whose names
history, literature, or art has embalmed for posterity, or as the scene
of circumstances treasured up in recollection!

If the feelings could be recalled, and faithfully recorded, which the
dull brick walls that I cannot help regarding with interest must have
witnessed, what a romantic chapter in the history of the human mind would
be preserved for study and reflection!--

"Ay, beautiful the dreaming brought
By valleys and green fields;
But deeper feeling, higher thought,
Is what the City yields."

The difficulty, however, is incredible of procuring accurate information
as to any thing which has not been chronicled at the moment. None but
those who have had occasion to search after a date, or examine into a
particular fact, can properly estimate their value, or the many inquiries
that have to be made to ascertain what at first view would appear to be
without embarrassment,--so deceptive is the memory, and so easy a thing
is it to forget, especially numbers and localities, the aspect and even
names of which change with a wonderful degree of rapidity in the progress
of London out of town. Thus many places become daily more and more
confused, and at last completely lose their identity, to the regret of
the contemplative mind, which loves to associate objects with the
recollection of those who "have left their celebrity to the spot."

These considerations have induced the writer to arrange his notes, and
illustrate them by such sketches as will aid the recognition of the
points mentioned, the appearance of which must be familiar to all who
have journeyed between London and Fulham,--a district containing, beside
the ancient village of that name, and remarkable as adjacent to the
country seat of the Bishop of London, two smaller villages, called Walham
Green and Parson's Green. The former of which stands on the main London
road, the latter on the King's Road,--which roads form nearly parallel
lines between Fulham and the metropolis. For all information respecting
the neighbourhood of Knightsbridge the reader may be referred to a
recently published work "The Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge,
with notices of its immediate neighbourhood," by the late Henry George
Davis, edited by Charles Davis (Russell Smith).

From Knightsbridge, formerly a suburb, and now part of London, the main
roads to Fulham and Hammersmith branch off at the north end of Sloane
Street (about a quarter of a m