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which he would often allude with pleasure in after | Jerrold acted as stage-manager. When he quitted life. Even at this time he was a great devourer of light magazine literature, and, along with his school-fellows, got up a miniature theatre, on the boards of which they would perform such pieces as The Miller and his Men. On another occasion they would act the part of mendicants, and go up as poor boys" to ladies in the streets, and ask for coppers-laughing heartily when they got a refusal. Verily, even at that early age, in his case the child was father of the man.

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In the house close to Mornington Crescent the veteran artist, George Cruikshank, resided for many years, having succeeded in it another artist, whose name stands even higher in the annals of art namely, Clarkson Stanfield, R.A. Born

the service he accepted an engagement as scenepainter at the old Royalty Theatre, near Wellclose Square, which was then noted as a sailors' theatre, and in course of time transferred his services to Drury Lane Theatre. In 1827 he exhibited, at the British Institution, his first large picture, "Wreckers off Fort Rouge;" and from that time he produced a large number of works. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1832, and became a Royal Academician three years later. He died in 1867, at Hampstead, where we shall have more to say about his later and more finished works.

Of George Cruikshank we may remark that his artistic productions were for the most part confined

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TURNPIKE IN THE HAMPSTEAD ROAD, AND ST. JAMES'S CHURCH, IN 1820. (See page 308.)

on huge posts of timber during the process, thus dispensing with its removal. To the north of this tavern much of the land facing Eden Street was not built upon down to about the year 1860. Here were large waterworks and a reservoir, sheltered by a grove of trees. The site is now covered by Tolmer's Square, a small square, the centre of which is occupied by a handsome Gothic Nonconformist chapel, with a tall spire.

Drummond Street, the next turning northward, extends along by the principal front of Euston Square Railway Terminus. This street crosses George Street, which forms a direct line of com munication from Gower Street to the Hampstead Road. Between George Street and Cardington Street is St. James's Church, formerly a chapel of ease to the mother church of St. James's, Piccadilly. It is a large brick building, and has a large, dreary, and ill-kept burial-ground attached to

to illustrating periodicals and other works of got over the difficulty by running their tunnel popular literature. The son of a water-colour under the house, which their engineer supported draughtsman and caricaturist, he had an hereditary claim to some artistic gifts, the humorous turn of which he began to develop at a very early age. Among Cruikshank's best-known etchings are those in "Sketches by Boz," "Oliver Twist," "Jack Sheppard," "The Tower of London," "Windsor Castle," &c. In 1842 appeared the first number of "Cruikshank's Omnibus," the letterpress of which was edited by Laman Blanchard. From the first this artist had shown a strong vein of virtuous reproof in his treatment of intoxication and its accompanying vices: some instances of this tendency are to be found in his "Sunday in London," "The Gin Juggernaut," "The Gin Trap," and more especially in his series of eight prints entitled "The Bottle." These also brought the artist into direct personal connection with the leaders of the temperance movement. He moreover himself became a convert to their doctrines, and was for many years one of the ablest advo- it. Here lie George Morland, the painter, who cates of the temperance cause. Late in life Cruikshank turned his attention to oil-painting, and contributed to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy and the British Institution; among his latest productions in oil is a large picture called "The Worship of Bacchus," which was exhibited to the Queen at Windsor Castle in 1863. The whole of his etchings, which extend over a period of more than seventy years, and illustrate the fashions, tastes, follies, and frivolities of four reigns, including the Regency, were purchased, in 1876, by the managers of the Royal Aquarium, at Westminster. and were placed in their picturegallery. Cruikshank's talents were not confined merely to painting or etching, but he possessed no little dramatic taste, and often took part in amateur performances at the public theatres for benevolent purposes. He died in 1878.

We must now retrace our steps to the Euston Road, in order to deal with the east side of the Hampstead Road. The "Old King's Head," at the corner opposite to the "Adam and Eve," has long presented an awkward break in the uniform width of the Euston Road, by projecting some feet beyond its neighbours, and so narrowing the thoroughfare. At the time of the formation of the "Underground Railway" it was considered that there was at last a chance of its removal. Such, however, was not the case; for the owner not being satisfied with the amount of compensation which was offered by the railway company, who, by the way, offered to rebuild the house, but setting it at the same time farther back, the latter

died in 1804; John Hoppner, the portrait-painter, who died in 1810; Admiral Lord Gardner, the hero of Port l'Orient, and the friend of Howe, Bridport, and Nelson; and, without a memorial, Lord George Gordon, the mad leader of the AntiCatholic Riots in 1780, who died a prisoner in Newgate in 1793, having become a Jew before his death! One of the best-known vicars of this church was the Rev. Henry Stebbing, author of the "History of the Reformation," "History of the Christian Church," "History of Chivalry and the Crusades," and "Lives of the Italian Poets." He died in 1883. Close by are the St. Pancras Female Charity School and the Temperance Hospital.

It may interest some of our readers who do not advocate strict temperance principles to hear that the celebrated article now called "Old Tom" or "Jackey" was originally distilled at Carre's Brewery (formerly Deady and Hanley's distillery), in the Hampstead Road.

We are now once more upon Russell property, as is testified by the names of several of the streets and squares round about; indeed, a considerable part of the district is called Bedford New Town.

Ampthill Square, which we have now reached, and which is in reality not a square, but a triangle, is so named after Ampthill Park, in Bedfordshire, formerly the seat of the Earls of Upper Ossory, but afterwards the property of the ducal house of Bedford, to whom the land about this part belongs. The south-west corner of the square is crossed by a deep cutting, through which passes the NorthWestern Railway, spanned by a level bridge. At

Camdea Town.]

STATUE OF RICHARD COBDEN.

309

the boy, by driving him home from the theatre in his own private royal carriage-a thing in itself enough to turn a boy's head. The mania for the "young Roscius" is one of the earliest "Reminiscences" of the veteran Mr. Planché; and an account of him will be found in Timbs' "English Eccentrics."

his residence in this square, died, in September, | Clarence, it is said, used to show his partiality for 1874, at a good old age, Henry West Betty, better known as the "infant Roscius," more than seventy years after he had first appeared on the boards, under Rich, at Covent Garden, and had "taken the town by storm." He was born on the 13th of September, 1791, and having made his début before a provincial audience at Belfast, he first appeared as a "star" at Covent Garden, December 1, 1803, as "Selim," in Barbarossa. He is said to have cleared in his first season upwards of £17,000. When quite young he retired and left the stage, but afterwards, being induced to come back, he was unsuccessful, and found that the public taste is a fickle jade. He was a great favourite with many ladies of fashion and title, and the Duke of

Harrington Square-which, however, is a square in name alone, seeing that it faces only two sides of a triangular plot of ground, facing Mornington Crescent-adjoins Ampthill Square on the north, and ends close to the corner of the High Street, Camden Town. It is so called after the Earl of Harrington, one of whose daughters married the seventh Duke of Bedford.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CAMDEN TOWN AND KENTISH TOWN.

"Vix rure urbem dignoscere possis."

Camden Town-Statue of Richard Cobden-Oakley Square-The "Bedford Arms"—The Royal Park Theatre-The "Mother Red Cap "—The "Mother Shipton "-The Alderney Dairy-The Grand Junction Canal-Bayham Street, and its Former Inhabitants-Camden RoadCamden Town Railway Station-The Tailors' Almshouses-St. Pancras Almshouses-Maitland Park-The Orphan Working SchoolThe Dominican Monastery-Gospel Oak-St. Martin's Church-Kentish Town: its Buildings and its Residents-Great College Street-The Royal Veterinary College-Pratt Street-St. Stephen's Church-Sir Henry Bishop-Agar Town.

and on Saturday evenings the upper part of the street, thronged as it is with stalls of itinerant vendors of the necessaries of daily life, and with the dwellers in the surrounding districts, presents to an ordinary spectator all the attributes of a market place.

CAMDEN TOWN, says Mr. Peter Cunningham, | on a par with the other business parts of London ; "was so called (but indirectly) after William Camden, author of the Britannia.' Charles Pratt, Attorney-General and Lord Chancellor in the reign of George III., created, in 1765, Baron Camden of Camden Place, in Kent, derived his title from his seat at Chislehurst, in Kent, formerly the residence of William Camden, the historian. His lordship, who died in 1794, married the daughter and co-heir of Nicholas Jeffreys, Esq., son and heir of Sir Geoffery Jeffreys, of Brecknock; and his lordship's eldest son was created, in 1812, Earl of Brecknock and Marquis Camden. Lord Camden's second title was Viscount Bayham; and all these names, Pratt, Jeffreys, Brecknock, and Bayham, may be found in Camden Town."

Camden Town, we may here remark, was commenced towards the close of the last century, Lord Camden having, in the year 1791, let out the ground on leases for building 1,400 houses. The houses in Camden Road and Square have perhaps the most aristocratic appearance of any in the district. The High Street, which originally consisted of a row of small shops with one floor above, and trim gardens in their fronts, separated by hedges of privet, have within the last few years been for the most part either rebuilt or enlarged, and are now

At the lower end of High Street, facing Eversholt Street, is a marble statue of Richard Cobden, which was erected by subscription in the year 1863. The statue, which stands in a conspicuous position, is rather above life-size, and is placed upon a granite pedestal of two stages, about twelve feet high, the plinth of which is simply inscribed "Cobden. The Corn-Laws Repealed, June, 1846.” The great politician is represented in a standing attitude, as if delivering an address in the House of Commons. He is attired in the ordinary dress of a gentleman of the present day, and holds in one hand a Parliamentary roll. The sculptor's name was Wills. Born at Dunford, in Sussex, in the year 1804, Cobden was brought up as a lad to business, and served behind a counter in a large establishment at Manchester. About the year 1840 he helped to found the Anti-Corn Law League, whose efforts in less than ten years' time set aside the restrictions imposed by the old Corn

Laws on the importation of foreign grain, and Street. The "Mother Black Cap " stands within eventually secured to the country the advantages a few doors of the corner of Park Street. of free trade. He was offered, but refused, all The "Mother Red Cap," observes Mr. J. T. honours and offices; but he represented Stockport, Smith, in his "Book for a Rainy Day," was in the West Riding, and Rochdale from 1841 down former times a house of no small terror to travellers. to his death, in 1865. "It has been stated," he adds, "that" Mother Red Cap' was the 'Mother Damnable' of Kentish Town in early days, and that it was at her house that the notorious 'Moll Cut-purse,' the highway woman of Oliver Cromwell's days, dismounted, and frequently lodged." The old house was taken down, and another rebuilt on its site, with the former sign, about the year 1850. This, again, in its turn, was removed; and a third house, in the modern style, and of still greater pretensions, was built on the same site some quarter of a century afterwards.

Oakley Square, which lies on the east side of Eversholt Street and Harrington Square, is so called after Oakley House, one of the seats of the ducal owner, near Bedford. In this square is St. Matthew's Church, a large and handsome Gothic building, with a lofty tower and spire. It was erected in 1854, from the designs of Mr. J. Johnson, F.R.S., and is capable of seating upwards of 1,200 persons.

The "Bedford Arms," in Grove Street, on the west side of the High Street, has been a tavern of some note in its day. Formerly, the tea-gardens attached to the house were occasionally the scene of balloon ascents. The Morning Chronicle of July 5, 1824, contains an account of an aerial voyage made from these gardens by a Mr. Rossiter and another gentleman. The ascent took place shortly after five o'clock, and the balloon alighted safely in Havering Park, two miles from Romford, in Essex. The two aëronauts, having been provided with a post-coach, returned at once to Camden Town, and arrived at the "Bedford Arms about half-past ten o'clock. On the 14th of June, 1825, as we learn from the Morning Herald, Mr. Graham took a trip into the aërial regions from these grounds, accompanied by two ladies. Their ascent was witnessed by a large concourse of spectators; and after a pleasant voyage of nearly an hour, they alighted at Feltham, near Hounslow. Of late years the "Bedford Arms" has added the attractions of a music-hall, called "The Bedford."

In Park Street, which connects Camden Town with the north-east corner of Regent's Park, stood the Park Theatre, a place of dramatic entertainment, originally opened in 1873, under the name of the Alexandra Theatre. The theatre was burnt down in 1881, and its site is now occupied as stabling by an omnibus company.

Great doubts have been entertained as to the real history of the semi-mythic personage whose name stands on the sign-board of this inn. It has been stated that the original Mother Red Cap was a follower of the army under Marlborough, in the reign of Queen Anne; but this idea is negatived by the existence of a rude copper coin, or token, dated 1667, and mentioning in its inscription, "Mother Read Cap's (sic) in Holl(o)way." Further arguments in refutation of this idea will be found in the Monthly Magazine for 1812. Again, some writers have attempted to identify her with the renowned Eleanor Rumming, of Leatherhead, in Surrey, who lived under Henry VIII. This noted alewife is mentioned by Skelton, the poet laureate of Henry VIII., as having lived

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The portrait of Eleanor on the frontispiece of an original edition of the "Tunning of Eleanor Rumming," by Skelton, will satisfy the reader that her description is no exaggeration.

From a manuscript list of inns in this neighbourhood about the year 1830, we find that in Perhaps there may be more of truth in the Camden Town at that time there were the "Mother following "biographical sketch" of the original Red Cap," the "Mother Black Cap," the "Laurel Mother Red Cap, which we now quote from Mr. Tree," the "Britannia," the "Camden Arms," Palmer's work on "St. Pancras, and its History," the "Bedford Arms," the "Southampton Arms," above referred to:-"This singular character, the "Wheatsheaf," the Hope and Anchor," and known as 'Mother Damnable,' is also called the "Elephant and Castle." The two first-named 'Mother Red Cap,' and sometimes The Shrew of of these houses were, and are still, rival establish- | Kentish Town.' Her father's name was Jacob ments at the northern, or upper, end of the High Bingham, by trade a brickmaker in the neigh

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