The frequent trains and steamers to Greenwich have made Blackheath a playground and breathing-place for Londoners.  Passing among these holiday people, we come to one of the gateways of Greenwich Park; it admits us from the bare heath into a scene of antique cultivation, traversed by avenues of trees.  On the loftiest of the gentle hills which diversify the surface of the park is Greenwich Observatory.  I used to regulate my watch by the broad dial-plate against the Observatory wall, and felt it pleasant to be standing at the very centre of time and space.

The English character is by no means a lofty one, and yet an observer has a sense of natural kindness towards them in the lump.  They adhere closer to original simplicity; they love, quarrel, laugh, cry, and turn their actual selves inside out with greater freedom than Americans would consider decorous.  It was often so with these holiday folk in Greenwich Park, and I fancy myself to have caught very satisfactory glimpses of Arcadian life among the cockneys there.

After traversing the park, we come into the neighbourhood of Greenwich Hospital, an establishment which does more honour to the heart of England than anything else that I am acquainted with.  The hospital stands close to the town, where, on Easter Monday, it was my good fortune to behold the festivity known as Greenwich Fair.

I remember little more of it than a confusion of unwashed and shabbily dressed people, such as we never see in our own country.  On our side of the water every man and woman has a holiday suit.  There are few sadder spectacles than a ragged coat or a soiled gown at a festival.

The unfragrant crowd was exceedingly dense.  There were oyster-stands, stalls of oranges, and booths with gilt gingerbread and toys for the children.  The mob were quiet, civil, and remarkably good-humoured, making allowance for the national gruffness; there was no riot.  What immensely perplexed me was a sharp, angry sort of rattle sounding in all quarters, until I discovered that the noise was produced by a little instrument called “the fun of the fair,” which was drawn smartly against people’s backs.  The ladies draw their rattles against the young men’s backs, and the young men return the compliment.  There were theatrical booths, fighting men and jugglers, and in the midst of the confusion little boys very solicitous to brush your boots.  The scene reminded me of Bunyan’s description of Vanity Fair.

These Englishmen are certainly a franker and simpler people than ourselves, from peer to peasant; but it may be that they owe those manly qualities to a coarser grain in their nature, and that, with a fine one in ours, we shall ultimately acquire a marble polish of which they are unsusceptible.

From Greenwich the steamers offer much the most agreeable mode of getting to London.  At least, it might be agreeable except for the soot from the stove-pipe, the heavy heat of the unsheltered deck, the spiteful little showers of rain, the inexhaustible throng of passengers, and the possibility of getting your pocket picked.