The first two miles from the place of starting is generally occupied in clearing obstructions on the road, taking up old maids at their own houses, with pug-dogs, pattens, and parrots, or pert young misses at their papas' shop-doors; whose mammas take this opportunity of delaying a coach-load of people to display their maternal tenderness at parting, while the junior branches of the family hover round the vehicle, and assail your ears with lisping out their eternal "good b'yes," and the old hairless head of the family is seen slyly tipping coachee an extra shilling to take care of his darling girl. The Elephant and Castle produces another pull-up, and here a branch-coach brings a load of lumber from the city, which, while the porter is stowing away, gives time to exhibit the lions who are leaving London in every direction. King's Bench rulers with needy habiliments, and lingering looks, sighing for term-time and a horse,{1} on one side the road, and Jews, newsmen, and touters, on the other; who nearly give away their goods, if you believe them, for the good of the nation, or force you into a coach travelling in direct opposition to the road for which you have been booked, and in which your luggage may by such mischance happily precede you at least half a day. At length all again is declared right, the supervisor delivers his way-bill, and forward moves the coach, at a somewhat brisker pace, to Kennington Common. I shall not detain my readers here with a long dull account of the unfortunate rebels who suffered on this spot in 1745; but rather direct their attention to a neat Protestant church, which has recently been erected on the space between the two roads leading to Croydon and Sutton, the portico of which is in fine architectural taste, and the whole building a very great accommodation and distinguished ornament to the neighbourhood. About half a mile farther, on the rise of Brixton hill, is another newly erected church, the portico in the style of a Greek temple, and in an equally commanding situation: from this to Croydon, ten miles, you have a tolerable specimen of civic taste in rural architecture.
On both sides of the road may be seen a variety of incongruous edifices, called villas and cottage ornées, peeping up in all the pride of a retired linen-draper, or the consequential authority of a man in office, in as many varied styles of architecture as of dispositions in the different proprietors, and all exhibiting (in their possessors' opinion) claims to the purest and most refined taste.
For example, the basement story is in the Chinese or Venetian style, the first floor in that of the florid Gothic, with tiles and a pediment à-la-Nash, at the Bank; a doorway with inclined jambs, and a hieroglyphic à-la-Greek: a gable-ended glass lean to on
1 A day-rule, so called.
one side, about big enough for a dog-kennel, is called a green-house, while a similar erection on the other affords retirement for the tit and tilbury; the door of which is always set wide open in fine weather, to display to passers-by the splendid equipage of the occupier. The parterre in front (green as the jaundiced eye of their less fortunate brother tradesmen) is enriched with some dozens of vermilion-coloured flower-pots mounted on a japanned verdigris frame, sending forth odoriferous, balmy, and enchanting gales to the grateful olfactory organs, from the half-withered stems of pining and consumptive geraniums; to complete the picture, two unique plaster casts of naked figures, the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de Medici, at most a foot in altitude, are placed on clumsy wooden pedestals of three times that height before the parlour-windows, painted in a chaste flesh-colour, and guarded by a Whitechapel bull-cdog, who, like another Cerberus, sits growling at the gate to fright away the child of poverty, and insult the less wealthy pedestrian.
Happy country! where every man can consult his own taste, and build according to his own fancy, amalgamating in one structure all the known orders and varieties, Persian, Egyptian, Athenian, and European.
Croydon in 1573 contained the archiepiscopal palace of the celebrated Archbishop Parker, who, as well as his successor Whitgift, here had frequently the honour to entertain Queen Elizabeth and her court: the manor since the reign of William the Conqueror has belonged to the Archbishops of Canterbury. The church is a venerable structure, and the stately tower, embowered with woods and flanked by the Surrey hills, a most picturesque and commanding object; the interior contains some monuments of antiquity well worthy the attention of the curious. The town itself has little worthy of note except the hospital, founded by Archbishop Whitgift for a warder and twenty poor men and women, decayed housekeepers of Croyden and Lambeth: a very comfortable and well-endowed retirement.
"This was formerly the King's road," said coachee, "but the radicals having thought proper to insult his majesty on his passing through to Brighton during the affair of the late Queen, he has ever since gone by the way of Sutton: a circumstance that has at least operated to produce one christian virtue among the inhabitants, namely, that of humility; before this there was no getting change for a civil sentence from them."
To Merstham seven miles, the road winds through a bleak valley called Smithem Bottom, till recently the favourite resort of the cockney gunners for rabbit-shooting; but whether from the noise of their harmless double-barrel Nocks, or the more dreadful carnage of the Croydon poachers, these animals are now exceedingly scarce in this neighbourhood. Just as we came in sight of Merstham, the distant view halloo of the huntsman broke upon our ears, when the near-leader rising upon his haunches and neighing with delight at the inspiring sound, gave us to understand that he had not always been used to a life of drudgery, but in earlier times had most likely carried some daring Nimrod to the field, and bounded with fiery courage o'er hedge and gate, through dell and brake, outstripping the fleeting wind to gain the honour of the brush. Ere we had gained the village, reynard and the whole field broke over the road in their scarlet frocks, and dogs and horses made a dash away for a steeple chase across the country, led by the worthy-hearted owner of the pack, the jolly fox-hunting Colonel, Hilton Jolliffe, whose residence caps the summit of the hill. From hence to Reigate, four miles farther, there was no circumstance or object of interest, if I except a very romantic tale coachee narrated of his hunting leader, who had of course been bred in the stud of royalty itself, and had since been the property of two or three sporting peers, when, having put out a _spavin_, during the last hunting season, he was sold for a __machiner; but being since fired and turned out, he had come up all right, and was now, according to coachee's disinterested opinion, one of the best hunters in the kingdom. As I was not exactly the customer coachee was looking for, being at the time pretty well mounted, I thought it better to indulge him in the joke, particularly as any doubt on my part might have soured the whip, and made him sullen for the rest of the journey.
At Reigate a trifling accident happened to one of the springs of the coach, which detained us half an hour, and enabled me to pay a visit to the celebrated sand cavern, where, it is reported, the Barons met, during the reign of King John, to hold their councils and draw up that great palladium of English liberty, Magna Charta, which was afterwards signed at Runnymede.