Morning journal and courier., 1893-08-12

meIlOH age, tenQcrest aspect or hllI Wnlcn furnish the idler and dreamer a host of winsome memories. First of sll 1t Is a wild and rugged heath and not a park. Dark, wind bound fir trees hang against sandy ridges where they have for csntu- rlee clutohed the virgin soil. There are high banks of red sand pierced by rabbit burrows. Ancient ditches and hedges cut each other at sharp angles. Narrow bournes or ravines, their hollowed floors of clear and shining sand, plough the hills in fanciful furrows, providing dny crsgs of furxs, mounds of verdure and pleasant ways and shade, as if one walked in we'll worn ancient water-courses.
 Altogether 1t Is & mass of hills scooped into innumerable pits and cavities, thread ed with tiny ponds, banked everywhere with hardy goree and msEss of heather, wild flowers and grass, splatched with knots of noble trees. intersected by count less foot-wsys, wild and ragged as when the Romans were here, and al seemingly held together by interlac'ng rosdways with rugged sides of rock and sand and pines and furss. Around 1t Is a shining thread of lovely hsmlsts, stately halls and win some cottages, all gabled, tvied, old. Within 1t on gsrdened hills and blossom ing hoflows, or at it's slumberous edges, where old structures like old folk seem to
  of those quaint and ancient inns, still the most charming heritage of the "merrie England" of long SEQ; aud the whole re- zion is collaborating from its free, fine un- continues and the ceaseless breeEes sweep ing from odorous northern vales, ever in- vitiDg to their life giving dslliance the city millions below, and beating back from these fields of pleasure the pestilential breath of grimy London town. Is 1t any wonder that the hundreds of thousands of London folk who come here give them selves to unrestrsined enjoyment, or that this transition from city woes and walls produces such joyous delirium to young and old that you will hear on Hampstead Heath more ringing, almost ecststic laugh ter than in any other place in all the worldi
 Seated beneath tue flagstaff which marks the highest elevation of the Heath one can readily understand how the region round about has been the best beloved of all the near hsunts of London uaturalisis, and why, from the days of Gainesborough and Constable it has furnished the landscape artists canvas with many of its noblest themes and scenes. It Is the one place in England where its greatest city and 6 vsst expanse of typical English landscspe can bs contemplated almost at the same glance. Wide open to the wind and sun stretches
 
 and the west Your circling view extends into seven English shires Far in the north can be traced the spire of Hsinslop steeple, in Northsmptonshire. The Knocholt beeches in Kent, the hills and downs of Surrey, the Laindon hills of Essex, the turrets of royal Windsor in Berks, and church on the far borders of 0xfordshire, are in full view.
 Down below old Hampstead, enfoggsd by the exhalstions of hundreds of thou sands of chimneys, in the distance its myr- fad roofs like plain of broken and seeth- ing lava, lies the metropolis of the world, the dome of gray old St. Psurs like peak of fuseless steel in a measureless, incinera- ting mass. What mind can grasp the magnitude of human history, of human accomplishments and of human despair within this single circle of vision!
 One Is said to always find good company at Hampstead Heath. Yes, even if alone You can still sit here by the fagstsff with no one to converse with and conjure uu a grewsome or goodly company. It was at Hampstead Heath as at Hounslow Heath that the Jscksone, the Duvalls and the Turpins of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cut purses, and thrUats if need bs to get them, and made merry as lords at its inns, some of which gre here to minister alike .o saint and sinner now. Over against the gardens of Wildwood, at the side of Heath Hill rosd, still stands the ancient Gibbet elm. Upon its huge old arms, many centuries old, were hung in chains, when caught, these merry | knights of the road.
 The came locality, as you stroll towards | Spaniard's road, will remind you as you look at the little oriel window of Wild | wood House, of the ssddest year of Lord | Chatham's life; the year when the English l nations destinies were trembling in the | balance and Chatham shut up here like 8
 monk at psnace struggled and prayed to be | physically new and whole. It was here | that Addisiop and his friends passed their
 summer evening" in the gsrdens of the | old 'tBell and Bush" tavern. George Ste | vens, Shakespesre's noted commentator,
 lived and died at the ancient Upper | Flask" inn. Dr. Johnson wrote his "Vsn. | ity of Human Wishesn down there al Frognall, in the edge of Hampstead, doubt
 less spurred to deepest conception of th,
 subject by his giddy wife. who, housed st
 the Wells, the ancient Hampstead Heath | spa, constantly quarrelled with her physi
 clan about having her blonde dresses dyeI i black.
 In the grove st Higbga.e stil stands th,
 house in which Samuel Taylor Colerldg, I llNc1 huu INlCuhEucou COu
 nected his memory with the Heath b,
 lodging his heroine, "Clarissa Harlowe" a
 the Upper Flask inn. Lord Mansfield
 who once resided at Csen Wood, used t.
 give dinners to the poor, to from four [,
 five hundred at a time, presenting esol
 guest with a half crown and a quartsri
 loaf when dinner was over" Lord Frs
 kline once lived near the Spsnisrds inn
 and this most lannon's historic inn of tn Heath, which Is still standing, owes mucl
 of its noteworthiness to its old time pro
 prietor inviting the "No-Popery," or Cor
 don rioters, who, after burning Lon
 Mansield's house In Bloombury, came t
 destroy his rural seat at Caen Wood, int
 his own cellars, where they became 8
 drunk that the reecuing troopers drov
 them like sheep down the Hempstesd hill into frenE Eled London. Dickens utilizs
 the incident in ''Barnaby Rudge." and b also brought the immortal Pickwiok t Hampstead Ponds to pursue his earne,
 scientific investigations.
 Indeed goodly volume could be vrII ten upon these worthies whose love ( breezy Hampstead Heath has left upon one of its rarest and sweetest charml Shelley, Hazlltt and Hsydon oftsn m, here in the cottage of Lsigh Hunt in tt Vale of Health. Pope and Murray vel | OIIeu eStu upOu tue nlRu IOhQ from Cl Hampstead to Highgate, Hornsey and Ba
 net. Goldsmith found the Heath favor $ ble to his muse and ssuntered much In | thickets, hollows and rustic lanes. Hel John Keats lived and here he wrote 'E, ' of St. Agnes" "0de to the Nightingale , and 'Endymion," as he sobbed out Il closing years of his life before they toe !, him to Rome to place his ashes near tl pyramid of Cestius. The mother of Tel . nyson died in the fine old avenue of lime T We'll walk; and when the old wells we s noted as s- spa the quality, the LondC a quality" both of purse and iutellec focked here to drink the waters, to gan :. ble and to hlrt. At later time Thack !. ray loved to study the folk and their ma ' ners at the Heath. Dickens end Forst ' used to ''muff1e themselves up" for brisk walk over Its wind-swept neigh r and take "red-hot chop for dinner vi glass of good wine" at Jack Saws e ! tie, the Spsniards or other of its fine O j. inns. And descending Highgate hill fro 2 Lauderdale house, the glorious truth e blessed nursery rhyme comes home to when we see the very spot, now cover T by massive memorial stone, where s poor Dick Wilmington as he listened U old Bow bells which rang him back to I U city toll to be made "thrics Lord Mayor 3, London.''-
 se It would be a difficult thing to 8 st just when Hampstead Heath is In st most alluring mood to the visitor. E le myself, most love to sit here and a close upon one hundred thousand fe D. dianorfino almnaf acstatfcallv vitbyo