Stoke Newington.]

Knight's Penny Cyclopædia:-"The fall of the New River is three feet per mile, which gives a velocity of about two miles an hour. The average width is about twenty-one feet, and the average depth about four feet in the centre; so that, taking it at about half that depth, there is a section of forty-two square feet of water flowing into London at the rate of two miles an hour. At the sluice, near Highbury, the river is dammed back to the height of twenty inches, and at Enfield to two feet four inches; and there are three or four more such interruptions for the purpose of checking the current. . . The New River is occasionally rendered dirty, especially in winter, by drainage from the land and villages along its course; and the company has been at a great expense in order to purify the water before it is delivered to the inhabitants of London. For this purpose two large settling reservoirs were formed in 1832 at Stoke Newington, under the direction of Mr. Mylne, the company's engineer. The water here covers an area of thirty-eight acres, more than twenty feet deep in some parts, and twelve feet on an average throughout. The water of the New River can be turned into the upper reservoir, where it settles, and it is then drawn off by a steamengine, and poured into the lower reservoir, where another settlement takes place, and the water is then turned again once more into the channel of Bathing in the New River is entirely prohibited; and men called 'walksmen' mow the bed of the river every week in order to keep

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down the growth of weeds, which are stopped by gratings placed at intervals, where the weeds are regularly removed."

We may conclude this chapter with an apt quotation from the Rev. T. Jackson's "Lecture on Stoke Newington :"-" It is said that in North America the line of civilisation stretches further and further into the west at the rate of about fifteen miles a year. The modest backwoodsman who now stands on the frontier of civilised life, finds himself a twelvemonth hence within its boundary. The progress of London—the Babylon and Nineveh of modern times-is scarcely less remarkable, if less rapid. There are persons yet living (1855) who remember the erection of Finsbury Square, upon what was then the northern limit of the great town. Others have heard their fathers speak of the wall in front of Old Bedlam, and of the cherry-trees that grew in Broad Street and London Wall. Now the south of Stoke Newington may be regarded as within the capital. The meadows and cornfields of Kingsland are no more; they are covered with lines of busy and well-inhabited streets. The tide of population is scarcely arrested by the uplands of Highbury Hill, once the seat of a Roman summer camp, and threatens to invade the quiet hill-top of Crouch End. When will our green fields be finally absorbed? when will Lordship Road be covered with villas, to be, as time rolls on, gradually deteriorated, till they are joined by intervening houses and broken into shops ?"

In the foregoing chapter we have briefly referred to the mansion of Sir Thomas Abney, the entrance to which was on the north side of Church Street. It was a large square substantial red-brick building with stone quoins, and dated its erection from the close of the seventeenth century. The roof was flat, with a balustrade around it; and it had a central turret, which commanded an extensive prospect of the surrounding country. The iron entrance-gates, which still remain, are richly ornamented with carved work of fruit and flowers.

The principal rooms of the house were all large and stately, and the walls were lined with oak wainscoting. On the first floor an apartment termed the "painted chamber" was finished in a costly manner, and might be considered an interesting specimen of the taste of the age in which it was arranged. The mouldings were gilt, and the whole of the panels on the sides were painted with subjects taken from the works of Ovid. On the window-shutters were some pictorial decorations-strangely contrasting with the above

The building, with its "old brick front, its old brick wall, and its old iron gate, all redolent of the times of William III. and Queen Anne," was commenced about the year 1690, by a Mr. Gunston, who at that time had purchased considerable property at Stoke Newington. He died, however, before the house was completely finished; an event which drew forth a funeral poem from the pen of Dr. Watts, in which, not content with the calling on "the buildings to weep," he writes

"Mourn, ye young gardens, ye unfinished gates!" The mansion now became the property and residence of Sir Thomas and Lady Abney, who, with their family, of which Dr. Watts may be conaidered a member, took up their abode here.

Sir Thomas Abney was a member of the Fish

head of the rebel Wat Tyler being carried on a pole before him." "Sir Thomas," as John Timbs informs us, "was not more distinguished by his hospitality than by his personal piety. Neither business nor pleasure ever interrupted his observance of public and private domestic worship. Upon the evening of the day that he entered on the office of Lord Mayor, without any notice he withdrew from the public assembly at Guildhall after supper, went back to his house, there performed his devotions, and then returned back to his company."

Isaac Watts began to preach at the age of twentythree, while living under the roof of Sir John and Lady Hartopp at Stoke Newington, where, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, he was engaged

grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return to them with redoubled vigour and delight."

Watts was chaplain to the household of the good old knight; and morning and evening he led the devotions, and on Sunday night preached to the family. The doctor's study in Lady Abney's house at Stoke Newington was the local centre of his existence. From it he at times diverged only to return to it again with a deeper feeling of home attachment. Mrs. S. Carter Hall, in her "Pilgrimages to English Shrines," describing her visit to this mansion, after speaking of the library, says, "We followed our conductor to the top of the house, where, in a turret upon the roof, many of Dr. Watts's literary and religious works were composed. We sat upon the seamed bench, rough and worn, the very bench upon which he sat by daylight and moonlight-poet, logician, and Christian teacher. The chamber upon whose walls hung the parting breath of this benevolent man might well be an object of the deepest interest to all who follow, however humbly, the faith of Jesus. We were told of a little child who, knowing every hymn he had written, was taken into his room, having some vague but happy idea that she should meet him there. Learning, as she eagerly looked round, that the author of 'Watts's Hymns' was dead, she burst into bitter tears, which did not cease while she remained in the house. Many of his works are said to have been produced in this room, which, though small, was lofty and pleasant."

Here is a picture of the doctor's study and its learned occupant, as drawn by Dr. Stoughton, in his "Shades and Echoes of Old London :"-" Here are some lines from Horace, hung up in a frame outside the door, denouncing the faithless friend. Within, the shelves are loaded with a goodly array of books-poetical, philosophical, historical, theological, and critical. Where there are no shelves, there are prints of noted persons, chiefly divines. A lofty panel covers the fireplace, with inscriptions from Horace on either side: the one, where the portraits are numerous, indicating that the space is filled up by shades of the departed; the other, where they are fewer, soliciting additions to the illustrious group. The classical fancifulness of all this indicates the scholar and the poet; but the avocations of the worthy occupant of this literary retreat indicate those noble purposes, those high Christian aims, of which all else in his character and habits were ornamental adjuncts. There he sits at his writing table, enveloped in a scholarly robe, small in figure, and sickly in complexion; the forehead not so broad and high as we might

expect, limited somewhat by the wig that crowns and borders it; the features large and marked, the eyes clear and burning."

"Isaac Watts," observes the Rev. T. Jackson, in his lecture on Stoke Newington, "adopted substantially the fatal errors of Arius." This accusation may or may not be true; but as Dr. Stoughton remarks, "without trimming, without temporising, he was quiet and without bustle; without boasting or parade, he did his own business-the work that God had given him. And now no church repudiates him; Nonconformity cannot monopolise him. His eulogium is pronounced by Samuel Johnson and Robert Southey, as well as by Josiah Conder; and whilst his monument looks down on Dissenting graves in Abney Park, his effigy reposes beneath the consecrated roof of Westminster Abbey." Dr. Watts died at Abney Park, surrounded by his friends, on the 24th of November, 1748; and his remains were interred in Bunhill Fields.

Miss Abney, the daughter of Sir Thomas Abney, ordered by her will that on her death the estate of Abney Park should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor, and distributed among charities. It was accordingly sold, and the purchase money of the new owner, whose name was Eade, was devoted to the execution of her intentions.

The mansion, after having been for many years used as a college for the instruction of youths of the Wesleyan Society, was pulled down in 1845, the park and garden-grounds having, four or five years previously, been converted into a cemetery. Many of the fine old cedars and yews that adorn the cemetery flourished here during the lifetime of Dr. Watts, who, it is said, wrote much of his poetry beneath their shade, and upon the mound consecrated by his name, and which, a vague tradition tells us, covers the ashes of no less a personage than Oliver Cromwell. We have already had occasion, more than once, to record some of the traditions concerning Cromwell's supposed restingplace.* That his body received but a mock funeral at Westminster, and was really peaceably reposing elsewhere, is said to have been a favourite belief with his partisans; and General Fleetwood's residence at Stoke Newington, the circumstance of his marriage with Bridget, the eldest daughter of the "Lord High Protector," and widow of General Ireton, and the fact that he was a very distinguished character during the Protectorate of his father-inlaw-may easily have led to the tradition above mentioned, however unfounded. A large portion of Abney Park, ranging from the magnificent

* See Vol. III., pp. 437, 539; Vol. IV., p. 546.