We must not omit to mention that it was in Hyde Park, that Wilkes fought his memorable duel with Mr. Martin, in which he received the wound from a pistol-ball which so nearly cost him his life.

In Swift's journal to Stella we find another interesting passage connected with Hyde Park. On the 25th of February, 1712, he writes;-"I was this morning again with the secretary [Lord Bolingbroke] and we were two hours busy; and then went to the Park, Hyde Park I mean; and he walked to cure his cold, and we were looking at two Arabian horses, sent some time ago to the Lord Treasurer. The Duke of Marlborough's coach overtook us, with his Grace and Lord Godolphin in it; but they did not see us, to our great satisfaction; for neither of us desired that either of those two lords should see us together. There were half a dozen ladies riding like cavaliers to take the air." The Lord Treasurer, here mentioned, was Lord Godolphin, and it is not improbable that one of the two Arabian horses which Swift refers to, was the famous Godolphin Arabian.

Let us pass from the time of Swift and Bolingbroke to that of Horace Walpole; those days when the lonely situation of Hyde Park rendered it still the frequent scene of highway robbery and murder. Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann on the 17th of November, 1749;-" Gibberne says you will be frightened at a lamentable history that you will read of me in the newspapers; but pray don't be

frightened: the danger, great as it was, was over before I had any notion of it; and the hurt did not deserve mentioning." Walpole, it seems, was passing through Hyde Park, when he was stopped by one M'Lean, a highwayman of formidable reputation, whose pistol, accidentally going off, not only stunned him, but grazed the skin from his cheekbone.

In a letter to Sir Horace Mann dated the 2nd of August, 1750, Walpole thus relates the capture of the dreaded M'Lean:-"I have been in town for a day or two, and heard no conversation but about M'Lean, a fashionable highwayman, who is just taken, and who robbed me among others. He was taken by selling a laced waistcoat to a pawnbroker, who happened to carry it to the very man who had just sold the lace. His history is very particular, for he confesses everything, and is so little of a hero, that he cries. His father was an Irish Dean; his brother is a Calvinist minister, in great esteem at the Hague. He himself was a grocer, but losing a wife that he loved extremely, about two years ago, and by whom he has one little girl, he quitted his business with two hundred pounds in his pocket, which he soon spent, and then took to the road with only one companion, Plunket, a journeyman apothecary, my other friend, whom he has impeached, but who is not taken. M'Lean had a lodging in St. James's Street, over against White's and and another at Chelsea; Plunket one in Jermyn Street; and their faces are as known about St.

James's, as any gentleman's who lives in that quarter, and who, perhaps, goes upon the road too. M'Lean had a quarrel at Putney bowling-green, two months ago, with an officer, whom he challenged for disputing his rank; but the captain declined till M'Lean should produce a certificate of his nobility, which he has just received. There was a wardrobe of clothes, and three-and-twenty purses, found at his lodgings, besides a famous kept-mistress. As I conclude he will suffer, and wish him no ill, I don't care to have his idea, and am almost single in not having been to see him. Lord Mountford, at the head of half White's, went the first day: his aunt was crying over him: as soon as they were withdrawn, she said to him, knowing they were of White's, My dear, what did the Lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any of them?' Was not it admirable! what a favourable idea people must have of White's!"

66

M'Lean was hanged in October following. Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann on the 18th,Robbing is the only thing that goes on with any vivacity, though my friend Mr. M'Lean is hanged. The first Sunday after his condemnation, three thousand people went to see him; he fainted away twice with the heat of his cell. You can't conceive the ridiculous rage there is of going to Newgate; and the prints that are published of the malefactors, and the memoirs of their lives and death set forth with as much parade as Marshal Turenne's."

M⚫Lean, as we have already mentioned, was

hanged in October 1750, and, a little more than a year afterwards, we find his place occupied by one William Belchier, another fashionable highwayman, who robbed in Hyde Park and its lonely vicinity. The evidence given at Belchier's trial, by one William Norton, a thief-catcher, is not a little curious. "The chaise to the Devizes," he says, "having been robbed two or three times, as I was informed, I was desired to go in it, to see if I could take the thief, which I did on the 3rd of June, about half an hour after one in the morning. I got into the postchaise; the post-boy told me the place where he had been stopped was near the half-way house between Knightsbridge and Kensington. As we came near the house the prisoner came to us on foot and said, 'Driver, stop!' He held a pistol tinder-box to the chaise and said, Your money directly: you must not stay; this minute your money.' I said, 'Don't frighten us; I have but a trifle; you shall have it!' Then I said to the gentlemen (there were three in the chaise), 'Give your money.' I took out a pistol from my coat-pocket, and from my breeches-pocket a five-shilling piece and a dollar. I held the pistol concealed in one hand, and the money in the other. I held the money pretty hard. He said, "Put it in my hat.' I let him take the five-shilling piece out of my hand as soon as he had taken it I snapped my pistol at him; it did not go off. He staggered back, and held up his hands, and said, 'Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!' I jumped out of the chaise: he ran away, and I after him about six or seven hundred yards,

and then took him. I hit him a blow on his back; he begged for mercy on his knees. I took his neckcloth off, and tied his hands with it, and brought him back to the chaise. Then I told the gentlemen in the chaise that was the errand I came upon, and wished them a good journey, and brought the prisoner to London." When Norton was asked in court by the prisoner what trade he followed, "I keep a shop," he said, "in Wych Street, and sometimes I take a thief."

Before we conclude our notices of Hyde Park, we must not omit to mention a mysterious incident which created an extraordinary sensation at the period. The hero of the tale was Charles, second Duke of Marlborough, who commanded the brigade of Foot Guards at the battle of Dettingen, and who held, at different periods, the high appointments of Lord Steward of the King's household, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Master-General of the Ordnance. In 1758, when the English government determined on making a descent at St. Malo, the Duke of Marlborough was appointed to the command of the expedition. A few months before his departure, the following extraordinary letter was thrust under the door-way of the Ordnance Office, and, being addressed to the Duke, was delivered to him by one of the messengers :