The and founded a club in White Conduit Fields. But Finchley Road, called the "Eyre Arms." hard indeed it were in these days to pitch good grounds belonging to this house were occasionally wickets within view of the Foundling Hospital. the scene of balloon ascents in the early days of So Thomas Lord then came upon the stage-a aëronautics. One of the latest was the ascent of canny lad from the north country-who, after wait- Mr. Hampton here on the 7th of June, 1839. ing on Lords Darnley and Winchilsea, Sir Horace Mann, the Duke of Dorset, and others of their contemporaries in the White Conduit Fields Club, speculated in a ground of his own, where now, as we have stated above, is Dorset Square, the original "Lord's." This was in 1780. It was on this ground that the club, taking the name of the Marylebone Cricket Club, brought the game to perfection. In a map of London published in 1802, the site of Dorset Square is marked as "The Cricket Ground," probably implying that it was the only public ground then devoted to that sport in the neighbourhood of London. On the present ground is annually fought the 66 great batting match," as it is called, between Harrow and Eton. The two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, likewise, here enter into friendly rivalry, some months after their perhaps more exciting contest on the River Thames. Here, too, nearly all the great cricket matches of the metropolitan clubs and southern counties of England are played. Apropos of Lord's Cricket Ground, we may add that there is nothing in which a more visible improvement has taken place than in our sports. The prize-ring and bear-garden, dog-fighting and ratkilling, are things of the past; but our glorious boatraces, in which we are the first in the world; cricket, in which we have no rivals; and athletic sports-running, jumping the hurdles-in which we have reached to the highest perfection. The Duke of Wellington attributed a great deal of his success in war to the athletic exercises which Englishmen had practised in peace. The steady nerve, quick eye, and command of every muscle, exercised considerable power in the battle-field. On the Continent these games are almost unknown, and the biggest Frenchman or Prussian is the veriest baby in the hands of an Englishman in any physical display. We attribute a good deal of the temperance which characterises this age of ours to the growth of those sports; for the intemperate man, shattered in nerves and dim of eye, has no chance in such noble pastimes. Much of the land in and about St. John's Wood belongs to the family of Eyre, whose estate adjoins those of Lord Portman and the Duke of Portland; their name is kept fresh in remembrance by the sign given to a tavern of some note in the In the rear of the inn is a large concert-room, which is often used for balls, bazaars, public lectures, &c.; and on the opposite side of the way is the St. John's Wood Athenæum, which serves as a club for the residents of the neighbourhood. Close by, in Circus Road, the Emperor Napoleon lived for some time during his sojourn in England; and in Ordnance Road, between St. John's Wood and the west side of Primrose Hill, are some barracks, generally occupied by a regiment of the Line or of the Guards. Among the various charitable and provident institutions here is the Ladies' Home, which was founded in 1859, in Abbey Road. It affords board, lodging, and medical attendance to ladies of limited income, each paying from 16s. to 145. per week. In the St. John's Wood Road are the girls' schools belonging to the Clergy Orphan and Widow Corporation. The objects of this institution, which was established in 1749, are to clothe, educate, and maintain the poor orphans of clergyThis charity is one of the most extensive in the kingdom, and has greatly assisted the orphans of a large number of clergymen in beginning life. The boys' school in connection with the institution is at Canterbury. men. Another old and useful institution is the School of Industry for Female Orphans, which was established in 1786, in Grove Road. The school will accommodate about eighty girls, but it has rarely, if ever, mustered above fifty at one time, the number being restricted by the funds. Board, clothing, and education is here given to girls who have lost both parents. At the top of the Avenue Road, close to the Swiss Cottage, is the School for the Blind, founded in 1838, and erected from the designs of a Mr. Kendal. It will accommodate about 100 inmates, male and female. The school was established for the purpose of imparting secular knowledge and the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, and teaching the blind to read by means of embossed or raised print. A portion of the pupils are received free; others pay a small sum half-yearly. The course of instruction given in the school, it may be added, is as complete as it well could be, and is fitted, in so far as that is possible, to enable the pupils, despite their sorrowful deprivation, to earn their own livelihood, and to take their place St. John's Wood.] JOANNA SOUTHCOTT. 251 for the clergy. The windows of the chapel are "lancets," after the fashion of the twelfth or early part of the thirteenth century, and are filled with stained glass, principally as memorial windows. Hamilton Terrace and the surrounding streets commemorate, by their names, the governors and other authorities of Harrow School in the last Aberdeen Place, Abercorn Place, Cunningham Place, Northwick Terrace, &c., at all events, serve to show that the foundation of the honest yeoman of Preston, John Lyon, is not in danger of being forgotten or useless. In Hamilton Terrace is the large Church of St. Mark's. It was built in 1847, in the Gothic style of architecture, from the designs of Messrs. Cundy. of usefulness and honour in the work of life, side wings on each side have been converted into by side with those who possess all the inestimable dwelling-houses, one of them serving as a residence advantages of sight. In the industrial department, the work among the boys consists chiefly of basketmaking and chair-caning; amongst the girls, of chair-caning, knitting, and bead-work. Of the progress made by the pupils generally, Mr. Charles Richards, the literary examiner, made the following encouraging remarks in his annual report to the committee of the institution, in May, 1876-generation. Speaking of the boys, he says, "The difficulty in learning to write to one who is unable to see a copy is evident; but by means of embossed letters, &c., the difficulty has been so far overcome that many of the boys are able to write very creditably. I was somewhat surprised to find that those who had been at the school a few months only were able to read very fairly. The reading of the others would compare favourably with that of boys of their age who have the advantage of sight. Arithmetic is worked on boards with movable type, and necessarily takes more time than if worked with slate and pencil. Some have advanced as far as the extraction of square and cube roots. All the examples were correctly worked, and I consider this part of the examination to have been very satisfactory. . . . In history, geography, grammar, and religious knowledge, I was altogether satisfied. The answers were given readily, and showed an intelligent knowledge of the subjects." Of the instruction of the girls in this department Mr. Richards' report is equally satisfactory, and he concludes by saying that he "cannot speak too highly of the excellent discipline in both schools, the principle of government being love rather than severity." At the junction of the Finchley and St. John's Wood Roads, close by the station on the Underground Railway, is the St. John's Wood Chapel, with its burial-ground, in which a few individuals of note have been buried; and among them the impostors, Richard Brothers and Joanna Southcott. Of the former of these two characters we have spoken in our account of Paddington.* Joanna Southcott was a native of Devonshire, and was born about the middle of the last century. In her youth she lived as a domestic servant, chiefly in Exeter, and having joined the Methodists, became acquainted with a man named Sanderson, who laid claim to the spirit of prophecy, a pretension in which she herself ultimately indulged. In 1792, she declared herself to be the woman driven into the wilderness, the subject of the prophecy in the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation. She gave forth predictions in prose and doggerel The Roman Catholic Chapel in Grove Road rhyme, in which she related the denunciation of is a large Gothic structure, built about the year judgments on the surrounding nations, and pro1836, through the munificence of two maiden mised a speedy approach of the Millennium. In ladies of the name of Gallini, whose father, the course of her "mission," as she called it, she an Italian refugee, had settled in London, and employed a boy, who pretended to see visions, having taught dancing to sundry members of the and attempted, instead of writing, to adjust them royal family, became Sir John Gallini.* So noble on the walls of her chapel, "the House of God." and generous was their gift esteemed that they were A schism took place among her followers, one of rewarded with a magnificent testimonial from the whom, named Carpenter, took possession of the Roman Catholic ladies of England, presented by place, and wrote against her: not denying her the hands of the Princess Donna Isabella Maria mission, but asserting that she had exceeded it. of Portugal. The chapel was one of the early Although very illiterate, she wrote numerous letters works of Mr. J. J. Scoles, and is a rather poor repro- | and pamphlets, which were published, and found duction of some of the features of the Lady Chapel many purchasers. One of her productions was in St. Saviour's Church, Southwark. It is a cruciform structure, in the "Early English" style, and it consists of a nave, chancel, and side aisles; the • See Vol. IV., p. 318. called "The Book of Wonders." She also issued to her followers sealed papers, which she termed her "seals," and which, she assured them, would See p. 212, ante. birth, at midnight, on the 19th of October, 1814, to a second "Shiloh," or Prince of Peace, miraculously conceived, she being then more than sixty years of age. The infatuation of her followers was such that they received this announcement with devout reverence, prepared an expensive cradle, and spent considerable sums, in order that all might be suitable for so great and interesting an occasion. The expected birth did not take place; but on the 27th of December, 1814, the woman died, at her house in Manchester Street.* On a postmortem examination, it was found that the appearance of pregnancy which had deceived others, and perhaps herself, was due to dropsy. Her followers, Sec Vol. IV., p. 435. but I have reason to believe it is 200 or 300 at least. They meet together on Sundays, but I have not been able to discover the exact place; but I know they are most numerous in the parishes of St. Luke and Shoreditch. I lately met one of their preachers, or 'prophets,' and had some conversation with him. He was evidently a man of education, and strenuously maintained the Divine mission of Joanna. When I asked him how he got over the non-fulfilment of the promise, or rather the assurance, which she made to her 50,000 followers that she would rise from the dead on the third day, his answer was that the expression three days' was not to be taken in a literal sense, but as denoting three certain periods of time. Two of these periods, he said, had rather a practical character, if the following may be taken as a specimen :-"I am the Lord thy God and Master. Tell Ito pay thee five pounds for expenses of thy coming up to London; and he must give thee twenty pounds to relieve the perplexity of thy handmaid and thee, that your thoughts may be free to serve me, the Lord, in the care of my Shiloh." The Lord is made to inform his people somewhere, anxious to go to meet the Shiloh at Manchester, that travelling by the new cut is not expensive. On her death-bed, poor Joanna is reported to have said :-" If I have been misled, it has been by some spirit, good or evil." In her last hours, Joanna was attended by Ann Underwood, her secretary; Mr. Tozer, who was called her high-priest; Colonel Harwood, and While vain sages think they know SABINEUS. About three years after the death of Joanna Southcott, a party of her disciples, conceiving themselves directed by God to proclaim the coming of the Shiloh on earth, marched in procession through Temple Bar, and the leader sounded a brazen trumpet, and proclaimed the coming of Shiloh, the Prince of Peace; while his wife shouted, "Wo! wo! to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the coming of Shiloh!" The crowds pelted the fanatics with mud, some disturbance ensued, and some of the disciples had to answer for their conduct before a magistrate. CHAPTER XX. MARYLEBONE, NORTH: ITS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. "Suburban villas, highway-side retreats, That dread th' encroachment of our growing streets, Tight boxes, neatly sash'd, and in a blaze With all a July sun's collected rays, Delight the citizen, who, gasping there, Breathes clouds of dust, and calls it country air."-Cowper. North Bank and South Bank-Rural Aspect of the Neighbourhood Half a Century Ago-Marylebone Park-Taverns and Tea-gardens --The THE district through which we are now about to pass lies between Edgware Road and Regent's Park, and the St. John's Wood Road and Marylebone Road. At the beginning of the century, Cowper's lines quoted above might, perhaps, have been more applicable to it than now; but even to this day they are not altogether out of place when applied to those parts lying to the north of Lisson Grove, more especially towards the Park Road, and to the villas known respectively as North Bank and South Bank, the gardens of which slope down towards the Regent's Canal, which passes between them. Here we have "trim gardens," lawns, and shrubs; towering spires, banks clothed with flowers; indeed, all the elegances of the town and all the beauties of the country are at this spot happily commingled. Of the early history of Marylebone, and of that portion of the parish lying on the south side of the Marylebone Road, we have already spoken ;* but we may add here that at the beginning of the eighteenth century the place was a small village, quite surrounded by fields, and nearly a mile distant from any part of the great metropolis. Indeed, | down to a much later date—namely, about 1820we have seen an oil-painting, by John Glover, of Primrose Hill and the ornamental water in the Regent's Park, taken from near the top of Upper Baker Street or Clarence Gate, in the front of which are a party of haymakers, sketched from life, and there are only three houses dotted about near the then new parish church of Marylebone. Indeed, at the commencement of the present century Marylebone was a suburban retreat, amid "green fields and babbling brooks." A considerable extent of ground on the north side of what is now called the Marylebone Road, and comprising See Vol. IV., p. 428 et seq. besides nearly the whole of what is now Regent's Park, was at one time known as Marylebone Park, and was of course attached to the old Manor House, which we have already described.† A reminiscence of the Manor House, with its garden, park, and environs, as they stood in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when her Majesty here entertained the Russian ambassadors with a stag hunt in the said park, is preserved in a drawing made by Gasselin in 1700, and re-published by Mr. J. T. Smith in 1800. Marylebone Park Farm and its cow-sheds, which covered the rising ground almost as far northward as Le Notre's Canal, has now become metamorphosed into a rural city. From 1786 to 1792, the additions and improvements in this neighbourhood were carried into effect in quick succession. Almost all of the Duke of Portland's property in Marylebone, except one farm, was let at that period on building leases, and the new buildings in the north-west part of the parish increased with equal rapidity. The large estates at Lisson Grove, in process of time, all became extensively and, in many instances, tastefully built upon. A correspondent of "Hone's Year-Book" writes, in 1832, with an almost touching tenderness about Marylebone Park," the memory of which name has long since passed away, confessing that it "holds in his affections a far dearer place than its more splendid but less rural successor "-referring, of course, to the Regent's Park. This, too, is the romantic district through which Mr. Charles Dickens, in the person of his "Uncommercial Traveller," must have descried at a distance in the course of his "various solitary rambles," which he professes to have "taken northward for his retirement," the West-end out of season, "along See Vol. IV., p. 429. |