In the days I am recalling, a road ran out of South End over the sloping fields, sweet with white clover flowers, to Parliament Hill, and the mounds like tumuli on the sunk road in the field at the east end of the Heath. I used to think these mounds were barrows, but am told that they only cover the dead hopes of a rapacious Lord of the Manor, who between forty and fifty years ago intended building houses on the field, but, having only a life interest in the estate, was prevented doing so. The road and ground delved for foundations, and thrown up in great heaps here and there, was left neglected and desolate. But Nature soon covered the scarred earth with a green mantle, and turned its unsightliness to beauty. Only a few years ago a subscription was raised amongst the inhabitants of Hampstead, and the fields, with Parliament Hill, and the storied Pancras meadows, were purchased and added to the Heath. But in my time there were what Shelley, who knew the whole of Hampstead by heart, and remembered it with yearning amidst the lovely landscapes of Italy, called the beautiful meadows near Shepherd’s Fields, and tells his friend Hunt that he often longs for them, and the Hendon Road, and Hampstead lanes, and the pretty entrance to the village from Kentish Town. How well I remember the Shepherd’s Fields,[286] and the old conduit in them, round the margins of which the yellow stars of the lesser celandine first opened, and Shakespeare’s ladies’ smocks were soonest seen. Then there were other pretty meadows near Chalk Farm, the peacefulness of which had often been desecrated by duellists, and of which some tragic stories might be told, but not here. [Illustration: Old Chalk Farm.] In those days my walk from the White Stone Pond often led to the Nine Elms and the old bench beneath them. The trees grew in a sort of irregular half-circle around it, tall and straight, of no great girth, being planted too close together; they drew one another, as gardeners say, but the boughs and upper branches afforded plenty of shade. The floor was paved with a sort of natural parquetry, made by the interlacing of the roots, which was smooth and polished in places by innumerable feet of loiterers. This was said to have been the favourite resting-place of Pope and Murray.