The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-08-13

Lllt giving aaillanCe the city mlllOnS be-
low, and beating back from these fields Of
pleasure the pcstilential breath Of grimy
London town. Is il any wonder that the
hundreds of thousands Of London folk
who come here give themselves TO unre-
strained enjoyment, or that this transi-
ton from city woes and walls produces
such "a joyous delirim 70 young and old
that you will hear on Hampstead Heath
more ringing, almost ecstatic, laughter
than IN any other place in all the world
Seated beneath the flagstaff which
marks the highest elevation of the Heath
one can readily understand how the re-
giOn rOunda bout has been the best beloved
of all the near haunts of London natural
lists, and why, from the days of Gaines
borough and Constable it has furnished
the landscape artists canvas with many
of its noblest themes and scenes 1t is
the one place in England where its great
est city and vast eXpause of typical
English landscape can be contemplated
almost at the same glance, Wide open to
the wind and sun stretches vale after
vale TO the southeast, the north and the
west Your circling view extends into
seven English shires, Far in the north
can be traced the spire of Hainslop
steeple, in Northamptonshire The
KnochOlt Beeches in Kent, the hills and
downs of Surrey, the Laindon Hills of
Berks, and a church on the far borders of
Oxfordshire, are in full view
Down below old Hampstead, enjoyed
by the exhalations of hundreds Of thous-
ands of chimneys, in the distance its my
Rad roofs like a plain of broken and
seething lava, lies the metropolis Of the
world, the dome of gray old St. Pauls
like peak of useless steel in a measure
less, incinerating 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 flagstaff with
no one to converse with him and coniure
up a grewsome or goodly company. 1t
was at Hampstead Heath as at HOunslow
Heath that the Jacksons, the Duvalls and
the Turpins of the sixteenth, seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries cut purses, and
Threats 'if needs be to get them, and
made merry as lords at its inns, some of
which are to minister alike to saint and
sinner now. Over against the gardens of
Wildwood, at the side OF Heath Hill road,
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 same 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 saddest year of Lord
Chatham's life; the year when the En-
gIsh nations destinies were trembling in
the balance and Chatham shut up here
Ikea monk at penance struggled and
prayed to be physically new and whole.
1t was here that Addison and his friends
passed their summer evenings In the
gardens of the old Bell and Bush" tav-
ern. George Stevens, Shakespeare's
noted commentator, lived and died at the
ancient Upper Flash" inn, DIR. johnson
wrote his Vanity of Human Wishes"
down there at Erognall, In the edge of
Hampstead, doubtless spurred to deepest
conception of the subject by his giddy
wife, who, housed at the Wells, the
ancient Hampstead Heath spa, constantly
quarreled with her physician about
having her blonde tresseS dyed black
In the Grove at Highgate still stands
the house in which Samuel Taylor Cole
ridge lived and died Richardson lasting
ly connected his memory with the Heath
by lodging his heroine, "Clarrissa Har-
lowe" at the Upper Flask inn. Lord
Mansfield who once resided at Caen
Wood, used to give dinners to the poor, to
from 400 to 800 at a time, presenting each
guest with half crown and quartern
loaf when dinner was over" Lord Frs
kline once lived near the Spaniard's inn i;
and this most famous historic inn of the
Heath, which is still standing, owes
much of its noteworthiness to its old
time proprietor inviting the 'No-Popery"
or Gordon rioters, who, after burning
Lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury,
came to destroy his rural seat at Caen
Wood, into his own cellars where they
became so drunk that the rescuing troop
ers drove them like sheep down the Hemp
stead hills into frenzied London. Dick
ems utilized the incident in "Barnaby
Ridge, and he also brought the immor-
tai Pickwick to Hampstead Ponds TO
pursue his earnest scientific investiga-
tions.
Indeed n goodly volume could be written
upon these worthless whose love of breezy
Hampstead Heath has left upon it one of
its rarest and sweetest charms. Shelley,
Ha2litt and Hayden often met here in the
cottage of Leigh Hunt in the Vale of
Health Pope and Murray were often
seen upon the high road from old Hamp-
stead to Highgate, Hornsey and Barnet
Goldsmith found the Heath favorable to
his muse and sauntered much in its
thickets, bellows and rustic lanes. Here
John Keats lived and here he wrote Eve
of St. Agnes, " lode to the Nightingale"
and "FndymiOn, y as he sobbed out the
closing years of his life before they took
him to Rome to place his ashes near the
pyramid of Cestius. The mother of
Tennyson died in the fine old
avenue of lines, Well Walk; and
when the old Wells were noted as a spa
the quality, the London quality" both
of purse and intellect, f1ocked here 10
drink the waters, to gamble and to flirt.
At later time Thackeray loved to study
the folk and their manners at the Heath
Dickens and Forester used to "muffle
themselves up" for a brisk walk over its
wind-swept heights and take "red-hOt
chop for dinner with a glass of good
wine' at Jack Straw's Castle, the Span
irds or other of its fine old inns And de-
scending Highgate Hill from Lauderdale
House, the glorious truth Of blessed nur-
sery rhyme comes home to us when we
see the very spot, now covered by mas
sive memorial stone, where sat poor Dick
Wilmington as he listened to old Bow
bells which rang him back to his city toll
TO be made thrice Lord Mayor of Lon
don"
II would be q difficult thing to say just
when Hampstead Heath is in its most al
Turing mood to the visitor. For myself, l
most love to sit here and see close upon
one hundred thousand folk diSporting al
most ecstatically within its runs and
hollows, with an abandon and hilarity
which for the day seem to utterly dispel
the sOmbre shadows of their near work-a
day world They are. so quickly here
from London; the transfOrmatiO from
prisonment TO thrilling liberty is so mex
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