For a little more than two years, Abraham Cowley, the poet, intending to husband his small fortune, lived at Chertsey, or, rather, continued to exist for a short time. His desire for solitude provoked from Johnson, the lover of city life, a biographical sneer. It is true that the first night Cowley came to his half-timber house at Chertsey--he had desiderated a brick house, by-the-by--he caught a severe cold, and kept his room for ten days; but it is also true that he was an invalid when he came from Barn Elms, whence he was driven by illness. A series of mishaps befell him, which he recounted in a half ludicrous light, in a letter to his friend Sprat; and this letter it is that Johnson recommends "to the consideration of all that may hereafter pant for solitude." Cowley's house, which he only left in funereal pomp and state to be conveyed by water to Westminster Abbey, and there buried, is still sometimes called by its old name, Porch House, from a porch that once projected into the highway, but was pulled down a hundred years ago. In the garden is a fine group of trees, one of which, a horse-chestnut of great size and beauty, sheltered the poet in the short term of his life at Chertsey. A memorable episode of Dickens's early work of fiction, "Oliver Twist," is graphically connected with this agricultural town, the most commercial establishment in which is a brewery. There were no railways to speak of when Fagin, the Jew that Dickens drew, was redrawn by Cruikshank, and when Bill Sikes, and Nancy, and Toby Crackit, and the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates, and the bad people generally, seemed as real as, on the other and supernaturally amiable side, Rose Maylie and the rest were creatures of angelic imagination. There is nothing more real in this story, nor in all the stories that Dickens ever wrote, than the expedition by Sikes and Oliver, from Bethnal Green, through Finsbury and Barbican, to the West-end--past Hyde Park Corner, Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick, Kew, and Brentford--past Hampton and Halliford, Shepperton and Sunbury--till Chertsey was reached; and, joined now by Toby Crackit, they made their way through the silent town to the scene of the projected burglary. Boating-men know well the landing-stage at the "Bridge House," one of those inns where the comfort is not diminished either by negligence or false pretence. This is the recognised "hotel" of Chertsey; but the "Cricketers," in the Bridge Road, half a mile from the town, is the favourite resort of anglers. Many pleasant walks are still to be found near Chertsey, St. Ann's Hill being within a mile. As the residence of Charles James Fox, the house, with its gardens, lawns, shady walks, and quaint summer-houses, should be seen by all who have the opportunity of visiting it. The old gate of wrought iron, though not by any means extraordinary, nor indeed nearly so elaborate as some examples of smiths' work still to be seen about old parts of Chelsea, Chiswick,