also is "Master Richard Candish [Cavendish], of Suffolk, Esq." An inscription in verse upon the latter monument informs us that "this memorial was promised and made by Margaret, Countess of Cōberland, 1601."

THE ALEXANDRA PALACE, 1876. (See page 435.) glass, and among the monuments are a few preserved from the older building. Among these is a large mural slab, on which are engraved the kneeling figures of a man, two females, and a boy; the dress appears to be of the latter part of the sixteenth century, and the monument was erected to the memory of George Rey, of Highgate. A Corinthian column, surmounted with armorial bearings, commemorates Dr. Lewis Atterbury (brother of the celebrated bishop), some time rector of the

The churchyard is sheltered by rows of tall elms, which impart to it an air of retirement and seclusion. Here, amongst other tombs, on the northern side of the church, is that of the poet Rogers, of whom we have spoken in our account of St. James's

stated.

Place.* It is an altar-tomb, resting on a high base, In this house his youngest daughter died, as above and surrounded by an iron railing. The following are the inscriptions on the face of the tomb :-" In this vault lie the remains of Henry Rogers, Esq., of Highbury Terrace; died December 25, 1832, aged 58. Also of Sarah Rogers, of the Regent's Park, sister of the above; died January 29, 1855, aged 82. Also of Samuel Rogers, author of the 'Pleasures of Memory,' brother of the above-named Henry and Sarah Rogers; born at Newington Green, July 30, 1763, died at St. James's Place, Westminster, December 18, 1855." Near the south-east corner of the churchyard an upright stone marks the grave of Anne Jane Barbara, the youngest daughter of Thomas Moore, the poet.

Amongst the rectors of Hornsey there have been a few who have become known beyond the circle of the parish. Of these we may mention Thomas Westfield, who resigned the living in 1637, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, and who is described as "the most nervous of men." His biographer says that "he never, though almost fifty years a preacher, went up into the pulpit but he trembled; and never preached before the king but once, and then he fainted." "Yet he was held in such esteem by all parties," writes Mr. Howitt in his "Northern Heights of London," "that on May 13, 1643, the committee for sequestrating the estates of delinquents, being informed that his tenants refused to pay his rents as Bishop of Bristol, speedily compelled them, and granted him a safe conduct for his journey to Bristol with his family, being a man of great learning and merit, and advanced in years. His successor at Hornsey, Thomas Lant, did not meet with quite such agreeable treatment. turned out of his living and house with great cruelty by the Puritans, who would not allow him even to procure a place of retirement. Samuel Bendy, rector in 1659, petitioned the committee, setting forth that his income was only £92, out of which he had to pay £16 to the wife and children of the late incumbent. The committee made him recompense." The Rev. William Cole, the Cambridge antiquary, and the friend and correspondent of Horace Walpole, held the rectory for about a year in the middle of the last century.

He was

At the end of the lane running west from the church, and at the foot of Muswell Hill, is Lalla Rookh Cottage, where Moore was residing in 1817 when he wrote, or, at all events, when he published, the poem bearing the title of "Lalla Rookh," for which, as we learn from his "Life," he received £3,000 from Messrs. Longmans, the publishers.

• See Vol. IV., pp. 172—175.

A native of Dublin and a son of Roman Catholic parents, Moore came over to England when still young to push his fortunes in the world of literature, and became the poet laureate of Holland House and of the Whig party. During his latter years he occupied Sloperton Cottage, a small house adjoining Lord Lansdowne's park at Bowood, near Calne, in Wiltshire, where he died in 1852, at the age of seventy-three. Lord Russell claims for Moore the first place among our lyric poets, but few will be willing to allow his superiority to Robert Burns, though he was certainly the English Beranger. He was probably the best hand at improvised songwriting on the common topics of every-day life, but he had no real depth of feeling. A refined, voluptuous, and natural character, equally frank and gay, he passed, after all, a somewhat butterfly existence, and has left behind him but little that will last except his "Irish Melodies."

Continuing along the pleasant lane westward from Lalla Rookh Cottage, we come to Muswell Hill, a place which has now become familiar to Londoners-and, probably, to the majority of readers-from the fact that its summit and sides are for the most part occupied by the Alexandra Palace and Park, which covers altogether an area of about five hundred acres. Before venturing to give a description of this place of amusement, or a narrative of its unfortunate career, we may be pardoned for saying a few words about the hill whereon it is situated.

Muswell Hill, then, we may observe, derives its name from a famous well on the top of the hill, where formerly the fraternity of St. John of Jerusalem, in Clerkenwell, had their dairy, with a large farm adjacent. Here they built a chapel for the benefit of some nuns, in which they fixed the image of Our Lady of Muswell. These nuns had the sole management of the dairy; and it is singular that the said well and farm do, at this time, belong to the parish of St. James, Clerkenwell. The water of this spring was then deemed a miraculous cure for scrofulous and cutaneous disorders; and, as tradition says, a king of Scotland-whose name, by the way, does not transpire-being afflicted with a painful malady, made a pilgrimage hither, and was perfectly cured. At any rate, the spring was much resorted to, and became an object of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages; indeed, for some considerable time there was a great throng of pilgrims to the shrine of Our Lady, who came laden with their offerings and buoyed up with their hopes from all parts of the country.

Hornsey.]

THE ALEXANDRA PALACE.

435

style; and round the eight columns which supported the great central dome were ranged groups of statuary surrounded by flowers. Behind this ornamental walk were placed the cases for the exhibitors, mixed, as in the nave itself, with flowers and statuary. Then there were a variety of courts

Lysons, writing in 1795, remarks that "the well still remains; but," he somewhat naïvely adds, "it is not famed, as I find, for any extraordinary virtues." Muswell farmhouse, with the site of the chapel, together with the manor of Muswell, was alienated in 1546 by William Cowper to William Goldynge, and, after a few other changes of ownership, passed-such as the glass court, china court, furniture into the hands of the Rowes, in whose possession it continued at the end of the seventeenth century. It soon afterwards came into the family of Pulteney; and, according to Lysons, on the death of Lady Bath, devolved, under Sir William Pulteney's will, on the Earl of Darlington. Muswell Hill, it may be added, was in former times called also Pinsenhall Hill.

court, courts for French goods, courts for American, Indian, Italian-in short, all the courts which we are accustomed to find in a regular exhibition. At the north end of the centre transept was built a splendid organ by Willis, decorated in a style to be in harmony with its surroundings, and in front of this was the orchestra. A large concert-room was in another part of the building. Then there was a theatre capable of holding 2,000 spectators, and having a stage as large as that of Drury Lane

Shortly after the close of the second International Exhibition (that of 1862) at South Kensington, it was resolved to erect on this spot a place of popular | Theatre. entertainment for the working classes of northern London, which should rival the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. To the great mass of people in the north of London the Crystal Palace, except on great occasions and great attractions, is so distant as to be almost inaccessible; and it is reported, as was proved by railway returns, it is mainly the south London population which keeps up the great building "over the water." There seemed no valid reason, therefore, why the north of London, with at least three times the number of inhabitants, should not be able to support a Crystal Palace of its own. It was considered, moreover, that the Alexandra Palace—for such the building was to be named, in honour of the Princess Alexandra-would not be dependent on support from local influences. The rare beauty of its site, which probably has not its equal anywhere round London, together with the special attractions in the building, would be sure to make it a universal favourite with both the north and south of the metropolis.

With regard to the palace itself, it was decided to purchase some portion of the materials of the International Exhibition, and with them to erect the building on the summit of Muswell Hill, in the same manner as the originators of its prototype at Sydenham had purchased for that purpose the materials of the Great Exhibition of 1851. The new palace, therefore, was almost entirely built out of the materials of the Great Exhibition of 1862, but totally altered and improved in their re-construction. It had only one of the noble domes in the centre transept, with two less lofty octagon towers at either end. It had one main nave, exclusive of the entrances, about 900 feet long, and three cross transepts of about 400 feet each. The building was beautifully decorated in the Renaissance

During the progress of the building, sundry stoppages and hindrances arose from various causes; and in the grounds great difficulty was at times experienced through the subsidence of the soil; indeed, to use the words of one of the contractor's foremen, the hills round Muswell had during one winter "been slipping about like anything." Strange as such a statement may seem, it is literally true. The hills, it is asserted, had been moving in all sorts of directions. They are mostly of gravel, but resting, at about twenty feet deep, on a two-feet seam of soapy clay, which, when the superincumbent mass was thoroughly penetrated by the constant rain, allowed it to slip. Fortunately, the Alexandra Palace was so deeply moored in its foundations that it never shifted or showed the slightest signs of any subsidence or yielding in any direction; yet a very formidable landslip took place close by it, and in one night between three and four acres slipped quietly down a few feet. Another hill came forward as much as three inches in a single night, but beyond this landslip none of the hills round the palace have moved to any material extent, except where the viaduct for the railway crosses over a small valley just before arriving at the palace.

After a delay of some six or seven years beyond the first appointed time, the palace and grounds being all but completed, the place was opened to the public on the 24th of May, 1873. The proceedings, though not graced by the presence of royalty, were as successful an inauguration of a national institution as could possibly have been expected. The opening was inaugurated by a grand concert, presided over by Sir Michael Costa, in which some of the leading singers of the day took part. But, alas! about mid-day on the 9th of June the whole

building fell a prey to the flames, and all that was great beauty in connection with the surrounding left was a melancholy and gutted ruin. The fire originated at the base of the great dome, where some workmen had been employed in "repairing the roof," and had, possibly, let some lighted tobacco fall into a crevice. During the brief period the palace was open (fourteen days only) it was visited by as many as 124,124 persons, and its success was no longer doubtful. Thus encouraged, the directors resolved at once to rebuild the palace, and in its re-construction they availed themselves of the experience so dearly purchased, particularly with reference to arrangements for protection from fire.

CROUCH END.

to the north; and here we meet with an elm, murder of his steward, for which he was executed at standing alone on the turf, as perfect in its giant | Tyburn.* His conduct even whilst here was most symmetry as the holly we have just admired. eccentric, and such as might fairly have consigned Then, perhaps, the monarch of all, we come upon a gigantic chestnut, which seems as if, like the trees once in the Garden of Eden, no touch of iron had ever fallen upon its limbs." Notwithstanding all these varied attractions, the Alexandra Palace has never yet answered the expectations of its promoters, and has more than once been offered for sale by auction and withdrawn, the offers falling far short of the value put upon the property by its owners.