I proceed; Sydenham lies before me, beyond it in softened distance, Beckenham and Bromley meet the eye, with Dulwich below—and half hidden, and afar off, is smoky London, with the Abbey towers and St. Paul’s dome looking gloomily grand. In the foreground lies a rich variety of upland and dale, studded with snow white dwellings. Leaving the wood on my left, I reach the reservoir of the canal, and read no less than three boards threatening with the severest penalties all intruders. Again I am surrounded with sky-larks; I watch one leave the grass, he is up nearly a quarter of an hour, and here I meet a man with a dozen or more nests of young birds, blackbirds, thrushes, and robins, which is very early for the latter. Pacing slowly up a quiet lane to the left of the canal, I arrive at a few delightful cottages on the brow of the hill; below them to the south—
A lovely prospect opens wide,
Wave-like hills on every side,
By human hands diversified.
Somewhere near the canal, at a brickmaker’s hut, poor Dermody, the Irish poet, retired sick, and in poverty. Turning to the left I view Forest Hill, the sweetest haunt of my poetic hours, but here, as at every other desirable spot for meditation, frowns the warning board, placed by the hand of envious monopoly—
“The law will punish all who enter here.”
Nun Head Hill, the favourite resort of smoke-dried artisans, and other Londoners, is taken from them, and a narrow path is all that remains for their Sunday promenade. Ruminating on the change I move on, and espying a gap in the hedge, enter a field, where, reclining on the long grass, I muse, till, like the shadowy kings in Macbeth, my cares and sorrows pass before me. I listen! it is the music of heaven—numerous skylarks tower aloft, the best I have yet heard; ye that wish for good ones catch them here—which advice, if they heard, would doubtless bring them down on me with beak and claw. Hark! it is the tit-lark, the harbinger of the nightingale; he is just come over, and the other will quickly follow: he drops from the tallest tree, and sings till earth receives him. His song is short, but very sweet; nothing can equal his rising “Weet—weet—weet—weet—weet—weet—weet,” and dying “Feer—feer—feer—feer—feer—feer—feer,” and his lengthened “Snee——jug—jug—jug.” It is from him that the best notes of your canaries are obtained; he will sing till July. About the fifteenth, the fowler will go out, and the nightingale will sell his freedom for a meal-worm—how many of us mortals do the same to gratify our appetites! The bird now caught will be a good one, which is more than I can say of the mortal. He will not yet have paired with the hen, she not having made her appearance. The males arrive first, at least so say the catchers, but I doubt if they emigrate at all. The tame ones in cages when they leave off song get extremely fat, and are half stupid till the season returns; perhaps the wild ones do the same, and retire into secrecy during the winter. I merely surmise that such may be the case.
Evening drawing on, and the wind edging round to the northward, I bend my course through Peckham, and again enter the busy haunts of man, where, reaching my home, I sit down and write this for your columns, hoping it may be acceptable.
I am, Sir, &c.J.
Kent Road,
April 14, 1826.