site, but could scarcely have been the identical 1583, to Sir Rowland Hayward. It was subedifice; for it was built with projecting bays, in sequently possessed by Fulke Greville (afterwards what is called the Renaissance style. About the Lord Brooke) and by Sir George Vyner. Under middle of the last century it was a public-house, date of May 8, 1654, John Evelyn, in his "Diary," the "Blue Posts;" afterwards it was known as gives us the following note of a visit he paid to "Bob's Hall," and the road between the church- this place :-"I went to Hackney," he writes, "to yard and Clapton Square was styled Bob's Hall see my Lady Brooke's garden, which was one of Lane. the neatest and most celebrated in England; the house well furnish'd, but a despicable building.” On the south side of the road to Clapton formerly stood a mansion called "Brooke House," and at one time the "King's House," the manorhouse of the manor termed King's Hold. It is said to have belonged originally to the Knights Templars; and after the dissolution of the order to have been granted, in common with other possessions, to the monastery of St. John of Jerusalem. On the dissolution of the latter order the estate appears to have been granted to Henry, Earl of Northumberland, who possibly died here, since he was buried, as we have seen, at Hackney. This earl was the person employed, in conjunction with Sir Walter Walsh, to arrest Cardinal Wolsey at his house at Cawood. He had, as every reader of English history knows, been, in his youthful days, a lover of Anne Boleyn (then one of the maids of honour to Queen Catherine), but withdrew his suit in consequence of the interference of his father, who had been purposely made acquainted with the king's partiality to that lady. When the inconstant monarch's affection for Anne Boleyn (then his queen) began to decline, a supposed pre-contract with the Earl of Northumberland was made the pretence for a divorce, though the earl, in a letter to Secretary Cromwell (dated Newington Green, May 13th, 1537), denied the existence of any such contract in the most solemn manner. “Henry, Earl of Northumberland, died," says the account of his funeral in the Heralds' College, "at his manor of Hackney, now the King's House, between two and three in the morning, on the 29th of June, 1537; 29 Hen. VIII." The earl, as we have stated above, was buried in the old church close by. The estate afterwards reverted to the Crown, and was granted by Edward VI., in 1547, to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. The house occupied by Lord Pembroke is described in the particulars for the grant of the manor, as "a fayre house, all of brick, with a fayre hall and parlour, a large gallery, a proper chapel, and a proper gallery to laye books in," &c. It is also stated to be "situated near the London road," and to be "enclosed on the back side with a great and broad ditch." A few years later it was purchased by Sir Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, who again conveyed it, in At the end of the seventeenth century this. manor became part of the Tyssen property, of which we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter. When Lord Brooke sold the manor of King's Hold, he reserved the mansion, which, it is stated, continued vested in his family, and at the commencement of this century was the property of the Earl of Warwick. The author of the "Beauties of England and Wales," writing in 1816, says: "This house has experienced considerable alterations, but large portions of the ancient edifice have been preserved. These consist principally of a quadrangle, with internal galleries, those on the north and south sides being 174 feet in length. On the ceiling of the south gallery are the arms of Lord Hunsdon, with those of his lady, and the crests of both families frequently repeated. The arms of Lord Hunsdon are likewise remaining on the ceiling of a room connected with this gallery. It is therefore probable that the greater part of the house was rebuilt by this nobleman during the short period for which he held the manor, a term of no longer duration than from 1578 to 1583. The other divisions of this extensive building are of various but more modern dates." At the time when the above description was written, the house seems to have been occupied as a private lunatic asylum. Several of the nobility and wealthy gentry, indeed, appear to have chosen Hackney for a residence. There is a record of a visit to Hackney by Queen Elizabeth, but to whom is not certain, in 1591. The son and daughter of her dancing chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton, were both married in Hackney Church, so that he, too, probably lived here. Vere, Earl of Oxford, the soldier and poet, who accompanied Leicester on his expedition to Holland, who supplied ships to oppose the Armada, and sat on the trials of Mary Queen of Scots and the Earls of Arundel, Essex, and Southampton, was, in his latter days, a resident of Hackney. It is also said that Rose Herbert, a lady of noble family, and one of the nuns who at the Reformation were turned adrift upon the world from the Convent of Godstow, near Oxford, died here Hackney.! JOHN HOWARD'S HOUSE. 521 towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, in a state of chapel in the centre, the following inscription:destitution, at the age of ninety-six. Early in the seventeenth century, George Lord Zouch, a noted man in his day, and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, had a house at Hackney, where he amused himself with experimental gardening. He died there, and was buried in a small chapel adjoining his house. Ben Jonson, who was his intimate friend, discovered that there was a hole in the wall affording communication between the last resting-place of Lord Zouch and the winecellar, and thereupon vented this impromptu : "Wherever I die, let this be my fate, To lye by my good Lord Zouch, And so back again to my couch." Owen Rowe, one of those who sat as "judges" at the trial of King Charles, died and was buried at Hackney, in 1660. Another memorable inhabitant of Hackney at this time was Susanna Prewick, or Perwick, a young musical phenomenon, whose death, at the age of twenty-five, in 1661, was celebrated in some lengthy poems, chiefly commendatory of her personal graces. We have no means of judging of her musical powers, which created an extraordinary sensation at the time; but it is gratifying to know that "All vain, conceited affectation "For the Glory of God, and the comfort of twelve widows of Dissenting Ministers, this retreat was erected and endowed by Samuel Robinson, A.d. 1812." Homerton High Street leads direct to Hackney Marsh, where, says the "Ambulator" of 1774, "there have been discovered within the last few years the remains of a great causeway of stone, which, by the Roman coins found there, would appear to have been one of the famous highways made by the Romans." The Marsh Road, too, leads straight on to Temple Mills, of which we have already had occasion to make mention. The City of London Workhouse covers a large space of ground north-east of Hackney churchyard, abutting upon Templar Road. Northward lies the rapidly extending hamlet of Lower Clapton. Here, in a curious old house, which was pulled down many years ago, was born, in the year 1727, John Howard, the future prison reformer and philanthropist. The house had been the "country residence" of John Howard's father, who was an upholsterer in London; and it descended to the son, who sold it in 1785. In an article in the Mirror in 1826, this house, so interesting to humanity, is said to have been "taken down some years ago." Much of Howard's early life seems to have been passed here; and his education, which was rather imperfect, was gained among one of the Dissenting sects, of which his father was a member. On the death of his father he was apprenticed to a wholesale grocer in the City. On quitting business he indulged in a tour through France and Italy. He subsequently, for the benefit of his health, took lodgings at Stoke Newington. We shall have more to say about him on reaching that place. The old house at Clapton where Howard was born is said to have been built in the early part of the last century; it had large bay-windows, a pedimented roof, numerous and well-proportioned Eastward of Hackney churchyard lies Homer-rooms, and a large garden. The site of the house ton, which, together with Lower Clapton, may be said to form part of the town itself. Hackney Union is here situated in High Street. Was unto her abomination. Or mouth awry, as others do." Dr. Thomas Wood, Bishop of Lichfield, who died in 1692, was a native of Hackney. The father of the late Samuel Morley lived in Well Street. Defoe, who at one time lived at Stoke Newington, in all probability also was a resident here; for in 1701 his daughter Sophia was baptised in Hackney Church; and in 1724, an infant son, named Daniel, was buried there. William and Mary Howitt also lived in Hackney. In 1843 a college was founded close by, for the purpose of giving unsectarian religious training to young men and women who wish to become teachers in elementary schools. Homerton, as we have seen, was noted in the last and early part of the present century for its academy for the education of young men designed for Dissenting ministers. A row of almshouses in the village, termed the Widows' Retreat, has upon the front of a small was afterwards covered by Laura Place, and its memory is now kept up by the name of Howard Villas, which has been given to some houses lately erected on the opposite side of the road. A view of the house in which Howard was born will be found in "Smith's Historical and Literary Curiosities," and also in the seventh volume of the Mirror. At no great distance from the site of Howard's old house, but on the west side of the road, was a school, known by the name of Hackney School, which had flourished for upwards of a century on the same spot. This academy was long under the direction of the Newcome family. | fortune by manufacturing and selling sundry articles "It was celebrated," says Mr. Lysons, "for the excellence of the dramatic performances exhibited every third year by the scholars. In these dramas Dr. Benjamin Hoadly, author of the Suspicious Husband, and his brother, Dr. John Hoadly, a dramatic writer also, who were both educated at this school, formerly distinguished themselves." In 1813, the London Orphan Asylum was in of bed-room ware adorned with the head of Dr. Sacheverell. "The date of its erection is not exactly known; but it probably was after the year 1710, because the trial of Sacheverell did not take place till the February or March of that year... There are at the present time (1842)," he adds, "two urns with flowers, surmounting the gate-piers at the entrance." The building was subsequently stituted at Lower Clapton; but about the year 1870 its inmates were removed to new buildings erected at Watford, in Hertfordshire. The building here, which consisted of a centre, with a spacious portico and wings, together with the outlying grounds, was bought in 1882, for about £23,000, by the Salvation Army, and converted into a "Barrack and Congress Hall." What was once an extensive lawn in front of the building is now covered with houses. Dr. Robinson, in his "History of Hackney," says that on the west side of the road, nearly opposite the Congress Hall, stood an old house, which many years ago was known by a very vulgar appellation, from the circumstance of the person who built it having made a considerable converted into an Asylum for Deaf and Dumb Females. Among the historical characters connected with this place whom we have not already named, was Major André, hanged by Washington as a spy; he was born at Clapton. He was originally intended for a merchant; but being disappointed in love for Honora Sneyd (the friend of Anna Seward), who became afterwards the mother in-law of Maria Edgeworth, he entered the army, and ultimately met with the fate above mentioned. To go back a little into the reign of antiquity, we may remark that, though far removed from the crowded city, and generally considered a salubrious spot, Hackney suffered much from visitations of the plague, which in 1593 carried off 42 persons; in 1603, 269; in 1625, 170; and in the terrible year hackney carriages which were the immediate 11665, as many as 225. 1 In the early part of the eighteenth century Hackney was much infested by robbers, which rendered travelling after dark very insecure. The roads between London and this rural suburb were then lonely and unprotected; and it was not until January, 1756, that lamps were erected between Shoreditch and Hackney, and patrols, armed with guns and bayonets, placed on the road. In the Marshes towards Hackney Wick were low publichouses, the haunt of highwaymen and their Dulcineas. Dick Turpin was a constant guest at the "White House," or "Tyler's Ferry,"near Joe Sowter's cock-pit, at Temple Mills; and few police officers were bold enough to approach the spot. Maitland, in his "History of London," says, "The village of Hackney being anciently celebrated for the numerous seats of the nobility and gentry, occasioned a mighty resort thither of persons of all conditions from the City of London, whereby so great a number of horses were daily hired in the City on that account, that at length all horses to be let received the common appellation of 'Hackney horses;' which denomination has since communicated itself both to public coaches and chairs; and though this place at present be deserted by the nobility, yet it so greatly abounds with merchants and persons of distinction, that it excels all other villages in the kingdom, and probably on earth, in the riches and opulence of its inhabitants, as may be judged from the great number of persons who keep coaches there." But it is to be feared that in this matter Maitland is not to be trusted; for though it has often been supposed, and occasionally assumed even by wellinformed writers, that as Sedan-chairs and Bathchairs were named from the places where they were first respectively used, so the village of Hackney has had the honour of giving the name to those forerunners of the London cabriolet, it is simply a fact that the word "hackney" may be traced to the Dutch, French, Spanish, and Italian languages. In our own tongue it is at least as old as Chaucer and Froissart, who borrowed it from the French haquenée, a slow-paced nag. At all events, in Chaucer's "Romaunt of the Rose," we find the phrase thus used :— "Dame Richesse on her hand gan lede A yonge man full of semely hede, In clothyng was he full fetyse, And loved wel to have horse of prise; Of thrifte or murdre, if that be In Froissart, in one of his Chronicles, says, "The knights are well horsed, and the common people and others on litell hakeneys and geldyngs." The word subsequently acquired the meaning of "let for hire," and was soon applied to other matters than horses. In Love's Labour's Lost Shakespeare says, "Your love, perhaps, is a hacknie." "Hudibras" we meet with " a broom, the nag and hackney of a Lapland hag." Pope calls himself "a hackney scribbler." Addison and Steele, in the Spectator and Tatler, speak of "driving in a hack," and our readers surely remember the hackney coach in which Sir Roger de Coverley went to Westminster Abbey. Hogarth gave the expressive name of "Kate Hackabout" to the poor harlot whose progress he depicted. Cowper, in the "Task," uses "hackneyed" as a passive verb; and Churchill employs it as an adjective. So there are authorities enough for the meaning of "hackney;" and the pleasant village, now the centre of a suburban town, must, we fear, be deprived of the honour of having invented hackney coaches. CHAPTER XLII. HOXTON, KINGSLAND, DALSTON, &c. "Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other suburban retreat northerly."-C. Lamb, “Essays of Elia." Kingsland Road-Harmer's Almshouses-Gefferey's Almshouses-The Almshouses of the Framework Knitters-Shoreditch WorkhouseSt. Columba's Church-Hoxton-" Pimlico "-Discovery of a Medicinal Spring--Charles Square-Aske's Hospital-Balmes, or Baumes House -The Practising Ground of the Artillery Company-De Beauvoir Town-The Tyssen Family--St. Peter's Church, De Beauvoir Square The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St. Joseph-Ball's Pond-Kingsland-A Hospital for Lepers-Dalston-The Refuge for Destitute Females-The German Hospital-Shacklewell. HERE, it is true, we have no historian or old | not old enough to have a history. Its records are annalist to guide our steps, for the district had no the annals of a "quiet neighbourhood." Beyond entity of its own till quite a recent date, and it is an occasional remark, too, we can glean nothing |