Highgate.] SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. them of their heads." It was in his walks about Highgate that Coleridge one day met Keats. He thus describes him :-"A loose, slack, and not well-dressed youth met me in a lane near Highgate. It was Keats. He was introduced to me, and stayed a minute or so. After he had left us a little way, he ran back and said, 'Let me carry away the memory, Mr. Coleridge, of having pressed your hand.' 'There is death in that hand,' I said, when Keats was gone; yet this was, I believe, before the consumption showed itself distinctly.'" Coleridge was called by De Quincey "the largest and most spacious intellect, the subtlest and most comprehensive that has yet existed among men;" and Walter Savage Landor admits the truth of the statement with a reserve in favour of only Shakespeare and Milton. Charles Lamb calls him "metaphysician, bard, and magician in one." If he had written nothing but the "Ancient Mariner," his name would have lived as long as English literature itself, though Southey denounces it as "the clumsiest attempted German sublimity that he ever saw." It was after a visit to Coleridge, at Highgate, in all probability, that Shelley thus wrote of him : "You will see Coleridge: him who sits obscure Which, with its own internal lustre blind, A hooded eagle among blinking owls." Almost everybody knows the general outline of the story of the wasted life of Coleridge. How in early manhood he enlisted into the 15th Light Dragoons, but was released from the uncongenial life he had chosen by friends who accidentally detected his knowledge of Greek and Latin; how even when he had gained a name and a position as an essayist, he refused a handsome salary for regular literary work, declaring that he "would not give up the pleasure of lazily reading old folio columns for a thousand a year," and that "he considered any money beyond three hundred and fifty pounds a year a real evil.” But this lazy reading of folios led, in his case, to confirmed idleness, an indolent resolution to gratify the mind and sense, at the cost of duty. "Degenerating into an opium-eater, and a mere purposeless theoriser, Coleridge wasted his time, talents, and health, and came, in his old age, to depend on the charity of others, and at last died; all his friends and many others besides regretted that he had done so little worthy of his genius." 425 the following epitaph, most striking for its simplicity "Stop, Christian passer-by! stop, child of God! He asked and hoped through Christ. Do thou the Highgate Green, or Grove, is situated on the summit of West Hill, opposite St. Michael's Church. Until within a few years ago, when the Green was completely enclosed with dwarf iron railings, and planted with shrubs by a committee of the inhabitants, with some assistance from the vestry of St. Pancras, it was an open space, having several seats placed for the convenience of those who were weary. The green was formerly a favourite resort of the London folk, as it afforded space for recreation or dancing. Almost in the centre of this Green stands the "Flask" Inn, which was formerly one of the head-quarters of revellers at Highgate, as was its namesake at Hampstead. In a comedy, published in 1601, entitled Jack Drum's Entertainment, on the introduction of the Whitsun morris dance, the following song is given in connection with the hostelry : Skip it, and frisk it nimbly, nimbly! Let us be seen on Highgate Green, To dance for the honour of Holloway." The following story is told connecting Hogarth's name with this Green :-"During his apprenticeship he made an excursion to this favourite spot with three of his companions. The weather being sultry, they went into a public-house on the Green, where they had not been long, before a quarrel arose between two persons in the same room, when, one of the disputants having struck his opponent with a quart pot he had in his hand, and cut him very much, causing him to make a most hideous grin, the humourist could not refrain from taking out his pencil and sketching one of the most ludicrous scenes imaginable, and what rendered it the more valuable was that it exhibited the exact likenesses of all present." The "public-house" here mentioned, no doubt, was the "Flask." A large part of the Green was formerly a pond, Before he died Coleridge composed for himself which was fringed on one side, at least, by farm paired to it, either as spectators, or to bear a part | Henry VIII. indulged in the sports of the chase, in the lists, were as may be seen by the following proclamation issued by him in 1546 66 -all the men of that country Of Iseldon (Islington), of Hygate, and of Hakenay." Church House, on the Green, close by the entrance to Swaine's Lane, was, in the middle of the last century, the abode of Sir John Hawkins, author of a "History of Music," of whom we have spoken in our account of Westminster.* At the time when Sir John Hawkins lived here, the roads were very badly kept; indeed, so difficult was the ascent of Highgate Hill that the worthy knight always rode from the Sessions House, Hicks's Hall, in a carriage drawn by four horses. Pepys tells us how that Lord Brouncker found it necessary to put six horses into his coach in order to climb Highgate See Vol. IV., p. 34. PROCLAMATION. Yt noe person interrupt the Kinges game of partridge or pheasant-Rex majori et vicecomitibus London. Vobis mandamus, &c. Forasmuch as the King's most Royale Majestie is much desirous of having the game of hare, partridge, pheasant, and heron, preserved in and about his manour at Westminster for his disport and pastime; that is to saye, from his said Palace toe our Ladye of Oke, toe Highgate and Hamsted Heathe, to be preserved for his owne pleasure and recreation; mandeth all and singular of his subjects, of what estate and his Royale Highnesse doth straightway charge and com condition soev' they be, not toe attempt toe hunte, or hawke, or kill anie of the said games within the precincts of Ham. sted, as they tender his favour and wolvde eschewe the im prisonment of theyre bodies and further punishment, at his majestie's will and pleasure. Teste meipso apud Westm. vij. die Julij anno trecesimo the "Red Lion," one of the principal coaching septimo Henrici octavi 1546. houses of former times, and one where the largest number of persons were sworn on the horns," as stated above. Of Hornsey Wood itself, the chief portion left is Bishop's Wood, extending nearly all the way from Highgate to Hampstead; a smaller fragment, known as Highgate Wood, lies on the north side of Southwood Lane, near the "Woodman" Tavern, but this was much cut up in forming the Highgate and Edgware Railway; another piece, somewhat less encroached upon, lies at the end of Wood Lane. North Hill, as the broad roadway north of the "Gate House" is called, is cut through what was once part of the Great Park or bishop's land, and joins the main road about half a mile beyond Southwood Lane. The road may be said to form part of the village of Highgate, for its sides are almost wholly occupied by villas and rows of cottages, among which are several public-houses, including The "Bull Inn," on the descent of the Great North Road towards Finchley, is worthy of note as one of the many such residences of the eccentric painter, George Morland, to whom we have frequently alluded. It is recorded that he would stand for hours before this hostelry, with a pipe in his mouth, bandying jests and jokes with the drivers of all the coaches which travelled by this route to Yorkshire and the North. We may observe, in conclusion, that, in the opinion of many persons, Highgate does not possess the same variety of situations and prospects as Hampstead, nor is it so large and populous a place; but its prospects to the south and east are superior to those in the same direction from Hampstead. CHAPTER XXXIII. HORNSEY. "To vie with all the beaux and belles, Spirit of the Public Journals, 1814. Etymology of Hornsey-Its Situation and Gradual Growth-The Manor of Hornsey-Lodge Hill-The Bishops' Park-Historical Memorabilia— The New River-Hornsey Wood and "Hornsey Wood House "-An Incident in the Life of Crabbe-Finsbury Park-Appearance of this District at the Commencement of the Present Century-Mount Pleasant-Hornsey Church-The Grave of Samuel Rogers, Author of "The Pleasures of Memory"-A Nervous Man-Lalla Rookh Cottage-Thomas Moore-Muswell Hill-The Alexandra Palace and ParkNeighbourhood of Muswell Hill, as seen from its Summit-Noted Residents at Hornsey-Crouch End. As we have in the preceding chapters been dealing | New River flows. This place is a favourite resort with Highgate-which, by the way, was originally but a hamlet situated within the limits of Hornsey -it is but natural that we should here say something of the mother parish. This once rural, but now suburban village, then, lies about two miles to the north-east from the top of Highgate Hill, whence it is approached either by Hornsey Lane or by Southwood Lane. The etymology of this locality must be sought for in its more ancient appellation. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century public records call it "Haringea," "Haringhea," or "Haringey." About Queen Elizabeth's time it was usually called Harnsey," or, as some will have it, says Norden, "Hornsey." Lysons, indulging in a little pleasantry, observes that "if anything is to be gathered relating to its etymology, it must be sought for in its more ancient appellation, Har-ringe, the meadow of hares." In "Crosby's Gazetteer," 1816, Hornsey is described as "a pleasant village situated in a low valley five miles from London, through which the of the good citizens of London." Hornsey and London since that time have approached much nearer to each other, and it appears probable that before long it will form a portion of the metropolis. The opening of the Alexandra Park doubtless tended strongly to stretch London considerably in the direction of Hornsey. The citizens of London, instead of making it a place of occasional resort, have made it a place of residence. Crosby continues :-"In its vicinity is a small coppice, known by the name of Hornsey Wood. The Hornsey Wood House is a famous house of entertainment." Both the Wood and the "Wood House" have been swept away, and the sites have been taken into Finsbury Park. In 1818, as we learn from advertisements of the time, coaches went "daily from the White Bear,' Aldersgate Street, at eleven in the morning; in the afternoon at seven, in the winter, and at four and eight in the summer." Such, however, have been the changes brought about by the whirligig of time, that now, during the day, there are railway trains to and from London and various parts of Hornsey to the number of upwards of fifty each way. The Manor of Hornsey has belonged to the Bishops of London from a time antecedent to the Norman Conquest; and in the centuries immediately following that event, those prelates had a residence here long before they owned a palace on the banks of the Thames at Fulham. Mr. Prickett has shown pretty conclusively, in his "History of Highgate," that the site of this residence is to be looked for in the centre of Hornsey Great Park, about half a mile to the north-west of the "High Gate." Norden, in his "Speculum Britanniæ," thus describes it :-"There is a hill or fort in Hornsey Park, called Lodge Hill, for that thereon stood some time a lodge, when the park was replenished with deer; but it seemeth by the foundation that it was rather a castle than a 'lodge;' for the hill is trenched with two deep ditches, now old and overgrown with bushes; the rubble thereof, as brick, tile, and Cornish slate, are in heaps yet to be seen; the which ruins are of great antiquity, as may appear by the oaks at this day standing, above a hundred years' growth, upon the very foundations of the building." Lysons, writing at the close of the last century, says that "the greater part of it is now covered with a copse, but the remains of a moat or ditch are still to be seen in an adjoining field." Lysons adds a remark to the effect that "Bishop Aylmer's house at Hornsey, the burning of which put him to 200 marks expense, must have been upon another site." When the bishop's lands were sold, the Manor of Hornsey passed into the hands of Sir John Wollaston, of whom we have spoken in the previous chapter; he held it till his death, in 1658, after which his widow enjoyed it till the Restoration. Mr. Prickett adds, that in his time (1842) the form of the moat which surrounded it was still visible, and that it covered seventy yards square. He writes, "The site of the castle is still uneven, and bears the traces of former foundation; it is somewhat higher than the ground outside the trenches. The portion of the moat which still remains consists of a spring constantly running, and is now used as a watering-place for cattle." It is almost needless to say here that the park of the Bishops of London must have been originally a portion of the great forest of Middlesex, which we have mentioned in our account of Primrose Hill (page 287). It occupied a somewhat irregular triangle, the base of which would extend from Highgate to Hampstead, while its apex reached nearly to Finchley northwards. In fact, a great 429 portion of it still remains as forest-land, though regarded as a part of Caen Wood. Hornsey Park is not altogether without its scraps of history, for it is said to have been the place where, in the year 1386, the Duke of Gloucester, the Earls of Arundel, Warwick, and other noblemen, assembled in a hostile manner, and marched thence to London to oppose Richard II., and to compel him to dismiss his two favourite ministers the Earl of Suffolk and Robert Duke of Ireland from his councils. As we learn from Stow's "Annals," the Lodge in Hornsey Park, then the residence of the Duke of Gloucester, was, in the reign of Henry VI., the scene of the reputed witchcraft in which Eleanor Duchess of Gloucester was concerned; for here the learned Robert Bolingbroke, an astrologer, and Thomas Southwell, a canon of St. Stephen's, are alleged to have "endeavoured to consume the king's person by necromantic art," Southwell having said masses over the instruments which were to be used for that purpose. Bolingbroke was executed as a traitor at Tyburn; Southwell died in the Tower; whilst the Duchess had to do penance the public streets, an incident which Shakespeare has rendered familiar to his readers in the second part of the play of Henry VI. in Once more, when the ill-fated and short-lived Edward V. was brought to London, after his father's death, under the escort of his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, he was here met by the Lord Mayor and 500 citizens of London. Hall, in his "Chronicles," quaintly tells us that "When the kynge approached neere the cytee, Edmonde Shawe, goldsmythe, then Mayre of the cytie, with the Aldermenne and shreves [sheriffs] in skarlet, and five hundreth commoners in murraye, receyved his grace reverently at Harnesay Parke, and so conveighed him to the cytie, where he entered the fourth day of May, in the fyrst and last yere of his reigne." Henry VII., on his return from a victory in Scotland, was likewise here met by the Lord Mayor and citizens of London, and conducted on his progress to the City in like manner. Miss Jane Porter states, in her "Scottish Chiefs," that "the remains of Wallace were secretly removed and deposited temporarily in the chapel of Hornsey. Lodge; and that Robert Bruce was concealed at Lodge Hill, in the garb of a Carmelite, when Gloucester sent him a pair of spurs, as an intimation that he must depart with all speed;" but it should be added that neither Lysons, nor Prickett, in his history of the place, mentions these facts, so that possibly they are somewhat apocryphal. |