Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

RAMBLES IN WALTHAM FOREST.

WALTHAM FOREST.

NOTES.

1. Whoever has had the privilege of a visit to Fair Mead Lodge, will feel that Essex has the honour of being the chosen residence of at least one poet, who, in this age of independance and human perfectability, is not too proud to “look through Nature up to Nature’s God.”

2. Dr. Armstrong, the physician-poet, has fulminated an alarming denunciation against poor Essex; witness the startling allegory of the ague in his “Art of Preserving Health.” The countenances of the natives are fair commentaries, not to establish, but to controvert his doctrine. That there are some marshy districts within the two hundred and twenty-five miles of its circumference is indisputable, but it is hard to threaten a whole country with the unacceptable visits of “the meagre fiend Quartana,” who is represented by the Doctor as domesticated there.

3. Waltham Abbey, first founded by Tovi, standard-bearer to Canute, for the reception of a holy cross, brought thither, say the learned, by a miracle.—Edward the Confessor gave it to Harold, who enriched it with amazing wealth; and, falling at the battle of Hastings, was, with his brothers, buried in the Abbey his zeal had almost re-endowed, by their mother Githa. His tomb of stone was some years since to be seen.

4. Henry II. having vowed to erect an Abbey to the honour of God and Saint Thomas-á-Becket, as an expiation for the crime of that prelate’s death, seems, skilfully enough, to have construed his vow with a prudent attention to his own interests; for he came to Waltham Abbey on the Vigils of Pentecost, June the 3d 1177, and having procured a charter of Pope Alexander the Third, changed the old foundation of seculars of the Benedictine order, to an Abbey of regular canons of the order of Saint Augustin, increasing the number to sixteen. At the same time, it must be allowed, he enriched the church with many new manors, re-endowed, (Stow says, rebuilt it) and promised to augment its revenue, till it should support one hundred canons. This last promise, the king, with his numerous avocations, forgot.

5. Wanstead Grove, the seat of the Hon. Mrs. Rushout, and formerly the residence of George Bowles, Esq., a residence justly distinguished for the public spirit and benevolence of its late, and the amenity and elegant taste of its present owner.

6. A rich collection of Angelica Kauffman’s most exquisite pieces commemorate the liberal patronage she received from the former possessor of the mansion; nor are her works in a spot where they cannot be fully enjoyed and appreciated.

7. Fair-Mead Lodge, the residence of Wm. Sotheby, Esq., preserves the memory of a spot from whence Queen Elizabeth and her ladies, when hunting in the forest, were wont to station themselves, to witness the chase. The Queen’s Lodge, farther in the forest, occupies a high ground amongst some fine trees. A dilapidated farmhouse is now the only relic of the royal mansion, and the scene where Leicester “drew his ’broidered rein” beside the palfrey of that Queen he would fain have governed, is now a lonely rabbit-warren. The outlines of the garden parterres and a fish-pond are still to be traced.