CHAPTER XXI.GREENWICH.

“They are very mild and meek;Though (sextons) smite them on the cheekAnd on the mouth—they cannot speak.”

The inhuman vultures who prey on them injure the living, and only insult the dead through our sensitiveness. To the dead it matters not:

“They hear not (Poor-law guardians) rave,Nor moaning household shelter crave(When carted from each thrice-sold grave).”

When our old churches were first built, they stood in wide, open, breezy spaces, at the remote ends of parish boundaries: such was Bartholomew Church, when Smithfield was really a field, and the lofty elm-trees towered high above the ancient gallows which was erected there. We have hemmed in the spots with streets and tall warehouses which our forefathers left free and open between the living and the dead, until they have become so close and breathless, that even the sparrows forsake their “old ancestral eaves,” and seek for other roosting-places.

Open cheap cemeteries, and conveyances thither, will spring up rapidly enough; funeral omnibuses will be started at little more than the present fares. If nothing else will do, let us be rated for burying our dead: we do not murmur at supporting them while living, nor should we begrudge the slight tax that would be required for interring them in Suburban Cemeteries. There are thousands of acres of land to be sold within five miles of the City of London; if we go to the distance of ten miles it will be all the better for our children’s children; but let no buildings be erected within a measured mile ofthese Silent Cities of the Dead, but each for ever remain a Great Garden of Graves.

Affection would often visit this Land of the Dead; the widow would take her children by the hand, and lead them into the country, to shew them the little freehold in which their father slept. The poor would become more pious, and amid their troubles thank God that they had at last a tranquil haven, in which they could for ever moor their storm-tossed barques: to them suburban cemeteries would become spots filled with solemn associations—homes to which they were fast hastening with patient resignation.

To us there is no feeling of loneliness while wandering through a beautiful cemetery. The dead seem to belong to us; they are of our company; they have but taken their berths in the great ship, and are sleeping until we come to join them, to be fellow-voyagers with them into the unknown sea of eternity—trusting ourselves to the care of the same Almighty Captain whose “ministering angels” fill the sails. Around the cemetery we see the wide unwalled country, where we have so often walked and talked with those who now “sleep their long sleep,” and, while gazing over the landscape, they seem to accompany us, and to live again in our thoughts; or we stand, as it were, in a great picture-gallery, surrounded with portraits of the dead: not a single object rises up to shock our feelings;—the open country beyond—the trees around—the flowers that cover the graves by which we stand—cause us to contemplate death kindly, and, instead of becoming hideous, he is but a gentle porter, who sits patiently without the gates of heaven, and welcomes all who are prepared to enter.

To plant a grave with such flowers as “the poor inhabitant below” loved whilst living, is a pious pleasure: it is a living link between us and the dead, and keeps alive an affection which belongs not to the world; though a “poor thing, it is our own;” for we know that the flowers are kept alive by an invisible hand, that in the still dark night they continue to grow, while we are wrapt in as sound a slumber as that which falls upon the dead—the only difference being that we perchance may again awaken. There is no such link between us and them in a cold, grey, hard, dead tomb-stone: the tears which fall upon the flowers are not lost, for we know not but that the perfume may be wafted to heaven.

We believe that the dead will again arise—that in some other state we shall again meet with them; and yet there are those who make their remains a source of profit. Perchance, the Angel of Death holds his court beyond the grave, and they may be summoned before him to account for their deeds. We, in our boyish days, were taughtto take off our hats when we entered a churchyard, and to walk amongst the dead as reverentially as we did up the aisle of the church—to look upon the grave as the gate which opened into heaven, as the only road which leads to the realms of eternal happiness.

I have, in the work formerly alluded to, endeavoured to paint an ancient funeral procession, from the pages of holy writ, and to shew how great was the respect paid to the dead in the patriarchal ages. Through what a laud of poetry and peril was the dead body of Joseph brought out of Egypt! We marvel that no painter has been bold enough to grapple with so sublime a subject. Amid the plagues that struck consternation into the hearts of the old Egyptians, there stood the coffin ready to be borne away: in the deep darkness which overshadowed the land—it stood black and silent amid the deep gloom. When the Israelites departed they bore it away: the pillar of fire flashed redly upon it by night, and by day it was slowly carried behind the pillar of cloud: through the Red Sea it was borne; below that high and terrible wall of water did the body of that dead man pass; then the sleeping billows rolled back, and there the haughty Egyptians found a grave. Through storm and battle, and the perils of the wilderness, and the thunder which shook Mount Sinai, was the body of Joseph carried; and when Moses held up his wearied arm and conquered Amalek, it was still there. On the waves of war it was at last washed to the Promised Land; it followed the Ark of God when Jordan was divided, and was at length buried in the field of Shechem, in the ground which Jacob had long before purchased of the sons of Hamor. In the whole annals of time, there is no funeral procession that in sublimity and grandeur approaches his, who when young was sold as a slave to the Egyptians. That dead-march through the God-dried ocean, and over the desert, led by Moses—the man who had spoken to his Maker, and who was a mourner at that solemn funeral—causes the eye to quiver beneath its gloomy and awful grandeur: we see the dead and the living pass away amid the roar of the ocean, the thunder of the Mount, and the clashing of battle upon battle; and while we read, we feel as if we stood trembling in the presence of God.

I will not break the chain of the reader’s thoughts while pondering over this great and grand funeral procession, by pointing to the desecration of the dead in the present day, further than stating that the revolting and impious evil can only be remedied by suburban cemeteries; for around such places there reigns a silence in keeping with the solemnity of death: there no jarring sounds fall upon the ear, for the lulling murmur made by the leaves is in keeping withthe repose of the dead. Flowers planted upon a grave seem like sacred objects; in our minds they somehow appear to belong to the dead, as if hallowed by the soil in which they have grown. There are numberless passages in our old poets abounding with descriptions of flowers which were dedicated to the dead; and we may, in some future work, return to the subject, and string together a garland of funeral emblems; for

“Methinks the flowersHave spirits far more beautiful than ours.”—Withers.

The gentle hearts of the old poets clung to the flowers with a fond affection; in their eyes they were sweet messengers, bearing meanings and thoughts “too deep for tears,” ever hinting of love which dieth not, but liveth on for ever in another state of existence. They traced in the flowers fanciful resemblances of fond passions—likenesses of what they loved and cherished all the more since the original forms which they fancied the flowers resembled were transplanted into the gardens of heaven.

We who sojourned during the whole of that summer in the very heart of the district which suffered the most severely during that calamitous visitation, almost unconsciously gathered materials for one of those gloomy pictures which so few living witnesses survive to paint, and which we hope may never again darken our pages. We seem like those who, having escaped some perilous shipwreck, sit shuddering on the rock on which they have been thrown, their faces buried in their hands, yet unable to shut out the appalling spectacle they beheld, even after it passed away. Fancy still calls up the phantoms, amid the white foam and the tumbling waves, as they float by, with pale faces, uplifted and beseeching hands; youth and beauty with her long hair unbound, and crisped with the boiling spray, while manly vigour buffets in vain with the billows, until darkness and destruction sweep over all; and we, like the mournful messenger in Job, “only escaped alone to tell thee.”

The Land of Death in which we dwelt was Newington, hemmed in by Lambeth, Southwark, Bermondsey, and other gloomy parishes through which the pestilence stalked like a Destroying Angel in the deep shadows of the night and the open noon of day, while in every street

“There was nought but mourning weeds,And sorrow and dismay;Where burial met with burial still,And jostled by the way.”—Hogg.

The “Registrar-General” but gives an account of those who died; but marshals up the forces which have joined the ranks of Death;how and where they fell are briefly touched upon; but a description of the battle-ground, with all those little accessories of moving light and shadow which enrich the picture, he leaves to other hands, for they come not within the compass of his graver duties. Though the task is far removed from a pleasant one, it is necessary that we should preserve some record of this eventful season, so that in after-years, when our pages are referred to, a faithful photograph, taken at the true moment of time, may therein be found. All day long was that sullen bell tolling—from morning to night, it scarcely ceased a moment; for as soon as it had rung the knell of another departed spirit, there was a fresh funeral at the churchyard-gate, and again that “ding-dong” pealed mournfully through the sad and sultry atmosphere. Those who were left behind, too ill to join the funeral procession, heard not always the returning footsteps of the muffled mourners, for sometimes Death again entered the house while they were absent; and when they reached home they found another victim ready to be borne to the grave: then they sat down and wept in very despair. Death came no longer as of old, knocking painfully at the door of life, but strode noiselessly in, and, before one was well aware, smote his victim—no one could tell how, for the strong man, who appeared hale and well one hour, was weak and helpless the next, and fell without knowing whence the blow came.

Little children were clothed suddenly in black, almost before they could reconcile themselves to the belief that they had lost their parents. Before they could well understand why their father slept so long, or was placed in a dark box, and carried out at the door in such haste, the mother had also ceased to live; and then they began to comprehend their loss, and wept bitterly to find themselves fatherless, motherless, and destitute. Some of these were so little, that they could but just repeat their prayers. Never more would they kneel at the feet of that dear, fond mother, as they had done but a night or two before; never more would those eyes beam on them again, or that sweet voice patiently instruct them, and, with a smile, repeat the words over and over again, until they knew them all by rote. Alas! they were the other night borne to a strange bed; a strange face bent over them—and, when they rose to kiss it, it turned away. Then the little orphans pressed each other more closely, and wept louder for the loss of their mother. At last, their sobbing subsided, though not until long after they had fallen asleep, perchance on the hard workhouse bed—even those who were before nursed so delicately that the cold wind had never visited their tender cheeks. Many such sudden changes as these have we met with; homes in which one day happiness and comfort reigned, changed on the morrow to the abodes ofsorrow, anguish, and naked destitution; or, by the end of the week, empty and closed!

“Life and thought have gone away side by side,Leaving door and windows wide;Careless tenants they!All within is dark as night: in the windows is no light,And no murmur at the door, so frequent on its hinge before.Close the door—the shutters close,Or through the windows we shall seeThe nakedness and vacancyOf the deserted house.”—Tennyson.

In some houses all died; and after the dilapidated building had been closed a few days, other tenants took possession, and, in two or three of these changes, the new tenants also perished—the mercenary landlords never breathing a word about what had befallen the others. The putrid cesspool and stagnant sewer still yawned and bubbled and steamed in the sunshine, and poisoned all who inhaled the deadly gases; and when but few human beings were left, an investigation took place, and the evil was removed. In several death-engendering courts the whole of the inhabitants were driven out, and fresh shelter found for them until their wretched dwellings were purified.

So few at first escaped after they were attacked by the malignant and mysterious disease, that you looked upon them as persons who had trodden the confines of another world—as beings rescued from the jaws of death, and destined to accomplish some great mission. You gazed on them in awe and wonder. Those in the prime of life, and ruddy with apparent health, fell around you like summer flowers beneath the scythe of the mower. Then medical men of long standing began to drop off: you missed one here, and another there, and with them hope at last fled. “They cannot save themselves,” exclaimed the terror-stricken populace; “then how can we hope to escape if the disease overtake us?” Old nurses who had grown grey in the service of Death shrank back and shuddered as they heard themselves summoned to attend the sick. Thousands who had the means fled into the country and hastened to the sea-side, where they thought themselves secure; but the wings of the Angel of Death threw a melancholy shadow over the whole land.

Stout-hearted men who had families started suddenly from their sleep in the dead of night, if they only heard one of their children moaning in its slumber: words muttered in a dream were like a sharp icicle thrust into the heart, for they feared that the Destroyer had come; and they knew that he seldom retired without carryingoff his victim. In old tavern-parlours, where the same company had assembled for years, the sounds of merriment were no longer heard. Men spoke to one another “with bated breath;” inquired who was dead, and who dying; and if some old acquaintance was but a few minutes behind his usual time, they sat gazing on his vacant chair in silence, or perchance one ventured to inquire in a whisper if he had been seen that night. Many shook hands at the tavern-doors, went home, and never met again. Four in the morning was a dreaded hour, and numbers no doubt died through fright who were attacked in the faint dawning of the day, for they believed that time to be fatal. In some streets five or six shops that stood together were closed—many were not opened again for several days. You saw the windows standing open day and night, but not a living soul stirred within those walls. Many who died were removed in the night: sometimes twenty were buried in one grave.

Then the cry arose that the churchyards were too full, that there was no longer any room for the dead. “I must find room, or I shall be ruined,” exclaimed the sexton; “it cost me all I had in the world to get elected.” The grave-digger threw down his spade, wiped the perspiration from his brow, and said, “Our occupation’s gone.” The cry increased; and then the incessant tolling of the bell ceased; for an order was issued that the dead should no longer rout the dead, or their sleep be broken almost before the features had been effaced by slow decay. Then Death ceased to become his own avenger; for when he found that the secrets of his dark dominions were no more to be laid bare to the open eye of day, he no longer smote those who trod reverentially on the verge of his territories. The streets were no longer darkened with funerals; you no longer saw men running in every direction with coffins on their heads, knocking at doors, and delivering them with no more ceremony or feeling than the postman delivers his letters. The solemn hearse and the dark mourning-coach now moved slowly along, and the dead were borne away to green and peaceful cemeteries, far removed from the dwellings of the living. Nuisances were removed—sewers were cleansed—the abodes of the poor purified, and at last rendered habitable; and then “the plague was stayed.”

It seemed as if the winds of Heaven, which had been driven away for want of breathing-room, came back again, and flapped their “healing wings” above the homes of mankind; as if they were weary of wandering over the houseless sea, and gladly returned to sweep through the lofty streets and open squares, from which they had been driven by the poison-traps which were set every where to destroy them. The sun again gladdened the day, and the round moon walked up thestarry steep of heaven, while the sky bared its blue bosom, and shewed that the silvery clouds still slumbered there as tranquilly as if the Destroying Angel had never thrown his shadow betwixt earth and heaven.

Alas, the sun rose upon a shore strown with wrecks, and blackened with the bodies of the dead! If the eye alighted upon the living, it every where settled upon a group of mourners. Death had gone like a gleaner through the land, and taken an ear from every field. Where before had stood a bed of flowers, one resting upon and supporting another, a bare and open gap was found; and too often the tallest, around which the rest clung, had withered, and fallen and died. The place they had once known “would know them no more for ever.” The young bride, before the honeymoon had waned, came forth in her widowed weeds. Their first-born child came too late into the world to look on the face of its father. Sometimes the young mother fell before her infant had seen the light: the opening rose and the unfolded bud perished together. Respectable families fell from a state of comfort to almost naked destitution in a single night, leaving no mark on the steps of the ladder of time, by which men rise and fall, but plunging headlong to the foot of it in a moment. Some had passed many years in faithful servitude, and at last attained the long-coveted promotion. The larger house, so often talked of, was taken; they entered, and so did Death: the father fell, and with him all their hopes for ever perished. Since that day the garden-roller has never been moved, and where the spade was thrust into the ground when the improvements first commenced, there it rests: perchance the robin may alight upon the handle, and there chant his mournful anthem; but one branch is sawn from the overhanging tree that darkened the drawing-room window; all the rest remain untouched, for the workmen have departed. The merry Christmas so often talked of was a mournful meeting within those walls. What at another period would have formed a little history of trial, patient endurance, slow change, and long coming misfortune, was now accomplished almost as soon as one could say “It lightens.”

None knew whence the Destroyer came, nor in what hidden corner he lurked. The Registrar for the district we are describing closes his return for Walworth, for the week ending Sept. 8, 1849, in the following words: “It (the disease) has spread over the whole district—into almost every street—and taken persons of all classes, from the most respectable to the poorest.” Men hunted for it in the unhealthy drain, and endeavoured to destroy the unwholesome vapour; they searched for it in what they drank, and hoped to get rid of it by boiling the water; they impregnated the air with lime, and in everycourt and alley you passed you inhaled the powerful chloride. Then a change was produced, and the returns of deaths gradually lessened every day; and those who for days and weeks dare not look into a newspaper, for fear of encountering those dark tables of death, were now eager to see the returns, and congratulate their neighbours on the daily decrease. “From the painless nature of the attack,” says the same Registrar, “persons seemed to be unconscious how highly necessary it is that immediate attention should be paid to it.” Thousands fell through this neglect, who, if the disease had first made its appearance attended by severe pain, would not have lost a single hour without seeking medical aid. Like a flood that slowly undermines a bank, and which the proprietor regards not when he sees so tiny a current dribbling and oozing through, and scarcely bowing the grass between which it trickles, so came the Destroyer—slowly and almost imperceptibly undermining the current of life, and eating out the foundations, until there needed but one mighty rush, and all was over beyond recovery, and the work of destruction was completed. A little precaution would have saved thousands of lives in London alone.

Let us then agitate for pure air and pure water, and break through the monopolies of water and sewer companies, as we would break down the door of a house to rescue some fellow-creature from the flames that raged within. It rests with ourselves to get rid of these evils; and scarcely one in a hundred will be foolhardy enough to oppose the sanitary measures which are already in motion. To aid these proposed improvements, we deemed it our duty to add to the “Picturesque Sketches of London” a brief but faithful description of the dreadful disease which caused almost every street in the metropolis to be hung in mourning.

BEAUTIFUL as Greenwich Park is within itself, with its long aisles of overhanging chestnuts, through whose branches the sunlight streams, and throws upon the velvet turf rich chequered rays of green and gold, yet it is the vast view which stretches out on every hand that gives such a charm to the spot. What a glorious prospect opens out from the summit of One-Tree Hill! London, mighty and magnificent, piercing the sky with its high-piled towers, spires, and columns, while St. Paul’s, like a mighty giant, heaves up his rounded shoulders as if keeping guard over the outstretched city! Far away the broad bright river rolls along until lost to the eye in the dim green of the fading distance, while its course is still pointed out by the spreading sail, which hangs like a fallen cloud upon the landscape. Along this ancient road of the swans do vessels approach from every corner of the habitable globe, to empty their riches into the great reservoir of London, from whence they are again sent through a thousand channels to the remotest homes in her islands.

About June, Greenwich Park may be seen in all its bloom and beauty; the fine old hawthorns are then generally in full blossom, and the hundreds of gigantic elms and chestnuts are hung in their richest array of summer-green, while here and there the antlered herd cross the shady avenues, or crouched amid what is called the Wilderness, lie half buried in the fan-like fern. The hill above and the plain below are crowded with the gay populace of London, all clothed in their holiday attire, the ladies looking in the distance like a bed of tulips, so rich and varied are the colours of the costume and parasols. At every few yards you meet with a new group, while the long avenue which leads up to Blackheath is one continuous stream of people. On the brow of the hill, and at the front of the Observatory, you see the

ONE-TREE HILL.ONE-TREE HILL.

old pensioners with their telescopes and glasses of every colour, which seem to give a golden or a purple hue to the landscape, or sometimes to change the scene to that of a country covered with snow. Some of these old heroes have lost a leg, others an arm, and yet they go stumping about as happy, to all appearance, as the credulous cockneys whom they delight to cram with an improbable yarn, while theyshoot cannon-balls to a distance which can be compared with nothing except Warner’s “long-range.”

OLD PENSIONER.OLD PENSIONER.

Rare fun is there amongst the younger visitors, as they scramble for the oranges, which are often bountifully rolled down the hills. Off goes the luscious fruit, cantering like a ball of gold along the greensward. It strikes and clears the head of the first youngster who rushes on to catch it: a second misses it, and falls; and it vanishes somewhere amongst a round dozen of the competitors, who are all tumbling and struggling hicklety-picklety together, like a pack of hounds who are in at the death. Farther on you see a little love-making; you can tell by the half-averted head and downcast eyes that the little lady has not yet made up her mind whether to accept the offered arm or not. But see—her boy-lover has purchased some oranges. She accepts one; he sends another down the hill. You hear her clear merry voice ringing out like a silver bell with joyous

TELESCOPES.TELESCOPES.

laughter. Ten to one it is a match—at least for the remainder of the day. Old and young are alike happy: the former sit in little groups talking of bygone times; the latter are tumbling head and heels upon the grass without a care about the coming morrow. Business and pleasure go hand in hand. If you take every card that is offered, you will have a score or two before you cross the Park:—“Tea, eightpence—with a pleasant view of the river.” “Tea made with shrimps, ninepence”—a beverage we have no wish to taste; but, poor woman, she is unconscious of the mistake, and no doubt the printer faithfully followed his copy. They are the most accommodating people in the world at Greenwich. You can walk into almost every other house, order tea, and receive thanks at your departure, for only a few pence. Numbers come into the Park ready provided. They eat and drink while on the steam-boat, feel a fresh appetite as soon as they have climbed the hill, are hungry and thirsty again after a donkey-ride on Blackheath, and should any thing remain, in either basket or bottle, they finish it as they return by the steamboat.

GIPSIES.GIPSIES.

Observe the stealthy step of that black-eyed gipsy; this is her harvest, and many a fortune will she tell before moonrise. She hasgolden promises for all; would that the world could roll on as she prophesies, there would be but little of either sighing or sorrow in it. What though she is an arch impostor, she has by her promises added another pleasure to the day’s delight; happiness now and happiness in store may gladden many a future hour, which would otherwise be gloomy but for the hope with which the gipsy has gilded the future. It is a question, after all, whether the sixpence could have been better spent, though it has but purchased a harmless string of pleasing falsehoods, “which give delight but hurt not.” The poor gipsy-woman must live, and she is at the worst but an open and honestly-avowed cheat—a holiday evil, that might be worse employed than in telling fortunes. What a burst of laughter! It is just as we expected; the jolly sailor, with the corners of his neckerchief streaming out like the mane of a war-horse, has gone down the hill with a roll, and carried his partner, the dashing lady from Wapping in the pink bonnet, along with him. There will be many similar disasters before night, which end at the worst in a crushed hat or bonnet, or a few harmless bruises.

Much as we have murmured about trespassing, and prosecution, and enclosures, we really feel grateful to the Government for throwing open such a splendid park as this, over which we can wander at will, without being cautioned to keep on either foot-path or open road, but have liberty to tread on the grassy knolls, and are left as free as the antlered deer that walk and browse wherever they please. Fifteen minutes by the railway, and about thrice that time by the steamboat, and here we are treading the elastic sward, which on the hill yields to the footsteps like a rich carpet. What beautiful dips and rises lie every way, especially to the left of the Observatory! What mighty revolution of nature threw up that vast hill, sheer and abrupt from the valley, we can never know. Those ancient burrows, which lie scattered about the park, are the resting-places of the early inhabitants of Britain; beneath them lies the dust of the old Cymri,—disturb it not.

Let us pause on the brow of this hill, and recal a few of the stirring scenes which these aged hawthorns have overlooked. They are the ancient foresters of the chase, and many of them have stood through the wintry storms of past centuries, and were gnarled and knotted, and stricken with age, long before Evelyn planned and planted those noble avenues of chestnuts and elms. Below, between the plain at the foot of the hill and the river, stood the old Palace of Greenwich, in which Henry VIII. held his revels, and where Edward VI., the boy-king, died. That ancient palace was no doubt rich in the spoils of many a plundered abbey and ruined monastery,—in

GREENWICH PARK.GREENWICH PARK.

vessels of gold and silver which had once been dedicated to holy purposes, but were then red with the dregs of the wine shed at many a midnight revel by the Defender of the Faith and woman-murdering monarch. Perhaps the walls of that old palace were hung with the portraits of the wives he had caused to be beheaded, while his own likeness in the centre looked like a tiger out of the frame upon its prey.

On this hill Cardinal Wolsey may have meditated with all his “blushing honours thick upon him.” Katherine, the broken-hearted queen, may here have reined-in her palfrey; or from this aged hawthorn have torn off a spray, when it was, as now, fragrant and white with May-blossoms, and presented it with a smile to the royal savage who rode beside her. On yonder plain, where so many happy faces are now seen, in former days the tournament was held. There gaudy galleries were erected, over which youth and beauty leant as they waved their embroidered scarfs. We can almost fancy that we can see the crowned tiger smile as he closes the visor of his helmet, bowing his plume while he recognises some fair face, which was soon to fall, with its long tresses dabbled in blood, upon the scaffold—the blood which then ran so clear and joyous through the violet-coloured veins which streaked the ivory of that graceful neck. In this park the crafty Cecil mused many an hour as he plotted the return of the Princess Mary, while the ink was scarcely dry with which he had recorded his allegiance to the Lady Jane Grey. The whole scenery teems with the remembrance of old stirring events, and grave historical associations. Hal, the murderer, comes straddling and blowing up the hill; the pale and sickly boy-king rides gently by, and breathes heavily as he inhales the sweet air on the summit; the titter and merry laugh of the ill-starred queens seems to fall upon the ear from behind the trees that conceal them. Then we have voices of mourning and loud lament from fair attendants—who refuse to be comforted—for those whom they loved and served were there no more.

Blackheath, which is only divided from its aristocratic neighbour the Park by a wall, pleasantly overlooks a portion of the counties of Kent and Surrey, and affords such extensive views of the distant scenery as can only be exceeded by climbing Shooter’s Hill, or some of the neighbouring heights on the left of the heath. In past times it was planted with gibbets: the bleached bones of men who had dared to ask for an extension of liberty, or who doubted the infallibility of kings, were here left to dangle in the wind. In the distance, the ancient palace of Eltham heaves up like a large barn, attracting even the eye of a stranger by its bulkiness, for not an architectural ornament from hence is visible. Blackheath at Whitsuntide,and all summer long, is infested with asses, which ever stand, saddled and bridled, in readiness for the first comer. A donkey-ride is one of the favourite amusements of our holiday-loving Londoners of both sexes, nor is the day’s pleasure considered complete without it. The charges vary from a penny to a shilling, according to either the time or the distance; and a strange, rough, and inharmonious family are the proprietors, who beat and let out these animals. Their chief delight appears to consist in abusing one another, and running down the qualities of the poor long-eared quadrupeds—each applicant at the same time extolling the strength and speed of his own donkey. Here they may be found with side-saddles for the ladies, and neat chairs, covered with white drapery, and so secured that the little children can ride with safety.

A countryman who went by water for the first time from London to Greenwich, would be astonished to find that, with the exception of a few yards here and there, the whole five miles, on each side of the Thames, was one continuation of houses, warehouses, docks, and manufactories; that he could not for the life of him tell where London began nor where it ended; that when it ceased to stretch beside the river, it was still continued in a long line behind the marshes and the Isle of Dogs up to the Blackwall pier; and from no height in the neighbourhood could his eye at once glance over this lengthy range of continued streets. Twelve miles would scarcely exceed the almost unbroken link of buildings which extends from Blackwall to far beyond Chelsea, where street still joins to street in apparent endless succession. And all around this vast city lie miles of the most beautiful rural scenery. Highgate and Hornsey and Hampstead on the Middlesex side, hilly, wooded, and watered; and facing these, the vast range called the Hogsback, which hem in the Surrey side, from beyond Norwood, far away to the left, to where we have carried our readers in this chapter; while the valleys on both sides of the river are filled with pleasant fields, parks, and green winding lanes. Were London to extend five miles farther every way, it would still be hemmed in with some of the most beautiful rural scenery in England; and the lowness of fares, together with the rapidity of railway travelling, would render as nothing this extent of streets. Even the very poor are now satisfied, as they can travel from one end of the kingdom to the other by paying one penny per mile.

FOOD and raiment,household shelter and a grave, are all the Poor-Law allows to the pauper; for there is no clause in that act permitting him the enjoyment of the sweet air of heaven, or the open and unwalled sunshine (the gold which God scatters down for all), beyond what blows and beats upon the narrow court-yard in which he is doomed to walk—the Prisoner of Poverty. The birds he there hears sing are the dirty sparrows that roost under the soot-blackened eaves, and weary the heart with their unchangeable chirrup. The hum of his insects is the buzz of the bloated blue-bottle, ever hovering around, and endeavouring to blow and spoil the morsel of meat that is doled out to him with a niggard hand. The murmur of his streams is heard in the flushing of the poisonous sewers. The waving of his trees, the coarse garments that dangle on the clotheslines—for in such places it is ever washing-day. His blue sky is the little morsel of the face of heaven which (by straining his neck) he can see roofing the tall bare walls that surround him. His flowers are the morsels of chickweed, the two or three dwindling blades of grass, or the dank green moss, that shoot up beside the damp wall, or between the fissures of the pavement. His fragrance, a life-destroying atmosphere, a compound of all unwholesome smells.

Day after day, week after week, month after month—throughout the budding spring—all the while the long-leaved summer reigns—when autumn is throwing her rainbow-hues over the forest, and winter comes forth, blowing his blue nails, and with the snow-flakes hanging on his hair—throughout all these changes he feels but cold and heat: can only tell when it is spring by hearing the cry of “primroses” without the walls; summer, by the hot pavement on which hetreads; autumn, by the drawing in of the days and the chilly evenings; and winter, by the cold that seems to eat into his very bones. This is his life; these all the changes he knows, unless the rolling of the monotonous year is varied by the days he never left his sick-bed, or the weeks he spent in the hospital. The weary walls are ever the same; he has counted every fissure in the pavement; almost every morsel of gravel is familiar to his eye: he knows how many slabs are cracked and broken; at what hour he shall have gruel, when a change to potatoes. Meat-days are little feast-days; his spoon and porringer and plate his only comforters, until sleep comes and steeps his senses in forgetfulness. He knows when it is Sunday by receiving his clean shirt, and attending church.

Poverty in the country—however poor it may be, however low it may have fallen—is still surrounded with a few fragments of the Paradise which was once man’s possession. There we see the blue of the sky bending and resting upon the dim rim of the horizon, or losing itself in the twilight of other worlds. The bladed green of the refreshing earth lies below like a rich velvet carpet which God hath diapered with flowers of “all hues,” and thrown down for man to tread upon. The solemn avenue of stately trees rises like a tall temple, roofed in by his mighty hand; and as we gaze upward, we feel the heart worshipping Him unawares, and walk along surrounded with the awe of an old religion. Every rounded pebble beside which the stream plays and murmurs, sends up its tiny voice through the bubbling silver, and fills up the pause in the great anthem which Nature hymns in His praise. In the greenless and sunless streets of the busy city we see not this God-created life, this old world, which has lived on ever since a broad leaf waved; long perchance before Eve planted her white and naked foot on the rounded daisies that blowed in Eden, when the voice of God was heard “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis iii. 8).

The visions which St. John the Evangelist obtained of heaven were of a city whose golden gates were never closed; of a river clear as crystal, and trees bending beneath their load of fruit. Isaiah also saw there “the glory of Lebanon: ... the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of [his] sanctuary.” And in our own dreams of those immortal realms, we but catch dim glimpses of what is beautiful on earth—a peaceful country, green and flowery; and over the sunshine which sleeps thereon the shadows of angels are ever passing.

Those who never see the beauties which God hath scattered over the face of the earth, can scarcely imagine any thing of heaven, or dream of delights beyond the worship which they join in here below.

Our forefathers were a holiday-loving people. With what delight they set out to bring home May! Herrick has told us, in undying verse: they hung a green bough on every door, and suspended from window to window, in the centre of the streets, endless garlands of flowers. The dance under the May-pole was surely preferable to reeling out of a gin-shop; and the archers practising in the cool of a summer evening, under the trees in Moorfields, much better than a stifling skittle-ground, reeking with tobacco, gin, and beer.

If the country is a little farther from London than it was in those days, we are enabled to reach it as soon as they did, when linked to that space-cleaving thunder-bolt, a railway engine; and quick and far away as the flowers have flown, we can still overtake them in a few minutes.

We have great faith in these holidays of the poor; for whatsoever contributes to their happiness removes a portion of what is evil, and supplies the place with what is good. To make a poor weary heart happy and contented for only a few hours, is to lessen the evils of life—it is a rest in the desert, a spring throwing its “loosened silver” through the arid sand, at which they drink, and taking heart, go on their way again more cheerfully. A more selfish and depraved class live not, than those who only think of their own pleasure; who never dream of the delight there is to be found in making others happy.

How grateful the generality of the poor are for favours! They return the donor thanks, sincere thanks—they can offer God no more.

We pay our poor-rates because we are forced; but is a parochial board to be the limits of our charity, is there nothing required beyond food, raiment, and household shelter, for the poor? Ask Joseph Brown, and he will point with a proud finger towards Bethnal-green, to those whom he led forth like a second Moses, out of a wilderness of bricks, mortar, and ruins, to a land where summer reigns, where he smote the rock, and sent the gushing waters bubbling and sparkling among a thousand brick-dried and dusty hearts.

At his bidding the little doubled-up old woman left off roasting chestnuts at the corner of the street, and went out to see them grow; the pale-faced girl for one day ceased her cry of water-cresses, and saw the clear brook in which they stood; while the pretty flower-girl gazed with wonderment over the gardens of Havering Bower, and thought how fresh and beautiful the flowers looked there compared with those she sold in the streets of London. The old man, bent with age, left his box of lucifer-matches (the beggar’s last shield) at home, and went to see the butterfly once more alight on the blossoms. And Joseph Brown walked at the head of these immortal souls, these poor outcasts of earth—many of them we trust angels ontheir march to heaven, whose folded wings may in another state touch our own, when we kneel with bowed head and clasped hands on the star-paved floor of heaven, blushing to think how many tribulations they waded through without a murmur, while we looked on nor extended a helping hand.

The last trumpet, when it awakes the dead, will have no soft and silvery sound for the silken sons and daughters of luxury, but send out the same earth-rending peal, and startle all from their long deep slumber.

These Bethnal-green holiday-people were a poor and homely race, looking what they really are, a badly-fed and badly-housed populace. They are small in stature and limb, and unwholesome in appearance, like flowers crammed into the bit of ground behind the smoky alleys in which they live, that dwindle and pine, and get less and less every year they live: so were these poor people—they had neither bulk, bone, nor muscle: they were like the trees in our city streets compared with the giant oaks of Sherwood Forest. Some of the girls were rather pretty but pensive; they seemed happy, and yet it did not look natural for them to appear so; you could not tell how it was, yet you “felt” it to be so. The ugliest and dirtiest were to all appearance the happiest; they saw only the present, they left the past behind them, quite sure that the old cares, privations, and sorrows would not run away while they were absent. Peace be with them, and all happiness attend such careful pastors as the Rev. Joseph Brown, Rev. Thomas French the curate of Bildeston, the Rev. R. H. Herschell, and all the kind friends who assist them by contributing their mite to these Holidays of the Poor. We place their names in our pages with a feeling of pleasure.

During one of our rural wanderings in summer, we chanced to stumble upon a holiday group of charity-school children, both boys and girls, which had been brought into the quietude of the country by half-a-score of pleasure-vans. They had not all the freedom we should have liked to have seen them enjoy: if one or two straggled a little out of bounds, they were called back. Poor little things! they seemed to envy the bees and birds that flew about, and to wish that they had no teachers to watch over them. We fancied how little some of them had slept on the previous night, through thinking about their country excursion; how often they had looked at the sky, and hoped that it would not rain—that it would surely be fair one day in the year, the only day on which they had a holiday. It made us sigh to look at some of them—they were such little specimens of humanity, especially when, on inquiry, we found that many of them were fatherless and motherless. They seemed to look on Nature withthat childish wonder which is pleased with every thing it sees: they gathered the white dead-nettle, the ox-eye, and red poppy, and thought that such were beautiful flowers; little darlings, that could only sob and weep when they were beaten, and nestle closer to one another for comfort, seeming to look about with their pretty eyes as if seeking for some friend to protect them. Others we saw with forbidding countenances, who had no doubt been beaten and starved, and felt a savage satisfaction in punishing such as were less than themselves, as if copying the examples they had suffered under.

Some had eaten their dinners before reaching their journey’s end, and gazed with longing eyes on such as had been more provident; though we strongly suspected that many had been tempted by false promises and the hopes of sharing the dinner of their companion—hopes not likely to be realised in many cases, judging from what we saw.

Oh, how we longed to have had those children under our own guidance for the day, to have taken them to one or another of the sweet spots we knew, so different from the dusty patch of green by the road-side, where the pleasure-vans were drawn up! such spots as we have often described—roads and lanes that lead only to fields; green nooks that seem too beautiful ever to be broken up into highways, as if it would be a sin to crush those lines of white daisies that seem to stretch onward and onward, as if trying to find their way to where, in spring, the primroses and violets and blue-bells nestle on the wood-side banks; spots which for ages have formed an old highway of flowers, over which have flown armies of birds and bees and butterflies; places beside which there ever went singing along with subdued voice some little brook, that seemed to chafe if only a pebble checked its course, as if it murmured at being kept away from the flowers that grew farther on, and which it had come a long way down the hills to look at, from whence the breeze had first blown the tidings about the beauty of the spot in which they grew; and ever over the stream the drooping May-buds waved, as if they tried to match their whiteness against the silver cloud that lay mirrored below, while here and there great trees threw their green arms across it, chequering its onward course with cooling shadows, as if for a little time to give it a pleasant resting-place before it went on again to where the unclouded sunshine falls; for where that pleasant stream goes broadening out, the gaudy dragon-flies meet together to play, and where it runs narrowing in, the black bulrushes, the feathery reeds, and the golden-flowered water-flags nod and bend and rustle together, as if they were never weary of telling one another how pleasant is the scenery around which they grow; spots wherethe birds seem to come for new songs—sweet notes which they gather from the lapping water and the whistling reeds, and these they sing to the blossoms, and the blossoms breathe them back again to the bees, and the bees whisper them into the bells of the flowers they plunge into, and every insect that alights thereon catches the note, and all day long is humming the low tune high up in the air. To such places as these ought the dear children to be taken, while the pleasure-vans await their return beside the dusty high-road, where only the plantain, the ox-eye, the dead-nettle, and the hemlock grow.

But while the railway rushes on in its lightning-like speed, and the steam-boat tosses the water aside with proud disdain, as if angry that it should for a moment check its course, the slow moving canal-boat, drawn leisurely along by horses, has also its crowd of holiday-people. This is, no doubt, one of the cheapest and safest methods of spending the day after all. Here there is no rushing and thronging as on the railway, no dashing and rocking as in the steam-packet, nor any shaking in going over the ground as in the pleasure-vans. The ripple the boat makes is scarcely heard. You can even distinguish the rustling of the tiny waves among the sedge that sways idly to and fro on the banks of the canal. It is a beautiful sight to see these boats full of holiday passengers, gliding slowly along within a yard or two of the shore in the summer sunshine; to look down and see them all mirrored in the water, even to the little girl that is leaning over the side, and rippling the surface with her hand, beside the woman in the red shawl, that deep down is clear-shadowed. Pleasant it is to stand a little way off; and, while the boat is towed lazily along, to hear some old solemn hymn chanted: low at first, then gradually swelling higher, and to distinguish the children’s voices mingling with those of men and women; and nothing to drown the harmony saving the measured tramp of the horses which haul the boat, the creaking of a gate, or the short sharp crack of the driver’s whip—sounds which disturb not your thoughts. Not that we would have them always singing hymns, or listening to pious addresses, but leave them a little breathing-time to look on nature, to “commune with their own hearts,” to enjoy themselves on the lawn (as the kind curate of Bildeston allowed them to do a year or two ago, after giving them a hearty meal of plum-cake and tea; and, when wearied with their sports and pastimes, sending home, as he did, every poor child with a huge lump of plum-cake in its hand).

In the north of England the school-feasts are called “Potations,” for so is the word sounded, the origin of which we have never been able to discover, nor to find any other meaning for it than that ofdrinking; yet it signifies a childish feast or holiday in the midland counties. We want a better compound word than “Pic-nic” for these Holidays of the Poor, and hope that some of our learned readers will help us to one.

A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,Z

Back to Index Next