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sicknesse not curable by physicke, have in a short time repaired their
health by that sweet salutary air." In 1661, the Spanish Ambassador,
Count Gondomar, excuses his absence from the English court on the plea
that he had gone to his retreat in Highgate "to take the fresh aire."
The associations connected with Highgate are of the most interesting
character. It was coming up Highgate Hill that Dick Whittington heard
the bells prophesying that if he would return he would be Lord Mayor of
London; a public-house still marks the spot. It was at the bottom of
Highgate Hill that the great Bacon--the wisest and not the meanest of
mankind, that lie is at length exploded, and must disappear from
history--caught the cold of which he died. "The cause of his Lordship's
death," writes Aubrey, who professed to have received the information
from Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, "was trying an experiment as he was
taking the air in the coach with Dr. Winterbourne, a Scotchman, physician
to the king. Towards Highgate snow lay on the ground, and it came into
my Lord's thoughts why flesh might not be preserved in snow as in salt.
They were resolved they would try the experiment presently. They
alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman's house at the
bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen and stuffed the body with snow,
and my Lord did help to do it himself. The snow so chilled him that he
immediately fell so ill that he could not return to his lodgings, but
went to the Earl of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into
a good bed warmed with a pan, but it was a damp bed, that had not been
laid in for about a year before, which gave him such a cold, that in two
or three days, as I remember, he (Hobbes) told me he died of
suffocation." The Arundel house here referred to does not seem to be the
Arundel House still existing in Highgate, on the left-hand side as you
come up the main road from Islington. The house now bearing that name is
said to have been a residence of Nell Gwynne, and during that period was
visited by the merry monarch himself. The creation of the title of Duke
of St. Albans, which is related to have been obtained by Nell Gwynne in
so extraordinary a manner from King Charles, is said to have taken place
at this house. A marble bath, surrounded by curious and antique
oak-work, is there associated with her name. As the house is now in the
possession of a celebrated antiquarian, the Rev. James Y