Autobiography of Henry Taylor - 1885 Author:Henry Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III. LONDON REVILED AND EENOUNCED.-HOUSE TAKEN AT B10KT- LAKE.—COLONIAL GOVERNMENT NOT DESIRED.-OFFICE OF UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE REFUSED.—" VAN ARTE... more »VELDE " ACTED.—A POEM. Anno Dom. 1844-47. Anno Mt. 44-47. When I came back to London that misbegotten metropolis presented itself to me in a different light from any in which I had seen it before. I wrote to Alice, 21st June, 1844: " Shall we not get rid of Blandford Square, and lead an easy, in-and-out-of-doors, house-and-garden life on Wimbledon Common ? We shall be wiser and better and healthier and happier for it, and the postman's knock and all the other knocks and nuisances that flesh is heir to in London will come at longer intervals, and a fresh face shall I see in the morning when I look round, and a fresh eye shall I have to see it with." And my letter was crossed by one from her to me, proposing the same thing. Then I wrote to Aubrey de Vere: "We shall not live in London again, whether I retire or not. We are quite of one mind as to that. It is only necessary, but it is necessary, to get to a little distance for a little time to see what a monster it is. One cannot see Leviathan from his belly, but get outside of him, and there he is." My sentiments about London seem to have been not much more flattering than those of Cowley, in his "Ode to Solitude:" Ladon House. 21 " Methinks I see The monster London laugh nt me. I should at thee, too, foolish city, If it were fit to laugh at misery; But thy estate I pity. Let but thy wicked men from out thee go, And nil the fools that crowd thee so, Even thou, who dost thy millions boast, A village less than Islington would grow, A solitude almost." We took a house at Mortlake, on the banks of the Thames, and I called it Ladon House....« less