Northfleet Hope runs from Grays Thurrock to Northfleet, nearly north and south, about a mile and a half. There is at the west side of the Hope a shoal with as little as three feet of water in

places at low tide. At Grays Thurrock and at Northfleet there are very extensive cement works, and at the former place is moored the Exmouth training-ship. Bearings N. and S.

Northfleet Light.-This, the first of the Trinity House lighthouses, is an iron pillar-light illuminated by gas. It was transferred to the care of the Trinity House by the Thames Conservancy in 1870.

North Stoke, Oxfordshire, on the left bank, 2 miles from Wallingford (a station on the Great Western Railway 51 miles from Paddington), from London 88 miles, from Oxford 23 miles. Population, about 200. Soil, chalk. The church of St. Mary has a good pointed arch between the nave and chancel and another good arch at the west end, filled up and spoiled by a gallery. Unlike most of its neighbours, the church has not been touched by the hand of the restorer, but it is high time that it should be taken in hand. At present it has an almost pitiably bare and barn-like look. It is understood that the delay in the restoration of the church is a matter of finance.

PLACE OF WORSHIP.-St. Mary's.

POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS. - Letters through Wallingford. Mail from London, 6.55 a.m. Mail to London, 7.10 p.m. No delivery or collection on Sunday. Nearest money order office, &c., Wallingford.

NEAREST Bridges, up, Wallingford 21 miles; down, Streatley 3 miles. Locks, up, Bensington 3 miles; down, Cleeve 3 miles. Ferry, Little Stoke. Railway Stations, Wallingford and Moulsford,

G.W.R.

FARES from Wallingford to Paddington: 1st, 9/5, 16/-; 2nd, 7/-, 12/-; 3rd, 4/3. No Sunday trains. From Moulsford to Paddington: Ist, 8/5, 14/6; 2nd, 6/3, 11/-; 3rd, 3/11.

North Woolwich Gardens were on the left bank of the river, adjacent to the North Woolwich Station of the Great Eastern Railway, about half an hour from Fenchurch-street. In 1887, the only

survivors of the open-air places of amusement once so numerous about London, were Rosherville and these gardens. The latter, though by no means so picturesque as the lofty and tree-crowned crags of Rosherville, were prettily laid out, and in the summer-time were a pleasant enough place of resort. Entertainments of the usual class were given during the season; but it seems that they are finally closed, the site having been purchased for an open space for the use and benefit of the public.

Courteney

Nuneham (Oxfordshire,) a seat of the Harcourt family, is one of the most delightful residences on the Thames. The house, which is fortunately free from the inconvenience of over magnificence, is large and roomy, and gardens and park are second to none on the river's banks. The property was purchased in 1710 by Simon, first Viscount Harcourt and Lord Chancellor, it is said for £17,000. The house was built by him from designs by Leadbetter. It consists of a central block, united to its two wings by curved corridors, and from almost all its windows commands beautiful views. It is a perfect storehouse of curiosities and relics, with a fine library and many excellent pictures, and with literary associations of special value, Mason, Pope, Prior, Horace Walpole, and many others having been frequent visitors at Nuneham. The library contains a most interesting and valuable collection of autograph letters and family documents; among the former being a very curious letter from Lord Salisbury after the Gunpowder Plot, which completely upsets the theory that the King behaved with courage and presence of mind on hearing of the threatened danger, as it expressly states that James was not told of the plot until all was safely over. There is a strange and melancholy interest about a collection of letters of George III., from his schoolboy days to the time when his brain failed him, in which the progressive steps of the fatal malady can be clearly traced. George III. was on very intimate terms with General Harcourt, and among the pictures now at Nuneham are drawings by the King, Queen Charlotte, and the Duke of Yorknot very successful, it may be added, as works of art. Among the most remark

In

The

able pictures in the extensive collection may be mentioned Sir J. Reynolds, by himself, æt. 17; Michael Harcourt, by Velasquez; a portrait of Sir Simon Harcourt, said to have been the first man killed in the conflict between Charles I. and the Parliament (fortunately for the family, Sir Simon's widow married General Waller, and so saved Stanton Harcourt from confiscation); a portrait of Lady Anne Finch, by Van Dyck; portraits of Rousseau (from a bust taken after death) and John Evelyn; a fine Sir Joshua (in the drawing-room) of the Earl and Countess and Hon. W. Harcourt. the same room hangs a very noteworthy Rubens, "The Two Lights," and another landscape by the same master; good specimens of Ruysdael, Van der Neer, and Van der Velde, and another beautiful Reynolds, a portrait of a Duchess of Gloucester. In the octagon drawing-room, from the windows of which the views are specially delightful, are a portrait of Pope, by Kneller; another of Mary Countess Harcourt, by Opie; and a good Velasquez. dining-room contains a boy with an asp, by Murillo; a landscape by Ruysdael, with figures by Wouvermans; and a portrait of Georgiana Poyntz, Countess Spencer, by Gainsborough. This lady was the mother of the beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, and alludes to her daughter, in a letter now at Nuneham, as a lanky girl, with no pretensions to good looks, but who hopes to have something of a figure. The family portraits in this room are very interesting; one of Lady Harcourt, the wife of Sir Robert Harcourt, is specially odd, from its extraordinary costume. Near it hangs a portrait of Sir Robert himself, one of Raleigh's men, who parted with hundreds of broad acres to fit out an expedition to Guiana, with no result but the subsequent publication of a little book. There is a good portrait of Lady Anne Harcourt, by Jackson, and a large picture of Simon, Earl of Harcourt (the earldom was granted by George II.), with his little dog, by Hunter. To this a curious bit of family history is attached. Lady Nuneham, the Earl's daughter, who was staying in the house, was one night much disturbed by a dream in which she saw her father lying dead in the kitchen at four o'clock in the afternoon-Lord Har

court being at the time in perfect health. Lady Nuneham was so impressed with the vividness with which the dream presented itself to her, that she was unable to persuade herself that some disaster was not impending, and confided her fears to her husband, and subsequently at breakfast to the rest of the family. After breakfast the Earl went out into the park, for the purpose of marking trees, and nothing further was seen or heard of him until a labourer was attracted by the violent barking of a dog to a well in the grounds. There he found the body of the Earl head downwards in the mud at the bottom of the well, having, it was supposed, overbalanced himself in an attempt to rescue his little dog, who had fallen in. A stretcher was brought, and the body was taken into the house. The nearest room was the kitchen, and on the dresser the corpse was laid-strange to say, at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon! The coincidence is, to say the least of it, very remarkable, and the story is undoubtedly well authenticated.

In the small dining-room is a portrait of Aubrey Vere, twentieth Earl of Oxford, by Walker; a Salvator Rosa, Ulysses and Nausicaa ;' and two portraits by Reynolds of Simon Lord Harcourt and his son, respecting which the family accounts have the following curious entry:

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£24 10s. paid Mr. Reynolds, the painter." The library contains many portraits valuable in themselves and for their associations. There are portraits of Horace Walpole, Prior, Mason, and Pope, all presented by themselves; a portrait of Rowe; a good specimen of Kneller; and a very fine portrait of Milton as a youth, by Van der Gucht, probably the earliest portrait of the poet in existence. The curiosities and relics, whose name is legion, comprise the service of Sèvres made for the great fête at Ranelagh Gardens on the occasion of the king's recovery in 1789, and given by Marquis del Campo to Earl and Countess Harcourt; a locket which once contained a portion of the heart of Louis Quatorze, brought from Paris, in 1793, by Lord Harcourt; Rousseau's Tasso and pocketbook, with numerous papers and memoranda, given by his widow to Lord Harcourt; a piece of glass from Stanton Harcourt, on which Pope scratched, "Finished here the Fifth Book of

Homer;" Queen Charlotte's snuff-box, still containing a little high-dried; her majesty's box of rouge, &c.; a tiny watch, given by the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., to Frederick Harcourt; a piece of Charles II,'s oak; and a box said to be made from the tree against which Sir Walter Tyrrell's arrow glanced. Strict belief in the latter article is not considered absolutely necessary at Nuneham. There is also a curious piece of 14th century needlework, and some tapestry worked by Mary Queen of Scots.

The gardens on the right of the house were laid out by Mason in rather a formal style, and abound in monuments and tablets with somewhat pompous inscriptions, grottoes, and high hedges. The late Col. Harcourt made great improve ments, which have had the effect of opening up fine views which were formerly shut out. Beyond the gardens is the old church (now closed), dedicated to All Saints, which was built in 1764 by the second Lord Harcourt, and is modelled on the design of an Early Christian church. On the left of the house run or some distance along the river's bank, and amidst most beautiful trees, the walks constructed by Capability Brown, where artfully devised vistas, cut through the foliage, afford lovely and unexpected peeps of Oxford, Abingdon, and Radley. At what is known as Whitehead's Oak, there is a particularly fine view of Oxford, although it must be confessed, from a landscape - painter's point of view, Sandford Mill, with its ugly chimney, is decidedly in the way. On a knoll in this part of the park stands Carfax Conduit, which was built by Otho Nicholson in 1590, and being taken down in 1787 to enlarge the. High-street, Oxford, was presented by the University to George Simon Earl Harcourt.

The village, which formerly stood near the house, was removed to some distance down the road by Earl Harcourt, who at one time had an odd idea of improving the villagers by the institution of orders of merit, prizes of virtue, &c. &c. It is scarcely necessary to add that the attempt did not answer the sanguine expectations of its promoter. The population of the village is about 350. The nearest railwaystation is Culham, a station on the Great Western Railway, 56 miles from

Paddington. Divine service is celebrated in the new church, close to the village (which was consecrated on May 18th. 1880) on Sundays, Holy Days, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The house is not shown to casual visitors, but the park is, owing to the kindness of Mr. Aubrey Harcourt, its present owner, a famous place for picnics and waterparties. The regulations for admission to the park are as follows: The season for admission commences on the Ist of May and ends on the 1st of September. The days of admission are Tuesdays and Thursdays only, by ticket. Each ticket admits ten persons to the lock and Carfax. Tickets for private parties, giving admission to the gardens between the hours of 2 and 5, are granted for Tuesdays only. Members of Oxford University and their friends are admitted on Tuesdays and Thursdays without tickets, but are required to inscribe their names in a book kept for that purpose at the lock. Tickets can be had on application by letter from H. Gale, Esq., Nuneham Courteney, Oxfordshire. Dogs are not admitted, and it is particularly requested that all broken -glass and other débris of picnic parties may be carefully removed. Acconimodation for small parties can be had at the lock cottages.

FARES to Paddington, see CULHAM.

Ornithology.-When the eye grows weary of wood and water-meadow, of lofty poplar, and lowly pollard, it is pleasant to turn one's mind to the varied incidents of bird-life which present themselves along the Thames, and which provide a fund of entertainment at all seasons for lovers of nature.

Go where you will, and when you will, to any spot upon the river bank, you will hardly fail to discover some represen. tative of the feathered tribe, whose actions attract notice, whose habits are worth observing.

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To the naturalist, however, who would attempt a sketch of the bird-life of the Thanies, two difficulties present themselves at the outset. In the first place, the district to be examined has no natural boundaries; and in the second, a bird has such perfect freedom of action, that its presence or absence in any particular spot may be a matter of the merest chance; while the advent of an ornithologist to