and pastimes—as Rowland Hill said the pious had done with the tunes—i.e.let the devil have all the good ones. In vain you war with nature, she will have her revenge, the heart is true to its old instincts. Man is what he was when the Greek pitched his tent by the side of the much-sounding sea, and before the walls of Troy; when Alexander sighed for fresh worlds to conquer; when the young Hannibal vowed deathless hate to Rome; when the rude ballad of “Chevy Chase,” sung in baronial hall, stirred men as if it were the sound of a trumpet; when Nelson swept the seas, and when Wellington shattered the mighty hosts of France. Thus is it old physical sports and pastimes never die, and perhaps nowhere are they more encouraged and practised than by the population of our cities and towns.

The other day some considerable interest was excited in the peculiar circles given to the study ofBell’s Life, by the fact that Jem Pudney was to run Jem Rowan for £50 a-side, at the White Lion, Hackney Wick. The winner was to have the Champion’s Cup. Far and near had sounded and resounded the name of Pudney the swift-footed—how he had distanced all his competitors—how he had done eleven miles under the hour—were facts patent to all sporting England; but against himwas this melancholy reality, that he was getting old—he was verging on thirty-two. However, when, after a weary pilgrimage through mud, and sleet, and rain, we found ourselves arrived at the classic spot. The betting was very much in Pudney’s favour. The race was to have commenced at five, but it did not begin before six. We had plenty of time to look around. Outside we had passed a motley multitude. There were cabs, and Hansoms, and Whitechapel dog-carts in abundance. Monday is an off-day as regards many of the operatives and mechanics of London, and they were thronging round the door, or clambering up the pales, or peeping through the boards, or climbing some neighbouring height, to command a view of the race on strictly economical principles. Several owners of horses and carts, with their wives and families, were indulging in a similar amusement; an admission fee of one shining enabled us to penetrate the enclosure. We pay our money and enter. The scene is not an inviting one. Perhaps there are about a thousand of us present, and most of us are of a class of society we may denominate rough and ready. Even the people who have good clothes do not look like gentlemen. They have very short hair, very flat and dark faces; have a tremendous development of the lower jaw, and, while they are unnaturally broad about the chest, seem unnaturally thin and weak as regards their lower extremities. Most of the younger ones are in good sporting condition, and would be very little distressed by a little set-to, whetherof a playful or a business nature, and could bear an amount of punishment which would be fatal to the writer of this article, and, I dare say, to the reader as well. Time passes slowly. Jones hails Brown, and offers him seven to four. (After the race had terminated, I saw Jones cash up a £100 fresh bank-note, which I thought might have been more usefully invested.) Robinson bets Smith what he likes that he does not name the winner; and one gent, with an unpleasing expression of countenance, offers to do a little business with me, which I decline, for reasons that I am not particularly desirous to communicate to my new acquaintance. I am glad to see a policeman or two present, for one likes to know the protection of the law may be invoked in an extremity, and I keep near its manifest and outward sign. The White Lion is doing a fine business; there is an active demand for beer and tobacco; and a gentleman who deals in fried fish soon clears off his little stock of delicacies, as likewise does a peripatetic vendor of sandwiches of a mysterious origin. The heroes of the night slowly walk up and down the course, wearing long great coats, beneath which we may see their naked legs, and feet encased in light laced shoes. Their backers are with them, and a crowd watches with curious eyes. At length the course is cleared, a bell is rung, and they are off. Six times round the course is a mile—six times ten are sixty. Sixty times must they pass and repass that excited mob. The favourite takes the lead at a steady running; he maintains it some time; he is longer thanhis opponent, but the latter is younger, and looks more muscular in his thighs. Both men, with the exception of a cloth round the loins, are naked as when born; and as they run they scatter the mud, which mud thus scattered descends upon them in a by no means refreshing shower. As round after round is run the excitement deepens; the favourite is greeted with cheers; but when at the end of the third mile he is passed by his competitor excites an enthusiasm which is intense. Now the bettors tremble; the favourite attempts to get his old position; he gains on his foe—they are now neck and neck—cheer, boys, cheer—“Go it, Jem!” is the cry on many sides. Jem the winner does go it; but, alas! Jem the loser cannot. It is in vain he seeks the lead. Fortune has declared against him, and in a little while he gives up—no longer the swiftest and fleetest of England’s sons—no longer the holder of the Champion’s Cup. One involuntarily feels for fallen greatness, and as Pudney was led away utterly beaten, I could not find it in my heart to rejoice. I left a crowd still on the grounds. I left Rowan still running, as he was bound to do, till he had completed his ten miles: and I left the White Lion, in-doors and out, doing a very considerable business. It seemed to me the White Lion was not such a fool as he looked, and that he felt, let who will win or lose, he with his beer and brandy would not come off second best. This, undoubtedly, was the worst part of the business. The race over, for further excitement, the multitude would rush to the White Lion—the losers to drown their sorrow, the winners to spend their gains; the many, who were neither winners nor losers, merely because others did so; and thus, as the hours pass, would come intoxication, anger, follies, and, perhaps, bitterness of heart for life.

May I here enumerate the heroes of pedestrianism? Let me name Robert Skipper, who walked a thousand miles in a thousand successive half-hours—let me not forget Captain Barclay, who walked a thousand miles in a thousand successive hours—let me record the fame of Captain John T. G. Campbell, of the 91st, who, accoutred in the heavy marching order of a private soldier, on the Mallow and Fermoy road, did ten miles in 107¼ minutes. All honour be to such! long may their memories be green! Let me beg the considerate reader not to forget West, who ran forty miles in five hours and a half. Ten miles an hour is done by all the best runners. It is said West accomplished 100 miles in 18 hours. I read in a certain work devoted to manly exercises, “at the rate of four miles an hour a man may walk any length of time.” The writer begs to inform the reader that he doubts this very much.

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