he had opposed the execution of Charles I. and had been pardoned by Charles II. Later, the same house was occupied by Bishop Butler, and in the garden is still preserved the ancient mulberry-tree beneath which he and his ill-fated predecessor loved to sit. A little lower down the hill still stands Rosslyn House, much changed, it is true, since it was the home of the famous lawyer Alexander Wedderburn, who became Lord Chancellor in 1793, for the beautiful grove of Spanish chestnuts that once surrounded it is replaced by the houses of Lyndhurst Road.

The poet Gay was a constant frequenter of the spa at Hampstead, and often visited his friend, the brilliant essayist Sir Richard Steele, in his charming retreat on the site of the present Steele's Studios, opposite to which was the ancient hostelry, the Load of Hay. Gay may possibly often have met Addison and Pope, perhaps even have gone with them to meetings of the famous Kit Cat Club at the Upper Flask Tavern, now a private residence known as Heath House, to which Richardson's heroine, Clarissa Harlowe, is said to have fled from her dissipated suitor Lovelace, and in which lived for many years and died, the learned annotator of Shakespeare, George Steevens, who bought the tavern in 1771.

THE SPANIARDS, HAMPSTEAD HEATH

To the Bull and Bush Inn, still standing in the Hendon Road, the great painter Hogarth often repaired, and in its garden is a fine tree planted by him, whilst later Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds used frequently to visit it. The actor Colley Cibber, the more famous David Garrick, and the poet Dr. Akenside, were fond of strolling on the Heath, and to lodgings near the church came Dr. Johnson, who when there sometimes received a call from Fanny Burney, who was often at the spa, as is proved by her vivid description of it in Evelina. At North End House, now known as Wildwoods, not far from the Bull and Bush Inn, lived the elder Pitt, Lord Chatham, during his temporary insanity, shut up in a little room, with an oriel window looking out towards Finchley, and the opening in the wall still remains through which his food and letters were handed to him. Caen Wood, or Kenwood House, was the country seat of the great advocate, Lord Mansfield, whose London house was burned by the Gordon rioters in 1780, and a short distance from it is the famous hostelry of the 'Spaniards,' described by Dickens in Barnaby Rudge and alluded to in the Pickwick Papers, that is said to have derived its name from its having been at one time occupied by the Spanish ambassador to the court of James I. To the 'Spaniards' the followers of Lord George Gordon marched after their mad proceedings in the City, and it was thanks to the courage and promptitude of its landlord, Giles Thomas, that it and Caen House were saved from destruction.

No less famous than the 'Spaniards' is the ancient inn known as 'Jack Straw's Castle,' now transformed into a modern hotel, the name of which has never been satisfactorily explained, for it is really impossible to connect it with the devoted follower of Wat Tyler, with whom it was long supposed to have been associated. To it the beau monde used to repair after the races that were held on the Heath, before Epsom and Ascot rivalled it in public favour. Dickens and his friends were fond of going to supper at Jack Straw's Castle in summer evenings, and of late years it has been a favourite meeting-place of authors and artists, Lord Leighton, amongst many others, having been a frequent guest.

Within easy reach of the 'Spaniards' and Jack Straw's Castle, in a house still named after him, dwelt the great lawyer Lord Erskine, who defended Lord George Gordon at the latter's trial for high treason, securing his acquittal; and the broad holly hedge dividing the garden from the Heath, as well as the wood of laurel and bay trees, on what is known as Evergreen Hill, are said to have been planted by his own hands. At Heath House, on the highest point of the Heath, lived Samuel Hoare, the enlightened lover of literature and defender of the oppressed, who was the first to advocate the cause of the negro in England, and amongst his many distinguished guests were the poets Samuel Rogers, Wordsworth, Crabbe, Campbell, and Coleridge, the noted writer John James Park, the first historian of Hampstead, whose work, on its Topography and Natural History, published in 1814, is still the chief authority on the subject up to that date; the philanthropist William Wilberforce, and the not less devoted Sir Samuel Buxton, who succeeded him in 1824 as leader of the anti-slavery party.

Bolton House, on Windmill Hill, was long the home of the cultivated sisters Joanna and Agnes Baillie, with whom Sir David Wilkie sometimes stayed, and Mrs. Barbauld, whose husband was minister of the Presbyterian chapel on Rosslyn Hill, lived first in a house near to them, and later in one in Church Row. Mrs. Siddons, after her retirement from the stage, occupied for several years the house known as Capo di Monte, overlooking the beautiful Judges' Walk, beneath the elms of which assizes are said to have been held in 1663, when the Great Plague of London was raging. The poet-painter William Blake sometimes stayed at a farm at North End, the same later frequented by John Linnell; and the Vale of Health, in which stood the picturesque cottage owned by Leigh Hunt, will be for ever associated with the memory of that eloquent writer and of the greater John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron, all of whom are known to have visited him there. Keats was with him for some days in 1816, and in 1817 took rooms in what is now No. 1 Well Walk, where he wrote the greater part of Endymion. Later he went to board with his friend Charles Armitage Brown in a house at the bottom of John Street, known as Lawn Bank, and marked by a tablet, next door to which lived Charles Wentworth Dilke, later editor of the Athenæum, by whom the poet was introduced to Fanny Brawne, with whom he fell in love at first sight. Hyperion, the Eve of St. Agnes, and five of the six celebrated sonnets were written at Lawn Bank, and Keats was looking forward to his marriage with his beloved Fanny when the illness which was to prove fatal began. She and her mother nursed him with the utmost devotion, but nothing could save him, and he was already doomed when he left them to go to Rome in 1821. His memory is still held in great honour in Hampstead, but it was reserved to an American lady, Miss Anne Whitney, who presented his bust to the Parish Church in 1895, to give practical proof of a desire to do him honour in the district he loved so well.

The Arctic explorer, Sir Edward Parry, is said to have had his headquarters at Hampstead; Prince Talleyrand lived in Pond Street during his exile from France; and Edward Irving, founder of the Irvingite sect, is said to have had a house there for a short time. The historian Sir Thomas Palgrave resided on the Green from 1834 to 1861; the poet William Allingham died in Lyndhurst Road in 1889; the novelist Diana Muloch, and the less celebrated Elizabeth Meteyard, were often in the neighbourhood. The mother of Lord Tennyson shared Rosemount, in Flask Walk, with her daughter, and was often visited there by her illustrious son. Sir Rowland Hill, the famous Postmaster-General, resided for thirty years and died at Bertram House, near St. Stephen's Church, and Hampstead was long the home of the novelist Sir Walter Besant and the well-known bibliophile Dr. Garnett.

What may perhaps be called the art era of Hampstead, when it became associated with