THE outlying districts of London have each a curiously marked colour and flavour of their own. Thus “the Borough,” the district about Bishopgate Street, the City itself—and Islington, all have a distinct and recognizable air. It would take long to define the elements of each, but the skilled denizen has no difficulty in distinguishing. Islington has a bustling, almost foreign air, and in some sense deserves its epithet “merry.” A little beyond Islington there begins a district of so special and curious a kind as really to have effect on the mind and spirits of the traveller. For here he finds a succession of tame, spiritless villas and terraces, gardens and small squares, not dilapidated, yet all running to seed as it were. There is a general look of monotonous hopelessness that cannot be described. No one seems to be about or doing. There is one compensation—the good, clear, inspiring air. This is felt as we mount those gently-rising hills which lead out of the main road, and land us among the still more saddening squares and abjectly-correct terraces. One of these is Canonbury Road, at the top of which the atmosphere is positively “bracing,” and here—that is, a little way on—we come to a most interesting old memorial, well worthy the long jaunt from the West End.

In strange contrast with its associates rises a grim and gaunt old brick tower, solid, massive, and lofty, against whose veteran sides lean some old gabled houses, part of the structure. A thick and friendly coat of ivy covers a goodly proportion of the old body. An antique rail surmounts the top, while a meagre weathercock gives point and finish to the whole. There is a certain majesty and breadth about this venerable relic, which rises here to a great height, wrapped in the dignity of its own desolation. There is always, indeed, a sense of sadness in the spectacle of one of these old brick towers, all scarred and weather-beaten with the storms and batterings of fortune.

Standing before the low-arched doorway, a genuine portal, the door itself a bit of oak, framed and duly knobbed, I remind myself that this picturesque tenement is associated, oddly enough, with some of the pleasantest literary memories. Like its mediÆval neighbour, old “St. John’s Gate,” it was the refuge and shelter of the destitute “hack” more than a hundred and twenty years ago. A regular line of littÉrateurs have had the odd fancy of deserting their busy Grub Street, and of lying perdu here, either from choice or necessity; and it is easy to call up the rather ungainly figure of Doctor Goldsmith toiling up Canonbury Hill, and hiding here from his creditors.

A worthy woman—albeit garrulous—guides us over the old tower. After saying that “she knew Oliver’s life well,” she added, “Them poets seem to be always poor and in want.” It was astonishing to see the number and spaciousness of the chambers in the old place, and their picturesque rambling disposition. One was struck with admiration at the two spacious rooms on the second and third floors, finely proportioned and baronial, each adorned with ebony-toned oak panelling reaching to the ceiling, and each with an elaborately carved mantelpiece, such as would have rejoiced Charles Lamb at Blakesware. The delicacy and finish of the work cannot be surpassed. There are old solid doors, black as ink, hanging on hinges a yard long; fragments of old oak banisters; while in the upper stories windows with diamond panes are still seen. The stair mounts in an irregular way: off which are curious chambers and many odd “crannies.”

About 1766, the bookseller Newbery, as we learn from the pleasant account of him just published, contracted with a Mr. Fleming, the then tenant, to board and lodge the poet for £50 a year. According to this authority, Goldsmith’s room was that on the second floor, and here he is described as reading to one of the younger Newberys passages from his MS. George Daniel, the bibliophile, who made a pilgrimage to the tower—if he did not reside there—and gathered up the traditions, found that the first-floor room was believed to have been the Doctor’s, and “an old press bedstead in the corner” was shown in proof. Two families, the Tappses and the Evanses, had been in care of the place for over 140 years: and Mrs. Tapps used to retail many stories about the poet to her niece, who was in possession at the time of Mr. Daniel’s visit. Washington Irving was so much interested by the place that he took up his abode there for a time. Other tenants have been the eccentric Dr. Hill, of Garrick’s happy epigram—

with Smart, the mad poet, who wrote an epic in Bedlam; Humphreys, another poet; “Junius” Woodfall; Chambers, who wrote an encyclopÆdia; and Speaker Onslow. A later resident was Seymour, the artist, associated with the earlier numbers of “Pickwick,” who shut himself up here with a fellow student to study “High Art,” a line he fortunately abandoned for what was his real gift. What rooms in London offer so curious a succession of tenants? Some time ago a “Young Men’s Association” fixed itself here, but the young men are fled, and once more “desolate is the dwelling of Morna.” The view from the platform on the roof was almost confounding: the vast champaign spreading away below to the wooded hills of Hampstead and Highgate; while the keen inspiriting air blew from these heights. It was a surprise even for a fair and spirituelle antiquary of our acquaintance, who was tempted up to the dizzy elevation, and could scarcely credit that London offered such a spectacle. St. Paul’s seemed to lie at your feet.

This old brick tower dates from the fourteenth century, and belonged to the canons of the gloomy Church of St. Bartholomew, another fine but fast-decaying monument. It belongs to “the Marquis”—that is, to the Marquis of Northampton—of whose provident care and attention this fine old relic is well worthy. If such relief be much longer delayed it will come too late. A few hundred pounds would do much in the way of restoration. It would make a museum, or even, as a show-place, would benefit the district, drawing visitors. There is an ominous rumour that it is intended to pull it down, as cumbering the earth, and to sell the ground for building.

The West-end Londoner who has never explored the quarter that leads to the northern heights will be agreeably surprised by the antique, original flavour of “Merrie Islington.” At night or evening the bustle, glare of lights, jingling of bells, and converging of tramcars, the enormous crowds waiting or passing, the fine clear air, the steep hilly streets, the glimpse of the open country, and the general animation make up quite a foreign scene. There is even a half-rural air, with the stunted or “pollarded” trees, the terraces and mouldering gardens in front, and the little superannuated houses; carriers’ carts are waiting loaded and ready to set off for villages and towns a few miles away. Here converge half a dozen streets, two or three steep hills, and innumerable lines of tramways and omnibuses. Every instant the cars and ’busses are arriving and departing, enormous crowds are waiting to get in and go their way, and the jingling of the bells, the metallic sound of the wheels, the chatter of voices, supply a sort of music of an original kind. The most picturesque effect arises from the trains of cars perpetually coming up the hills from the town below, and arriving as it were, unexpectedly—arriving from round the corners, and crossing each other in bewildering confusion. When all is lighted up the spectacle for bustle and animation and crowd quite suggests a busy foreign city, from the glare of innumerable lights, to which Islington seems highly partial. The Islingtonians, it may be noted, are healthy-looking folk, for the place is high and the air inspiring, as any jaded Londoner journeying from the west will find. Close beside us are two well-known places of amusement, the “Grand Theatre,” some fifteen years an obscure music hall, suddenly becoming celebrated, owing to GeneviÈve de Brabant and Miss Emily Soldene; to say nothing of the two “John-Darms,” as the French comic soldiers were invariably known at Islington, one of them performed in broken English by a droll Frenchman. Before us is the Agricultural Hall, where the Mohawk Minstrels, highly appreciated, perform.

Old Sadler’s Wells Theatre introduces us at once to the New River, officially constituted and recognized by a large reservoir and offices, where it “pulls itself together,” as it were, after its long forty miles’ journey from Amwell in Hertfordshire, before beginning its work in London. The old theatre, brimful of curious associations, still struggles on, and presents itself as a very quaint, old-fashioned pile. In prints of old Sadler’s Wells—and very pretty they are—we are shown this rural playhouse on the bank of the New River itself, with a row of trees between, and a man in a cocked hat fishing. As is well known, this position by the river used to be turned to dramatic uses, the waters being let in for aquatic spectacles. The shade of Grimaldi must haunt the place. The track of the New River can still be made out, running beside the theatre, but it is now covered in.

The old mansion in Clerkenwell which serves as the head office of the New River Company is worthy of the energetic, gallant, and beruffled Sir Hugh Myddelton, the Lesseps of his time. His statue is to be seen in Islington; and in all the annals of English pluck and perseverance there is nothing better or more encouraging than the indomitable pluck of this intrepid water purveyor—himself “a company.” The board room of the building is a fine, picturesque apartment in a good old style; its ceiling, a good piece of florid decoration, laid out in carpet pattern, or like a flowerbed, with rich stucco borders—a circle within a square, and a border round that again. Panelling runs all round, and there is an elaborately-wrought mantel, with carvings and other decorations. Corinthian pillars flank it, one on each side, and the whole chamber has a lightsome, spacious look and general air of state.

Among Lamb’s quaint and interesting recollections of his time at Christ’s Hospital, one, of a little boy’s scheme which was never carried out, seemed always highly original. He once, he tells us, planned an expedition to discover the source of the New River; that is, to follow its course to the original spring in Hertfordshire. But, as may be conceived, this was far too arduous an undertaking for a schoolboy. The New River seems to have been always associated with Lamb’s course in a mysterious way. In his school-days the summit of holiday enjoyment was to be taken to it to bathe: an extraordinary proceeding, which nowadays would be a high crime against manners. At one time he fixed his residence on its very bank, at Colebrooke Row, and his letters have constant allusions to his “old New River.” He was proud of his little house. “You enter without passage into a cheerful dining-room, etc.” It was from this mansion, as readers of “Elia” know, that George Dyer, the blear-eyed pundit, walked straight into the river, and was fished out, having had a narrow escape indeed. He lived to marry his charwoman in his old age, to his great comfort.

It is impossible to pass this house without being affected with dismal associations. It stands in a most desolate stretch of houses, and the buried river in front seems to add to the forlornness. Since Lamb’s day the river has been covered in, and is, as it were, lost to view. But as we come to Canonbury it suddenly shows itself in a rather cheerful fashion between green banks and trees. Following it diligently, we see it rippling away between its banks—very pellucid on the whole, and not too broad for an active jumper to clear at a bound. It does not seem more than two or three feet deep. Here there are abundance of shady trees; and the houses have their little gardens coming down to the edge, with cosy seats, a stray Japanese umbrella spread—all exactly as if it were some real river and not an unpretending make-believe runnel. But has it not come all the way from “pleasant Hertfordshire,” and recreated many a cit’s heart, who of a summer’s evening has his afternoon tea at the river’s edge? Presently our old New River dives underground once more, and seems hopelessly lost. Here I was completely puzzled to find it again. With much difficulty and many inquiries, and many false scents too, I caught it up; when I saw it strike out across the country, meandering over a rich green pasture in diligent fashion, with a pretty open walk beside it. Thence it passed under the road, by some old-fashioned houses with gardens and overgrown with creepers. Here is the prettily-named region of the Green Lanes, and an old-fashioned line of houses called Paradise Row, which looks out on spreading “park-like meadows,” to use the auctioneers’ term; and here our river seems to have regularly got free and started off across the grass, never stopping till it reaches Stoke Newington. Here, however, it meets with rough usage; for the company have erected large buildings, pumping-engines, and reservoirs, and, as it arrives from Hertfordshire, it is detained prisoner until it accumulates in volume. In short, the amount of agreeable twirling and general aquatic vagaries pursued by the pleasant little stream during its course must be extraordinary. It brings pleasure and rurality wherever it goes. I was sorry to part company with it, and would gladly have pursued it further on its rural course.