every person employed in every duty to be performed. Constant superintendence and care, constant forbearance and command of temper, and a never-failing attention to the comfort of the patients, to their clothing, their food, their personal cleanliness, their occupations, their recreations-these are but so many different ways in which kindness shows itself, and these will be found to produce results beyond the general expectation of those who persevere in their application." Caroline Fox in her "Journals," June 22, 1842, writes: "Met Colonel Gurney at Paddington, and reached Hanwell in a few minutes. Were most kindly received by Dr. Conolly; he has had the superintendence for two years, and at once introduced the system of non-coercion in its fullest sense, though feeling that it was a very bold experiment, and required intense watching; but he dared it all for the sake of a deeply suffering portion of humanity, with the most blessed result. All the assistants seem influenced by his spirit, and it is a most delightful and heartcheering spectacle to see madness for once not treated as a crime." In the wards a good supply of books, bagatelleboards, cards, &c., is kept up; and in some of the wards there are also pianofortes, which have been presented by visitors for the use of those patients who are musically inclined. The male patients, and such of the female patients as may be fit for manual labour, may be seen from time to time labouring in the gardens and fields which lie round the asylum, and so contributing to the good of the institution, whilst harmlessly and healthfully employed. The previous chapels having proved insufficient, a new chapel, in the Early English Gothic style, was added to the asylum in 1880. The architect was Mr. H. Martin, and it will seat about a thousand worshippers. It is of brick, and has a lofty tower and spire. Standing in front of the main entrance, it forms a conspicuous and central object in the general view of the place. There are at Hanwell two cemeteries, one belonging to the parish of St. Mary Abbots, Kensington, and the other to St. George's, Hanover Square. In these days of electric telegraphy, when a message can be sent from London to the uttermost corner of the globe in almost less time than it would take to be carried by hand from one end of the metropolis to the other, it is somewhat interesting to read such a scrap of intelligence as the following, which we cull from The Mirror of December, 1839: The average number of patients at Hanwell Asylum is close upon 2,000, of whom by far the larger portion are females. The management of the patients, as regards their classification, employment, and treatment, is under the direction of two resident medical officers, one for the male, and the other for the female department. There is a bazaar upon the premises, for the sale of fancy and other needlework, &c., the produce of the female patients during the daytime who are desirous of amusing themselves by the production of such articles. The bazaar is under the care of a superintendent; and the profit arising from the sale of such work to visitors is expended in little extra indulgences for the patients. There is a school for the male patients, and the schoolmaster occasionally gives lectures in the evening on some amusing subject. The amusements for the patients, in fact, are varied. I received in twenty minutes." : "ELECTRO-MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH OF THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY. This telegraph, which is the invention of Mr. Cook and Prof. Wheatstone, of King's College, has been, during two months, constantly worked at the passing of every train between Drayton, Hanwell, and Paddington. At the former station it, for the present, terminates. As soon as the whole line is completed, the telegraph will extend from the Paddington terminus to Bristol; and it is contemplated that then information of any nature may be conveyed to Bristol, and an answer Traffic through Brentford in the old Coaching Days-Government of the Parish-Old Bridge of the Brent-The Priory of the Holy Angeis Inundations-Fondness of George III. for Brentford-The Dangers of the Road-Early History of Brentford-The Soil and the Pleistocene Deposits-Murder of King Edmund-The Battle of Brentford-Visit of the Grand Duke of Tuscany --The "Two Kings of Brentford "--The Dirt and Squalor of Brentford-How the Duke of Wellington nearly came to grief here-Ancient Hostelries-Old (East) Brentford ChurchNew (West) Brentford Church-St. Paul's Church-The Town-hall and Market-house-Manufactories and Grand Junction WaterworksGrand Junction Canal-Drinking Fountain-Bear Baitings-The Old Market-place-The Elections for Middlesex-"Wilkes and Liberty!" -A Brentford Elector-The Manor of Bordeston-Boston House-Sion House Academy-Wyke Farm-"Old Gang Aboot "-The Pitt Diamond-Mrs. Trimmer-Extracts from the Parish Register. We now make our way in a south-westerly direction, skirting the hamlet of Little Ealing, and shortly find ourselves at Brentford, a long straggling village or town on the Hammersmith and Hounslow road, and extending about a mile and a quarter west from Kew Bridge, almost parallel with the Thames. The chief road to the west and south-west of England passed through Brentford in the days of coaching and posting. Some idea of the traffic along this road from London at the end of the reign of William IV. may be formed from the fact that the tolis of the Hammersmith Turnpike Trust were let in 1836 for £19,000 per annum, and that 247 coaches and public conveyances, and seven mails, passed through and returned to town on this road daily. Nearly all this traffic must have gone through Brentford. The road, at one time bordered by hedgerows, and passing through cultivated fields and market gardens, has been within the last half-century considerably altered in its appearance by the "demon of bricks and mortar;" indeed, Sir Horace Mann, writing under date of 1791, observes that "there will soon be one street from London to Brentford," and the era of which he prophesied, as we have already remarked in our opening chapter, has long since arrived. Brentford is not included in any parliamentary borough, nor is it a corporate town; but it is governed by a Local Board of Health. It is really a township in the parishes of Hanwell and Ealing: West, or New Brentford, being in the former parish, and East, or Old Brentford, being in the latter. The west, however, is really the older part of the town. At the west end is a bridge of one arch over the Brent, superseding that mentioned by Leland in his "Itinerary." In his time it had three arches, and close to it stood a hospital of brick; but we are not informed as to its character. In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1802 is an engraving of the seal of "The Priory of the Holy Angels in the Marshlands, near Brentford." This is * See ante, p. 3. called by Bishop Tanner in his "Notitia Monastica,” after Weever and Newcourt, a friary, hospital, or fraternity of the nine holy orders of angels, consisting of a master and several brethren in a chapel at the west end of Brentford, or, according to Stow, "by the bridge." Lysons mentions it, and places it "in Isleworth, at Brentford End." All Christian passengers were free of toll on passing this bridge, but Jews and Jewesses were forced to pay a halfpenny if on foot, or a penny if on horseback. Many centuries later, if we may trust Spence's "Anecdotes," the Jews offered to Lord Godolphin to purchase the town, with all its rights and privileges of trade, but that statesman declined the offer. Its name explains itself *—the ford over the Brent, a small tributary of the Thames, which rises in Hendon, between the Hampstead and Stanmore hills, and, flowing in a south-westerly course for about eighteen miles, falls into the Thames at this point. Its situation on the banks of the Thames and the Brent being low and flat has been at times one of great inconvenience, owing to inundations. 1682 we read of a great flood here, when "boats rowed up and down the streets, and the water got into the pews of the church." In In January, 1841, great damage was occasioned here by the rise of the waters of the Brent and the Grand Junction Canal, owing to an unusually rapid thaw and the bursting of a reservoir at Hendon. Numbers of boats, barges, and lighters were torn from their moorings and driven through the bridge towards the Thames, several barges being sunk, and many of the houses inundated. "All the land to the south of the road passing from Brentford through Hounslow to Staines is so nearly level as to have no more than a proper drainage; and much the greater part is less than ten feet above the surface of the river at Staines Bridge, and not more than from three to five feet above the level of the rivulets flowing through this district. From Staines, through Ashford and See however, below, p. 31. 30 Hanworth Common, to Twickenham, a distance of | never been thirty miles from home in his life. They seven miles and a half, it is a perfect level, gene- | travelled by coach. rally from ten to twenty feet above the surface of the Thames." King George II.-like his successor-it is well known, preferred Kew to Windsor, and loved the dead level of the neighbourhood. On the same principle he was very fond of Brentford, because its long low street reminded him of some of the towns in his kingdom of Hanover. For this reason he always ordered his coach to be driven slowly through it, in order that he might enjoy the scene. The road connecting this town with the metroDolis was, in the last century, much on a par with the other great thoroughfares radiating from London, so far as the dangers from highwaymen and footpads were concerned. We read in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1776, that in the September of that year the then Lord Mayor of London was stopped at Turnham Green, a mile east of Brentford, in his chaise and four, in the sight of all his retinue, and robbed by a single highwayman, who swore that he would shoot the first person that offered any resistance. Cyrus Redding, in his "Fifty Years' Recollections," tells a strange story in connection with this place : "I had a relative, who, not long before railways were established, on stating his intention to come up to town, was solicited to accept as a fellowtraveller a man of property, a neighbour, who had Middleton, "View of the Agriculture of Middlesex," p. 23. All went on well until they reached Brentford. The countryman supposed he was nearly come to his journey's end. On seeing the lamps mile after mile, he expressed more and more impatience. Are we not yet in London, and so many miles of lamps?' At length, on reaching Hyde Park Corner, he was told they had arrived. His impatience increased from thence to Lad Lane. He became overwhelmed with astonishment. They entered the inn; and my relative bade his companion remain in the coffee-room until he returned, having gone to a bed-room for ablution. On returning, he found the bird flown; and for six long weeks there were no tidings of him. At length it was discovered he was in the custody of the constables at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, his mind alienated. He was conveyed home, came partially to his reason for a short time, and died. It was gathered from him that he had become confused more and more at the lights, and long distances he was carried among them; it seemed as if they could have no end. The idea that he could never be extricated from such a labyrinth superseded every other. He could not bear the thought. He went into the street, inquired his way to the westward, and seemed, from his statement, to have got into Hyde Park, and then out again into the Great Western Road, walking until he could walk no longer. He could relate nothing more that occurred until he was secured. Neither his watch nor money had been taken from him." It is time now for us to speak of Brentford itself. Brentford.] JULIUS CÆSAR AT BRENTFORD. 31 In spite of the general opinion that Julius Cæsar, in | since it allowed the Britons more space to fortify his second invasion of England, crossed the Thames, them with stakes, and, at the same time, afforded at the Coway Stakes, near Shepperton (as we shall the Romans a fairer opportunity of plying their presently see), there are not wanting those who engines over the heads of their own men as they consider that it is more probable that the scene of entered the river, and of striking the enemy posted that passage was much nearer to London, and the on the topmost verge of the opposite side. Thus, Rev. Henry Jenkins, in the "Journal of the British whilst the cavalry, sent in advance to cross higher Archæological Association" for June, 1860, main- up the stream, were threatening the flank, the main tains at some length his belief that it was at Old body of the legions pressing forward in front, and Brentford that the emperor crossed his army. sheltered, as it were, by the military engines, made We learn from Gibson's edition of Camden's good the passage of the river. Cæsar's words are By this I understand that the cavalry were sent in advance to attempt passage higher up the stream, at Kingston, Walton, or elsewhere, in order to distract the enemy's attention, and to draw off a part of his forces, whilst the infantry pressed forward to the ford directly in their front. The cavalry and infantry did not cross the stream together and at the same place. Such a plan would have caused inextricable confusion." Britannia," that at Old Brentford the Thames | præmisso equitatu. was annually fordable with great ease, and was so still in Bishop Gibson's time, as now, there being at low ebb not above three feet of water in the bed of the river. "Here," writes Mr. Jenkins, "on many accounts, I am inclined to place the passage of Cæsar. Its British name, Brentford-i.e., Breninford the king's road or way,* favours this supposition; for the name, even if it should not apply personally to Cæsar, establishes the fact that this part of the Thames was known to, and used by, the Britons as a ford. The height of the banks also at this place is an important consideration, • This derivation entirely sets aside the derivation given above, which makes Brentford to have been so called from the ford across the Brent. It is not usual for towns, which, of course, are after-growths, to give names to rivers; the converse is almost always the case. So far Mr. Jenkins, who considers that as soon as the emperor had brought together all his forces on the north side of the river at Old Brentford, he marched straight east. "His first and chief object, after he had crossed the Thames, must have been to have led his army into Essex, and form a junction with the Trinobantes ;" and this he did, keeping between the river on his right and the forest on his left. In this case he would have passed across what is now the north of London, passed the Lea at Old Ford, and so on to Ilford and Barking, on his way to head-quarters at Cæsaromagus, which Mr. Jenkins fixes at Billericay, near Brentwood. A long, narrow strip of waste land, some two acres in extent, forming an island in the Thames, and known as "Brentford Eyot," adds not a little to the beauty of the river scenery at this point. It is overgrown with trees, and a suggestion has been raised by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to sell it for the sake of the timber; but the idea has been strongly resented by the inhabitants. Richmond hills on the south to the Harrow heights on the north. In its shallow pools, and amid the high thick rushes which lined its banks, the hippopotamus made his lair and bathed his unwieldy limbs. Here the elephant slaked his thirst at night, and the huge Irish elk, the largest of the deer species and now long extinct, took refuge from his ferocious enemies, and stood at bay in the waters of the friendly stream. It was a wilderness of waters --an arm of the sea rather than a river. The beasts held the land for their own, and reigned with undisputed sway, revelling in the warmth and rich luxurious vegetation of a tropical clime. Such is the scene of the distant past which these discoveries suggest. "The next period, the records of which have been preserved by the river, is the stone age, carrying us back to a time when men did yet not know how to work the metals. In many parts of the Thames between Sion House and Strand-on-the Green during dredging operations interesting discoveries have been made of various stone imple The soil of Brentford is, or has been, very rich in remains of extinct species of animals; and in digging out brick-earth and excavating for other works, many of their bones have been found. In 1740 the skeleton of a "large beast of the bull kind" was found here. Professor Phillips, in his "Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames," says " At Brentford the pleistocene deposits above the London clay have been successfully examined, long since by Mr. Trimmer, and sub-ments, known as celts-i.e., chisels and hammers sequently by Morris. The paper of Mr. Trimmer, referred to by Professor Phillips, was printed in the Philosophical Transactions for the Year 1813. In it an account is given of many interesting discoveries of bones of animals about ten feet below the present surface of the ground. There were found teeth and bones of both the African and Asiatic elephant, of the hippopotamus, and of several species of deer. The remains of hippopotami were so abundant that, in turning over an area of 120 yards, parts of six tusks of that animal were found, besides a tooth and part of the horn of a deer, parts of a tusk and a grinder of an elephant, and the horns, with a small portion of the skull of an ox." Many of these fossils are now in the possession of Thomas Layton, F.S.A. station. "Since the period referred to by Professor Phillips and Mr. Trimmer," observes the Rev. T. E. Platten in his "Memorials of Old Brentford," "various excavations have been made for railway purposes at Kew Bridge and near the present Gunnersbury At Kew Bridge were found bones of several species of deer, horns of reindeer and reddeer, tusks of hippopotami, and remains of bisons.' At Gunnersbury, where the London clay was reached, were discovered the remains of sharks, a fossil crab and fossil resin (amber), fine specimens of nautili, and other marine shells. "If we could have looked on the place in those days," continues Mr. Platten, "a strange scene would have been presented to our eyes. The Thames then probably spread its waters from the of stone, some of which have been found let into bone or wooden handles. The stones are in many instances carefully shaped to suit the purposes for which they were required, but at the best they could not be very efficient implements to work with. To the stone succeeded the bronze age, and that again was followed by the iron. Of the bronze and iron ages, also, many relics have been found. There have come to light a great many specimens of bronze weapons, such as swords, spear-heads, wedges, axes, and part of the boss of a shield. Britons, Romans, and Saxons, from time to time, must have fought many battles in this neighbourhood, and these relics were probably the arms of soldiers who perished in trying to cross the Thames for attack or in flight. It seems probable," Mr. Platten adds, "that for a considerable time the river formed a boundary separating Britons from Romans, for as a rule ancient British remains are found along the left bank, while the Roman are mostly confined to the south side of the Thames." Brentford has figured in history on at least two occasions: in the Saxon times, and again under the Stuarts. It was here that Edmund Ironside defeated the Danes in 1016, when many of the English were drowned in the Thames. A few days later King Edmund was himself treacherously slain at Brentford. Local tradition fixes the Red Lion Inn yard as the scene of the murder. Here, in 1642, Prince Rupert routed two regiments of the army of the Parliament, under Colonel Hollis, driving them out with considerable loss. The importance of this engagement, and |