It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find an epitaph in worse taste

than this upon poor Yorick: the closing couplet of the rhyme seems (if it has any meaning at all) a fling of some sceptic mason at our belief in the immortality of the soul; the technicality of the

craft is ludicrously illustrated by their

expressed conviction that the conduct

of the subject of their panegyric was directed by rule and square, with which, as applied to men of life and conversation, Sterne was known to have had very little to do.

Not the least melancholy circumstance attending distinguished men is the

STERNE'S TOME.

frequently objectionable character of the memorials inscribed to their

memory.

Of this post-mortem impertinence we have many flippant examples, and this of the free-thinking Freemasons may be added to the melancholy catalogue.

We so

Sterne deserves at our hands the exalted praise that must ever accompany the rare and wonderful faculty of originality in writing. ordinarily find habits of thought, manner, and style, copied by one man after another to successive generations-so much so that a principal employment of the critic consists, now-a-days, in grubbing up the roots of old ideas; we are so resigned, from usage, to men modelling their works upon the works of men who have gone before them, laying down for themselves a principle derived from some great exemplar in their art, and following him with a literary idolatry; we are so accustomed, now-a-days, to schools of writers, and to infant schools of their followers far behind, that we are wonderstruck when some one, more independent than the rest, instead of following the beaten road, and paying at every second mile-stone his turnpike of praise, takes his way across the country, making the path he does not find, and following only nature and his inclination.

This is the praise we must award to Sterne, that at the very time when the world was nauseated with maudlin sentimentality and long-winded

garrulity, he came forth, not merely with ideas altogether fresh, original, and glowing; but in style so captivating, yet so strange, that imitation has hitherto been vain, and only has exposed imitators to ridicule.

Instead of copying the great masters, Sterne copied their greater mistress, Nature; and instead of pictures finished down to tameness, he flung his studies from nature, with all their boldness of execution, upon an admiring world.

Great literary successes are reserved only for those who can give us something new, in a manner somewhat new; but so long as our students, whether in art or literature, will keep perpetually copying, in libraries and galleries, the works of the great masters, when they should be in the fields or the world copying nature and life, so long their hope must be vain of being numbered with the spirits that are immortal.

WESTBOURNE GREEN, in the parish of Paddington, was the estate of Ware, the architect, who leaving the aspiring, though unambitious employment of a chimney-sweeper, rose to some eminence in his new profession, and edited the works of Palladio.

At Westbourne Green was a small secluded cottage, a residence, for some years, of the inimitable Siddons. The late commander-in-chief of Her Majesty's land forces, General Lord Hill, resided occasionally here. Not many years ago this hamlet was remarkable for its seclusion, but the busy hum of men now environs it on all sides. Passing Westbourne Green, the view begins to open, and would be interesting, did the rapidity with which we are impelled along permit us to contemplate it. To the left, or Bayswater side of the road, is seen the Hippodrome, now about to be converted into sites for building; to the right, the frequent tombs of Kensall Green Cemetery. The Paddington Canal, joining the Grand Junction at Norwood, is at intervals visible. Passage-boats formerly plied in this canal as far as Uxbridge. This canal passes through the parishes of Paddington, parts of Chelsea and Kensington, Willesden, Twyford, the Hammersmith side of Fulham, Acton, Harrow, Perivale, Greenford, Northald and Hayes, to Wormwood, where it communicates with the Grand Junction Canal.

WORMWOOD, OF WORMHOLT, SCRUBBS, an appendage to Fulham parish, is quickly traversed. Here are held frequent field-days of the Household Cavalry, and in the palmy days of the fancy, were many pugilistic encounters.

Wormwood Scrubbs is well known as an arena for giving and receiving satisfaction, in the manner prescribed by fashionable codes of honour.

EALING, which is our first station, is divided into Great and Little Ealing, and is a place of not much importance. Penruddock, who was executed for a rebellion in the west, during the Usurpation possessed this manor, as did also the unfortunate Edward Duke of Somerset. The celebrated Serjeant Maynard resided at Gunnersbury, a seat in this parish, alluded to in Lord Bath's little poem on Strawberry-Hill.

Sir William Trumbull, Secretary of State to William the Third, had a house in this neighbourhoood called Hickes-upon-the-Heath, long afterwards the property of Mr. Spencer Perceval. On Castlebleare-Hill, commanding delightful views of the vale of Brent to the north, and that of Thames to the south and west, His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent had a villa, now pulled down. The brave Elliott, Lord Heathfield, whose portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds adorns the National Gallery, resided for some years on Castlebleare-Hill.

Oldmixon, author of a history of England, lies buried in Ealing Church. Robert Orme, the historian of Hindostan, is also interred here, and Serjeant Maynard, whose history is as singular and eventful as that of any man in the profession.

Serjeant Maynard lived in stirring times, and had a stirring part. He was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in the early part of the seventeenth century. After having taken his degree at Exeter College, Oxford, he entered at the Middle Temple, and was in due time called to the bar. He conducted the impeachment against the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud; sat as one of the lay members in the Assembly of Divines; was called to the degree of Serjeant during the Usurpation; and was Protector's Serjeant both to Oliver Cromwell and his successor. During the life of the power of the Protector,

former, Maynard, for some opposition to the usurped was committed to the Tower, but was soon released. After the Restoration he was knighted, and made King's Serjeant, declining a seat on the bench which had been offered him. He was employed also by James the Second, but warmly supported the proceedings in Parliament which ultimately led to the bringing in the Prince of Orange. Bishop Burnet tells an anecdote of him, that when he went with the procession to congratulate the Prince on his arrival, His Highness took notice of his great age, and added that he

K K

must have outlived all the men of the law who had been his contemporaries; to which the veteran courtier replied with much pertinency, that if His Royal Highness had not come over, he must have outlived the law itself!

When he had attained the advanced age of eighty-seven years, and for more than sixty had been a practitioner at the bar, he was appointed by King William one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal in 1689, and died in the following year.

Maynard had the reputation of being an able advocate, and the best black-letter lawyer of his time. He was a man who looked at political events with a lawyer's eye, and whether on one side or the other, if he succeeded in getting the ear of the Court, and gaining his cause, the abstract justice of the cause would seem to have troubled him but little. The best proof of this is to be found in the fact that he was employed by all parties, and willing to be employed by all.

ACTON lies a short distance south of the railway, between Wormwood Scrubbs and Ealing, on the Uxbridge road, and about four miles from Hyde Park Corner.

Acton is the ghost of a departed watering-place; once a favourite of fashion, but now utterly deserted. "About half a mile from East Acton are three wells of mineral water springing out of a deep clay; the water is clear, and rather of a bitter flavour, being impregnated chiefly with calcareous Glauber (sulphates of soda and lime); it is supposed to be more powerfully cathartic than any other in the kingdom of the same quality, except that of Cheltenham, which is considerably stronger, in the proportion of nearly three to two. The Acton Wells were in their glory about the middle of the last century. The assembly-room was then a place of fashionable resort, and the hamlets of Friar's Place and East Acton were filled with persons of all ranks, who came to reside there in the summer. The wells have long since lost their celebrity, fashion and novelty having given the preference to springs at a greater distance from the metropolis. The assembly-room was converted into a dwelling-house."

The migrations of the world of fashion from watering-place to wateringplace would form a curious and amusing subject of inquiry. There would appear to be no reasonable motive for the desertion of one medicinal spring for another, if the mere curative effects of waters or baths were of much importance; but the desertion of our suburban watering-places-Bagnigge

Wells, Dulwich Wells, Hampstead Springs, Acton Wells, Epsom, and others once much resorted to, would seem to have been consequent on the rapid extension of the town, and the too easy access of its miscellaneous population. While London was content to remain peacefully under the shelter of her own city walls, the watering-places we have named were sufficiently remote to be sufficiently exclusive, and while they so remained persons of quality remained also; but when, ambitious of extended empire, the town invaded the quiet precincts of the suburban districts, fashion fled to remoter seats, leaving the watering-places about town to those who needed no such excuses for dissipation of time and money.

The historical associations of Acton are few in number, and of no great interest. The Earl of Essex, Lord General of the Parliamentary Army, had his head-quarters here immediately previous to the actions of Brentford and Turnham-green. Cromwell, returning to London after the decisive battle of Worcester, was received at Acton by the political and civic authorities, and was complimented with a congratulatory speech by the recorder.

The manor of Acton has belonged to the see of London from time immemorial. Turnham-green, to which we have more particularly alluded in that part of our work describing objects of interest on or near the banks of the Thames, is within this parish.

The church contains monuments, to Catherine Viscountess Conway; to the wife of Major-General Skippon; a bust in white marble of Robert Adair, Surgeon-General to the Army, and of Lady Caroline Adair, his wife; and others of less note.

Francis Rous, Provost of Eton College, one of Cromwell's peers, and Speaker of the Little Parliament, died at his house at Acton, and was buried at Eton with great pomp and solemnity. His name and titles were erased from his monument by some zealous royalists. The Mercurius Politicusthe government organ of that day-gives a flattering account of his character, but, it must be confessed, very much in the strain of ordinary newspaper panegyric.

HANWELL, on the little river Brent, is our next station. Like the great majority of manors round London, Hanwell was church property, being given to Westminster Abbey by King Edgar, and confirmed by Edward the Confessor. Jonas Hanway, author of an Essay on Tea, a Journey from London to Portsmouth, and other small matters, but more worthily distin