the hands of Mrs. Hogarth, his widow, who bequeathed it to her relation, Mrs. Mary Lewis, who subsequently left it to Mr. P. F. Hart, who in his will, in 1823, bequeathed it to Mr. John Tuck. It is hardly necessary to say that the ticket is after Hogarth's own design. The face of it presents the word "Hogarth," in a bold hand, beneath which is "_In perpetuam beneficii memoriam._" On the reverse there are two figures, surrounded with the motto, "_Virtus voluptas felices una._" It also appears that Roubiliac furnished a statue of Milton for the gardens. Among the singers Beard and Lowe were early favourites; then came Dignum, Mrs. Weichsel, Mrs. Billington, Signora Storace, Incledon, Mrs. Bland, &c. In later years, Misses Tunstall, Noel, Melville, and Williams; Stephens, Love, Madame Cornega, and Madame Vestris; Mr. Braham, Mr. Sinclair, Mr. Robinson, and Signor de Begnis, &c., with Signor Spagnoletti as leader.' CHAPTER XVII SOUTH LONDON OF TO-DAY [Illustration: A DOORWAY, CURLEW STREET, BERMONDSEY] The expansion of London during the Nineteenth Century is in itself a fact unparalleled in the history of cities. Those who call attention to this miracle always point to the filling up of the huge area between Highgate and Hampstead and Clerkenwell in the North, or the extension of the town to Hammersmith on the West. Perhaps a little consideration of the South may show a still more remarkable growth. I have before me a map of the year 1834, only sixty-four years ago, showing South London as it was. I see a small town or collection of small towns, occupying the district called the Borough Proper, Lambeth, Newington, Walworth, and Bermondsey. In some parts this area is densely populated, filled with narrow courts and lanes; in other parts there are broad fields, open spaces, unoccupied pieces of ground. At the back of Vauxhall Gardens, for instance there are open fields; in Walworth there is a certain place, then notorious for the people who lived there, called Snow's Fields; in Bermondsey there are also open spaces, some of them gardens, or recreation grounds, without any buildings. Battersea is a mere stretch of open country. I myself remember the old Battersea Fields perfectly well; one shivers at the recollection; they were low, flat, damp, and, I believe, treeless; they were crossed, like Hackney Marsh, by paths raised above the level; at no time of year could the Battersea Fields look anything but dreary. In winter they were inexpressibly dismal. As a boy I have walked across the fields in order to get to the embankment or river wall from which one commanded a view of the Thames with its barges and lighters going up and down--pleasant when the sun shone on the river, but a mere shadow of the ancient glory when the pleasure barges and the State barges swept majestically up the river with the hautboys and the trumpets in the bows; when the swans by thousands sailed upon the broad bosom of the waters, and in the middle