The tow-path, that has been in Surrey since we left Weybridge, again crosses to pass with princely breadth under the wall of Hampton Park. But on the Surrey side also, we are not kept far from the river, for, after a diversion through Molesey, the road comes to the bank by the old church of Thames Ditton; then, through the outskirts of Long Ditton, it joins the much-wheeled Ripley road, which in front of Surbiton becomes a waterside esplanade beseeming that most respectable London colony that has the name of being affected by west-end tradesmen and the like "warm" citizens. Such, at least, is the reproach brought against it by satirical scribblers, who perhaps live at Peckham or Camden Town, envious at heart of Surbiton's social amenities as described in the instructive life of "Mr. Bailey Martin." Another novelist suggests how Surbiton wants nothing but a pier to look like a seaside resort, with its parade, bandstand, and so forth, along which, by two miles of houses, we come into the ancient borough of Kingston, that makes a core for so much villadom. As an independent town, this, with its excrescences, Surbiton, Norbiton, Malden, is second for size in Surrey, overgrown only by Croydon; and Kingston has also a Middlesex Lambeth in its transpontine quarter, Hampton Wick. It is so far the county seat that the Hall of the County Council has been built here; while it no longer shares with Guildford and Croydon the dignity of assize town. There was a time when it might boast of higher rank, for in the tenth century the Saxon kings were crowned at this Rheims or Scone of South England. It seems always to have been a place of importance through its ford, then through a bridge which was long the next one above London Bridge. When a hostile attack on London failed from the Southwark side, the enemy had nothing for it but to march all the way round by Kingston, as Sir Thomas Wyat did to little purpose. In the Civil War a [Illustration: FROM RICHMOND HILL]