TYBURN TREE. 293 



have done the same had he not been executed at 

 York. Tyburn Turnpike, which stood a few years 

 ago at the southern extremity of the Edgware Road, 

 close to the Marble Arch, was not very far distant 

 from this place of execution. The district round 

 about the Marble Arch is even to this day called 

 Tyburnia, which, as before stated, was in consequence 

 of there being a little stream or tiny bourne just at 

 that spot. Upon one of the elm-trees which grew 

 beside this stream, there was hung Roger de Mortimer, 

 the paramour of Queen Eleanor. 



When the humbly born yet distinguished men of 

 the last century set forth from their native places 

 to seek their fortune in the wide world, they must 

 naturally, like other people, have taken the inevitable 

 journey on the road. 



In this advanced period of the nineteenth 

 century, this journey, like every other action of their 

 lives, is regarded by us with extreme interest. A 

 •certain halo of romance surrounds these travellers 

 upon the journey which was to introduce them to the 

 metropolis, where in after years their names would be 

 so well known. Had they lived in the days of rail- 

 roads, a very few hours might have been sufficient to 

 waft them from the home of their childhood to the 

 scene of their future operations. 



We know that those distingfuished EnQ:lishmen 

 •who lived one hundred years ago, and who had to 

 make their way in the world from small beginnings, and 

 whose hearts were set upon reaching London, where 

 they could satisfy their ambition, must, to attain their 

 ■object, have journeyed by coach or ridden on horse- 

 back, if they did not enter London in that still more 

 ihumble conveyance, the stage- waggon, or have travelled 



