A HISTORY OF HAMPSTEAD.*

"HAMPSTEAD," says Mr. Baines, "has a history of a thousand years ; " but, happily for his readers, he does not undertake to carry them back to that period of "hoar antiquity," and is con- tent, for the most part, to give the modern story of the parish. The antiquarian records are slight; and although the associa- tions of an earlier period occupy some space in the volume, the editor's Records date for the most part from the beginning of the present century.

The book may perhaps be regarded as a supplement to Park's Topography and Natural History of Hampstead, pub- lished in 1818, a highly creditable work, written by a young man before he had attained his majority. Park complains that the assistance needed in the compilation of his volume was in several eases denied to him, and he regrets especially that he was not allowed to examine certain valuable records in the possession of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, since both manors in the parish of Hampstead belonged for ages to the Abbey. Mr. Baines, on the other hand, has had assistance from all quarters. The Vestry voted a sum of money to defray expenses ; a guarantee fund was raised with the object of illustrating the work ; books, pictures, plans, and prints have been placed at the editor's disposal ; "many have come forward with substantial offers of pecuniary help ;" and about seventy inhabitants have contributed original articles.

"A large part of the work," Mr. Baines writes, "is no doubt of a purely local character. Few readers outside Hampstead can be expected to take an interest, for example, in the burning question of where Pond Street begins and The Green ends. But the lives of the men and women of note who have lived in Hampstead are for the most part of national interest; and some account of them, from a Hampstead point of view, how- ever inadequate, may attract even the reader who dwells beyond the borders of the borough."

Mr. Baines is right. The account of Hampstead Petty Sessions, the elaborate account of the Vestry and the virtues of the Vestrymen, the Charities and local institu- tions, the administration of the Poor-Law, and the record of the Workhouse, are not topics of significance outside the boundaries of the district; and if this History were confined to such matters, the book would have no claim

* Records of the Manor, Parish, and Borough of ilampsteaii, in the County of London, to December &a-LIM. With Maps and Illustrations. Baited by Raines, C.B. London: Whittaker and Co.

on the attention of the public. That it has that claim will not be questioned by readers wh6 know how rich and varied are the associations of this famous London suburb ; but it must be regretted that the materials placed at the disposal of the editor have been used with so little discrimination. The volume is a medley of useful facts, unnecessary or doubtful statements, and barren repetitions. It has also some obvious omissions and blunders. Mr. Baines appears to have wholly neglected the Middlesex Records, which contain several curious allusions to Hampstead. Dr. Johnson, who died in 1784, never visited Joanna Baillie in Hampstead, since that lady did not reside there until 1803; and Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld were not the authors of an educational work entitled Eyes and No Eyes, but a paper with that title, in Evenings at Home, was written by Dr. Aikin and Mrs.

Barbauld. And when the editor's facts with regard to literary matters are accurate, his comments are often feeble and commonplace.

London, fortunate though it be in the position of its suburbs, has nowhere a spot within four or five miles of Charing Cross that can boast of a position so picturesque as Hampstead, or of an open space so lovely as the Heath. One has, indeed, to deplore at every turn the modern " improve- ments," as they are called, in which the builders have done their utmost to deform the natural beauty of the site ; but there is still much that they have not touched, and, it may be hoped, never will ; and if the charm of what within living memory was a pretty village has gone for ever, the recent.

enlargement of the Heath to more than double its original size is so great a boon that one is almost disposed to forget and forgive the changes wrought in the town itself over which Mr. Baines exults. The Heath, now for ever secured to the public, was once, as many of our readers will remember, in danger of total destruction. For twenty years there was a contest between the lord of the manor and the inhabitants, which ended in a victory for the latter. The East and West Heaths, consisting of 220 acres, were purchased about twenty years ago at the cost of £53,000; the enlargement of the Heath, consisting of 261 acres known as Parliament Hill Fields, has been secured at the cost of 2302,000, raised partly by public subscription and partly by taxation,—and never was private money spent or a tax levied for a purpose more useful. It is to be hoped that the new possession will be left as much to Nature as possible. It is a Heath, and not a Park, which Hampstead requires, and any attempt to give to the new ground the neatness and formality, the well-kept roads and artificial advantages of a London park, will be at the loss of character and beauty. Considerable difference of opinion is expressed in this volume with regard to the changes which have of late years altered the face of Hampstead. Mr. Baines exults over forty-six miles of "the finest roads that skill and money can maintain well lighted and swept," and a great many advantages besides "too numerous to record;" while Sir T. H. Farrer deplores the changes that have con- verted the country village of his boyhood into a large London suburb. "There is something very sad," he writes, "in seeing the change which has taken place. On the London side of the Heath, indeed almost all round it, green fields have become streets; the flowers are gone, the vegetation destroyed ; the fir-trees near The Spaniards,' once a handsome grove, reduced to a few scrags ; the very land and soil carried off by the rail- ways." Mr. Karl Blind writes in the same strain, and observes with truth that many of the recent " improvements " are connected with sad devastation :—

"Often have I deplored," he writes, "that the speculator and the builder could not be checked by a responsible and intelligent body appointed by the community at large ; so that the progress in the erection of new houses might be combined as far as possible with the preservation of some open and attractive spots. Dwellings in the Swiss style, with groups of trees between, would, I think, have eminently suited certain parts of this neighbourhood."

Unfortunately, in Hampstead, as elsewhere, taste has been sacrificed to money-making, and yet it may be questioned whether cottage architecture would not have proved more profitable in beautiful positions than the commonplace buildings which now deform them. The Vale of Health, to mention one spot among many, is a disgrace to the neighbour- hood. It is but fair to remember, however, that modern Hampstead has its advantages. In the last century, Belsize House, according to a poem of the period, was "an academy of dissipation ;" and the fact, recorded in a handbill, that "twelve

stout fellows, completely armed, were needed to patrol between the place and London, shows the insecurity of the roads. In Steele's days there were races on the Heath ; and then and later, fairs, gambling-houses, dancing-rooms, highwaymen, and a chapel for private marriages were among the evil signs of the times. Hampstead was famous in those days for its chalybeate spring, and it shared the popularity of Bath and Tnnbridge Wells. Most of the Queen Anne wits and poets visited the place for the sake of health or of amusement. Gay, who loved good living too well, was alarmingly ill there in the winter of 1729, and owed "his life, under God," Arbuthnot wrote to Swift, "to the unwearied endeavours and care of your humble servant; for a physician who had not been passionately his friend could not have saved him." A few years later, Arbuthnot, who, like Gay, enjoyed to excess the pleasures of the table, went there, as he thought, to die ; but he rallied for a time, and, to use his own words, "recovered my strength to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again." Pope, who went to Hampstead to see him, told Martha Blount that the Doctor was very cheerful, spending half the morning in the Long Room, and having parties at cards every night. Pope, by-the-way, dedicated his Pastorals to Sir William Trumbull, formerly Secretary of State to King William, who, after residing at Hampstead for many years, died there in 1716,—a fact worth recording, perhaps, as there is no mention of Sir William either in Park's volume or in Mr. Baines's Records. Steele, who resided for a while on Haverstock Hill, "at a solitude between Hampstead and London," may have carried Pope with him to the meetings of the Kit-Cat Club, which were held in summer in the Upper Flask, a fact recorded by Sir• Richard Blackmore, who describes these sons of Apollo feasting on Hampstead's airy head,— " Hampstead that, tow'ring in superior sky, Now with Parnassus does in London vie.'

That inn, now a delightful private residence (Steevens, the Shakespearian commentator, died there at the beginning of this century), is chiefly to be remembered in association with the sorrows of Clarissa Harlowe ; and Mrs. Barbauld relates how she once met a Frenchman in the Hampstead stage who was in search of the house in which Richardson's charming heroine took "a dish of tea," while vainly endeavouring to escape from Lovelace. "I have this day written," Mrs. Delany observes to the novelist, "to my dear Mrs. Donnellen. I must condemn her, though I am loth, for going to that ugly Hampstead. I have never loved it since Clarissa suffered such persecution there."

Mrs. Barbauld, who wrote a Life of Richardson, was herself at one period of her life a Hampstead resident ; and there her husband went out of his mind, and was so violent that his wife's life was endangered. It might have been happier for her had she married the farmer who made love to her in her early girlhood, and was rejected in a novel fashion, for the child (she was but fifteen), to escape from his advances, ran away, climbed up a tree that grew by the garden-wall, and dropped into the lane beyond. "The poor man," we are told, "went home disconsolate. He lived and died a bachelor. Though he was never known to purchase any other book whatever, The Works of Mrs. Bar- bauld, splendidly bound, adorned his parlour to the end of his days." Rogers, who, like Wordsworth, has given the praise they deserve to her lovely lines on "Life," came to Hampstead, at Mrs. Barbauld's request, in his younger days to dance minuets, and make himself agreeable to the young ladies of the village, who seem to have been sadly in want of partners. Down to the year 1825, Crabbe stayed frequently with the Hoares at Hampstead (they lived close to Jack Straw's Castle,' where Dickens enjoyed a "red-hot chop and a glass of good wine "), and there he met Campbell, Rogers, and Scott, Mrs. Siddons, Southey, and Wordsworth, and enjoyed, as every one did who knew them, the society of Joanna Baillie and her sister Agnes. In the early years of the century, Leigh Hunt, who lived in a pretty cottage close by in the Vale of Heath, had also his full share of illustrious visitors, among whom were Coleridge, Shelley, and Lamb, and last, but assuredly not least, John Keats, who has so identified himself with Hampstead that even Rome, where he died, has not on that account so large a claim on pilgrims who feel the magic of his song. Other and inferior names witness to the literary associations of Hampstead, but no account can be complete that omits the name of Sara Coleridge, who, with her

husband and mother, was living in Church Row when the poet died at Highgate. Mrs. Coleridge, although so near her husband, was separated by too wide a gulf of feelings and years to make an interview between the two desirable, even at the near approach of death.

Mr. Baines's volume is creditable alike to printer and pub- lisher and to the artists who have enriched it with illustrations. It has faults, as we have said, that detract from its value ; but many sins of omission and commission can be atoned for in a second edition, and we have to thank the editor and his numerous contributors for what they have done towards the elucidation of an attractive subject.