precincts. It is curious to read of the king sporting over the " solitary and woodland districts of Highgate, Hampstead, Islington, &c." Queen Elizabeth frequented Islington and Highgate to hunt and hawk in the vast woods around. She took up her quarters at Canonbury Tower, and her courtiers had houses around it, amid woods and gardens. Sir Walter Raleigh's remains to this day as the Pied Bull public-house at Islington. Belsize House, Hampstead, was formerly in a splendid park. As late as the year 1772, on Monday, June 7, the appearance of nobility and gentry at Belsize was so great that they reckoned between three and four hundred coaches; at which time a wild deer was hunted down and killed in the park before the company--which gave three hours' diversion. There were many highwaymen at Belsize a century ago, and visitors returning to London at night ran great risk of having their carriages stopped, and being themselves plundered, in districts which were then very lonely. During Elizabeth's reign, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Spencer, was lain in wait for by Dunkirk pirates, on the moors betwixt his place of business, St. Helen's Place, Bishopsgate, and Canonbury Tower. A storm fortunately prevented his lordship from travelling to his country seat. His journey lay through the districts which are now Hoxton and Islington (amongst the most populous of parishes), and this will sufficiently demonstrate the nature of the changes which have taken place in that neighbourhood in the space of three centuries only. Entertaining details are preserved respecting Kentish Town, Islington, Clerkenwell, and other places north of the Thames, which show the recent surprising growth of these places. In the middle of last century, for example, Kentish Town was a retired hamlet of about one hundred houses, detached from each other, on the road side. By 1795 it had increased one-half. There were also forty-eight houses on the Marquis of Camden's estate, where the populous district of Camden Town now stands. Horace Walpole, writing on June 8, 1791, says:- "There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses-nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob. Not at all-it was only passengers." In the year 1251 there were only forty houses in the whole parish of St. Pancras; in May, 1821, these had increased to nearly ten thousand houses, with a population of 71,838. In 1861, the population of St. Pancras (including Kentish Town and Camden Town) was 198,788; in 1871 it had swollen to 221,594. Islington, till a very recent period, was a village standing isolated in open fields. When "Domesday Book" was compiled the population consisted of only twenty-seven householders and their families, chiefly herdsmen, shepherds, &c. At this time there were nearly one thousand acres of arable land alone in Islington. The maps of Charles II.'s time show Islington to be almost a solitude; and Cowley, in his poem "Of Solitude," thus refers to the village, in apostrophising "the monster London" Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, Through Islington runs the New River, the great work of Sir Hugh Myddelton. Sportsmen wandered with dogs over the site of the borough of Marylebone in the seventeenth century, and also over the greater part of the space now occupied by Finsbury and the Tower Hamlets. Marylebone was originally called Tyburn, and the manor was valued at fiftytwo shillings in "Domesday Book." Marylebone Park was a hunting ground in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and in 1600 the ambassadors from Russia rode through the city to enjoy the sport in the fields there. In 1739 there were only 577 houses in the parish; in 1795 the number had gone up to 6,200; and in 1861 to 16,370. Clerkenwell is another parish which has grown with amazing rapidity. In Queen Elizabeth's time there were a shepherd's hut and sheep pens near the spot on which the Angel Inn now stands-yet London now presents no denser spot, or one more thronged at certain hours of the day. In the year 1700 the Angel Inn stood in the fields. In the meadows between Islington, Finsbury, and Stoke Newington Green, the archers used to exercise their craft. In Henry II.'s time challenges were issued from the city to "all men in the suburbs to wrestle, shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight for games at Clerkenwell and Finsbury fields." At the beginning of the present century the Old Red Lion Tavern in St. John Street Road, the existence of which dates as far back as 1415, stood almost alone; it is shown in the centre distance of Hogarth's print of "Evening." Several eminent persons frequented this house: among others, Thomson, the author of "The Seasons; " Dr. Johnson, and Oliver Gold smith. In a room here Thomas Paine wrote his notorious work, "The Rights of Man." The parlour of the tavern is hung with choice impressions of Hogarth's plates.* The whole district is now a most populous one-in fact, as thickly peopled as the other portions of Clerkenwell. In 1745, Sadler's Wells was regarded as a country resort, and it is thus described in a poem published at this period: Herds around on herbage green, And bleating flocks are sporting seen; The population of Islington has increased by wonderful strides. In the census of 1851 it stood at 95,154; ten years later it had advanced to 155,341; and in 1871 it had reached 213,749. It may be mentioned, in * Pinks's History of Clerkenwell, 1865. connection with the parish of Islington, that Mrs. Foster, grand-daughter of Milton, lived here, and died in poverty May 9, 1754, whereupon the family of Milton became extinct. Chelsea is another parish which has extended with great rapidity. In the last century it was a village of only three hundred houses, but dwellings now extend from Hyde Park Corner away beyond Chelsea Bridge. Sir Thomas More, the Duchess of Mazarin, Turner the painter, and many other distinguished individuals have resided in Chelsea. It was in a meanly-furnished house in Cheyne Walk that there died, on August 30, 1852, John Camden Neild, who' bequeathed 500,000l. to Queen Victoria. Kensington-so charmingly described by Leigh Hunt in the "Old Court Suburb "- -is another parish which has completely sprung up of recent years; or rather, as Mr. Timbs observes, the district has been built over in two distinct movements, one from 1770 to 1780, and the other, after the lapse of nearly fifty years, beginning in 1825, and being still in progress. Some idea of the growth of Kensington may be gathered from the fact that in 1861 the population was only 118,950, whereas in 1871 it had reached 283,088. No other parish in London exhibits such an enormous increase in the same space cf time. We have included in Kensington (following the official tables) Paddington, Kensington proper, Hammersmith, Brompton, and Fulham. The district of Belgravia only dates from 1825. Formerly it was a marshy tract, bounded by mud-banks, and partly occupied by market gardens. Paddington, in Henry VIII.'s time, had only a population of 100 persons; a century later in owned 300; in 1811, the number had risen to 4,609; from 1831 to 1841 the inhabitants increased at the rate of one thousand per annum, and from 1841 to 1851 at the rate of two thousand annually. In 1861 the population was 75,807. Two centuries ago it was merely a forest village. Westminster, at the time of the compilation of "Domesday Book," was a village with about fifty holders of land, and "pannage for a hundred hogs." Part of its site was formerly Thorney Island. By the reign of Elizabeth it had become united to London. We cannot linger over its progress or its fascinating history. Crossing the river we come to Southwark, with which Lambeth is now united. The population of this latter parish in 1861 was 162,044, and in 1871 208,032. Wandsworth shows a proportionate rise in population during the same period, the numbers being-1861, 70,483; and 1871, 125,050. The population of Camberwell likewise increased by 40,000 persons during the same time. Kensington and Southwark, two of the most ancient of London suburbs, have progressed in like proportion. The most populous of all the London parishes is St. Pancras, to which we have already referred, and which includes one-third of the hamlet of Highgate, with the hamlets of Kentish Town, Battle Bridge, Camden Town, Somers Town, to the foot of Gray's Inn Lane; also "part of a house in Queen Square," all Tottenham Court Road, and the streets west of Cleveland Street and Rathbone Place. In 1503, the church of St. Pancras stood "all alone; " and yet three centuries and a half later, as we gather from an assessment to the property tax under Schedule A, the schedule for the annual value of land in this parish (including the houses built upon it, the railways, &c.) gave the sum at 3,798,5217. But, in truth, wherever we turn our eyes upon this vast panorama of human life, we perceive, similar evidences of rapid and prodigious growth. Although the records of this country have no equal in the civilised world, as Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, we have no accurate accounts of the population of London previously to the census of 1801. Observations, however, were made at various periods which enable us to form a tolerably correct idea of the advance in population, both of London and the country at large. At the Conquest, the whole population of England was calculated at only 2,000,000, or thereabouts. In 1377, the last year of the great monarch Edward III., the population, as ascertained by the Capitation tax, had only advanced to 2,290,000-an increase of not more than 300,000 people in the course of three centuries. With Wales, the population only reached 2,500,000. London at this period only boasted of 35,000 inhabitants! In 1575, the population of these realms was about 5,000,000, and the metropolis did not number more than 150,000 souls. Yet England was then at her zenith as a naval power, and it was the age, moreover, of Spenser and Shakspeare. A map of London and Westminster in the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth shows on the east the Tower, standing separated from London, and Finsbury and Spitalfields with their trees and hedgerows; while on the west of Temple Bar the villages of Charing, St. Giles's, and other scattered hamlets are aggregated, Westminster being a distinct city. In 1662 and 1665, the population of England and Wales was calculated by the hearth tax at 6,500,000. In 1670, Sir Matthew Hale calculated it at 7,000,000; but Haydn's "Dictionary of Dates " states that in the year 1700 it was found by official returns to be only 5,475,000. London and its suburbs, in 1687, had, according to Sir William Petty, a population of 696,000; but Gregory, ten years later, made it only 530,000 by the hearth tax. Sir William Petty, writing in 1683, maintained (after deep study of the matter) that the growth of the metropolis must stop of its own accord before the year of grace 1800; at which period the population would, by his computation, have arrived at 5,359,000. But for this halt, he further maintained that by the year 1840 the population would have risen to upwards of ten millions! It is not a little strange that in 1801, after the first actual census had been taken, the population of London was discovered to be no more than 864,845-including Westminster, Southwark, and the adjacent districts. In 1841, however, the number had gone up to 1,873,000, thus showing upwards of a million increase in forty years. In 1851, the population had further grown to 2,361,640; while in 1861 it had risen to 2,803,034. Of this number 2,030,814 were in the county of Middlesex. According to the Registrar-General's Tables of Mortality, the population of London in 1871 was 3,251,804. The total extent of London was 75,362 acres; the number of houses inhabited, 417,767; uninhabited, 32,320; and houses building, 5,104. Taking the Metropolitan and City of London Police Districts, the population of London in 1861 was 3,222,720; and in 1871 it had gone up to 3,883,092. The whole population of Lancashire at the latter period, including Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton, Salford, &c., was only 2,818,904; and the whole population of Scotland was little more than this, being but 3,358,613. A conception of the vast extent of London may be gained from the following figures:-In 1871, the East Riding of Yorkshire had a population of 269,505; York city, 43,796; the North Riding, 291,589; the West Riding, 1,831,223; Lincolnshire, 436,133; Staffordshire, 857,233-giving as the aggregate for the whole of these populous districts 3,729,479 souls-a number below the population of London alone. Or take another calculation. In 1871, the population of Bedfordshire stood at 146,256; that of Berks at 196,445; Bucks, 175,870; Cambridgeshire, 186,363; Cheshire, 561,131; Cornwall, 362,098; Cumberland, 220, 245; Derbyshire, 380,538; Devonshire, 600,814; Dorsetshire, 195,544; Durham, 685,045; Hereford, 125,364; and Rutland, 22,070. Here we have a list of thirteen counties, yielding an aggregate population of 3,857,785; or, 25,307 persons below the population of the metropolis. An estimate, based upon the Metropolitan and City of London Police Districts, gives the population of London in 1878 as four millions and a quarter. Cornhill Magazine. A FARMHOUSE DIRGE. I. WILL you walk with me to the brow of the hill, to visit the farmer's wife, There you may lean o'er the gate and rest; she will want me awhile to stop, II. How thick with acorns the ground is strewn, rent from their cups and brown! III. The stream scarce flows underneath the bridge; they have dropped the sluice of the mill; The roach bask deep in the pool above, and the water-wheel is still. The meal lies quiet on bin and floor; and here where the deep banks wind, The water-mosses nor sway nor bend, so nothing seems left behind. If the wheels of life would but sometimes stop, and the grinding awhile would cease, "Twere so sweet to. have, without dying quite, just a spell of autumn peace. |