or burying-places, have at various times been discovered on the south-west side. Some of these were opened in 1784, and besides human bones, spear-heads, knives, &c., were discovered, these having, according to the custom of the warlike age, been deposited in the graves of the deceased. The Ranger's lodge, in the south-west side of the park, looking towards Blackheath, belonged, in 1753, to Philip Earl of Chesterfield, who enlarged it and made it his residence. The Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester was appointed Ranger of the Park in 1816, and occupied it till her death a few years since.

The church of St. Alphage occupies the angle formed by the union of London, Church, and Stockwell-streets. It was built in 1718 upon the site of the ancient church, after the plan of Mr. John James. The architecture is Roman, and it is faced externally with Portland stone. Among the monumental brasses in the old church of St. Alphage was one in memory of Thomas Tallis, who was esteemed the father of the collegiate style of music, and was musician in the chapel-royal in the reigns of Henry VIII. and his three immediate successors. He died in 1581. At the east end of the town there is a college, or almshouses, called the Duke of Norfolk's College, which was founded in 1613 by Henry Earl of Northampton, brother of Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and son of that illustrious warrior and poet, Henry, Earl of Surrey. These almshouses were established for the maintenance of twenty decayed old housekeepers, twelve out of Greenwich and eight from Shottisham, in Norfolk. They are under the control of the Mercer's Company, and the pensioners, besides meat, drink, and lodging, are allowed one-and-sixpence a-week, with a gown once a-year, linen once in two years, and hats once in four years.

As far back as 1557, two burgesses were returned to parliament for this town by the inhabitants, but it does not appear that they afterwards exercised that privilege. Nearly three hundred years elapsed before Greenwich was again recognised as a parliamentary borough.

Passing through the eastern entrance-gate of Greenwich-park, we find ourselves upon that noble plain Blackheath, a place celebrated in the history of this country. Here the Danes held their head-quarters, and some few years back vestiges of entrenchments were visible on certain parts of this heath. Wat Tyler, the blacksmith, and his worthy compeer, Jack Straw, encamped here with one hundred thousand men, on their way to London to gratify their natural taste for plunder and devastation. It was also known as a place of ceremonial meetings and triumphal processions. In November, 1415, King Henry V., on returning to his realms after the battle of Agincourt, was received here with great rejoicings by the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London. In 1431 the same civic dignitaries assembled to meet Henry VI. on his return from being crowned in the church of Nôtre Dame at Paris. That ambitious robber, Jack Cade, with twenty thousand of his banditti, twice encamped on Blackheath in 1449 and 1450. Upon the death of the rebel chief, his adherents made a virtue of submission, and humbly craved pardon of the king on the heath. In 1497 Henry VII. overcame six thousand Cornish rebels, commanded by Lord Audley, on Blackheath. One-third of the insurgents were slain, and the rest compelled to surrender. The scene of these historic incidents is still a wide and open plain, but where contending hosts once met, and royal pageants were celebrated, nothing is now seen save attenuated ponies and donkeys ready caparisoned for the benefit of the equestrian amateur, and excited to an unwonted speed by the bludgeons of the ruffian owners, whom the Humane Society never call to account. At fair-time the heath presents a more animated spectacle. Gipsies, archery, and other objects enliven the place. On the edges of the heath and in the village are many elegant mansions occupied by individuals of rank and affluence. At Westcomb House resided Lavinia Fenton, the famous representative of Polly Peachum in the Beggar's Opera, who became the wife of the Duke of Bolton. On the

north side of the heath, at Woodlands, lived John Julius Angerstein, whose collection of paintings formed the nucleus of the National Gallery. The Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, wife of George IV. was appointed ranger of Greenwich-park in 1806, and resided for some years at Montague House, Blackheath, which has since been taken down. The family mansion of the Earls of Dartmouth is situate on the heath. In 1780 a cavern was discovered a short distance to the north of the main Dover road on Blackheath-hill, and which was supposed to have been a place of concealment in troublous times. It contains seven large apartments, communicating with each other by arched avenues. Some of them

have great domes, 36 feet high, supported by columns of chalk 43 yards in circumference. The bottom of the cavern is 50 feet from the entrance, at the extremities 160 feet, and it is descended by a flight of steps. The sides and roof are rocks of chalk, the bottom is a fine dry sand, and 170 feet below ground is a well of very fine water, 27 feet deep. Two yearly cattle fairs are held on the heath in May and October. Blackheath-park is on the right of Blackheath, on the road to Lee, and was formed upon the estate of Sir Gregory Page Turner, purchased by John Cator, Esq., of Beckenham. Adjacent to the park is Morden College, erected and founded by Sir John Morden, a Turkey merchant, in 1695, for the support of poor, aged, and decayed English merchants, who had been ruined by the perils of the sea, or by other inevitable misfortunes.

On the south side of Blackheath lies the pleasant and picturesque village of Lee, on the road from London to Maidstone. In its small but beautiful cemetery, which, though of a far older date, presents all the vernal attractions of the more colossal cemeteries of our own day, are several costly monuments of statuary and black marble. Among the eminent characters that repose here may be named Edmund Hally, the astronomer, and Parsons, the comedian.

VOL. II.

Lewisham, a village seated on the river Ravensbourne, and which is on the borders of Surrey, joins Lee on the south. In early times it was monastic property. By purchase it came into the possession of Admiral George Legge, afterwards Earl of Dartmouth, in whose family it continues, and constitutes the second title of the earldom, the eldest son being always styled Viscount Lewisham. An ancestor of the Earls of Dartmouth was Sir Thomas Legge, citizen and skinner, sheriff, and twice Lord Mayor of London in the reign of Edward III. The parish is of great extent, comprising a considerable portion of Blackheath, and the common between Blackheath and Sydenham contains nearly 1,000 acres. Dr. Bryan Duppa, Bishop of Winchester in 1660, was born and buried in Lewisham. He remitted £30,000 to his tenants, and left £16,000 to be expended in acts of charity and munificence. So eminently pious was this prelate, that the gay Charles II., upon his knees, besought his blessing as the bishop lay on his death-bed in 1662. The establishment of a railway station at Lewisham has tended greatly to improve the neighbourhood, and some additional streets, wide and open, and chiefly filled with private dwellings, of elegant proportions and good elevation, have been constructed.

North of Blackheath, and between Greenwich and Woolwich, the village of Charlton is situate. In the time of William the Conqueror, the manor was held by that royal pluralist the Bishop of Bayeux. By King James I. the estate was given to Sir Adam Newton, preceptor and secretary to Prince Henry, and after the death of that royal youth, treasurer to Charles Prince of Wales. The mansion-house, a magnificent Gothic structure, was erected by him in 1612. Dr. Plot says, there was formerly in the dining-room a marble chimney-piece, so exquisitely polished, that Lord Downe could see in it a robbery committed on Blackheath, and sent out his servants who apprehended the thieves. Behind this house is a park of about 70 acres, and before the court-yard is a row of some

of the oldest cypress trees in England. From Charlton, Hanging Wood forms a beautiful avenue to Wolwich.

Woolwich, a town in Kent, eight miles eastward of the metropolis, is one of the principal military depôts. It contains a dockyard, arsenal, military barracks, magazines, a Royal Military Academy, &c. In early times Woolwich was a small fishing town, liable to the inundations of the Thames. By the Saxons it was called Hulviz, signifying the habitation, or the street on the creek. In reference to the Dockyard, which was founded in 1512, Camden called Woolwich "the Mother Dock of England.” In this dockyard, which is nearly a mile in length, and encompassed by a lofty wall, there was built in the third year of the reign of Henry VIII., the great ship called The Harry Grace de Dieu. Here also was constructed, in the reign of Charles I., The Sovereign of the Seas, the largest vessel that had hitherto been built in England, her burthen being 1637 tons. By the Dutch she was called the "Golden Devil," from the destruction which her cannon made among their seamen. She carried 176 pieces of ordnance; she had five lanthorns, one of which would contain eleven persons standing upright; and eleven anchors, the largest weighing 4,400 pounds. The ill-fated Royal George, which went down at Spithead, with the gallant admiral Kempenfeldt, and upwards of 400 of her crew, besides 200 women, was launched here in 1751. During the late war, the dockyard and arsenal found employment for 10,000 persons; of course the number is now much reduced.

In the Royal Arsenal, there is a foundry for casting brass cannon and howitzers, and in the Laboratory fireworks, cartridges, and other combustible missiles of war for the army and navy are made. The original cannon foundry was at the back of Upper Moorfields, near Windmill-hill, at a place subsequently converted by the Rev. John Wesley into a chapel. In 1716, the Duke of Richmond, Master-General of the Ordnance, and a large party were present to witness the recasting of some guns