nt with the appearance of that
"Pinnacle perched on a Precipice," which was Charles II.'s idea of the
Visible Church on Earth--the Parish Church of Harrow on the Hill. Anselm
consecrated it, Becket said Mass in it, and John Lyon, the Founder of
Harrow School, lies buried in it. When I was a Harrow boy, the
Celebrations of the Holy Communion in the School Chapel were rare, and
generally late; so some of us were accustomed to communicate every
Sunday at the 8 o'clock service in the Parish Church. But even in holy
places, and amid sacred associations, the ludicrous is apt to assert
itself; and I could never sufficiently admire a tablet in the North
aisle, commemorating a gentleman who died of the first Reform Bill.

"JOHN HENRY NORTH,

Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland.
Without an equal at the University, a rival at the Bar,
Or a superior in chaste and classic eloquence in Parliament.
Honoured, Revered, Admired, Beloved, Deplored,
By the Irish Bar, the Senate and his country,
He sunk beneath the efforts of a mind too great for
His earthly frame,
In opposing the Revolutionary Invasion of the Religion and
Constitution of England,
On the 29th of September, 1831, in the 44th year of his age."

Alas! poor Mr. North. What would he have felt if he had lived to see the
Reform Bills of 1867 and 1885? Clearly he was taken away from the evil
to come.

Until the Metropolitan Railway joined Harrow to Baker Street, the Hill
stood in the midst of genuine and unspoilt country, separated by five
miles of grass from the nearest point of London, and encompassed by
isolated dwellings, ranging in rank and scale from villas to country
houses. Most of these have fallen victims to the Speculative Builder,
and have been cut up into alleys of brick and stucco, though one or two
still remain among their hay-fields and rhododendrons. When I first
ascended Harrow Hill, I drove there from London with my mother; and,
from Harlesden onwards, our road lay between grass meadows, and was
shaded by hedgerow timber. Harrow was then a much prettier place than it
is now. The far-seen elms under which Byron dreamed[4] were still in
their unlopped glory, and the whole effect of the Hill was wooded. So an
Eton man and Harrow master[5] wrote:--

"Collis incola frondei
Nympha, sive lubentius