receive a considerable yearly sum left by a Mr. Smith, of whom an account will be found under the head of Wandsworth, where he was born and buried.

The Thames, which is here about 300 feet wide, is crossed by a beautiful stone Bridge of five arches, which was completed in 1777, and cost about £26,000. The elegant mansions in this neighbourhood, and the enchanting scenery which presents itself in every direction from the summit of the beautiful Hill, might be so long dwelt upon, and have been so often celebrated, that to attempt their description within our narrow limits would be equally vain and fruitless; we cannot, however, resist the temptation of quoting Thomson's animated sketch:

Say, shall we ascend

Thy hill, delightful Sheen? Here let us sweep
The boundless landscape: now the raptured eye,
Exulting swift, to huge Augusta send;

Now to the sister-hills that skirt her plain;
To lofty Harrow now; and now to where
Majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow,
In lovely contrast to this glorious view,
Calmly magnificent; then will we turn

To where the silver Thames first rural grows.
There let the feasted eye unwearied stray;
Luxurious, there, rove through the pendent woods,
That nodding hang o'er Harrington's retreat † ;
And stooping thence to Ham's embowering walks,
Here let us trace the matchless vale of Thames,
Far-winding up to where the Muses haunt,
To Twit'nam's bowers, to royal Hampton's pile,
To Claremont's terraced height, and Esher's groves:
Enchanting vale! beyond whate'er the Muse
Has of Achaia or Hesperia sung!

O vale of bliss! O softly-swelling hills!
On which the Power of Cultivation lies,

And joys to see the wonder of his toil.

Heavens! what a goodly prospect spreads around,
Of hills, and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires,
And glittering towns, and gilded streams, till all
The stretching landscape into smoke decays."

RIPLEY is a pleasant hamlet in the parish of Send, and is on the high road from London to Guildford, from the latter of which it is distant between five and six miles. It has a small and mean-looking Chapel of Ease, and derives all its business from its situation. It is said to have been the birth-place of George Ripley, a Carmelite friar and alchemist of the fifteenth century, who is reported by Fuller to have * Highgate and Hampstead. + Petersham Lodge. + Ham House.

sent £100,000 yearly to the Knights of Rhodes to enable them to carry on their war against the Turks! If this be true, he must have discovered the grand secret of alchemy-the transmutation of metals.

ROEHAMPTON, a hamlet of Putney, is situated at the western extremity of the Heath, and is principally remarkable for the number of handsome villas by which it is surrounded, of which that erected by Sir William Chambers for the Earl of Besborough, is one of the most elegant.

ROTHERHITHE, a parish adjoining to Bermondsey, has a Church dedicated to St. Mary, erected about 1715, principally by voluntary contributions. The body is of brick, with stone facings, and it has a tower, with a stone spire, of rather handsome appearance. The interior is neatly fitted up, and the east window is of stained glass. In the Churchyard is a monument erected by the East India Company in memory of Prince Lee Boo, son of the king of the Pelew Islands, who had kindly succoured the captain and crew of their ship the Antelope, which was wrecked off one of the islands, in August, 1783. The youth accompanied Captain Wilson to England, but unfortunately caught the small pox, and died in December, 1784, at the age of 20 years. The inscription on his tomb contains a plain narrative of these facts, and concludes thus:

"Stop, reader, stop; let Nature claim a tear,

A Prince of mine, Lee Boo, lies buried here!"

In this parish are several places of worship for Dissenters; many Schools of various descriptions; and other charitable institutions. It is noted for its Docks, of which that formerly called the Greenland, but now the Commercial Dock, is the most considerable, being capacious enough to receive upwards of 200 sail of ships, which are principally in the Baltic and whale-fishery trade; adjoining to these is the East Country Dock, for shipping of a similar description, with the addition of the American trade. Beside these there are many smaller docks and ship-yards along the whole course of the river in this parish. The Surrey Canal communicates with the Thames by a large dock, and in its course is highly beneficial to

those parts of the county through which it passes. In 1805 a plan for making a Tunnel under the Thames to communicate with the opposite shore, was commenced under the sanction of an Act of Parliament; but after proceeding to low-water mark on the Middlesex side of the river, disputes among the proprietors and directors occasioned it to be abandoned; it should be observed that the projectors of this Tunnel restricted themselves, at first, to a way for foot-passengers only. The year 1825, so fertile in bubbles of every description, produced a new Thames Tunnel project, which also, after the waste of large sums of money, and some loss of lives, has been abandoned.

Admirals Benbow and Sir John Leake, eminent naval heroes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are stated, by some writers, to have been born in this parish; while other accounts give to Shrewsbury the honour of having produced the first-mentioned. Benbow died at Jamaica, partly from his wounds, and partly from vexation at the cowardly desertion of some captains under his command, în an engagement with the French, in 1702. Leake died in 1720, and is interred in Stepney Churchyard, where a handsome monument is erected to his memory.

SOUTHWARK.

This ancient Borough derives its name from its situation on the South of London, and from its being the site of a fortification, or werke, constructed to assist in defending the river. Although its present appellation is of Saxon origin, the town is unquestionably of much higher antiquity, many Roman remains having been found here; and some antiquaries have imagined that this was the original site of the city called Augusta by Roman authors, while others conceive it to have been no more than a place of sepulture for the inhabitants of the metropolis.

The early history of Southwark is so much connected with that of London, that to avoid repetition it is deemed best to refer the reader to the account of that city which will be found in a subsequent volume, and to relate here merely a few particulars which belong more especially to the Borough," as it is popularly called.,..

In 1053 it appears to have been a corporate town,

under the government of a Bailiff; and from Domesday Book we find that it belonged at that period to the King, Edward the Confessor. The town was burnt by William the Conqueror in 1066, in revenge for the resistance offered by the inhabitants and the citizens of London to his march after the battle of Hastings. In 1215 a dreadful fire broke out here, which destroyed a great portion of the houses, the Priory of St. Mary Overy, &c. and communicating with London Bridge, then covered with dwellings, occasioned a loss of 3000 lives.

In 1327, the corporation of London obtained a grant of "the village of Southwark, with all its appurtenances," from Edward III, in consideration of an annual rent of £10; the reason for this grant is stated to be that "many wicked and evil persons, after committing robberies, murders, &c. in the said city, do escape and flee into the said village, where they are openly received, and cannot be attached by the ministers of the said city;" the expediency and justice of placing both under the same government was concurred in by the King and Parliament; but the succeeding monarch, Richard II, refused to confirm this grant, and it was not until 1550 that the city of London obtained a full confirmation of this valuable privilege*, which was afterwards ratified by Charles II, and is still in force, although, from a want of vigilance on the part of the citizens, the magistrates of the county have obtained a concurrent jurisdiction in many matters which exclusively belong to the corporation of London.

In 1554 Sir Thomas Wyat entered Southwark with 2000 men, but meeting with no encouragement in his rash enterprise, after destroying the property of the Bishop of Winchester, he retired to Kingston. During the Civil War in the seventeenth century, Southwark was fortified, by order of the Parliament; and by a subsequent order, when all danger from the

In consequence of this Charter Sir John Ayliffe was appointed first Alderman of the ward of Bridge Without, in July 1550, " to have the rule, charge and governance of the said borough and towne." Southwark still forms a Ward of London, under the above name; it is not represented in the Common Council, but the senior Alderman is appointed to it, under the title of "Father of the City." A Steward and Bailiff are also nominated by the Corporation, the latter of whom presides at the election of the two Members of Parliament which have represented this Borough from the twenty-third year of Edward I.

Royalists was at an end, the fortifications were demolished. In 1676 a great part of the Borough, with the Town Hall, was destroyed by fire; and Commissioners were appointed to determine differences among the sufferers, in the same manner as had been done after the Great Fire of London ten years before. These persons executed their task with such impartiality that there was not a single appeal from any of their decisions.

The Borough consists of six parishes, viz. St. Saviour's, formed in 1541 by the union of St Margareton-the-Hill and St. Mary Magdalen; St. Olave's; St. John's, Horselydown, taken out of St. Olave's; St. George the Martyr; St. Thomas; and Christchurch, separated from St. Saviour's in 1672. The population of the whole was, in 1821, 85,905 persons; but when the immense increase of buildings in every direction is taken into consideration, it must now be under-rated at 100,000.

Of the six Churches of Southwark, that of