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HOLLY LODGE

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forbidden by the Puritan Government. Early in the eighteenth century Holland House became associated with Addison (of Spectator fame); he lived here for some three years after his ambitious marriage with Charlotte, Countess of Warwick, a marriage which, despite its splendour, report says was not happy for the bridegroom. According to Dr. Johnson, it was more or less "on terms like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused, to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, 'Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.'" But the chief interest of Holland House lies in its having been for so many years the centre of a great literary and political coterie, and the resort of Whig orators and politicians. In the lifetime of the third Lord Holland, who died in 1840, the house was at the height of its splendour as a world-renowned intellectual centre. Holland House still exists in its integrity, though Macaulay long ago prophesied mournfully that

"The wonderful city may soon displace those turrets and gardens which are associated with so much that is interesting and noble-with the courtly magnificence of Rich, with the loves of Ormond, with the councils of Crom. well, with the death of Addison."

"The gardens of Holland House" (says Mr. Hare)" are unlike anything else in England. Every turn is a picture. . . . A raised terrace, like some of those which belong to old Genoese palaces, leads from the house high amongst the branches of the trees to the end of the flower garden. . . . Facing a miniature Dutch garden here is "Rogers' Seat," inscribed:

"Here Rogers sat, and here for ever dwell

With me those pleasures that he sings so well."

Lord Macaulay's last residence was, as I have said, "Holly Lodge." In this secluded villa, high-walled-in from the outer world, were the two requisites for an author's ideal of happiness, a library and a garden. The house bears a memorial tablet. Here the great writer died while quietly seated in his

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THE CHOIR INVISIBLE"

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library chair, his book open beside him; a peaceful close of a busy life.

I have named a few of our great Londoners; yet they, indeed, are but few among the vast galaxy of the bright particular stars who, even in our day, still enlighten with their spirit their former dwellings and surroundings. It is their human interest that so transfigures London stones; it is the mighty dead of England, the "choir invisible,"

"of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live.
To make undying music in the world "--

that lend to their city such enchantment. Surely something of this feeling,of this enchantment - is ours when we think of the long roll of great spirits who illumined the archives of the past. There is a magic, a glamour, in London streets, that affects the strongest heads and hearts. All honour to them-to poor human nature,--that it is so. Not only, let us hope, to the mad poetpainter Blake was it given to "meet the Apostle Paul in Piccadilly." We, too, may, if we will, walk with Milton in Cripplegate, may share Byron's Titanic gloom in the quaint Albany precincts, may wander with Charles Lamb in those Temple Gardens that he so loved, and may listen with him and Dickens to the pleasant tinkle of the rippling water in secluded Fountain Court. We inherit these associations, and we may—inestimable privilege-see our London, our "towne of townes, patrone and not compare," through the eyes of all the great men who loved her in the past.

"The dull brick houses of the square,

The bustle of the thoroughfare,

The sounds, the sights, the crush of men,
Are present, but forgotten then.

"With such companions at my side
I float on London's human tide;
An atom on its billows thrown,
But lonely never, nor alone."

"It is my delight to be

Both in town and in countree."-Old Couplet.

"If one must have a villa in summer to dwell,

Oh, give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall."-Charles Morris.

OH, London! beautiful London! who would not be with thee in May? Paris should not, surely, be recommended as the only Mecca of that lovely month. When the London street authorities, with unwonted forbearance, have for one brief moment suspended their incessant repairing of the busiest thoroughfares; when the hanging gardens of Park Lane, and the window-boxes of Seven Dials, alike display their "pavilions of tender green"; when Piccadilly is blocked with traffic; when Rotten Row is thronged with the smart world; when the shops

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"THE LUNGS OF LONDON"

CHAP.

hang out their daintiest spring fashions; when the gay parterres of the Parks show flowers of kaleidoscopic brilliance, and their sylvan seclusions suggest the "real country," what can be more delightful than our own often-maligned metropolis?

The Parks of London are, perhaps, the element that most surprises the foreigner unused to English tastes and ways. Here are neither the leafy terraces and regular alleys of German capitals, nor the trim well-clipped boscages and levels of Versailles and the Tuileries; but only mere stretches of parklike greensward, dotted here and there, in charming irregularity, with old trees of noble girth. Walks there are, indeed, and footpaths, shrubberies, and flower-beds; but the chief area of the London Parks is, ever and always, this fresh, radiant, undulating turf, turf which here, more than ever, suggests the little Board School girl's answer to a question on general knowledge: "Turf, ma'am, is grass and clean dirt put together by God."

Of Hyde Park, the largest and oldest of the London Parks, Disraeli said truly in one of his novels: "Hyde Park has still about it something of Arcadia. There are woods and waters, and the occasional illusion of an illimitable distance of sylvan joyance." The history of Hyde Park is the history, generally, of Greater London; first monastery grounds, then royal demesne, then again, the people's. Some of the old trees may even have seen the ancient manor of Hyde; some of them must certainly recall the time when this was a royal Tudor hunting-ground, well-stocked with deer. Many of its fine old timber-trees have, however, disappeared, so that the famous "Ring" of Charles II.'s time can be now but imperfectly traced.

The Parks are, naturally, "the lungs of London." Were it not for these large "open spaces," so mercifully preserved to us by the wisdom and farsightedness of former rulers and legislators, the health of the great city would hardly now be what it is. The little town of the early centuries, Roman,

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WHEN LONDON WAS IN THE COUNTRY

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Saxon, or Norman, surrounded by country woods and pastures,— dotted with the gardens of merchants and magnates, as well as with frequent convent closes, orchards, and leafy precincts,- had small need of such vast pleasure-grounds. For London, even in Elizabeth's day, consisted (as shown in Aggas's map), of only two tiny townlets, "London" and "Westminster"; beyond, all was open fields. Tottenham Court Road, that dreary thoroughfare of ugly modernity, was the solitary manor of "Toten Court," a sylvan resort for "cakes and creame”; Chelsea was a pretty, distant riverside hamlet; Regent Street and Bond Street were cows' pastures, and the "flowery fields " of "Marybone" were altogether in the rural distances. Who, indeed, would recognise the present Regent's Park in these lines (from an old play called "Tottenham Court"):

"What a dainty life the milkmaid leads,

When o'er these flowery meads

She dabbles in dew,

And sings to her cow,

And feels not the pain

Of love or disdain

But if, to the London of old time, the Parks were not necessary, to modern London, which has more than doubled its population and its area in the last century and a half, they are an unspeakable boon. Our forefathers were wise in their generation when they secured these stretches of the outlying country for public use. We, too, in our own day, make similar efforts, efforts of which the recent preservation of Parliament Fields, of part of Caen Wood, affords sufficient proof. In that far-off day, prophesied by "Mother Shipton," when "Primrose Hill shall be the centre of London," such breathing spaces, such oases in the wilderness of bricks and mortar, would prove of quite incalculable value.

Happily, London, even in her rampant growth, is often jealously mindful of her responsibilities. Though our city boasts no such spacious boulevards as are to be seen in Paris, trees are