I

T IS a curious but indisputable fact that a visitor to a great city, on the principle I suppose that 'man never is, but always to be blest,' has no sooner arrived in it than he wants to make voyages of discovery beyond its boundaries. If he is in Rome, train or motor can carry him away to Lake Nemi or Ostia; or if he is in Paris he is never quite content until he has visited Versailles or seen St. Denis or St. Cloud. Those who come to London are no exception to the rule. Although London is vast enough and complicated enough to exhaust the energies of the most inveterate sightseer, that sightseer would, I doubt not, adapt a famous line, 'What do they know of London who only London know?' And as concerns London, this is probably truer than it would be of any other European city. For there is not one London but dozens. So extensively has the city spread during the last hundred years, that what were once far-flung villages on its outskirts are now integral portions of its immensity, and the sub

By E. Beresford Chancellor

urbs of to-day are spreading in ever widening circles around what Cobbett was wont to call 'the Wen.'

If I were to take the heading of this article au pied de la lettre, I should have to say something about places which are so far from London (that is, of course, if you make the journey by train or car!) that we should be scouring quite remote recesses in what we English call the 'home counties.' What is more, we should be neglecting many of those newer spots which are instinct with rural charm and historic associations. Rather I should like to suppose that a visitor asked me to convoy him north, east, west, and south out of London for a day's ramble; and to imagine for the space of this article where I should take him and what I should point out as being most interesting and worth remembrance.

Like the wise men, we should first make for the west. With Richmond, now almost an adjunct of London, one would presume a previous acquaintance. Every

one seems to know its amazing view over the valley of the Thames and its 'Maids of Honor' those delicacies for the recipe of which a Royal Princess once begged in vain; its memories of Thomson, the poet, and its long line of resident sovereigns. Edward III died here, and so did Elizabeth, although, by the way, not in the little room so often pointed out, but in a part of the old palace long since in the dust. No, Richmond should be passed and we should cross the bridge to Twickenham where Pope lived in his riverside home and constructed his grotto; where Richard Owen Cambridge dwelt and Dr. Johnson visited; the Twickenham of those later days when Dickens occupied a small cottage there and Tennyson passed some of his earlier married life in Montpelier Row close to the Orleans House of the exiled LouisPhilippe, later to be converted into the famous Eponymous Club. Nor must we forget York House, a little way beyond, which once belonged to Lord Clarendon, and in which two future queens, Anne

and the second Mary, were born, when the place had become the residence of the great Chancellor's son-in-law, the Duke of York, afterwards James II.

From Twickenham it is but a short way to the Strawberry Hill of Horace Walpole, where that dilettante collector constructed his house, 'set,' as he himself once remarked, 'in enameled meadows and filigree hedges.' Much has been changed hereabouts, and much essential rurality has been obliterated, but there still remains the Gothic Castle over the elaboration and beautification of which its owner spent such loving care. And you may still, in imagination, see that thin, sparsely clad figure emerging from one of the windows opening on the lawn with a bowl of breadcrumbs in his hand, scattering with delicate, ghostly fingers his daily offering to the birds and squirrels - his pensioners.

OR

R SUPPOSING that we did not elect to cross Richmond Bridge, but wandered instead beneath the famous Hill, and found ourselves in the little twin villages of Ham and Petersham. In the former we would visit one of England's most beautiful great mansions - the Ham House of innumerable associations. That red-brick pile was built by the Duke of Lauderdale, the 'L' of the notorious Cabal Ministry. To-day, you may see (by permission) the rooms which remain exactly as they were when he and his masterful duchess lived in them—the silver toilet table at which she sat, the silver bellows with which a recalcitrant fire was fanned into blaze, the walking stick on which the old lady leaned, and probably, if you have quick eyes and the time, the dents it left in the parquet flooring. You may not be able to see the little library, with its eight or nine Caxtons, every book in which is no younger than the picturesque seventeenth century for that is a favor for that is a favor rarely granted. But at any rate you can gaze at those great gates which have never been opened since they closed on James II, who, you may remember, first fled hither on the approach of William of Orange, before being persuaded to make for Rochester and safety overseas. Those gates look on a long avenue; and this avenue enters into literature, for in it Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord Frederick Verisopht fought their duel when the young fool of quality was killed, as readers of Nicholas Nickleby will remember.

Petersham, close by, has a literary association too, in the poet Gay, whose summer house, where he is said to have written his Fables, was long pointed out. His patrons, the Duke and Duchess of His patrons, the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, then had a house here, and in that home the bard was protected and spoiled to his heart's content. Since we are at Petersham, it seems worth while to push on the few intervening miles to Kingston where a tangible monument of England's early history is still to be seen in the marketplace. It is nothing less, indeed, than the stone on which most of the Saxon kings were crowned, and which you can compare with Scotland's Stone of Scone, on which subsequent monarchs have sat in Westminster Abbey. If a longer flight in this westerly

headquarters which in course of time became the property of the Dukes of Northumberland. Here the ghost of Lady Jane Grey, reading her breviary or conning, under the tuition of Roger Ascham, some Greek or Latin classic, must walk, if her gentle spirit seeks again glimpses of a moon that shines on times so alien to her own.

Then, thanks to a by-way, we can include Osterley where the Childs, who have long since been Earls of Jersey, have lived since Elizabeth's day when the great square, red-brick house with its four corner turrets was built by the founder of the family. Here the Virgin Queen once stayed. On arrival she remarked that a long wall in front of the mansion was out of place, and lo! the

next morning when she gazed from her window, the wall was gone. It had been demolished by myriads of workmen (the Eight Hours Bill did not then stand in the way) during the night. No wonder those days earned the name of 'spacious'!

THER

HERE remain three other points of the compass, and the name of Elizabeth suggests the east, for it is there that the Greenwich which she loved is situated. That Greenwich is so near London as almost to be an integral part of it, does not seem to matter; for after all it is Greenwich and not London.

Courtesy of Frederick Keppel & Company

HARRY KELLY'S, PUTNEY FROM AN ETCHING BY SEYMOUR HADEN direction is desired, we can reach, well within the hour, that beautiful spot in Surrey where Box Hill rises, and on the slope of which stands the cottage where George Meredith lived and dreamed of Clara Middleton and Diana and that tremendous Countess de Saldar. There you may roam about Burford Bridge and Fetcham and Chessington where 'Daddy' Crist dwelt and gave wise advice to Fanny Burney what time that young lady was surreptitiously producing masterpieces, before she had entered the gilded slavery of Queen Charlotte's service.

We are on Ariel's wings but they have carried us far enough, and they must take us back to the Wen. But we may return by an alternative route, so as to link up Lyon House and Osterley Park on our way.

The detour will be worth while, for Lyon is one of the most interesting of all places in London's environs. It was reconstructed by the Adams in Georgian days, and is full of their graceful arabesques and decorative audacities. Withal it is part and parcel of the old monastic

There the great palace which Wren erected stands on the site of that earlier one the Placentia of Tudor days which is so indissolubly associated with the 'Fair Virgin throned in the West.' Here she loved to retire from the more turbulent atmosphere of the capital itself, and the royal river pageants which marked her comings and her goings drew thousands of spectators to both shores of the Thames. Here it was that the traveler Hentzner saw her passing in glory through the courts of her palace when the assembled crowds cried, 'God Save the Queen!' and she replied, 'I thank you, my good people.'

These, however, are but memories. The 'sight's self' to-day is that vast pile created by the genius of Wren and destined in later times to devote its splendor to sheltering the heroes who had fought in Britain's naval battles. There is another interesting association with the past, as well as a monument to present scientific enterprise, in the great observatory. It arose under the ægis of Flamsteed, in the days of Charles II, and

now gives the correct time to the whole kingdom. You can wander about the glades or on the slopes of Greenwich Park, or study the carvings and the pictures in Wren's architectural masterpiece; or you can recall, in the old taverns, those 'Whitebait Dinners' which were once a regular concomitant of ministerial office when the members of the Cabinet foregathered to enjoy for a space a surcease from the cares of administration. 'In after-dinner talk across the walnuts and the wine' (you will recognize the Tennysonian tag) they forgot for a few hours at least that such a thing as the Opposition existed.

Nor need our journey eastward end at Greenwich. We can continue down the river to where it joins the Medway, near where Rochester's old ruined castle and cathedral break the skyline. I am writing this for my many unknown friends in America, and to try to tell Americans anything about Rochester which they do not know either by personal investigation or by reading would be an impertinence. For Rochester stands for Dickens. The names have become well-nigh interchangeable, and from Mr. Pickwick and Jingle and the rest, descending at the Bull Hotel, to Pip having his horrifying interview with the convict Magwitch, on the misty flats on that cold raw morning;

WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON

from the mysteries of Satis House to the mystery of Edwin Drood, a series of unforgettable pictures of the place has been drawn by the magician of Gad's Hill. Nor can we escape him if, instead of taking the river trip, we press taking the river trip, we press forward, on terra firma, into Essex, for we shall come to Chigwell and at Chigwell stood that picturesque Maypole (now, alas! but a memory) which figures so largely in Barnaby Rudge.

There are, after all, other beloved names in English literature besides that of the chief one, and of these that of Charles Lamb is, I think, the next most revered. It is in the north of London that we can track that delightful creature, at Edmonton, to which an omnibus will take us and in which he lived. There flows the New River in which his friend Dyer had his unpremeditated plunge, becoming in consequence immortal as the Amicus Redivivus of the Essays. No one who remembers Charles Lamb can forget Edmonton. If the impossible could happen, even then the place would be unforgettable, for it enters into the greatest of the later English ballad poems. John Gilpin seems, in one's imagination, always to be riding headlong past 'The Bell' whose balcony was filled with his distracted wife and weeping family. Curiously enough, the author of the

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Deserted Village is directly connected with a building not far away. To Canonbury Tower poor Grub Street authors were wont to resort for some inexpensive recreation in their sordid and tumultuous existence. Perhaps some association of ideas caused Goldsmith to select that hostelry as an adjunct to his verse, for he came there frequently on what he called his 'Shoemaker's Holidays.'

From Edmonton we can easily gain the more westerly of London's northern heights, can visit the little house (now preserved for all time) where Keats lived and wrote, and can wander about the rural fastnesses of Hampstead with the shades of Leigh Hunt and Hazlitt or refresh ourselves at 'The Spaniards' or at 'Jack Straw's Castle,' as Dickens and Forster were wont to do. And while in this neighborhood one 'sight' should not be missed, Kenwood, that exquisite and splendid example of the Adams convention, which the great Lord Mansfield built, and which, but for a lucky combination of circumstances, would have been looted and destroyed by the Gordon Rioters. This magnificent mansion, with its ample grounds, has now become public property through the generosity of the late Lord Iveagh. In it will be hung the collection of pictures which he assembled with such care and discrimination.

in which to visit the last point of the compass; but nowadays tubes, trains, and trams link up the outlying suburbs of London so completely that we can get to the south at least in time to visit Croydon. Here stand the almshouses, founded by Archbishop Abbott in the time of James I and still instinct with the picturesqueness that seems inseparable from matured red-brickwork. We can compare them with the not dissimilar fabric known as 'The College' at Bromley. And at Bromley we are close to Down, where Darwin lived in the house which will one day belong to the nation. As we return, we can look in at the Dulwich Gallery, which Sir Francis Bourgeois added to the scholastic foundation of Alleyn, the friend of Shakespeare. This will be worth while because Dul

mains one of the most attractive of London's surrounding villages, and after you have feasted your eyes on the famous Watteau and one version of Reynolds's 'Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse,' you can wander about the charming lanes and hope to meet Mr. George Moore's Evelyn Innes, who is inseparably connected with the spot.

Greater London, as the area through which we have been wandering is called, which we have been wandering is called, is everywhere studded with architectural and historic landmarks. Even where the metropolis has thrown out its extended tentacles in the form of modern building development, you will unexpectedly come across some old house forgotten, it would seem, by time, and hanging on to existence amid alien surroundings. The unexpected is always the most arresting,

for previous description has not aroused undue anticipation. Thus in wandering about the purlieus of the great city, one can often catch the aura of a time that is gone in a more authentic way than by gazing at monuments that are wellknown and that have not infrequently become all too familiar through constant reproduction.

As I reread what I have written, innumerable other places seem to claim recognition: Mortlake, where Dr. Dee lived and was visited by a rather superstitious queen; Putney, where Gibbon lies buried and where Swinburne passed at The Pines' the less adventurous portion of his poetic career; Strand on the Green, where Gainsborough dwelt; and Kew churchyard, where his body rests. . . . But space, or want of it, say 'No.'