the northern uplands of London
by no means in vain, as we shall find Belsize House, in Charles II.'s
time, openly besieged by robbers and, long afterwards, highwaymen
swarming in the same locality. The chalybeate wells of Hampstead lead us
on to the Heath, where wolves were to be found in the twelfth century
and highwaymen as late as 1803. Good company awaits us at pleasant
Hampstead--Lord Erskine, Lord Chatham, Keats, Akenside, Leigh Hunt, and
Sir Fowell Buxton; Booth, Wilkes, and Colley Cibber; Mrs. Barbauld,
honest Dick Steele, and Joanna Baillie. As for Highgate, for ages a
mere hamlet, a forest, it once boasted a bishop's palace, and there we
gather, with free hand, memories of Sacheverell, Rowe, Dr. Watts,
Hogarth, Coleridge, and Lord Mansfield; Ireton, Marvell, and Dick
Whittington, the worthy demi-god of London apprentices to the end of
time.

Lambeth, where Harold was crowned, can hold its own in interest with any
part of London--for it once possessed two ecclesiastical palaces and
many places of amusement. Lambeth Palace itself is a spot of extreme
interest. Here Wat Tyler's men dragged off Archbishop Sudbury to
execution; here, when Laud was seized, the Parliamentary soldiers turned
the palace into a prison for Royalists and demolished the great hall.
Outside the walls of the church James II.'s Queen cowered in the
December rain with her child, till a coach could be brought from the
neighbouring inn to convey her to Gravesend to take ship for France. The
Gordon rioters attacked the palace in 1780, but were driven off by a
detachment of Guards. The Lollards' Tower has to be visited, and the
sayings and doings of a long line of prelates to be reviewed. Vauxhall
brings us back to the days when Walpole went with Lady Caroline
Petersham and helped to stew chickens in a china dish over a lamp; or we
go further back and accompany Addison and the worthy Sir Roger de
Coverley, and join them over a glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung
beef.

Astley's Amphitheatre recalls to us many amusing stories of that old
soldier, Ducrow, and of his friends and rivals, which join on very
naturally to those other theatrical traditions to which Drury Lane and
Covent Garden have already led us.

So we mean to roam from flower to flower, over as varied a garden as the
imagination can well conceive. There have been brave workers before us
in the field, and we shall build upon good foundations. We hope to be
catholic in our selec