James's, and even he must have thought that Penn could have no strong antipathy to the creed, when he selected him as the proper person to endeavour to persuade the fellows of Magdalene College to admit the Roman Catholic president, whom the King had nominated. With the general and violent feeling that then prevailed, it is not wonderful that Penn should be regarded with jealousy. Long after the Revolution, he continued to be suspected of being a disguised Catholic, as well as of being concerned in plots for the restoration of his old master. The excellent Dr. Stephen Hales, celebrated alike as divine, naturalist, and philanthropist, ought to be mentioned as having once held the curacy of Teddington, if only on account of his having built the tower of the church and repaired the north aisle, chiefly at his own expense. He lived here for above fifty years, and now lies under the church tower. Paul Whitehead, worthless alike as poet and man, lived during the latter part of his life at Teddington. His body was interred in the church -with the exception of his heart, which, as already mentioned, was put in an urn and carried to High Wycombe, where it was deposited, with a curious mixture of Christian and heathen ceremonies, in the mausoleum of his worthy patron, Lord le De"Pretty Peg Woffington" is another She too lies in the

spencer.

of the Teddington notables. church or churchyard.

A short distance below Teddington stands a neat cottage, once well known, where

"There lived a laughter-loving dame,

A matchless actress-Clive her name."

Mrs. Kitty Clive, as the reader of Boswell will

remember, was capable of pleasing off the stage as well as on-and also of being pleased. "Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say," was the great moralist's opinion of Kitty; while she used to say of him, "I love to sit by Dr. Johnson, he always entertains one."

"This then is Little Strawberry Hill, Mr. Rambler ?"

It is, good reader; and these are Twickenham Meads. For thus plodding slowly onwards, we have arrived at length at a place familiar by name to every one who has looked into the literature of the last century, and whose fame will last as long as the language in which it has been celebrated. The Parish Register of Twickenham, written about 1758,' by one who has contributed (after Pope) most largely to its renown, will save us the enumeration of many names, and be more agreeable to the reader than dry prose. Walpole's lines are not generally known to the present generation of readers; they are a choice sample of his courtly

taste:

"Where silver Thames round Twit'nam meads
His winding current sweetly leads ;

Twit nam, the Muses' fav'rite seat,
Twit'nam, the Graces' lov'd retreat;
There polish'd Essex wont to sport,
The pride and victim of a court.
There Bacon tun'd the grateful lyre
To soothe Eliza's haughty ire.
-Ah, happy had no meaner strain
Than friendship's dash'd his mighty vein!
Twit'nam, where Hyde,† majestic sage,
Retir'd from folly's frantic stage,

* Rob. Devereux, Earl of Essex.
† Lord Clarendon

While his vast soul was hung on tenters,
To mend the world, and vex dissenters;
Twit'nam, where frolic Wharton* revell'd;
Where Montagu,† with lock dishevell❜d,
(Conflict of dirt and warmth divine,)
Invok'd-and scandalised the Nine:
Where Pope in moral music spoke,
To th' anguish'd soul of Bolingbroke,
And whisper'd how true genius errs,
Preferring joys that pow'r confers;
Bliss never to great minds arising
From ruling worlds, but from despising:
Where Fieldingt met his bunter Muse,
And, as they quaff'd the fiery juice,
Droll Nature stamp'd each lucky hit
With inimaginable wit:

Where Suffolký sought the peaceful scene,
Resigning Richmond to the queen,
And all the glory, all the teasing,
Of pleasing one not worth the pleasing;
Where Fanny¶, ever-blooming fair,
Ejaculates the graceful pray'r,

And, 'scap'd from sense, with nonsense smit,
For Whitfield's cant leaves Stanhope's** wit:
Amid this choir of sounding names,

Of statesmen, bards, and beauteous dames,
Shall the last trifler of the throng
Enroll his own such names among?
-Oh! no, enough if I consign
To lasting types their notes divine;
Enough if Strawberry's humble hill
The title-page of fame shall fill.”

In winding up his verses with this affected humility, Walpole, of course, meant nothing. He would have been grievously mortified, if he could have brought himself to believe that Strawberry Hill, *The Duke of Wharton. † Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Henry Fielding.

§ Henrietta Hobart, Countess of Suffolk.
|| George II.
Lady Fanny Shirley.
** Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

as well as its master, would not stand high up in the roll of fame. At any rate Strawberry Hill must now occupy a prominent position in any sketch of Twickenham Meadows.

The Great Strawberry Hill stands only a short way below its little namesake. Horace Walpole took such pains to inform posterity of the history of the house which his admiring contemporaries were fain to look up to with devout regard as a model of Gothic architecture, and which he had traversed the kingdom in order to complete satisfactorily, that it would be a pity not to give his own account :"Where the Gothic castle now stands was originally a small tenement, built in 1698, and let as a lodginghouse: Cibber once took it, and wrote one of his plays here- The Refusal; or, the Lady's Philosophy." After him, Talbot, Bishop of Durham, had it for eight years then, Henry Bridges, Marquis of Carnarvon, son of James, Duke of Chandos, and since Duke himself. It was next hired by Mrs. Chenevix, the noted toy-woman, who, on the death of her husband, let it to Lord John Philip Sackville: he kept it about two years; and then Mr. Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. Chenevix's lease, in May, 1749, and the next year bought it by Act of Parliament, it being the property of three minors of the name of Mortimer.... The castle now existing was not entirely built from the ground, but formed at different times, by alterations of and additions to the old small house. The library and refectory or great parlour were entirely new-built in 1753; the gallery, round tower, great cloister, and cabinet in 1760 and 1761; the great north bed-chamber in 1770; and the Beauclerc tower, with the hexagon closet, in 1776 " His description of the house would be too long to

VOL. II.

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