[134] There is a quaint detached tea-room at the Spaniards, approached by an outside flight of wooden steps. Until about thirty years ago there was inscribed on one of the panes of glass in the end window the autograph of the late Emperor of the French. He is said to have cut this inscription with a diamond ring, about 1845-46, when in exile here as Prince Louis Napoleon. The window has been altered, and the pane has disappeared.—G. W. P.
[135] When Gibson wrote his additions to Camden, 1695, Mother Huffs was a house of entertainment on Hampstead Heath. I have recently learned that in an old map of 1630 a small house near the Elms is marked ‘Mother Houghs.’
[136] ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors.’
[137] It was Martin who inaugurated the idea.
[138] This house was occupied for many years by Captain Sir Edward Parry, the Arctic explorer, who was connected by marriage with the Hoare family.—G. W. P.
[139] ‘Sylvan Sketches,’ by the author of ‘Flora Domestica,’ 1825.
[140] ‘Collins’ and Tooly’s Farm were two adjoining but separate grass-farms; now they are one, in the occupation of the late Mr. Tooly’s son. Mr. Collins was the occupant of the other, and lived in the farmhouse, or cottage, where Dickens and so many other famous men have lived. This cottage is now occupied by Mr. Arthur Wilson, the son of the late Rev. Daniel Wilson. He has added to the cottage without in any way spoiling it.’—G. W. P.
[141] The new paling at the end of the holly hedge shows the place where the nine elms and the old seat stood.
[142] Said by some writers to have been married in 1776—a statement disproved by the magazines of the day, and by the fact of Mrs. Crewe’s magnificent masquerade in 1775. There is a portrait of Mrs. Crewe painted by Reynolds.
[143] The members of this celebrated club included the Dukes of Roxburghe and Portland, the Earl of Strathmore (whose encounter with the highwaymen on Finchley Common I have alluded to), Mr. Crewe, Fox, Sheridan, Lord Carlisle, and others. The club was established in Pall Mall in 1764, and the proprietor in 1775 founded the present Brooks’s, in St. James’s Street.