They Harrison, the king's embroiderer. Godfrey, of whose murder we have already spoken in our account of Somerset House.* The hill at that time doubtless was famous for the primroses that grew upon it; and although the fields around It has been suggested that the confusion has were used for grazing, the place, covered as it was arisen partly from the likeness of the name to that with brambles, was inaccessible, and wonder was of the celebrated town in Suffolk, and partly from excited as to the means by which the body came the infrequent use at that time of two Christian there. The name of the victim has been variously names. Sir Edmund was a rich timber merchant, written: Macaulay, in common with many others, and lived at the river end of Northumberland calls him Edmundsbury Godfrey, whilst by some it | Street, in the Strand. He was Justice of the Peace is written Edmund Berry Godfrey. On a monument in the cloister of Westminster Abbey to the memory of a brother of Sir Edmund, the knight is designated as Edmundus Berry Godfrey; but the late Mr. J. G. Nichols went still further, and brought forward as his authority Sir Edmund's father. The following is an extract from the diary of Thomas Godfrey, of Lidd, Kent :-"My wife was delivered of another son the 23rd December, 1621, who was christened the 13th January, being Sunday. His godfathers were my cousin, John Berrie, his other godfather my faithful loving friend and my neighbour sometime in Grub Street, Mr. Edmund See Vol. III., p. 92. for the Court quarter of town, and was so active in the performance of his duties, that during the time of the Great Plague, in 1664-5, upon the refusal of his men to enter a pest-house in order to bring out a culprit who had furnished a large number of shops with at least 1,000 winding-sheets stolen from the dead, he ventured in alone and brought the wretch to justice. He was knighted for his conduct during the plague, and Bishop Burnet says that he was esteemed the best justice of the peace in England. At the time of his death he was entering upon the great design of taking up all beggars, and putting them to work. He is said to have been a zealous Protestant and Church of England man, but not forward to There were side of Primrose Hill, about two fields distant | bruises, and his neck was broken. many drops of white waxlights on his breeches, : "Godfrey walks up hill after he is dead; Denis walks down hill carrying his head." A great procession, consisting of eight knights, all the aldermen of the city of London, and seventytwo clergymen, accompanied the body to the grave in St. Martin's Church, and a portrait of Sir Edmund was placed in the vestry-room. The press now teemed with pamphlets on the subject. In one, the murder was charged to the Earl of Danby; in another, Garnet's ghost addressing the Jesuits is made to show the greatest delight in the horrors of the plot. Wishes are expressed "That the whole nation with one neck might grow, The nation thus roused to a state of frenzy, thirsted for revenge, and Somerset House, as we have mentioned, then the residence of Queen Catherine of Braganza, consort of Charles II., was fixed upon as the scene of the murder. Three personsnamely, Robert Green, cushion-man of the queen's chapel; Lawrence Hill, servant to Dr. Godden, treasurer of the chapel; and Henry Berry, porter at Somerset House-were tried for the crime on the 10th of February, 1679, when the infamous witnesses, Oates, Prance, and Bedloe, declared "that he (Godfrey) was waylaid, and inveigled into the palace, under the pretence of keeping the peace between two servants who were fighting in the yard; that he was there strangled, his neck broke, and his own sword run through his body; that he was kept four days before they ventured to remove him; at length his corpse was carried in a sedan chair to Soho, and then on a horse to Primrose Hill." In spite of the abandoned character of the witnesses and the irreconcilable testimony they gave, the jury found all the prisoners guilty, and Lord Chief Justice Scroggs said he should have found the same verdict had he been one of the jury. The three men, all declaring their innocence to the last, were executed, and the law had its victims; but from that day to this the murder of Godfrey has remained an unsolved mystery. It was pointed out in a printed letter to Prance, 1681, that his story of Hill carrying the body before him on horseback could not be true on account of the condition of the district; and it was further stated that it would have been "impossible for any man on horseback, with a dead corpse before him, at midnight to approach, unless gaps were made in the mounds, as the constable and his assistants found from experience when they came on horseback thither." It has been a popular belief that Greenberry Hill, mentioned above, took its origin from the names of the three supposed murderers, but it is doubtful whether this was the case; and Narcissus Luttrell, in his contemporary "Diary," remarks on the singular coincidence of the names of Green, Berry, and Hill with the old designation of the hill. The name has long since been changed to Barrow Hill, thus assisting to bury in obscurity, if not in oblivion, the awful fate of a man who lived and died guiltless of any crime, except the strict execution of his duty. On the western side of Primrose Hill is another and a smaller eminence, the summit of which has been, beyond the memory of man, bare of all vegetable substance. "The popular tradition is," observes a writer in the Mirror, "that there two brothers, enamoured of the same lady, met to decide by arms to whom she should belong. Ridiculous idea! that a woman's heart would consent to receive a master from the point of a sword, or trust its hopes of happiness to the hired arbitration of a trigger! Both died at the same time, each by the weapon of his adversary!" Here, too, about the year 1813, Ugo Foscolo fought a duelhappily, bloodless-with Graham, the editor of the Literary Museum. In 1827, the provost and fellows of Eton began to see that their property would soon become valuable, and they obtained an Act of Parliament (7 Geo. IV., c. 25, private), enabling them to grant leases of lands in the parishes of Hampstead and Marylebone. Soon after the accession of Queen Victoria, endeavours were made to obtain Primrose Hill for the Crown, and a public act was passed (5 and 6 Vict., c. 78), for effecting an exchange between Her Majesty and the provost and college of Eton. By this act Eton College received certain property at Eton, and gave up all their rights in the Hill. In the schedules setting forth the particulars of the transfer we read of Shepherd's Hill, Square Field, Bluehouse Field, and Rugmere Close, all in the vicinity of Primrose Hill. The Eton property is now largely built upon, and the appropriate names of Eton, College, King Henry's, Provost, Fellows', Oppidans', and Merton Roads, all on the north, south, and east of the Hill, mark its position. It may be added here that the North-Western Railway, entering a tunnel at Chalk Farm, passes under Primrose Hill, emerging again between St. John's Wood and Kilburn. This tunnel, which runs in a parallel direction with a portion of the Adelaide Road, is nearly 3,500 feet in length, and was made in 1834. It was for many years considered one of the greatest triumphs of engineering skill in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; in fact, it was the largest work of the kind carried out by any engineers up to that time. It passes through 1,100 yards of stiff London clay, "the most unmanageable and treacherous of all materials.” Within the last few years another tunnel has been constructed for the main line traffic. Primrose Hill.] CHALCOT FARM. 291 been a happy one. But, abused and maligned as she was in life, it is a pleasure to quote here the words of the Hon. Amelia Murray in her "Recollections :"-"She was traduced and misunderstood; one of those pure spirits little valued by the world, though worshipped by those who knew her well. Her friendship was the chief blessing of my earliest years, and her loss can never be replaced." A house in St. James's Terrace, at the corner of the Park and Primrose Hill, was the residence for many years of Mr. Hepworth Dixon, the editor of the Athenæum, and author of "Her Majesty's Tower," "New America,” &c. There is little more to be said about Primrose Hill in the way of history. On May 29, 1856, fireworks were exhibited here in celebration of the peace, as well as in Hyde, Green, and Victoria Parks. In 1864, under the auspices of a committee, an oak was planted by Mr. Phelps, the tragedian, on the south side of the hill, to commemorate the tercentenary of Shakespeare. Improvements have been made here at various times. Thus, fifty acres at the foot of the hill were enclosed and laid out as a park; appliances for gymnastics were erected near the Albert Road; and later in time, lamps were placed in the park and over the brow of the hill. These have a particularly pretty effect when lighted up at night. Few places are more appreciated by the popular pleasure-seeker on Easter and Whit Mondays than Primrose Hill, which is often so crowded that at a distance it seems as if one could walk upon the heads of the people congregated there. The summit is 206 feet above Trinity high-water mark of the Thames, and an exceedingly fine view can be obtained from it on a clear day. The hill was a place of meeting for many years, for popular demonstrations, &c., before Hyde Park was chosen. It is said that on the morning of the frightful gunpowder explosion on the Regent's Canal, of which we have spoken in the preceding chapter, an artist was waiting there to watch the rising of the sun, and to see London gradually awake. He saw and heard more than he expected. We may add that this spot is now entirely hemmed in by houses on all sides, but we hope that the prophecy of Mother Shipton-as Chalk Farm. This name is a corruption froin that when London shall surround Primrose Hill the streets of the metropolis will run with blood -may not be fulfilled, in our day at least. With a certain class of poets, akin to those of the "Lake" School, it became the fashion to exalt the London suburbs as paragons of beauty. The Alps were nothing to Primrose Hill, and the elms which then crowned its summit were as the cedars of Lebanon to the ready writer. Highgate outvied Parnassus, buttercups and dandelions outshone the exotics of southern climes. New phrases were coined even for the cow-keepers of the district; and, to use Cyrus Redding's phrase, "the peak of Hampstead became as famous in their view as Chimborazo to that of Humboldt." Professor Wilson, it may be remembered, lashed this school rather severely in Blackwood, on account of its tendency to magnify trifles. In St. George's Terrace, in the house nearest to the eastern slope of Primrose Hill, died, in 1860, Lady Byron, the widow of the poet. The marriage was, no doubt, ill-assorted, and could never have 1 Burnet describes Primrose Hill as "about a mile out of town, near St. Pancras Church." Such a description might answer in Burnet's time, when St. Pancras Church was the only landmark of importance in the neighbourhood, and they were separated merely by fields and cultivated grounds; but now a perfect city of houses has grown up between them. In fact, only a century ago the old church of St. Pancras was so very rural that it was only enclosed by a low and very old hand-railing, which in some parts was covered with docks and nettles. Whitefield's Chapel, in Tottenham Court Road; Montagu House, Great Russell Street; Bedford House, Bloomsbury Square; and Baltimore House, situated where Russell Square is now built, could all be seen from the churchyard. By this time the White House had become a tavern and teagardens for the benefit of ruralisers, and was known Chalcot, and its transitional form can be seen in Rocque's map of London (1746), where England's Lane, Haverstock Hill, is marked as Upper Chalk House Lane. The old manor-house of Upper Chalcot still remains in England's Lane on Haverstock Hill, and the site of Lower Chalcot is indicated by Chalk Farm and Chalcot Terrace. The etymology of Chalk Farm is evidently a contraction or vulgar abridgment of Chalcot Farm, and has nothing whatever to do with the nature of the soil, as may perhaps by some people be supposed; there being no chalk in the neighbourhood, the whole district resting on London clay. The next point in the history of Chalk Farm is its selection as the scene of frequent duels. It was particularly suitable for the purpose, as it was near town, and at the same time quite secluded. Before the Regent's Park was planned, Marylebone Fields were looked upon as quite a wilderness, and few Londoners strolled as far northwards as Primrose Hill. Chalk Farm for some years, indeed, as a place for "affairs of honour," even rivalled in popularity Wimbledon : Common, where the Duke of York fought Colonel of honour," has described the spot where the Lennox in 1789; Battersea Fields, where the Duke would-be duellists met as "screened on one side of Wellington met face to face with the Earl of by large trees." He also induced Byron to add Winchilsea, in 1829; and Putney Heath, where to his lines a note, to the effect that the pistol was Pitt met. Tierney in 1798, and Castlereagh and actually loaded. Moore, it is stated, borrowed Canning exchanged shots in 1809. "Then there his pistols from a brother poet, who sent the Bow was Chalk Farm," writes Mr. S. Palmer, in his Street officers to prevent the two little men from "History of St. Pancras," "which was better known killing each other. Here is Moore's narrative of latterly as the favourite place for discontented men this hostile meeting as recorded in his diary :— to meet in order to settle their differences with the pistol, as if gunpowder were the stronger argument, and a steady aim the best logic. This absurd custom is now dying out, and it is quite possible in the present day for a man to be a man of honour and yet decline to risk his own more valuable life against a man who values his at nothing." One of the earliest duels on record as having taken place at Chalk Farm was that between Captain Hervey Aston and Lieutenant Fitzgerald, in the summer of 1790, a lady, as usual, being in the case. Fitzgerald had the first fire, and shot Aston through the neck; he, however, recovered, but was shot in another duel a few years later. In April, 1803, Lieutenant-Colonel Montgomery and Captain Macnamara met near Chalk Farm to settle, by force of arms, a dispute which had occurred between them in Hyde Park. The quarrel arose out of the fact that the dog of the one "officer and gentleman" had snarled and growled at the dog of the other. The dog's growl, however, was terribly avenged in the sequel, for the colonel was killed and the captain severely wounded. Captain Macnamara was tried for murder at the Old Bailey, but although the judge summed up for manslaughter, the jury returned a verdict of "Not guilty." Three years later, an encounter took place here between "Tom" Moore and Francis Jeffrey; but, fortunately, although the principals were in earnest, the affair came to an abrupt termination by the arrival of the police officers before the signal for firing was given. It was stated at the time that the pistols were loaded with only blank cartridges. This little matter gave rise to an epigram which ended "They only fire ball-cartridge at reviews." "I must have slept pretty well; for Hume, I remember, had to wake me in the morning; and the chaise being in readiness, we set off for Chalk Farm. Hume had also taken the precaution of providing a surgeon to be within call. On reaching the ground we found Jeffrey and his party already arrived. I say his party, for although Horner only was with him, there were, as we afterwards found, two or three of his attached friends (and no man, I believe, could ever boast of a greater number) who, in their anxiety for his safety, had accompanied him, and were hovering about the spot. And then was it that, for the first time, my excellent friend Jeffrey and I met face to face. He was standing with the bag, which contained the pistols, in his hand, while Horner was looking anxiously around. It was agreed that the spot where we found them, which was screened on one side by large trees, would be as good for our purpose as any we could select; and Horner, after expressing some anxiety respecting some men whom he had seen suspiciously hovering about, but who now appeared to have departed, retired with Hume behind the trees, for the purpose of loading the pistols, leaving Jeffrey and myself together. All this had occupied but a very few minutes. We, of course, had bowed to each other at meeting; but the first words I recollect to have passed between us was Jeffrey's saying, on our being left together, What a beautiful morning it is!''Yes,' I answered, with a slight smile, 'a morning made for better purposes;' to which his only response was a sort of assenting sigh. As our assistants were not, any more than ourselves, very expert at warlike matters, they were rather slow in their pro Byron alludes to this report in his "English Bards ceedings; and as Jeffrey and I walked up and and Scotch Reviewers :" "Health to great Jeffrey! Heaven preserve his life, down together, we came once in sight of their operations; upon which I related to him, as rather apropos to the purpose, that Billy Egan, the Irish barrister, once said, when, as he was sauntering about in like manner while the pistols were loading, his antagonist, a fiery little fellow, called out to him angrily to keep his ground. 'Don't make yourself unaisy, my dear fellow,' said Egan; 'sure, isn't it bad enough to take the dose, without being by at the mixing up?' Jeffrey had scarcely |