Runnymead (more properly Runningmead, being said to have derived its present name from the Races annually held upon it on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of September) lies to the north of Egham, not far from the Thames. This mead will indeed "ever be celebrated in the history of this country, as the spot where the assembled barons, in 1215, compelled King John, who had in vain resorted to the most criminal prevarications, to grant what is emphatically called MAGNA CHARTA, the great charter of the liberties of Britons. Here his consent was extorted; but the treaty is said to have been actually signed on an island in the Thames, still called Charter Island, and included in the parish of Wraysbury, Buckinghamshire. In memory of this foundation of the glorious fabric of British freedom, a plan, patronized by some of the most distinguished political characters, was a few years since proposed for the erection of a pillar in this celebrated mead; but for some reason or other (truly it were hard to find a reason) it has been relinquished by the projectors.

Approaching Cooper's Hill, (to the west of Egham) there may be few so little poetical as not to feel a momentary inspiration of the Muse, and, with Pope, be ready to exclaim:—

Bear me, oh! bear me, to sequestered scenes,
To bowery mazes and surrounding greens;
To Thames's bank, which fragrant breezes fill,
Or where the Muses sport on Cooper's Hill.
(On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow,

While lasts the mountain or while Thames shall flow.)

I seem through consecrated walks to rove,

I hear soft music die along the grove;

Led by the sound I rove from shade to shade,

By godlike poets venerable made:

Here his first lays majestic DENham sung,

Here the last numbers flowed from Cowley's tongue.

The proprietor of Kingswood Lodge, situated on

the hill, has placed a seat on the identical spot whence Sir John Denham, the bard by Pope thus justly commended, surveyed the various beauties of that enchanting scenery, on which his verses have conferred immortality.

"Cooper's Hill," said Dr. Johnson, "is the work that confers upon Denham the rank and dignity of an original author. He seems to have been, at least among us, the inventor of a species of composition that may be termed local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection, or incidental meditation. To trace a new species of poetry has in itself a very high claim to praise; and its praise is yet more, when it is apparently copied by Garth and Pope. Yet Cooper's Hill, if maliciously inspected, will not be found without its faults. The digressions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the sentiments sometimes such as will not bear a rigorous enquiry."-An ingenious, but perhaps yet more fastidious critic has observed, that "Cooper's Hill, the professed subject of this piece, is not mentioned by name: it serves like the stand of a telescope, merely as a convenience for viewing other objects." There may be a great deal of justice in all these various observations; but still, Cooper's Hill is a poem that will ever please every genuine lover of poetry, and will render the "stand of the telescope" venerated by all such in an equal degree.

CHERTSEY is the principal, and indeed only market town of the hundred which derives from it its name.

Chertsey is known to have existed as early as the Saxon times; and from the appellation given it by Bede, Ceroti Insula, it would appear to have been then surrounded by the Thames, on whose bank it is now situated.

It is 22 miles south-west from the metropolis; and, in 1811, contained 421 houses, and 3,629 inhabitants. The market-day is Wednesday: it is usually wellsupplied and attended. There are four annual fairs, chiefly for horses and cattle: they are held on the first Monday in Lent, on May 4th, August 6th, and September 25th.

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Of Chertsey Abbey, once so extensive, and long holding such large possessions, some small remains of walls are now alone visible. An edifice was erected on its site by Sir Nicholas Carew, master of the buckhounds to Charles II., which, the Magna Britannia* says, was built out of the ruins of the great abbey, of which nothing then remained standing but some of the outer walls." This, which was a handsome building, was pulled down about 10 years back: but a barn is yet standing, which formed a part of its offices, and was evidently constructed with the stones taken from the ancient monastery.

The monastery itself was founded in 666, by Frithwold, Governor of Surrey under Wulphar, king of the Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Being destroyed by the Danes in one of their piratical incursions, the abbey was rebuilt, in the tenth century, by King Edgar, who conferred upon it many privileges. The abbot is said, by some writers, to have had a seat in Parliament, as one of the 29 abbots and priors who held of the king per Baroniam; but others assert that, though he was esteemed a baron, he did not sit in Parliament. mon says "he was a kind of little prince hereabouts, whose lands, and parcels of land, were as endless to enumerate, as it would be the possessors who have held them since the Dissolution." The unhappy Henry VI. was at first buried in the church attached to this abbey: but his remains were afterwards removed from hence by Henry VII. to Windsor.

* Vol. V. p. 359.

Sal

Richard I., by charter, granted the entire hundred of Chertsey, (thence called Godley, i. e. God's-ley, from being church land) with its jurisdisdiction and privilege, to the abbot and convent of this foundation, with exemptions from the authority of the sheriff, or any other officer of the crown. In the 7th and 8th of Edward I., however, Almeric de Cancellis, then sheriff, refused to allow the abbot to exercise his jurisdiction in the return of the writs; and, on complaint being made, the king confirmed the privileges given in the former grant. In the 9th of Edward II. the abbot of Chertsey is said to have possessed two parts of this jurisdiction, and the abbot of Westminster the remaining third. Agreeably to the ancient grant, the sheriff of the county has no authority within this hundred, but directs his writs to the bailiff of it, who is appointed for life by letters-patent from the Exchequer.

The Church, a handsome and spacious structure, was rebuilt in 1804, with the exception of the chancel, in consequence of the older building having become ruinous. The whole affords a very fair specimen of the style called modern-gothic.

A good Market-House, in the high street, near the church, has been yet more recently erected.

The Charity-School, for clothing and educating 25 boys and 25 girls, was founded in 1725, by Sir William Perkins.

Of Alms-Houses, there are five, founded by different persons, and by them intrusted to the superintendance of the parish officers.

Porch House, once the residence of the poet Cowley, is now the property of Richard Clark, Esq. Chamberlain of the city of London. A small part of the old structure is still carefully preserved; but much of the present house, together with great improvements in the grounds, originated with the present proprietor.

Chertsey Bridge is a very handsome erection, begun

by Brown, of Richmond, in 1783, and finished, two years subsequently, from the designs of James Payne, Esq. of Says, in this neighbourhood. It crosses the Thames to Littleton, in Middlesex; and was built, of Purbeck stone, at the joint expence of the two

counties.

Skrine's Rivers of Great Britain gives the following just description of St. Ann's Hill, which is situated at about a mile's distance from this town." St. Ann's Hill starts up abruptly on the south-west of Chertsey. The lower parts of it are clothed with wood, but the ridge is almost level after it gets above the enclosures, presenting a delightfully verdant walk to the neighbourhood, and terminating in two venerable elms, where the descent is almost perpendicular into the plain. The prospect here is more happily marked than at Harrow, yet wonderfully extensive, except towards the south and west, where the bluff point of Cooper's Hill excludes the view of Windsor, and the bare ridges of Bagshot Heath circumscribe the horizon. On the east, the Surrey Downs appear, well ranged behind the nearer heathy ridge of St. George's hills; and, with the eminences of Norwood, Sydenham, and the more distant summit of Shooter's Hill, in Kent, together with those of Highgate, Hampstead, Bushy, and Harrow, in Middlesex, form the outline of that immense plain, in which the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the lofty pile of Westminster Abbey, enveloped in perpetual smoke, mark the proud position of the metropolis of England, surrounded by a numerous tribe of villages, and a most abundant population. The Thames here shows itself to great advantage, making a bold sweep to approach Chertsey Bridge, and intersecting the plain with its various meanders.”

The late Right Hon. Charles James Fox had a seat on the south side of this hill, the grounds of which * Pp. 353, 4.