Judges Walk, Hampstead.—A friend of mine, residing at Hampstead, has communicated to me the following information, which I forward to you as likely to instruct your readers.
He states that the oldest inhabitant of Hampstead, Mr. Rowbotham, a clock and watchmaker, died recently, at the age of ninety. He told his son and many other persons, that in his youth the Upper Terrace Avenue, on the south-west side of Hampstead Heath was known by the name of "The Judges' Walk," from the circumstance of prisoners having been tried there during the plague of London. He further stated, that he had received this information from his grandmother.
C.R. WELD
Somerset House.
Gray's Alcaic Ode.—A question asked in Vol. i., p. 382, whether "Gray's celebrated Latin Ode is actually to be found entered at the Grande Chartreuse?" is satisfactorily answered in the negative at p. 416. of the same volume, and its disappearance traced to the destructive influence of the first French Revolution.
It may not, however, be without interest to some of your readers to know, that this elegant "Alcaic" was to be found at the Chartreuse not very long before the outbreak of that great political tempest, proof of which will be found in the following extract taken from the 9th volume of Malte-Brun's Annales des Voyages, Paris, 1809. It is found in a paper entitled "Voyage à la Grande Chartreuse en 1789. Par M. T*******," and is in p. 230:
"L'Album, ou le grand livre dans lequel les étrangers inscrivent leurs noms, présente quelquefois une lecture intéressante. Nous en copiâmes quelques pages. Le morceau le plus digne d'être conservé est sans doute l'Ode latine suivante du célèbre poëte anglais Gray. Je ne crois pas qu'elle ait été publiée encore."
Then follows the ode, as usually printed, excepting that in the third line,
"Nativa nam certe fluentia,"
the words "nam certe" are transposed.