and cere-cloths to Tyburn, and there suspended in the same cheerful costume on Tyburn Gallows, where they hung till sunset. These very dead worthies were then taken down, their heads were struck off, and the bodies buried under the gallows. The heads were set on Westminster Hall. Had I been a Cavalier in those days, how ashamed I should have been of my party! Could they have caught the living Cromwell indeed, and hung him up at Tyburn or elsewhere, there would not have been a word to say against them. One party might use the halter as well as the other the axe; but when the man who had driven them before him like chaff was lying in his quiet grave, to pull him up, and wreak their malice upon the poor remains of him before whom they used to tremble! Fie! Whatever may be said against Oliver Cromwell—at least he was never a resurrection-man. In 1615 Mrs. Turner tripped into the other world at this spot in a yellow starched ruff. One fine morning in the year 1760 Earl Ferrers drove up here in a fine landau drawn by six horses, in his fine wedding clothes, and glided off into eternity in a magnificent way at the tail of a silken rope. In 1724 Jack Sheppard escaped at the same place from this world to the next, and the following year Jonathan Wild the Great also concluded his career at Tyburn. A few more remarkable executions—they are all carefully noted up with particulars in “The Curiosities of London,” are—1388, Judge Trevilian for treason; 1449, Perkin Warbeck; 1534, the Holy Maid of Kent; 1628, John Felton, assassin of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; 1726, Catharine Hayes, burned alive for the murder of her husband; 1767, Mrs. Brownrigg, for murder; 1777, Dr. Dodd, for forgery; 1779, Rev. James Hackman, for the murder of Miss Reay. Who talks of
wanting good company
Upon Tyburn Tree?
—but enough of this.
Where the magnificent squares, crescents, and places of the modern Tyburnia now stand, thirty years ago there were brick-fields, corn-fields, and what not. I can remember very well the time when a commencement of Tyburnia, or North Western London was made. A few rows of houses, isolated from the rest of the world, were run up in a dubious way; and it was supposed that no one would be mad enough to live there. A gentleman with whom we were acquainted was amongst the first to break the ice; and, of course, must have been allowed to enter upon the premises which would now let at a very high rental, for a mere song. He was to be the bait, or call-bird. It seems but yesterday that we drove, a family-party, to dine with the penitus toto divisum, and how the heaps of mortar and compo were lying about, to be sure, and what scaffoldings were erected in every direction, and how it seemed to be a problem whether we should seek for our dinner in this or that carcase of a house, for a finished “family residence” with oil-cloth in the hall, and blinds to the windows, seemed to be perfectly out of the question. It really appeared as though we had come upon an excursion in search of Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday. When we bumped up to the place at last what a magnificent house it was, and when the curtains were drawn how we congratulated our friend, and when we peeped out how we condoled with him! He had indeed chosen the desert for his dwelling-place, and the dog had also contrived to provide himself with one fair spirit for his minister. How would the theory answer in practice? I know how it has answered. The hermit of Tyburnia is surrounded by human habitations in the year of grace 1860; the fair spirit is now enormously stout, and takes her airings in a yellow carriage, with a fat poodle looking out of the window. Her third daughter, Georgiana, three years ago married a young fellow whose regiment was at the Cape; and either at Port Natal, or Cape Town, or in some such outlandish locality she may now be found, having in her turn assisted to replenish the earth, as we were informed by recent advices. By the way, it is a somewhat curious secret which a South Kensington builder imparted to me the other day. In a new neighbourhood, where as yet not a house is let, if you enter yourself on the list of intending tenants the agent will put a few questions to you in a cursory way, of which you may not be able to see the drift. His real object is to ascertain if you are a Paterfamilias, with a beautiful bevy of amiable daughters, in which case you will be allowed to have the house upon easy—almost upon any terms. The calculation is that in order to assist the many despairing young gentlemen who may be going about the world in a state of utter misery for the want of sympathy from gentlest womanhood, the P.F. and his amiable lady will give a series of evening entertainments in the course of which certain consolations may be suggested to the mournful band. “The street” will be well lit up, “the street” will resound with the sweet strains of the cornet-à-pistons, “the street” will be full of carriages, not impossibly a wedding will take place in “the street.” What think you of this by way of an advertisement for a young and rising neighbourhood? Nieces would not do as well, for even the fondest uncle and aunt would only make spasmodic efforts to help a niece in “getting off;” but in the case of daughters the evening parties assume a chronic form.
This Tyburnia is all new, it is the newest thing in Western London. By the side of it Belgravia is almost an antiquity. Tyburnia, however, has never fairly taken rank amongst the fashionable quarters of London. It is inhabited by enormously wealthy people, the magnates of trade and commerce; by contractors; by professional men who have succeeded in obtaining the golden prizes in their respective callings. But it never has been, and never I think will be, “fashionable,” in the same sense as Belgravia, or, of course, that wonderful Quadrilateral which stands between Oxford Street and Piccadilly, Park Lane, and Bond Street. There was a moment when Tyburnia had its chance, and I cannot say that it missed it through any fault of its own. Some evil spirit who wished ill to Tyburnia and the Tyburnians whispered it into the ears of the Prince Consort and his fellow Commissioners of the Great Exhibition of 1851 to make a great National Art Repository at South Kensington. Out of this