Sir William Dugdale, Garter; Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Windsor Herald; Francis Sandford, author of the Genealogical History of England, Lancaster Herald; John Anstis, Garter; Sir John Vanbrugh, the poet, Clarenceux; Francis Grose, author of Grose's Antiquities, Richmond Herald; William Oldys, Norroy King at Arms, who died 1761 at his apartments in Heralds' College, and was buried in the neighbouring church of St. Benet's; Edmund Lodge (Lodge's Portraits), Clarenceux.

Hercules Buildings, LAMBETH, from Westminster Bridge Road (opposite Oakley Street) to Lambeth Road. William Blake came to live at No. 13 in 1793.

Blake's was among the humbler order of one-storeyed houses, on the left-hand side as you go to Lambeth Palace. It had a wainscoted parlour, pleasant low windows, and a narrow strip of real garden behind, wherein grew a fine vine. . . The street has since been partly rebuilt, partly renamed. At the back of what was Blake's side has arisen a row of ill-drained, one-storeyed tenements, bestridden by the arches of the South Western Railway.-Gilchrist's Life of Blake, vol. i. p. 100.

In this house Blake executed some of his noblest and some of his least comprehensible works; and in the summer-house in the garden his truest friend Mr. Butts found him one day with Mrs. Blake by his side, "freed from those troublesome disguises which have prevailed since the Fall." "Come in!" said Blake; "it's only Adam and Eve, you know."

Hercules' Pillars, FLEET STREET, south side, at the corner of Hercules' Pillars Alley, opposite St. Dunstan's church.

Hercules' Pillars Alley, but narrow, and altogether inhabited by such as keep Publick-Houses for Entertainment, for which it is of note.-Strype, B. iii. p. 277.

The Hercules' Pillars was a tavern in great repute in the 17th century with the lovers of good living. Pepys often dined here. On October 11, 1660, after having seen "The Moor of Venice, which was well done," at the Cockpit, where "Burt acted the Moor; by the same token, a very pretty lady that sat by me called out, to see Desdemona smothered," he adjourned "with Mr. Creed to Hercules' Pillars, where we drank." Again, February 6, 1667-1668, he carried. his wife, Betty Turner, Mercer and Deb., "to Hercules' Pillars and there did give them a kind of a supper of about 7s., and very merry ;" and August 30, he "dined there all alone, while he sent his shoe to have the heel fastened at Wotton's."

February 22, 1668-1669.-After the play was done, we met with W. Batelier, and W. Hewer, and Talbot Pepys, and they followed us in a hackney-coach; and we all stopped at Hercules' Pillars; and there I did give them the best supper I could, and pretty merry; and so home between eleven and twelve at night.—Pepys.

April 30, 1669.-At noon my wife came to me at my tailor's, and I sent her home, and myself and Tom dined at Hercules' Pillars.-Pepys.

On one occasion he notes that he and "Mr. Gibson, and our clerks, and Mr. Clerke, the solicitor," went to "a little ordinary in Hercules'

Pillar Alley-the Crowne, a poor sorry place," where, however, they "had a good dinner, and very good discourse." Locke the philosopher, in his letter of advice to a foreigner about visiting England, 1679, speaking of "the home-made drinks of England," says, "There are also several sorts of compounded ales, as cock-ale, wormwood-ale, lemon-ale, scurvy-grass-ale, college-ale, etc. These are to be had at Hercules' Pillars, near the Temple."1

Hercules' Pillars, HYDE PARK CORNER, a small inn or publichouse, a little west of Hamilton Place. It is mentioned in an advertisement in the London Gazette of December 12-15, 1730; and referred to by Wycherley in the Plain Dealer, 4to, 1676. Here Squire Western put his horses up when in pursuit of Tom Jones; and here FieldMarshal the Marquis of Granby was often found.

We must now convey the reader to Mr. Western's lodgings, which were in Piccadilly, where he was placed, at the recommendation of the landlord at the Hercules' Pillars, at Hyde Park Corner: for at the inn, which was the first he saw on his arrival in town, he placed his horses, and in those lodgings, which were the first he heard of, he deposited himself. Here, when Sophia alighted from the hackney-coach, which brought her from the house of Lady Bellaston, she desired to retire to the apartment provided for her, to which her father very readily agreed, and whither he attended her himself. . . While Sophia was left with no other company than what attend the closest state prisoner, fire and candle, the squire sat down to regale himself over a bottle of wine, with his parson and the landlord of the Hercules' Pillars, who, as the squire said, would make an excellent third man, and could inform them of the news of the town; for to be sure, says he, he knows a great deal, since the horses of many of the quality stand at his house.-Tom Jones, B. xvi. chap. ii.

Hermes Street, PENTONVILLE ROAD, north side, the next turning west of Penton Street, so called from Hermes House, erected here by the eccentric physician Dr. De Valangin about 1770. Here William Huntington, S.S. (Sinner Saved), "the Coalheaver, beloved of his God, but abhorred of Men,"-as he caused to be inscribed on his monument, -spent his last years, and here died, June 11, 1813. On Hermes Hill, at the White Conduit end of Hermes Street, that pleasant painter, Thomas Uwins, R.A., was born, 1783, and spent his boyhood.

Hermitage, Islington, near the Islington end of St. John Street Road, a hermitage and chapel founded in 1511 by Robert Baker, "hermit of the Order of St. Paul, the first hermit," on land given and endowed for the purpose by Thomas Docwra, Prior, and the brethren of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem at Clerkenwell. Part of the lands annexed to the hermitage was in the next century acquired by Lady Owen, and devoted by her to the support of the Owen Schools. The adjacent fields were known as Hermitage Fields. A row of houses, called Hermitage Place, on the east side, and near the top of St. John Street Road, commemorated the site of the Hermitage and Hermitage Fields, till the name was abolished by the authorities a few years ago.

1 Lord King's Life of Locke, p. 35.

Hermitage (The), LONDON WALL, known as the Hermitage of Cripplegate, was a hermitage or cell, dedicated to St. James, belonging to the Abbey of Geredon. It was situated "in the Wall by Cripplegate," at the north end of what is now Monkwell Street.

At the north corner of this street, on the same side, was sometime an Hermitage or Chapel of St. James, called in the Wall, near Cripplegate; it belonged to the Abbey and Convent of St. Garadon, as appeareth by a record, the 27th of Edward I., and also the 16th of Edward III. William de Lions was hermit there, and the Abbot and convent of Geredon found two chaplains, Cistercians, monks of their house, in this hermitage; one of them for Aymor de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, and Mary de St. Paule, his countess. Of these monks, and of a well pertaining to them, this street took the name and is called Monks' well Street.1 This Hermitage, with the appurtenances, was in the reign of Edward VI. purchased from the said king by William Lambe, one of the gentlemen of the King's chapel, citizen and clothworker of London : he deceased in the year 1577, and then gave it to the Clothworkers of London, with other tenements, to the value of fifty pounds the year, to the intent they shall hire a minister to say divine service there.-Stow, p. 118.

Hermitage (The) WAPPING, immediately east of St. Katherine's, so called, says Stow, "of a hermit sometime being there." In Stow's boyhood there were no buildings thereabouts, but when he wrote large and strong houses had been built by "shipwrights and other marine men " for their own use and "smaller for sailors." Hermitage Dock appears in old maps as a natural creek; it now, as Hermitage Basin, forms the western entrance and basin of the London Docks. Here was one of the six original Penny Post Offices.

The Hermitage Office is in Swedeland Court, near the King's Slaughter-house by East Smithfield.-Delaune, Anglia Metrop., 1690, p. 346.

Here lived Joseph Ames, the author of the Typographical Antiquities. Cole says that "he lived in a strange street or lane in Wapping;" and Francis Grose gives the exact locality :

Mr. Ames lived in the Hermitage, Wapping, and kept a very small ironmonger's shop. He was totally ignorant of every language but English, which last, indeed, he did not speak with the greatest purity.-Grose's Biographical Anecdotes, p. 134. Here was the abode, when on shore, of Lieutenant Bowling.

We parted not without tears and he entreated me to write to him often, directing to Lieutenant Thomas Bowling, at the sign of the Union Flag, near the Hermitage, London.-Smollett, Roderick Random, chap. xlii.

Hertford Street, MAY FAIR, east side of Park Lane. Eminent Inhabitants.-Lord Charlemont writes to Flood from Hertford Street, May Fair, in 1766. Lord Sandwich (Jemmy Twitcher) was living at No. 11, and there died in 1792. On February 6, 1783, Launcelot (Capability) Brown died suddenly at his residence, Hertford Street, on his return from a visit to his old friend the Earl of Coventry. Brown was (like Paxton) a common gardener at Stowe, but lived to amass a large fortune. "The places he laid out or altered," says Loudon, "are beyond all reckoning." Lord Goderich was living here in 1782. George Tierney, at No. 12, in 1796-1799. Richard Brinsley

1 A mistake of Stow's. [See Monkwell Street.]

Sheridan at No. 10 from 1796 to 1800. At No. 10 died General Burgoyne (author of the Heiress), August 4, 1792; and in this house Mr. Dent had his fine library, and here died in 1819. Charles Grey, M.P., afterwards Earl Grey of the Reform Bill, was residing at No. 14 in 1799 and some subsequent years. Afterwards No. 14 was the house which Dr. Jenner, the promulgator of vaccination for small-pox, was induced to take for ten years, when in 1804 he removed from Gloucestershire to settle in London; but his fees fell off both in number and value, and he returned to Gloucestershire before his term was out. Charles, first Earl of Liverpool, died in 1808 at No. 26. Lord Ellenborough died at his house in Hertford Street in 1818. John Anstey, author of the Pleaders' Guide, in 1819. Sir E. Lytton Bulwer (Lord Lytton) was resident at No. 36 in 1831-1834.

Cornewall Lewis in 1839.

Sir George

Hicks's Hall, the Sessions House of the County of Middlesex, in the broad part of St. John Street, Clerkenwell, opposite the Windmill Inn, and so named after Sir Baptist Hicks, of Kensington, a mercer of Cheapside, one of the justices of the county, afterwards Viscount Campden (d. 1629), at whose cost it was built in 1612. In 1619 James I. issued a "Grant to Sir Baptist Hickes and other Justices of the Peace for Middlesex, that the building they have erected near the Sessions House in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, shall be a prison or gaol for the county for ever, for all offences save treason and felony." Hicks's Hall becoming much out of repair the magistrates, 1779, obtained an Act empowering them to remove their Sessions House to a more convenient site on Clerkenwell Green, where it still stands. [See Clerkenwell Sessions House.]

Sir Baptist Hicks, knight, one of the Justices of the County, builded a very stately Session House of brick and stone, with all offices thereunto belonging, at his own proper charges, and upon Wednesday, the 13 of January, this yere 1612, by which time this house was fully finished, there assembled 26 Justices of the County, being the first day of their meeting in that place, where they were all feasted by Sir Baptist Hicks, and then they all with one consent gave it a proper name, and called it Hicks's Hall, after the name of the founder, who then freely gave the same house to them and their successors for ever. Untill this time the Justices of Middlesex held their usuall meeting in a common Inn, called the Castle [near Smithfield Bars].— Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1003.

An old dull sot who told the clock
For many years at Bridewell Dock,
At Westminster and Hicks's Hall,
And hiccius-doctius played in all.

Hudibras, pt. iii. c. 3.

At Hixe's Hall, by jury grave,
It was manslaughter found:
Oh what would it have cost to have
A pardon from the Crown!

Sir C. Sedley, 1704, p. 180.

William, Lord Russell, the patriot, was condemned to death in Hicks's

1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 66.

Hall; and Count Koningsmarck, the real, though not the actual, assassin of Mr. Thynne, was acquitted in the same building. The distance on the mile-stones of the great north road were formerly measured from Hicks's Hall.

Highbury, a suburban district and manor in Islington parish, lying north of that place and Canonbury. The manor, then called Newington Barowe, of about 1000 acres, was given by Alice Barowe about 1271 to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem. On the suppression of religious houses it passed to the Crown, and was granted to Thomas Cromwell. Reverting to the Crown it was assigned to the Princess Mary, who on ascending the throne restored it to the prior of St. John's. By James I. it was given to Prince Henry, and on his death to Prince Charles, who when king granted it in 1629 to Sir Allen Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower. It has several times changed owners since, and remains in private hands. The Manor House,

a strong moated mansion known as Highbury Castle, was destroyed in 1381, during the Wat Tyler insurrection, by a party of the rioters who had already sacked the Priory of St. John. From their leader, Jack Straw, the place obtained the name of Jack Straw's Castle, its popular designation down almost to our own day.1 When a survey of the manor was made for Henry, Prince of Wales, in 1611, it was stated that there had been a "capital mansion, standing, as it was reported, within a moat yet remaining, but the house was decayed beyond the memory of man." A new Highbury House was built by John Dawes, "an opulent stock-broker," who bought the site in 1781, and it afterwards obtained some celebrity as the residence of Alexander Anbert, F.R.S., who built an observatory in the grounds for the great reflecting telescope, made by Short for Topham Beauclerc.

In olden times Highbury was noted for its woods, abounding in oaks and alders, which last, writes Gerard (1633), “I found great plenty of in a wood a mile from Islington, in the way thence towards a small village called Harnsey." Now Highbury has "parks", and "groves," but they are of "detached and semi-detached villas," crescents and streets, occupied mostly by City and professional men. There are two or three modern churches (Christ Church, St. Augustine's, St. Saviour's, St. John's, etc.), several large chapels, and a Church Theological College, formerly a college for training Congregationalist ministers; and the once popular place of entertainment, Highbury Barn. At the southern end is the Highbury Station of the North London Railway, and tram lines extend from Highbury to Moorgate Street and Aldersgate Street.

Highbury Place. Abraham Newland, chief cashier of the Bank of England, and whose signature was for so many years attached to the bank notes, died at No. 38, October 21, 1807.

1 Lysons, vol. ii. p. 478; Tomline, p. 198.