Returning from Southampton, Isaac Watts entered the family of Sir John Hartopp, the first of those two influential friends whose names will always be associated with his own; it was October 15th, 1696, he being then twenty-two years of age, when he went to reside with him. Within the memory of some of the old inhabitants of Stoke Newington there stood on the north side of Church Street the remains of a red brick house, with large casement windows; once they were all handsomely painted, and bore the arms of Fleetwood, Hartopp, and Cook. But no one of these later generations saw that old mansion in all its original greatness. In later years it came to be divided into houses, and parts of it drifted down from the abode of statesmen to the boarding-school for young ladies. Still it retained even to its close, traditionary relics and reminiscences of the old days of its pride and importance. On the ceilings of its principal rooms were the remains of the arms of the Lord General Fleetwood; and in the upper part there was a little door concealed by hangings, through which the persecuted Nonconformist passed into a place of safety and concealment, in the days of Charles II. The old house was built towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, so that even at the period when it comes before our readers it was ancient. It was purchased by Charles Fleetwood, Lord General of the army of the Commonwealth, and under Cromwell one of the Council of State. It is quite unnecessary here to dwell upon his transient importance and power; he was one of the last of those remarkable men in that singular interregnum of our history, and the very last after the resignation of Richard Cromwell who held some of the shadows of the departed substance of greatness. He spent the remainder of his days in the mansion of Stoke Newington before his final departure for Bunhill Fields. To this place, in time succeeded Sir John Hartopp, by his wife Elizabeth Fleetwood, a grand-daughter of the General; and to this old red brick building, with its secret chambers and armorial casements and ceilings, Isaac Watts came as a tutor in the family.