SWEET HAMPSTEAD.
A Bit of Old Hampstead, New End.
SWEET HAMPSTEAD
AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS.
BY
MRS. CAROLINE A. WHITE.
LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1900.
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE
CONSERVATORS OF THE HEATH,
AND TO
ALL WHO LOVE ‘SWEET HAMPSTEAD’
FOR ITS OWN SAKE.
THE AUTHOR.
As illustrating the very common axiom that extremesmeet, a preface at the beginning of a book is, asa matter of course, the last thing that is written.In the present instance, having stated my reasonsfor writing ‘Sweet Hampstead’ in the introductory chapter,a preface seems almost redundant. Moreover, I have anidea that prefaces as a rule are not popular reading, butliterary custom being stronger than private opinion, I mustrevoke my heresy.
It is very many years since the thought of writing thestory of Hampstead occurred to me. I found that previouswriters had left the most important period of its local history,and the most interesting personages who had vitalized it,with little more than a passing reference; and thence it wasthat the desire to occupy unbroken ground took possessionof me.
But the years alluded to were amongst the busiest of abusy life, when I was ‘coining my brains for drachmas,’ ortheir equivalent in British currency, and had no time for thedreamland of topographical speculation. The engagements,however, that hindered my design opened up many sourcesof material for future use; and as topography is alwaysa literary mosaic, their diversity tended to enrichment.
Thus it came to pass that the first draft of my book waslaid aside, but never forgotten, for more than thirty years,and has only recently been reverted to—a