The Hampstead Annual. Edited by Ernest Rhys. (Mayle.)— Hampstead is,
as Sir Walter Besant truly observes, a place full
of literary and artistic associations, and he adds that because this volume is an Annual, "we must not take the whole story of the place at once." At the same time, the reader familiar with
the neighbourhood and its memories may be allowed to regre0 that so large a portion of this attractive-looking volume has beela devoted to subjects which have no connection with the locality.
The theme is so far from being a barren one that it will readily supply food for narrative and illustration for many a year to
come. In honour of Hampstead celebrities Canon Ainger has contributed a delightful paper, full of racy gossip, on his friend Du Manner; Baron von Hugel has one on Mrs. Rundle Charles, marked by sympathy and discrimination ; and when we say that Dr. Birkbeck Hill has written on "Johnson at Hampstead" it is scarcely necessary to add that his ten concise pages contain all that can be said upon that chapter of the Doctor's life. Dr. Nicoll might with advantage have made a few additions to his brief notes about Keats, and Dr. Horton's curious article on "Distinguished Inhabitants" leaves the subject open to future contributors. It is rather funny to read of young men going to their daily work in the City in "resplendent clothes," and, since it does not exist, there seems R. good reason why no one asks for the cottage once occupied "by the gay and prosecuted spirit of Leigh Hunt." If, as Dr. Horton complains, no visitor is to be seen gazing at the house in Well Walk where Constable once lived, this indifference may be due to the local authorities, who have twice altered the numbers, so that the artist's residence is now a matter of uncertainty. Hampstead has of late years been irretrievably injured by "improvements," but the "breezy Heath," as Wordsworth called it, cannot be touched, and throughout the eighteenth century and our own the place is associated with much in literature that is of inexhaustible interest. In the age of Pope, and later on of Johnson, Hampstead recalls the names of Steele and Gay, of Arbuthnot, Akenside, and Richardson, and in the early years of our own century a whole "nest of singing birds" collected there,—Keats and Shelley and Hunt in the Vale of Health, while on the heights above, at the house of Mr. Hoare, were to be seen from time to time Rogers, Coleridge and Crabbe, Campbell and Wordsworth, Scott, and "that gifted person," Joanna Baillie, whom Sir Walter loved so well. Artists, too, were as abundant as poets, and there they still love to congregate. Enough has been said to show that the Hampstead Annual need not be "gravelled for lack of matter." The style in which the book is brought out does high credit to the local publisher, and the numerous illustrations will interest all Hampstead lovers.
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