The Hid or Hide was “the estate of one household, the amount of land sufficient for the support of one family.” By a series of learned calculations and investigations Mr. Kemble has proved that the hide was a stated quantity of _arable_ land, not much over thirty Saxon acres, equal to forty Norman acres; he shews that the Saxons had a large and a small acre, and explains, by this fact, how the hide came to have been considered one hundred and twenty acres. He shews that the forest, meadow, and pasture-land was common property; and that it was attached to the hyde as of common-right. But, for a complete exposition of this subject, I must also refer my readers to the fourth chapter of the first book of Mr. Kemble’s history. The fact of Paddington in Surrey, or “Padendene” as it was called, being mentioned in the Conqueror’s survey, {114a} while Paddington in Middlesex was not noticed, inclines me to believe the _dene_, or _den_, in Surrey, was the original mark of the Pædings; and that the smaller enclosure in Middlesex was at first peopled and cultivated by a migration of a portion of that family from the _den_ when it had become inconveniently full. I do not mean to say the Surrey valley was too crowded when this migration took place; but the lord, or his man, one or both might have pressed a little too hard on some of the young cubs in the Surrey den; and as they had no Press through which to make their wrongs known, they may have thought it best to move off before any other wrongs were inflicted. At what period this migration happened, it is impossible to say; but there is very little doubt that the first settlement was made near the bourn, or brook, which ran through the forest. And this brook, though now a deep under-ground sewer {114b} which has been made, by the aid of the mason, to give a few more ground-rents to the bishop and his lessees, while it carries its hidden pollution to the capacious bosom of “Father Thames,”—once gave life to a most beautiful valley, and was itself, at times, no insignificant stream. At the beginning of this century it was a favourite resort for the young fishermen; and, as depicted in Norden’s Map of Middlesex, {115a} we see what it was in the time of Elizabeth, when the waters, taking their natural courses from the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, found their way into it. What amount of disease and death has been caused by the impurities it has been made to hold since that time is a mystery; but one into which those have had a peep, who have taken the trouble to read the disclosures which have been made respecting the Serpentine, {115b} into which it was for years made to pour its many abominations.