came to be in time a place of polite resort: while yet, in the words of Macaulay, it was but “a quiet country village of about one thousand inhabitants, the baptisms therein averaging a little more than forty in the year.” On the slope which rises from the river—as we see it in our print of those days—stand, in trim gardens, the grand mansions which first made the little village famous. Back from these isolated houses and between them stretch fair fields, and fertile meadows, and wooded slopes; and along the river bank runs a row of fishermen’s thatched cottages. Here and there on the shore, are nestled noted taverns and pleasure-gardens, much frequented by town visitors, reputable or not, coming up the river on excursions—as does Pepys, “to make merry at the Swan.” Gay sings of the place and the period: “Then Chelsey’s meads o’erhear perfidious vows, And the press’d grass defrauds the grazing cows.” The low river shore, planted with lime and plane trees, is protected by a slight embankment: first built by the Romans on the banks above their walled town of London: improved later by the Norman conquerors; and kept in repair afterward either by landlord or by tenant, as might be decided in the incessant disputes between them, still shown on the parish records of that day. This little embankment is broken here and there by carved gateways, giving entrance to the grand houses; and by water staircases—called, in our print, Ranelagh, Bishop’s, Old Magpye, Beaufort Stairs—from which a few country lanes—such as Pound and Church Lanes and Cheyne Row—lead from the river front to the King’s Road. This road had been first a foot-path following the windings of the river a little inland—worn perhaps by the feet of the wandering tribes of Trinobantes—and had gradually enlarged itself as the country around became cultivated. It led from the village of Whitehall through the woods and fields, across the tidal swamps and the marsh lands west of Westminster—partly filled in by the great Cubitt with the earth dug out in the excavations of St. Katherine’s docks, early in this century: where now stretches graceful St. James’s Park, where now Belgravia is built so bravely—and so the road ran to the slopes of Chelsea, to the first good land close alongside the river which rose fairly above it. [Picture: A view of Chelsea]