Highgate, and of visiting old merchants' decayed mansions far away in tarry Poplar. I could add a chapter to Leigh Hunt's pleasant essay upon City trees,[*] and tell of many fountains and flower-gardens that stand under the windows of dusky counting-houses.
Humanizing as such harmless wandering ought to be, it seems only to make me break a commandment. I am sorely afraid that I covet my neighbour's house. When I find the nearest approach to my ideal—my day-dream—my toy dwelling—it is always in the occupation of steady, unshifting people. Such habitations, in or near London, seem to descend as heirlooms from generation to generation. They are never to be let; they are seldom offered for sale; and the house agent—the showman of "eligible villas"—is not familiar with them. I will describe the rarity.
It must be built of red brick, not earlier than 1650, not later than 1750, picked out at the edges with slabs of yellow stone. It must not be too lofty, and must be equally balanced on each side of its doorway. It must stand detached, walled in on about an acre of ground, well surrounded by large old trees. Its roof must be sloping, and if crowned with a bell-turret, so much the better. Its outer entrance must be a lofty gate of flowered ironwork, supported on each side by purple-red brick columns, each one surmounted by a globe of stone. Looking through the tracery of this iron gate, you must see a few broad white steps leading up to the entrance-hall. The doorway of this hall must be dark and massive, the lower half wood and the upper half window-framed glass. Over the top must be a projecting hood-porch filled with nests of wood-carving, representing fruit, flowers, and figures, brown with age. Looking through the glass of the hall-door, you must see more carving like this along the lofty walls; and a broad staircase with banisters, dark as ebony, leading up to a long narrow window, shaded by the rich wings of a spreading cedar-tree. The rooms of this mansion will necessarily be in keeping with its external features, presenting many unexpected, irregular closets and corners, with, perhaps, a mysterious double staircase leading down to the cellars, to which a romantic, unauthenticated story is attached. Such houses are none the worse for being filled with legends; for having one apartment, at least, with a reputed murder-stain upon its floor; and for being generally alluded to as Queen Elizabeth's palaces, although probably not built for nearly a century after that strong-minded monarch's death. The window-shutters are none the worse for being studded with alarm-bells, as thick as grapes upon a fruitful vine; as an additional comfort is derived from the security of the present, when we are made to reflect upon the dangers of the past. A few rooks will give an additional charm to the place; and it will be pleasant, when a few crumbs are thrown upon the gravel, to see a fluttering cloud of sparrows dropping down from the sheltering eaves.
With regard to the neighbourhood in which such a house should stand,
- The Town: its Memorable Characters and Events.
