and Cupid," "Hesperides Gathering Fruit," &c. One picture, however, is of a totally different character to the rest it represents the full-length figure of a young lad, standing, and wearing the robes of the Garter. It is inscribed: "Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, Born 29 July, 1672, Dyed 27 May, 1723." This picture, in the opinion of Mr. Scharf, seems to have been inserted in the panel in the place of something else. In the coved cornice of this apartment, over the centre of each wall, is a large circular medallion in white plaster of a crowned sovereign, the size of life, in alto-relievo. That above the fire-place, observes Mr. Scharf, in the article above quoted, contains a portrait of Caroline of Anspach, queen consort of George II., of whom there is a portrait on the opposite wall. On the side facing the door, and over the windows, the medallion exhibits a portrait of George I., whilst the remaining medallion, over the door, contains a portrait of William III. The chimney-piece of this room is elaborately carved in wood, the principal figures in the ornamentation being emblematic of "Justice" and "Peace."

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represented members of the family who then occupied the house. On the east wall is a curious circular medallion, containing a view in white plaster alto-relievo of the mansion as it formerly appeared from this spot, showing the different levels of ground, and reproducing the building in its original state, including the Gilt Room and steps leading up to it. We see by this that the central façade was flanked on each side by massive walls, large windows, and an elevated roof. In the sloping plane in front of the house there are no basins of water; nor is any figure introduced so as

to give indication by the costume of the exact period when the view was taken."

At Highwood Hill, at the distance of about a mile from Mill Hill, at one time-namely, from 1826 to 1831-lived the great philanthropist, William Wilberforce; and here, too, dwelt Lord William Russell, previous to his arrest. Highwood House, early in the present century, was the residence of Sir Stamford Raffles, Governor of Java, and founder and first President of the Zoological Society. Wilberforce became Sir Stamford Raffles's "next-door neighbour" in June, 1826, only about a month before the death of the latter. Lady Raffles continued to reside here after the death of her husband, and was here visited on more than one occasion by Baron Bunsen. In the Baroness Bunsen's "Memoirs of Baron Bunsen" appears the following reference to the house and grounds, under the date of 1839:

"Throughout the whole buildings," observes Mr. Scharf, in the article from which we have quoted above, "there is no indication, either by coronet, garter, or heraldic cognizance, that the place ever belonged to any person of rank or distinction. The only exception where heraldry appears is in the pediment of the summer-house at the end of the grounds. There the arms of the Pawsons of Shawdon, in Northumberland, are carved on a plain shield, and may be referred to a period when the front of the building was altered, and the spaces between the columns filled in with windows of coloured glass. The walls and domed ceiling of the summer-house are decorated with figures and ornaments in white plaster. They include portrait medallions of females, supported by sphinxes, mermaids, and tritons. These faces are all in profile, full of individuality, and probably

"A visit to Highwood gave an opportunity for commenting upon the dignity, the order, the quiet activity, the calm cheerfulness with which Lady Raffles rules the house, the day, the conversation; and the place and its neighbourhood were full of those memorials of the honoured dead which served to enhance the natural beauty of the prospect and the interest attaching itself to the residence of Sir Stamford Raffles. The ground of Highwood must have been trodden by the footsteps and hallowed by the life and sorrows of Rachel,

Of this worthy we shall have more to say on reaching Whitchurch, where he was buried, and where Handel was for many years organist.

Norden conjectures that the name of this parish was originally Edgworth, " signifying a fruitful place upon the edge, or utter part, of the shire;" but such a mode of etymology, Mr. Brewer contends, in the "Beauties of England," appears to rest entirely on surmise. The Irish Edgworths, of Edgworthtown, whose name has been made so widely known by the writings of Miss Edgworth, came originally from this place, if we may believe their pedigree as set forth by Sir Bernard Burke. Lysons observes that in the most ancient record in which he has seen the name mentioned (dated in the reign of Henry II.) it is written "Eggeswere;" and that the same form of orthography prevailed until the age of Henry VIII., when the present mode of spelling was adopted, and has since been uniformly used in legal and in ordinary writings.

The name of Edgware, or even Eggeswere, does not appear in "Domesday Book." In the latter part of the twelfth century, according to Lysons, the principal manor belonged to Ella, Countess of Salisbury, wife of William Longespee, "who granted it to her son Nicholas and his espoused wife, to be held of her by the render of a sparrowhawk." Towards the close of the succeeding century, Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, was the owner of this manor, in right of his wife, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury. The property was afterwards conveyed in marriage by the daughter and heiress of the last Earl of Lincoln, of the De Lacy family, to the Le Stranges, with whom it continued down to the year 1431, when it passed to the Darells, by whom again it was sold shortly after to Thomas Chichele and other persons, as trustees for All Souls' College, Oxford. With that college the property still continues. An inferior manor within this parish, called Bois, or Edgware Bois, was formerly owned by the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, and afterwards by the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. In the Chartulary of the Priory of St. John this manor is styled Egelware Bois, or Eggesware. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, this manor having passed by exchange or otherwise to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, was surrendered by that body to the king. Henry VIII. granted it, in the year 1544, to Sir John Williams and Anthony Stringer, from whom it passed by sale to the Pages. It was afterwards owned by the Earl of Coventry, and subsequently sold to the Lees, by whose representative it is still

A hamlet, now called Edgware-Bury, lies about a mie and a half northward from the town.

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About two miles beyond the town, on the borders of the county, is an eminence called Brockley Hill, which by Camden and other antiquaries is supposed to be the site of the Roman station Sulloniacæ. Of the numerous Roman remains which have been discovered at different times both here and at places in the immediate neighbourhood, we shall have more to say in the next chapter.

Edgware had in former times a weekly market on Thursdays, but that had been "for some time discontinued" when Lysons wrote his "Environs of London" in 1795. Indeed, it is on record that as far back as 1668 the site of the market was conveyed by Sir Lancelot Lake, of Canons, to certain trustees upon trust for a public school. In the year 1867 the Privy Council licensed the holding of a cattle market here on the last Thursday in every month.

The parish records contain some curious items, referring to customs which have long since become obsolete. From some of these, quoted by Lysons, it appears that in 1328 one hundred acres of land were held under the manor of Edgware by the render of a pair of gilt spurs, and fifty acres by the rent of a pound of "cummin." At the court held in 1551, two men were fined here for playing at "cards and tables." In the next year the inhabitants were "presented" for not having a 66 'tumbrel and cucking-stool "--the latter, of course, as a terror to "scolds." In 1558 a man was fined for selling ale at an "exorbitant price," namely, one pint and a half for a penny!

Sir William Blackstone mentions a curious custom appertaining to the manor of Edgware, namely, that it was usual for the lord to provide a minstrel, or piper, for the amusement of the tenants while they were employed in his service— a custom which has been kept in remembrance by the name given to a small tract of land in this parish, called "Piper's Green."

It was on the road to Edgware that the artist Cosway, the favourite of the Prince of Wales, suddenly breathed his last, at the age of eighty, in 1821, whilst being taken out for an airing in the carriage of a friend.

It

The parish church of Edgware, dedicated to St. Margaret, stands about the middle of the town, on the east side of the roadway, and, with the exception of the tower, is modern and uninteresting. consists of a chancel, nave, and transepts, and is built of brick, in imitation of the Perpendicular style. The tower, which is constructed of flint and stone, and has an embattled parapet and an octagonal angle turret, is part of a former church, which is supposed to have belonged to a religious

house, or monastery, dedicated to St. John of Jerusalem. Kelly tells us, in his "Directory of Middlesex," that amongst the Augmentation Records is preserved a certificate of the goods and plate of the church and monastery of Edgware at the time of the dissolution of religious houses." The body of the original church having become dilapidated, was rebuilt about the middle of the last century, and this again was renewed or rebuilt in 1845. The east window, of three lights, is filled with stained glass, as also are those of the transepts. The only monument in the church worthy of notice is one to Randulph Nicoll, who died in 1658. He was a native of this parish, and, if the Latin inscription on his monument may be trusted, a man of great learning and accomplishments. In the chancel is a brass representing an infant in swaddling clothes, inscribed "Anthonie, son of John Childe, goldsmith;" the said infant died in 1599, aged three weeks.

The Rev. Francis Coventry, the author of the romance entitled "The Life of Pompey the Little," and of the fifteenth number of the World, containing strictures on modern gardening, &c., held the incumbency of this church in the last century. The Rev. Thomas Martyn, Professor of Botany at Cambridge, also held the living for some years.

Close by the church was, in pre-Reformation times, a call, or station, belonging to the abbey of St. Albans, which served as a halting-place for the monks in their journeys to and from London.

In 1680, Samuel Atkinson, a native of Edgware, built and endowed almshouses here for four poor women. There are also in the town almshouses for twelve poor persons, endowed by the late Mr. Charles Day.

Edgware is one of the polling-places for the county of Middlesex, and at the present time the terminus of a branch line of the Great Northern Railway from their main line at Finsbury Park. The town is also within a mile and a half of the Mill Hill Station, on the Midland Railway. At the end of the last century the number of houses in the town, exclusive of almshouses, was 76. In 1871 they had increased to 137, or nearly doubled. The population at the last-mentioned date was 655, to which nearly two hundred more have since been added.

Races were held at Edgware in 1869 and 1873, but they did not acquire the popularity of those at Hampton, Sandown, and other suburban racecourses. They have now died a natural death.

Little Stanmore-or Whitchurch, as the village is more popularly called-lies about half a mile to the west of Edgware. The parish, with the excep

tion of that portion forming one side of the main street of Edgware, is almost wholly agricultural. The entire area of the parish is rather over 1,500 acres, and the number of the inhabitants in 1881 amounted to 818. Much of the land in the parish bordering the main road northward of Edgware is taken up by the demesne of Canons, whilst the remainder is occupied by broad undulating meadows, intersected by shady lanes and avenues of stately trees.

The parishes of Little Stanmore and Edgware run parallel northward as far as Elstree, in Hertfordshire, the boundary of the two being in the middle of the road, in a similar manner to that in which Hendon and Kingsbury are separated. It is probable that at the time of the Domesday Survey both the parishes of Stanmore Magna (Great Stanmore) and Stanmore Parva (Little Stanmore) were united. In that record it is stated that "Roger de Rames held in Stanmere nine hides and a half;" and it is further set forth that "there was land for seven ploughs, pannage for eight hundred hogs, pasture for the cattle of the village," &c. The land held by Roger de Rames-or Reymes, as the name is sometimes written—had been, previous to the Conquest, in the hands of Algar, "a servant of Earl Harold." It was possibly a subordinate manor, and it continued for several generations in the possession of the family of Rames, who owned also much landed estate in the neighbouring county of Essex, which was constituted a barony. Lysons observes that this manor was "in Stanmore Parva, and appears to have been of equal extent with the Earl of Cornwall's manor in Great Stanmore." At the marriage of Isabel, sister of Henry III., with Frederick, Emperor of Germany, "half a knight's fee was paid by Henry Bocoynte for his lands in the parish of Stanmore Parva, held of the Barony of William de Raymes." The estate next passed into the hands of the Prior of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, from which circumstance it is conjectured that the property received the ecclesiastical name of "Canons;" for on the dissolution of religious houses, the estate was granted, under the name of the 'manors of Canons and Wimborough, in Whitchurch," to Hugh Losse. The old house now known as the "Chandos Arms," on the Whitchurch side of Edgware Street, is supposed by Lysons to have been the mansion formerly occupied by the Losse family. Over the chimney-piece in one of the rooms were formerly to be seen the arms of Losse, with the initials R. L. (Robert Losse), and the date 1557The next occupiers of Canons were the family of Franklyn, who were living there in the reign of

Elizabeth. John Franklyn, who died in 1596, was buried in the parish church. Early in the seventeenth century the estate was sold by Sir Hugh Losse to Sir Thomas Lake, who had been in early life the amanuensis of Sir Francis Walsingham, and who held the office of Clerk of the Signet to Queen Elizabeth, and also occupied the post of principal Secretary of State under James I.

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In this latter capacity Sir Thomas appears to have conducted himself with equal integrity and talent. Fuller, in his "Worthies," says that his dexterity of dispatch and his secrecy were incredible." But he had unhappily become involved by his wife in a quarrel with the Countess of Essex, and was in consequence dismissed from his office, and sent as a prisoner to the Tower, and fined in the sum of £15,000. In the "Sidney Papers" it is stated that the king advised him to "give up" his wife and daughter, who had been the chief instruments in the quarrel, on which he observed that he could bear ill-fortune with patience, but that he could "not cease to be a husband and a father." Sir Thomas Lake died at Canons in 1630, and was succeeded in the estates by his son, Sir Lancelot Lake, who appears to have taken great interest in the welfare of the parishioners, for he not only founded a boys' school, endowing it with land producing £58 per annum, but "restored to the church those great tythes which had been wrested from her, and of which he was the lay impropriator." The church, therefore (which before this restitution had a donative of only £40 a year), became re-possessed of the rectorial tithe, and from that time, says Lysons, "the incumbents have been styled rectors in the parish register." General Lake, who distinguished himself by his military services in India at the close of the last century, was a descendant of Sir Thomas Lake. The general was raised to the peerage in 1804 by the title of Baron Lake, and three years later was advanced to a viscountcy.

The manor of Canons continued to be held by the family of the Lakes down to about the year 1710, when it was conveyed in marriage by Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Lake, and great-granddaughter of the above Sir Thomas Lake, to James Brydges, Esq., afterwards Duke of Chandos. It would seem from Swift's poems that James Brydges had been one of his friends until he was raised to a dukedom. At all events, he is thus referred to in one of the Dean's bitterest epigrams:

"James Brydges was the dean's familiar friend,
James grows a duke: their friendship here must end.
Surely the dean deserves a sore rebuke
For knowing James, to say he knows a duke.”

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This nobleman was Paymaster of the Forces during the war in Queen Anne's reign, under Godolphin's administration, and amassed an immense fortune; or, in other words, "appropriated " to his own use very large sums of the public money. The House of Commons, in 1711, instituted a committee of inquiry into the public expenditure, when it was found that a deficit existed in the accounts to the extent of thirty-five millions, or that a sum to that amount remained unaccounted for, and, further, that about one-half of that sum was connected with the accounts of Brydges. His answer to the charge was that the accounts had been regularly presented, but that "the mode of scrutinizing and passing them was tedious and complex, owing to a system pursued by the Duke of Newcastle." Great carelessness with regard to the public accounts is said to have existed at that period, and such was the low state of political morality that almost every public man in office was charged with peculation. Johnson, in his pamphlet on the Falkland Islands, sarcastically alludes to the compensation which the nation received at the close of a ten years' war, for the death of multitudes, and the expense of millions, by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters, and agents, contractors, and commissaries, "whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations." Chandos gave rise for scandal by the large sums which he spent in building, and by the style of magnificence in which he lived. He had, it appears, determined on building two magnificent houses. He fixed the site of his London residence in Cavendish Square, and the building was commenced with much grandeur of preparation, but was never completed.* His country palace, however, was the favourite object of his attention, and the spot he first selected for its erection was a little to the north of the town of Brentford, on the spot afterwards occupied by the seat of the Earl of Holderness; but he shortly relinquished his idea of building his mansion in the neighbourhood of the stately and commanding Syon House, and accordingly removed his workmen to Canons, where he set about the erection of an edifice which was to be the wonder of the age for its splendour. In this great work the Duke is said to have spent no less a sum than £200,000. Its splendour, however, was but short-lived, for in an equal degree the edifice became the wonder of the succeeding age by its abrupt declension and premature ruin.

* See "Old and New London," Vol. IV., p. 443. + See ante, p. 60.