Richmond, of old known as West Sheen, was once a royal residence, and its Green shows a fragment of the palace in which Elizabeth and other sovereigns died. Most of Richmond's antiquity has disappeared, down to the renowned Cobweb Cellar, swept away two or three years ago, beneath a rebuilt tavern; but much of the place still wears a dignified look of Georgian old fashion, borne out by the narrow, bent main thoroughfare that on a Saturday night will be more crowded than the Strand. The newer streets above are quiet and genteel enough; but all the quarter between the station and the front of busy boat-houses lays itself out for strangers brought by four railway lines from London; and the streets here are thickly set with houses of entertainment of every rank, including confectioners to provide the "maids of honour" cheese-cakes that are at Richmond what whitebait is or was at Greenwich. These two places long made rival goals of London junketings up and down the river; but automobiles now ply farther afield, carrying their best customers past the Richmond hotels, so that the renowned "Star and Garter" had to close its doors, to be reconstructed as a hospital for disabled soldiers. The great sight here, of course, is Richmond Hill, to which a gradual ascent leads from the bridge, or from the bank above the boat-houses a steeper one up the slope laid out as a beautiful public garden, its highest part a shady terrace, commanding that rich landscape over which gazed Jeanie Deans, in her heart perhaps preferring the view from Arthur's Seat. "A huge sea of verdure, with crossing and intersecting promontories of massive and tufted groves, was tenanted by numberless flocks and herds, which seemed to wander unrestrained and unbounded through the rich pastures. The Thames, here turreted with villas and there garlanded with forests, moved on slowly and placidly, like the mighty monarch of the scene, to whom all its other beauties were but accessories." Flocks and herds, indeed, are not so visible in our day; but the hundred barks and skiffs seen by Scott, may appear multiplied by tenfold on the reach of the river extending at our feet. Passing on before the transformed "Star and Garter," and through the gate of the Park, from this corner of it one has the same outlook-- ... Here let us sweep The boundless landscape: now the raptured eye Exulting swift to huge Augusta send, Now to the Sister Hills that skirt her plain, To lofty Harrow now, and now to where Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow.... Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around, Of hills and dales, and woods and lawns and spires, And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all The stretching landscape into smoke decays.