Combats of another character--in fact, of two other characters--recur to our reflections as we find that we have shuffled off the coil of bricks and mortar and are rattling across Wormwood Scrubs. More fortunate than some who have been there before us, we have no call to alight. Calls to this ancient field of glory, whether symbolized by the gentlemanly pistol or the plebeian fist, have ceased to be in vogue. Dueling and boxing are both frowned down effectually, one by public opinion and the other by the police. It is only of late years that they finally succumbed to those twin discouragers; but it seems altogether improbable that the ordeal by combat in either shape will again come to the surface in a land where tilting-spear and quarter-staff were of old so rife. In France chivalry still asserts, in a feeble way, the privilege of winking and holding out its iron, and refuses to be comforted with a suit for damages. Southall, a station or two beyond, suggests sport of a less lethal character, being an ancient meeting-place for the queen's stag-hounds. John Leach may have collected here some of his studies of Cockney equestrianism. The sportsmen so dear to his pencil furnished him wealth of opportunities on their annual concourse at the cart's tail. The unloading of the animal, his gathering himself up for a leisurely canter across country, the various styles and degrees of horsemanship among his lumbering followers, and the business-like replacing of the quarry in his vehicle, to be hauled away for another day's sport, served as the most complete travesty imaginable of the chase. It has the compensation of placing a number of worthy men in the saddle at least once in the year and compelling them to do some rough riding. The English have always made it their boast that they are more at home on horseback than any other European nation, and they claim to have derived much military advantage from it. Lever's novels would lose many of their best situations but for this national accomplishment and the astounding development it reaches in his hands. [Illustration: MILTON'S PEAR TREE.] To the left lies the fine park of Osterley, once the seat of the greatest of London's merchant princes, Sir Thomas Gresham. An improvement proposed by Queen Bess, on a visit to Gresham in 1578, does not speak highly for her taste in design. She remarked that in her opinion the court in front of the house would look better split up by a wall. Her host dutifully acceded to the idea, and surprised Her Majesty next morning by pointing out the wall which he had erected during the night, sending to London for masons and material for the purpose. The conceit was a more ponderous one than that of Raleigh's cloak--bricks and mortar _versus_ velvet.