Note 1 — HENRY S. SIMMONDS. (continued 3)

It was a miserable swamp, said to have been gained for the parish of Battersea by the act of charitably burying a drowned man there who had been refused sepulture in the adjoining parish. This act was held in a subsequent law-suit to prove a right of ownership, and thus a good deed was amply recompensed.

On the northern side of the river Thames is conspicuously situated that grand national asylum for decayed and maimed soldiers known as Chelsea Hospital. This Hospital was begun by Charles II., carried on by James II., and completed by William III. in 1690. The first projector of Chelsea Hospital was Stephen Fox, grandfather to the Hon. Charles Fox. "He could not abear," he said "to see these soldiers, who had ventured their lives, and spent their strength in the service of their country, reduced to beg." And with the munificence of a philanthropist, he subscribed £13,000 towards the establishment of the Hospital. It was built by Sir Christopher Wren, at a cost of £150,000, on the site of an old theological college escheated to the Crown. In 1850 there were 70,000 out and 539 in pensioners. The body of the Duke of Wellington lay here in state 10-17 Nov., 1852. Ranelagh Gardens lay at the northern foot of Vauxhall Bridge, a portion now forming the pleasure-grounds of Chelsea Hospital, and were formerly the gardens of Lord Ranelagh's Mansion. They were opened 1733. The amusement were masquerades, illuminated and day-light fêtes, dancing, music, and promenading, which was continued until the end of the century. The grand rotundo, which somewhat resembled the Pantheon of Rome, had an external diameter 185 feet, the internal 150. It was taken down in 1805. In Cheyne Walk was a famous Coffee-House, first opened in 1695, by one Salter a barber, who drew the attention of the public by the eccentricity of his conduct, and furnished his house with a large collection of natural and other curiosities. Admiral Munden and other officers who had been much on the Coast of Spain enriched it with many curiosities and gave the owner the name of Don Saltero, by which he is mentioned more than once in the "Tatler," particularly in No. 34. This coffee-house was frequented by Richard Cromwell and many of the wits and authors of that day. "The Folly," a gilded barge where music and dancing and other amusements delighted the beaux and belles of the day of the Restoration, was moored in the Thames not far from the Modern Cremorne. Adjoining Chelsea Hospital is the Physic Garden belonging to the Company of Apothecaries, which was enriched with a great variety of plants, both indigenous and exotic, and given in 1721 by Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., on condition of their paying a quit-rent of £5, and delivering annually to the Royal Society fifty specimens of different sorts of plants of the growth of this garden till the number amounted to 2,000. In 1733 the Company erected a marble statue of the donor, by Rysbrack, in the centre of the garden, the front of which was conspicuously marked toward the river by two noble cedars of Lebanon, the first ever planted in England, of which only one remains. Sir Hans Sloane was born at Killileagh in the north of Ireland, in 1660, of Scottish extraction. He retired at the age of eighty to Chelsea, to enjoy a peaceful tranquillity, the remains of a well-spent life. He died Jan. 11, 1752. He published the "History of Jamaica" in 2 vols. folio. In the churchyard is the monument of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., founder of the British Museum; and on the south-west corner of the church is affixed a mural monument to the memory of Dr. Edward Chamberlayne, with a punning Latin epitaph, which for its quaintness, may detain the reader's attention. In the church is a still more curious Latin epitaph on his daughter; from which we learn, that, on the 30th of June, 1690, she fought, in men's clothing, six hours against the French, on board a fire-ship under the command of her brother. The Chelsea Embankment extends along the north bank of the river from Chelsea Hospital to Albert Suspension Bridge; it was opened 9th May, 1874, by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Lieut. Col. Sir James Magnaghten Hogg, M.P., Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works; Sir Joseph Bazalgette, C.B., Engineer. A beautiful view of Chelsea Embankment with its adjacent buildings may be had from the broad Boulevard running along the river-side in Battersea Park; including the lofty spire of St. Luke's Church, Old Chelsea Church, the Gardens of the Apothecaries' Company, the fine old trees and picturesque Dutch-like houses of Cheyne Walk, the Gardens and Buildings of Chelsea Hospital, the New Barracks beyond, and the lofty Pumping Station and Tower near Grosvenor Road Station.