Sweet Hampstead and Its Associations

by Caroline A. White

Lord Mansfield was noted for the charming quality of his voice—an immense force in oratory, helping as it does to sway the feelings of the audience. Pope is said to have had this charm in so remarkable a degree that in his childhood he was called ‘the little nightingale,’ a term more applicable to vocalization than to speaking, and, like Pope, Murray had studied elocution.

Hogarth.

He is said to have had a greed for money-getting, and never to have given an opinion gratis or unprofessionally. There is a story told of a lady who, wishing to have the authority of his ideas upon the subject of the French Revolution, inquired how he thought it would end, and was answered that, ‘as the event was without precedent, so the end was without prognostic,’ a sentence that could not have greatly added to her enlightenment.

It was through Lord Mansfield’s suggestion that the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn are in possession of Hogarth’s picture of ‘Paul before Felix.’ A legacy of £200 had been left to the Inn, and as the best way of spending it his lordship recommended the Benchers to employ Hogarth to paint them the picture, which hangs, or did hang, in the Benchers’ old hall.

It is pleasant to record of Lord Mansfield that, at a time when the criminal law of England was Draconic in its indiscriminating severity, he, as a rule, leaned to the side of mercy. It was Lord Mansfield who directed a jury to find a stolen trinket less in value than ten shillings in order that the thief might escape capital punishment, to which the jeweller who prosecuted demurred, asserting that the fashion of the thing had cost him twice the money. ‘Gentlemen,’ replied the judge, with grave solemnity, ‘we ourselves stand in need of mercy; let us not hang a man for the fashion’s sake!’

His kinsman and successor, the second Earl of Mansfield, spent much of his time at Hampstead, of which he was also a warm admirer; and when, in the autumn of 1829, it became necessary for the freeholders and copyholders to consider what measures should be taken for the preservation of their own privileges, and the prevention of further encroachments on the Heath, by breaking up and destroying the herbage, for the digging and selling of sand, etc., and also to oppose the further progress of what was called Sir Thomas Maryon Wilson’s Estate Bill, which had actually arrived at its last stage in the House of Lords without their knowledge,[219] and, consequently, without a voice being raised against it, Lord Mansfield wrote to the committee promising to support the opposition, and subscribing £50 towards the necessary expenses.

Six years later, in the summer of 1835, Caen Wood received the honour of a royal visit, in the gaiety and gratulation of which event Hampstead naturally shared. Their Majesties William IV. and his amiable Queen, Adelaide, on whom kindness sat more easily than state, had announced their intention of being present at a garden-party to be given by the Earl and Countess of Mansfield, and forthwith the loyalty of the village, whose church bells had not rung out on such an occasion since the passing by of Queen Mary, wife of William III., in the summer of the year of her death—1694—was put upon its mettle how best to demonstrate itself. Eventually the exultation and excitement of the inhabitants, guided by the good taste of the gentlemen (there were a hundred of them) who had formed themselves into a committee of management, took the pretty form of dressing the houses on the line of route from Rosslyn Hill to the top of Heath Street with green boughs, flowers, and variegated lamps. At the entrance of the Heath, just short of the White Stone Pond, the decorations culminated in a triumphal arch, not quite as large as Temple Bar, but far more ornamental. It spanned the road, and was draped with the royal standard and St. George’s banner, and many other flags, the bright colours of which, mingled with garlands and festoons of flowers and greenery, lent themselves well to picturesque effect.[220]

On either side were enclosed recesses for the ladies privileged by rank or courtesy to represent the élite of the neighbourhood; and here their Majesties’ carriage was to pause while Colonel Bosanquet, chairman of the committee, read a loyal address. The rejoicings were to end with a pyrotechnic display upon the Heath and the illumination of the village.

The day was radiant, as days will sometimes be even in England in the solstitial season, and Caen Wood, with its fifty acres of flower-garden and pleasure-grounds, its leafy woods and park, and sheet of water, broken by groups of trees, and crossed by an artificial bridge at a distance, looked its very best, especially from the terrace along the south front of the mansion, on which a state sofa had been prepared for their Majesties. On this occasion the whole suite of apartments on the ground-floor had been thrown open to the company, the principal dining-room being reserved for the royal party.