A Walk from London to Fulham Part 9

_Sophora j.a.ponica_, {144a} in 1809, 8 0 9 4 9 7 10 1 0 0 about 50 feet in height; it flowered for the first time in August 1807, and has continued to flower the two succeeding years.

_Ginko-tree_ (_Ginko biloba_, 2 3 3 6 3 9 3 10 0 0 standard) about 37 feet high.

A tree from an Illinois-nut, given by Mr. 2 2 2 10 2 11 3 0 0 0 Aiton to Mr.

Ord, about 40 feet high.

{144b}

A black walnut-tree, (_juglans 5 4 6 11 {144c} 7 3 10 0 niger_), sown where it stands in 1757, about 64 feet high in 1809.

A cedar of Lebanon, when planted being 8 8 9 11 {144d} 9 9 10 0 two years old, in 1809 being about 55 feet high.

A willow-leaved oak, sown in 1757. 4 0 5 5 {144e} 5 7 5 10

The _rhus vernix_, or varnish sumach. 4 0 4 10 4 10 5 1

_Fraxinus ornus_, which is covered with 3 10 flowers every year.

_Gleditsia triacanthus_, sown in 1759, 4 8 produced pods 2 feet long in 1780, but the seeds imperfect.

_Acacia common_, sown in 1757, 7 7 planted where it stands in 1758.

_Ilex_ 6 9

_Tulip-tree_, sown where it stands in 1758, 5 6 first flowered in 1782.

_Cyprus 5 6 deciduus_, sown in 1760

_Corylus colurna_ (Constantinople 3 2 hazel), between 30 and 40 feet high, bears fruit, but imperfect.

_Virginian cedar_, (red) sown in 1758 4 0

_Guilandina 2 1 dioica_, or _bonduc_

_Juglans alba_, or white hickory. 3 1

_Lombardy_, or _Po poplar_, a cutting in 1766 10 0 near 100 feet high.

_Poplar_, 8 6 planted in 1772

Another column headed 1845, carrying out this view, would be an important addition to statistical observation.

Two agaves, or American aloes, flowered in Mr. Ord's greenhouse in the summer of 1812, one of which was a beautiful striped variety. The plants had been there since the year 1756. Amid all these delightful a.s.sociations, there is one melancholy event connected with the place. On the night of the 9th September, 1807, a fire broke out in the garden-house of Mr. Ord's residence (a cottage upon the site of the present stables): the flame raged so furiously as to burn the princ.i.p.al gardener, an old and valued servant, almost to ashes before any help could be afforded to him. Upon the following Sunday (13th), the Rev.

John Owen, the then curate of Fulham, preached so effective a sermon upon the uncertainty of the morrow, {145} that having printed a large impression "without any loss to himself," a second edition appeared on the 3rd of the following month.

In the second volume of the 'Transactions of the Horticultural Society,'

a beautifully-coloured representation of 'Ord's apple' may be found, ill.u.s.trative of Mr. Salisbury's communication respecting it, which was read to the Society on the 17th of January, 1817. After acknowledging his obligations to Mrs. Anne Simpson, the sister of Mrs. Ord, and who Mr.

Salisbury represents as "being as fond of gardening as her late brother-in-law, Mr. Ord," it is stated that,-

"About forty years ago, the late John Ord, Esq. raised, in his garden at _Purser's Cross_, near Fulham, an apple-tree from the seed of the New-town pippin, imported from North America. When this tree began to bear, its fruit, though without any external beauty, proved remarkably good, and had a peculiar quality, namely, a melting softness in eating, so that it might be said almost to dissolve in the mouth. The late Mr. Lee, of Hammersmith, often had grafts of this tree, and he sold the plant so raised first with the name of Ord's apple, and subsequently with the name of New-town pippin. . . .

"This seedling tree," continues Mr. Salisbury, "is now (1817) of large dimensions, its trunk being four feet four inches round at a yard above the ground; but it has of late years been very unhealthy, and scarcely borne any fruit worth gathering, its roots having, no doubt, penetrated into a stratum of unfavourable soil."

Mrs. Anne Simpson sowed some pippins from this remarkable tree,-

"And two of the healthiest seedlings of this second generation were planted out to remain in the kitchen-garden, which are now (1817) about twenty years old. One of these trees began to bear fruit very soon, which is not unlike that of its parent in shape, with a thin skin; and, being a very good apple, grafts of it have been distributed about the metropolis with the name of _Simpson's pippin_.

The other seedling of the second generation was several years longer in bearing fruit; and, when it did, the apples were quite of a different shape, being long, with a thick skin and poor flavour, and so numerous as to be all very small. Of late years, however, they have gradually improved so much in flavour, as to become a remarkably spirited, juicy apple, attaining a good size, which has probably been promoted by thinning them, though a full crop has always been left upon the tree; and they are now greatly esteemed by all who taste them."

This apple is in perfection for eating from Christmas to the middle of March. The skin is thick, and always of a green colour while on the tree, but tinged with copper-coloured red, and several darker spots on the sunny side; after the fruit has been gathered some time, the green colour changes to a yellowish cast. It may be mentioned that, before the death of the late Lord Ravensworth, the house was inhabited by those celebrated artistes, Madame Grisi and Signor Mario.

On the opposite side of the road to Lord Ravensworth's, and a few yards beyond it, on the way to Fulham, is Walham Lodge, formerly Park Cottage, a modern well-built house, which stands within extensive grounds, surrounded by a brick wall. This was for some years the residence of Mr.

Brand, the eminent chemist, who particularly distinguished himself by the course of lectures which he delivered on geology, at the Royal Inst.i.tution, in 1816; and which may be dated as the popular starting point of that branch of scientific inquiry in this country.

A house, now divided into two, and called Dungannon House and Albany Lodge, abuts upon the western boundary wall of the grounds of Walham Lodge. [Picture: Dungannon House-Albany Lodge] Tradition stoutly a.s.serts that this united cottage and villa were, previous to their division, known by the name of _Bolingbroke Lodge_, and that here Pope did, more than once,

"Awake my St. John,"

by an early morning visit.

At Albany Lodge, the farthest part of the old house in our view (then Heckfield Villa), resided Mr. Milton, before-mentioned as having lived at Heckfield Lodge, Little Chelsea; both of which names were introduced on the Fulham Road, from that gentleman's attachment to the name of his reverend father's living, near Basingstoke.

Dungannon House formerly went by the name of Acacia Cottage, and was so called from a tree in the garden. It was for many years the country residence of Mr. Joseph Johnson, of St. Paul's Churchyard, a publisher worthy of literary regard; and here he died on the 20th of December, 1809. He was born at Liverpool, in 1738; and, after serving an apprentices.h.i.+p in London, commenced business as a medical bookseller, upon Fish Street Hill; "a situation he chose as being in the track of the medical students resorting to the hospitals in the Borough, and which probably was the foundation of his connexions with many eminent members of that profession."

Having entered into partners.h.i.+p, he removed to Paternoster Row, where his house and stock were destroyed by fire, in 1770: after which, feeling the advantage of a peculiar locality, he carried on business alone, until the time of his death, at the house which all juvenile readers who recollect the caterers for their amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction will remember as that of "Harris and Co., corner of St. Paul's Churchyard." This step was considered at the time, by "the trade," as a bold and inconsiderate measure; but it was successfully imitated by the late Mr. Murray, in his removal from Fleet Street to Albemarle Street; and, indeed, John Murray, as a publisher, seems only to have been a fearless copyist, in many matters, of Joseph Johnson. Whether, as a tradesman, he was judicious or not in so doing, is a question upon which there may be two opinions; but there can be no hesitation about the perfect application of Dr. Aikin's words to both parties:-

"The character Mr. Johnson established by his integrity, good sense, and honourable principles of dealing, soon raised him to eminence as a publisher; and many of the most distinguished names in science and literature during the last half century appear in works which he ushered to the world."

The imprint of Johnson is to be found upon the t.i.tle-pages which first introduced Cowper and Darwin to notice:-

"The former of these, with the diffidence, and perhaps the despondency, of his character, had actually, by means of a friend, made over to him (Johnson) his two volumes of poems, on no other condition than that of securing him from expense; but when the public, which neglected the first volume, had discovered the rich mine opened in the _Task_, and a.s.signed the author his merited place among the first-rate English poets, Mr. Johnson would not avail himself of his advantage, but displayed a liberality which has been warmly acknowledged by that admirable, though unfortunate, person."

A score of equally generous anecdotes might be told of Murray. In one particular, however, there was, as publishers, a decided difference between the views of Johnson and Murray. Those of Johnson are at present in the ascendancy; but they may produce a revolution in favour of the opinion of John Murray against cheap literature. Johnson was the opponent of typographical luxury. Murray, on the contrary, supported the aristocracy of the press, until obliged, "by the pressure from without,"

in some degree to compromise his views by the publication of the 'Family Library.'

In the wing (comparatively speaking a modern addition) attached to this house, and in the room where Mr. Johnson died, is a remarkable chimney-piece, of a monumental character; but I can learn nothing respecting it.

The history of Dungannon House when Acacia Cottage, could we procure a correct record of all the ideas which [Picture: Chimney-piece] have pa.s.sed through the human mind within its walls, respecting literature and art, would form a chronicle of singular interest. The late Mr.

Hullmandel, well known as one of the most experienced and successful pract.i.tioners of lithography in England, resided here in 1839 and 1840, when he discovered a new process in his favourite art, by simple mental reasoning, upon the application of the process of copperplate aquatint to lithographic purposes. For this discovery-and it is one of considerable importance-he subsequently took out a patent, under the name of lithotint. Ever since the infancy of lithography, hundreds of persons connected with the art, beginning with its inventor himself, Senefelder, had endeavoured to produce impressions from stone of subjects executed with the brush, in the same manner as drawings are made with sepia, or Indian ink. And it was natural enough that artists should have made every effort to supersede the tedious and elaborate process by which alone a liquid could be rendered available for the purpose of drawing on stone. The mode of drawing technically called "the ink style," consists merely of a series of lines, some finer, some thicker, executed on the white surface of the stone, with ink dissolved in water, by means of a fine sable or a steel pen, in imitation of an etching on copper. All attempts, however, at producing variety of tints, by using the ink thicker or thinner, failed,-the fainter lines either disappearing altogether, or printing as dark as thick ones. In every attempt made to use this ink as a wash, the result was still more disastrous, producing only one dirty ma.s.s of indistinctness, amid which the original drawing was scarcely to be traced. For twenty years did Mr. Hullmandel labour to attain some mode of printing drawings, made by a series of washes, with a brush, on stone, feeling this to be the great desideratum in the art.

Lithographers in Germany, in France, and in this country, had p.r.o.nounced it to be "utterly impossible;" when the idea suddenly flashed upon him, that, if he could effect a minute granulation of the ink, by treating it as a copperplate engraver would the ground of an aquatint plate, the relative strength of the different washes might be preserved. He hastened from Acacia Cottage to his printing-office in London, to put his theory into practice, and was rewarded by the most satisfactory results.

Since that period, several prints, by this process of lithotint, were produced by Mr. Hullmandel, from drawings made by Harding, Nash, Haghe, Walton, and other clever artists, in which all the raciness, the smartness, and the beauty of touch, are apparent, which hitherto could only be found in the original drawing. [Picture: Arundel House-front]

[Picture: Arundel House-back] In fact, lithotint was not a translation, but a multiplication of the original; and its discovery, or, rather, the proper application of knowledge, became an eventful era in the history of the fine arts.

Arundel House, a few yards beyond Dungannon House, stands on the same side of the road, opposite to Parson's Green Lane, which leads to the King's Road. It is a house of considerable antiquity, judging from the stone mullions brought to light by some repairs,-probably as old as the time of Henry VIII.; although the brick front, as shown above, appears to be the work of the latter part of the seventeenth century.

The back of Arundel House is quite different in character, and retains an old porch leading into the garden. At the farther end of the garden a venerable yew-tree arbour exists; and not [Picture: Arundel House porch and Yew Tree Arbour] far from it used to stand a picturesque old pump, with the date 1758 close to the spout; which pump is now removed, and a new one put in its place. Upon a leaden cistern at the back of Arundel House, the following monogram occurs beneath an earl's coronet, with the date 1703:-[Picture: Old Pump and monogram] Notwithstanding that this is obviously compounded of the letters L. I. C., or C. I. L., and at the first glance with the connexion of an earl's coronet and a date would appear to present no difficulty respecting the correct appropriation, I must confess my inability to state to whom the monogram belonged. For the name of Arundel I am equally unable to account. No mention whatever is made of this house by Mr. Faulkner; nor does the name of Arundel occur in the parish records of Fulham, although in 1724, as before mentioned, Stanley Grove House appears to have been in the possession of Henry Arundel. In the midst of this obscurity, the residence of the late Mr.

Hallam, the historian, who occupied Arundel House in 1819, invests it with a literary a.s.sociation of interest.

On the opposite side of the road is the carriage entrance to Park House, which stands in Parson's Green Lane. A stone tablet has been let into one of the piers of the gateway, inscribed