LITERARY HAMPSTEAD AND

HIGHGATE

Haunt of Dickens-Steele-Pope-Keats-Baillie-Johnson-Hunt -Akenside-Shelley -Hogarth-Addison-Richardson-GayBesant - Du Maurier - Coleridge, etc.-Grave of George Eliot.

THE

HE explorations which first brought renown to the immortal Pickwick were made among the uplands which border the valley of the Thames at the north of London: the illustrious creator of Pickwick loved to wander in the same region through the picturesque landscapes he made the scenes of many incidents of his fiction, and the literary prowler of to-day can hardly find a ramble more to his mind than that from the former home of Dickens or George Eliot by Regent's Park to Hampstead, and thence through the famous heath to Highgate. The way traverses storied ground and teems with historic associations, but these are, for us, lessened and subordinated by the appeal of memories of the famed literati who have loved and haunted this delightful region, and have imparted to it the tenderest charm. The acclivity of Hampstead has measurably resisted the encroachment of London, and has deflected the railroads with their disturbing tendencies, so that this old town probably retains more of its ancient character

than any other of the near suburbs, and some of its quaint streets would scarcely be more quiet if they lay a hundred miles away from the metropolis. Off the highway by which we ascend the hill, we find many evidences of antiquity, old streets lined by rows of plain and sedate dwellings wearing an air of dignified sobriety which is not of this century, and which is in grateful contrast with the pert artificiality of the modern fabrics of the vicinage. Many old houses are draped with ivy or shrouded by trees of abundant foliage; some are shut in by depressing brick walls, over which float the perfumes of unseen flowers. A few of the older streets lie in perpetual crepuscule, being vaulted by gigantic elms and limes as opaque as arches of masonry.

Along the slope of Haverstock hill, where our ascent begins, we find the sometime homes of Percival, Stanfield, Rowland Hill, and the historian Palgrave. Near by is the cottage where dwelt Mrs. Barbauld, and the Roslyn House, where Sheridan, Pitt, Burke, and Fox were guests of Loughborough. Here, too, formerly stood the mansion where Steele entertained the poet of the "Dunciad," with Garth and other famed wits. On the hill-side a leafy lane leads out of High Street to the picturesque church of the parish, whose tower is a conspicuous

Baillie-Johnson-Kit-Kat Club

landmark. Within this fane we find, against the wall on the right of the chancel, the beautiful marble bust recently erected by American admirers "To the Ever-living Memory" of the author of "Lamia" and "Hyperion." Here, too, is the plain memorial tablet of the poetess Joanna Baillie, who lived in an unpretentious mansion lately standing in the neighborhood, where she was visited by Wordsworth, Rogers, and others of potential genius. In the thickly tenanted church-yard she sleeps with her sister near the graves of Incledon, Erskine, and the historian Mackintosh. Below the church, on the westering slope, lies embowered Frognall, once the home of Gay, where Dr. Johnson lived and wrote "The Vanity of Human Wishes" in the house where the gifted Nichol now resides with the author of "Ships that Pass in the Night" for a neighbor and with the home of Besant in view from his study. Near the summit of Hampstead stands a sober old edifice which was of yore the Upper Flask tavern, where the famous Kit-Kat Club held its summer séances, when such luminous spirits as Walpole, Prior, Dorset, Pope, Congreve, Swift, Steele, and Addison assembled here in the low-panelled rooms which we may still see, or beneath the old trees of the garden, and interchanged sallies of wit and fancy over their cakes and ale. To

this inn Lovelace brought the "Clarissa Harlowe” of Richardson's famed romance, and here Steevens, the scholiast of Shakespeare, lived and died. Flask Walk, which leads out of the high street among old houses and greeneries, brings us to the shadowy Well Walk, with its overarching trees and with many living memories masoned into its dead walls. Here we see the little remnant of the once famous well which for a time made Hampstead a resort for the fashionable and the suffering. Among the fancied invalids who once dwelt in Well Walk was the spouse of Dr. Johnson. Akenside, Arbuthnot, and Mrs. Barbauld (editor of "Richardson's Correspondence") have sometime lived in this same little street; here the mother of Tennyson died, and here the sweet boy-poet Keats lodged and wrote "Endymion." At a house still to be seen in the vicinage he was for two years the guest of his friend Brown; here he wrote "Hyperion," "St. Agnes,” and the "Ode to a Nightingale," and here he wasted in mortal illness, being at last removed to Rome only to die. Under the limes of Well Walk is a spot especially hallowed by the memory of Keats it was the object and limit of his walks in his later months, and here was placed a seat (which until lately was preserved and bore his name), where he sat for hours at a time beneath

Keats-The Heath

the whispering boughs, gazing, often through tears, upon the enchanting vista of wave-like woods and fields, the valley with its gleaming lakelets, and the farther slopes crowned by the spires of Highgate, which rise out of banks of foliage. The view is no less beautiful than when Keats's vision lingered lovingly upon it, although we must go into the open fields to behold it now.

If we bestir ourselves to reach the summit of the heath before the accustomed pall shall have settled down upon the great city, the exertion will be abundantly rewarded by the prospect that greets us as we overlook the abodes of eight millions of souls. Such a view is possible nowhere else on earth: outspread before us lies the vast metropolis with its seven thousand miles of streets, while without and beyond this aggregation of houses we behold an expanse of landscape diversified with vale and hill, copse and field, village and park, extending for leagues in every direction and embracing portions of seven of England's populous shires. We see the great dome of St. Paul's and the tall towers of Westminster rising out of the mass of myriad roofs; the Crystal Palace glinting amid its green terraces; across the city we behold the verdured slopes of Surrey and, farther away, the higher hills of Sussex; our eyes follow the course of the Thames from imperial Windsor, whose