Long may the people of the close courts and alleys of London come hither in their tens of thousands on the gold-letter days of their sparse holidays, to revel in the winnowing freshness of its breezy height, and pleasant groves and lanes and grassy nooks, and take back with them to their crowded homes a measure of the health that ‘floats upon the genial atmosphere.’ So shall Hampstead still (as in old Drayton’s time) ‘remain the noblest hill.’ The old Heath covered 220 acres, so that 261 acres acquired by recent purchase up to 1889, have more than doubled the expanse of the old Heath (1899). FOOTNOTES [1] One find I specially remember in connection with this neighbourhood of peculiar interest with reference to the great forest that once covered the site: When making the railway through Gospel Oak Fields, a hillock had to be cut through; some gigantic roots of trees, hard as ebony and black as bog-oak, were unearthed, bearing witness to the ancient woodlands that had covered it. [2] Written 1855-60. [3] Built in 1845-46. [4] Quoted by Park. [5] No cause is mentioned for the great increase of deaths. [6] ‘Pomander’: a round, perforated box, filled with musk, ambergris, civet, or other sweet-scented ingredients. It was used to perfume apartments, and was frequently made of some precious material. Doctors used them for the head of the cane they usually carried as a prophylactic. [7] Park’s ‘History of Hampstead.’ [8] The present sign, the copy of an older one, represents her in a red conical hat, with a glass of ale in her hand. Her modern memorialist says: ‘She was an old camp-follower through the campaignes of the Duke of Marlborough, and set up a hedge alehouse after the Peace of Utrecht, with her own portrait as a sign.’—_Ante_ ‘The Anecdote Library.’ [9] Blake. [10] Mr. Rhodes died at a house on Muswell Hill. Rhodes of Rhodesia is said to be a near descendant. [11] This house appears in Hogarth’s ‘March to Finchley.’ [12] For some years Portland Place was used as a fashionable promenade by the rank and fashion of the town. [13] Gray’s ‘Letters.’ [14] Romilly’s childhood’s home was in the High Street, Marylebone, then a small village about a mile and a half from London, with the cheerful country close to it. Sir Samuel was born 1757; he died 1818. [15] At the present time it is said to contain 2,245 acres. [16] The charter of Ethelred II. (who began to reign 979) to St. Peters, Westminster, A.D. 986: ‘Starting from Sandgate east to Bedgar’s “Stywei” (? lea); then south to Dermod’s house; from Dermod’s house to middle Hamstead: so forward along the hedge to the rushes; from the rushes west by the side of the marsh to the _barrow west_ along the boundary to the stone pit; from the stone pit to Watling Street, so north along Watling Street to the boundary brook, back east by the boundary to Sandgate.’