Camden Town.] SIR HENRY BISHOP. various subjects connected with the veterinary art. The buildings are of plain brick, and have an extensive frontage to the street, within which they stretch back to the distance of more than 200 yards. The theatre for dissections and lectures is judiciously planned; and in a large contiguous apartment are numerous anatomical illustrations. The infirmary will hold about sixty horses. There is likewise a forge, for the shoeing of horses on the most approved principles, and several paddocks are attached to the institution. Not far from the Veterinary College lived, in 1802, Mr. Andrew Wilson, a gentleman who is described as "of the Stereotype Office," and who took out a patent for the process of stereotyping. He was not, however, the original inventor of the stereotypic art, nor was he destined to be the man who should revive it practically or perfect it. As early as the year 1711, a Dutchman, Van der Mey, introduced a process for consolidating types after they had been set up, by soldering them together at the back; and it is asserted that the process, as we now understand it, was practised in 1725 by William Gedd, or Gedde, of Edinburgh, who endeavoured to apply it to the printing of Bibles for the University of Cambridge. It is well known that the process was, half a century later or more, carried out into common use by the then Lord Stanhope, at his private printing-press at Chevening, in Kent. Pratt Street, as we have already stated, is so called after the family name of Lord Camden. This is one of the principal streets in Camden Town, and connects Great College Street with the High Street. In it is the burial-ground for the parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, together with a chapel and residence for the officiating clergyman. The site formed originally two fields, called Upper Meadow and Upper Brook Meadow, and was purchased from the Earl of Camden and Dr. Hamilton, Prebendary of Canteloes, in accordance with the provisions of an Act of Parliament passed for that purpose, and the cemetery was laid out and consecrated by the Bishop of London in 1805. Here lies buried Charles Dibdin, the author of most of the best of our naval songs. Charles Knight speaks of him, somewhat sarcastically, it must be owned, as a man who, "had he rendered a tithe of the services actually performed by him to the naval strength of his country under the name of a 'Captain R.N.' instead of as a writer, he would have died a wealthy peer instead of drawing his last breath in poverty." St. Stephen's Church, in this street, with its adjoining parsonage and schools, covering several 323 acres, is a large and commodious structure, in the Grecian style. It was built about the year 1836. Among the residents in Camden Town in former times, besides those we have named, was the veteran composer, Sir Henry Rowley Bishop-the last who wrote English music in a distinctive national style, carrying the traditions of Purcell, Arne, Boyce, &c., far on into the present century. Born towards the close of the last century, he had as his early instructor Signor Bianchi. In 1806 he composed the music for a ballet performed at Covent Garden Theatre, and shortly afterwards commenced to write regularly for the stage. From 1810 to 1824 he held the post of musical director at Covent Garden, and subsequently became a director of the Concerts of Ancient Music. He received the honour of knighthood in 1842, but it was a barren honour; and in spite of a knighthood and the Professorship of Music at Oxford, added to the more solid rewards of successful authorship, his last days were spent in comparative poverty. Such are the rewards held out in this country to professional eminence ! In every house where music, and more especially vocal music, is welcome, the name of Sir Henry Bishop has long been, and must long remain, a household word. Who has not been soothed by the melody of "Blow, gentle gales," charmed by the measures of "Lo! here the gentle lark," enlivened by the animated strains of Foresters, sound the cheerful horn," or touched by the sadder music of "The winds whistle cold?" Who has not been haunted by the insinuating tones of "Tell me, my heart," "Bid me discourse," or "Where the wind blows," which Rossini, the minstrel of the South, loved so well? Who has not felt sympathy with "As it fell upon a day, in the merry month of May," or admired that masterpiece of glee and chorus, "The chough and the crow," or been moved to jollity at some convivial feast by "Mynheer von Dunck," the most original and genial of comic glees? Sir Henry Bishop died in 1855, at his residence in Cambridge Street, Edgware Road. 66 As we pass down Great College Street, we have on our left, stretching away towards Islington, a sort of "No man's land," formerly known as Agar Town, and filling up a part of the interval between the Midland and the Great Northern Railway, of which we shall have more to say in a future chapter. On our right, too, down to a comparatively recent date, the character of the locality was not much better; indeed, the whole of the neighbourhood which lay-and part of which still liesbetween Clarendon Square and the Brill and St. Pancras Road, would answer to the description of what Charles Dickens, in his "Uncommercial being in poor circumstances," is one of the approTraveller," calls a "shy neighbourhood," abounding in bird and birdcage shops, costermongers' shops, old rag and bottle shops, donkeys, barrows, dirty fowls, &c., and with the inevitable gin-shop at every corner. "The very dogs of shy neighbourhoods usually betray a slinking consciousness of priate remarks of "Boz;" and another is to the same effect-"Nothing in shy neighbourhoods perplexes me more than the bad company which birds keep. Foreign birds often get into good society, but British birds are inseparable from low associates." Biographical Sketch of St. Pancras-Churches bearing his Name-Corruption of the Name-The Neighbourhood of St. Pancras in Former Times-Population of the Parish-Ancient Manors-Desolate Condition of the Locality in the Sixteenth Century-Notices of the Manors in Domesday Book and Early Surveys-The Fleet River and its Occasional Floods-The "Elephant and Castle " Tavern-The Workhouse -The Vestry-Old St. Pancras Church and its Antiquarian Associations-Celebrated Persons interred in the Churchyard-Ned Ward's Will-Father O'Leary-Chatterton's Visit to the Churchyard-Mary Wollstoncraft Godwin-Roman Catholic Burials-St. Giles's Burialground and the Midland Railway-Wholesale Desecration of the Graveyards-The "Adam and Eve" Tavern and Tea-gardens-St. Pancras Wells-Antiquities of the Parish-Extensive Demolition of Houses for the Midland Railway. BEFORE venturing to set foot in either of the "shy" localities to which we have referred at the close of the previous chapter, it would, perhaps, be as well to say something about the parish of St. Pancras generally-the mother parish, of which Camden, Kentish, Agar, and Somers Towns may interest beyond tea-gardens and road-side inns; and therefore we welcome our return at St. Pancras into a region of history, where the memorials of past celebrities abound. In fact, it must be owned that the whole of the district through which we have travelled since we quitted Kensington, and crossed the Uxbridge Road, is extremely void of interest, as, indeed, is nearly the whole of the north-western district of London, a geographical entity which we owe to Sir Rowland Hill and the authorities of the General Post-Office. St. Pancras, after whom this district is named, was a young Phrygian nobleman who suffered martyrdom at Rome under the Emperor Diocletian for his adherence to the Christian faith; he became a favourite saint in England. The Priory of which we shall speak when we come to Euston Square; and the ancient or Old St. Pancras, in St. Pancras Road. Of the other churches in England dedicated to this saint, we may mention one in the City-St. Pancras, Soper Lane, now incorporated with St. Mary-le-Bow; Pancransweek, Devon; Widdecome-in-the-Moor, Devon; Exeter; Chichester; Coldred, in Kent; Alton Pancras, Dorset; Arlington, Sussex; and Wroot, in Lincolnshire. In consequence of the early age at which he suffered for the faith, St. Pancras was subsequently regarded as the patron saint of children. "There was then," as Chambers remarks in his "Book of Days," "a certain fitness in dedicating to him the first church in a country which owed its conversion to three children "-alluding, of course, to the fair humorous description of a journey hither, by way children whom Gregory saw in the streets of of Islington, in which the author thus speaks of Rome, the sight of whom had moved the Pope to the name of the place:-" From hence [i.e., from send St. Augustine hither. "But there was also Islington] I parted with reluctance to Pancras, as another and closer link which connected the first it is written, or Pancridge, as it is pronounced; but church built in England by St. Augustine with which should be both pronounced and written PanSt. Pancras, for," adds Mr. Chambers, "the much- grace. This emendation I will venture meo arbitrio: loved monastery on the Coelian Mount, which nav, in the Greek language, signifies all; which, Gregory had founded, and of which Augustine was added to the English word grace, maketh all grace, prior, had been erected on the very estate which or Pangrace: and, indeed, this is a very proper had belonged anciently to the family of Pancras." appellation to a place of so much sanctity, as The festival of St. Pancras is kept, in the Roman Pangrace is universally esteemed. However this Catholic Church, on the 12th of May, under which be, if you except the parish church and its fine day his biography will be found in the "Lives of bells, there is little in Pangrace worth the attention the Saints," by Alban Butler, who tells us that he of the curious observer." We fear that the derivasuffered martyrdom at the early age of fourteen, tion proposed for Pancras must be regarded as at Rome, in the year 304. After being beheaded utterly absurd. for the faith, he was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius, which subsequently took his name. His relics are spoken of by Gregory the Great. St. Gregory of Tours calls him the Avenger of Perjuries, and tells us that God openly punished false oaths made before his relics. The church at Rome dedicated to the saint, of which we have spoken above, stands on the spot where he is said to have suffered; in this church his body is still kept. "England and Italy, France and Spain abound," adds Alban Butler, "in churches bearing his name, in most of which relics of the saint were kept and shown in the ages before the Reformation. The first church consecrated by St. Augustine at Canterbury is said by Mr. Baring Gould, in his "Lives of the Saints," to have been dedicated to Many of our readers will remember, and others will thank us for reminding them, that the scene of a great part of the Tale of a Tub, by Swift, is laid in the fields about "Pankridge." Totten Court is there represented as a country mansion isolated from all other buildings; it is pretended that a robbery is committed "in the ways over the country," between Kentish Town and Hampstead Heath, and the warrant for the apprehension of the robber is issued by a "Marribone” justice of the peace. Again, we find the name spelt as above by George Wither, in his "Britain's Remembrancer" (1628): "Those who did never travel till of late Half way to Pankridge from the city gate." In proof of the rural character of the district some three centuries ago, it may be well to quote the words of the actor Nash, in his greetings to Kemp in the time of Elizabeth: "As many allhailes to thy person as there be haicockes in July at Pancredge" (sic). St. Pancras. In art, St. Pancras is always represented as a boy, with a sword uplifted in one hand and a palm-branch in the other; and it may be added that the seal of the parish represents the saint with similar emblems. There is a magnificent brass of Prior Nelond, at Cowfold, in Sussex, where St. Pancras is represented with a youthful Even so lately as the commencement of the countenance, holding a book and a palm-branch, reign of George III., fields, with uninterrupted and treading on a strange figure, supposed to be views of the country, led from Bagnigge Wells intended to symbolise his triumphs over the arch-northwards towards St. Pancras, where another enemy of mankind, in allusion to the etymology well and public tea-gardens invited strollers within of the saint's name. The saint figures in Alfred its sanitary premises. It seems strange to learn Tennyson's poem of 66 Harold," where William that the way between this place and London was Duke of Normandy exclaimsparticularly unsafe to pedestrians after dark, and that robberies between this spot and Gray's Inn Lane, and also between the latter and the "Jew's Harp" Tavern, of which we have spoken in a previous chapter, were common in the last century. "Lay thou thy hand upon this golden pall; Woven into the gold. Swear thou on this." St. Pancras is often said to be the most populous parish in the metropolis, if taken in its full extent as including "a third of the hamlet of Highgate, with the other hamlets of Battle Bridge, Camden St. Pancras.] POPULATION OF ST. PANCRAS. Town, Kentish Town, Somers Town, all Totten- 327 century, is emphatically described by Norden in his work above mentioned. After noticing the solitary condition of the church, he says: “Yet about the structure have bin manie buildings, now decaied, leaving poore Pancrast without companie or comfort." In some manuscript additions to his work, the same writer has the following observations :-" Although this place be, as it were, forsaken of all, and true men seldom frequent the same, but upon deveyne occasions, yet it is visayed by thieves, who assemble not there to pray, but to waite for prayer; and many fall into their handes, clothed, that are glad when they are escaped naked. Walk not there too late." As lately as the year 1745, there were only two or three houses near the church, and twenty years later the population of the parish was under six hundred. At the first census taken in the present century it had risen to more than 35,000, and in 1861 it stood at very little under 200,000. There has, however, been a decrease since that time on account of the extensive clearances made for the terminus of the Midland Railway, of which we shall speak presently. Pancras is mentioned in "Domesday Book," where it is stated that "the land of this manor is of one caracute, and employs one plough. On the estate are twenty-four men, who pay a rent of thirty There are four ancient prebendal manors in the shillings per annum." The next notice which we parish, namely, Pancras; Cantlowes, or Kentish find of this manor is its sale, on the demise of Lady Town; Tothill, or Tottenham Court; and Rugge- Ferrers, in 1375, to Sir Robert Knowles; and in mure, or Rugmere. The holder of the prebendal 1381 of its reversion, which belonged to the Crown, stall of St. Pancras in St. Paul's Cathedral was to the prior of the house of Carthusian Monks also, ex officio, the "Confessarius" of the Bishop of of the Holy Salutation. After the dissolution London. Among those who have held this post of the monasteries it came into the possession of may be enumerated the learned Dr. Lancelot Lord Somers, in the hands of whose descendants Andrews, afterwards Bishop of Winchester-of the principal portion of it-Somers Town—now whom we shall have more to say when we come to his tomb in St. Saviour's, Southwark; Dr. Sherlock, and Archdeacon Paley; and in more modern times, Canon Dale. The church had attached to it about seventy acres of land, which were let in 1641 for £10, and nearly two hundred years later, being leased to a Mr. William Agar, formed the site of Agar Town, as mentioned in the previous chapter. Norden thought the church "not to yield in antiquitie to Paules in London:" in his "Speculum Britannia" he describes it as "all alone, utterly forsaken, old, and weather-beaten." remains. Of the manor of Cantelows, or Kennestoune (now, as we have already seen, called Kentish Town), it is recorded in the above-mentioned survey that it is held by the Canons of St. Paul's, and that it comprises four miles of land. The entry states that "there is plenty of timber in the hedgerows, good pasture for cattle, a running brook, and two 20d. rents. Four villeins, together with seven bordars, hold this land under the Canons of St. Paul's at forty shillings a year rent. In King Edward's time it was raised to sixty shillings." Brewer, in his "London and Middlesex," says: In the reign of Henry IV., Henry Bruges, Garter "When a visitation of the church of Pancras was King-at-Arms, had a mansion in this manor, where made in the year 1251, there were only forty on one occasion he entertained the German Emhouses in the parish." The desolate situation of peror, Sigismund, during his visit to this country. the village, in the latter part of the sixteenth The building, which stood near the old Episcopal |