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CHAPTER IX.

Moulsey Hurst.-Garrick's Villa.-Walton-upon-Thames.Lilly the Astrologer.-A Puritan's Sermon.-Oatlands.Coway Stakes.-Shepperton.

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EFORE we diverged down the pleasant banks of the Mole, and returned again to the Thames by the waters of the Wey, our point of departure was Hamp

ton Court. To that point, therefore, we must again return, and proceed upwards for a while, without going astray to the one side or the other. Nearly opposite to the palace is the pretty village of Thames Ditton, with its "Swan," a sign that all true anglers are acquainted with. Upon the same, or Surrey bank, extends a common called Moulsey Hurst, famous as the scene where all the ruffians, rich and poor, of the metropolis, formerly assembled to see one man beat another to death with his fists. Now that the glory of pugilism is departed, Moulsey Hurst has become a lonely

place. The races which are annually held upon it, contribute a little to keep up its acquaintance with the refuse of London-the gamblers, the swindlers, and the blacklegs; but for the rest of the year it is a quiet spot enough, and void of offence.

On the other side of the river, just beyond the bridge, is the villa erected by Garrick. In the little summer-house, or "Temple,” which has a pleasing appearance, viewed from the stream, he placed an admired statue of Shakspeare, the great bard, in the light of whose glory his own memory will shine to the latest times. The statue has been since removed to the British Museum. A little further on is the village of Hampton, with its lock and weir, on passing which, there is a succession of small aits, beautiful isles of swans, until we reach Sunbury, a favourite resort of anglers, but offering nothing to delay the steps of the rambler. Walton, on the Surrey shore, is more remarkable. Its church contains several curious monuments, and also the grave of the famous astrologer William Lilly, already mentioned in the course of our peregrinations. Lilly resided for forty-five years in this parish. He first took a house at Hersham, a hamlet to Walton, in the year 1636, where he

remained till his death, at a good old age, in comfortable circumstances; consulted by people of all classes, upon the secrets of futurity, and even by the assembled Commons of England upon the same subject. This singular man has left us a record of his own life, which is one of the most amusing compositions in the English language. He was born in the year 1602, at Diseworth, in the county of Leicester, in which parish his father and his progenitors had long been farmers. Of his infancy, Lilly remembered little; "only," said he, "I do remember that in the fourth year of my age I had the measles." His mother always intended that he should be a scholar, in the hope that he might some day restore the fortunes of the family, which were not the most flourishing. He studied Latin and Greek at a village school until his fourteenth year, but made small progress. This year, and Lilly very gravely chronicles it, he had his eye nearly beaten out by one of his school-mates; "a fellow of a swarth black complexion." The year after, as he no less pompously informs us, he "ate too many beech-nuts, and thereby got a surfeit, and afterwards a fever." In his sixteenth year, he began to be sorely troubled in his dreams concerning his salvation and damnation; and in

the nights he frequently wept, prayed, and mourned. Next year his mother died. She seems to have been the guardian spirit of the family, for after her death, everything went wrong, and his father became so poor that he could not pay for his schooling. The youth, therefore, came home, where he lived in great penury for a twelvemonth, and then went out for a few months as a teacher, "until God's providence provided better for him." His father considered him a great burden, and a good-for-nothing fellow, because he could not hold the plough; and when Lilly determined to try his fortune in London, he bade him depart, right glad to get rid of him. He had a fortune of twenty shillings, and some friends, "to his great comfort," scraped up ten shillings more, and with this he walked to London, and hired himself to one Gilbert Wright, Master of the Salter's Company, but a very ignorant man. It was Lilly's duty to go before his master to church, "to clean the shoes, sweep the street, weed the garden, scrape the trenchers, and fetch water in large buckets from the Thames." It was here that he first imbibed those notions of astrology which afterwards raised him to such notoriety. His mistress, who was about seventy years old, was very jealous of her hus

band, who was only sixty, and often consulted astrologers and cunning men, to know whether he spent his time with other women, and whether she should survive him. Lilly having accompanied her, or been present on some of these occasions, "there was begot in him," says he, "a little desire to learn something that way;" but having no money to buy books, he was obliged to lay aside these notions until a more favourable opportunity. This jealous old lady, who was so anxious for her husband's death, died before him, as she deserved. Her malady was a cancer in the breast, and Lilly performed the most menial and unpleasant offices about her, till at last the old woman became very grateful, and advised him, when she was dead, "to help himself to whatever he pleased out of his master's goods." Lilly affirms, that he never obeyed this dying injunction of his mistress! but that she gave him five pounds in old gold, and sent him to a private trunk of hers at a friend's house, where she had hidden one hundred pounds. Lilly proceeded thither, rejoicing in his handsome legacy, but found to his great sorrow, that somebody had been at the trunk before him, and left it quite empty. Under his mistress's arm, however, he found a treasure, which more than repaid him for all his

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