n about twenty-three years ago, and replaced by a cluster of
dwellings for the labourers in the surrounding market gardens, which
extend from Walham Green nearly to the Thames in a north-west direction;
"the North End Road," as it is called, forming the eastern boundary of
"Fulham Fields." To establish the connection of Sylvester's lines,
quoted in the late Mr. Crofton Croker's Paper on the "Golden Lion," with
this locality, the antiquary who pointed it out observed that--

"Our poet had an uncle named William Plumbe, who resided at North
End, Fulham, having married the widow of John Gresham, the second son
of Sir John Gresham, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1547, and which
lady was the only daughter and heir of Edward Dormer of Fulham. Here
it was, while visiting his uncle, that Sylvester formed the
attachment which is the subject of his poem (see the folio edition of
his works, 1621). Uncle Plumbe had been a widower; and from
monuments which exist, or existed, in the parish church of Fulham,
appears to have departed this life on the 9th February, 1593-4, aged
sixty. In the previous May, his widow had lost her son Edmund (or
Edward) Gresham, at the age of sixteen; and seriously touched by the
rapid proofs of mortality within her house, from which the hand of
death had within twelve months removed both a husband and a child,
made preparations for her own demise by recording her intention to
repose beside their remains: and to her husband's memory she raised,
in Fulham Church, a monument 'of alabaster, inlaid and ornamented
with various-coloured marble,' leaving a space after her name for the
insertion of the date of her death and age, which appear never to
have been supplied."

The arms of "Dormer, impaled with Gresham," we are told remain, "those of
Plumbe are gone." Sylvester's "Triumph of Faith" is consecrated "to the
grateful memory of the first kind fosterer of our tender Muses, by my
never sufficiently honoured dear uncle, W. Plumb, Esq." It is not our
intention to linger over the recollections connected with the age of
Elizabeth in Fulham Fields or at North End, although there can be no
doubt that a little research might bring some curious local particulars
to light connected with the history of the literature, the drama, and the
fine arts of that period,

The gardens here provide the London markets with a large supply of
vegetab