BEAUTIFUL as Greenwich Park is within itself, with its long aisles of overhanging chestnuts, through whose branches the sunlight streams, and throws upon the velvet turf rich chequered rays of green and gold, yet it is the vast view which stretches out on every hand that gives such a charm to the spot. What a glorious prospect opens out from the summit of One-Tree Hill! London, mighty and magnificent, piercing the sky with its high-piled towers, spires, and columns, while St. Paul’s, like a mighty giant, heaves up his rounded shoulders as if keeping guard over the outstretched city! Far away the broad bright river rolls along until lost to the eye in the dim green of the fading distance, while its course is still pointed out by the spreading sail, which hangs like a fallen cloud upon the landscape. Along this ancient road of the swans do vessels approach from every corner of the habitable globe, to empty their riches into the great reservoir of London, from whence they are again sent through a thousand channels to the remotest homes in her islands.

About June, Greenwich Park may be seen in all its bloom and beauty; the fine old hawthorns are then generally in full blossom, and the hundreds of gigantic elms and chestnuts are hung in their richest array of summer-green, while here and there the antlered herd cross the shady avenues, or crouched amid what is called the Wilderness, lie half buried in the fan-like fern. The hill above and the plain below are crowded with the gay populace of London, all clothed in their holiday attire, the ladies looking in the distance like a bed of tulips, so rich and varied are the colours of the costume and parasols. At every few yards you meet with a new group, while the long avenue which leads up to Blackheath is one continuous stream of people. On the brow of the hill, and at the front of the Observatory, you see the

ONE-TREE HILL.
ONE-TREE HILL.

old pensioners with their telescopes and glasses of every colour, which seem to give a golden or a purple hue to the landscape, or sometimes to change the scene to that of a country covered with snow. Some of these old heroes have lost a leg, others an arm, and yet they go stumping about as happy, to all appearance, as the credulous cockneys whom they delight to cram with an improbable yarn, while they shoot cannon-balls to a distance which can be compared with nothing except Warner’s “long-range.”

OLD PENSIONER.
OLD PENSIONER.

Rare fun is there amongst the younger visitors, as they scramble for the oranges, which are often bountifully rolled down the hills. Off goes the luscious fruit, cantering like a ball of gold along the greensward. It strikes and clears the head of the first youngster who rushes on to catch it: a second misses it, and falls; and it vanishes somewhere amongst a round dozen of the competitors, who are all tumbling and struggling hicklety-picklety together, like a pack of hounds who are in at the death. Farther on you see a little love-making; you can tell by the half-averted head and downcast eyes that the little lady has not yet made up her mind whether to accept the offered arm or not. But see—her boy-lover has purchased some oranges. She accepts one; he sends another down the hill. You hear her clear merry voice ringing out like a silver bell with joyous

TELESCOPES.
TELESCOPES.

laughter. Ten to one it is a match—at least for the remainder of the day. Old and young are alike happy: the former sit in little groups talking of bygone times; the latter are tumbling head and heels upon the grass without a care about the coming morrow. Business and pleasure go hand in hand. If you take every card that is offered, you will have a score or two before you cross the Park:—“Tea, eightpence—with a pleasant view of the river.” “Tea made with shrimps, ninepence”—a beverage we have no wish to taste; but, poor woman, she is unconscious of the mistake, and no doubt the printer faithfully followed his copy. They are the most accommodating people in the world at Greenwich. You can walk into almost every other house, order tea, and receive thanks at your departure, for only a few pence. Numbers come into the Park ready provided. They eat and drink while on the steam-boat, feel a fresh appetite as soon as they have climbed the hill, are hungry and thirsty again after a donkey-ride on Blackheath, and should any thing remain, in either basket or bottle, they finish it as they return by the steamboat.

GIPSIES.
GIPSIES.

Observe the stealthy step of that black-eyed gipsy; this is her harvest, and many a fortune will she tell before moonrise. She has golden promises for all; would that the world could roll on as she prophesies, there would be but little of either sighing or sorrow in it. What though she is an arch impostor, she has by her promises added another pleasure to the day’s delight; happiness now and happiness in store may gladden many a future hour, which would otherwise be gloomy but for the hope with which the gipsy has gilded the future. It is a question, after all, whether the sixpence could have been better spent, though it has but purchased a harmless string of pleasing falsehoods, “which give delight but hurt not.” The poor gipsy-woman must live, and she is at the worst but an open and honestly-avowed cheat—a holiday evil, that might be worse employed than in telling fortunes. What a burst of laughter! It is just as we expected; the jolly sailor, with the corners of his neckerchief streaming out like the mane of a war-horse, has gone down the hill with a roll, and carried his partner, the dashing lady from Wapping in the pink bonnet, along with him. There will be many similar disasters before night, which end at the worst in a crushed hat or bonnet, or a few harmless bruises.

Much as we have murmured about trespassing, and prosecution, and enclosures, we really feel grateful to the Government for throwing open such a splendid park as this, over which we can wander at will, without being cautioned to keep on either foot-path or open road, but have liberty to tread on the grassy knolls, and are left as free as the antlered deer that walk and browse wherever they please. Fifteen minutes by the railway, and about thrice that time by the steamboat, and here we are treading the elastic sward, which on the hill yields to the footsteps like a rich carpet. What beautiful dips and rises lie every way, especially to the left of the Observatory! What mighty revolution of nature threw up that vast hill, sheer and abrupt from the valley, we can never know. Those ancient burrows, which lie scattered about the park, are the resting-places of the early inhabitants of Britain; beneath them lies the dust of the old Cymri,—disturb it not.

Let us pause on the brow of this hill, and recal a few of the stirring scenes which these aged hawthorns have overlooked. They are the ancient foresters of the chase, and many of them have stood through the wintry storms of past centuries, and were gnarled and knotted, and stricken with age, long before Evelyn planned and planted those noble avenues of chestnuts and elms. Below, between the plain at the foot of the hill and the river, stood the old Palace of Greenwich, in which Henry VIII. held his revels, and where Edward VI., the boy-king, died. That ancient palace was no doubt rich in the spoils of many a plundered abbey and ruined monastery,—in

GREENWICH PARK.
GREENWICH PARK.

vessels of gold and silver which had once been dedicated to holy purposes, but were then red with the dregs of the wine shed at many a midnight revel by the Defender of the Faith and woman-murdering monarch. Perhaps the walls of that old palace were hung with the portraits of the wives he had caused to be beheaded, while his own likeness in the centre looked like a tiger out of the frame upon its prey.

On this hill Cardinal Wolsey may have meditated with all his “blushing honours thick upon him.” Katherine, the broken-hearted queen, may here have reined-in her palfrey; or from this aged hawthorn have torn off a spray, when it was, as now, fragrant and white with May-blossoms, and presented it with a smile to the royal savage who rode beside her. On yonder plain, where so many happy faces are now seen, in former days the tournament was held. There gaudy galleries were erected, over which youth and beauty leant as they waved their embroidered scarfs. We can almost fancy that we can see the crowned tiger smile as he closes the visor of his helmet, bowing his plume while he recognises some fair face, which was soon to fall, with its long tresses dabbled in blood, upon the scaffold—the blood which then ran so clear and joyous through the violet-coloured veins which streaked the ivory of that graceful neck. In this park the crafty Cecil mused many an hour as he plotted the return of the Princess Mary, while the ink was scarcely dry with which he had recorded his allegiance to the Lady Jane Grey. The whole scenery teems with the remembrance of old stirring events, and grave historical associations. Hal, the murderer, comes straddling and blowing up the hill; the pale and sickly boy-king rides gently by, and breathes heavily as he inhales the sweet air on the summit; the titter and merry laugh of the ill-starred queens seems to fall upon the ear from behind the trees that conceal them. Then we have voices of mourning and loud lament from fair attendants—who refuse to be comforted—for those whom they loved and served were there no more.

Blackheath, which is only divided from its aristocratic neighbour the Park by a wall, pleasantly overlooks a portion of the counties of Kent and Surrey, and affords such extensive views of the distant scenery as can only be exceeded by climbing Shooter’s Hill, or some of the neighbouring heights on the left of the heath. In past times it was planted with gibbets: the bleached bones of men who had dared to ask for an extension of liberty, or who doubted the infallibility of kings, were here left to dangle in the wind. In the distance, the ancient palace of Eltham heaves up like a large barn, attracting even the eye of a stranger by its bulkiness, for not an architectural ornament from hence is visible. Blackheath at Whitsuntide, and all summer long, is infested with asses, which ever stand, saddled and bridled, in readiness for the first comer. A donkey-ride is one of the favourite amusements of our holiday-loving Londoners of both sexes, nor is the day’s pleasure considered complete without it. The charges vary from a penny to a shilling, according to either the time or the distance; and a strange, rough, and inharmonious family are the proprietors, who beat and let out these animals. Their chief delight appears to consist in abusing one another, and running down the qualities of the poor long-eared quadrupeds—each applicant at the same time extolling the strength and speed of his own donkey. Here they may be found with side-saddles for the ladies, and neat chairs, covered with white drapery, and so secured that the little children can ride with safety.

A countryman who went by water for the first time from London to Greenwich, would be astonished to find that, with the exception of a few yards here and there, the whole five miles, on each side of the Thames, was one continuation of houses, warehouses, docks, and manufactories; that he could not for the life of him tell where London began nor where it ended; that when it ceased to stretch beside the river, it was still continued in a long line behind the marshes and the Isle of Dogs up to the Blackwall pier; and from no height in the neighbourhood could his eye at once glance over this lengthy range of continued streets. Twelve miles would scarcely exceed the almost unbroken link of buildings which extends from Blackwall to far beyond Chelsea, where street still joins to street in apparent endless succession. And all around this vast city lie miles of the most beautiful rural scenery. Highgate and Hornsey and Hampstead on the Middlesex side, hilly, wooded, and watered; and facing these, the vast range called the Hogsback, which hem in the Surrey side, from beyond Norwood, far away to the left, to where we have carried our readers in this chapter; while the valleys on both sides of the river are filled with pleasant fields, parks, and green winding lanes. Were London to extend five miles farther every way, it would still be hemmed in with some of the most beautiful rural scenery in England; and the lowness of fares, together with the rapidity of railway travelling, would render as nothing this extent of streets. Even the very poor are now satisfied, as they can travel from one end of the kingdom to the other by paying one penny per mile.

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