vessels of gold and silver which had once been dedicated to holy purposes, but were then red with the dregs of the wine shed at many a midnight revel by the Defender of the Faith and woman-murdering monarch. Perhaps the walls of that old palace were hung with the portraits of the wives he had caused to be beheaded, while his own likeness in the centre looked like a tiger out of the frame upon its prey.
On this hill Cardinal Wolsey may have meditated with all his “blushing honours thick upon him.” Katherine, the broken-hearted queen, may here have reined-in her palfrey; or from this aged hawthorn have torn off a spray, when it was, as now, fragrant and white with May-blossoms, and presented it with a smile to the royal savage who rode beside her. On yonder plain, where so many happy faces are now seen, in former days the tournament was held. There gaudy galleries were erected, over which youth and beauty leant as they waved their embroidered scarfs. We can almost fancy that we can see the crowned tiger smile as he closes the visor of his helmet, bowing his plume while he recognises some fair face, which was soon to fall, with its long tresses dabbled in blood, upon the scaffold—the blood which then ran so clear and joyous through the violet-coloured veins which streaked the ivory of that graceful neck. In this park the crafty Cecil mused many an hour as he plotted the return of the Princess Mary, while the ink was scarcely dry with which he had recorded his allegiance to the Lady Jane Grey. The whole scenery teems with the remembrance of old stirring events, and grave historical associations. Hal, the murderer, comes straddling and blowing up the hill; the pale and sickly boy-king rides gently by, and breathes heavily as he inhales the sweet air on the summit; the titter and merry laugh of the ill-starred queens seems to fall upon the ear from behind the trees that conceal them. Then we have voices of mourning and loud lament from fair attendants—who refuse to be comforted—for those whom they loved and served were there no more.
Blackheath, which is only divided from its aristocratic neighbour the Park by a wall, pleasantly overlooks a portion of the counties of Kent and Surrey, and affords such extensive views of the distant scenery as can only be exceeded by climbing Shooter’s Hill, or some of the neighbouring heights on the left of the heath. In past times it was planted with gibbets: the bleached bones of men who had dared to ask for an extension of liberty, or who doubted the infallibility of kings, were here left to dangle in the wind. In the distance, the ancient palace of Eltham heaves up like a large barn, attracting even the eye of a stranger by its bulkiness, for not an architectural ornament from hence is visible. Blackheath at Whitsuntide, and all summer long, is infested with asses, which ever stand, saddled and bridled, in readiness for the first comer. A donkey-ride is one of the favourite amusements of our holiday-loving Londoners of both sexes, nor is the day’s pleasure considered complete without it. The charges vary from a penny to a shilling, according to either the time or the distance; and a strange, rough, and inharmonious family are the proprietors, who beat and let out these animals. Their chief delight appears to consist in abusing one another, and running down the qualities of the poor long-eared quadrupeds—each applicant at the same time extolling the strength and speed of his own donkey. Here they may be found with side-saddles for the ladies, and neat chairs, covered with white drapery, and so secured that the little children can ride with safety.
A countryman who went by water for the first time from London to Greenwich, would be astonished to find that, with the exception of a few yards here and there, the whole five miles, on each side of the Thames, was one continuation of houses, warehouses, docks, and manufactories; that he could not for the life of him tell where London began nor where it ended; that when it ceased to stretch beside the river, it was still continued in a long line behind the marshes and the Isle of Dogs up to the Blackwall pier; and from no height in the neighbourhood could his eye at once glance over this lengthy range of continued streets. Twelve miles would scarcely exceed the almost unbroken link of buildings which extends from Blackwall to far beyond Chelsea, where street still joins to street in apparent endless succession. And all around this vast city lie miles of the most beautiful rural scenery. Highgate and Hornsey and Hampstead on the Middlesex side, hilly, wooded, and watered; and facing these, the vast range called the Hogsback, which hem in the Surrey side, from beyond Norwood, far away to the left, to where we have carried our readers in this chapter; while the valleys on both sides of the river are filled with pleasant fields, parks, and green winding lanes. Were London to extend five miles farther every way, it would still be hemmed in with some of the most beautiful rural scenery in England; and the lowness of fares, together with the rapidity of railway travelling, would render as nothing this extent of streets. Even the very poor are now satisfied, as they can travel from one end of the kingdom to the other by paying one penny per mile.
