The Green is one of the most piquant of Greens, from its delightful, straggling air. To look at the terrace that juts forward prominently--pleasantly named MAID OF HONOUR ROW--is exhilarating from the gaiety and brilliancy of the houses. Never was brick so rubicund, or sashes and railings so brilliantly white. The Maids would have been in spirits here. The design is capital, and the carving and ironwork all match. Would there were more! But there are other old houses of merit dotted about, while a little alley will lead you, by surprise, into the main street. But the Green seems to have lost its genuine air of old fashion since the day--some years ago--the old Richmond Theatre, that filled in the far corner, was removed. It was reputed the oldest theatre in the kingdom, and there, in that very tier of boxes, had the King, George III., often sat and enjoyed the play, having driven over from Kew. There was something particularly quaint and picturesque in this cluster of buildings. You ascended the stairs _outside_ the theatre, under a raised shed. The curious old playhouse seemed to be exactly what should be found on such a common. It recalled the old theatre at Tunbridge Wells which gave on the Pantiles. It almost revived one of Dickens’s theatres, such as Crummles might have managed, for then it was really a picturesque thing, with stairs mounting outside, right and left to the boxes, while you descended into a sort of well to reach the pit. Attached to it, and growing out of it, was a sort of hexagonal dwelling-house, with a tree planted by Queen Elizabeth, so the legend runs. There was something of the old fashion of a weather-beaten three-decker in the look of the place: it was a genuine thing--had the genuine flavour. Since then someone plastered it over and modernized it, but the old balustrades and stairs outside were left. This venerable tabernacle had a fitful time, being on the whole more closed than open. It nodded and dozed through the rest of the year. What excitement when it was to be opened for two nights only, with _The Green Bushes_, a delightful entertaining piece, and _so_ romantic--in the suburbs, and in “boyhood’s hour”! Occasionally a company of London amateurs took it for one night, playing _London Assurance_, having friends on the Green; then all old ladies and old maids made an exertion, and the fly was sure to be ordered the night before. At another corner of the Green is the old Sheen Palace, with its fine old archway, under which you pass, its indistinct blazonry and hexagonal towers. This genuine fragment has been judiciously restored, and fashioned into a snug dwelling-house, which secures its existence.