e breezy heath.

On this great, bare, dreary common I often went astray, as I afterwards
did on the Campagna of Rome, and drew the air (tainted with London smoke
though it might be) into my lungs by deep inspirations, with a strange
and unexpected sense of desert-freedom. The misty atmosphere helps you
to fancy a remoteness that perhaps does not quite exist. During the
little time that it lasts, the solitude is as impressive as that of a
Western prairie or forest; but soon the railway-shriek, a mile or two
away, insists upon informing you of your whereabout; or you recognize in
the distance some landmark that you may have known,--an insulated villa,
perhaps, with its garden-wall around it, or the rudimental street of a
new settlement which is sprouting on this otherwise barren soil. Half
a century ago, the most frequent token of man's beneficent contiguity
might have been a gibbet, and the creak, like a tavern-sign, of a
murderer swinging to and fro in irons. Blackheath, with its highwaymen
and footpads, was dangerous in those days; and even now, for aught I
know, the Western prairie may still compare favorably with it as a safe
region to go astray in. When I was acquainted with Blackheath, the
ingenious device of garroting had recently come into fashion; and I can
remember, while crossing those waste places at midnight, and hearing
footsteps behind me, to have been sensibly encouraged by also hearing,
not far off, the clinking hoof-tramp of one of the horse-patrols who do
regular duty there. About sunset, or a little later, was the time when
the broad and somewhat desolate peculiarity of the heath seemed to me
to put on its utmost impressiveness. At that hour, finding myself on
elevated ground, I once had a view of immense London, four or five miles
off, with the vast Dome in the midst, and the towers of the two Houses
of Parliament rising up into the smoky canopy, the thinner substance of
which obscured a mass of things, and hovered about the objects that were
most distinctly visible,--a glorious and sombre picture, dusky, awful,
but irresistibly attractive, like a young man's dream of the great
world, foretelling at that distance a grandeur never to be fully
realized.

While I lived in that neighborhood, the tents of two or three sets of
cricket-players were constantly pitched on Blackheath, and matches were
going forward that seemed to involve the honor and credit of communities
or counties, exciting an interest in