1 ^ THE OLD COURT SUBURB. *,,»^i'!. THE OLD COURT SUBURB OR IIEMOEIALS OF KENSINGTON REGAL, CRITICAL, AND AXECDOTICAL BY LEIGH HUNT • • • > » .*'' I * • • *> , a «, O 3 3 5 , , «« j>>**' * Q i • y ^ i * « J » J » HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET RiCHAED Clay & Soxs, Limited, LOXDOS & BUXGAY. • • ■ 4 • • 1 9 4 •■•»■'- -., •^•••©••i J3A V CONTENTS. ^ S CHAPTEE I. ^ Natiii-e of the Place, its General Assoeiations, Xame, and Growth 1 — 8 PAGE s CHAPTEE II. Crystal Palace — Old Kensington Gore — Duchess of Kingston — Marquis AYellesley — Highest ground between London and Windsor Castle — Prince's Gate — Brompton Park Nursery 9—15 CHAPTEE III. Kensington Gore Modern — Mrs Inchbald — Count D'Orsay — Wilkos and Junius (Sir Philip Francis) 15 — 23 CO ^ CHAPTEE lY. Gore House — A Government Contractor — ilr "Wilberforce — Lady *"* Blessington and Count d'Orsay —Monsieur Soyer — Exhibition of C3 Cabinet Work — Cultivation of the Beautiful — Copies by Students 3 23—44 CHAPTEE V. New National Gallery — Kensington New Town — Ambitious Sub- Urbanities — Kensington House — Duchess of Portsmouth — Elphin- stone, Doctor Johnson, &c. 44 — 51 CHAPTEE YI. Kensington House continued — Shell and the French School there- Catholic Boarding Establishment — Death and Character of Mrs Inchbald 52—03 CHAPTEE YII. High Street — Colby House, and Death of a Miser — Kensington Palace Gardens — The Rookery — Kensington Square — Duchess of Mazarin — Blackmore — Bishops Hough and Ma\vst)n — Archbishop Herring — Talleyrand . . . . " 64—77 298839 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. Kensington Church — Burial Grounds by Highways — The Callcotts — Philip Meautis — Sir Manhood Penruddock — Addison's " Earl of Warwick" — The Colmaus — Jortin — Thomas Wright .. 77 — 85 ^o"- CHAPTER IX. Church and Church-Yard continued — IMadan and his Thelypthora — George Colman the Elder— Dr Warren — Elphinstone again — The Bianchis — ]\Irs Inchbald— Spofforth — James Mill — George Colman the Younger — The Charnleys — Flowers on Graves — Urn-Bui'ial. 85—97 CHAPTER X. The Old Charity-School and Sir John Vanbrugh — The New Vestry- Hall — Cobbett — Scarsdale-House. — The Curzons, and Pope's and Eowe's Earl of Scarsdale — The Workhouse . . . . 97 — 107 CHAPTER XI. Terraces ridiculously so called — Lower Phillimore-Place and Shaftesbury- House — Wilkie — Hornton-Street — Dr Dibdin and his Bibliomania — A Brief Courtship — Leonard's-Place and Earl's-Court-Terrace — INIrs Inchbald— Edwardes-Square— Curious Tradition respecting it — Coleridge 107—119 CHAPTER XII. Holland House- Its Ancient Exterior and Interior — The Lodge — Want of Colour in England — Cromwell and Ireton— The Ground — Inscrip- tion in Honour of Mr Rogers — Verses by Mr LuttreU — Gardens New and Old — Xapoleon — Lord Camelfurd — Lady Diana Eich and Lady Elizabeth Thynne see their own Ghosts .. .. 119 — 129 CHAPTER XIII. Holland House continued — Bed-Eooms of Eogers and Sheridan — The late Lord Holland's Children inducted into the Beauties of Spenser — The Library — Tradition of Addison and the Two Bottles of Wine — Curiosities of Books — Fate of Camoens — Curiosities of Manuscripts — Collection of Pictures .. .. .. .. .. 130 — 135 CHAPTER XIV. Holland House continued — Family of De Vere, Earls of Oxford — • Origin of their Name — Andrew iVfarvel's Verses on Founders of Dutch States — The Beauclerks — Sir Walter Cope — The Eich Family — Earls of Holland— Performance of Plays — Earl of Anglesea — Sir John Chardin — Duchess of Buckinghamshire — Attcrbury — William Penn — Shippen — William III. — The Eichcs, Joint Earls of Warwick and Holland — William Edwardes, First Baron Kensington 136 — 151 CONTENTS. VU CHAPTER XV. Holland House continued — Addison's Life and Death there — Questions respecting his Marriage, his Last Moments, and his Conduct towards Gay — His Interview with the Daughter of Milton- -First Proposer of a "NYinter Garden 151 — 158 CHAPTER XVI. Holland House continued — Family of the Foxes — Sir Stephen Fox — Henry Fox, first Lord Holland — Fox and Pitt — His Lordship's Jovial Career and Melancholy Decline — His Kingsgate Villa — Curious Story of Lady Caroline Lennox's Determination to Marry Him — The Rose in the Fox's Mouth — Lady Sarah Lennox, the " Lass of Richmond Hill " — Lady Susan Fox or Strangeways, and Perils of Private Theatricals — Her Marriage with an Actor 158 — 167 CHAPTER XVII. Holland House concluded — Stephen, second Lord Holland — Charles James Fox, the Statesman — His Career and Character — Henry Richard, third Lord Holland— His Elegant Literature, Hospitality, Protests in the House of Lords, &c 167 — 176 CHAPTER XVIII. Little Holland House — Mrs Inchbald— Hon. Miss Fox— Eeutham and Sidney Smith — Addison Road — General and Lady Mary Fox — "Homer Villas" and "Cato Cottages" — Addison Terrace — Lee's Nursery — Kensington Gravel-Pits — Swift — The Callcotts — Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire — Campden Grove — Newton House and Sir Isaac Newton— Campden House — Strange History of the Little Duke of Gloucester, Son of Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne — " Duke upon Duke," or Lechraere and Guise — Romantic Tower 176—193 CHAPTER XIX. Kensington Palace and Gardens — Their Origin and Growth — Character of the Palace as a Building — The Finch Family— Inmates of the Palace— Its want of Gardens to Itself— Heneage Finch and his Sons, the Earls of Nottingham — William and Mary, their Court and Charac- ters—Queen Anne and her Court — The Duchess of Marlborough — Pope's Banter on the Horticulture of those Days .. 193—210 CHAPTER XX. Kensington Palace and Gardens continued — Maids of Honour— Pro- posed History of them by Swift and Arbuthnot— Queen Anne's Hunt- ing—Rise of the Kensington Garden Promenades in the Time of George the First— Fairy Story in Tickell's Poem on the Gardens— Vlll CONTENTS. Princess of "Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline — Miss Ilobart — Miss Howe — The Miss Bellendens — Miss Lepell — Miss Pitt — Other Pro- menaders of both Sexes — Addison, Steele, and Garth — Voltaire and Watteau 211—228 CHAPTER XXI. Palace and Gardens continued — George the Second and Queen Caroline — Series of Reigning Belles — Mason and Richardson — Phases of Male and Female Costume— "Philosophy" of the Hoop — Its Praises by Thomson — Praise of Patches, by Allan Ramsay — A Squadron of Hoops in the Great Kensington Roadstead . . . . 229 — 241 CHAPTER XXII. Palace continued — Domesticities of George the Second and Queen Caro- line — Lord Hervey's Memoirs — Question between Him and Pope — The King listening in a Closet — His Brusqueries in the Family Circle — His Son Frederick, Prince of Wales 241 — 248 CHAPTER XXIII. Palace continued — A Court Drama — Supposed Death of Lord Hervey — Talk at the Queen's Breakfast-Table — Divine Service — Court Drawing-Room — Hervey Self-Condemned — Death of George the Second 248—278 CHAPTER XXIV. Kensington Palace ignored by George III., George IV., and "William IV. — The Dukes of Kent and Sussex there — Queen Victoria Born and Bred there — Promenades in the Gardens till the Time of the Regency, with Glances at the Promenaders — The Band of Music in Summer-Time — The Flower-Garden, the Fountain, the Trees, Birds, Serpentine, and Basin — The Gardens in General and their Frequenters — Concluding Reflections 279 — 301 THE OLD COURT SUBURB, \ CHAPTER I. NAT'JllE OF TUB PLACE, ITS GEXEKAL ASSOCIATIOXS, KAME, AND GEOTVTH. The beauty and salubrity of Kensington, its com- bination (so to speak) of the elegancies of town and country", and the nmltitude of its associations with courts, wits, and literature, have long rendered it such a favourite with the lovers of books, that the want of some account of it, not altogether alien to its character, has constantly surprised them. The place is not only free from everything repulsive to the consideration (unless it be one hidden spot, Avhich the new improvements will remove), but atten- tion is fairly invited throughout. The way to it is the pleasantest out of town ; you maj' walk in high- road, or on grass, as you please ; the fresh air salutes you from a healthy soil ; and there is not a step of the way, from its commencement at Kensington Gore, to its termination beyond Holland House, in which you are not greeted with the face of some pleasant memory. J 2 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Here, to '' minds' eyes " conversant witli local biography, stands a beauty, looking out of a window ; there, a wit, talking with other wits at a garden-gate ; there, a poet on the green sward, glad to get out of the London smoke, and find himself among trees. Here come De Veres of the times of old ; Hollands and Davenants, of the Stuart and Cromwell times ; Evelyn peering about him soberly, and Samuel Pepys in a bustle. Here advance Prior, Swift, Arbuthnot, Gay, Sir Isaac Newton ; Steele from visiting Addison, AYalpole from visiting the Foxes, Johnson from a din- ner with Elphinstone, Junius from a communication with A^^ilkes. Here, in his carriage, is King "William the Third, going from the Palace to open parliament ; Queen Anne, for the same purpose ; George the First George the Second (we shall have the pleasure of looking at all these personages a little moi^e closely) ; and there, from out of Kensington Gardens, comes bursting, as if the whole recorded polite world were in flower at one and the same period, all the fashion of the gayest times of those sovereigns, blooming with chintz(s, full-blown with hoop-petticoats, towering with top-knots and toupees. Here comes " Lady Mary," quizzing everybody, and Lady Suffolk, looking discreet ; there the lovely Bellendens and Lepels ; there Miss Howe, laughing with Nanty Lowther (who made her very grave after- wards) ; there Chesterfield, Hanbury AYilliams, Lord Hervey ; ^liss Chudleigh, not over-clothed ; the Miss Gunnings, drawing crowds of admirers ; and here is George Sclwyn interchanging wit with ray Lady THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 3 Townshend, the " Lady Bellaston " (so, at least, it has been said) of " Tom Jones." Who is to know of all this company, and not be willing to meet it ? To meet it, therefoi^e, we propose, both out-of-doors and .in-doors, not omitting other per- sons who are worth half the rest — Mrs Inchbald for one. Mrs Inchbald shall close the last generation for us, and Colerido'C shall brinor us down to our own time. Not that we propose to treat the subject chronologi- cally, except in exhausting one point at a time. The general chronological point of view, though good to begin with, in order to show the rise and growth of a place, would not suit inspection into particulars. It would only end in confusing both place and time, by jumping backwards and forwards from the same houses for the purpose of meeting contemporary de- mands. The best way of proceeding, after taking the general survey, is to set out from some particular spot, on the ordinary principle of perambulation, and so attend to each house, or set of premises by itself, as far as we are acquainted with it. Our perambulation, however, must not be parochial. Parish geography is a singular confounder of all re- ceived ideas of limitation. Ely Place, Holborn, is in the county of Cambridge ; there are portions of other shires, which are in other shires ; and, parochially con- sidered, Kensington is not only more than Kensington in some places, but it is not Kensington itself in others. In Kensington parish, for instance, are included Earl's Court, Little Chelsea, Old and New Brompton, Kensal 4 THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. Green, and even some of tlie houses in Sloane Street ; while, on the other hand, Kensington Palace and Ken- sington Gardens are not in Kensington, but in the parish of St Mai^garet's, Westminster. Taking leave, therefore, of the wandering imagina- tions of parish officers, and confining ourselves to the received idea of Kensington, which is the same as that of the Post-office or E-ed Book, we shall consider the locality as circumscribed by Knightsbridge, Earl's Court, Hammersmith, Netting Hill, and Bayswater ; and since Kensington is more visited from the London side than any other, with the London side we shall begin. As to the nature and amount of the attention we purpose to pay to the respective objects of our notice, it will be precisely that which other observers pay, who are interested in such thing's, when sroino" alonsr a road. We shall suppose that the reader is our com- panion ; that we are giving him what information we possess in return for the pleasure of his society ; and that we say neither more nor less on any one of the objects, than might naturally be said between friends actually walking together, and equally alive to the only real interest of the subject, that is to sa}-, of human interest ; for gardens themselves, whether at Kensington or at Eden, would be nothing without eyes to enjoy them ; and houses are dry bones, unless invested with interests of flesh and blood. But first for the brief survey before mentioned, and a word or two respecting the name of the place. The meaning of the word Kensington is dispvited. It is commonly derived from the Saxon Ki/ning^s-tnn, THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 5 KIng's-town ; though, as it is written Chencsitun in Doomsday Book, and in other old records, it has been thought traceable to some landed proprietor, of the name of Chenesi, a family so called having been found in Somersetshire, in the reign of Edward the Confessor. Another ancient authority writes the word, Chensnetun. Temptations to etymology are great ; and as the Chenesi family was probably the same as the modern Cheijnh or Cheyneys, and Cheyne comes from the old French word cJiesne (oak), and "chensnet" miylit have been chesne-nat, or chestnut, (oak and chcsnut — chastain — having possibly the same root in French, and their timber, of which London was built, possessing a good deal in common), Saxon and JN^orman antiquaries might be led into much pleasant dispute, as to the regal and woodland origin of the word Kensington ; whether the oak and chestnut trees, which still have represent- atives in the district, were the occasion of the name ; or whether some Saxon prince — Alfred, for instance, who was the rebuilder of London — going some fine morning to look at his wood-cutters, and considering how healthy the soil was, and how fresh the western wind blew upon his brow, chose to set up a summer- lodge there, in which to recreate his profound thoughts, and benefit the health which he was injuring for his country. But we must not be diverted into these speculations. AVhatever was the origin of its name, there is no doubt that the first inhabited spot of Kensington was an enclosure from the great Middlesex forest, that once occupied this side of London, and which extended northwards as far as Barnet. The woody nature of a G THE OLD COURT SU13UKB. portion of the district is implied in a passage in Dooms- day Book ; and records exist, which show that forest trees were abundant in it as late as the time of Henry the Eighth. The overflowing of the Thames, to which Chelsea and Hammersmith were subject, stopped short of the higher ground of Kensington ; there was no great road through it till comparatively modern times, the only highway for travellers westward, being the old Roman, or present Uxbridge Road, then bending southerly (as it still branches) to Turnham Green ; and thus we are to picture to ourselves the future royal suburb, as consisting of half-a-dozen rustical tenements of swineherds and other foresters, clustering about the homestead of the chieftain or speculator, whoever he was, that first cleared away a spot in that corner. By degrees dairymen came, and ploughmen ; then vine- growers ; and the first Norman proprietor we hear of, is a bishop. " Albericus de Yer tenet de episcopo Constantiensi Chenesit(um)." Aubrey de Vere holds Kensington of the Bishop of Constance. So writes Doomsday Book. Constance is Coutances in Normandy ; and the bishop, who was, probablv, anything but a reverend personage, in the modern sense of the epithet, but a stalwart, jolly fellow, clad in arras cap-a-pie, was also Grand Justiciary of Eng- land ; that is to say, one whose business it Avas to do injustice toEnglishmen,and see their goods and chattels delivered over to his countrymen, the Normans. Ac- cordingly^, to set a good legal example, the Justiciary THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 7 seizes upon this manor of Kensington, wliich belonged, it seems, to one "Edward:" a name wliich signifies Happy Keeper. So Happy Keeper (unless detained to keep the pigs) makes the best of his wa}^ o&, bless- ing this delightful bishop and judge, whose office it is to oust proprietors ; and he is, perhaps, stripped and murdered, somewhere about dotting Hill, by his Lord- ship's chaplain.* TheDe Yeres, however, who afterwards gave twenty Earls of Oxford to the English peerage, were not long in becoming absolute possessors of the Manor of Ken- sington ; and they held it, directly or indirectly, from the time of the Conqueror nearly up to that of James the First. It is doubted, nevertheless, whether they ever resided there, thouQ:h there was a mansion belons:- ing to them, which occupied a site near the present Holland House, and which is still represented by a kind of remnant of a successor. AVe shall have more to say of the family by and by. But whatever was the importance of the district, as the possession of a race of nobles, it obtains no distinct or certain image in the mind of the topographer till Holland House itself makes its appearance, which was not till the reign of James the First, when it was built by Sir Walter Cope, who had purchased the estate to- wards the close of the reign preceding. A succession of noble and other residents, of whom we shall have to speak, and who have rendered it one of the most inter- esting objects in the neighbourhood of London, soon * For tlie crimes and iniquities of the military cliurclimen who came over with William of Xormandy, see Thierry's "History of the Con- quest," passim. 8 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. brought shops and houses about it ; Campden House, the seat of Lord Campden, arose not long after Hol- land House ; the healthiness and fashion of the place attracted other families of distinction ; and its import- ance was completed, when King "William bought the house and grounds of the Finch family (Earls of N^ottingham), and converted the house into a palace, and the grounds into royal gardens. Holland House, Campden House, Kensington House, the Square, the Church, the Palace, and the flardens, are the seven oldest objects of interest in K 'asingtou ; and lively and abundant are the memorials which most of them have left us. But newer creations possess their interest also, up to the latest period ; and it may be said, without the usual hazards attending prefator}' commendation, that in comparison with "kingly Kensington," as Swift called it, every other suburb of London, however in- teresting in its degree, is but as the strip of garden before one of its houses, compared with Kensington Gardens themselves during the heiirht of their season. TTTE OLD COURT SUBURB. 9 CHAPTER II. CEYSTAL PALACE OLD KE^"■SI:N■GT02T GORE — DUCHESS OE KI>'GST0:N' MARQUIS TTELLESLET HIGHEST GROUND BETWEEN LONDON AND WINDSOR CASTLE — PRINCE's GATE — BROMPTON PARE NURSERY. We begin our perambulation, as proposed, on the side next the metropolis. We should rather say, next Piccadilly, for the metropolis, alas ! and Kensington, are now joined ; though from Knightsbridge to the palace, the houses still occupy only one side of the way. It is a very pleasant way, especially if you come through the Park. When we quit Piccadilh^ for Hyde Park Corner, we, for our part, always fancy that the air, somehow, feels not only fresher, but whiter, and this feeling increases as we find the turf under our feet, and the fresh air in one's face. The road-way through Knightsbridge, with its rows of houses on one side, and its barracks on the other, is not so agreeable ; though, by way of compensation, you have the chance of having your eyes refreshed with a dignified Serjeant of dragoons, too fat for his sash, and a tall private, walking with a little woman. The long and again unoccupied side of the road in the Park, reaching from the Knightsbridge Barracks to within a short distance of the Gardens, lately pre- sented to the eyes of the world a spectacle singularly 10 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. illustrative of the advanced character of the age, and such, we believe, as no attempts to bring back a worse spli"it in Europe will deprive of its good eiFects, how- ever threatening those attempts may appear. We need not sav that we allude to the Great Exliibition. We do not say " Crystal Palace/' for it was a pity, though it was natural enough on its first rising with that fairy suddenness, that the building was so called ; since it was neither crystal nor a palace. It was a bazaar, admirably constructed for its purpose, and justly surprising those who beheld its interior. When we thouo-ht it was to be destroyed, without renovation elsewhere, we felt amazed at the selfishness of such of its rich neighbours as could insist on the performance of a promise to that effect notwithstanding the vrishes of n;iillions, restricted in their enjoyments. But as soon as it was determined that the structure should reapjaear in another quarter, and this too with those improvements in point of size and treatment which the designer himself had longed for power to effect, we felt as glad to have the old trees and turf back again, undisturbed, as the most sequestered of the suburban aristocracies. We rejoiced in a result, upon which, in fact, all parties were to be congratulated ; and we began to own, that there certainly had been a dust and kick-up about the once quiet approach to Kensington, a turmoil of crowds, and omnibuses, and cabs, of hot faces and loud voices, of stalls, dogs, penny trumpets, policemen, and extempore public-houses, Avhich, for the sake of the many themselves, one could hardly have wished to see continued, lest they also should ultimately have missed their portion in THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 11 tlie tranquil pleasure of the few. A winter-garden, to be sure, would have been a good thing, and con- servatories and other elegancies, all the year round, would have been still better ; but all these we are promised in the new premises at Sydenham ; and though the near neighbourhood of London was an advantage in some respects, it was not such in others. Multitudes became somewhat too multitudinous. European brotherhood itself, now and then, felt its toes trodden upon a little too sharply. The most gener- ous emulations, if they want elbow-room, are in danger of relapsing into antagonisms. A juvenile wit, in the shape of a pot-boy, who appears to have possessed a profound natural insight into this tendency of the meeting of extremes, cried out ons day to a couple of foreigners who were showing symptoms of a set-to, " Go it, all natio7is." The road from Knightsbridge to Kensington, which the Great Exhibition looked on, is called the Gore ; a word which, with the surveyor as well as the semp- stress, appears to mean a slip or graft of something in addition, and of the shape of a blunted cone ; though the elegance to which the sjoot has attained must not let us forget, that the same word has been employed in the sense of " mud and dirt," and that the road in this quarter used to be in very bad condition. Lord Hervey, writing towards the middle of the last cen- tury, describes it as shocking. And the royal roads through the Park were little better. " The removing- from Kensinc^ton to St James's for the purpose of facilitating the Queen's intercourse Avith minist.^rs, seems in our days (observes the editor 1"3 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. of his Lordship's ' Memoirs ') verj' singular ; but the following extract from a letter to his mother, dated 27th November, 1736, will explain it. " 'The road between this place (Kensington and Loudon) is grown so infamously bad, that we live here in the same solitude as we should do if cast on a rock in the middle of the ocean ; and all the Londoners tell us there is between them and us a great impass- able ffulf of mud. There are two wavs throuo-h the Park, but the new one is so convex, and the old one so concave, that by this extreme of faults they agree in the common one of being, like the high road, impass- able.' " * Kensington Gore commences opposite Prince's Gate, wath the mansion called Ennismore or Listowell House, formerly Kingston House. It is now the residence of the nobleman who possesses those two first titles, was lately that of the ^Marquis Wellesley, and was built by the once notorious Duchess of Kingston, famous in the annals of bigamy. The Duchess of Kin^-ston — the Miss Chudleio^h, of whom we have had a glimpse by anticipation in Ken- sington Gardens — was an adventuress, who, after playing tricks with a parish register for the purpose of alternately falsifying and substantiating a real mar- riage, according as the prosjjects of her husband varied, imposed herself on a duke for a spinster, and survived him as his duchess till unmasked by a Court of Law. She was a well-born and handsome, but coarse- minded woman, qualified to impose on none but very ♦ A'ol. ii. p. 189. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 13 young or very shallow admirers. Her first liusband, who became Earl of Bristol, was at the time of his marriage a young seaman, just out of his teens ; and the Duke, her second husband, though he was nephew of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, appears never to have outgrown the teens of his understanding. Hating prolixity and mock-modesty, her Ladyship's maxim, we are told, was to be " short, clear, and sur- prising ; " so she concentrated her rhetoric into swear- ing, and dressed in a style next to nakedness. The wealth, however, which was bequeathed her by the Duke, enabled her, in spite of the loss of his title in England, to go and flare as a Duchess abroad, where her jewels procured her the friendship of sovereigns, and the Pope figured in her will. Marquis Wellesley redeems Kingston House from the disgrace of its origin ; for he was a highly refined personage. Some thought him too refined ; and stories were told of the care which he took of his complexion. Fastidious he certainly was ; fond of pomp and show when he governed India ; and a little too superfine, perhaps, in his tastes always. There was a curious difference in these, as well as in some other respects, between him and his brother, the great soldier. But we must not lightly believe stories to the disparage- ment of those who mingle infirmities with great qualities. What is certain of the Marquis Wellesley is that, with all his aristocratic drawbacks, he was a man of gentle and kindly manners ; very generous ; an energetic, judicious, and, upon the whole, singularly liberal statesman for an extender of empire ; and that 1^ THE OLD COURT SUBURB. the passion in liim which survived all others, was a love of the classical studies of his boyhood. This was so strong, that he directed himself to be buried at Eton College, where he had been brought up — a triumphant testimony, surely, to the natural goodness of his heart. It is affecting to our common humanity to see one of the most public of statesmen, and one of the most sequestered of poets (Gray, in his Ode), thus meeting on the same good old ground of boyish reminiscence. " Ah, liappy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! Ah, fields beloved in vain ' "WTiere once my careless childhood stray'd, A stranger yet to pain I ' ' Not " in vain," however, if their influence thus ac- companies us through life, and greets our approaches to the grave. It is said that the Duke of Wellington, who visit- ed the Marquis to the last, was sometimes kept wait- ing ; upon which he remarked one day, " I believe my brother thinks he is still Governor- General of India, and that I am only Colonel Wellesley." It is not impossible that, from old habit and a little bit of civil grudge against military ascendency (but all in a spirit of kindliness, which the sensible Duke Avould understand and indulge), the elder brother did not dis- like to keep up his privileges of primogeniture. A curious local preeminence attends Kingston House, little suspected by those who pass it. It stands on the highest ground between London and Windsor Castle. Kext to this mansion is a row of new houses, each THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 15 too high for its -width, called Prince's Gate. They resemble a set of tall thin gentlemen, squeezing to- gether to look at something over the way. The old wall containing their neighbour, Park House, indicates the northern boundary of the once famous Kensington or Brompton Park JSTursery, which figures in the pages of the " Spectator " as the estab- lishment of Messieurs London and Wise, the most celebrated gardeners of their time. It commenced in the reign of Charles the Second ; furnished all Eng- land with plants ; and is only now giving up its last sreen ghost before the rise of new buiklino'S. CHAPTER 111. KES'SINGTON GORE MODERN — MRS I>'CIIBALD — COTJNT d'ORSAT — WILKES A>'D JUXIUS (siR IHTILIP ERAXCIs). We have said that Kensington Gore, in Red Books and Directories, is understood to begin at Kingston (or Ennismore) House. And such is the case. But as the only rows of houses, till of late years, that is to say, of houses in actual conjunction, were that which you pass just before reaching the Cabinet Exhibition, and another lower down the road, the former of these rows is still inscribed, " Kensington Gore," and is the spot emphatically so called. It is also, to distinguish it from the other, sometimes called the Upper Gore. We notice it the more particularly, because it is re- markable, among other respects, for its style of build- 16 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. ing. It consists but of five houses, four of which are faced with white stucco, all of them very small, and Nos. 2 and 3 apparently consisting but of one room (a drawing-room) with six windows. Yet they have an air of elegance, and even of distinction. They look as if they had been intended for the out-houses, or lodge, of some great mansion which was never built ; and as if, upon the failure of that project, they had been divided into apartments for retainers of the Court. You might imagine that a supernumerary set of maids of honour had lived there (if maids of honour could live alone) ; or that five younger brothers of lords of the bed-chamber had been the occupants — all being bachelors and expecting places in reversion. The two houses which seem to be no- thing but one drawing-room, possess, however, par- lours and second stories at the back, and have good gardens ; so that what with their flowers behind them, the park in front, and their own neatness and elegance, the miniature aristocracy of their appearance is not ill borne out. In the year 1816, Mrs Inchbald (of whom more hereafter) knocked at the door of one of these houses, in hopes of getting the apartments that were to let ; but the lodging-house lady was so fine a personage, and so very unaccommodating, besides reserving all the prospect for herself, and charging a round sum for the rooms which had no prospect, that the authoress of the " Simple Story " indignantly walked oS". She says that the furniture was crazy ; that she would not have accepted the first floor, had it been ofiered her THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 17 for nothing ; and that one of her big trunks would have taken up half the bed-room. Since that day, there is reason to believe that the furniture has much improved ; for besides the air of taste which is difi'used over all the little stuccoed houses, they have boasted divers inhabitants of wor- ship : and at jSTo. 5, for a short time, lived Count d'Orsay. We shall have more to say of this distin- guished person a little further on, when we come to Gore House. But it is impossible to mention such a "glass of fashion, and mould of form," without stopping a moment to look at him with our " mind's eye ;" and as care had not yet overtaken him while residing at this house, we cannot but observe at once how truly he merited the application of those words of Shak- speare. To see d'Orsay coming up a lobby, or a drawing- room, was a sight ; his face was so delicate, his figure so manl}", and his white waistcoat so ample and august. "We happened once to see him and O'Connell sitting opposite one another, the latter with a waistcoat to match ; and we were at a loss to think which had the finer " thorax " of tlie two — the great Irishman, Avho thundered across the channel, or the magnificent French Adonis, who seemed to ennoble dandyism. Over the doorway of No. 2 is a vase ; and as old inhabitants do not remember when this vase was set up, it was not improbably a manifestation of his class- ical taste by a once much talked of person ; for in this house a little sequestered establishment was kept by the once famous demagogue, Wilkes — a man as much 2 18 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. over-estimated perhaps by liis admirers, for a patriot- ism which M'as never thoroughly disinterested, as he was depreciated for a libertinism, by no means unac- companied with good qualities. " Jack AYilkes," as he was familiarly called — member of parliament, alder- man, fine gentleman, scholar, coarse wit, and middling writer, was certainly an "impudent dog," in more senses than that of " Jack Absolute " in the play. Excess of animal spirits, and the want of any depth of perception into some of the gravest questions, led him into outrages against decorum, that were justly denounced by all but the hypocritical. Nevertheless, the country is indebted to him for more than one benefit, particularly the freedom from arbitrary arrest ; and the two daughters that Jack left behind him, ille- gitimate as well as legitimate, were models of well- educated, sensible women, as fond of their father as he had shown himself fond of them. The popularity to which he had attained at one time was immense. "■ Wilkes and Liberty " was the motto of the universal English nation. It was on every wall ; sometimes on every door, and on every coach (to enable it to get along) ; it stamped the butter-pats, the biscuits, the handkerchiefs ; in short, had so identified one word with the other, that a wit, writing to somebody, began his letter with, " Sir, I take the Wilkes and Liberty to assure you." Wilkes prospered so well by his patriotism, that he maintained three establishments at a time ; one in the Isle of Wight, for the summer ; another in Gros- venor Square, where his daughter Mary kept house for him ; and the third at tliis place in Kensington THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 19 Grore, where his second daughter, Harriet, lived with her mother, a Mrs Arnold, who assisted in training her with a propriety that must have been thought re- markable. The first daughter, who was as plain and as lively as her father, died unmarried, universally lamented. The other, a very agreeable lad}^ in face as well as in manners, we had the pleasure of seeing once, in company with her husband, the late estimable Sergeant Rough, who became a judge in India, and who deplored her loss. A Kensington memorandum by Wilkes will show what high visitors he had, and how well he could en- tertain them. " Mr Swinburne dined with me last Sunday, with Monsieur Barthelemi, and the Counts Woronzow and Nesselrode. I gave them the chicken-turtle, dressed at the London Tavern, a haunch of venison, and was served by James and Samuel from Prince's Court, who behave very well. The day passed very cheerfully, and they all expressed themselves highly delighted." Wilkes, who lived to a good age, owing probably to his love of exercise, was in the habit, to the last, of walking from Kensington to the city, deaf to the solicitations of the hackney-coachmen, and not at all minding, or rather, perhaps, courting, the attention of everybody else to an appearance, which must always have been remarkable. Personal defects deprecate or defy notice, according to the disposition of the indivi- dual. Wilkes was not disposed to deprecate anything. He was tall, meagre, and sallow, with an underhung, grinning, good-humoured jaw, and an obliquity of vision, which, however objectionable in the eyes of 20 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. opponents, occasioned the famous vindication from a partizan^ that its possessor did not " squint more than a gentleman should." Upon the strength of his having been a Colonel of Militia, the venerable patriot daily attired his person in a suit of scarlet and buff, with a rosette in his cocked-hat, and a pair of military boots ; and the reader may fancy him thus coming to- wards Knightsbridge, ready to take off the hat in the highest style of good-breeding to anybody that court- ed it, or to give the gentleman " satisfaction/' if he was disrespectful to the squint. For Wilkes was as brave as he was light-hearted. He was an odd kind of English-Frenchman, that had strayed into Farring- don Ward Without ; and he ultimately mystified both King and people ; for he was really of no party, but that of pleasure and a fine coat. The best thing about him was his love of his daughters ; just as the pleasant- est thing in the French is their walking about with their families on the Boulevards, after all the turbu- lence and volatility of their insurrections. But an interest attaches to this house of Wilkes's far beyond these pleasant anomalies ; for here Junius visited. At this door, knocking towards dinner-time, might be seen a tall, good-looking gentleman, of an imposing presence, who, if anybody passing by had known who he was, and had chosen to go and tell it, might have been the making of the man's fortune. This was Philip Francis, afterwards one of the de- nouncers of Hastings, ultimately Sir Philip Francis, K. B., and now, since the publication of Mr Ta^dor's book on the subject, understood to be that " mighty boar of the forest," as Burke called him, trampling THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 21 down all before him, the author of " Junlus's Letters.'' Mrs Rough said, that he dined at Kensington fre- quently, and that he once cut off a lock of her hair. She was then a child. She only knew him as Mr Francis ; but she had " an obscure imagination that her father once said she had met Junius." He might so, in after days ; but we feel convinced that Wilkes did not know him for Junius at the time. He treats the latter, in his correspondence, with a reverence which was not compatible with "AVilkes and Liberty." He took Junius, we suspect, to be Burke or Chatham, probably the latter. He once, it is true, when Lord Mayor, invited the great unknown to a ball, adding, in a truly French style of classical allusion (then the tone of the day) how happy lie should be to see "his Portia (Miss Wilkes) dance a graceful minuet with Junius Brutus." But Junius Brutus saw the absurdity of the conjunction ; answering, " that he acknowledged the relation between * Cato and Portia,' but in truth could see no connection between Junius and a minuet. His age and figure, too," he said, " would have done little credit to his partner." In a previous letter Wilkes had said, that he did not mean to indulo-e " the impertinent curiosity of finding out the most im- portant secret of our times, the author of ' Junius.' He would not attempt with profane hands to tear the veil of the sanctuary. He was disposed, with the in- habitants of Attica, to erect ' an altar to the unknown god' of our political idolatry, and would be content to worship him in clouds and darkness." Upon which not inelegant comparison, Junius, still keeping his state, though smiling with condescending pleasantry, ob- 22 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. serves, that he is "much flattered, as Mr Wilkes politely intended he should be, with the worship he is pleased to pay to the unknown god. I find," he con- tinues, "I am treated as other gods usually are by their votaries, with sacrifice and ceremony in abund- ance, and very little obedience. The profession of your faith is unexceptionable ; but I am a modest deity, and should be full as well satisfied with good works and morality." This is admirable, and full of matter ; but it is not the style that could have occurred between John Wilkes, Esquire, Sheriff of London, possessor of three establishments, and Mr Francis, at that time Clerk in the War Office, and in the habit of dining at his table. We must add, that we take Lord Chatham, Burke, and Earl Temple, to have been in the secret of "Junius's Letters;" that the two former objects of his admiration stimulated his manner, and that not improbably they occasionally furnished him with remarks. Xor would it have surprised us, had Temple turned out to be Junius himself. But this is not the place for discussing the question. We take the opportunity of giving a variation of the story which Mr Taylor relates respecting the behaviour of Sir Philip at the table of George the Fourth. "Sir Philip," says Mr Taylor, "was im- petuous, and somewhat abrupt in manner. He once interrupted George the Fourth at the royal table (and we are credibly informed that he frequently dined there) in the midst of a tedious story, with a * Well, Sir, well ! ' " Our version of this anecdote, without meaning to THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 23 impugn Mr Taylor's authority, which, not improbably, is the same as our own, differently reported, is, that Sir Philip being excessively tired, not only with the story in question, but with others of the same sort which he was in the habit of hearing at the same table, interrupted the royal narration with the politer, but not less significant words : " Well, and the result, Sir, if you please." The result was, that he was never invited more ; and our informant added, that as such a penalty was certain, it is not improbable that it was deliberately incurred. If any of our readers, who agree with Mr Taylor in thinking Sir Philip Francis to have been Junius, should regret their never having seen that once in- visible personage, we have the pleasure of informing them, that the portrait prefixed to the volume of " Junius Identified," is a fac-simile of the man. "We met Sir Philip once coming down Bond Street, and knew him by the likeness. CHAPTER IV. GOEE HOUSE A OOVEK:NMEXT COXTEACTOR — MR WIL- BERFORCE LADT BLESSIXGTOX AXD COUXT d'oRSAY — MOXSIEUR SOYER EXHIBITIOX OE CABIXET WORK CULTIVATIOX OE THE BEAUTIFUL — COPIES BY STUDEXTS. The vicissitudes in the occupation of houses are curious. The first tenant we meet with in Gore House 2Ji THE OLD COURT SUBURB. (we forget his name) is a government contractor who was so stingy, that he would -not Lay out a penny to keep his garden in order. To him succeeded Mr Wilberforce, famous in the annals of evangelism and the slave-trade. The next distinguished name is Lady Blessington, who is joined by Count d'Orsay. Then comes Monsieur Soyer, who turns the place into an eating-house for " All Nations " during the Great Exhibition. And now it has been bought by govern- ment, in connexion with the new views for the cultiva- tion of art. Wilberforce, whose head was not strong enough to keep him out of the pale of religious bigotry, but whose heart was kindly, and his temperament happy, contrived (though it is difficult to conceive how even the merriest of such theologians manage it) to com- bine the most terrific ideas of the next world (for others) with the most comfortable enjoyment of this world in his own person. He was a little plain-faced man, radiant by nature with glee and good humour, very " serious " at a moment's notice, an earnest devotee, a genial host, a good speaker and member of parliament ; now siding, and now differing, with his friend Pitt ; now joining in devotion with Lord Teign- mouth ; now laughing heartily with Canning ; now sio-hino- over the table-talk of the Prince Regent ; but above all, deep in tractarianism, and at the same time advocating the freedom of the poor negroes; which was by no means the case with all persons of his way of thinking, political or religious. " About a year and three-quarters ago," says this worthy ultra-serio-comic person, " I changed my resi- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 25 dence, and found myself in the habitation which my family now occupies, and which we find more salu- brious than Clapham Common, We are just one mile from the turnpike-gate at Hyde Park Corner, which I think you will not have forgotten yet, having about three acres of pleasure-ground around my house, or rather behind it, and several old trees, walnut and mulberry, of thick foliage. I can sit and read under their shade, which I delight in doing, with as much admiration of the beauties of nature (remembering at the same time the words of my favourite poet : * Nature is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God'), as if I were two hundred miles from the great city."^ This is excellent, and would have been more so if Mr Wilbcrforce could have allowed others, not qviite of the same creed, to have the same right to a comfortable enjoyment of nature, and the same re- putation for piety. He was of opinion that you must be continually thinking of God, otherwise God would be very angry. As if the Divine Father could not dispense with these eternal references to him from his children, or would burthen them with the weight of even too much gratitude ! Our pros- perous and lively-blooded saint, however, bore the burthen with singular vivacity, owing to a notion he had (hardly burthened with modesty, though he always professed to wonder at the circumstance), that he was a special favourite of God. His meditations down Kensington-road were cer- tainly very different from those of Mr "Wilkes. " Walked," he savs, in his Diary, " from Hyde 26 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Park Corner, repeating the llOtli Psalm, in great comfort." This is the longest of the psalms, extending to a hundred and seventy-six verses, full of pious self-con- gratulation, and of rebukes of its deriders. An anecdote of Wilberforce in connexion with the present royal family we reserve for our notices of the palace. Of the successors of this devout person in the oc- cupancy of Gore House so much has been said of late, in consequence of the appearance of a book in three large octavo volumes, entitled *' The Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington," that readers of a work like the present will probably expect us to give our opinion on the subject at greater length, than would, otherwise have been the case.* Marguerite Gardiner (not Blessington, as the author has it, misled by the way in which peeresses sign their names) was the daughter of Edmund Power, Esq., a country gentleman of small property in Ireland, and was born at Knockbril, near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary, on the 1st of September, 1790. Her father appears to have been a man half mad with bru- tality. At the age of fourteen and a half, she was married to a captain in the army, of the name of Parmer, whose temjoer is said to have resembled her * The feelings of the book, as far as the chief persons in it are con- cerned, are in the main correct ; and the author might have attained the repute of moderate powers of reflection and an altogether laudable object ; but the three volumes ought, at the utmost, to have been two ; and the manufactured nature of the rest (to say nothing worse of it) should have rendered him cautious how he went out of his way to cen- sure judgments which he does not understand. THE OLD COURT SUBITIiB. 27 father's, and from whom she separated ; and, in her eight-and-twentieth year, she took for her second hus- band, Charles John (Gardiner) Earl of Blessington, who was a man equally half mad with self-will, though in a quieter shape, with the addition of prodigality and love of show. All these persons helped to perplex and unsettle her character. During a space of eight years, Lord and Lady Blessington travelled and resided on the continent — chiefly in Italy — accompanied by a niece of her Lady- ship's, and by Count Alfred d'Orsay, son of General Count d'Orsay, one of the old French noblesse. The young Count was invited to be of the party by Lord Blessington, who became so extremely attached to him that nothing would content him but Alfred must marry one of his daughters by a former wife, (he did not care which), and so become possessed of a portion of his estates. His Lordship, also, after the death of his only legitimate son, made him guardian of the son's brother. Alfred, in the year 1827, at ]N"aples, married the daughter, without love on either side. Lord Blessington died of apoplexy in the year 1829, at Paris. His widow, with Count and Countess Alfred, returned to England, and took up her abode in Sea- more Place, May Fair, where she resided till the year 1836, in the course of which time the married couple parted, having lived together ten years ; and, on Lady Blessington's removal from Seamore Place to Kensington, the Count accompanied her thither ; and, from that time up to their departure from England, appears to have resided in the same house, with the exception of a short stay at the little domicile before 23 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. mentioned. Lady Blessington was then in her forty- fifth year, and the Count in his thirty-fourth. The house soon became a point of atti'action, par- ticularly in the world of letters, her Ladyship, besides giving such dinners as Dr Johnson would have thought " being worth asking to," delighting to bring men of different opinions together, for the purpose of softening asperities, and making them take a lildng to one another, on better acquaintance. In this bene- volent project she w^as assisted by the Count ; and here, accordingly, with somewhat of an excess on the side of universality, were to be seen poets and prose writers, both Tory and Whig, distinguished journal- ists, Edinburgh and Quarterly reviewers, with actors, artists, travellers, exiles, &c., Landor and Thomas Mooi'e being the leaders among the poets, and Prince Louis Napoleon at the head of the exiles. Every celebrated novelist, in particular, naturally made one of a circle, over which presided the charming woman, who was herself a novelist. AVe do not hear of ladies among the visitors, though the Countess appears to have had cordial female friends. This was a defect, however, that was to be looked for in a country like England, in consequence of appearances — the residence in the same house of a beautiful widow of five-and-forty, with a model of a man aged thirty-four, suggesting, it seems, no possibilities of self-restraint to the sober fancies of our beloved countrymen. Yet, in his last days, when the hand of death was upon him, the Count said to their friend and biographer, the tears, all the while, pouring down his face, " She was to me a mother ! THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 29 a dear, dear motlier ! a true loving mother to me ! " And referring to her again, he said, "You under- stand me." " I understood him to be speaking what he felt," continues his friend ; " and there was nothing in his accents, in his position, or his ex- pressions (for his words sounded in ray ears like those of a dying man), which led me to believe he was seek- ing to deceive himself or me." These parties at Gore House have been compared with those of Holland House, and with the companies that assembled at the mansion of Lady Charleville. Of the latter, no memorialist has enabled us to speak ; but, with the former, they appear to have had little in common, except the power on the part of some of the visitors to have furnished it, had the hostess so desired. It is stated that she latterly assumed too dic- tatorial a manner, and that the parties were not so natural and so lively as they had been in Seamore Place. This may have been owing, partly to her pur- suit of literature, and partly to a sense of the coming difficulties ; and there was one drawback on the agreeableness of the society, and even on the benevo- lence of purpose above mentioned, in bringing it to- gether, which we should not have expected to find in any society of the like description — to wit, a love of banter, and a habit of what is called " fetching out " people's absurdities and self-committals ; a practice, generally speaking, which none are so prompt to be offended with as the " fetchers out." But the habit, instead of being discouraged, was flattered ; and flattery, of one kind or another, was the ruin of the poor handsome Count and Countess. Nobody, of 30 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. course contemplated sucli a result ; and tlie flattery was very natural ; for they were accomplished as well as handsome and kind-hearted persons, notwithstand- ino- that mistake. The establishment broke down in 1849 under a load of debt for party-giving, for dress, for jewellery, for play (on the part of the Count), and even for charity's self and the giving of pensions ; both the friends being bountiful to the poor, one of them sup- porting poor relations, and the other helping to do as much for poor exiles. For though it is rightly said that people ought to be just before they are generous, yet when tradesmen give long credits, reckoning upon enormous receipts, their unreflecting victims naturally suppose they can " wait," and that the poor had better be helped first. The Count's boots and hats were advertisements, for the sake of which the shoemakers and hatters were content to wait, till things looked awkward ; and then the long credit, having served the purpose of an usurious patience, was to be made the ground of a realising exasperation. The downfall was unlocked for by the public, but not by acquaintances. Four years previous to it the Count was so embarrassed, that in a schedule of his liabilities drawn up by himself, the claims of his creditors amounted to a hundred and seven thousand pounds ; and his biographer adds, that there were debts to friends, amounting probably to thirteen thousand more. In vain the Countess kept an eye on the household expenses ; in vain she thought to turn a jointure of two thousand a-year into four thou- sand, by " literature ; " in vain the Count resorted THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 31 even to alchemy ; in vain, as a last resource, he thought to benefit by those fine arts, in which he ex- celled as an amateur. Time was not given him for the trial. He had fled to Paris ; there was a sale of the goods at Gore House ; the Countess followed him ; and the last hope of the refugees was in the Prince President of the French Ptepnblic, lately the favourite guest at their table, always their protege and type of progress. But the man of the reserved tongue and drooping eyelids was plotting his way to a throne. He liked neither the sincerity, nor the humanity, of his once cherished adviser, the Count ; and having discarded his mistress, and looked for a wife, he pro- bably affected a new kind of reserve with the Countess, as a setter of imperial example. The poor lady died of apoplexy ; which, under certain kinds of trial, means a shock of despair ; and the gentleman only re- ceived an appointment, when it was too late for him to discharge it. Strong and fine a man as he had been, he speedily followed her to the grave, aged no more than fiftv-one. The secret of the unlooked-for deaths of these two remarkable persons will still be a subject for discussion ; nor do we profess to be in the least degree acquainted with it, unless it be explained by appearances. In our opinion, these are quite sufficient for the explan- ation. They had taken Louis jN^apoleon for a man of feeling, and they thought they should die dishonoured, or doubted, by creditors — and by creditor friends ; for the proceeds of the sale of Gore House did not amount to more than the Count's debts to his friends, and what would clamorous tradesmen say to those ? The 32 THE OLD COURT SUBURB, Countess, also, was to subsist ; and what was she to do for the Count, or he for her ? Injured in hope, in health, and in expectation, their pangs of mind, under all the circumstances, may naturally have been enough to kill them ; and we believe they did.* As to the other and more delicate secret, nothing perhaps is or can be known of it, beyond the fact of their having lived in the same house ; which, if con- sidered a scandal in England, and of evil example (and it undoubtedly was so considered, and very naturallj'), is to be judged at the same time with re- ference to those foreign usages, to which one of them had been born and bred, and the other (in residences abroad) accustomed. The Count's high-born and respected kindred — his mother included — never ceased to express their esteem and affection for the Countess ; female rela- tions of hers, themselves esteemed by the estimable, lived with her, and were witnesses of her habits ; and if it be asked us, whether we are still "green" enouo-h to believe that there was nothing in the connection * It is jiroper to observe, that the opinions here expressed regarding Louis Xapoleou's behaviour to the Count and Countess originate in state- ments made by their friends, and that a counter- statement on his part might, of course, demand for them a ne-sv consideration. We are loth also to say anything against the ally of England and the guest of the Queen ; and willing to believe, notwithstanding his antecedents, that he not only desires to promote the new cordiality between France and Eng- land out of motives better than merely selfish ones, but has objects, rare for a despot, in furtherance of the good of the poor and the general pro- gress of the community. But those antecedents, and the melancholy doubts taught us by history, forbid the best-disposed of his observers to take promises for performance, or one set of extremes for another. The utmost which they find it possible to do, is to await the evidence of events, and to fee] no wonder in the mean time at the incredulity of the consistent and the outraged. THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. 33 bevond tlie ill -appearance of it, we answer, tliat we leave those to believe the worst, who choose it ; that a brave man's tears, in his dying moments, go a great way with us ; that Irish and French vivacity combin- ed, in a grave country, might be tempted or provoked into hazarding an amount of misconstruction, incon- ceivable to our national habits ; and, finally, that till the nation itself is bold and virtuous enough to look into the cause of certain other habits of its own, which it suffers to scandalize its towns and cities in open day, beyond those of any other country in Europe, it had better draw as little attention as possible to comparisons between itself and its neighbours. The worst thing known of Count d'Orsay, is his marriage with a girl of fifteen, witliout love on either side, in compliance with the wish of a half insane father, and for the purpose of obtaining a fortune. In an Englishman, this would have been very bad conduct indeed, and often is. At least, similar things are often done among us, if not precisely under the same circumstances. In a Frenchman, the con- duct would be equally bad, if he reflected upon it apart from national custom ; but custom in France, or in Paris (which is France itself, as affects the world), has rendered marriage in general not only a matter of understood expediency, but of an expediency very different from our own, both as regards the restraints of its antecedents, and the independence of its results. In England, the expediency is practised, but with conditions as inexorable on one side, as they are lax on the other ; and hence, among other causes, the na- tional scandal above alluded to. 3 34. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. But enough of these questions in a book not in- tended to moot them. It is creditable to Count d'Orsay and to his friends in general, that whatever fears he may have had of exceptions in particular in- stances, they retained a belief in his good qualities to the last, and this too not only in spite of his pecuniary difficulties, but even of the obligations which they led liim to incur. It was a piece of good fortune, which many a poor honest man must at once have rejoiced in and have envied — rejoiced in, to think that good in- tentions are not always to be doubted from inability to carrv them out ; and envied, because it was out of his power to cut the same redeeming figure of personal and aristocratical enchantingness. In the interest occasioned by the rest of her story, we have forgotten to speak of the Countess as a writer ; and much need not be said. She had an easy, elegant, and sometimes interesting pen ; had the art of recom- mending liberal and amiable opinions without offend- ing conventionality ; and wrote better than any one else on the character of her acquaintance, Lord Byron. But her works are not original or strong enough to last. The ground on which Gore House stands forms part of the district which is to be occupied by the new National Gallery, its schools of art and science, and its bovvers for the exhibition of sculpture. A display of cabinet work and of studies from the schools of art has already commenced operations, and the public are re-admitted to the grounds. All this, it must be allowed, is a good absorption of the antecedent indi- vidualities, pleasant as some of them were ; though it THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 35 is to be doubted, whether Mr Wilberforce's ghost will be quite easy at the sight of the Yenuses and Apollos.* Eno-land, a teacher of nations in so many respects, is but now discovering, what has so long been known to Italy and partially known to France — that utility and beauty, instead of being antagonists, are friends ; that the one without the other, besides being in danger of falling into the gross and the sordid, cannot thoroughly work out its purposes ; form, and propor- tion, and adaptation of means to ends, being constituent qualities of the beautiful ; and finally, that as Nature, far from disliking the beautiful, thought fit to be the cause of it, and loves it, and deals in it to profusion, often in the very humblest of her productions, so it becomes Art to imitate her great mistress in the like impartiality of adornment, and show us what opulence and what elevation, in the scale of discerning beings, await the perceptions of those, whose ideas are not limited to the commonest forms of the desirable. The use of art itself is but to administer to our satisfac- tions ; and the use of beauty is to refine and perfect those satisfactions, and raise them by degrees, in pro- portion as we cultivate a true sense of it, to thoughts of the beauty and goodness of its great First Cause. To ask with a sneer what is the use of beauty, is to ask with impiety why God has filled the universe * The observations which here follow on the cultivation of the Beautiful, are retained in the present book, though they were sug- gested by a transient exhibition, the observations on which are retained for the same reason ; namely, because it is hoped they refer sufficiently to general principles to warrant the retention of the par- ticulars. It is hoped, also, that they may be considered a foretaste of what the locality is intended to do for us in succeeding exhibitions. 36 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. with beauty ; why he has made the skies blue, and the fields green, and vegetation full of flowers, and the human frame a model for the sculptor, and gifted everything in existence with shape and colour. The commonest piece of grass, with the straightness of its stem, the flowing contrast of its leaves, and the trembling fulness of its ears, is a miracle of beauty : — so rich in grace and suggestiveness has it pleased Him to make the houses of the very insects, and the food of cattle ! Is it not better to discern this, in addition to the other uses of grass, than to see in it nothing but those uses ? nothing but hay for the market, and so much return of money to the grower ? Very good things both, no doubt, and not to be dispensed with ; but so much the more requiring the accompaniment of nobler perceptions, to hinder us from concluding that man was made to live by " bread alone ; " that is to say, by the satisfaction of his material, as opposed to his spiritual wants. So little was this the con- clusion of the good Emperor and philosopher, Marcus Antoninus, that with the uncontemptuous eye of a sage, and with a curious familiar anticipation of that sense of the picturesque which has been thought, by some, peculiar to modern times, he directs our attention to the outside of a very loaf, as possessing something o'raceful and attractive in its ru^'O'edness, or what an O DO ' artist would call the " freedom of its forms." The whole passage in his " Meditations," is itself so beau- tiful, and in spite of his want of thorough artistic perception as to form and line, expands into such a comprehensive and noble sense of what has been termed the Art of Nature, that although we have already kept THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 37 the reader standing mucli longer than we intended at the steps of Gore House with this prefatory digression on such matters, we are sure he will be pleased at having it laid before him. " Such things as ensue upon what is well consti- tuted by nature, have something graceful and attrac- tive. Thus, some parts of a well-baked loaf will crack and become rugged. What is thus cleft beyond the design of the baker, looks well and invites the appetite. So when figs are at the ripest, they begin to crack. Thus in full ripe olives, their approach to putrefaction gives the proj)er beauty to the fruit. Thus, the ladened ear of corn hanging down, the stern brow of the lion, and the foam flowing from the mouth of the boar, and many other things, considered apart, have nothing comely ; yet because of their con- nection with things natural, they adorn them, and delight the spectator. Thus, to one who has a deep affection of soul, and penetrates into the constitution of the whole, scarce anything connected with nature will fail to recommend itself agreeably to him. Thus, the real vast jaws of savage beasts will please him, no less than the imitations of them by painters or sta- tuaries. " With like pleasure, will his chaste eyes behold the maturity and grace of old age in man or woman, and the inviting charms of youth. Many such things will he experience, not credible to all, but only to those who have the genuine affection of soul to nature, and her works."* Yes, most excellent Emperor ! and the same might * " Translation of the Meditations." Glasgow, 1749. 298839 38 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. have been said by thee, and probably was said, of the commonest objects of art round about thee, in thy home and thy goods and chattels, thy cabinets and caskets and chains ; for art is nature's doing also, being the work of her workmanship ; man and all forms and graces being referable to her suggestion. The chair, as well as the plant, has its straight and its flowing lines ; the casket and the cabinet its ornaments of fruit and foliage, its efflorescence in metal or pre- cious stone ; some, their figures of men, beasts, and birds ; and all, more or less, their colours, proportions, and uses. Shall we not then observe, and, as much as possible, spiritualize them accordingly, giving them the grace and beauty which Nature suggests, and so rendering them assistants of our best perceptions against our worst ? For effeminacy, the danger of delight, is not a consequence of enjoyments founded in truth and in the spirit of things, but of grovellings in the false and the gross ; not a consequence, therefore, of good art, but of bad ; of art lulling to sleep on the chair for the mere body's sake, and not of art awakening us to intellectual perceptions, and thus dividing the empire of body with that of mind. Luther was not the less prepared to hazard mar- tyrdom, because he was a player on the organ. So- crates was not the less an actual martyr, and one of the greatest of men, because he had been a sculptor, and wrought figures of the Graces. All good things, as well as all bad things, hold toge- ther ; truth, strength, right perceptions in art ; false- hood, weakness, bad taste. Truth, in any one respect, THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 39 is good for truth in otlier respects ; and it would be ridiculous to avoid cultivating anything which is right, for fear of its degenerating into what is wrong. Upon this principle we might discommend the teaching of virtue itself, lest it turn sour, and become austerity or hypocrisy. Our duty is to do our best, and leave the rest to Providence. The collection at Gore House, besides tapestry, mirrors, and a few other things, consists of cabinet work in oak, walnut, ebony, &c., carved, sculptured, inlaid, sometimes with pictures, oftener in the Buhl style of ornamentation ; in short, presenting all the reigning styles of treatment from the latter part of the fifteenth century to the close of the eighteenth. There are cabinets, coffers, commodes, buffets, chairs, tables, clocks, drawers, presses, couches, flower-stands, fire-screens, and even pairs of bellows. The rooms, in fact, are not big enough to hold them ; so that the visitors are crowded ; and as the materials are chiefly dark and ponderous, the general effect, notwithstanding occasional gorgeousness, is heavy, and even somewhat gloomy. You might imagine that tlie fortunes of half-a- dozen ancient houses had been suddenly ruined, and their goods and chattels despatched in haste to an auctioneer's, to be sold. Better justice would have been done to the individual objects, had there been space enough to show them ; for all productions of art have so much to do with proportion, that the pro- portions even of the spaces round about them become of importance to their display. Perhaps, however, it was not easy to refuse offers from contributors; variety. 40 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. too, was a temptation ; and a liberal abundance is welcome, after all, even at the expense of incon- venience. The Government Commissioners, with great judg- ment, have drawn attention to these curiosities, not as models for indiscriminate imitation, but as illustrations of the taste of successive periods ; as samjjles of merit on particular points, especially ornamentation ; and in several instances, as warnings against inconsistencies and bad taste. Foreigners, they say, can teach the English workman nothing in point of mechanical fitness and completion, but he may learn much from them in the art of decoration. This, no doubt, is true ; and we hope and believe that foreigners and nations will benefit one another by these exhibitions ; the Englishman learning to make his cabinets elegant, and the Frenchman and Italian to make their kej's turn smartly, and their drawers come forth without sticking. We cannot greatly admire such things as Buhl work ; elaborations of brass ornaments upon dark grounds. We prefer the inlayment of paintings, the additions of bas-reliefs, and the quaintest old carvings of human figures, fruits, &c., provided they have any truth of expression. Buhl is no company — has nothing to entertain us with, but its unnecessary flourishes. Gilding is something, for it is a kind of sunshine. The jumble called rococo is, in general, detestable. A parrot seems to have invented the word ; and the thing is worth}^ of his tawdriness and his incoherence. We confess, however, to a sneaking kindness for the THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 41 shepherds and shepherdesses of the times of the Pom- jDadours and the INIadame du Barrys. They were the endeavour of no-feelmg- to get at some feeling ; to "as- sume a virtue if they had it not ; " to play at lovers, though they could only be gallants ; nay, let us do our best for them, and say, it was the endeavour to concili- ate the remnant of truth and simplicity lurking in their hearts, and to persuade themselves what a golden-age kind of people they were intended by nature to have been, provided only they could have had their own way, and luxurious suppers instead of bread and cheese. Many of these extraordinary pieces of furniture are, nevertheless, excellent of their kind, those in the rococo style not excepted. There are cabinets and coffers truly worthy of holding treasure ; tables, at which it would be an elevation of mind, as well as body, to sit ; clocks, that symbolize the value of time (and not seldom its heaviness) by the multiplicity and weight of their ornamentation ; and chairs, which sometimes render the request " not to touch," provok- ing ; for how otherwise are we to test the smoothness of the " Genoa velvet; " to taste the pleasure of sitting, as sovereio-ns and beauties sat ; or comfortably to contemplate the very objects before us, considering that there are no seats in the rooms for visitors, and that pleasure itself is fatiguing ? Some interesting memories, also, are attached to these costly moveables. There is a magnificent writing table, ostentatiously recording some of the projects of the famous busj'-body, Beaumarchais, author of the comedy of "Figaro;" a Buhl writing-table, that belonged to the De Eetz family ; a grand cabinet in 42 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. pletm dura (precious stones), made expressly for Louis the Fourteenth ; a carved Venetian coffer, that was the property of the first Earl of Dorset, the poet, the worthy precursor of Spenser ; and another Venetian coffer, adorned in wonderful alto relievo with the story of Caesar crossing the Ptubicon, most life-like and masterly. The work is dated in the catalogue " about 1560;" and the arms on the escutcheon (a lion ram- pant and a head in a cap) are stated to be " unknown." We know not the arms of Cnesar Borgia, otherwise the story is just like one of the allusions of that energetic miscreant. Or, might it have illustrated some lawless exploits of the Malatesta family, one of the most ferocious of whom was a great patron of art ? We have indulged ourselves at such lenarth in these passing notices of art and manufacture, that we must dismiss, with a somewhat impatriotic brevity, the other part of the Exhibition — the copies from originals and from j^ature sent in by students of the various Government Schools of Art, established throughout the kingdom. Indeed, we could take no very long view of them, and therefore must not be understood as throwing any slur upon those on which we are silent, when we say that we were most struck with the " Flamingo " of Miss Olden (JN'o. 10) ; the " Madre Dolorosa," (from Carlo Dolce ?) by Miss Gunthorp (No. 24) ; the " Magdalen," from Cor- reggio, by Mr Bowen (No. 27) ; the "Money-getter " (we know not from whom), by Mr Collinson (No. 32) ; "Fruit," by Mr Gibson (No. 47); the "Study of Ornament in Colour," by Mr Ellison (No. 101) ; and THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. 43 those after " Cuyp and Crivelli " (eacli wrongly referred), by Mr Array tage. The " Flamingo " is admirably coloured, only we wish he looked less like an osfre, with that long^ beak of his holding the eel. It is all true to nature, no doubt ; but why need ornithological painters select only those moments ? The " ]Madre Dolorosa " is very dolorous, and well done ; but we have little faith in the permanent dolour of those cheeks. This, however, is the original's fault, and not the copyist's. For the real, natural grief, the amiable, surprised, and patient regret, in the face of Correggio's " Magdalen," we are most thankful, be- cause we feel certain that it brings the original before us ; which cannot be said of a late beautiful engraving of the subject, very lovely, but not at all sorrowful. The " Fruit " is partly bruised with its own ripeness, very true and beautiful. The " Ornament in Colour " is truly graceful and consistent ; hangs charmingly together ; and the " Cuyp and Crivelli " carry with them their testimony to the fidelity of the copies. These works are all up-stairs; chiefly, we believe, in the garrets. They look as if a parcel of artists had fallen in love with the maid-servants, and hung their dormitories with evidences of their homage. Little need be said of the grounds belonging to Gere House. Turf and trees are good things, with or without flowers; and the grounds are of unexpected dimensions, considered as appurtenances to a suburban residence ; but, as Johnson said of a dinner, that it was a good enough dinner, but " not a dinner to invite a man to," so it may be said of the Gore House grounds, that they hardly sustain the dignified an- i4 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. nouncement of being " thrown open to the public ; " especially as this " throwing open " is confined to the visitors Avho have paid their way to the cabinet-work. You must think of the late fair possessor, Lady Bless- ington, to give an interest to their pathways. CHAPTER Y. NEW NATIOIf AL GALLERY — KEXSINGTOIS' KEW TOWN AMBITIOUS SUB-L'BBANITIES KENSINGTON HOUSE DUCHESS OF POETSilOUTH ELPHINSTONE, DOCTOE. JOHNSON, &C. The estates purchased by the Commissioners for the site and grounds of the new National Gallery in- clude those just described, which consist of about twenty acres ; and it will, probably, when all the pur- chases are completed, approach to a hundred. It widens as it goes south, and reaches to Old Brompton. From this point to the town of Kensington we pass houses both old and new, some in rows, and some bj' themselves, enclosed in gardens. They are all more or less good ; and the turnings out of them lead into a considerable district, which has lately been con- verted from nursery and garden- ground into more streets, and is called Kensington New Town. It is all verv clean and neat, and astonishes visitors who a few years ago beheld scarcely a house on the spot. A pleasant hedge-lane, paved in the middle, and look THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 45 injT towards the wooded grounds of Gloucester Lodo-e, where Canning lived, leads out of it into Old Bromp- ton. One street, which has no thoroughfare, is quite of a stately character, though deformed at the corner with one of those unmeaning rounded towers, whose tops look like pepper-boxes, or " Trifles from Margate." The smaller streets also partake of those improvements, both external and internal, which have succeeded to the unambitious, barrack-like streets of a former generation ; nor in acquiring solidity, have they, for the most part, been rendered heavy and dumpy ; the too common fault of new buildings in the suburbs. It is ridiculous to see lumpish stone balconies constructed for the exhibition of a few flower-pots ; and doors, and flights of steps, big enough for houses of three stories, put to " cottages " of one. Sometimes, in these dwarf suburban grandiosities, the steps look as weighty as half the building ; sometimes the door alone reaches from the ground to the story above it ; so that " cottages " look as if they were inhabited by giants, and the doorways as if they had been maximized, on purpose to enable them to go in. This Kensington New Town lies chiefly between the Gloucester and Victoria Roads. Returning out of the latter into the high road, we pass the remainder of the buildings above noticed, and, just before enter- ing Kensington itself, halt at an old mansion, remark- able for its shallowness compared with its width, and attracting the attention by the fresh look of its red and pointed brick- work. It is called Kensington House, and surpasses Gore House in the varieties of its history ; for it has been, first, the habitation of a 46 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. king's mistress; then a school kept by an honest pedant, whom Johnson visited ; then a French emigrant school, which had noblemen amono- its teachers, and in which the late Mr Sheil was brouo-ht up; then a Roman Catholic boarding-house, with Mrs Inchbald for an inmate ; and now it is an " asylum," a terra into which that consideration for the feelings which so honourably marks the progress of the present day, has converted the plain-spoken " mad-house " of our ancestors. The king's mistress was the once famous Duchess of Portsmouth, a Frenchwoman, — Louise de Querou- aille, — who first came to England in the train of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, the sister of Charles the Second. She returned ; and remained, for the ex- press purpose (it is said) of completing the impression she had made on Charles, and assisting the designs of Louis the Fourteenth and the Jesuits in makino- him a Papist, and reducing him to the treasonable condition of a pensioner on the French Court. Traitor and pensioner, at all events, his Majesty became, and the French woman became an English Duchess; but whether she was a party to the plot, or simply its un- conscious instrument, she has hardly had justice done to her, we think, by the historians. She appears to have been a somewhat silly person (Evelyn says she had a " baby face ") ; she was bred in France at a time when it was a kind of sacred fashion to admire the mistresses of Louis the Fourteenth, and think them privileged concubines ; she had probably learnt, in the convent where she was brought up, that lawless things might become lawful, to serve religious ends ; and she THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 47 was visited during her elevation by her own parents — straightforward, unaffected people, according to Evelyn — the father a " good fellow," who seems at once to have rejoiced in her position, and yet to have sought no advantages from it. The Duchess, it is true, ulti- mately got as much for herself as she could, out of the King, She was as lavish as he was ; became poor, a gambler, and a rjourmancle ; that is to say, gave way to every innocent propensity, as she might have thought it, which came across her ; and as her occupation of the house at Kensington appears to have been subse- quent to the reign of Charles, it probably took place on one of her visits to Enfrland during^ the reisfus of "William the Third and George the First ; on which latter occasion she is supposed to have endeavoured to get a pension from the English government — on what grounds it would be curious to know. But the " baby- face " probably thought it all right. We take her to have been a thoroughly conventional, commonplace person, with no notions of propriety but such as were received at Court, and quite satisfied with everything, here and hereafter, as long as she had plenty to eat, drink, and play at cards with, and a confessor to make all smooth, in case of collateral peccadilloes.* The * Our countrvmen, who hated the Duchess because she was a French- woman (and with reason, considering what was thought to be her mis- sion), converted her name, Querouaille, into Carivell ; which was neai-cr p( rhaps the French word than they fancied ; for Brittany, her native province, received a portion of its inhabitants from Cornwall, where Car and Huel are component words ; and it still presents names of places and persons corresponding with Cornish appellations. Among them is (or was, in the time of Madame de Sevigne) a family of the name of Cor- 48 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. jumble of things religious and profane was carried to such a height in those days, that a picture represent- ing the Duchess and her son (the infant Duke of Richmond) in the characters of "Virgin and Child," was painted for a convent in France, and actually used as an altar-piece. They thought her an instrument in the hands of God for the restoration of Popery. Adieu to the " baby-face," looking out of the win- dows at Kensington House, in hope of some money from King George ; and hail to that of the good old pedagogue, James Elphinstone, reformer of spelling, translator of " Martial," and friend of Dr Johnson. He is peering up the road, to see if his great friend is looming in the distance ; for dinner is ready, and he is afraid that the veal stuffed with plums (a favourite dish of the Doctor's) will be spoilt. Mr Elphinstone prospered in his school, but failed in his reformation of spelling, which was on the phonetic principle (one of his books on the subject was entitled " Propriety's Pocket Dictionary "), and he made such a translation of " Martial/' that his friend Strahan, the printer — but the circumstance must be told out of Boswell. Gakrick. " Of all the translations that ever were attempted, I think Elphinstone's ' Martial ' the most extraordinary. He consulted me upon it, who am a little bit of an epigrammatist myself, you know. I told him freely, ' you don't seem to have that turn.' I asked him if he was serious ; and finding he was, I nouaiUes ; which was sometimes written Cornuel, and is the way in which they spell the name of the English county. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 49 advised liim against publishing. Why, his translation is more difficult to understand than the original. I thought him a man of some talents ; but he seems crazy in this." Johnson. "Sir, you have done what I had not courage to do. But he did not ask my advice, and I did not force it upon him, to make him angry with me." Garrick. "But as a friend, Sir." Johnson. "■ Why, such a friend as I am with him — no." Garrick. " But if you see a friend going to tumble over a precipice ? " Johnson. " That is an extravagant case. Sir. You are sure a friend will thank yo\x for hindering him from tumbling over a precipice ; but, in the other case, I should hurt his vanity, and do him no good. He would not take my advice. His brother-in-law, Strahan, sent him a subscription of fifty pounds, and said he would send him fifty more, if he would not publish." Garrick. " What, eh ! is Strahan a good judge of an epigram ? Is he not rather an obtuse man, eh?" Johnson. " Why, Sir, he may not be a judge of an epigram ; but you see he is a judge of what is not an epigram." That our readers may judge for themselves, espe- cially as the book is very rare, and nobody who speaks of Elphinstone quotes it, we add a specimen or two. We confess they are not " favourable specimens ; " but they are not unjust. 50 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. " TO THE SUBSCKIBER. " Tf Martial meekly woo'd Subscription's charms, Subscription, gracious, met a Martial's arms ; Contagious taste illum'd th' imperial smile. And, Julius' greater. Martial, won our ile." BOOK IV., PART II., EPIGRAM 16. " OX APOLLODORUS — TO EEGULUS. " Five for Ten, and for Lusty lie greeted you Lean, As for Free he saluted you Bond. Now he, Ten, Free, and Lusty articulates clean. Oh ! what pains can ! He wrote, and he coun'd." Not a word of explanation ; though the book is full of the longest and most superfluous comments. It is a quarto of six hundred pages, price a guinea in hoards ; and among its hundreds of subscribers are the leading nobility and men of letters. So prosperous had some real learning and a good character rendered the worthy school- master.* Elphinstone had won Johnson's heart by taking charge of a Scotch edition of the " Rambler." He also translated the Latin mottoes at the head of the papers ; and did it in a manner that gave little or no token of the coming " ]\Jartial." Johnson, Jortin (of whom more hereafter), and, we believe, Franklin, visited him at this house. " I am going this evening (sa3^s Johnson) to put young Otway to school with Mr Elphinstone." f Otway is an interesting name. One should like * " The Epigrams of Mr. Val. Martial, in Twelve Books : with a Comment, by James Elphinstone," 1782. It is due to Mr. Hookhamto state, that we found this rare volume in his excellent, indeed unique circulating library, which contains the miscellaneous reading of several generations. + Letter to Mrs Thrale. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 51 to know whether he was of the poet's race. It is pleasant, also, to fancy the Doctor, then in his sixty- fourth year, walking hand-in-hand down the road with the little boy. " On Monday, April 19, 1773, he called on me," says Boswell, " with Mrs Williams, in Mr Strahan's coach, and carried me out to dine with Mr Elphin- stone, at his academy at Kensington. Mr Elphin- stone talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr Johnson if he had read it. " " I have looked into it." " "What," said Elphinstone, " have you not read it through ? " Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, " No, Sir. Do you read books through ? " * The book that was " much admired," was probably one that differed with Boswell and the Doctor in opinion, otherwise his biographer, who is full of shabby suppressions of this kind, might have added the title, or not have mentioned the work at all. It is said in Faulkner's " History of Kensington," that Elphinstone was " ludicrously characterized in Smollett's ' Roderick Random,' which, in consequence, became a forbidden book in the school." But none of the brutal schoolmasters of Smollett resemble the gentle pedagogue of Kensington. The book might have been forbidden out of consideration for the com- mon character of the profession ; to say nothing of other reasons. * Croker's "Boswell," vol. \iii. p. 267 52 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. CHAPTER YI. KE2f SINGTOIf HOUSE CO>^TINUED— SHEIL AND THE FEEXCH SCHOOL THEEE — CATHOLIC BOAEDIIfG ESTABLISHMENT — DEATH AND CHARACTER OF MRS INCHBALD. But we must not stop longer with Mr Elpliinstone. Of the school kept by Jesuits, an account so entertain- ing has been left by Mr Sheil in the Memoirs prefixed to the volume of his Speeches, that, although it is somewhat long, the reader, we are sure, will be glad to have the whole of it, especially as it does not seem to be generally known, and the regrets of the world are yet fresh at the loss of that distinguished orator and member of parliament. How the smile of the French Abbe, " made up of guile and meekness," could deserve to be called " amiable, in the best sense of the word," we cannot say. But nothing can surpass the descriptions of the rest of the little man, glossy all over with his black silk habiliments ; of the emigrant school-boys rejoicing in the victories obtained by the country which had re- jected them, at the expense of that which had given them shelter ; and of poor unteachable Charles the Tenth, thrilling at the names of the little boys intro- duced to him, and not foreseeing that he would have to thrill at them over again, after repossessing the throne of France to no purpose. " I landed at Bristol," says Mr Sheil, recording THE OLD COUET SUBURB. 53 his first coming from Ireland, " and with a French clergyman, the Abbe de Grimeau, who had been my tutor, I proceeded to London, The Abbe informed me, that I was to be sent to Kensington House, a college established by the Peres de la Foi, for so the French Jesuits settled in England at that time call themselves ; and that he had directions to leave me there upon his way to Languedoc, from whence he had been exiled in the Revolution, and to which he had been driven by the maladie de pays to return. Accordingly, we set off for Kensington House, which is situated exactly opposite the avenue leading to the Palace, and has the beautiful garden attached to it in front. A large iron gate, wrought into rusty flowers, and other fantastic forms, showed that the Jesuit school had once been the residence of some person of distinction ; and I afterwards understood, that a mis- tress of Charles the Second lived in the spot which was now converted into one of the sanctuaries of Igna- tius. It was a large, old-fashioned house, with many remains of decayed splendour. In a beautiful walk of trees, which ran down from the rear of the build- ing through the play-ground, I saw several French boj's playing at swing-swang ; and the moment I entered, my ears were filled with the shrill vocifera- tions of some hundreds of little emigrants, who were engaged in their various amusements, and babbled, screamed, laughed, and shouted, in all the velocity of their rapid and joyous language. I did not hear aword of English, and at once perceived that I was as much amongst Frenchmen as if I had been suddenly trans- ferred to a Parisian college. Having got this peep 54 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. at the gaiety of the school, into which I was to be introduced, I was led with my companion to a chamber covered with faded gilding, and which had once been richly tapestried ; where I found the head of the establishment, in the person of a French nobleman, Monsieur le Prince de Broglie. Young as I was, I could not help being struck at once with the contrast which was presented between the occupations of this gentleman and his name. I saw in him a little, slender, and gracefully constructed Abbe with a sloping forehead, on which the few hairs that were left him were nicely arranged, and well powdered and pomatumed. He had a gentle smile, full of suavity which was made up of guile and of weakness, but which deserved the designation of amiable, in the best sense of the word. His clothes were adapted with a peculiar nicety to his symmetrical person ; and his silk waistcoat and black stockings, with his small shoes buckled with silver, gave him altogether a glossy aspect. This was the son of the celebrated Marshal Broglie, who was now the head of a school, and notwithstanding his humble pursuits, was designated by everybody as ' Monsieur le Prince.' " Monsieur le Prince had all the manners and at- titudes of the Court, and by his demeanour put me at once in mind of the old regime. He welcomed my Prench companion with tenderness, and having heard that he was about to return to Prance, the poor gen- tleman exclaimed, " Helas ! " while the tears came into his eyes at the recollection of " cette belle France," which he was never, as he thought, to see again. He bade me welcome. These preliminaries of introduc- THE OLD COUKT SUBUEB. 55 tion having been gone through, my French tutor took his farewell ; and as he embraced me for the last time, I well remember that he was deeply affected by the sorrow which I felt in my separation from him, and turning to Monsieur le Prince, recommended me to his care with an emphatic tenderness. The latter ledme into the school-room, where I had a desk assigned to me beside the son of the Count Decar, who has since, I un- derstand, risen to offices of very high rank in the French Court. His father belonged to the nobility of the first class. In the son, it would have been, at that time, difficult to detect his patrician derivation. He was a huge, lubberly fellow, with thick matted hair, which, he never combed. His complexion was greasy and sudorific, and to soap and water he seemed to have such a repugnance, that he did not, above once a week, go through any process of ablution. He was surly, dogged, and silent, and spent his time in the study of mathematics, for which he had a good deal of talent. I have heard that he is now one of the most fashionable and accomplished men about the Court, and that this Gorgonius smells now of the pastiles of E,ufillus.* " On the other side of me was a young French West Indian, from the colony of Martinique, whose name was Devarieux. The school was full of the children of the French planters, who had been sent over to learn English among the refugees from the revolution. He was an exceedingly fine young fellow, the exact reverse in all his habits to INIonsieur le Comte Decar on my left hand, and expended a good deal of his hours of study in surveying a small pocket- * Pastillos Rufillus olet, Gorgonius hircum. 56 THE OLD COUKT SUBURB. mirror, and in arranging the curls of his rich bhick hair, the ambrosial plenty of which was festooned about his temples, and fell profusely behind his head. "Almost all the French West Indians were rain, foppish, generous, brave, and passionate. They ex- hibited many of the qualities which we ascribe to the natives of our own islands in the American Archi- pelago ; they were a sort of Galilean Belcours in little ; for with the national attributes of their fore- fathers, they united much of that vehemence, and habit of domination, which a hot sun and West India overseership are calculated to produce. In general, the children of the French exiles amalgamated readily with these Creoles : there were, to be sure, some points of substantial difference ; the French West Indians being all rich roturiers, and the little emigrants having their veins full of the best blood of France, without a groat in their pockets. But there was one point of reconciliation between them — they all concurred in hating England and its government. This detestation was not very surprising in the West Indian French ; but it was not a little singular, that the boys, whose fathers had been expelled from France by the revo- lution, and to whom England had afforded shelter, and given bread, should manifest the ancient national antipathy, as strongly as if they had never been nursed at her bosom, and obtained their aliment from her bosom. '' AVhenever news arrived of a victory won by Bonaparte, the whole school was thrown into a ferment ; and I cannot, even at this distance of time, forget the exultation with which the sous of the decapitated, or THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 57 tlie exile, hailed the triumph of the French arms, the humiliation of England, and the glor}^ of the nation whose greatness they had learned to lisp. There was one boy I recollect more especially. I do not now remember his name, but his face and figure I cannot dismiss from my remembrance. He was a little effeminate creature, with a countenance that seemed to have been compounded of the materials with which waxen babies are made ; his fine flaxen hair fell in girlish ringlets about his face, and the exquisite sym- metry of his features would have rendered him a fit model for a sculptor, who wished to throw the hcau ideal of pretty boyhood into stone. He had upon him a sickly expression, which was not sufiiciently pro- nounced to excite any disagreeable emotion, but cast over him a mournful look, which was seconded by the calamities of his family, and added to the lustre of misfortune which attended him. He was the child of a nobleman who had perished in the revolution. His mother, a widow, who resided in a miserable lodging in London, had sent him to Kensington House, but it was well known that he was received there by the Prince de Broglie from charity ; and I should add, that his eleemosynary dependance, so far from exciting towards him anj^ of that pity which is akin to con- tempt, contributed to augment the feeling of sympa- thy which the disasters of his family had created in his regard. This unfortunate little boy was a French- man to his heart's core, and whenever the country which was wet with his father's bloo^ had added a new conquest to her possessions, or put Austria or Prussia to flight, his pale cheek used to flush into a 5S THE OLD COURT SUBURB. hectic of exultation, and he would break into joy- fulness at the achievements by which France was exalted, and the pride and power of England were brought down. This feeling, which was conspicuous in this little fellow, ran through the whole body of Frenchmen, who afforded very unequivocal proof of the sentiments by which their parents were influenced. The latter I used occasionally to see. Old gentlemen, the neatness of whose attire was accompanied by indi- cations of indigence, used occasionally to visit at Ken- sington House. Their elasticity of back, the fre- quency and gracefulness of their well-regulated bows, and the perpetual smile upon their wrinkled and ema- ciated faces, showed that they had something to do wath the " vieille cour," and this conjecture used to be confirmed by the embrace with which they folded the little marquises andcounts whom they cameto visit. " Kensington House was frequented by emigrants of very high rank. The father of the present Duke de Grammont, who was at this school, and was then Duke de Guiche, often came to see his son. I recollect upon one occasion having been witness to a very remark- able scene. Monsieur, as he was then called, the present King of France, waited one day, with a large retinue of French nobility, upon the Prince de Broglie. The whole body of the school-boys was assembled to receive him. We were gathered in a circle at the bottom of a flight of stone stairs, that led from the principal room into the play-ground. The future King of France appeared, with his cortege of illustrious exiles, at the glass folding-doors which were at the top of the stairs, and the moment he was seen, we all exclaimed THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 59 with a shrill shout of beardless loyalty, ' Vive le Ptoi ! ' Monsieur seemed greatly gratified by this spectacle, and in a very gracious and condescending manner went down amongst the little boys, who were at first awed a good deal by his presence, but were afterwards speedily familiarized to him by the natural benignity of Charles the Tenth. He asked the names of those who were about him, and when he heard them, and saw in the boys by whom he was encompassed the descendants of some of the noblest families of France, he seemed to be sensibly affected. One or two names, which were associated with peculiarly melancholy recollections, made him thrill. * Helas ! mon enfant ! ' he used to say, as some orphan was brought up to him ; and he would then lean down to caress the child of a friend, who had perished on the scaffolds of the Revolution."* Poor Charles the Tenth ! himself one of the least of children in the greatest of schools, adversity ; which he left, only to be sent back to it, and die. While these extracts of ours respecting the school- master and school-fellows of Mr Shell have been going through the press, we have had the pleasure of seeing a piece of biography make its appearance, at once loving and candid, which enables us to add to them a highly characteristic portrait, in his school-days, of the dis- tinguished Irishman himself. It was furnished to the author by a learned judge (Mr Justice Ball), who had been one of his school-fellows. " His first ap- * The Speeches of the Right Honourahle Richard Lalor Sheil, M.P., with a Memoir, &c." Edited by Thomas Macnevin, Esq., Barrister- at-Law. 1S45, p. 11. 60 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. pearance (he says) I recollect well ; it was strikingly grotesque. His face was pale and meagre ; his limbs lank ; his hair starting upwards from his head like a brush ; a sort of muscular action pervading his whole frame ; his dress foreign ; his talk broken English, and his voice a squeak. Add to this a pair of singu- larly brilliant eyes, lighting up all the peculiarities of his figure, and you have before you the boy Shell. His performances were at first as singular as his person. His efforts to kick a football were sui generis. He never engaged in the game along with the other boys, but kept aloof, occupied in reading, or walking about the playground ; but whenever the ball was thrown across his path, he used to dart at it with frantic energy, his legs and arms all pretty equally on the stretch, so that it was out of the question to determine with what limb he would assail the ball, until a kick at it, probably from the left leg, solved the problem ; and then back he would go to his reading, amid the yells of the urchins, enraged at his disturbing their game."* For characters of the full-grown Shell, bodily and mental, who for the most part was a rare and most interesting compound of far-sighted judgment and immediate impulse, we must refer to the work itself. Shell was not an unprosperous man ; but he ought to have been still more prosperous, and lived to combine old age with a sort of perennial youth ; for such was the tendency of his nature. * "Memoirs of the Right IlonouraWe Richard Lalor Sheil." By W. Torrens M'Cullagh, author of the " Industrial History of Free Nations, &c." Vol. i. p. 23. THE OLD COUET SUBURB. Gl ^Ve know not how long the school of the Abbe de Broglie lasted ; but in the year 1819, Kensington House was a Catholic boarding establishment, kept by a Mr and Mrs Salterelli. " In the chapel," says Boaden, in his ' Memoirs of Mrs Inchbald,' " the Archbishop of Jerusalem per- formed mass regularly during the early part of his residence ; and the Abbe Mathias officiated, when the Primate quitted the house. The society was extremely genteel and cheerful, changing, however, too frequently for perfect cordiality and the formation of intimacy. The Schiavonettis, however, seem to be acquaintances ; and Mrs Beloe, and Mr Skeene from Aberdeen, were old friends, who, on their arrival, met with an unlook- ed-for pleasure — the celebrated artists, i\Ir and ^Irs Cosway, upon leaving Stratford Place, were at Ken- sington House from x\.ugust to October, before they settled upon a house in the Edgeware Road."* Here Mrs Inchbald spent the last two years of her life ; and here, on the 1st of August, 1821, she died ; we fear — how shall we say it of so excellent a woman, and in the sixty-eighth year of her age ? — of tight- lacing. But she had been very handsome, was still handsome, was growing fat, and had never liked to part with her beauty. AVho that is beautiful does ? " The health of Mrs Inchbald," says her bio- gi'apher, "was very indifferent this year (1819) ; and her spirits sympathized with her frame. In the month of March, she was a good deal disturbed by the symp- toms of a complaint, which intermitted, but never en- * Vol. ii. p. 260. G2 THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. tirel}- left her. After undressing for bed, she felt a sensation of tightness in her waist, which she naturally enough attributed to the habit of drawing rather too closely the strings of her under apparel."* And after her death, he says: "As we cannot speak professionally, we shall only say, that it seems probable the tightness of which she formerly com- plained was the indication of that malady (internal in- flammation) which did not quit the frame, though it remitted its attacks, and, latent, awaited only the ex- citement of a cold to render her recovery impracti- cable, "j- We have dwelt a little on this point, as a warn- ing ; if tight -lacers can take warning. We almost fear they would sooner quote Mrs Inchbald as an ex- cuse than an admonition. But, at all events, beauties of sixty-eight may, perhaps, consent to be a little startled. If this was a weakness in Mrs Inchbald, let tio-ht- lacers resemble her in other respects, and if their rickety children can forgive them, the rest of the world may very heartily do so. Mrs Inchbald never had any children, to need their forgiveness. She was a woman of rare endowments : a beauty, a dramatist, a novelist, a successful actress ; yet possessed of virtue so rare, that she would practise painful self-denial in order to afford deeds of charity. Her acting was, per- haps, of the sensible, rather than artistical sort ; and though some of her plays and farces have still their seasons of re-appearance on the stage, she was too much * P. 263 + P, :,o. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 63 given as a dramatist to theatrical and sentimental effects — too melo-dramatic ; but her novels are ad- mirable, particularly the ' Simple Story,' which has all the elements of duration — invention, passion, and thorough truth to nature in word and deed. To balance the advantages which she possessed oyer other people, she must needs have had some faults ; and Ave take them (besides the tight-lacing) to have been those of temper and stubbornness. Charles Lamb speaks of her, somewhere, as the "beautiful vixen." The word must surely have been too strong for such a woman ; who is said to have possessed both the re- spect and affection of all who knew her. If our me- mory does not deceive us, he applies it to her upon an occasion when she might well have been angry, and when she thought herself bound to resort to measures of self-defence, physical as well as moral. A distin- guished actor who was enamoured of her, and who seems to have been a warmer lover off the stage than he was upon it, persisted one day in forcing upon her salutations which appeared so alarming, that the lady seized him by the pigtail, and tugged it with a vigour so efficacious, as forced him to desist in trepidation. She related the circumstance to a friend, adding, with a touch of her comic humour, which must have been heightened by the difficulty of getting out the words (for she- stammered sometimes), " How lucky that he did not w-w-wear a w-w-w-wig ! " Mrs Inchbald lived in several other houses in Kensington, which shall be noticed as we pass them ; for the abodes of the authoress of the ' Simple Story ' make classic ground. 64 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. CHAPTER YII. htgh steeet — colby house, alfd death oe a miser — e:e>-sixgto>" palace gaudexs — the eooe:ert — kex- SINGT0:N' square LUCHESS of MAZARIN — BLACKMOEE BISHOPS HOUGH AND MAWSOX ARCHBISHOP HER- EIN G — TALLETEAND. We have now come to Kensington High Street, and shall take our way on the left-hand side of it, con- tinuing to do so through the whole town, and noticing the streets and squares that branch out of it as we pro- ceed. We shall then turn at the end of the town, and corae back by Holland House, Campden House, and Kensington Palace and Gardens. On our right hand, over the way, is the Palace Gate with its sentinels ; and opposite this gate, where we are halting, is a sturdy, good-sized house, a sort of undergrown mansion, singularly so for its style of building, and looking as if it must have been the work of Yanbrugh, one of whose edifices will be noticed further on. It is just in his "no nonsense" style; what his opponents called " heavy ; " but very sensible and to the purpose ; built for duration. It is only one story high, and looks as if it had been made for some rich old bachelor, who chose to live alone, but liked to have everything about him strong and safe. Such was probably the case, for it is called Colby House, after a baronet of that name, who lived in the time of George the First, and who appears to have THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 65 been a man of humble origin, and a miser. A spectator of the house might imagine, that the architect was stopped, when about to commence a third story, in order to save the expense. Dr King, the Jacobite divine, who knew Colby, and who thinks he was a commissioner in the Victualling Office, says (in his " Literary and Political Anecdotes of His Own Times ") that the baronet killed himself by rising in the middle of the night, when he was in a profuse perspiration (the consequence of a medicine taken to that effect), and going down-stairs for the key of the cellar, which he had inadvertently left on the table. " He was apprehensive that his servants might seize the key, and rob him of a bottle of his port wine." " This man," adds the Doctor, " died intestate, and left more than £200,000 in the funds, which was shared among five or six day-labourers, who were his nearest relations." " Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor." The High Street of Kensington, though the place is so near London, and contains so many new build- ings, has a considerable resemblance to that of a country town. This is owing to the moderate size of the houses, to their general style of building (which is that of a century or two ago), and to the curious, though not obvious, fact, that not one of the fronts of them is exactly like another. It is also neat and clean ; its abutment on a palace associates it with something of an air of refinement ; and the first object that presents itself to the attention, next after the sentinels at the Palace Gate, is a white and pretty 66 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. lodge, at tlie entrance of tlie new road leading to Bayswater. The lodge, however, is somewhat too narrow. The road is called Kensington Palace Gardens, and is gradually filling with mansions, some of which are in good taste and others in bad, and none of them have gardens, to speak of ; so that the spectator does not well see why anybody should live there, who can afford to live in houses so large. Pleasant, however, as the aspect of High Street is on first entering it, the eye has scarcely caught sight of the lodge just mentioned, when it encounters a sore in the shape of some poor Irish people hanging about, at the corner of the first turning on the left hand. They look like people from the old broken-up establish- ment of Saint Giles's, and probably are so ; a consider- able influx from the Ptookery in that quarter having augmented the Rookery in this ; for so it has alike been called. This Rookery has long been a nuisance in Kensington. In the morning you seldom see more of it than this indication of its entrance ; but in the evening, the inmates mingle with the rest of the in- habitants out of doors, and the naked feet of children, and the ragged and dissolute looks of men and women, present a painful contrast to the general decency. We understand, however, that some of these poor people are very respectable of their kind, and that the im- provements which are taking place in other portions of the kingdom, in consequence of the attention so nobly paid of late years to the destitute and uneducat- ed, have not been without effect in this quarter. The men for the most part are, or profess to be, labouring bricklayers, and the women, market-garden women. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 67 They are calculated, at a rougli guess, to amount to a thousand ; all crammed, perhaps, into a place which ouo-ht not to contain above a hundred. The reader, from late and painful statements on these subjects, knows how they must dwell. The place is not much in sight. You give a glance, and a guess at it, as you look down the turning, and so pass on. There was a talk, not long since, of bringing the new road just mentioned, from over the way, and continuing it through the spot, so as to sweep it clean of the in- fection, as in the case of New Holborn and St. Giles's ; and in all probability the improvement will take place ; for one advance brings another, and Kensing- ton has become of late so much handsomer as well as larger, that it will hardly leave this ugly blemish on its beauty. But leases must expire, and lettings and sub-lettings for poor people die hard. Most of this unhappy multitude are Roman Catho- lics. Their priests tell us of a fine house at Loretto » in Italy, which the Virgin Mary lived in at Nazareth, and which angels brought from that place into the dominions of the Pope. They also tell us, that mira- cles never cease ; at least, not in Roman Catholic hands ; and that nobody feels for the poor as they do. What a pity that they could not join these feelings, these hands, and these miracles, and pray a set of new houses into England for the poor bricklayers ! Continuing our way from this inauspicious corner, we come to the turning at Young Street, which leads into Kensington Square, formerly as important a place in this suburb, as Grosvenor Square was in the me- tropolis. 68 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Kensington Square occupies an area of some hundred and fifty feet, and was commenced in the reign of James the Second, and finished towards the close of that of William. It is now a place of obsolete- looking, though respectable houses, such as seem made to become boarding-schools, which some of them are ; and you cannot help thinking it has a desolate air, though all its houses are inhabited. In the reigns of William, and Anne, and the first two Georges, Kensington Square was the most fashionable spot in the suburbs ; it was filled with frequenters of the Court, and these are the identical homes which they inhabited. Faulkner says, that "at one time, up- wards of forty carriages were kept in and about the neighbourhood ; " and that, " in the time of George the Second, the demand for lodgings was so great, that an ambassador, a bishop, and a physician, were known to occupy apartments in the same house." The earliest distinguished name of an inhabitant of this spot, in the parish-books, is that of the Duchess of Mazarin, in the year 1692. We know not which house she lived in ; but the reader must imagine her, after the good French fashion, taking her evening walk in the Square, the envy of surrounding petticoats, accompanied by a set of English and French gallants, Yillierses, Godolphins, Ruvignys, &c., among whom is her daily visitor, and constant, adoring old friend, Saint Evremond, with his white locks, little skull cap, and the great wen on his forehead. .. He idolizes her to the very tips of her fingers, though she borrowed his money, which he could ill afford — and gambled it away besides, which he could not but pray her not to THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 69 do. He also begged her to resist the approaches of usquehai((ih. The Duchess was then six and forty, an Italian, with black hair, and, according to his description of her, still a perfect beauty. Fielding thought her so when she was younger, for he likens Sophia Western to her portrait. Hortensia Mancini was niece of Cardinal Mazarin, at whose death (to use her own words, in the " Me- moirs " which she dictated to Saint Eeal) she became " the richest heiress, and the unhappiest woman, in Christendom ; " that is to say, she found she had got a jealous, mean bigot for her husband, who grudged her a handsome participation of the money which he obtained with her. And as this was touching her on the tenderest point, she ran away from him in pure desperation, to see how she could enjoy herself else- where, and what funds to pay for it she could get out of him, by disclosing their quarrels to the world. The Duke (his name was ISIeilleraye, but he took the name of Mazarin when he married her) was inexor- able, and not to be scandalized out of his meanness ; so his wife, after divers wanderings, which got her scan- dalized in her turn, came into England on pretence of visiting her cousin Mary of Este, Duchess of York ; but, in reality, to get a pension from Charles the Second. This she did, to the amount of four thou- sand a year, every penny of which was probably grudged by the lavish king himself, who could not afford it, and who is said to have been disgusted by her falling in love with another man the moment she got it. Charles, when in exile, had sued for 70 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Hortensia's hand in vain, from her uncle the Car- dinal, who thought the royal prosjDects hopeless, and who was in fear of the Protector. Madame de Ma- zarin, however, continued to flourish among the ladies at Whitehall, during Charles's reign ; she had half her pension confirmed to her by King William ; did nothing, from first to last, but keep company, and gamble it away ; and six years after her residence at Kensington, died so poor, at a small house in Chelsea (the last, as you go from London, in Paradise Ptow), that her body was detained by her creditors till her husband redeemed it. The husband embalmed it ; and, surviving her many years, is said (which is hard- ly credible) to have carried it about with him all that time, wherever he went, as if determined on having the woman with him dead, who could not "abide" him while she was livins-. Madame de Mazarin has been so praised by Saint Evremond for every kind of good quality except pru- dence in money matters, and occasional fits of ill- humour, that, with all due allowance for the dotao-es to which old men are subject, and for his particular delight, as a French exile, in finding at her house a female friend, and a society with whom he could spend his evenings, it is not easy to coincide with the general opinion, which sets her down as a woman destitute of everything attractive, except her beauty. She pro- bably understood his wit, and enjoyed it to his heart's content ; for she appears to have had taste and re- flection enough to hold no mean part in conversation ; and this would hinder her from falling into the com- men mistake of beauties, and thinking she coidd dis- THE OLD COUKT SUBURB. 71 pense witli the wish to please. She used to intimate that her friends would regret her when she was gone ; and St Evremond appears heartily to have done so, though she borrowed hundreds out of his savings, and kept him in constant fright with her losses. The Duchess had been a spoilt child, and her hand was be- stowed on a foolish man. When she was a girl, she tells us that she and her sisters one day threw up- wards of three hundred louis out of window, for the pleasure of seeing a parcel of footmen scramble and fight for them. They must have been louis d'ors, or so many pounds sterling, a sum worth two or three times the amount at present ; she says, that the amuse- ment was thou2:ht to have hastened her uncle's death. She was afterwards accused, while in a convent, where her husband had succeeded in " stowing " her for a time, of putting ink into the holy- water box (to smut the nuns' faces), and of frightening them out of their sleep at night, by running through the dormitory with a parcel of little dogs, yelping and howling. She says that these stories were either inventions or exaggerations ; but we are strongly disposed to be- lieve them. We mention the convent, because as such places are again subjects of conversation in this coun- try, and matters of concern to our families, it may be useful to know what kind of scenes they have witness- ed, comic as well as tragic. But we must quit this glimpse of the days of Charles the Second, for a personage who suggests a wholly different set of ideas, his figure having been unwieldy, and his dulness unfortunately no less con- spicuous than his good morals. Here, somewhere 72 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. about the south-west corner of the Square, lived, for several years, physician to King William the Third, and butt of all the wits of the time. Sir Richard Blackmore. Johnson said they hated him more for his morals than his dulness ; but though most of them were far from being immaculate, it was not in the nature of any of them to hate a man for what was good in him, much less of such persons as Garth and Steele. The truth is, that Blackmore began the war- fare by attacking the wits ; and as he wi'ote heaps of dull poetry, it was not to be expected that they should spare their assailant merely because his clumsy blows were dealt as heavily as he could bestow them, out of a good motive. They might even doubt the entire goodness of motive in a man who understood his qualifications in other respects so ill; and, indeed, there seems to have been nothing to show for the motive, except the blows ; for though Blackmore was, in all probability, what is called a respectable man, there is no evidence of his having possessed more than the average amount of virtue, or any such particular ex- perience or self-knowledge, as might supply the place of excellence. Some of the wits, too, who advocated a milder form of Christianity than he did, might have doubted the very piety of some of his dogmas, and thus have been induced to treat his arrogation of a right to lecture them with double contempt ; and none of them, as critics, were bound to overlook the pre- sumption of a poetaster, who made no scruple to de- nounce folly and ignorance in others, and to trumpet forth his own claims as a censor and a man of genius. The " Creation," is a favourable specimen of Black- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 73 more. There is a horrible facility of mediocrity about it. But of his works in general that condemned him, who now shall judge ? for who possesses them ? Let the reader take a couplet from the lines quoted by- Garth in his " Dispensary." " Naked aud half-burnt hills, with hideous wrack. Affright the sky, andyry the ocean's hack." Imagine the following tomes, written bv such a pen : " Creation," a philosophical poem, in seven books. " The Redeemer," a poem, in six books. " Eliza," a poem, in ten books. " Prince Arthur," an heroic poem, in ten books. " King Arthur," an heroic poem, in ten books. " King Alfred," a poem, in twelve books. And to stay his stomach between whiles, besides a number of medical and theological treatises, he versi- fies the whole body of Psalms, and makes a paraphrase of the " Book of Job," by way of extending the lesson on patience. To talk of morality and good intentions, as things that should have saved such a " long-winded lubber " from the retorts of the wits, was as idle as it would be to talk of the morality of a concert of frogs, or the ffood intentions of the drone of a Lincolnshire bag-pipe. Blackmore was a man who could not al- low for margin, yet nobody made greater demands upon it. Let us turn to a good old prelate, Hough, Bishop of Winchester, who lived in this square several years, and whom we mention for three reasons : first, because, when elected President of Magdalen College, Oxford, he had resisted, with equal temper and firmness, the 74 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. arbitrary conduct of James the Second, in forcing a Roman Catholic into his place ; second, because he lived to reach his ninety-third year, which we take to be a merit in a bishop, considering the table he is ex- pected to keep, and the plethora which is pardoned to episcopal virtues ; and third, because the habitual sweetness of his disposition (and we consider the least proof of such a habit to be no anti-climax in this enumeration) enabled him to give dignity to a pun. A young clergyman, curate of a neighbouring parish, says his biographer, Mr AYilmot, taking leave of him one day, and making many awkward bows, ran against, and threw down on the floor, a favourite barometer of the Bishop's. The man was frightened, and extremely concerned ; but the good old prelate, with all the complacency possible, said to him, " Don't be uneasy, Sir. I have observed this glass almost daily for upwards of seventy years, but I never saw it so low before." It may seem, on reading this anecdote, that, to render the Bishop's behaviour perfect, the mention of the seventy years might have been spared ; but in so excellent a man we must look upon it as a piece of refined delicacy, enhancing the kindly nonchalance of the conclusion. Two other prelates are mentioned as having lived in Kensington Square, and all three are worth record- ing. The first was Mawson, Bishop of Ely, " awk- ward and absent," and with "no desire to please," says an equivocal panegyrist ; meaning, in modern parlance, no desire to curry fovour ; but a man of princely munificence. He was the son of a brewer at THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 75 C'liiswick ; founder, we hope, of that orthodox drink the " fine Chiswick ale." Mawson did not live so long as Hough, but he attained a very respectable longevity. He died in the year 1770, at the age of eighty-eight. Perhaps the Kensington air was of use to the good bishops. The other prelate was Herring, Bishop of Bangor, afterwards Primate, and author of some of the best letters in the " Elegant Epistles." He occupied the house at the south-east corner of the Square ; but he died at Croydon, in 1757. Herring made a mistake, when he attacked the Beggar's Opera ; for which Swift gave him a tremendous rebuke. He had better have attacked the morals of the great world, of which the Opera was a parody. But he probably outlived the misconception ; for he was a man of a genial nature, and had a true taste in literature. It is curious, however, to see on which side of the question lay Avorldly prosperity. Gay, who attacked the morals of the great, and Swift, who defended the attack, missed the preferments they looked for ; while Herring, who may have been thought to defend the morals, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Herring seemed born to be an Archbishop. He was grave yet insinuating, had a sweet voice and a majestic appearance; "a countenance (as Sydney Smith says) expressive of all the cardinal virtues and the Ten Commandments." Strange are the vicissi- tudes of houses. In this same abode of the magni- ficent-looking prelate, lived, some fifty years after- wards, a man with a club-foot, who had also been a 7G THE OLD COURT SUBURB. prelate, but had unfrocked himself to become a states- man, and who, instead of embodying " all the cardinal virtues and the Ten Commandments," was thought by most people to have violated every injunction in the Decalogue. This was Talleyrand, a diplomatist under every government in France, from the beginning of the Revolution to that of Louis Philippe inclusive, with the exception of the Reign of Terror. We believe him, nevertheless, to have been a very calum- niated person. That he had led the ordinary life of a young French noble, under the old regime, is very likely ; and that he had no taste for being a martyr, is equally so. It is easy also to palm upon a wit and man of the world every clever saying that seems to tell against political honesty. But, for the most part, Talleyrand did good to the world under his different masters ; hindered them from being worse ; and was for promoting constitutional government. He lost Napoleon's favour by his tendencies that way, and by his protest against the iniquitous seizure of Spain. The Emperor's decline dates from the period of his differences with Talleyrand. While yet a bishop, Talleyrand advocated the rights of the working clergy; and he appears to have been a man of amiable private intercourse. Let justice be done to the club-foot that made the best, instead of the worst of things ; not always the way with injured members of society. Perhaps it will not be thought an anticlimax in this commercial country — indeed it is a good ground of eulogium anywhere — if we finish this tribute to his memory, by quoting what is said of him during his THE OLD COURT SUBURB. ' ' residence in this Square, by the Kensington historian ; to wit, that " his character was marked by urbanity of manners, and by strict punctuality in his payments." CHAPTER VIII. KENSINGTON CHUKCH BURIAL GEOUNDS BY HIGHWAYS — THE CALLCOTTS PHILIP MEAUTIS — SIR MANHOOD PENEUDDOCE ADDISON's " EARL OF WARWICK" — THE COLMANS JOETIN — THOMAS AVRIOHT. Returning out of Kensington Square by the way we entered it, we come, in the most open part of the High Street, to the parish church and church-yard ; the former, a small and homely building for so dis- tinguished a suburb ; the latter suggesting a doubt, whether a burial ground ought to abut so closely on a public way. In some moods of the mind, the juxtaposition is very painful. It looks as if death itself were no escape from the turmoils of life. We feel as if the noise of carts and cries were never to be out of one's hearing; as if the tears, however hidden, of those who stood mournfully looking at our graves, were to be mocked by the passing crowd of indifferent spec- tators : as if the dead misrht be sensible of the very market ffoino: on, with all its night- lights and bustle (as it does here on Saturdays), and of the noise of drunken husbands and wives, persisting in bringing a sense of misery into one's last home. 78 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. On the other hand, the sociable man may some- times be disposed to regard with complacency this kind of posthumous intercourse with the living. He may feel as if the dead were hardly the departed — as if they were still abiding among their friends and fellow- creatures, not displeased even to hear the noise and the bustle ; or, at least, as if in ceasing to hear our voices they were still, so to speak, reposing in our arms. Morning, somehow, in this view of the case, would seem to be still theirs, though they choose to lie in bed ; cheerful noon is with them, without their having any of the trouble of it. The names may be read on their tombstones as familiarly as they used to be on their doors ; children play about their graves, un- thinkingly indeed, but joyously, and with as little thought of irreverence as butterflies ; and the good fellow going home at night from his party, breathes a jovial, instead of a mournful, blessing on their memo- ries. Perhaps he knew them. Perhaps he has been joining in one of their old favourite glees by Callcott or Spofforth, the former of whom was a Kensington man, and the latter of whom lies bui-ied here, and is recorded at the church door. And assuredly the dead Spoiforth would find no fault with his living remem- brancer. In quiet country places there is, in fact, a sort of compromise in this instance between the two feelings of privacy and publicity, whiea we have often thought very pleasing. The dead in a small, sequestered vil- lage, seem hardly removed from their own houses. The last home seems almost a portion of the first. The clergyman's house often has the church-yard as close THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 79 to it as the garden ; and when he goes into his grave, he seems but removed into another room ; gone to bed, and to his sleep. He has not "left." He lies there with his family, still ready to waken with them all, on the heavenly morning. This, however, is a feeling upon the matter, which we find it difficult to realize in a bustling town. "We are there convinced upon the whole, that, whether near to houses or away from them, the sense of quiet is requisite to the proper idea of the church-yard. The dead being actually severed from us, no lon^jer having voices, all sights and sounds, but of the gentlest and quietest kind, seem to be impertinences towards them ; not to belong to them. Quiet, being the thing farthest removed from cities, and what we imagine to pervade all space, and the gulfs between the stars, is requisite to make us feel that we are stand- ing on the threshold of heaven. Upon the whole, therefore, we cannot approve of church-yards in living thoroughfares, and thus must needs object to the one in the place before us ; though there are portions of it to the north and west of the church more sequestered (for a small remove in these cases makes a great difference) ; and in those portions the most noticeable of the graves are situate. They are not many ; nor have we much to say of persons lying in the church itself, or in the church vaults. What notices we have to give, whether in church or church-yard, we shall put in chronological order, as not only being most convenient, but having a certain mortal propriety. But first we must return to the church itself. From 80 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. what we have said of it, the rea lor will conclude that it is remarkable, as an edifice, for nothing but the smallness and homeliness of its appearance ; but it has this curious additional claim to consideration ; namely, that what with partial rebuildings, and wholesale re- pairs, it has been altered, since the year 1683, nearly a dozen times. How often before then, we cannot say ; nor do we know when it was first built. But the alterations, for the most part, appear to have been as bad as what they altered. They beat the silk stock- ing, the repeated mendings of which turned it into worsted. They were always worsted, badly darned. They resembled the scape- grace relation of the famous Penn, whom his punning recorder described as a pen that had been " often cut, but never mended." What were improvements or requirements in some respects, became defacements in others, or things to be wished away. The painted window was meagre ; the gal- leries clogged up a space already too little, and looked as if they would slide into the pews ; the pews them- selves were too tall, and aggravated that sense of close- ness and crowding, to which the increasing population naturally tended, and which is still the first thing that strikes a visitor of the church. While writing this passage, however (for the church is now undergoing another repair), we have the pleasure of observing that the pews are in the act of being made lower ; and we hail this undoubted im- provement, as an evidence of the better taste which new authorities have brought even into Kensington parish church, and which, indeed, was to be expected, from what they have done in other respects. AVe THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 81 must add, that its psalmody appears to have been for some time past superior to that of most churches, ow- ing, it would seem, to the accomplished family of the Callcotts, who have long been residents of the parish, and one of whom, no great while ago, was organist. Nor should the writer omit, that the parish authorities, both clerical and laical, and their servants also, do justice to the example at their head, and are as courteous as becomes their position. Here, in church or church-yard, among other less noticeable persons, have been buried — Imprimis, in the year 1510, Philip Meautis, son and heir of John Meautis ; which said John Meautis, described in a pardon granted by Edward the Fifth, as " John Meautis of our town of Calais, clerk, other- wise called John de Meautis, lately of London, gen- tleman, otherwise called John de Meautis, lately of Kensington, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman, otherwise called John de Meutice, of the town of AYest- minster, in the county of Middlesex, yeoman, or un- der whatever name he may be registered," is forgiven and absolved from all outlawry and all other con- sequences of neglects, contempts, concealments, con- spiracies, extortions, murders (murdra !), and whatso- ever other felonies and enormities he may have been guilty of. Probably it was a pardon from Pichard, the poor little king's uncle, on the understanding that an enemy of the House of York was to become a friend ; an expectation which did not hinder John Meautis, or his son Philip (we know not which) from becoMiing secretar^y to Kings Henry the Seventh and Eighth. We notice the name for two other reasons ; 82 THE OLD COUKT SUBURB. first, because it was that of Bacon's faithful secretary, Sir Thomas Meautis, who raised the characteristic statue to the philosopher, which sits thinking on his monument at St Albans ; second, to observe, that the alias Meautis, or Meutice (the name being obviously of French origin), renders it probable that there is more propriety in the vulgar pronunciation of Beicfort for Beaufort, than might otherwise be supposed, especially as we retain it in the word beauty, the English of heautt. There is reason to believe that it was the real old French pronunciation. We have read in some book, but forget where, that the existing mode of speaking French, which has so frittered and clipped it, and rendered its prosody such a puzzle to English readers, is not older than the time of Louis the Four- teenth. The next distinguished burial we meet witb. is that of one Sir Manhood Penruddock, a gentleman whose peremptory baptismal name, joined to his chivalrous rank, and to the nature of his death, appeal's to insist on attention to his memory, upon pain of a challenge from his ghost. He was "slain at Netting Wood (saith the parish register) in fight ; " that is to say, we take it, in a duel ; for the " fight " was in the year 1608, during the pacific times of King James the First. Sir Manhood was most likely some hot-headed Welsh- man, the son of a corresponding father, who had thus christened him, by way of injunction to uphold the fame of his ancestors. From Sir Manhood, we are borne over a consider- able interval of time, and brought to Addison's Earl of Warwick, who died in the year 1721, at the age of THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. 83 four and twenty. He was son of the Countess whom Addison married, and was the youth to whom the moralist is said to have addressed the famous words, " See how a Christian can die." A statue of him, in marble, and in good condition, is still remaining in the church, on the right-hand side of the principal entrance from the street. It sits under an epitaph, leaning on an urn ; and has an aspect, which, at first sight, you hardly know whether to be male or female. This is owing, partly to the delicate smooth face and flowing hair, and partly to the robe, which has some- thing of the look of a lady's gown. On turning to the legs, and finding them in ancient sandals, you discover that the gown is a Roman toga. Either the face is unlike, or the compliment to its manliness (strangely paid in the first person — virile nescio quid) is clearly undeserved. The whole epitaph, indeed, is contradictory to the tradition handed down respecting the rakery of this young nobleman ; probably on no better foundation than Addison's dying words, which have been supposed to imply some special moral ne- cessity for them, on the part of his hearer. Writers complimented the Earl on his virtues, while he was living; and Addison, in some pleasant letters to him, on the subject of birds, speaks of his " more severe studies," and of their common friend, Yirgil. The probability is, that he was of a delicate constitution, and of a lively enough mind, and that his attention had been drawn to the writings of Shaftesbury and others, with a vivacity which Addison thought fit to repress. Francis Colman, in 1733. Father and grandfather 84 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. of the two George Colmans, the dramatists, both buried here also. He was sometime British Minister at the Court of Tuscany. The dramatic propensity of the family appears to have commenced with this gen- tleman, who interested himself in operatic affairs, and wrote the words of Handel's " Ariadne in Naxos." He was an intimate friend of Gay. Dr John Jortin, in the year 1770, aged 71. Author of the " Life of Erasmus ; " an elegant scholar, critic, and theologian. He lies in the church- yard, under a flat stone, which is surrounded with iron rails, and briefly inscribed with his name, age, and the day on which he " ceased to be mortal " (mortalis esse desiit). Among the improvements which the authorities here are making, we trust we shall see these good words rescued from the dirt which has ob- scured them. There were some curious inconsistencies in Jortin. He was a good-natured man, with unattractive man- ners ; was a writer of elegant sermons, which he read very badly ; and was always intimating that he ought to have had greater preferment in the church ; though he was suspected, not unreasonably, of differing with it on some points Jield essential to orthodoxy. His Life was written by Dr Disney the Unitarian. The Doctor's book ought to have been more amusing, con- sidering that Jortin had the reputation of being a wit. To the best of our recollection, it contains but one solitary jest, and that more pleasant then exquisite. Jortin, when summoned to make his appearance in some public room, before the bishop who gave him his vicarage, could not find his hat. On returning to THE OLD COUKT SUBURB. 85 his friends, he said, " I have lost my hat, but got a living." Mr Thomas "Wright, 1776, One of those didactic gentlemen, who cannot leave off the habit of fault- finding, even in their graves, but must needs lecture and snub the readers of their tomb-stones. This posthumous busy-body, who informs us that his own head is quiet, seems determined that the case shall be different with ours. The following is his epitaph in the church-yard : "Farewell, vain world ! I've had enough of thee; I value not Avhat thou canst say of me ; Thy smiles I value not, nor frowns don't fear ; All's one to me, my head is quiet here. ^^^lat faults you've seen in me, take care to shun ; Go home, and see there's something to be done." — Of course there is. But why could not Mr Thomas AVright let us have a little quiet, as well as himself ? Did he despair of being able to give us any pleasure in his company, alive or dead ? CHAPTER IX. CHUECH AND CHUECH-TAED CONTINUED MADAN AND HIS THELTPTHOEA — GEOEGE COLMAN THE ELDEE DE WAEEEN — ELPHINSTONE AGAIN — THE BIANCHIS MES INCHBALD — SPOFEOETH — JAMES MILL GEOEGE COLMAN THE TOUNGEE THE CHAENLEYS FLOWEES ON GEAVES — UEN-BUEIAL. The Reverend Martin Madan, 1790, aged sixty- four. His mother was a Cowper, and aunt of the 8G THE OLD COURT SUBURB. poet. He made himself conspicuous in his day, and very unpopular with the religious world, by writing a book called " Thelypthora " (Female Euin), in which, upon the strength of the Mosaic law, he recommended polygamy as a remedy for seduction. His arguments were learned and acute, but accompanied by so much bigotry, that in conjunction with the usual repugnance of the community to touch upon one of the sorest of social questions, they left him at the mercy of op- ponents who might otherwise have found them very puzzling. The reader may judge the matter for him- self from the following anecdote, which Madan relates in his book. '' On conversing," he says, " with a gentleman who is a Jew on this subject, he told me, that some time ago a rich young Jew at Amsterdam seduced a poor Jewess who was a servant-girl. She insisted on his publicly marrying her, which he refused. She complained to the synagogue, who summoned him to appear before them, that they might inquire properly into the fact. Finding it true, they sentenced him to marry her publicly. He would not, urging the differ- ence of his rank from hers ; but this plea was not allowed ; they urged the law of God against him ; but he continuing obstinate in his refusal, they excom- municated him. He applied to some of the states of Holland, that they would interfere ; but they refused it, saying the synagogue had a right to enforce their own laws. I asked the gentleman with whom I was conversing, what would have been the case, if this young man had been before married to another woman then living. He answered, 'just the same; for, by the THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 87 law of Moses, no man can take a virgin, and afterwards abandon her at his pleasure.'"* The reader will see the difficulties of the question, and this is not the place for discussing it ; though it is impossible for a mind of any reflection not to be crossed with a deep shade of regret at seeing how con- stantly the far greater questions which involve it, and which Mr Madan was incompetent even to discuss, are evaded and put ofi" by moral and statistical writers who are otherwise conscientious men. George Colman, the Elder, 1794, aged sixty-one, author of the "Jealous Wife" and other comedies ; joint author with Garrick, of the " Clandestine Mar- riage ; " with Bonnell Thornton, of the periodical work, " The Connoisseur ;" and translator of Terence's Plays, and Horace's Art of Poetry. An elegant scholar, and lively and amusing, but in no respects a great writer. He comes much nearer to Murphy, than to Vanbrugh and Farquhar. He saw pleasantly into the surface of things, but little further. Dr Warren, in 1797, aged sixty-six. The elder of two celebrated physicians of that name, father and son. Dr Warren seems to have been a model of his class. He was no formalist, but impressed and inte- rested his patients with the most sterling qualities, both professional and personal, and had the art (a very great and important art in a physician) of entertain- ing them, and keeping up their spirits. We have heard it said, on the best of all authorities on such a point — that of an amiable and intelligent woman — that the " finest eyes in the world " were hereditary * Vol. ii., p. 336. 88 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. in the Warrens ; so that, under all the circumstances, the reader will not wonder to be told, that Mrs Inch- bald, who was one of his patients, was secretly in love with him, and would pace Sackville Street after dark, purely to have the pleasure of seeing the light in his window. A pleasant answer is recorded of him to Lady Spencer. Her Ladyship questioned whether the minds of physicians must not be frequently embittered by the reflection, that a different mode of treatment might have saved the lives of their patients. Dr Warren thought otherwise. " The balance between satisfaction and remorse must," he considered, " be greatly in favour of satisfaction," and, as an instance of it, he hoped he should have the pleasure of curing her Lady- ship " forty times before he killed her." James Elphinstone, in 1804, aged eighty-eight ; the good Dominie before-mentioned ; translator of " Martial." The marble tablet inscribed to his memory, on the outside of the eastern wall, was set up by his wife ; which reminds us of an omission in our notice of him ; to wit, that, after his return from a visit to France, when a young man, he never altered his dress. It was a suit of drab colour, with bag- wig and toupee, all made according to the fashion which prevailed at that time. Latterly, however, he more than once offered to make any change in it " which Mrs Elphinstone might deem proper ; " but the good lady's eyes had been so accustomed to see her husband as he was, that she could not bear the thought of beholding him otherwise ; or, to use the more emphatic language of one of his pupils (the late Mr Dallas, the novelist), his virtues and worth had so " sanctified his THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 89 appearance in her eyes, that she would have thought the alteration a sacrilege." It appears, also, from accounts given us by the same gentleman, that the worthy schoolmaster, to his zeal for the purity of the English language, added no less for that of the appear- ance of the ladies. For Mr Dallas tells us, that, when any " were in company whose sleeves were at a distance from their elbows, or whose bosoms were at all exposed, he would fidget from place to place, look askance with a slight convulsion of his left eye, and never rest till he approached some of them, and point- ing to their arms, would say, ' Oh ! yes, indeed, it is very pretty ; but it betrays more fashion than modesty,' or some such familiar phrase ; after which he became very good-humoured." One fancies good Mrs Elphinstone bridling up, at these times, in the consciousness of her own well-covered charms ; and approving her husband, for thus combining his ad- miration of ladies' beauties in the abstract, with ob- jections to the fair challengers of it in particular. But we shall forget the place of which we are talking ; though, indeed, to speak of such deceased people as the Elphinstones, is the next thing to look- ing at children playing over their graves. Their smiles excuse one's own. The ensuing record on a stone in the church-yard recalls all our gravity : Caroline Nelson Bianclii, Died June 28, 1807, aged 5. Also, Francesco Bianclii, Di Cremona, died 27th Nov., 1810, aged 59. 00 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. "We mention both these names, for the affecting reason, that they record a father who died broken-hearted for the loss of his child. He was a distinguished musical composer, and wrote operas that were favourites with the Bantis and Billingtons of his day. It hardly need be added that he was a most amiable and bene- volent man. "What a death he must have died ! Three years of wasting sorrow ! Yet death thus loses its sting ; and in the last moments there is the blissful hope of rejoining the object of affection. Those are great payments of their kind ; great privileges ; unable as the sufferer must be, till sure of dying, to rejoice in their possession. Elizabeth Inchbald, before mentioned, 1821. She lies at the western extremity of the church-yard, close to a son of Canning, the verses on whose tomb- stone by his father have little merit beyond that of conventional elegance. They are not unaffecting ; for if nature speaks at all, she must speak to some pur- pose, whatever be her language ; but, compared with it in other respects, the plain prose tribute to Mrs Inchbald is characteristic of the prevailing difference in the minds of the two parties — that to the woman being truth itself, while the statesman's is truth after a fashion ; and the fashion addresses itself to one's attention as much as the truth. SACKED TO THE ME3I0RY OF ELIZABETH INCHBALD, ■WHOSE WRITINGS WILL BE CHERISHED, WHILE TRL'TH, SIMPLICITY, AND FEELING COMMAND PUBLIC ADMIRATION; AND WHOSE RETIRED AND EXEMPLARY LIFE CLOSED AS IT EXISTED, IN ACTS OF CHARITY AND BENEVOLENCE. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 91 " Existed " is hardly the right word. It should have been " was passed," or something of that kind But it is intelligible, and was true. We take the oppor- tunity of observing, in addition to our previous notice of this lady, that although we have spoken but of the latest and profoundest of her two novels, the " Simple Story," the other, " Nature and Art," is also full of genius, and would alone have rendered the steps of her pilgrimage in this life worthy the tracing. It is one of the earliest works of fiction in this country, that sounded in the ears of the prosperous the great modern note of Justice to All. No reader, of the least reflection, can forget the impression made on him by the trial of the poor girl, whose crime was owing to the very judge on the bench that sentences her to death. Keginald Spofforth, the glee-composer, in 1827, aged 37. There is a tablet to his memory on the left- hand side on the outer wall of the church, close by the principal entrance. Bacon has compared the fragrance of flowers out of doors to the coming and going of the warbling of music. The crescendos and diminuendos in Spofibrth's beautiful composition, " Health to my dear," always remind us of that charming simile. jMusicians, for the most part, are not as long-lived as painters, or even as poets, though the latter are so excitable a race. The reason is not, perhaps, so much that the musical art is of the more sensuous nature, as that musicians, owing to the de- mands of their profession, continue all their lives to go more into company, and to keej) late hours. The painter (barring corporate jealousies) can live as quiet 92 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. as a liermlt ; and the poet, from the habit of seeing so much in everything that he looks upon, makes a refuge for himself against vicissitude out of his books and his fireside. James Mill, in June, 1836, aged sixty-two ; the historian of British India ; — distinguished father of an illustrious son. He has a tablet on one of the pillars in the church. Mr Mill persuaded himself, that a man who had never been in India, and who knew none of its languages, was better qualified to write a history of that country, than one who had. The consequence of this paradox was, that after his death, the book- seller found it necessary to employ one of the persons thus described as less competent, for the purpose of correcting the mistakes of his predecessor. Never- theless, Mr Mill's history was a work so remarkable for its ability, that although he had found great fault with the East India Company, they, much to the credit of their feelings, or their policy, appointed him to a considerable office in their establishment. Would to Heaven they had empowered him to give the un- fortunate millions under their government fewer rea- sons to curse their ofiicers in general, and a little more salt to their rice. George Colman, the younger, in October, 1836, aged seventy-four ; a more amusing, though not so judicious a dramatist as his father. His excellence lay in farce. His greatest defect was in sentiment ; for w^hich he substituted noise or common-place. In the decline of life, he attained to a very unlucky piece of prosperity. He was appointed Dramatic Censor ; that is to say, reviser, under government, of plan's offered THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 93 to managers for performance ; and in the exercise of this office, with a ludicrous and unblushing severity, he struck out of the pieces submitted to him the least oath or adjuration, with which his own plays had been plentifully garnished. Alfred Hammond Charnley, 1837, aged three years and eight months ; and Thomas Foxcroft Charnley, 1851, aged twenty-one years. We know not who the Charnleys were ; but we notice them, be- cause their grave, the only one in the church-yard so distinguished, is adorned with flowers. A printed tablet requests people not to pluck the flowers, and the request appears to be attended to. Humankind are disposed to be reasonable and feeling, if reasonable ap- peal is made to them, and a chord in the heart is touched. The public cemeteries, which we have imitated from the French, appear to have brought back among us this inclination to put flowers on graves. The custom has prevailed more or less in almost all parts of the world, according as nations and religions have been kindly. It is the Puritans who would seem to have done it away in England and Scotland. AVales, we believe, is the only part of the island in which it has never been discontinued. The custom is surely good and desirable. It does not follow that those who are slow to resume it must be unfeelinsr, anv more than that those who are quick to do so must of necessity be otherwise. A variety of thoughts on the subject of death itself may produce different impres- sions in this respect on different minds ; but, generally speaking, evidence is in favour of the ffowers. You are sure that those who put them, think of the dead 94 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. somehow. Whatever motives may be mixed up with it, the respectful attention solicited towards the de- parted is unequivocal ; and this circumstance is pleas- ing to the living, and may benefit their dispositions. Tliey think that their own memories may probably be cherished in like manner ; and thoughtfulness is awakened in them, towards living as well as dead. It is a peculiar privilege, too, of flowers, to befit every place in which they appear, and to contribute to it its best associations. We had almost said, they are in- capable of being put to unworthy use. The contra- diction would look simply monstrous, and the flowers be pitied for the insult. No butcher would think of putting them in a slaughter-house ; unless, indeed, they could overpower its odour. No inquisitor (we beg the butcher's pardon for naming two such persons together) was ever cruel or impudent enough to wreathe flowers about a rack. Flowers, besides being beautiful themselves, are suggestive of every other kind of beauty ; of gentleness, of youth fulness, of hope. They are evidences of Nature's good-nature ; proofs manifest that she means us well, and more than well ; that she loves to give us the beautiful in addition to the useful. They neutralize bad with good ; beautify good itself; make life livelier; human bloom more blooming ; and anticipate the spi'ing of Heaven over the winter of the grave. Their very frailty, and the shortness of their lives, please us, because of this their indestructible association with beauty ; for while they make us regret our own like transitory existence, they soothe us with a consciousness, however dim, of our power to perceive beauty ; therefore of our link with THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 95 something divine and deathless, and of our right to hope that immortal thoughts will have immortal real- ization. And it is for all these reasons the flowers on graves are beautiful, and that we hope to see them prosper accordingly. But we have two more reasons for noticing the particular grave before us. One is, that when we saw it for the first time, a dog came nestling against it, as if with affection ; taking up his bed (in which we left him), as though he had again settled himself beside a master. The other, that while again looking at the grave, and thinking how becomingly the flowers were attended to, being as fresh as when wo saw them be- fore, a voice behind us said gently : " Those are my dear children." It was the mother. She had seen us, perhaps, looking longer than was customary, and thus been induced to speak. We violate no delicacy in mentioning the circumstance. Records on tombstones are introducers of the living to the dead ; makers of mortal acquaintances ; and " one touch of nature," in making the " whole world kin," gives them the right of speaking like kindred, to, and of, one another. AVe expressed to the good parent our pleasure at seeing the flowers so well kept, and for so long a time. She said they would bo so as long as she lived. It is impossible not to respect and sympathize with feelings like these. We should say, nevertheless (and as questions of this kind are of general interest, we address the remark to all loving survivors), that although a life-long observance of such attentions could do anything but dishonour to living or dead, the discontinuance of it, after a certain lapse of time, 96 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. could not, of necessity, be a reproacli to either ; for the practice concerns the feelings of the one still more than the memory of the other ; and in cases where it might keep open the wounds of remembrance too long and too sorely, no loving persons, while alive, could wish that their survivors should take such pains to hinder themselves from being relieved. It is natural for some time, often for too long a time, to associate with the idea of the departed, the bodies in which thev lived, and in which we loved them. Few of us can so spiritualize their new condition all at once, as to visit them in thought nowhere but in another world. We have been too much accustomed to them bodily, in this. In fact, they are still bodily with us ; still in our world, if not on it ; and for a time, we must reconcile that thought to ourselves as well as we can ; warm it with our tears ; put it on an equality with us, by means of our very sorrow, from which, whatsoever its other disadvantages, it is now exempt ; give it earthly privileges of some kind, whether of flowers, or other fondness. Xothing but urn -burial could help us better ; could shorten the sense of the interval between one world and the other ; between the corporeal and the spiritual condition ; and to the practice of urn-burial the nations must surely return. Population will render it unavoidable. But in the mean time, we must gradually let our thoughts of the body decay, even as the body itself decays ; must consent to part with it, and become wholly spiritual, wholly sensible that its best affections were things of the mind and heart ; and that as those, while in this world, could triumph THE OLD COUET SUBURB. 97 over tliouglits of death, so they are now ascertaining why they were enabled to do so, in another. Let flowers, therefore, be put awhile on graves, and contend Avith the idea of death. Let them contend with it, if we please, as long as we live, provided our own lives cannot in the nature of things be long ; in which case, we are, in a manner, making our own mortal bed wdth those of the departed, and preparing to sleep sweetly together till the great morning. But under other circumstances, let us learn to be content that the flowers die, and that our companions have gone away ; for go we shall ourselves ; and it is fit that we believe them gone into the only state in which they cannot perish. CHAPTER X. THE OLD CHAEITT-SCHOOL A>'D SIR JOH>' VAXBRUGIE THE IS'EW TESTBT-HALL — COBBETT — SCAUSDALE- HOUSE — THE CURZOyS, A>'D POPE's AND ROWE's EARL OE SCARSDALE TUE WORKHOUSE. Returning from the church into the Higli Street, there presents itself, not many yards further, on the right side of the way, a curious -looking brick edifice, at once slender and robust (if the reader can imagine such a combination) ; or, tall and sturdy ; or, narrow, compact, and thick in the walls. Over the second story is a square tower, probably intended to hold a ball ; and originally there was another tower above 7 98 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. that, wliich must have made the whole edifice appear unaccountably tall. Finally, to adopt the convenient word of " that late eminent antiquary, Mr John Carter," there stands on each side of the first story, the " costumic statue of a charitj^-child." It is the old Kensington Charity School, built by Sir John Vanbrugh ; now a savings' bank, with a new school -room by the side of it. Sir John, as is well known, was a wit full of mirth in his comedies, and an architect full of gravity in his buildings. He was the sou of a Dutchman by a French mother. A certain Dr Evans, who was addicted to the like extremes in literature, though neither his mirth nor his gravity was so good, wrote a jesting epitaph on Sir John, the final couplet of which has become famous : " Lie heavy on him, earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee." Sir Joshua Reynolds however was of opinion, that Vanbrugh's style was misconstrued, and that it was very poetical and noble. The present building has certainly contrived to look heavy, even though it is narrow ; but nobody who looks at it can doubt that it was built to endure. If suffered to remain, it will, even now, probably outlast the whole of Kensington. Look at it, reader, as you go, with an eye to this suppo- sition. Think, also, what interest a celebrated man can attach to a homely structure ; and wonder to reflect, that he who built it was the same " Captain Vanbrugh," a man of " wit and pleasure about town," who wrote the characters of romping Miss Hoyden and the dandy Lord Foppington. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 99 Xext to Sir John Yanbrugh's old edifice is the new Vestry Hall, a building lately erected in the style that prevailed in the reign of James the First, and which has acquired a natural popularity in this suburb from the presence of Holland House. There is something in the style, too, very suitable to the British climate, its bay-windows largely admitting the light, while tlie comparatively blind and solid Myalls are characteristic of warmth and comfort. The warm colours, also, of yellow and red, that prevail in the exterior of these buildings, and the bricks of which they are composed, in preference to stone and stucco, are far better for us than the cold whites of the latter. Honest old red is the best of all. The miser- ablest object in England on a rainy day (next to the pauper that inhabits it) is a tumble-down hut of lath and plaster. Nearly opposite the new Yestry Hall, in the house now occupied by Mr AYright, an ironmonger^ lived for some years the once celebrated political writer, William Cobbett. Cobbett, as some of our readers may remember, was a self-taught man of great natural abiKties, who, from excess of self-esteem, defect of sympathy out of the pale of his own sphere, and a want of that scholarly " discipline of humanity," of which such men stand particularly in need, Avent from one extreme in politics to another with anything but misgiving ; injured the good which he otherwise did to Reform, by a long course of obloquy and exaggeration ; brought his courage and eve;i his principles into question, by retreats before his opponents, and apparent compro- 100 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. mises with government ; and ended a life of indom- itable industry, by obtaining the reputation rather of a powerful and amu.sing, than estimable or lasting writing. Readers of his "Political Register" will not easily forget how he lorded it over public men, as if they knew nothing, and he knew everything ; or what letters he addressed to them, in a style beyond the un- ceremonious ; such as those to the Bishop of London, beginning " Bishop," and to Sir Robert Peel, whom he addressed as " Peel's-Bill-Peel," and saluted simply by his surname. Hazlitt said of him, that had everything been done as he desired in church and state, he would have differed with it all next day, out of the pure pleasure of opposition. Cobbett's worse propensity was to exult over the fallen. His implied curses of the hapless George the Third, who had nothing to do with the fine and im- prisonment which produced them, are too shocking to be repeated. He crowed unmercifully over the suicide of Lord Castlereagh ; and, ridiculously as ungener- ously, pronounced Walter Scott, during his decline, and after the bankruptcy which he laboured so heroic- allj'- to avert, to have been nothing but a " humbug." But the vigour which he thus abused was not to be denied. Bating an occasional parade of the little scholarship which he had acquired, and which some- times betrayed him into incorrectness, even of the grammar which he professed to teach, nothing could surpass the pure, vigorous, idiomatical style of his general writing, or the graphical descriptions he would give both of men and things, whether in artificial life THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 101 or in matters connected with, his agricultural experi- ence. A volume of select passages from his writings, chiefly of this kind, might be of permanent service to his name ; which, otherwise, will be stifled under the load of rubbish with which he mixed it. At the back of his house at Kensington, in ground now devoted to other purposes, and also at a farm, which he possessed at the same time, not far ofi" (at Barn-Elm), Cobbett cultivated his Indian corn, his American Forest Trees, his pigs, poultry, and butchers ' meat, all which he pronounced to be the best that were ever beheld ; but the aristocratic suburb did not prove a congenial soil, and he quitted it, a bankrupt. He appears, nevertheless, to have succeeded, upon the whole, in a worldly point of view, and ultimately made his way into parliament ; a triumph, however, which was probably the death of him, owing to the late hours and bad air for which he exchanged his farming habits of life. At all events, he did not survive it long. Like many men who make a great noise in public, he seems to have been a good, quiet sort of man in private ; occasionally blustering a little, perhaps, at his workmen, and more dictatorial to them than he would have liked others to be to himself ; but a good husband and father, a pleasant companion ; and his family seem to have heartily lamented him when he died ; the best of all testimonies to private worth. His appearance (to judge by his portraits, for we never saw him) was characteristic of the man, except as re- garded vanity. He dressed plainly and unaffectedly ; was strong and well-built ; and had a large forehead, and roundish and somewhat small features, for the size 102 THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. of his cheeks, a disparity betokening greater will than self-control. Cobbett said little of Kensington, considering the time he lived there. It was not to be expected, indeed, that he could be fond of a place that had a palace at one end of it, the mansion of a Whig lord at the other, and in which he did not find himself either welcome or prosperous. What he does say, chiefly concerns his corn and his trees. There are but one or two passages characteristic of the locality, and those are more so of himself, and not unamusing. In one of them he speaks of the poor Irish, who stand at the corners of the streets, '' their rags dancing with the wind ; " but he does it rather to rebuke than to pity them. He could not get them to work for victuals instead of money ; not taking into consideration, that the poor, rackrented creatures could not pay their landlord without it. A correspondent proposed to pay Cobbett himself in victuals for his Weekly Register, two pounds of mutton per quarter ; but the rebuker of the Irish is very angry at this ; and assuming, with a somewhat Irish and self-refutin": looric, that a man who did not approve of payments in meat, must be addicted to slops, and have a dirty complexion, calls him a "tea-kettle reptile," and a "squalid wretch." The other passage gives us his opinion of the re- views in Hyde Park, and their consumption of gun- powder. His compliments to American economy in the use of that material, are hardly flattering to a great nation ; but everything was excessive in the praise and blame which he bestowed, and, consequently, was in the habit of undoing itself. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 103 Speaking of tlie Duke of Clarence's appointment to the office of Lord High Admiral, lie says, that when he first heard of it, he was " very much pleased, because he thought it would tend to break up the Scotch phalanx, which appeared to him to be taking the whole navy by storm." He adds : — " The manner of executing the office was a thing which I had little time to attend to ; but I must con- fess, that I soon became tired of the apparent incessant visiting of the sea-ports, and the firing of salutes. I see the Americans getting forward with a navy, fit to meet us in war, without more noise that is made by half-a-dozen mice, when they get into my pantry or cupboard. These Yankees have an education wonder- fully well calculated to make them economical in the affiiirs of war. I never saw one of them in my life, man or boy, shoot at any living thing without killing it. A Yankee never discharges his gun at anything, until he has made a calculation of the value of the thing ; and if that value does not exceed the value of the powder and the shot, the gun remains with the charge in it, until something presents itself of value surpassing that of the charge. In shooting at part- ridges, quails, squirrels, and other things of the land kind, they always count the number of shot they put into the gun, and will put in no more than they think the carcass of the animal will pay for, leaving a certain clear profit, after the cost of labour. These are most excellent principles to be imbibed by those who are des- tined to conduct the affiiirs of war ; and when I, being in a sea- port, hear bang, bang, bang, on one side of me, answered by other bangs on the other side. 104 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. and find no soul that can tell me ^yllat the noise is for ; or when I, being at Kensington, hear, coming from Hyde Park, pop, pop, pop — pop, pop — pop, pop, pop, pop, the cause of which I remember but too well ; when I hear these sounds, I cannot help lamenting, that our commanders, by sea and land, did not receive their education among the Yankees, who have raised a fleet, the existence of which we shall one day have to rue ; and I should not be afraid to bet all I have in the world, that they have done it without wasting one single pound of powder.','* Fancy our young Nelsons and Jervises going to America to learn how to shoot ; and their unerring teachers, man or boy, holding their hands before they begin, till they counted the relative values of the charge and the cock- sparrow. Never, we verily believe, was gunpowder expended at less cost, or to better purpose, than in our reviews and royal salutes ; for the sounds reach the ears of despots. Nobler spectacles of warlike power were never beheld, than those which were presented to the world the other day under the presidency of a sove- reign, who being a wife and mother, must needs re- present peace itself, and hatred of wars ; but being a queen also, must also represent the power, which warns, and is prepared to punish, the infractors of peace. Most desirable is peace ; most horrible and detestable is war ; and no magnanimity will have been wanting to endure its idiotical babble, and endeavour to stay its arm. But if the blow must be struck, it must And we hope and believe, that if ever the ex- * Political Register, Vol. Ixvi. p. 267. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 105 istence of American power is to be rued by the Old World, it will be not in antag^onism with Enofland. but side by side with it, and to the final confusion of all who hate the crowned freedom of the one, still more, perhaps, than the republicanism of its brother ; for England disproves their identification of monarch- ical government with despotic will. Cobbett's premises at the back neighboured those of a small mansion, Scarsdale House, which he must have considered an eyesore, for it belonged to a noble family, and was then a boarding-school ; a thing which he hated, for its inducing tradesmen's and farm- ers' daughters to play on the pianoforte. He saw the dangers attending the elevation of ranks in societv but none of its advantages, except in regard to eating and drinking, and those he would have confined to his own beef and bacon. A little onward from Mr AV right's door, is Wright's Lane, which turns out of High Street, and, containing Scarsdale House and Scarsdale Terrace, leads round by a pleasant, seques- tered corner into the fields, and terminates this point of Kensington with the New AVorkhouse. Scarsdale House, now no longer a boarding-school, appears to have returned into the occupation of the family who are understood to have built it ; for its present inmate is the Hon. E. Curzon, one of the gentlemen who con- tributed to the collection of cabinet-work at Gore House. From an intimation, however, in Faulkner, it M'ould seem as if it had been called Scarsdale House before the creation of the title in the Curzon and Howe-Curzon families ; in which case, it was pro- bably built by the Earl of Scarsdale, whose family 106 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. name was Leake, the Scarsdale celebrated by Pope and Rowe for bis love of the bottle and of Mrs Brace- girdle. Each mortal has his pleasure ; — none deny Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his ham-pie. Darty was Dartineuf, or Dartiquenare (a famous epicure) . Do not most fragrant Earl disclaim Thy bright, thy reputable flame To Bracegirdle the brown ; But publicly espouse the dame, Aud say, G — d — the town. Earl Leake, by other accounts besides these, does not appear to have been a person whom " Bracegirdle the brown," the charmer of the age, would have thought it any very desirable honour to marry. We hope, therefore, that the more respectable Scars- dales, the Curzons, were always possessors of the house, and that, in displacing the boarding-school, they illus- trate, as in greater instances, the injunction of their curious motto, " Let Curzon hold what Curzon held." The corner, above-mentioned, of AVright's Lane, contains a batch of good old family houses, one of which belonged to Sir Isaac J^ewton, though it is not known that he ever lived in it. A house in which he did live we shall come to by-and-by. The Workhouse to which you arrive in turning by this corner, is a large, handsome, brick building, in the old style before-mentioned, possessed of a garden with seats in it, and looking (upon the old principle of association in such matters) more like a building for a lord than for a set of paupers. Paupers, how- ever, by the help of Christianity, have been discovered, THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 107 by the wiser portion of their fellow-creatures, to be persons whom it is better to treat kindly than con- temptuously ; and hence, as new workhouses arise, something is done to rescue the pauper-mind from its worst, most hopeless, and most exasperating sense of degradation, and to let it participate in some of the good consequences of industry and refinement. CHAPTER XI. TERRACES RIDICULOUSLY SO CALLED — LOWER PHILLI- MORE-PLACE AXD SKAFTESBURT-HOUSE WILKIE irOENTON-STREET DR DIBDIN AKD HIS BIBLIOMANIA — A BRIEF COURTSHIP— LEONARD-PLACE AND EARL's- COURT-TERRACE— MRS INCUBALD— EDAVARDES-SQUARE — CURIOUS TRADITION RESPECTING IT COLERIDGE. Eeturning into the road, we here quit the High Street, and have the Terrace on our left hand, and Lower Phillimore Place on the other side of the way. Terrace, in this, as in so many other instances in the suburbs, is a ridiculous word ; for the ground is as flat as any around it, and terrace (a mound of earth) implies height and dignity. " May thy lofty head be crown'd, "With many a tower and terrace." MiLTOX. The modern passion for fine names and foreign words " hath a preferment in it." It is one of the consequences of the general rise in society- But peo- 108 THE OLD COUET SUBUEB. pie would do well to learn the meanings of the words before they employ them ; not to christen young ladies Blanche, who are swarthy ; cr}' " bravo " (brave he !) to female singers, instead of " brava ; " nor give the appellation of heights to rows of houses that are on a level with a valle5\ In Kensington, Sir David "Wilkie, the painter, passed the greater part of his life, after quitting Scot- land, and chiefly in Lower Phillimore Place. For nearly three years, beginning with the autumn of 1811, he dates his letters from 'No. 29, which was the abode of a friend ; but he then took one of his own, No. 24, in which he resided with his mother and sister till the autumn of 1824, Vv'hen he removed with them into the house on the Terrace, called Shaftesbury House, which has since been rebuilt on a larger scale. Why it is called Shaftesbury House, Ave cannot learn ; perhaps because the third Earl of Shaftesbury, the author of the " Characteristicks," who was a visitor at the Palace, occupied it for a while before he took his house at Little Chelsea. Probably, there is not an old house in Kensington in which some dis- tinguished person has not resided, during the reigns in which the court was held there. Wilkie was a gentle, kindly, considerate man, with a figure not insignificant though not elegant, an arch eye, and a large, good-humoured mouth. Such, at least, was his appearance during the time of life at which we remember him. He had an original srenius for depicturing humble life, and could throw into it a dash of the comic ; though he did not possess the Flemish and Dutcli eye for colour ; and there was THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 109 altogether more tratli than enjoyment in liis style, sometimes a tendency to dwell on moral and even phy- sical pains, the sufferers of which neutralized the sym- pathy which they needed by a look of sordid dulness. Hazlitt, out of resentment against the aristocracy for giving their patronage to this kind of art at the expense of higher, of which he thought them jealous (and perhaps, also, in order to vex Wilkie himself, who was very deferential to rank), called it the " pauper style." The appellation, we suspect, pro- duced the vexation intended, and was one of the causes of Sir David's efforts to rise into a manner altogether different ; in which he was not successful. His notion that the persons in the Old and Xew Testament should all have the native, that is to say, Syrian or Judaical look, showed the restricted and literal turn of his mind. He fancied that this kind of truth would the more recommend them to the lovers of truth in general ; not seeing that the local pecu- liarity might hurt the universality of the impression ; for though all the world feel more or less in the same manner, they are not fond of seeing the manner qualified by that of any one particular nation ; espe- cially, too, when the nation has not been associated in their minds with anything very acceptable, or even with acquiescence in the impression to be made. The next step in this direction might be to rej^resent St Paul as a man of an insignificant presence, because the apostle so describe? himself; or to get a stam- mering man to sit for the portrait of Moses, because the great lawgiver had an impediment in his speech. This is not what E-aphael did when he painted Paul 110 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. preaching at Athens, with mighty, uj^lifted arms ; nor what Michael Angelo did, when he seated Moses in the chair of Sinai, indignantly overlooking all beneath him, and ready to hurl down the tables of stone, like thunderbolts, on the heads of his mis- believing followers. "We do not mean to say that lovers of truth might not be found, who would accord with Sir David's opinion, and let good consequences take their chance ; but he did not look at the matter in this comprehensive light. He thought that there was no risk of chance, remote or immediate, except in not making the local history local enough; and he did not see that this would have endangered the object he had in view, and served to contract instead of extending it. Though Wilkie never married, one of the best features in his character was domesticity. He was no sooner rich enough, than he brought his mother and sister from Scotland, in order that they might i^artake his prosperity in the way most agreeable to family affections. He was also careful to give them news of himself before they came. As it is pleasant to know the daily habits of distinguished men, we give the fol- lowing account of his life at Kensington from one of his letters to his sister. " The anxiety my mother has laboured under about my health, on seeing that I had not with my own hand directed the newspaper, is entirely ground- less. I am as well now as I liave been for a very long time, and am going on with the painting in my usual moderate way. I am sometimes glad to get anybody to direct the newspaper on the Monday fore- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. HI noon, for the sake of saving time, which is an im- portant consideration in these short days. Everj^body I meet with compliments me on the improvement of my looks, and I am taking all the means in my power to retain my improved appearance. I dine, as formerly, at two o'clock, paint two hours in the forenoon and two hours in the afternoon, and take a short walk in the park or through the fields twice a-day. In the evening, I go on with the mathematics, which I take great delight in ; and I have also begun a system of algebra, a stud}" I should like to learn something of too." "When his mother and sister came, the good artist took care that as much as possible of the old house- hold furniture, to which their eyes had been habitu- ated, should come with them from Scotland ; and he said (his biographer informs xis) that "if he were desired to name the happiest hour of his life, it was when he saw his honoured mother and much-loved sister sitting beside him whilst he was painting." The " short walk throuo'h the fields " must have been in those between Kensington, Brompton, and Little Chelsea, now fast disappearing before the growth of streets. In Shaftesbury House the sunny portion of Wilkie's life terminated in clouds that gathered suddenly and darkly upon him ; — his mother dying ; his sister losing the man she was about to marry ; his eldest brother dead, in India ; a second brother coming home to die, from Canada ; a younger brother involved in com- mercial difficulties ; and the artist himself, who was too generous not to suffer in every way with his family, losing further money by the failure of houses. 112 THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. and failing in his own health, which he never reco- vered. Such are the calamities to which comic as well as tragic painters are liable, in order that all men may share and share alike, till "tears can be wiped from off all faces." "Wilkie subsequently removed to Vicarage Place, in Church Street ; and this, his last abode in Kensington, was also his last in England. He tra- velled for health's and study's sake, in Italy, Germany, and Spain ; returned, and travelled again, going to Palestine, and other dominions of the Sultan, whose portrait he painted ; made other ineffectual attempts to become an artist out of his first line ; and with a strangely romantic end for one who began with the line which he ought never to have forsaken, died on his way home, and was buried off Gibraltar, in the great deep. After all, there was in "Wilkie's character, as there is in most men's, however amusing they may be, a grave as well as comic side, corresponding with the affectionate portion of it ; and this, very likely, it was, that in conjunction with the provocation given him by Hazlitt, and by jealous brother artists, led him to attempt at higher subjects, and a deeper tone in paint- ing. He also appears to have had a delicacy of organi- zation, tending to the consumptive : though prudence and prosperity kept him alive to the age of fifty-six. " Xature is vindicated of her children." The sen- sibilities of a man of genius turn to good account for his fellow-creatures, compared with whom he is but a unit, Wilkie, himself, enjoyed, as well as suffered : he had a happy fireside during the greater part of his life ; he had always an artist's eye, which is itself a THE OLD COUKT SUBURB. 113 remuneration ; and he knew that ages to come would find merit in his productions. Turning northward, out of the high road, between Lower and Upper Phillimore Place, is Hornton Street, at the further house in which, on the right hand, resided for some years Doctor Thomas Frognall Dib- din, the sprightliest of bibliomaniacs. He was not a mere bibliomaniac. He really saw, though not very far, into the merit of the books which he read. He also made some big books of his own, which though, for the most part, of Kttle interest but to little antiquaries, contain passages amusing for their ani- mal spirits and enjoyment. When the Doctor visited libraries on the continent, he dined with the monks and others who possessed them, and made a feast-day of it with the gaiety of his compan3^ AMien he as- sembled his friends over a new publication, or for the purpose of inspecting a set of old ones, the meeting was what he delighted to call a " symposium ;" that is to say, they drank as well as ate, and were very merry over old books, old words, and what they per- suaded themselves was old wine. There would have been a great deal of reason in it all, if the books had been worth as much inside as out ; but in a question between the finest of works in plain calf, and one of the fourth or fifth- rate, old and rare, and bound by Charles Lewis, the old book would have carried it hollow. It would even have been read with the greater devotion. However, the mania was harmless, and helped to maintain a proper curiosity into past ages. Tom (for, though a Reverend, and a Doctor, we can hardly think of him seriouslv), was a good- 8 114 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. natured fellow, not very dignified in any respect ; but he had the rare merit of being candid. A moderate sum of money was bequeathed him by Douce ; and he said he thought he deserved it, from the " respectful attention " he had always paid to that not very agree- able gentleman. Tom was by no means ill-looking ; yet he tells us, that being in company, when he was young, with an elderly gentleman, who knew his father, and the gentleman being asked by somebody whether the son resembled him, " Not at all ! " was the answer. " Captain Dibdin was a fine-looking fellow." This same father was the real glory of Tom ; for the reader must know, that Captain Dibdin was no less a person than the " Tom Bowling " of the famous sea-song : Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling, The darling of our crew. Captain Thomas Dibdin was the brother of Charles Dibdin, the songster of the seamen ; and an admirable fellow was Charles, and a fine fellow, in every respect, the brother thus fondly recorded by him. " j^o more," (continues the song, for the reader will not grudge us the pleasure of calling it to mind) — No more he'll hear the tempest howling, For death has broach'd him too. His form was of the manliest beauty, His lieart was kind and soft ; Faithful below he did his duty. But now he's gone aloft. Dr Dibdin was thus the nephew of a man of genius, and the son of one of the best specimens of an English- ruan. His memory may be content. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 115 Tlie Doctor relates an anecdote of the house op- posite him, which he considers eqvialtoany "Homauce of Real Life." This comes of the antiquarian habit of speaking in superlatives, and expressing amazement at every little thing. As the circumstance, however, is complete of its kind, and the kind, though not so rare, we suspect, as may be imagined, is not one of every-day occurrence, it may be worth repeating. A handsome widow, it seems, in the prime of life, but in reduced circumstances, and with a family of several children, had been left in possession of the house, and desired to let it. A retired merchant of sixty, who was looking out for a house in Kensington, came to see it. He fell in love with the widow ; paid his addresses to her on the spot, in a respectful version of the old question put to the fair showers of such houses, (" Are you, my dear, to be let with the lodgings ?") ; and after a courtship of six months, was wedded to the extemporaneous object of his affections at Kensington Church, the Doctor himself joyfully officiating as clergyman ; for the parties were amiable ; the bride- groom was a collector of books : and the books were accompanied by a cellar full of burgundy and cham- pagne. Returning into the high road, and continuing our path on the Terrace side of the way, we come to Leonard's Place, and to Earl's Court Terrace, in both of which Mrs Inchbald resided for some months, in boarding houses ; in the former, at a Mrs Yoysey's ; in the latter, at No. 4. Boarding-houses, though their compulsory hours of eating and di'inking did not suit her, she found more agreeable than other lodgings, 116 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. owing to their suppljdng her witK more companionship, and giving her more to do for her companions. The poor souls in these places appear to need it. Speaking of the kind of hospital at Mrs Yoysey's, in the sum- mer of 1818, she says, — " All the old widows and old maids of this house are stretched upon beds or sofas, with swollen legs, nervous head-aches, or slow fevers ; brought on by loss of appetite, broken sleep, and other dog-day complaints ; while I am the only young and strong person among them, and am called upon to divert their blue devils from bringing them to an un- timely end. I love to be of importance ; and so the present society is flattering to my vanity." She was then sixty-five. What a god-send to the poor creatures she must have been ! A woman of genius, very entertaining, full of anecdote and old stories, and though so young in mind, yet of an age bodily to keep them in heart with themselves, and so make hope to live on. At the back of Earl's Terrace, was, and is, a curious, pretty little spot, called Edwardos Square, after the family name of Lord Kensington ; and in this Square Mi's Inchbald must often have walked, for the inhabitants of the Terrace have keys to it, and it gives them a kind of larger garden. We have called the spot curious as well as pretty, and so it is in many respects, — in one of them contradictory to the pretti- ness, for one side of the Square is formed of the backs and garden-walls of the Earl's Terrace houses, and the opposite side of it coach-houses, and of little tene- ments that appear to have been made out of them. The whole of this latter side, however, is plastered, THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 117 and partly overgrown with ivy, so as to be rather an ornament than an eyesore. But what chiefly surprises the spectator, when he first sees the place, is the largeness, as well as cultivated look of the square, compared with the smallness of the houses on two sides of it. The gardener's lodge, also, is made to look like a Grecian temple, really in good taste ; and though the grass is not as thick and soft as it might be, nor the flowers as various, and pathways across •the grass had better have been straight than winding (there being no inequalities of ground to render the winding natural), yet, upon the whole, there is such an unexpected air of size, greenness, and even elegance in the place, especially when its abundant lilacs are in blossom, and ladies are seen on its benches reading, that the stroller, who happens to turn out of the road, and comes upon the fresh-looking sequestered spot for the first time, is interested as well as surprised, and feels curious to know how a square of any kind, comparatively so large, and, at the same time, manifestly so cheap (for the houses, though neat and respectable, are too small to be dear), could have suggested itself to the costly English mind. Upon inquiry, he finds it to have been the work of a Frenchman. The story is, that the Frenchman built it at the time of the threatened invasion from France ; and that he adapted the large square and the cheap little houses to the promenading tastes and poorly-furnished pockets of the ensigns and lieutenants of Napoleon's army ; who, according to his speculation, would cer- tainly have been on the look-out for some such place. 118 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. and liere would have found it. Here, thought he, shall be cheap lodging- ^ndifete cliampttre combined; here, economy in- doors, and Watteau without ; here, repose after victory ; promenades ; la helle passion ; l^erusal of newspapers on benches ; an ordinary at the Holland Arms, — a French Arcadia in short, or a little Palais Royal, in an English suburb. So runs the tradition ; we do not say how truly, though it could hardly have entered an English head to invent it. It was allowable for French imaginations in those days to run a little wild, on the strength of Napoleon's victories. AVe do not repeat the story for the sake of saying how wild. We believe that both Frenchmen and Englishmen, at present, for reasons best known to all governments, not actually out of their senses, are for keeping to their localities as peaceably and re- gularly as possible ; and we devoutly hope they may continue to do so, not only for the sake of the two greatest nations in Europe, but for that of the security of advancement. For it is better to advance gently, however slowly, than to be incessantly thrown back from one extreme to another ; and the world and right opinion will progress as surely as time does, whatever efforts despots and bigots may make to put back the clock. It is said, in Kensington, that Coleridge once had lodgings in Edwardcs Square. We do not find the circumstance in his biographies, though he once lived in the neighbouring village of Plammersmith. Per- haps, he was on a visit to a friend ; for we are cre- dibly informed, that he used to be seen walking in the square. A lady who was a child at the time, is very THE OLD COUET SUBURB. 119 proud of his having spoken to lier, and given her a kiss. CHAPTER XII. HOLLAIS'^D HOrSE — ITS AKCIENT EXTEBTOE AND INTEEIOR — THE LODGE — WANT OF COLOUR I^'■ EXGLAXD — CEO:\rfrELL Als^D lEETON — THE GEOEND — IXSCEIPTION IN HONOEE OE ME EOGEES TEESES BT ME LUTTRELL — GAEDENS NEW AND OLD NAPOLEON LOED CAMELEOED — LADY DIANA EICH AND LADY ELIZABETH THYNNE SEE THEIE OWN GHOSTS. Holland House is the onl}' important mansion, venerable for age and appearance, which is now to be found in the neighbourhood of London. There has been talk more than once of pulling it down ; but every feeling of memory seems to start up at the threat, and cry, Xo, Xo ! The cry is not only one of the utmost parliamentary propriety : the weight of the whole voice of the metropolis may be said to be in it ; nay, of the nation itself ; and even of the civilized world ; for what court or diplomatist that knows of the " ^yhIgs," knows not of " Holland House ? " or what foreigner, with an}^ taste for English wit and localities, visits London without ffoing' to see it ? It is not handsome ; it is. not ancient ; but it is of an age sufficient to make up for want of beauty ; it shows us how our ancestors built before Shakspeare died ; a crowd of the reigning wits and beauties of that, and 120 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. every succeeding generation, passes througli it to the " mind's eye," brilliant with life and colour ; and there it stands yet, on its old rising ground, with its proper accompaniment of sward and trees, to gratify everybody that can appreciate it, and shame any one that would do it wrong. INIay it everlastingly be re- paired, and never look otherwise than past times beheld it. The ujoper apartments of Holland House are on a level with the stone gallery of the dome of St Paul's. Their front windows command a view of the Surrey hills ; as those of the back do of Harrow, Hampstead, and Hio-hsrate. When this interestino: old mansion came into the O possession of the present lord, seeing the masons at work, and finding one of the approaches to it stopped np, we trembled at what he might be going to do with it. That approach was called Nightingale Lane, and had long been a favourite with the Kensingtonians ; for besides enabling them to get closer to the nightin- gales, it afforded them a passage right in front of the house. This passage was now closed ; a parapet wall was taking place of it ; two stone piers, designed by Inigo Jones, disappeared from the court-yard ; and everything looked as if the appearance of the house itself was about to be altered. The alarm, however, proved false. The house, externally, remained untouched ; and when the stone piers, not very intelligible in their previous distance from one another, were found composing a gate at the side of it, and vases of geraniums made their appear- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 121 ance on the parapet wall, and orange trees came in front of the geraniums, and the shut-up lane was corn- pounded for by a new one, which, though it led only by a side of the house, opened a more convenient pas- sage to Nottins: Hill, and was furnished, moreover, with a bench like those in the parks, to give a resting- place to passengers themselves (persons not too often cared for in aristocratical changes), the alterations, though producing an effect perhaps not thoroughly harmonious between the northern architecture and its southern accompaniments, could not but be acknow- ledged to be improvements in the main, and to have rendered the entire spot more remarkable and attractive. The affed look of the exterior of Holland House is the more precious to the antiquary, inasmuch as with the exception of a staircase or so, it is the only part of its antiquity remaining. The interior has long been so modernized, that a lover of old times is grieved to find not a single room in it which brings them before him. There is little which is older than the youth of the late lord, and much that has been further mo- dernized by the present. The fact is, that the house had become so neglected during the nonage of the former, in consequence of the reckless expenditures of the first lord and his son Charles (the great Whig leader), that there was talk of converting it into a workhouse. Lord Holland, a respecter of old associa- tions, and of the pleasures of other people, saved it ; and this circumstance should be counted among the claims to respect of his own genial memory. The lodge, which the new lord has renovated and 122 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. doubled, is in a style suitable to the mansion ; with the exception, perhaps, of the two footway entrances, which look a little flimsy. The retention of the gild- ing on the iron gates may be objected to by some, as partaking of the same character ; but we thinlc other- wise. The gilding is but partial ; it relieves (to our eyes) the sombreness of the iron ; and, being confined to the ornamental portion of the work, gives it a kind of golden efflorescence. AYe have not enough of this kind of work in England ; do not sufficiently avail ourselves of the bright lights and colours that we might bring to bear on our sombre climate. To see, on a dark, v/et, muddy day, all the people going along in dark or brown colours, everything looldng ding}^ or insipid — the houses insipid, the carts and waggons in- sipid, most of the carriages equally so, and the faces either to match or full of care, the circumstances all seem to conspire with the weather to cut as miserable an appearance as possible ; as though the passengers were tacitly saying, "Let us all be tinhappy together." We are aware that there is a "harmonv" in the spectacle ; but it is a wretched harmony ; and we think a little cheerful discord would be better. Nobody ob- jects to a rainbow. Flowers, protected by verandahs in balconies, are welcome to the eyes in any weather. There are colours that suit darkness ; and a good dif- fusion of them at such times would be a o-od-send. For our parts, we alwaj's feel grateful on a rainy day, when we see a market woman go by in a red cloak. Of the lawn, or rather meadow, which lies in front THE OLD COUET SUBURB. 123 of Holland House, there is a tradition that Cromwell and Ireton conferred in it, as a place in which thej^ could not be overheard. From circumstances hereafter to be noticed, the tradition is probable. It shows that whatever the subject of the conference may have been, they could not have objected to being seen ; for there was neither wall, nor even trees, we believe, at that time in front of the house, as there is now ; and we may fancy royalists I'iding by, on their road to Brentford, where the king's forces were defeated, and trembling to see the two grim republicans laying their heads together. The grounds at the back of the house are more ex- tensive than might be supposed, and contain many fine old trees of various kinds, with spots of charming seclusion. The portion nearest the house presents an expanse of turf of the most luxurious description, with a most noble elm-tree upon it, and an alcove facing the west, in which there is a couplet that was put up by the late lord in honour of Mr Rogers, and a copy of verses by Mr Luttrell, expressing his inability to emulate the poet. The couplet is as follows : " Here Eogers sat, and here for ever dwell, To me, those pleasui'es that he sang so well." Vll. IId. Inscriptions challenge comments ; brief ones, it is thought, ought in particular to be faultless ; seats in summer time, and lounoinjrs about on luxurious turfs (half an hour before dinner), beget the most exacting criticisms ; and thus a nice question has arisen, whether the relative pronoun in this couplet ought to be t/iaf or ichich. Our first impression was 12i THE OLD COURT SUBURB. in favour of that ; but happening to repeat the lines next morning while in the act of waking, we invol- untarily said wJiich ; upon which side of the question we are accordingly prepared to fight, with all the in- veteracy of deserters from the other. Lord Holland's couplet is in the simple and tran- quil taste which he had so much right to admire ; Mr Luttrell's verses, which are a score longer, would have been improved by compression. They are a sample of the difference which they themselves speak of, between natural and artificial writino;, or that which is prompted by what is felt, and that which would emulate the expression of others. The old eighteenth century fashion of rhyming with its " heart and impart, rove, grove," &c., is here (literally) in all its glory. But see how pleasant and readable are one or two natural expressions : ***** " Well, iio-sv I am fairly installed in the tower, How lovely the scene ! how propitious the hour ! The breeze is perfumed, from the hawthorn it stirs. All is silent around me— but nothing occurs ; Not a thought, I protest, though I'm here and alone ; Not a chance of a couplet tliat Rogers would own ; Though my senses are raptur'd, my feelings in tune. And Holland's my host, and the season is June. ***** So I rise, since the Mus^s continue to frown. Kg more of a poet than when I sat down." Be^-ond this mossy lawn is the open undulating ground, terminated by the Uxbridge Road, with which the public have become acquainted by means of the Highland Pastimes ; all round the grounds is a THE OLD COUET SUBUEB. 125 rustic lane, furnishing a long leafy walk ; on the western side of the house are small gardens, both in new and old styles, the work of the late Lady Holland, and the latter very properly retained, both as a variety from the former, and as a fitting accompaniment to the old house. It is also pleasant to fancy in what sort of way our grandmothers and great-grand- mothers, the Chloes and Delias of the 18th century, enjoyed their flower-beds. In one of these gardens was raised the first specimen of that beautiful flower, the dahlia, which the late Lord Holland is understood to have brought from Spain ; in another, on a pedestal, is a colossal bust of Napoleon, by a pupil of Canova ; further west, towards the Addison Hoad, are the Moats ; which (to say nothing of the evidence furn- ished by an apocryphal bit of brickwork that accom- panies them) are looked upon as the site of the older mansion belonging to the De Veres ; and further still, a few years ago was an expiatory classical altar erected by the same lord, in memory of the fate of poor Lord Camelford, a man half out of his wits, who was killed on this spot in a duel which he insisted on provoking. We know not why it was removed ; pro- bably to efiace the melancholy impression. The bust of JSTapoleon is inscribed with a felicitous quotation from Homer : Ov yap TTO) TEOvijKev etti x^^^i- ciof OSvaaevQ, AW in TTOV ZwoQ KaripvKETai evpu irovTti), 'Urimo iv ufKptpvr)]' %«X£7roi ^£ fiiv avcpsg exovaiv. " Which (says the person who is speaking on the passage in Mr Faulkner's "History of Kensington," 126 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. and whom we take to have been the late Lord Holland himself) I have seen somewhere translated thus : " He is not dead ; he breathes the air In lands beyond the deep ! Some distant sea-girt island, where Harsh men the hero keep." The translation is probably his lordshij)'s own.* Upon this inscription it may be observed, that harsh men certainly had the keeping of the hero ; who had been, however, a harsh man himself, and kept thou- sands of men in woi'se durance. But his keepers were not only harsh ; they were mean and shabby ; refused him a title in his adversity, which they were prepared to acknowledge had he consented to their terms, when they doubted the issue of the contest ; and they suffered him to be worried by a set of men incapable of understanding him, except as jailers. It was the revenge of long-defeated dulness upon fallen genius, and is a blot in the history of England's greatness. The altar in memory of Lady Camelford was an ancient Roman one, erected on a modern base, and was inscribed with a propitiatory dedication to departed souls, or the gods who preside over places of the dead — a curious instance of classical " making as if " — of playing at Paganism on so serious an occasion. It was quite, however, in the taste of the last century, and was a local relief to the imagination. "Hnc Dii- !^^aniblls Veto Discordiam Deprecamnr." (Thus devoutly honouring the Dii Manes, we deprecate dissension.) * The account of Holland House in Faulkner's book is written in a style whol > different from the rest of it ; and instead of being used as the writer must have intended, betrays other evidences of having been clumsily taken into its pages in the lump. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 127 Lord Camelford's body, however, is not here. With the passion for going to extremes, which cha- racterised him, he directed that it should be buried under a tree in a solitary spot in Switzerland, which had interested him during his travels. He was a Pitt, nephew to the great Earl of Chatham, who wrote him letters when a boy, that show how little some- times can be done in directing the futui'e career even of a child otherwise intelligent, who has been born, from whatever cause, with a certain wildness in his blood. The poor youth, who came to his end before he was thirty, was wildness itself in many respects, though he was fond of serious studies. His manners were perfect at times, but at others would burst out into arrogance and insolence. He was a Christian, it is said, upon conviction, and yet could quarrel with a man about a prostitute, and insist upon fighting him, notwithstanding all that could be done to adjust the difference. The reason he gave was, that his antago- nist was too good a shot to make it up with. This antagonist was a Mr Best. Lord Camelford went up to him in Stevens's Hotel in Bond Street, and ad- dressed him in the following placid words ; " ]Mr Best, I am glad to see you face to face, and to tell you you are an infamous scoundrel." He afterwards con- fessed, like a gentleman, that he had been the ag- gressor. But an old house is not perfect without a ghost, and Holland House has two. They do not indeed haunt it, and were very transient in their appearance ; but they will serve to give a bit of ghostly interest to the spot, for those whose imaginations like to " catch 128 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. a fearful joy " on such points. The account is in Aubrey's " Miscellanies," which were written in the reign of William the Third. " The beautiful Lady Diana Rich, daughter to the Earl of Holland, as she was walking in her father's garden at Kensington, to take the fresh air before din- ner, about eleven o'clock, being then very well, met wuth her own apparition, habit and everything, as in a looking-glass. About a month after, she died of the small-pox. And it is said, that her sister, the Lady Isabella Thynne, saw the like of herself also, before she died. This account I had from a person of hon- our." Aubrey, though his gossip is valuable to a lover of books, was credulous to excess. It is impossible, how- ever, to say what visions may not be seen by people in bad states of health — what actual images the im- agination, in certain morbid states of the brain, may not bring before the eye. Xicolai, the German book- seller, was in the habit of seeing spectral men and women pass through his room ; and a sick young lady, just dressed for dinner, and full of thought of herself, sickly or otherwise, might as well see her own image as that of any one else. The Lady Isabella Thynne, here mentioned, wife of one of the ancestors of the Marquis of Bath, is men- tioned in another of Avibrey's books (the " Lives and Letters of Eminent Men") as addicted to anything but ghostly communications. She and a friend of hers, he says, while on a visit to Oxford, used to come to morning prayers at Trinity College Chapel, " half- dressed, like angels." She would also make her en- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 129 trance upon the college walks, with a " lute playing before her ; " and must have been a great puzzle to the college ethics, for she is described as possessing all kinds of virtues but one. She is the " Lady Isabella " whose playing on the lute is recorded in a set of com- plimentary verses by "Waller : " The trembling strings about her iingers crowd, And tell their joy for every kiss aloud ; Small force there needs to make them tremble so ; Touch'd by that baud, who would not tremble, too ? " We think we have read somewhere, but cannot call to mind in what book, that she suffered a good deal of affliction before she died. So much for Holland House and its grounds, as the latter appear at present, and the former has con- tinued to look for many generations. We now pro- ceed to its interior, to its inmates, and to those who went before them in the possession of the estate ; that is to say, the possessors of the older house which is now gone, as well as those which, have occupied the one before us. 130 THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. CHAPTEE XIII. HOLLAND HOUSE CONTINUED — BED-EOOMS OF ROGERS AND SHERIDAN — THE LATE LORD HOLLAND'S CHIL- DREN INDUCTED INTO THE BEAUTIES OE SPENSER — THE LIBRARY TRADITION OF ADDISON AND THE TWO BOTTLES OF WINE CURIOSITIES OF BOOKS — FATE OF CAMOENS — CURIOSITIES OF MANUSCRIPTS — COLLECTION OF PICTURES. "VVe have observed and regretted, that the interior of Holland House has been so modernized, as, with little exception, to retain no appearance of the antiquity to be expected from its appearance outside. AVe found, nevertheless, so much to interest us in it (the conversation included of the gallant kinsman of the family, who was so kind as to do us the honour of being our cicerone,) that, as is too often the case with something one is bent upon recollecting, we forgot to ask for the chamber in which Addison died. AVe be- lieve, however, it is among the few apartments that are not shown. Among those which are, is Charles Fox's bed-room ; that of Mr Rogers (a frequent visitor), with a poet's view over the country towards Harrow ; and that of Sheridan, in the next room to which a servant was regularly in attendance all night ; partly to furnish, we believe, a bottle of champagne to the thirsty orator in case he should happen to call for one betwixt his slumbers (at least we heard so a long while ago, and it was quite in keeping with his coble host's hosj^itality ; but we forgot to verify the THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 131 anecdote on this occasion) and partly (of this there is no doubt) to secure the bed curtains from being set on fire by his candle. A pleasanter apartment to contemplate, is the one in which Lord Holland used to hear his children say their lessons, and induct them into the beauties of Spenser — an unexpected trait in the predilections of a man of letters brought up in the town tastes of the eighteenth centuiy. But his uncle Charles was fond of Spenser ; and so was Burke, and the great Earl of Chatham. It is difficult to hinder great men from discerning the merits of greatness. The poetry of Spenser was to their other books what their parks and retirements were to the town itself. The library must originally have been a green- house or conservatory ; for, in its first condition, it appears to have been scarce!}^ anything but windows ; and it is upwards of ninety feet long, by only seven- teen feet four inches wide, and fourteen feet seven inches in height. The moment one enters it, one looks at the two ends, and thinks of the tradition about Addison's pacings in it to and fro. It repre- sents him as meditating his " Spectators " between two bottles of wine, and comforting his ethics by taking a glass of each, as he arrived at each end of the room. The regularity of this procedure is, of course, a jest ; but the main circumstance is not im- probable, though Lord Holland seems to have thought otherwise. He says (for the words in Faulkner's Ken- sington are evidently his) : " Fancy may trace the exquisite humour which enlivens his papers to the mirth inspired by wine ; but there is too much sober, 132 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. good sense in all his lucubrations, even when he in- dulges most in pleasantry, to allow us to give implicit credit to a tradition invented, probably, as excuse for intemperance by such as can empty two bottles of wine, but never produce a ' Spectator ' or a ' Free- holder.' " We shall return to Addison's alleged habit of drinking by-and-by. The first Lord Holland made a family portrait gallery of this room ; but the accumulated books of the late Lord forced the pictures into other apartments, though still he put many portraits above them, of friends^ kinsfolk, and deceased men of letters, with Addison at their head. When we lately saw the room, there were no pictures at all ; and the ceiling had been converted into a starry firmament ; hardly, perhaps, the most suitable thing, either to the ceiling itself, which is full of concavities, or to the winter's enjoy- ment of a book by the fireside. But the alterations of the house, we believe, are not yet final ; and every- body surely would miss the presence of Addison. The collection of books is celebrated for its abund- ance of Italian and Spanish authors, the former in particular. Among the curiosities In other languages are an " Editio Princeps" of Homer, which belonged to Fox ; a copy of the same poet belonging to Sir Isaac Newton, with a distich in his handwriting on the fly-leaf ; and a singularly interesting one of Camoens, which it is alleged must have been in the hands of the poet himself. At the bottom of the title-page is a painful corroboration of the statements respecting his end. It is a manuscript note in an old Spanish hand, stating, that the writer " saw him dio THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 133 in a hospital, without even a blanket to cover him." " He did this," says he, " after having triumphed in the East (Camoens served in various expeditions) and traversed five thousand five hundred leagues of ocean : and all for what, but to study day and night to no better purpose than spiders to catch flies ? " A natural question enough to the first impulse of indignation. And the blush of Portugal at the fate of Camoens ought to be as great and lasting, as the glory with which he has covered her. But the death of a man is not his life ; nor must the struggles of a poet make us forget his enjoyments. Camoens triumphed with his fellow-soldiers ; was long the ad- miration of the circles in which he moved ; knew the glory which awaited his name ; and above all, must have so loved and enjoyed his gift of poetry, that in all probability, during the far greater part of his life, he would not have changed lots with the most prosper- ous man in his country. His end, indeed, is most pitiable, enough to bring tears into the eyes of the gallantest fellow -soldier. It is said, that before he was taken to the hospital, a faithful servant used actually to go out and beg for him. It requires all the good and all the pleasure given to the world by such men's productions, to enable us to think of their sufierings with patience. But it does enable us. The wavs of Providence are vindicated. The fine heart is broken ; but the earth, to all time, is filled with its fragrance. There are several curious manuscripts in the li- brary, particularly three autograph letters of Petrarch, 13-1 THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. three autograjDh plays of Lope de Yega, the original copy of a play of the younger Moratin, and the music of Metastasio's " Olimpiade " beautifully written out by Jean Jacques Rousseau, at the time when that " shaker of the thrones of Europe " got his livelihood by work of that kind. It is by no means the least interesting circum- stance connected with this library, that Lord Holland, its collector, really enjoyed his books. The reader might guess as much from the nature of them ; and we shall have reasons for being: assured of it as we o-q At present, we have more to do with the house than with its possessors. The collection of pictures is not remarkable, except as containing a greater number of portraits of men of letters, Italians in particular, than is to be found per- haps in any other private abode. Among them is Addison, when he was young (a handsome face) ; Alfieri (in miniature), the Italian tragic poet, who was some time in England ; his wife (another miniature) ; the Countess of Albany, widow of the Pretender (a princess of the house of Stolberg) ; Sir Philip Francis ; Robespierre (miniature), with his pert, insignificant look, on which nobody would have guessed that so much tragedy was hanging; Jerome Bonaparte (a narrow-minded, repulsive countenance) ; two portraits, large and small, if we mistake not, of the Duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de Querouaille, Charles the Second's mistress), quite making out, in one of them, the " baby face " of which Evelyn accuses her, nobody would have taken her for an ancestress of the manly- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 135 visaged Foxes ; many portraits of the rest of the family ; a fine one of Talleyrand, by Schetter ; and one, by Gerard, of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. There are also busts of x^apoleon, of Machiavel, and of Henry the Fourth, the last "looking like a goat ; " a curious painting by Sir Joshua (of which more by-and-by), consisting of whole-length portraits of Charles Fox, when a youth, with his fair relatives, Lady Sarah Lenox and Lady Susan Straugeways ; and another, by Hogarth, representing Dry den's play of the " Indian Emperor," performed by children, one of whom is a grand-niece of Sir Isaac Newton, whose bust is on the chimney-piece. The play was per- formed for the amusement of the Duke of Cumber- berland, who is seated accordingly ; and the governess playing with one of the children is Lady Delorainc, whom the reader will find acting a more curious part, when we come, in these Kensington memorabilia, to the Palace. 136 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. CHAPTER XIV. HOLLAKD HOUSE CONTINUED EAMILT OF DE TEEE, EAELS or OXEOED ORIGIN OF THEIE NAME — ANDKEW MABVEL's TEESES on FOUNDEES OF DUTCH STATES — THE BEAUCLEEKS SIE AVALTEE COPE — THE EICH FAMILY EAELS OF HOLLAND PEEFOEMANCE OF PLATS EAEL OF ANGLESEA SIE JOHN CHAEDIN DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAMSHIEE ATTEEBUET SHIP- PEN WILLIAM III. THE EICHES, JOINT EAELS OF WAEWICK AND HOLLAND — WILLIAM EDWAEDES, FIEST BAEON KENSINGTON, We now come, not only to the possessors of tlie present house, but to those of the one that preceded it ; and therefore must go a good way back, before we return to the Foxes. We have seen, in a former chapter, that, with the exception of an Anglo-Saxon in the time of Edward the Confessor, of whom nothing further is mentioned, and of the Bishop of Coutances, to whom William the Conqueror gave it with power to alienate ; the De Veres, Earls of Oxford, were the earliest recorded possessors of the manor of Kensington, and seated probably on the spot in question. It is not ascertained that such was the case ; but as the property was valuable, was convenient for its neighbourhood to London, and seems to be implied as residential in the name of the adjoining locality, Earl's Court, that is to say, the court for administering the Earl's property or jurisdiction, it is extremely improbable that none of the family ever occupied it. It was associated with THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 137 their name from the time of William the Conqueror to that of James the First. Aubrey de Vere, its first holder under the Bishop, must needs have -visited his property some time or other, or for what did he come with the Conqueror into England ? The ancient manor-house that stood not far from the present Holland House, must have been built for somebody ; and visions of Aubrey and his successors, however transient, naturally present themselves to the eye of the local antiquary. This Aubrey de Yere came from Holland with the first "William, as countrymen of his did afterwards with William the Third. He died, however, a monk ; perhaps out of penitence for the wrongs which he had committed as a soldier. The title of Earl of Oxford came into the family with his grandson. Almost all his successors were stirring soldiers and influential subjects. One of them was a Magna Charta baron ; another a commander at the battles of Cressy and Poitiers ; another at Agincourt ; another was the great lord who received Henry the Seventh at his house with such a magnificent show of retainers, and who, notwithstanding his having been one of the chief instruments in setting that money-scraper on the throne, was fined by his sharp-eyed and shabby visitor, for entertaining him at a cost beyond the law. The family branched out into congenial worthies, a daughter of one of whom, the " starry Vere " of some noble verses by Marvell, was the Lady Fairfax, Avho gave that brave contradiction, in Westminster Hall, to the assertion that all the people of England were indicters of Charles the First ; — " No ! not the 138 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. hundredth part of them." In short, the word Yere was almost synonymous in English history with what- soever was noble and dignified, when in its twentieth Earl of Oxford, it came to a sorry end in the person of a profligate time-server, who accommodated himself to every Court in succession — Tory, Commonwealth, and Whig, and who crowned his anti-heroical achieve- ments by cheating an actress with a false marriage. The Kensington property, however, was saved the diso-race of belono^ino- to this scoundrel ; for he died long after it had been carried, by a co-heiress, into the families of Argyle and others, who sold it to Sir "Walter Cope, the builder of Holland House. But before we part with the Veres, we have a quarrel to pick with the whole of them, or rather with their name, and with the Vere, whosoever he was, who first gave them their motto, Vero Nihil Veriiis — ^Nothing truer than true ; that is to say, pun-icalhj speaking, Nothing more veritable than Vere. For the fact is, saving their Lordships' valours (and we think we see their dust redden as we say it — but it is the inventor's fault, not ours), the motto is a lie. Vere does not mean " true." The family came from Hol- land ; the word in Dutch is written Weer ; it is the name of the place in the isle of Walcheren, which the owners quitted for drier quarters ; and the word means neither more nor less than the same word in English, — weir or wear ; that is to say, a dam, fish-trap, or flood-gate. " Aubrey de Vere " is as fine an aristo- craiical sound as can well be imagined, and it is a pity to spoil it ; but truth must be told. Aubrey de Vere means Aubrey of the dam, fish-trap, or flood-gate. THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. 139 Atw'cus Vere, seel magis arnica Veritas. The inventor of the motto, had he loved the truth as much as he did a pun, should have taken a dam for his crest, with the words, Verus Bataviniter — True as I'm a Dutchman. In short, the Yeres originated with the coasters or others, whoever they were, a hardy, painstaking race, ancestors of the Vandykes and Yandammes, — who, according to the witty poet, fished up Holland out of the sea, and who obtained distinction with one another in proportion to their success in the invention of shovels, and consolidations of a ditch. " For as with pigmies, who best kills the crane, Among the hungry who best treasures grain, Among the blind the one-eyed blinkard reigns, So rules among the drowned he that drains. Not who first sees the rising sun, commands ; But who could first discern the rising lands : "Who best could know to pump an earth so leak, Him they their lord and country's father speak: To make a bank was a great plot of state ; — Invent a shovel, and be a magistrate." It may be added, to complete the notice of the Yeres, that the present representation of the race is in the Beauclerk family, the daughter of the last lord having married the first Duke of St Albans, the son of Charles the Second by jN'ell Gwynn. The two fathers, it is to be feared, helped to spoil, for a time, the blood of the actress ; for Sidney Beauclerk, their grandson (father of Johnson's Topham Beauclerk), is said to have been as great a "raf " as either of them, without inheriting any of the royal wit. This could not be said of Topham, however he might have resembled the king in more respects than one ; for though Johnson, in one of the most extraordinary 140 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. compliments on record, told him " his bodj^ was all vice," he added that " his mind was all virtue ; " a combination of totals which, to the Doctor's surprise, Beauclerk did not seem happy to admit. Something of such a mixture of extremes is, however, not impos- sible as the world goes ; so here, we are to imagine, was a blink of the " starrv Yere " shinin": on the mud of the debauchees. But we are losins^ siofht of Holland House. Sir Walter Cope, the purchaser of the Yere property in Kensington, seems to have been one of the money- getters, who profited by the endeavours which James the First made to supply his lavish exchequer without the help of a Parliament. He built the house, or rather the main body of the house (the centre and turrets), about the year sixteen hundred and seven, and be- queathed it to Henry Eich, Earl of Holland, as the husband of his daughter and heiress, Isabella. The wings and arcades were added by the Earl. This Earl of Holland was the younger son of Robert Rich, first Earl of AYarwick, by Penelope, daughter of Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Essex, the Stella of Sir Philip Sidney. He was a handsome, showy man ; was a favourite with James's favourite, the Duke of Buckingham ; and had the reputation of be- ing more than in the good graces of Charles the First's queen ; probably on no other ground than the fact of his having fetched her as a bride from France, and been coxcombical in his attentions on the way. He and his friend, Hay, Earl of Carlisle, were the twin stars of the great world, next after patron Buck- ingham ; and Holland House, during the prosperous THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 141 portion of Rich's career, must liave entertained in its saloons all the rank and fashion of the time. Among others came Bassompierre, the French Ambassador, who with the dandy indifference of his countrymen respecting the orthographies of other countries, or because he was too fine a gentleman to hear the word properly from the first, has recorded Kensington under the mincing appellation of Studinton. " Wednesday 25. — Dined with the Earl of Holland at Stintinton." * Unfortunately, Rich's coxcombry made him over- sensitive to what he thought attentions or the reverse from ruling powers, and in the Civil Wars he went to and fro in his partizanship with so provoking a caprice, now playing the part of a knight-errant for king and queen, and now sulking at Holland House and receiving visits from the disaffected for some imaginary affront, that when the Parliament at last seized him and put him to death for making a stand against the death of the king, his end was a grief to nobody. Foppish to the last, he died in a white satin waistcoat, and a cap ditto with silver lace. Five months after the Earl's execution, Holland House was occupied by the Parliamentary General Fairfax, husband of the " starry Yere," who thus found herself, under very extraordinary circumstances, contemplating the property of her ancestors. A * So, on a visit to Mni at Hampton Court, he calls that village Imtincourt — • " Went to see the Earl of Holland, who was sick at Imtincourt. (Le Vendredy 16. — Je fus voir le Comte de Hollande, malade a Imtincourt. Le ilercredi 25. — Je fus diner chez le Comte de Hollande k Stintinton.) 142 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. journal of the day says, " The Lord General (Fairfax) is removed from Queen Street to the late Earl of Hol- land's house at Kensington, where he intends to reside." (This Queen Street is the present Queen Street in Lincoln's Inn Fields, then one of the most fashionable quarters in London.) It was at this period we are to supi^ose Cromwell and Ireton conferring on the lawn. The mansion, however, was soon restored to the Earl's widow and her children ; and from that time it remained quietly in the possession of the family, al- most as long as they lasted. The Earl and his wife, like the extinguished court, had been friends of the drama ; and for a few days during the first establish- ment of the republic, and a longer period in the reign of Cromwell, the players, who had been great loyal- ists, and who contrived to perform secretly now and then at noblemen's houses, where purses were collect- ed for their benefit, found special encouragement in the house before us. From the Restoration to the time of the Georges, Holland House appears to have been let by the noble owners on short leases, and to a variety of persons ; sometimes in apartments to lodgers ; or, more pro- bably, a friend was now and then accommodated for nothing. Among those various occupants, the dura- tion of whose abodes in the house is unknown, the names of the following have transpired : — Arthur Annesley, first Earl of Anglesea, so created by Charles the Second, He had been President of the Council at the close of the Protectorate, and open- ed the correspondence with the restored king. Sir John Chardin, the traveller. He was a THE OLD COUET SUBURB. 143 French Protestant, and a jeweller. He settled in England, and was knighted by Charles the Second ; probably by way of payment on account, for some bill sent in and delivered to Madame the Duchess of Portsmouth, of Cleveland, or of Mazarin. The fantastical Duchess of Buckinghamshire — Catherine Darnley — illegitimate daughter of James the Second, who took upon her the state of a princess. Her first husband was one of the Anglesea family before mentioned. From a passage in one of the letters of his daughter, Mrs IMorice, it is not improbable that the famous Jacobite bishop, Atterbury, who was very intimate with the duchess, had once apartments in this house. It is certain that his daughter and her husband lived there ; for some of their letters to the bishop, ranging over a sj^ace of several years, are dated from it. This is the daughter, whose going to meet him in exile, and meeting him only to die, has given so affecting a turn to the last days of the proud and turbulent prelate. He appears to have been a loving father. Atterbury's books were preserved in Holland House during his exile, and apartments were kept ready for him by Mr Morice, in case of his return. But the most interesting of the temporary lodgers in Holland House was the famous WiUiam Peun, founder of Pennsylvania. By a singular piece of negligence in our memorandum-making, owing, most probably, to the hurry of the very interest we were taking in the account of the man, we omitted, in our first edition of this book, to mention the fact of Penn's having lived for a while in Kensington ; and it was not 11-1 THE OLD COUET SUBUKB. till we met with a subsequent account of him, that we became aware of his having resided in this particular house. " The house was large," says his biographer, Mr Dixon, " and he had many visitors. His in- fluence with the King (James II.) was well known, and every man with a real grievance found in him a counsellor and a friend. Envoys were sent from the American colonies to solicit his influence in their behalf; members of his own, and other religious bodies, who had petitions to present, crowded to his levees : and sometimes not less than two hundred per- sons were in attendance at his hour of rising." This was at the time when James, in his zeal for Popery, was pretending to love Penn's great principle of universal toleration. Penn had alwavs had access to him, as the son of Admiral Penn ; and the access at this period gave him singular influence, and was thouo'ht to have ariven him more. Unfortunately, we became acquainted with this particular respecting Holland House too closely upon the call for a second edition of our book, to enable us to speak of Penn at any length proportionate to his merit ; otherwise, he was a man of so rare and admir- able a nature, and we entertain, on many accounts, so special a love for his memory, that we should have indulged ourselves with endeavouring to reconcile some apparently conflicting accounts of him, and to condense the many interesting circumstances' of his career into such a summary, as might not have been inadmissible into a book of anecdote. But as it is, we must content ourselves with noticing two points respecting his character and manners ; — one upon THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 145 which we cannot but think he has been underrated by an admirable historian ; and another, in which singularly wrong conclusions have been drawn respect- ing his personal appearance and demeanour. The first is the extraordinary regard entertained for him by Charles and James the Second, and the doubt it has thrown on the entire sincerity of his nature ; the conclusion, not unnatural in some points of view, being, that to be able to please such men, and to possess any special influence with them in favour even of that toleration of religious opinion which they pretended to fall in with at times for their own purposes, argued a suspicious amount of flattery in the man, or at least of disreputable expediency. But we take the whole secret of the matter to have been this — that Penn was one of that kind of men, very rare, it is true — not unreasonably to be met with caution in the first instance, — and certainly not to be looked for in courts, except under rarest circumstances, — who being thoroughly honest of intention, and sincere in speech, do nevertheless succeed in being acceptable with men of every kind, by the simple circumstance of knowing how to do justice to the good qualities which all human beings, more or less, mingle with their infirmities. It is thus that they acquire with them a privilege of dissent, and even of remonstrance, astonishing even to those who are aware that kings are men too. It is not, we think, suSiciently con- sidered by objectors in this instance, that, as men, even kings can be charmed, perhaps more too than other men, with realizing a nature at once sincere and loving, and being made sure of the realization by find- 10 146 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. ing tlie sincerity never doubting what is good in them, because the love never pretends affection to what is ill. Penn, who had a lively flow of conversation, and who had been familiar with the royal brothers from his youth, through the connection above noticed and the natural sweetness of his own disposition, could be cheerful with Charles, serious with James, and singu- larly acceptable with both, because the one found in him a virtuous man, singularly full of animal spirits and good-nature, and the other a man able to be grave and in earnest, without believing all earnestness con- fined to men of his own opinion. The other point is of no importance compared with this ; but it is not uncurious or unamusing. We allude to the strange misrepresentation of Penn's ap- pearance and time of life in "West's popular picture of his Treaty with the Indians. The ordinary notion of Penn in people's imaginations, in consequence of this picture, of the popular idea of the sect which he joined, and of a particular species of costume which he never wore (for it arose with a subsequent generation) is that of a Quaker of the common well-meaning sort, who had spirit enough to lay the foundations of a state, but was rather a heavy kind of man than other- wise both in mind and body, and as much disposed to take the worldly-wise view of the prosperity of a coun- try, as any money-maker who joined him, Now Penn was as much the reverse of all this, as the elements of things are from their adulterations, or grace and vivacity from the lumpishness of a Dutch feeder. Penn joined the Quakers, not because he was a formalist, but because he agreed with their liberal THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 147 views of Christianity and toleration, and because lie tliousrlit them as sincere and single-hearted as himself. His dress was only a simpler modification of his usual attire; and instead of being the corpulent elderly person he aj)pears in ]\Ir West's picture, he was at that time, says Mr Dixon, but " thirty-eight years old ; light and graceful in form," and according to a lady who was an eye-witness of the ceremony, " the handsomest, best-looking, most lively gentleman" she had ever seen. His dress had even ribbons and ruffles ; and round his waist was a blue silken sash. In this attire, with these manners, in the midst of old friends and new (for the Indians loved him from first to last), and surrounded by the old forests that gave a name to the country, Penn ratified that famous treaty which, as Voltaire says, was the only one in the history of the world that was made without an oath, and that was never broken. So potent for the greatest purposes, in the aff"airs of this world, if men would but believe it, are the qualities of truth and goodness. The temporary inhabitant of Holland House next in interest, as well as point of time, to Penn, was Ship- pen, the famous Jacobite, immortalised by Pope for his sincerity. " I love to pour out all mj-self as plain As downright Shippen, or as Old Montaigne ; In them, as certain to be loved as seen, The soul stood forth, nor kept a thought within." No wonder that such a man drew houses, when he spoke in Parliament, and that none but the stupid kept awnv. 14S THE OLD COURT SUBURB. " More loves the youth, just come to his estate, To range the fields, than in the House debate ; More he delights in fav'rite Jowlcr's tongue, Than in Will Shippen, or Sir AYilliara Yonge." — Bramstoii's ' Art of Polities' Very different persons, however, were honest "Will Shippen and unprincipled William Yonge, of whom Sir Robert Walpole said, that " nothing but his talents could have supported his character, and nothing but his character have kept down his talents." Shippen had talents and character both — the latter of the highest description. Though not so poor as Andrew Marvell, nor on minor points, perhaps, so uncompro- misinsr, he was nevertheless to the Whigrs of the reign of George the First what Marvell had been to the Tories of Charles and James — the eloquent, witty, open-hearted, and upon the whole, incorruptible op- ponent. "When asked how he should vote, he would say, "I cannot tell until I hear from Rome." At Rome resided the Pretender. Sir Robert AValpole ob- served of him, and of Parliament in general, " I will not say who are to be corrupted, but I will say who is incorruptible ; and that is Shippen." Shippen, in turn, would say of Sir Robert, " Robin and I are two honest men. He is for King George, and I for King James ; but those men with the long cravats (meaning Sandys, Rushout, and others) they only desire places, either under King George or King James." He was sent to the Tower for saying of King George (who could not speak English), that " the only infelicity of his Majesty's reign was, that he was unacquainted with our language and constitution." Both sides of the House wished him to soften the THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 14.9 expression, but he declined. The Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Second, who was at variance with the King, sent a person to him with the offer of a thousand pounds (as a " convenience," we sup- pose, during his imprisonment); but it was not to be expected that he who would not alter his words for love, would do it for money. Sir Robert Walpole intercepted a letter written to Shijopen by the Pretender, and put it, himself, into his hands. It must have been of a description more than usually perilous, considering how openly Shippen talked of his correspondence with the exile. Sir Pobert took the opportunity of saying, that he did not expect to alter the other's sentiments, but would hope for his support in case of being personally attacked. To this Shippen agreed, but remained in all other respects the same man. He was son of a country clergyman, and possessed a moderate independence ; but latterly married a Northumberland heiress, who turned out unworthy of him. He appears, however, to have had a regard for her relations, for he generally spent his summers with them. At other times, he resided sometimes at Holland House, and sometimes at Richmond ; and he lived for many years in Norfolk Street, in the Strand. Shippen is said to have been a forcible, and even vehement speaker, pouring out his words too rapidly ; though at the same time he was accustomed to speak low, and to "hold his glove before his mouth" — a curious trait in the bearino; of so earnest a man. It looked as if he was conscious of wanting a screen, though determined to disregard it ; and, in fact, he 150 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. appears to have been in the habit of taking away his glove at particular points, and throwing out his words with great animation. He wrote verses ; but they were less poetical than to the purpose. In sixteen hundred and eighty-nine, King William the Third went to look at Holland House, with the view of taking it ; but he preferred the house of the Earl of Nottingham, which thus became the Palace. The preference could hardly have been on account of the size; for he might have enlarged the one house as he did the other. Probably, however, the rooms were larger in the Nottingham Honse, and so were better to begin with. Perhaps, also, William did not find the grounds round about Holland House flat enough to suit his Dutch predilections. To return to the owners of the mansion which had thus been successively occupied ; nothing seems known of Robert, second Earl of Holland, who had quietly succeeded his father, except that, in failure of the elder branch of the familv, he also succeeded as fifth Earl of Warwick and Holland. His son and successor, Edward, married Charlotte, daughter of Sir Thomas Myddleton, of Chirk Castle, in the county of Flint ; a lady, whose name and origin we mention, because after the Earl's death she became the wife of Addison. Edward Henry, her son, the next Earl, is the youth whose statue in Kensington Church has been noticed in a former chapter. He was succeeded by another Edward, his kinsman ; and the daughter and only child of this nobleman dying unmarried, the title became extinct. This was in the year seventeen hundred and fifty-nine THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 151 Tho house fell into the possession of "William Edwardes, a Welsh gentleman, whose father had married the dauarhter of the first Earl of Warwick ^nd Holland, and who, in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-six, was created Baron Kensington ; but fourteen years previous, he had sold the family man- sion to the first Lord Holland of the Fox family, by whom the title had been consequently allowed to be taken ; and in the possession of this distinguished race it remains. We have a good deal to say of them ; but first we must return to Countess Charlotte, and her still more distinguished husband. CHAPTER XY. HOLLAND HOTJSE CONTINUED ADDISON's LIFE AND DEATH THERE — QUESTIONS BESPECTIN& HIS MAR- EIAGE, UIS LAST MOMENTS, AND HIS CONDUCT TO- AVAEDS GAY HIS INTERVIEW WITH THE DAUGHTER OE MILTON — FIRST PROPOSER OF A WINTER GARDEN. Addison, notwithstanding the popularity of the Foxes, is still the greatest celebrity of 11 olland House. His death in it is its greatest event. Places in the vicinity are named after him ; and the favourite record of its library is the tradition, before mentioned, of the bottle of wine at each end of it, by which he is said to have refreshed his moralities, while con- cocting their sentences to and fro. It is added, un- 152 THE OLD COUKT SUBURB. fortunatelv, that he drank the more because he was unhappily married. The question upon this point is still discussed, and will probably never be settled. The received opinion is, that Addison's marriage with the Countess of Warwick originated in his being tutor to her son ; that the Countess became ashamed of it, as a descen- sion from her rank ; and that their lives were rendered unhappy in consequence. The prevalence of this opinion appears to have been owing to Johnson's Lives of the Poets, in which the case is stated with so evident a willingness to believe it, that people in general, who are ready enough to fall in with such an inclination, have overlooked the manifest assumptions on which it is founded, and the "saids" and "per- hapses," with which it is qualified. Setting aside higher points of view on such questions, there is, in fact, no proof that Addison was tutor to the young Earl, or that the Countess felt any regret for the marriage on the score of rank. Tutorship, had he been a tutor, need not have hindered him from making a pleasant husband. Tutors have married highly, before and since, and become lords and archbishops ; and though the lady was a countess by marriage, her birth was but that of a baronet's daughter, which put no such vast diflPerence between her and the son of a dean (for such was the father of Addison). The truth of the matter we take to have been, that the match was unsuitable on very ordinary grounds. The lady was well and merry ; the gentleman fit only to muse. Addison died at the end of three years. And hence (as Johnson woidd have been the first to say, had any- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 153 body provoked him to diflfer with the other opinion) — ■ hence all this mighty fuss, Sir, about a tutor, and a countess, and the punctilios of rank. Mighty versions are often given to things that have quite another significancy. It has been ques- tioned of late under what real impulse another circum- stance occurred, which is connected with Addison and Holland House. We allude to the famous words which he is said to have addressed in his last moments to the young Earl of "Warwick ; — " See in what peace a Christian can die." The story originated with Young, who said he had it from Tickell ; adding, that the Earl led an irregular life, which Addison wished to reclaim. But, according to Malone, who was a scru- pulous inquirer, there is no evidence of the Earl's having led any such life ; and Walpole, in one of his letters that were published not long ago, startled — we should rather say, shocked — the world, by telling them that Addison " died of brandy." It is acknowledged by his best friends, that the gentle moralist, whose bodily temperament was as sorry a one as his mind •was otherwise, had gradually been tempted to stimu- late it w4tli wine, till he became intemperate in the in- dulgence. It is impossible to say what other stimu- lants might not gradually have crept in ; nor is it improbable that, during the patient's last hours, the physician himself might have ordered them. Sus- tainments of that kind, in dying moments, are fre- quently, and except in the opinion of superstition, very properly administered ; generally, out of pure humanity ; often, in order to enable the sufferer to s^^eak his last words, which may be of great import- 154 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. ance. He may take the stimulant without knowing what it is ; may suppose it to be one of those divine medicines with which God has been pleased to endow herb and mineral, sometimes even poison ; and, indeed, there is no poison, nor dangerous distillation of any- thing, which is not a divine medicine, if used, instead of abused. Addison, therefore, may have had the stimulus given him, whatever it was, not because it was a habit which he could not leave off, and so " died of it," but because, like many a sober man before him, he had not strength enough to speak without it. Again, he might or might not have known anything of the nature of the draught, yet still have regarded his peace of mind as a thing apart from the com- posure of his nerves, and justly founded on what had been a conviction of his life. Xay, supposino- him even to have died as Walpole asserts, he might still have regarded that conviction as a thing triumjohant over the nerves themselves, and over the very inefficacy of the draught ; he might have said to himself, " Nothing can compose me longer, but my belief in my religion. Let me show in this last trial, how tranquillising it can be." It is in vain that we fancy the light spirit of ^Yalpole laughing at us for these considerations— saying to us, "Oh, what need of words ? He died drunk and maudlin, and there's an end." We cannot thus consent to think the worst, instead of best, of a man who has given the world so much instruction and entertainment, and whose Christi- anity, at all events, was of a kind superior to vulgar intolerances, and disposed to think the best of most things. No : if Addison spoke the words, which it THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 155 is very likely he did, his mistake was (for we still think he committed a mistake) in rendering his reli- gious conviction liable to the charge of egotism, and countenancing the assumption, that no others could enable a man to die as peaceably as himself. For to assume this, involves an imputation against the divine government, and the death-beds of good men in all regions of the world. Besides, good men with tender consciences, may sometimes die less peaceably than men who are not so good ; so that on every account it is best, upon the whole, that all such exhibitions of self-complacency be avoided, and the pious mortal, whatever be his particular mode of faith, be content to die in that spirit of resignation to heaven, and inter- change of comfort with those about him, which is common to good people of all faiths. Good words are good things ; yet good deeds are better. Addison, we doubt not, had his rights of comfort from both ; yet there is one thing which we could have preferred his doing in his last hours to any- thing which he may have said. It is the amends which, for some mysterious reason or other, he said he would have made to Gay, " if he lived." The story, as related by Pope, is, that " a fortnight before Addison's death. Lord Warwick came to Gay, and pressed him, in a very particular manner, to go and see Mr Addison, which he had not done for a great while. Gay went, and found Addison in a very weak way. Addison received him in the kindest manner, and told him that he had desired this visit to beg his pardon ; that he had injured him greatly ; but that, if he lived, he should find that he would make it up to 156 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. him. Gay, on his going to Hanover, had great reasons to hope for some good preferment ; but all those views came to nothing. It is not impossible but that Mr Addison might prevent them, from his think- ing Gay too well with some of the former ministry. He did not at all explain himself in what he had in- jured him ; and Gay could not guess at anything else in which he could have injured him so considerably." ]Vow it surely would have been better, if instead of stopping at Gay's pardon of him, which of course the good-natured poet heartily gave (we fancy we see him cominfT out of Holland House with the tears in his eyes), Addison had followed it up with making the amends while he could ; or, better still, had he secured the amends beforehand, in order to warrant his asking the pardon. It may be said, that he might have been unable. He might so. But still he might have given proofs that he had done his best. Addison, it must be owned, did not shine during his occupation of Holland House. He married, and was not happy : he was made Secretary of State, and was not a good one ; he was in Parliament, and could not speak in it ; he quarelled with, and even treated contemptuously, his old friend and associate, Steele, who declined to return the injury. Yet there, in Holland House, he lived and wrote, nevertheless, with a literary glory about his name which never can desert the place ; and to Holland House, while he re- sided in it, must have come all the distinguished men of the day ; for though a Whig, he was personally " well in," as the phrase is, with the majority of all parties. He was in communication with Swift, who THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 157 was a Tory, and with Pope, who was neither Tor}- nor Whig. It was now that the house and its owners began to appear in verse. Rowe addressed stanzas to Addison's bride ; and Tickell after his death touchino-. ly apostrophizes the place : " Thou hill, ^vhose brow the antique structures grace, Eear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race ; Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears, O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears ? " (That is a good and true line.) " How sweet were once thy prospects, fresh and fair, Thy sloping walks and unpolluted air ! How sweet the gloom beneath thy aged trees ! " It seems to have been in Holland House (for he died shortly afterwards) that Addison was visited by Milton's daughter, when he requested her to bring him some evidences of her birth. The moment he beheld her, he exclaimed, " ]Madam, you need no other voucher ; your face is a sufficient testimonial whose daughter you are." It must have been ver) pleasing to Addison to befriend Milton's daughter ; for he had been the first to popularize the great poet by his critiques on " Paradise Lost," in the " Spec- tator." Besides Holland House, Addison possessed a man- sion of his own at Bilton, in Warwickshire, which was afterwards occupied by his daughter, who lived to a great age. He deserved to possess a good house and grounds ; for he understood the elegancies of such things, and the tranquil pleasures of the country The illustrious inhabitant of Kensington watched witL interest the improvement of the royal grounds, and 158 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. was tlie first to propose that " AYinter Garden," to horticulturists in general, which we trust to see real- ized, with such a world of other desirables, in the new Crystal Palace. CHAPTER XYI. HOLLAKD HOUSE CO^^^TINTJED — FAMILY OF THE EOXES — SIE STEPHEN rOX HE:NET fox, FIEST LOED HOLLAND FOX AND PITT HIS LOEDSHIP'S JOVIAL CAEEEE AND MELANCHOLY DECLINE HIS EINGSGATE TILLA — CUEIOUS STOEY OF LADY CAEOLINE LENNOX's DETEE- MINATION TO MAEEY HIM THE EOSE IN THE FOX'S MOUTH LADY SARAH LENNOX, THE "LASS OF EICH- MOND HILL " LADY SUSAN FOX OE STEANGEWAYS, AND PEEILS OF PEIVATE THEATEICALS — HEE MAEEIA6E WITH AN ACTOE. Holland House, after Addison's death, remained in possession of the Warwick family and of their heir, Lord Kensington, who came of the family of Edwardes, till it was purchased of his Lordship by Henry Fox, who subsequently became a lord himself, and took his title from the mansion. This was about a hundred years ag'O, in the beginning of the reig-n of Georj^e » O ' DO O O the Third. Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland of the new race, was the younger son of that marvellous old gentleman, Sir Stephen Fox, who, after having had a numerous offspring by one wife, married another at THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 159 the age of seventy-six, and had three more children, two of whom founded the nohle families of Holland and Ilchester. It was reported that he had been a singing-boy in a cathedral ; AValpole says he was a footman ; and the late Lord Holland, who was a man of too noble a nature to affect ignorance of such tradi- tions, candidly owns that he was a man of " very humble origin." Noble families must begin with somebody ; and -with whom could the new one have better begun than with this stout and large-hearted gentleman, who, after doing real service to the courts in which he rose, and founding institutions for the benefit of his native place, closed a life full of health, activity, and success^ in the eighty-ninth year of his age ? Henry Fox was as full of vitality as his father, and he carried the stock higher ; but, though very knowing-, he was not so wise, and did not end so happily. With him began the first parbamentary emulation between a Fox and a Pitt, which so curious- ly descended to their sons. Many persons now living remember the second rivalry. The first was so like it, that Walpole, in one of his happy comprehensive dashes, describes the House of Commons, for a certain period, as consisting of a " dialogue between Pitt and Fox." The oratory, in the high sense of the word, was on the Pitt side ; but Fox, though an unequal speaker, partly fluent and partly hesitating, had acute- ness, argument, and a natural manner ; and it was a rare honour, even for the short time in which he did so, to divide the honours of emulation with the man who has been since styled the " great Earl of Chat- IGO THE OLD COURT SUBURB. ham." Fox had begun life as a partlzan of Sir Robert AValpole ; and in the course of his career, held lucrative offices under Government — that of Pay- in aster of the Forces, for one — in which he enriched himself to a degree which incurred a great deal of suspicion. He was latterly denounced, in a city address, as the " defaulter of unaccounted millions." Public accounts, in those times, were strangely neg- lected ; and the family have said, that his were in no worse condition than those of others ; but they do not deny that he was a jobber. Fox, however, for a long time, did not care. The joyousness of his tempera- ment, together with some very lax notions of morality, enabled him to be at ease with himself, as long as his blood spun so well. He jobbed and prospered ; ran away with a duke's daughter ; contrived to reconcile himself with the family (that of Pdchmond) ; got his wife made a baroness ; was made a Lord himself. Baron Holland of Foxley ; was a husband, notwitli- standing his jobbing, loving and beloved; was an in- dulgent father ; a gay and social friend — in short, had as happy a life of it as health and spirits could make, till, unfortunately, health and spirits failed ; and then there seems to have been a remnant of his father's better portion within him, which did not allow hira to be so well satisfied with himself in his decline. Out- tricked and got rid of by the flighty Lord Shelburne, and forsaken by the selfish friends with whom he had jobbed and made merry and laughed at principle, he not only experienced the last mortifications of a man of the world, but had retained at least enough belief in the social virtues to be made seriously unhappy by THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 161 the conduct of his worthless companions, particularly by that of E-igby, the most worthless of them all. His Lordship had a talent for vers de socitte, and tried to console himself with a Lament, in which the name of Rigby, now unknown out of the pale of party re- collections, comes in, like an involuntary burlesque : — "White-liver'd Grenville and self-loving Gower Shall never cause one peevish moment more ; Not that their spite required I should repair To southern climates and a warmer air, Slight was the pain they gave, and short its date ; I found I coidd not both despise and hate ; But, Rigby, what did I for thee endure ? " The noble lord tried to divert his melancholy with building a villa near Margate, in a style equally ex- pensive and fantastic, from which he made visits across the channel to France and Italy. He also en- deavoured to get some comfort out of a few other worthless persons, such as George Selywn and Lord March, afterwards " Old Q." (Duke of Queensberry) , gentlemen who, not being in want of places, had abided by him. But all would not do. He returned home and died at Holland House, twenty years younger than his father ; and he was followed in less than a month by his wife. Gray's bitter lines on the house at Kingsgate are so well known, and the owner of it, upon the whole, was so good-natured a man, probably sinning no worse than the companions whose desertion he so lamented, that we are not sorry to omit them. It is said, that a day or two before his death, George Selwyn, who had a passion for seeing dead bodies, sent to ask how he was, and whether a visit would be welcome. 162 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. " Oh, by all means," said Lord Holland. " If I am alive, I shall be delighted to see George ; and I know that, if I am dead, he will be delighted to see me." A curious story is told of the elopement of the Duke of Richmond's daughter. Lady Caroline Lennox, who thus speedily followed her husband to the grave. The Duke was a grandson of King Charles the Second ; and both he and the Duchess had declined to favour the suit of Mr Fox, the son of the equivocal Sir Stephen. They reckoned on her marrying another man ; and an evening was appointed on which the gentleman was to be formally introduced as her suitor. Lady Caroline, whose affections the dashing statesman had secretly engaged, was at her wit's end to know how to baffle this interview. She had evaded the choice of the family as long as possible, but this ap- pointment looked like a crisis. The gentleman is to come in the evening ; the lady is to prepare for his reception by a more than ordinary attention to her toilet. This gives her the cue to what is to be done. The more than ordinary attention is paid ; but it is in a way that renders the interview impossible. She has cut off her eyebrows. How can she be seen by anybody in such a trim ? The indignation of the Duke and Duchess is great ; but the thing is manifestly impossible. She is accordingly left to herself for the night ; she has perfected her plan, in expectation of the result ; and the consequence is, that when next her parents inquire for her, she has gone. Nobody can find her. She is off for Mr Fox. At the corner of Holland House Lane — the one that is now shut up — is a public- house, the Holland THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 163 Arms, the sio^n of which is the family scutcheon. The supporters of the shield are a couple of foxes, and in this emblazonment of it — for the arms in the peerage have no such device — one of the foxes holds a rose in his mouth. The rose is the cognizance of the Rich- mond family. Was this an allusion to the stolen bud ? The old Duchess of Marlborough, whose nephew had been persuaded by Henry, or, as he was familiarly termed, Harry Fox, to join him in politics, called him, " the fox that had stolen her goose." Did this put it into Fox's head to represent himself as the fox that had stolen the rose ? Lady Caroline appears to have been truly attached to her husband. Her death so soon after his own, was not improbably occasioned by it ; and when he procured her the title of Baroness, before he was en- nobled himself, she put up their joint coat of arms in the house, where it is still to be seen, with the motto Me e Marito (king and husband) ; as much as to say that she derived her honours equally from both. But the Fox family, during his Lordship's pros- perity, had been forced to suffer what they considered a degradation, in turn. Among the pictures in Hol- land House we have mentioned an interesting one by Sir Joshua Reynolds, representing, in a group, Lady Sarah Lennox, who was a very young sister of Lady Caroline ; Lady Susan Fox, or Strangeways, an equally young daughter of Henry Fox's cousin. Lord Ilchester, who had taken the name of Strangeways ; and Charles Fox, afterwards the great \Yhig statesman, who was then a youth of eighteen, or thereabouts. Lady Susan is looking down from one of the lower windows of 164 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Holland House ; Lady Sarali is lifting a dove towards her ; and Charles Fox holds a copy of verses in his hand, which he is understood to be repeating to Lady Sarah. Lady Sarah, who was beautiful, is supposed to have been the heroine of the song, " On Richmond Hill there lives a lass," and to have been nearly raised to the throne by the young King, George the Third, who is said to- have frequently ridden past Holland House, on purpose to get a sight of her. She became the wife of Sir Charles Bunbury, who forsook Mrs Inchbald for her ; but a divorce ensued, and she married a Napier. Lady Susan Fox is stated in the Peerage to have married William O'Brien, of Stints- ford, in the county of Dorset, Esquire ; but upon that little word " esquire " — a very little word now-a- days, but at that time a designation of some pretension — hangs a tale of dramatic interest. One of the amusements in Holland House was the performance of plays. It had formerly been a court custom, as it now is again ; but Queen Elizabeth, like Queen Victoria, had the plays performed by profes- sional actors. Among those actors, in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts, were children ; and hence children in private life subsequently figured sometimes as amateurs. We have mentioned a picture in Holland House, by Hogarth, representing the performance of a play of Dryden by children, one of whom was a grand-niece of Sir Isaac Newton. It may be here added, that another was of the Pomfret family, and that two figures in the background are said to be a Duke and Duchess of Richmond. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 1G5 In the January of the year seventeen hundred and sixty-one, Horace AValpole was present at a perform- ance of this kind in Holland House, which greatly entertained him. But the account of it had better be given in his own words. " I was excessively amused (says he) on Tuesday night. There was a play at Holland House, acted by children ; not all children, for Lady Sarah Lennox and Lady Susan Strangeways played the women. It was Jane Shore. Mr Price, Lord Barrington's nephew, was Gloster, and acted better than three parts of the comedians ; Charles Fox, Hastings ; a little Nichols, who spoke well, Belmour; Lord Ofaly, Lord Ash- broke, and other boys, did the rest. But the two girls were delightful, and acted with so much nature and simplicity, that they appeared the very things they represented. Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive, and her very awkwardness gave an air of truth to the shame of the part and the an- tiquity of the time, which was kept up by her dress, taken out of Montfaucon. Lady Susan was dressed from Jane Seymour ; and all the parts were clothed in ancient habits, and with the most minute propriety. When Lady Sarah was in white, with her hair about her ears, and on the ground, no Magdalen by Corregio was half so lovely and expressive. You would have been charmed, too, with seeing Mr Fox's little boy of six years old, who is beautiful, and acted the Bishop of Ely, dressed in lawn sleeves and with a square cap. They inserted two lines for him, which he could hardly speak plainly." (This little boy died a general in the year eighteen hundred and eleven.) 166 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. So far, so good ; and Horace AYalpole is enchanted with young ladies who act plays. But ladies who act plays are apt to become enchanted with actors ; and three years after this performance of Jane Shore, a catastrophe occurs at Ilchester House, which makes Horace yituperate such enchantments as loudly as if he had never encouraged them, O'Brien, a veritable actor at the public theatres, runs away with the noble friend of Jane Shore, the charming Lady Susan ; and the Foxes, and the Walpoles, and all other admirers of amateur performances, are in despair ; not excepting, of course, the runner away with the Duke's daughter. Horace, forgetting what he said of Sir Stephen, or perhaps calling it desperately to mind, declares that it would have been better had the man been a foot- man, because an actor is so well known, that there is no smuggling him in among gentlefolk. " // ne sera pas milord tout comme iin autre." The worst of it was, that Horace had not only been loud in praise of the young lady's theatricals, but had eulogised this very O'Brien as a better representative of men of fashion than Garrick himself. Perhaps it was his eulogy that made the lady fall in love. And O'Brien was really a distinguished actor, and probably as much of a gentleman off the stage as on it. Nay, to say nothing of the doubt which has been thrown upon the legitimacy of Horace himself (who is suspected to have been the son of Carr, Lord Hervey), the player may even have come of a better house than a Walpole ; for the Walpoles, though of an ancient, were but of a coun- try-gentleman stock; whereas the name of O'Brien THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. 1G7 is lield to be a voucher for a man's coming of race royal. "We do not mean by these remarks to advocate in- termarriages between different ranks. There is well- founded objection to them in the difference of educa- tion and manners, and the discord which is likely to ensue on all sides. But their general unadvisedness must not render us unjust to exceptions. An Earl of Derby some time afterwards was thought to have married good breeding itself in the person of Miss Farren the actress ; and though Mr O'Brien, instead of being smuggled in among the gentlefolk whom he so well represented, was got off with his wife to America, their after-lives are recorded as having been equally happy and respectable. So Lad}'- Susan, after all, made a better match of it with her actor than Lady Sarah with the baronet. So much for the plays at Holland House, and the vicissitudes in the marriages of the Foxes. CHAPTER XYII. HOLLAND HOUSE ' C0>''CLUDED — STEPHEIf, SECO^TD LOED HOLLAKD — CHARLES JAMES FOX, THE STATESMAN — • HIS CAREER AND CHARACTER HENRY RICHARD, THIRD LORD HOLLAND — HIS ELEGANT LITERATURE, HOSPITALITY, PROTESTS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, &C. Stephen, second Lord Holland, though by no means destitute of natural abilities or vivacity, appears 168 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. to have had in his composition too great a predomi- nance of the animal nature over the spiritual. He was good-natured, but whimsical ; and as he had been allowed to have his way, his way probably lay chiefly in the eating and drinking line ; for his face is sleepy and sensual, with very thick lips. Hence an apo- plectic tendency, which took him off at the age of nine-and-twenty. But Stephen had a brother, afterwards the cele- brated Charles James Fox, the " man of the people," who, however be may have indulged himself in the same way, had life enough in him to keep him wide awake (and others too) for nearly twice the time. Indeed, he may be said, during his youth, to have had too much life ; more animal vitality in him, and robust- ness of body to bear it out, than he well knew what to do with. And his father is said to have encour- aged it by never thwarting his will in anything. Thus the boy expressing a desire one day to " smash a watch," the father, after ascertaining that the little gentleman did positively feel such a desire, and was not disposed to give it up, said, " Well, if you must, I suppose you must ; " and the watch was smashed. Another time, having been promised that he should see a portion of a wall pulled down, and the demolition having taken place while he was absent, and a new portion supplied, the latter itself was pulled down, in order that the father's promise might be kept, and the boy not disappointed. The keeping of the promise was excellent, and the wall well sacrificed ; but not so the watch ; and much less the guineas with which his father is absolutely said to have tempted him to the THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 169 gaming table, out of a foolish desire to see the boy employed like himself. Habits ensued which became alarming to the old gamester himself, and which im- peded the rise, injured the reputation, and finally nullified that supremacy on the part of the son, which was borne away from him by the inferior but more decorous nature of Pitt. Fox was a great lesson as to what is good and what is bad in fatherly indulgence. All that was good in him it made better ; all that was bad it made worse. And it would have made it worse still, had not the good luckily preponderated, and thus made the best at last even of the bad. Charles was to have his way as a child ; so he smashed watches. He was to have his way as a youth ; so he gambled and was dissolute. He was to have his way as a man ; so he must be in Parliament, and get power, and vote as his father did, on the Tory side, because his father had indulged him, and he must indulge his father. But his father died, and then the love of sincerity, which had been taught the youth as a bravery and a predominance, was encouraged to break forth by the galling of his political trammels ; and though he could not refuse his passions their indulgence, till friends rescued him from insolvency, and thus j)iqued his gratitude into amendment, that very circumstance tended to show that he added strens'th and largeness of heart to his father's softness ; for the spoilt child and reckless gamester, though he never could become the ruling power in a state which had got into the hands of mere conventional decorum (for his brief oc- cupations of ofiice are to be counted as nothing), 170 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. finally settled down as the representative of a nobler age that was coming, and was the charm in private of all who admired simplicity of manners, and the per- fection of good sense. Apart from this love of truth, we do not take him, in any respect, to have been profound, or to have seen beyond the next generation. In none of his departures from conventionalities, practical or theoretical, did he incline to go beyond the warrant of the liberality of the day. His love of truth itself, perhaps, was none the worse for his indolence. He found it easiest as well as noblest to take to its broad, straight road. Xot that the reputation of truth is to suffer on that ac- count. It only shows how good it is for temperaments of all kinds. His oratoi-y was very effective, from its vehemence and sincerity; yet nobody now reads it. His " History of James the Second," in spite of his reputation as the greatest master of the subject, was a general disappointment. His reading, though far from being of a narrow description, lay chiefly in the middle classes of literature, and leaned to style and manners rather than to any power beyond them. AVhat was greatest in Charles Fox was his freedom from all nonsense, pettiness, and pretension. He could by no means admit that greater was smaller, or the rights of the American or French nations inferior to those of their princes. He envied no man his good qualities ; felt under no necessity of considering his dignity with young or old ; thought humanity at large superior to any particular forms of it ; and in becoming its representative in circles which would have conceded such a privilege to none but a man of THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 171 birth, enabled them to feel how charming it was, and thus became the most cherished head of a party that ever, perhaps, existed. An excess of this geniality of nature, on the wrong side of it, when he was young, had given a tendency to his jovial body, which cut him off with a dropsy before he was old. At least, ho was but fifty-eight ; which was not an age at which a man of so strong a constitution ought to have died. But the wisdom of the spiritual portion of it survived the folly of the rest, just as soul itself survives body ; and this kept him the consistent statesman, and the pleasant sage of private life, to the last. The spoilt child prevailed so long in the life of Fox, and, to all appearance, so irremediably, that accounts of him at different periods seem hardly re- cording the same man. To give instances, in as few words as possible. We have seen the smashing of the watch. When a youth, he was a great admirer of peerages and ribbons ; and on his return from his first visit to the continent, he appeared in red-heeled shoes and a feather in his hat — the greatest fopperies of the day. His father paid a hundred and forty thousand pounds for his gaming debts. He took to the other extreme in dress, and became as slovenly as he had been foppish. On coming into ofiace, he showed that he could be as industrious as he had been idle. Whenever he was in office, he never touched a card ; and when his political friends, out of a sense of what was due to his public services, finally paid his debts, and made him easy for life, he left off J)lay entirely. 172 THE OLD COUET SUBUEB. He dressed decently and simply, and settled down for the remainder of his life into the domestic husband, the reader of books, and the lover of country retire- ment, from which he could not bear to be absent for a day. In Holland House, Fox passed his boyhood and part of his youth. He is not much associated with it otherwise, except as a name. He and a friend, one day, without a penny in their pockets, walked thither from Oxford, a distance of fifty miles ; for the purpose, we suppose, of getting a supply. They resolved to do it without stopping on the road ; but the day was hot ; an alehouse became irresistible ; and on arriving at their journey's end, Charles thus addressed his father, who was drinking his coffee : " You must send half a guinea or a guinea without loss of time to the ale- house-keeper at Nettlebed, to redeem the gold watch you gave me some years ago, and which I have left in pawn there for a pot of porter." A little before he died, he drove several times with his wife to Holland House, and looked about the grounds with a melancholy tenderness. But, notwithstanding the celebrity of Charles Fox, and that of Addison himself, the man who has drawn the greatest attention to Holland House, if not in his own person, yet certainly by the effect of his personal qualities and attainments upon other people, was Fox's nephew, the late Lord Holland, Henry Richard, third of the title. He succeeded to the title before he was a year old ; rescued the old mansion from ruin, as before noticed ; and with allowance for visits to the continent, and occasional residence in town, may be THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. 173 said to Lave passed his whole life in it, between enjoy- ments of his books, and hospitalities to wits and worthies of all parties. Lord Holland was a man of elegant literature, of liberal politics, of great benevolence. Travelling like other young noblemen on the continent, but extend- ing his acquaintance with it beyond most of them, and going into Spain, his inclinations became directed to the writers of that country, and his feelings deeply interested in their political struggles. The consequence was a work in two volumes, containing the Lives of Lope de Vega and Guillen de Castro, a translation of three Spanish comedies, and the most hosi^itable and generous services to the patriots who suffered exile in the cause of their country's freedom. The comedies we have never seen. The Lives, though not profound (for his Lordship was educated in a school of criticism anterior to that of Coleridge and the Germans), are excellent as far as they go, written with classical cor- rectness, and full of the most pleasing and judicious remarks. The friendly intercourse to which he in- vited all who were distinguished on the liberal side of politics or wit, had, in the mean time, constituted him a kind of representative of theirs in the great world. The Edinburgh Review was said (though erroneously) to be concocted at Holland House, owing to the resi- dence with him of his friend Mr Allen, who was one of its principal contributors ; and the reputation thus publicly acquired was maintained at his hospitable table by a conversation, which, though full of his personal good-nature, was remarkable for its exaction of the severest reasoning, and the most scrupulous 174 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. attention to facts. How lie reconciled this nicety, or his liberal principles in general, with that unbounded admiration for Bonaparte which has lately transpired in his posthumous " Recollections of Foreign Courts," it is difficult to say. The admiration, we have no doubt, was driven into the inconsistency by the hypo- crisy and broken promises of Bonaparte's enemies, the kings and ministers, who pretended to oppose him in behalf of freedom. The same disgust at hypocrisy, sharpened by personal experience of the inconsistency of those .customs in his own country which will dis- countenance at court what they consecrate at the altar, led him to speak freely of the habits of courts in general ; and offence was taken at the moment, both at his Napoleon predilections and his old-world aver- sions. The cloud on the memory of so warm a heart was not calculated to last. Privately he will be re- membered only for his benevolence, and for the great increase of pleasant associations which he has given to Holland House, and there is a reigning circumstance in his career which will procure him a niche in the parliamentary history of his times, equally unique and beautiful — and that is, that whenever a measure was carried throurrh the House of Lords which was not of a just or generous nature, Lord Holland's " Protest " against it was sure to be found upon the records. He might have been called, in a new sense of the word, the Protestant Peer. There is a book of his, also, which will live, — the other post humous work, entitled " Reminiscences of the Whig party." It is written not only with correctness and elegance, but with a charming mixture of acuteness and good-nature THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 175 — of the sharp and the sweet, the " true pine-apple flavour " — and contains some masterly portraitures of character. It is a pity that the lives of such men are not always as long as they might be. Lord Holland had a constitutional tendency to gout, which, till he was married, he kept imder by hard riding and hunting, of which up to that period he had been extremely fond. He afterwards, like his uncle Charles, used to play at tennis, and to fish ; for, with the same inconsistency, and like many another good man before him (and since), he was an instance of the wonderful effect of habit and education in being able to blink the un- answerable objection that lies at the core of all reason- ing on the subject of " sporting ; " to wit, the un- warrantableness of any pleasure founded on the in- fliction of pain. During the last twenty years of his life, his gout conspired with his love of books to render him less and less active, till at last he became wholly confined to his chair ; and the disease killed him at the age of sixty-seven. It has been observed of the Fox face, that it im- proved with every generation. Lord Holland is described in a contemporary letter of one of his rela- tions as being very handsome when a child, and he was comely throughout life. The only objection to be made to his face was, that his nose, though of a manly shape and well-formed, was somewhat too small— a defect to which his friend Napoleon, who thought nothino- was to be done but bv men with well-de- veloped noses, would have attributed the inactivity that hastened his end. Perhaps it was lucky for the 17G THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Emperor that his future panegyrist, though he good- humouredly encouraged playful allusions to the defect from his family, was not aware of the great man's opinion in this respect ; which has but lately, we believe, transpired. His Lordship might have ob- served, however, that if his life was not so stirring as the great captain's, it was longer, more his own, and had a better end ; that his uncle Charles, though he had nose enough to lead a great party, died of a dropsy, nine years sooner ; and that the Emperor him- self would have been luckier, even as a soldier, if his nose had not induced him to thrust it into Spain and Moscow. CHAPTER XYIII. LITTLE H0LLA>^D HOUSE ilRS I>"CHBALD — HOK. MISS rOX — BENTHAM AND SIDKET SMITH — ADDISON EOAD GENERAL AND LADT MART EOX — " HOMER VILLAS " AND " CATO COTTAGES " — ADDISON TERRACE LEE's NURSERY KENSINGTON GRAVEL-PITS SWIET THE CALLCOTTS SHEFFIELD, DUKE OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE — CAMPDEN GROVE — NEWTON HOUSE AND SIR ISAAC NEWTON CAMPDEN HOUSE STRANGE HISTORY OP THE LITTLE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, SON OF PRIN- CESS (afterwards queen) ANNE — " DUKE UPON DUKE," OR LECUMERE AND GUISE — ROMANTIC TOWER. Near Holland House, in a portion, still accessible, of the late thoroughfare leading to it, called Night- ingale Lane, stands Little Holland House ; a small THE OLD COUET SUBURB. 177 mansion compared witli the other, but still a mansion ; isolated, countrified, and standing in a garden. Here Mrs Inchbald once spent a couple of weeks with its occupant, a Mr Bubb, and dined frequently with him on Sundays (who was he ?) ; and here lived and died Miss Fox, the sister of the late Lord Holland, a lady deserving to be remembered ; for everybody seems to have loved her. In her girlhood, she and a young friend, ]Miss V., a distant connection of the familj', were much in the house of another family connection, the first Lord Lansdowne, at that time Lord Shel- burne, the minister, where she became intimate with his Lordship's protege, Jeremy Bentham, who at that time was still young himself. The future venerable jurist possessed a great deal of vivacity ; played on the harpsichord and violin ; and being in a curious state of perplexity between his amatory and his cross-ex- amining tendencies, appears to have fallen at one and the sama time in love with Miss V. and in dread of the match-making intentions of his noble host, who seems privately as well as publicly to have been considered a very plotting personage. Bentham thought that his Lordship was constantly meditating marriages for all his young lady visitors. The consequence was, that the philosopher delayed the declaration of his love till ho was grown old ; and what is more curious, he took it to heart that the lady refused him. He had not much cultivated her acquaintance meantime ; yet seems to have concluded, that she had remained single on pur- pose to wait her chance. We do not know whether he ever again saw the lady, after the refusal ; but one of the last glimpses which biography affords us of 12 178 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. himself, is his walking from Little Holland House, one Sunday morning, in company with Miss Fox and the Reverend Sidney Smith, on the way of the two latter to church. Bentham did not go to church with them. He did not think it right ; and he was too honest to belie his opinions. On the other hand, he tells us that the reverend wit apologized to him for going, alleging that it was his "trade." It may be doubted, nevertheless, whether Sidney, in making this apparently " indiscreet " observation, was not banter- ing the philosopher's tendency to such assumptions ; and intimating that it was hopeless to suppose him capable of taking any other view of the proceeding. Wits, however, it must be owned, are apt to make questionable churchmen. The turning out of the high road, next to Night- ingale Lane, is Addison Road ; and at a right angle with this turning, in the high road itself, is Addison Terrace ; places named after the former illustrious in- habitant of Holland House. Addison Road, the houses in which, upon the whole, are in good taste, is terminated by the villa of General Fox, in whose person, the descendants of Sir Stephen Fox have again married with royalty ; the lady of the gallant officer being one of the daughters of King William the Fourth. It is curious to see the new turns that are taken by the children of new generations. A royally descended ancestress of the Foxes, grand-daughter of King Charles the Second, would as soon have thought of flying to the moon, as of "editing" a political ro- mance. The name of Lady Mary Fox has transpired THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 179 ill editorial connection with a book of this kind ; which, under the title of an " Expedition to the In- terior of New Holland," is an Utopian speculation, remarkable for its powers of reflection and for its liberal principles, without, in the least degree, de- rogating from what is becoming in the sex of the fair editor. The landlords of some of the houses in Addison Road did not very happily christen them, when they called them " Homer Yilla," " Cato Cottage," &c. Cato might very well have lived in a cottage ; and his ancestor, Cato the Censor, probably did ; but people are not accustomed to associate the idea of Coosar's antagonist with a cottage ; and the impression is not mended, when they find that the cottage is named after Addison's tragedy. " Homer Yilla " is worse ; for who can associate the idea of the great ancient wandering poet with a modern citizen's box ? or what critic could have fancied, that a house in a road named after Addison would ever have been named after Homer, because Addison was supposed to have written the version of the first book of the " Hiad," which bore the name of his friend Tickell ! Addison Road is of some length ; is adorned with a modern chapel in good ancient style ; and the backs of the houses on the eastern side make sequestered ac- quaintance with the trees of Holland Park. Addison Terrace does not do equal honour to its name. The houses have a thick, stunted, and huddled appearance. We believe, however, that they are better and larger than they seem. From this point of Kensington to its western 180 THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. boundary a little further on, we know of nothing worth mention, except the boundary itself, which runs through the nursery-grounds of the Messrs Lee. These grounds have been known in the parish books, under the title of the Vineyard, ever since the time of William the Conqueror. Wine, described as a sort of Burgundy, was actually made and sold in them, as late as the middle of last century. Wine was formerly made in many parts of Eng- land, probably in no great quantity. It naturally gave way to drinks more congenial to the soil. The right, popular wine of countries which do not produce wine of the best quality, is that which free trade ought to bring them (and will bring them) from those which do. Another interesting circumstance connected with this spot, is, that it has been in the hands of the respectable family that occupies it, for three genera- tions. The founder of it, James Lee, author of one of the earliest popular systems of Botany, was a corre- spondent of Linnaeus. In order to avoid the dulness of retracing our steps, we go a little beyond the bounds of the parish, and turning north and westward through pleasant Brook Green, and no less poetically-named Shepherd's Bush, return to it, and ascend Netting (originally, perhaps, Nutting) Hill. By this we arrive at Ken- sington Gravel-pits, which is a kind of second Ken- sington High Street, being to the northern boundary line of the suburb in the Uxbridge Road, what the High Street, commonly so called, is to Kensington Proper in the road to Hammersmith. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 181 Since the disappearance of the actual Gravel-pits, their name seems to have been superseded, of late 3'ears, by the joint influence of the new streets on Netting Hill and in Bayswater ; — all this portion of Kensington to the west of the turnpike being now ad- dressed, we believe, post-officially, as Netting Hill ; and all of it, to the east of the turnpike, being under- stood, in like manner, to belong to Bayswater. We regret the loss of the old name for many reasons. The district called the Gravel-pits, or at least so called in books, and in directions of letters, appears, on a rough calculation, to have compi-eh ended all the north and north-western side of Kensington, lying between Netting Hill, Bayswater, Holland House, the Church, and the Palace. Readers may call to mind a remnant of one of the pits, existing but a few years ago, to the north of the Palace in Kensington Gardens, and adding greatly to their picturesque look thereabouts. A pleasant poetical tradition was connected with it, of which we shall have something farther to say. Now, the Gravel-pits were the fashionable suburb resort of invalids, from the times of William and Anne to the close of the last century. Their " country air," as it was called, seems to have been preferred, not only to Essex, but to Kent. Garth, in his " Dispensary," makes an apothecary say, that sooner than a change shall take place, from making the poor pay for medicine, to giving it them gratis, " Alps shall sink to vales, And leeches in our glasses turn to whales, Alleys at Wapping furnish us new modes, And Monmouth Street Versailles with riding hoods 182 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. The rich to th' Hundreds in pale crowds repair, And change the Gravel-pits for Kentish air." Swift had lodgings in the Gravel-pits during the winters of 1712 and 1713 ; and Lord Chatham's sister, Anne Pitt (as like him, says Horace Walpole, " as two drops of fire "), is recorded to have died at " her house, in Pitt Place, Kensington Gravel-pits," in 1780, In the pleasant little corner entitled the Mall (why so called we know not, probably from its having been a more open place formerly, and frequented by players of the game so called) lived and died, not long since, the admired painter of our cold northern skies and sea-coasts, Sir Augustus Callcott ; whose death was followed, in the same place, by that of his wife, previously known as Mrs Graham (an estimable writer of travels and his- tory). It had been preceded some years, in the same place, by that of his brother, ^Villiam Callcott, a learned and interesting musician, celebrated for his composition of glees. He was author of the pathetic composition, " It was a Friar of Orders Grey ; " and is understood to have been the ruin of Sir John Haw- kins's " History of Music," by no greater weapon than a musical pun ; having expressed, in a catch on the subject, his preference of Burney's History ; which, by the frequent repetition of its title, in contradistinc- tion to that of Sir John's, was made to say, with a horrible re-iteration, " Burn his History." Have yon Sir John Hawkins' hist'ry ? Some folks think it quite a myst'ry. Music fiU'd his wondrous brain ; How d'ye like him? Is it plain? Both I've read, and must agree Burney's hist'ry pleases me. THE OLD COUIIT SUBURB. 1S3 Sir John Hawkins— Sir John Hawkins, How d'ye like him ? how d'ye like him ? Burney's hist'ry — Burnei/s hist'ry, Burney's hist'ry pleases me, M. Fetis, the most learned of musical critics, lias well disposed of the merits of the two histories, by- showing-, that neither of them was as good as the author supposed, but that each contains matter want- ing in the other, and turnable to account. Barney, however, besides being a musician professed, had made himself personally acceptable in the circles of literature and fashion, by his agreeable manners ; whereas Hawkins, who was only an amateur (he had been bred an attorney), was pragmatical, niggardly, and censorious. Hawkins was one of those men who, in a special manner, " take upon themselves to know ; " and, like most such persons, he was apt to pronounce grand final judgments upon things of which he knew little. Hence the epitaph that was written upon him, and that so briefly and pleasantly expresses the knight's pompous manner, and the nothings which he uttered : — Here lies Sir John Hawkins, Without his shoes and staiuJdngs. Turninx'll bred to your Majest}', I dare say. 204 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. Lady Sukdox. I am sure lie loved the Queen. Princess Emily. That is, you are sui^e he said so, my good Lady Sundon ; and so will all mamma's pages and gentle- men-ushers. Lady Sundox. But he said it in a way that I think I could see whether he felt what he said, or not. He has often said, that the Queen had a thousand good, and agreeable, and amiable qualities, that one should like in a private person ; and that he could not conceive why those qualities were not to be loved because they were in a Queen — and one felt the justness of that way of thinking ; and I assure your Hoyal Highness, I think the Queen will have a very great loss of him ; for, besides the use he was of in Parliament, which I do not pretend to be a judge of, he was certainly a constant amusement to the Queen in private, and gave up his whole time to amuse her ;* and I must say, I do not think it is everybody [if they would give their whole time to it] is capable of amusing the Queen. Queen. Oh ! upon my word, he amuse 1 me exceedingly. I pray, give me the basin to wash. [Lady Pem- broke kneels, and gives the haHin.'] * Being liu5biincl, all the while, of the charming Mary Lepell. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 205 Hei'e follows a mutilated passage, the omissions in which will be accounted for presenth'. The next scene but one presents us with a dialogue between the Queen and Sir Robert Walpole, in which her jNIajesty is held forth to the coming generations of Englishmen as an enemy to their liberties ; and then comes an exposure of the absurdities and vul- garities of courtiers in general, b}'' this the coarsest of their brethren, and one of the most servile. We quote only a part of it. ACT III. Scene changes to the Great Dr'aioing-Room. All the Courtiers ranged in a circle. Enter the Queen, led by Lord Grantham, /o//o«'efZ ly the Princesses and all her train. Queen curtsies slightly ; drawiny-room lows and curtsies eery loio. Queen \to the Duke of Argyt.l]. ~\Vherehave you been, my Lord ? One has not had the pleasure to see you a great while ; and one always misses you. Duke of Argyll. I have been in Oxfordshire, Madam ; and so long, that I was asking mv father here, Lord Selkirk, how to behave. I know nobody that knows the way of a court so well, nor that has knoAvn them so long. Lord Selkirk. By God ! my Lord, I know nobody knows better than the Duke of Argyll. 26G THE OLD COURT SUBURB. . Duke of Argyll. All I know, father, is as yoiir pupil ; but I told you I was grown a country gentleman. Lord Selkirk. You often tell me things I do not belieA'e. QuEEX \_iaugh{ng~\. Ha ! ha ! ha ! You are always so good together, arid my Lord Selkirk is so lively. \_Turning to Lord President.] I think, my Lord, you are a little of a country gentleman too ; you love Chiswick mightily ; you have very good fruit there, and are very curious in it ; you have very good plums. Lord President. I like a plum, Madam, mightily ; it is a very pretty fruit. Queen. The green-gage, I think, is very good. Lord President. There are three of that sort. Madam ; there is the true green-gage, and there is the Drap-d'or that has yellow spots, and there is the Pteina Claude that has red spots. Queen. Ah ! ah ! One sees you are very curious, and that you understand these things perfectly well ; upon my word, I did not know you were so deep i i these THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 267 things. You know the plum, as Solomon did the plants, from the cedar to the hyssop. Queen [_to the fir' st Court-Lady]. I believe you found it very dusty. First Court- Lady. Yery dusty. Madam. Queen \to the second Court-Lady]. Do you go soon into the country, Madam ? Second Court- Lady. Yery soon. Madam. Queen [to the third Court- Lady]. The town is very empty, I believe, Madam ? Third Court- Lady. Yery empty, Madam. Queen [to the fourth Court- Lady]. I hope all your family is very well, Madam ? Fourth Court- Lady. Yery well. Madam. Queen [to the fifth Court- Lady]. We have had the finest summer for walking in the world. Fifth Court-Lady. Yery fine, Madam. 2GS THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. QuEEx \^to the Duchess of Hamilton]. One cannot help wishing you joy, Madam, every time one sees you, of the good matches your daughters have made. Duchess of Hamilton. Considering how they behaved, I wonder indeed they had any matches at all ; but for any other women of qviality, one should think it no great catch for one to be married to a fool, and t'other to a beggar. Queen. Oh ! fie, fie, my good Duchess ! one cannot help laughing, you are so lively ; but your expressions are very strong. Queen [to the Duchess of Rutland]. Come, come, my good Duchess, one is always glad to see 3^ou. Duchess of Rutland. Your Majesty is always very kind to an old woman and a poor widow, that j^ou are so good to let torment you about her children ; and. Madam, I must beg your Majesty [loliispers to the Queen]. Enter Lord Grantham, in a hurry. Lord Grantham. Ah ! dere is my Lord Hervey in your Majesty s gallery ; he is in de frock and de bob, or he should have come in."* Queen. Mon dieu ! My Lord Grantham, you are mad ! * Lord Grantham was another naturalized Frenehman. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 2G9 Lord Grantham. He is dere, all so live as he was ; and he play de trick, to see as we should all say. Queen. Then he is mad. — Allons voir qu'est ce que e'est que tout ceci. [Let's go and see what it's all about.] [_E.veunt omnes. In the course of this drama, the editor of the " Memoirs " has been obliged to omit some passages, as being too indecent for modern eyes. So much for the equivocal part that Queen Caro- line is made to perform, even in a piece intended to please her. What would she have thought of the un- communicated scenes at Court, in the rest of the " Memoirs," Avhere, in spite of the good things still said of her, and of the biographer's professed devoted - ness to her memory, her vanities are exposed, her se- cretest confidences betrayed, the spirit of her self- sacrifices to her husband converted into artifice and ambition, and the personal infirmities; which she pre- ferred death to mentioning, disclosed, ridiculed, and made ofiiensive ? There were also things to be told of her, according to this friend, which " could not be heightened," and which were "scarcely to be credited." So, he tells them ! AVe allude to those more than tolerations of her husband's infidelity, which Sir E,obert Walpole coun- tenanced, which are said to have been lauded to her Majesty's face by an Archbishop (Blackburne), and for which she had found warrant, perhaps, not only in 270 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. other courts, but in a remarkable chapter of the " Essays " of Montaigne. The particulars we must not here repeat ; but nobody will doubt that their disclosure was to the last degree base in a man, who must have tolerated the toleration with, at least, the most courtly silence ; probably, with implied admira- tion ; and who Avaited for the death of his benefactress to betray it to the world. To complete these portentous instances of ingra- titude, we subjoin the passages respecting the Queen's alleged love of domination, preceded by an account of the Lord Liiford above mentioned, and his Lordship's wife, equally disparaging to the writers's " gracious master," and " most beloved mistress." The whole is a manifest caricature ; and, we doubt not, full of false- hoods. Enter Milord and Lady Lifford, to have their por- traits painted hy their friend and fellow -servant, Lord Hervey. " These two people, born in France, having more religion (says his Lordship) than sense (let the reader note that, and think of him in attendance at the chapel royal), left their native country on a crime of being Protestants ; and being of great quality, and not in great circumstances, had during four reigns subsisted on the scanty charity of the English court. They were constantly — every night in the country, and three nights of the week in town — alone with the King and Queen for an hour or two before they M^ent to bed, during which time the King walked about THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 271 and talked to the brother of armies, or to the sister of genealogies, whilst the Queen knitted and yawned, till from yawning she came to nodding, and from nodding to snoring. " These two miserable court-drudges were in more constant waiting than any of the pages of the back- stairs, were very simple, and very quiet, did nobody any hurt, nor anybody but his Majesty any pleasure, who paid them so ill for all their assiduity and slavery, that they were not only not in affluence, but laboured under the disagreeable burdens of small debts (which a thousand pounds would have paid), and had not an allowance from the Court that enabled them to appear there even in the common decency of clean clothes. The King, nevertheless, was always saying how well he loved them, and calling them the best people in the world. But, though lie never forgot their good- ness, he never remembered their poverty ; and, by giving them so much of his time, which nobody but him would have given them, and so little of his money, which everybody but him in his situation would have afforded them, he gave one just as good an opinion of his understanding by what he bestowed, as he did of his generosity by what he withheld. The Queen, whose most glaring luerit was not that of giving, was certainly, with regard to this poor woman, as blame- able as the King. For the playthings of princes, let them be ever so trifling, ought always to be gilt, those who contribute to their pleasures having a right to their bounty. " To most people, however, it was a matter of wonder how the Hincr and Queen could have sucli 272 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. persons constantly witli them. The truth of the case was, that the King had no taste for better company, and the Queen, though she had a better taste, was forced to mortify her own to please his. Her predo- minant passion was pride, and the darling pleasure of her soul was power ; but she was forced to gratify the one and gain the other, as some people do health, by a strict and painful regime, which few besides herself could have had the courage to support, or resolution to adhere to. She was at least seven or eight hours ttte-a-tete with the King every day, during which time she was generally saying what she did not think, assenting to what she did not believe, and praising what she did not approve ; for they were seldom of the same opinion, and he too fond of his own for her ever at first to dare to controvert it (' consilii quamvis egregii quod ipse non afferret, inimicus ') : 'an enemy to any counsel, however excellent, which he himself had not suggested.' — Tacitus. She used to give him her opinion as jugglers do a card, by chang- ing it imperceptibly, and making hira believe he held the same with that he first pitched upon. But that which made these tete-a-tttes seem heaviest, was tliat as he neither liked reading or being read to (unless it was to sleep), she was forced, like the spider, to spin out of her bowels all the conversation with which the fly was taken. However, to all this she submitted for the sake of power, and for the reputation of having it ; for the vanity of being thought to possess what she desired, was equal to the pleasure of the possession itself. But, either for the appearance or the reality, she knew it was absolutely necessary to have interest THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 273 In lier husband, as she was sensible that interest was the measure by which people would always judge of her power. Her every thought, word, and act, there- fore, tended and was calculated to preserve her in- fluence there. To him she sacrificed her time ; for him she mortified her inclination ; she looked, spake, and breathed but for him, like a weathercock to every capricious blast of his uncertain temper, and governed him (if such influence so gained can bear the name of government) by being as great a slave to him thus ruled as any other wife could be to a man who ruled her. For all the tedious hours she spent, then, in watching him whilst he slept, or the heavier task of entertaining him whilst he was awake, her single con- solation was in reflecting she had power, and that people in cofiee-houses and ruelles were saying she governed the country, without knowing how dear the government of it cost her." * Such are the opinions respecting his benefactress which Lord Hervey wishes us to think he secretly held, all the while he was looking her in the face, and expressing his love, and gratitude, and adoration ! ! ! Lord Hervey, amidst all his talk about others, for- got one thing about himself which, in spite of himself, he nevertheless disclosed also ; namely, that as a ser- vile and fawning courtier, he was a liar by habit ; and, as all gossips tend to be liars by inclination, in consequence of the pepper and be-devilment which calumny gives to discourse, Hervey was probably a liar of the grossest, because most malignant, descrip- tion. Readers, therefore, are warranted in believing * Vol. i. p. 292. 18 271 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. just as much of him, or as little, as they please. He has exonerated Pope from the charge of calumniating him ; and in Pope's satire he accordingly remains, pinned down for ever, as the most monstrous and venomous thing in the shape of a butterfly, which lever infested a court. To all the poison of Hervey's libels on his bene- factress, we would oppose, as their crowning antidote, the following simple notice of her, written after her death, by the Countess of Hertford, subsequently Duchess of Somerset ; Thomson's Countess, the friend of him and Shenstone ; formerly one of the ladies of Caroline's bedchamber. It is to be found in her Cor- respondence with another intelligent and amiable wo- man, the Countess of Pomfret, and implies the latter's joint testimony to the truth of the record. " I have had the pleasure," says Lady Hertford, " of seeing at Rysbach's a bust of our ever-regretted mistress, so like her (except a little too much height in the nose), that I could not look upon it without feeling a return of that tender concern which we each experienced this time twelvemonths, with as much truth as any that were in her service, though possi- bly with more silence.* The recollection was so strongly on ray spirits all Sunday and Monday, that I was downright ill ; and had, in imagination, much conversation with ^-ou on the subject. . During both those days, I M'as almost persuaded that you and I were again placed on each side the fire, in the little waiting-room at St. James's, where we sat that fatal * Hcrvcy was probably one of the howlers. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 275 Sunday night which robbed the world of one whose loss there is every day greater cause to lament, and on whom I can never think without a sio^h." This is evidently a testimony from the heart. Its warmth, unabated by the lapse of a twelvemonth ; the pressure of the recollection on the writer's mind for two days together, till she became " downright ill ; " her taking Lady Pomfret's equal sympathy for grant- ed ; and even that little piece of homely painting — the sitting on the two sides of the fire-place — all show the truth and depth of the sorrow professed, and arc worth a million of the representations of a malignant courtier, who confesses that he lied whenever it suited him, and who had probably found, in some corner of the confidential letters of poor Caroline, in possession of "a friend," a mention of himself, such as her habitual good-nature, and her wish to think the best of those about her, had too often spared him. One little caustic drop on the vanity of such a man, how- ever unwillingly dropped, would have sufiiced to bring forth all his venom. We shall conclude these references to Lord Her- vey's Memoirs with a passage, not insignificant in itself, but which becomes doubly curious from the secret feelings which this court historian must have entertained, both while he was writing it, and while he was talking it. He was one day in conversation with the King and Queen, when he told them that "he knew three people that were writing the history of his Majesty's reign, who could possibly know nothing of the palace and his Majesty's closet ; and yet would, he doubted 276 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. not, pretend to make their whole history one con- tinued dissection of both." " You mean," said the King, " Lords Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Carteret." " I do," replied Lord Hervey. " They will all three," said the King, " have as much truth in them as the Mille et Une Nuits— {the Arabian Mghts). Not but I shall like to read Boling- broke's, who of all those rascals and knaves that have been lying against me these ten years, has certainly the best parts and the most knowledge. He is a scoundrel ; but he is a scoundrel of a higher class than Chesterfield. Chesterfield is a little tea-table scoundrel, that tells little womanish lies to make quarrels in families ; and tries to make women lose their reputations, and make their husbands beat them,* without any object but to give himself airs ; as if any- body could believe a woman could like a dwarf- baboon." The Queen said all these three histories would be three heaps of lies, but lies of very different kinds. She said " Bolingbroke's would be great lies ; Chester- field's little lies ; and Carteret's lies of both sorts." Doubtless both King and Queen suspected that their chattering and scribbling Yice-Chamberlain would himself write the Secret History; and they flattered themselves, that as he flattered them so strongly to their faces, he would be equally respectful to their memories. * Strange intimation of manners at that time! Footmen were beaten, according to what we read in comedies ; but we never before met with an intimation of the beating of gentlewomen. THE OLD COURT SUBUKB. 077 -/ / We have seen tlie result. None of the other three histories ever made their appearance ; and Hervey, perhaps, only mentioned them in order to take a treacherous pleasure in contemplating the faces and the feelings of his yictims. With Caroline's power to hold court-days at Ken- sington, her connection with the place ceases : for she did not die there. Georo-e the Second, ever reffrettinjr the loss of her, did ; though it was not of sorrow for the loss, for he survived her upwards of twentj- years. He died even of a broken heart ; though, like many a man who has so done, he does not appear to have been suffering under am' particular affliction. Many men die of broken hearts, who have no afflictions ; and many die of affliction, whose hearts have remained physically untouched. On the morning of the 25th October, 1760, a fall was heard in the royal apartments, soon after breakfast. It was the King. He had cut his face against a bureau, in the act of falling, and was dead of disease of the heart, at the age of seventy- eight. On examination of the body, the right ventricle of the heart was found burst. He was, otherwise, in good health ; and, owing to a combination of lucky circumstances, he was one of the most prosperous raonarchs that ever sat on the British throne. But prosperity, perhaps, had aggravated the self-will in which it is the misfortune of most princes to be too much indulged ; contradiction becomes unbearable to them ; the heart is rendered diseased by agitation at every little annoyance ; and a small trouble may give 278 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. it the mortal blow. The peril is not confined to kings, or even to common understandings. John Hunter, the celebrated surgeon, died of a paroxysm of this disease, merely because he was opposed by some pro- fessional brethren in his recommendation of a man whom he patronized. George the Second, after all, had had his way, for the most part, so pleasantly to himself, that he lived to be near eighty. Men of more patient callings, therefore, majr look to live still longer, diseases of heart notwithstanding, especially, if they have the wisdom to abide by the recommend- ation of a great man (painter and poet combined) who lived to be older than George, and who advises us, when we cannot do what we will, to will what we can do. " Chi non puo quel clie vuol, quel che puo voglia." Leonardo da Vinci, Never, perhaps, was a line of verse written that was at once fuller of matter, stronger, better put, or, altogether, more complete, than that. It is worth in- scribing on the most precious rings, and wearing as a talisman for life. THE OLD COURT SUBTIRB. 279 CHAPTEE XXIV. KENSINGTON PALACE IGNORED BY GEORGE III., GEORGE IT., AND WILLIAM IT. — THE DUKES OF KENT AND SUSSEX THERE QUEEN YICTORIA BORN AND BRED THERE — ^ promenades' IN THE GARDENS TILL THE TIME OF THE REGENCT, WITH GLANCES AT THE PRO- MENADERS — THE BAND OF MUSIC IN SUMMER-TIME — THE FLOWER-GARDEN, THE FOUNTAIN, THE TKEEy, BIRDS, SERPENTINE, AND BASIN THE GARDENS IN GENERAL, AND THEIR EEEQUENTERS CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. With the decease of George the Second, glory departed from Kensington, as far as Courts were con- cerned. No rcigninj? soverei"'n has resided there since. George the Third, wlio inherited perhaps a dislike of the place from his father the Prince of Wales, appears to have taken no notice of it, except in appointing the clever but impudent quack, Sir John Hill, its gardener, at tlie recommendation of Sir John's then omnipotent brother botanist, the Earl of Bute. George the Fourth probably regarded the place as a homely concern, quite out of his line. It might suit well enough the book-collectino; inclinations of his brother, the Duke of Sussex, with which he had no sympathy ; was not amiss as a means of affording u lodging to his brother, the Duke of Kent, with whose habits of regularity, and pardonable amount of debt, his sj'mpathies were as little ; and, lastly, he was well 280 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. content to think, that the staid-looking house and formal gardens rendered the spot a good out-of-the-way sort of place enough for obscuring the growth and breeding of his niece, and probable heiress, the Prin- cess Victoria, whose life, under the guidance of a wise mother, promised to furnish so estimable a contrast to his own. As to his brother, King William the Fourth, though he too was a brother, in most respects, very different from himself, we never heard his name men- tioned in any way whatever in connection with Ken- sington. One person there was, however, who for a time startled, or threatened to startle, the dull shades of the Palace out of their propriet}'. This was poor foolish Caroline of Brunswick, at that time Princess of Wales, wife of the Pegent, and victim of that bad husband, and of a bad training. The world knows her painful history too well, to render necessary any account of it here. The disposition of the poor wild woman seems to have been naturally kind and good ; but she had no reflection ; was terribly wanting in re- finement ; and sometimes out of perversity and re- sentment, sometimes from the mere love of frolic, and to escape from ennui, was given to hazarding such constructions of her conduct on the most trifling occa- sions, as naturally forced doubts of it on the minds of her best wishers, when the occasions were serious. The public justly felt, that a husband like George, Prince of Wales, had no right to bring the charges he did against a wife whom he had ill-used and dismissed ; but this only rendered her violations of decorum the more distressing. The comments which she defied THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 281 abroad, need not be repeated ; but here even, at Ken- sington, where she was on her good behaviour, and watched by anxious friends as well as enemies, she could not help endangering her success in the struggle that awaited her, b)^ tricks and pastimes fitter for a hoyden in an old comedy, than for a woman whose fate was seriously in jeopardy, and who was no longer even young. She did not content herself with keeping a sort of open house ; receiving visitors in a dressing- gown, and sitting and talking about herself with strangers, on the benches in the Gardens, at the risk of being discovered. She talked, and sometimes even drank, freely at her dinners ; disconcerted the ladies ; romped, against their will, with the gentlemen ; de- lighted, like a school-girl who has got out of bounds, in quitting the Gardens themselves for a stroll in the fields, or along the Paddington canal, sometimes dressed in evening attire ; would go into houses that were to be let, asking questions about the rent (proba- bly to frighten her attendant) ; and one night quitted a cottage which she possessed at Bayswater, to walk into town to a masquerade ; hazarding discovery, not only with her face, but her manners (as she " rolled" along) and frightening her attendants out of their wits. The folly no doubt amounted to " flightiness ; " and such was her excuse. But where had been the court, either at her husband's or father's house, that might have modified or taught her better, by engaging either respect or affection ? And of afiection, poor woman, she certainly appears to have been very capable. Caroline left Kensington before she became queen ; 282 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. SO that there was no court there, even nominallv, in her time ; nor have we anj' subsequent one to record ; though a princess of a very different breeding, and the mother who blessed her M'ith it, will have to be noticed presently, as the latest royal occupants of the Palace.* Adieu then, for the present, and for we know not how long a time hereafter, to Court-holdings in the Palace, to Court splendours, and Court scandals. Adieu, Kings listening in closets, and Queens calum- niated by ungrateful biographers. Adieu, even Maids of Honour. They departed their Kensington life Avith George the Second, and went to live a terribly dull one, with his grandson's Queen, Charlotte, who nearly tired ]\Iiss Burney into a consumption. As we cannot, however, help giving a loving and pitying look at the departing Maids, we here tran- scribe, for the benefit of the sympathizing reader, the latest account we can find of them in Kino- Georfye the Third's History. It is the latest account of the sisterhood in any history ; and must be taken with allowance for the exaggerations natural to the scape- grace to whom it is attributed ; namely, the " wicked Lord Littleton," as he was called, to distinguish him * It was in Kensington, at the corner of Church Street, during the funiral procession of Caroline, who died at Hammersmith, that the first contest took place between the military and the populace, as to which should prevail in directing the course of it; the former apart from the city, or the latter through the heart of it. "We ought, in the present edition, to have added this incident to the chapters on Kensington church, but could not well find a place that would suit it, so we have put it here. The point at issue, though not till after further trials, was ultimately conceded to the populace. Very wisely ; for on no account would the occasion, on either side, have warranted the hazard of bloodshed. We hardly need add, that the body was carried to Brunswick. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 2S3 from his father and others, the good Lords. The authorship is questionable ; but the details seem founded on good authority ; and any amount of dul- ness might be looked for among the Maids of Honour of Queen Charlotte. The reader will observe, in the course of the account, that the poor Maids, ghosts of their former selves, occasionally paid visits to the spot which had been animated by their predecessors. " To make up at least two Court suits in a year (says the writer), to dance as many Court minuets in the same space ; to sidle, on days of duty, through the presence-chamber, at the tail of a roj^al procession ; to take her place in an established corner of the drawing-room ; to say ' Yes, Sir,' or ' No, Sir,' and courtesy, when she is noticed by the King ; to say, 'Yes, Madam,' and 'No, Madam,' and courtesy, when the Queen does her the same honour ; to make an oc- casional one of six large hoops in a royal coach, and to aid the languor of an eas}' party in a side box at a ro5''al play ; compose the principal labours of a Maid of Honour's life. " But they are not without their rewards. A moderate salary, and a thousand pounds, when Miss gets a husband ; an apartment in a palace, and, I be- lieve, a dinner from a royal kitchen ; in a rotation of six weeks, a seven days' possession of a royal coach, a royal coachman, and a shabby pair of royal horses, for the purpose of shopping in the city, and paying dis- tant visits ; airings in the King's E.oad, and the being set down at the very gate of Kensington Gar- dens, while women of the first fashion are obliged to trip it o'er an hundred yards of green-sward between 284 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. their coaclies and the place of admittance ; to take place of Baronets' daughters ; to go to plays, operas, and oratorios, gratis ; to have phj'sicians without fees, and medicines without the apothecary's bill ; to chat with Lords and Grooms of the Bed-chamber, around the fire of an ante-chamber ; to stroke the beardless face of a new-made page ; and, perhaps, to receive an Heir-Apparent's first effort at flirtation ; constitute the various privileges of a Maid of Honour. " This brief history, my dear friend, you well know to be founded on fact, and will, therefore, be ready to applaud the tender pity I feel for these virgin automatons. I have never seen them bringing up the rear of a royal train, but each of them has appeared to bear, in legible characters, on her forehead, ' AYho will marry me ? ' Nevertheless, upon the most favour- able average, not one in three years, during the pre- sent reign, has been rewarded by Hymen ; which, in their particular situation, is as pitiable a circumstance as can be found in the long catalogue of female morti- fications. " A Lady of the Bed-chamber is obliged only to do partial duty ; and, during the short period of her attendance, is, in some degree, the companion of her royal mistress ; while the Virgins of Honour are not admitted, as I have been informed, to stick a pin in a royal handkerchief. Even the "Women of the same department figure only in her Majesty's cast-off gowns, on royal birth- days ; but these poor persecuted damsels are the common hackneys of drawing-room parade : whether ill or well, in humour or out of humour, by THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 285 day-light or by candle-light, they are obliged, through three parts of the year, to be on the continual stretch of state official exhibition. " I remember, when I was little more than a boy, to have seen a young lady in training for this im- portant office ; and the whole of that serious business consisted in nothing more than a practical lecture upon entrances and exits, the language of courtesies, and the art of conducting a large hoop in all modes and forms of possible pliancy. * * * "After this manner did I treat the Honourable Subject of her Majesty's Honourable Virgins ; and little did I think it would beget a long admonitory epistle from you, to warn me against speaking evil of dignities. My wit, such as it is, has never directed a single glance at the Throne." So much for the disparagements of the poor Maids by the wit that would not speak evil of dignities ! The lovely Dillons and Stanleys of the present day will know how to estimate such ungallant distinctions at their just value, and smile to think how little they need the pity bestowed on the unmarrying attendants of grudging Queen Charlotte. But if no reio-nino: sovereign has lived in Ken- sington Palace since the time of George the Second, a sovereign grace, of a new description, has occurred to it ; for Queen Victoria was born, as well as bred, within its walls. We i-egret, as a special personal dis- appointment (if many loyal and loving reasons may warrant us in so speaking), that, while these pages have been proceeding from our pen, constant illness has prevented us from availing ourselves of a gracious 286 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. permission to see the interior of Kensington Palace. AYe wished, for the sake of our readers, as well as our- selves, to see the pictures there, especially those of the Byzantine and early German and other painters, that form the collection of Prince Louis d'Ottingen Waller- stein ; but we wished, for our own sake in particular, to tind ourselves in the rooms which hold them, for in those Her Majesty passed her childhood ; and long before we had other reasons for wishing to do so, or dreaming that we ever should have, we remember well the peculiar kind of personal pleasure which it gave us to see the future Queen, the first time we ever did see her, coming up a cross path from the Bayswater gate, with a girl of her own age by her side, whose hand she was holding, as if she loved her. It brought to our mind the warmth of our own juvenile friend- ships ; and made us fancy that she loved everything else that we had loved in like measure, — books, trees, verses, Arabian tales, and the good mother who had helped to make her so affectionate. A magnificent footman, in scarlet, came behind her, with the splendidest pair of calves in white stock- ings that we ever beheld. He looked somehow like a gigantic fairy, personating, for his little lady's sake, the grandest kind of footman he could think of; and his calves he seemed to have made out of a couple of the biggest chaise-lamps in the possession of the god- mother of Cinderella. As the princess grew up, the world seemed never to hear of her, except as it wished to hear, — that is to say, in connection witli her mother ; and now it never hears of her, but in con- nection with children of her own, and with her lius- THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 2S7 band, and her mother still, and all good household pleasures and hospitalities, and public virtues of a piece with them. May life ever continue to appear to her what, indeed, it really is to all who have eyes for seeing beyond the surface ; namely, a wondrous fairy scene, strange, beautiful, mournful too, yet hopeful of being " happy ever after," when its story is over ; and wise, meantime, in seeing much where others see nothing, in shedding its tears patiently, and in doing its best to diminish the tears around it. Writing to his friend, Hannah More, from Ken- sington, on the 2 1st of July, 1820, Mr Wilberforce says, " In consequence of a very civil message from the Duchess of Kent, I waited on her this morning. She received me with her fine animated child on the floor, by her side, with its playthings, of which I soon became one. She was very civil ; but as she did not sit down, I did not think it right to stay above a quarter of an hour, and there being br.t a female at- tendant and a footman present, I could not well get up any topic, so as to carry on a continued discourse. She apologized for not speaking English well enough to talk it ; but intimated a hope that she might talk it better and longer with me at some future time. She spoke of her situation (this was, probably, in re- ference to the treatment of her and hers, at the hands of the Prince Regent) and her manner was quite de- lightful." Hearty reason has the nation to rejoice, that neither Mr "Wilberforce nor Miss Hannah More had anything to do with their Queen's education ; though, had the case been otherwise, we trust that the good 2S8 THE OLD COUET SUBURB. sense wliicli she inherited from both her parents would have rendered it harmless. She had too much joyfulness, and justice, and universality, in her nature, to allow her to fall into those supposed-religious, but really profane, desecrations, both of this world and the next, which such persons would inflict on us. And thus we have a Queen who sees fair-play to all that mean well, and who can rejoice and grieve impartially with her subjects of all classes, like a right, sovereign, human creature ; and not stint and begrudge her sympathies, like the Queen of a clique in a corner. So much for the latest points of remembrance in connection with the Palace at Kensington. We will now look back a little in order to finish with those of the Gardens ; for the death of George the Second did not put an end to the weekly promenades. They lasted throughout the long reign of his successor, and only terminated with his son's accession to the Re- gency. Hence, we may still fancy all that was bril- liant and fashionable, or in any manner distinguished, good or bad, in the successive generations of the last half of the eighteenth century, and the first two decades of the nineteenth, making its appearance as such in the Kensington Great Walk, delighting the scientific eyes of drapers and mantua-makers, and attracting crowds of adorers from the city. At the beginning of the new reign, the pro- menaders would be much the same as befoi^e, with tht; addition of a few Germans, who had come over with the new Queen. The Queen herself would hardly be there ; for one publicity of expectancy begets another; THE OLD COURT SUBUEB. 2S9 and the new sovereigns kept much, and economically, at home ; gave no dinners or gala-days ; nor, though a ball now and then, even a supper after a ball. Miss Chudleigh, not yet Duchess of Kingston, M'as still in request. The young ladies who have figured as actresses at Holland House, Lady Susan Fox, and the charming Lady Sarah Lennox, with whom the young King had been said to be in love, were, perhaps, the greatest attractions in the Walk. There, also, might probably be seen the beautiful Countess of Waldegrave, an illegitimate Walpole, who, before the Marriage Act had put an end to such am- bitions, became the wife of the King's brother, tlio Duke of Gloucester, and mother of the late Duke, not long deceased. Kitty Clive, the actress, would also be there, looking more intelligent than handsome ; and the notorious Kitty Fisher, the Yenus of the day, would contribute a face as insipid as Yenus herself (that is to say, Yenus de Medicis). Her charm con- sisted, we suppose, in the unexpected things which such a face would utter ; we mean, in the way of slang : a contrast in which Horace Walpole found something very bewitching. This is the lady, we believe, who, by way of making a sensation, and showing her superiority to vicissi- tudes, emulated the pearl-melting of Cleopatra by eat- ing a bank-note (we forget for what sum) in the guise of a sandwich. George Selwyn, Lord March, and such like worthies, would be there as before ; Wilkes also, indulging his gallant squint; and Bubb Dod- dington, during the month in which he was a "young lord " though a corpulent senior, bigger ibr his huge, 19 290 THE OLD COURT SUBURR. gaud}^ clothes. Madame de Boufflers gave a look in from Paris. The mysterious phenomenon called the chevalier, or chevaliere, d'Eon, showed its doubly- diplomatic face : and Housseau, who was in England about this time, might even have given a pity- ing, misanthropical glance down the foolish assem- blage. AVe know not whether Johnson was ever to be found in these promenades a little later in the reign ; but very likely he was, considering that he was as great, though a somewhat more frightened, admirer of pretty ancles, as his friend Richardson. And Gold- smith assuredly would not suffer his blossom-coloured coat to be lost to the assembled world, while its lustre was yet upon it. How could the WofEngtons, and the Lady Cravens and Bolingbrokes, and charming ]\[rs Abingdon with her Boxalana nose be there, and Oliver, emboldened by his coat, not snatch the fearful ioy of deeming himself admired as well admiring ? " He has no time to lose ; for see — the young author of the '' School for Scandal," parliamentary orator and gallant duellist, is coming up the walk, with his bride the beauteous Linley on his arm ; and all hearts will be his, if his little countryman does not strike first. A few years later, poor Miss Haj is in danger of being shot, by her lover, the Reverend Mr Hackman (as she was afterwards), for coming modestly along, leaning on the arm of Lord Sandwich. General Bur- goyne badly represents the American War, but not inelegantly the taste for polite comedy. Charles Fox astonishes his friends, for a day or so, by appearing with Lords Carlisle and Essex in red-heeled shoes, and THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 291 feathers in his hat. Burke looks round the place with an eye to reformation, but a few years later is for keeping it all m statu quo at any price, as a rebuke to his brother reformers at Paris. Meantime, George, Prince of Wales, has arrived at " years of indiscretion ; " and the Mary Pobinsons, the Crouchs, and the Fitzherberts, pass in fascinating succession down the Walk. Then Mrs Siddons, very respectable and majestic. Then the lovely Duchess of Devonshire, poetess. Queen of Hearts, and carrier of Westminster elections — the sweetest of stars in the gracefullest of aristocratic houses. Then the Duchess of Gordon, as fond of power for power's sake, as the other is for persuasion's. Then Warren Hastings and his " elegant Marian," sole conqueress (except her sister in jewellery, the Kingston Duchess) of the reputation-loving court samples of Queen Charlotte. Then Miss Farren, an actress, setting a real example of manners to the polite world, and escaping from notice into a coronet ! And now the French Revolution brings an inunda- tion of emigrants, male and female, preceded by Egalite, Duke of Orleans, who is come to add orgies to orgies at Carlton House ; and none of them know what to make of ex-bishop Talleyrand, who represents all parties by turns, and abides for a while in Ken- sington, as we have seen, confounding all notions of old French propriety, by abandoning his cloth and his gallantries, and paying his debts. At this strangest of all epochs in the history of the world, there might probably have been seen in these Gardens, on one and the same day, in the portent- 292 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. ous year 1791, Wilkes and Wilberforce ; George Rose and Mr Holcroft ; Mr Eeeve and Mr Godwin ; Burke, Warren Hastings, and Thomas Paine ; Horace Walpole and Hannah More (whom he introduces to the Duke of Queensberry ;) Mary "Wolstonecroft and Miss Burney (Madame d'Arbki}^), the latter avoiding the former with all her might ; the Countess of Albany (the widow of the Pretender) ; the Margra- vine of Anspach ; Mrs Montagu ; Mrs Barbauld ; IMrs Trimmer; Emma Harte (Lady Hamilton), accom- panied by her adoring portrait-painter, Pomney ; and poor Madame du Barry, mistress of the late Louis XV., come to look after some jewels of which she has been robbed, and little suspecting she would return to be guillotined. The fashions of this half-century, with the excep- tion of an occasional broad-brimmed hat, worn both by gentlemen and ladies, comprised the ugliest that ever were seen. Head-dresses became monstrous com- pounds of pasteboard, flowers, feathers, and pomatum ; the hoop degenerated into little panniers ; and about the year 1770, a set of travelled fops came up, calling themselves Macaronis,' from their intimacy with the Italian eatable so called, who wore ridiculously little hats, large pigtails, and tight-fitting clothes of striped colours. The lesser pigtail, long or curly, prevailed for a long time among elderly gentlemen, making a powdered semi-circle between the shoulders ; a plain cocked-hat surmounted their heads ; and, on a sudden, at the beginning of the new century, ladies took to having turbans, surmounted with ostrich feathers, and bodies literally without a waist, the girdle coming THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 293 directly under tlie arms. The bosom protruded at top, as if squeezed out by the girdle-strings. There was a song in those days, beginning — " Shepherds, I have lost my love ; Have you seen my Anna ? " This song was parodied by one beginning — " Shepherds, I have lost my waist ; Have you seen my body ? " We remember this dress in our boyhood, and never have we beheld anything so monstrous. The French Revolution put an end to cocked-hats, to pigtails, tohair-powder ; and, by degrees, introduced the classical female costume that prevailed at the Tuilleries under the First Consul. The hoop, under the regen- cy of the Prince of Wales, disappeared from its last stronghold, the Court. The Prince liked to contem- plate the shapes of the ladies, though he had now become willing enough to disguise his own in stays and trowsers, which, accordingh^ became fashionable ; and as all changes tend to produce others, and the middle classes now began to tread closely in all re- spects on the heels of the upper, filling up the vacan- cies in the Kensington Garden promenades with too many supplies from Marylebone and the City, the pro- menaders themselves came suddenly to nothing. Their only remnant, if remnant it can be calh d (it is rather a select difference, and a great improvement), is the congregation, twice a week, during the summer season, of a reasonable number of ladies and gentlemen at tlie south-eastern junction of the Gardens and Hyde Park ; 29^ THE OLD COURT SUBURB. who, partly walking about, and partly sitting on chairs, or remaining outside the garden boundary on horseback, listen to charming strains of music from operas and concertos, performed by the band of one of the regiments of guards. To this novelty, a very agreeable and unexpected one was added not many years since ; to wit, a con- siderable strip of public flower-garden. The flowers, and the trees also, are labelled with their botanic as well as popular names ; and as many of both are not common, and at the same time are beautiful, not only is general information diffused, but cultivators learn what to ask for of gardeners and nurserymen, and gardens in general profit accordingly. It is calculated, that England is now three or four times the country it used to be in regard to its show of flowers, and that the importation of foreign trees, particularly fi-om America, has given its parks, and will ultimately give its woods and field-sides, an ad- dition of autumnal colours, very like changing its landscape from northern to southern, or from greys and dingles, to reds, oranges, and gold. The late public-spirited Mr Loudon, who had a main hand in bringing about the recent improvements of this kind, both here and elsewhere, got the old wall in the Bayswater Road exchanged for an iron railing, which gives the wayfarer a pleasant scene of shrubs and green leaves as he goes along, instead of dusty old brickwork ; and though too many of the shrubs and new trees, in the line of the railing, are not yet sufficiently grown to keep up the old sense of seclusion, and so render the walker in the gardens THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 295 equally content with the change, a few years will restore him his satisfaction. jS^ew trees had become necessary not only in this part of the gardens, but in the whole of them. Multitudes of the old ones had grown up slender and sickly for want of room ; and at length were rotting. They were thinned off for new ones ; and though a mistake, much to the distress of London, was made at the head of the Serpentine, by the erection of a miserable " dumb-waiter " kind of fountain, dripping wretchedly on its little shelves, (the chill English always seem afraid of making a good-sized fountain), the sorry trifle is, at all events, stopped for the present, and something like a natural spring of water may perhaps still be looked for, to greet the dusty tucner out of the high-road, and har- monize with the ever-pleasant swans. Besides the rarer trees in the strip of garden- ground properly so called, and the trees common to woody places in the Gardens in general, there are some good specimens of beech here, and some more than usually fine ones both of the horse-chesnut and the sweet chesnut. The horse-chesnuts, thick with leaves, and throwing up in abundance their noble pyramidal blossoms, form a beautiful greeting for the pedestrian in spring, as he comes from Piccadilly towards the entrance into Kensington High Street. Ordinary birds of course abound, both singing and cawing, though it has never been our good fortune to hear the nightingale. The return of rooks towards niorhtfall often wives Kensington the look of a remote country town. The nut-hatch has been frequently caught in the Gardens ; it is not improbable that the 29G THE OLD COURT SUBURB. rare and beautiful bird the hoopoe ( Upupa epops) may be seen there during the prevalence of the east winds, which are understood to drive it hither from the con- tinent ; and we ourselves have seen the jay, with its lovely delicate blue and other colours, thouorh it is a bird very shy of observers. As to fish, all we can say is, that we have seen boys, with faces no wiser than the fish they caught, succeed in throwing a number of " tittle-bats " on the grass by the Serpentine, where they leaped and gasped out their wretched little souls with ineffectual efforts to gulp the air. A satirical or hypercritical observer of Kensington might say, that it has a Palace which is no palace. Gardens which are no gardens, and a river called the Serpentine which is neither serpentine nor a river. It is an angular piece of water made (as before stated) out of some ponds ; which ponds, we have now to add, were made, we believe, out of a brook which rises in West-End Lane, Hampstead. This brook makes a considerable plash in that lane in bad weather ; and you may occasionally notice it in dry, looking like a transparent bit of gutter. The Serpentine, which covers fifty acres of ground, is partly in the Gardens and partly in Hyde Park ; and the division is made by a bridge, which being itself divided by a fence, accommodates passengers in two places at once. Eoats may now be hired on it in the summer-time, on the Garden as well as on the Park side of the bridge. They enable the catchers of the tittle-bats to fancy themselves rowers ; and not long since, the fountain above-mentioned enabled them to fancy that they had THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 297 seen a fountain ; but for the present, tliey must go and study for that purpose the other drivelling attempts called by that name, in front of the out-house called the National Gallery. This most unpretending piece of water is the great ponfl, or bas'n, in front of the Palace, from the sides of which the principal walks diverge. In summer- time, the refreshment of its appearance is increased by the hot gravel of the walks ; and in winter, the ear is pleasantly greeted by'the tinkling, and the eye by the crowding, of the happy skaiters, not the less happy, and very reasonably so, because the pond is shallow ; for a cold bath in winter- time is not to be desired, especially with one's clothes on ; and though life itself is not to be put into competition with great calls for its sacrifice, there is something ridiculous, as well as grievous, in losing it by such a thing as a ducking. It is pleasant, however, in default of having a real and a bettor river at hand, to walk by the Serpentine in fine weather ; for the water flows, and there is air upon it, and grass is under one's feet, and trees round about us. With the Hyde Park half of it we have nothing to do in these pages ; nor is the sense of the pleasure there so sequestered as that in the Gardens. What may be called the river-side of the Gardens is on this account the most asrreeable ; meaning bv river- side, not merely the side of the water, but the wood in its neighbourhood, and its sequestered-looking paths. Prospects of any kind the G-ardens can hardly be said to possess, for none even of the vistas are worth men- tioning, except that, perhaps, such as it is, and as topographers have observed, which looks from one 298 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. point in tMs quarter towards the Palace. Neverthe- less, as coraparativeness gives value to everything great or small, Kensington Gardens are a truly valu- able possession to the neighbourhood, and to the metro- polis in general. They afford safe walks to invalids and to children ; sequestered ones to lovers of quiet ; shades in summer-time to the heated ; dry passages in winter to crossers over the district ; birds, trees, and flowers to the lovers of them : and upon the whole, somethino: altogether different, to those who wish it, from town, from noise, or from the town's most pain- ful or perplexing sights ; for here, though angling is allowed, which is a pity and ridiculous, sporting in general is not. You hear no sound, and see no sight, to make you wish that the setter of his wits against hare and pheasant " Had sbot as lie was used to do." The poet may turn his verse, the philosopher his axioms, and the lover his affectionate thoughts, with no greater interruption than the call of a bird, or the sound of a child's voice ; and if a foolish old gentleman is now and then seen haunting a nurserymaid, or a younger vagabond desecrating some alcove with the literature of St Giles's, we are to comfort ourselves with hoping that the nursery-maid is laughing at the venerable Adonis, and that the vagabond, when he goes home, will get as many boxes on the ears for loitering by the way, as he has given causes for trouble to the sponge of the garden inspector. We must not expect to be too Paradisaical, even in Ken- sino'ton Gardens. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 299 The most affecting consideration suggested by places like these, is the one which calls to mind the past splendour and gaiety, the frivolity, the vice, and the virtue also, which they have seen ; all now gone into another world, to join the greatest of all publics, the public of the dead. Rather let us say, of the departed ; for what do we know of the dead, except that the life has departed out of them ? The qualities which they evinced while living were more or less mixed up with their opposites ; the gaiety with gloom, the frivolity with thoughtfulness (for did not all suffer ?) the melancholy with mirth (for did not all enjoy ?) Even Lord Hervey thought he hated in- gratitude and hypocrisy, and perhaps he did so, in others, though he was not as alive to them as he ought to have been in his own person. Let us rest assured that the claims of the dead have been all since adjusted, and with final evil to no one ; for as they were all created souls, they were all children of heaven as well as of earth. Such were they who have gone ; such are the like multitudes who are now living ; and such will be those who succeed them. We may be quite content and happy, both with the past and the future of Kensington Palace and all around it, if we think of this, and at the same time cultivate our health and our natural cheerfulness, as all gardens, even formal ones, invite us to do. The chief abiding thought in any garden is, or ought to be, a combined consciousness of the beauty of vegetation and the tranquillizing effect of quiet. This, we doubt not, is the reflection and the reward of those who frequent Kensington Gardens in general ; 300 THE OLD COURT SUBURB. and such of them as meet with this book will gladly see it hnish with a quotation from a poet, who was one of the truest brother-lovers of gardens that ever lived, and also, as his friend Evelyn was here some- times, we have not the least doubt was a visitor ; nay, would assuredly have visited them, whether his friend had or not ; for nature was his still greater friend , and every plant (so strongly he loved it) a sort of fellow-creature. , You see he cannot help addressing the trees in their respective social ranks, after the Tory fiishion in which he was brought up ; though no man was less of a party-man at heart than he, or wished better to the good and honest of all ranks and denomi- nations. " Hail, old patrician trees, so ^reat and good, Hail, ye plebeian underwood, Where the poetick birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food. Pay with their grateful voice. " Here Nature does a house for me erect, Nature, the fairest architect, "Who those fond artists does despise, That can the fair and living trees neglect, Yet the dead timber prize. " Here let me, careless and xinthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me flying, "With all their wanton boughs dispute, And the more tuneful birds to both replying. Nor be, myself, too mute. " A silver stream shall roll his waters near. Gilt with the sunbeams here and there, On whose enamell'd bank I'll v.alk, And see how prettily they smile, and hear How prettily they talk. THE OLD COURT SUBURB. 801 " Ah, -ffretclied and too solitary he, "WTio loves not his o-vm company I He'll find the weight oft many a day, Unless he call in sin or vanity, To help to bcar't away." And again, in his Essay entitled " The Garden," addressed to the friend above mentioned : — " ]\Iethinks I see great Diocletian walk In the Salonian garden's noble shade, Which by his own imperial hands was made. I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk With the ambassadors, who came in vain To entice him to a throne again. " ' If I, my friends,' said he, 'should to you show All the delights which in these gardens grow, 'Tis likelier much that vou should with me stav. Than 'tis that you should carry me away. And trust me not, my friends, if every day I walk not here with more delight. Than ever, after the most happy fight, In triumph to the Capitol I rode. To thank the gods, and to be thought, myself, almost j^ god.' ' TKE END. Richard Clav & Soxs Limited, London & Bunoav, IIUrtST&BLACIvETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY OF CHEAP EDITIONS OF POPULAR MODERN WORKS. ILLUSTRATED BY SiK J. E. ]\IiLLAis, Sir J. Gilbert, Holman Hunt, Birket Foster, John Leech, John Tenniel, Lasleit J. Pott, etc. Each in a Single Volume, with Frontispiece, price 5s. I.— SAM SLICK'S NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE. "The flrst vo'ume of Messrs. Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library of Cheap Eiitions forms a very ?ood besinning to what will doubtless be a very successful undertaking. ' .Viiture and Hamin Nature ' is one of the best of S-ini Slick's witty and humorous pro- ductions, and well entitled to the large circulation which it cannot fail to obtain in its present convenient and cheap shape. The volume combines with the great recommenda- tions of a clear, bold type and good paper, the lesser, but attractive merits of being well illustrated and elegantly bound." — Morning Post. II.— JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN. "The new and cheaper edition of this interesting wurk will doubtless meet with great success. John Halifax, the hero of this most beautiful story, is no ordinary hero, ami this his history is no ordinary book. It is a full-length portrait of a true gentleman, one ot nature's own nobility. It is also the history of a home, and a thoroughly English one. The work abounds in incident, and many of the scenes are full of graphic power and true pathos. It is a book that few will read without becoming wiser and better." — Scotsman. "This story is very interesting. The attachment between John Halifax and his wife is beautifully painted, as are the pictures of their domestic life, and the growing up of their children; and the conclusion of the book is beautiful and touching." — Athenseam. III.— THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. BY ELIOT WARBURTOX. "Independent of its value as an original narrative, and its useful and interesting information, this work is remarkable for the colouring power and play of fancy with which its descriptions are enlivened. Among its greatest and most lasting charms is its reverent and serious spirit " — Quarterly lieview. "Mr. Warburton has fulfilled the promise of his title-page. The 'Realities of Eastern Travel' are described with a vividness which invests them with deep and abiding inter- est; while the 'Romantic' adventures which the enterprising tourist met with in his course are narrated with a spirit which shows how much he enjoyed these reliefs from the enntii of every-day life.'' — Globe. IV.— NATHALIE. BY JULIA KAVANAGH. "'Nathalie' is Miss Kavanagh's best imaginative effort. Its manner is gracious and attractive. Its matter is good. A sentiment, a tenderness, are commanded by her which are as individual as they are elegant. 'We should not soon come to an end were we to specify all the delicate touches and attractive pictures which place ' Nathalie ' high among books of its class." — Athenceum. v.— A WOMAN'S THOUGHTS ABOUT WOMEN. BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." "These thoughts are good and humane. They are thoughts we would wish women to think : they are much more to the purpose than the treatises upon the women and daugh- ters of England, which were fashionable some years ago, and these thoughts mark th« progress of opinion, and indicate a higher tone of character, and a juster estimate of woman's position." — Athenxum. ' This excellent book is characterised by good sense, good taste, and feeling, and la written in an earnest, philanthropic, as weV as practical spirit" — Mornina ffft. HUKST & BLACKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY VI.— ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. '"Adam Graeme' is a story awakening genuine emotions of interest and delight by its admirable pictures of Scottish life and scenery. Tlie plot is cleverly complicated, and there is great vitality in the dialosue, and remarkable brilliancy in the descriptive pas- sages, as who that has read 'Margaret Maitland ' would not be prepared to expect? But the story has a 'mightier magnet still,' in the healthy tone which pervades it, in its feminine delicacy of thought and diction, and in the truly womanly tenderness of its sentiments. The eloquent author sets before us the essential attributes of Christian virtue, their deep and silent workings in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in the life, wiih a delicacy, a power, and a truth which can hardly be surpassed." — Morninj Post. VIL— SAM SLICK'S WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES. "We have not the slightest intention to criticise this book. Its reputation is made, and will stand as long as that of Scott's or Bulwer's novels. The remarkable originality of its purpose, and the happy description it affords of American life and manners, still con- tinue the subject of universal admiration. To say thus much is to say enoujrh. though we must just mention that the new edition forms a part of the Publishers' Cheap Standard Library, which has included some of the very best specimens of light literature that ever have been written." — Mtssnuyer. YIIL— CARDINAL WISEMAN'S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST FOUR POPES. " A picturesque book on Rome and its ecclesiastical sovereigns, by an eloquent Romon Catholic. Cardinal Wiseman has here treated a special subject with so much generali-y and geniality that his recollections will e.Kcite no ill-feeling in those who are most coii-_ scientiously opposed to every idea of human infallibility represented in Papal domination." — Atltenxum. IX.— A LIFE FOR A LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN H.\LIFAX, GE-N'TLEMAN." "' A Life for a Life ' is a book of a high class. The characters are depicted with a masteriy hand; the events are dramatically set forth: the descriptions of scenery and sketches of society are admirably penned; moreover, the work has an object— a clear y defined moral— most poetically, most beautifully drawn, and through all there is thut strong, reflective mind visible which lays bare the human heart and human mind to tue verj core.'' — Morning Post. X.— THE OLD COURT SUBURB. BY LEIGH HUNT. " A book which has afforded us no slight gratiScation." — Athmfeum. " From the mixture of description, anecdote, biography, and criticism, this book is v»ry pleasant reading." — Spectator. ■'A more agreeable and entertaining book has not been published since Boswell pio- duced his reminiscences of Johnson." — Observer. XL— MARGARET AND HER BRIDESMAIDS. BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE VALLEY OF A HUNDRED FIRES." " We recommend all who are in search of a fascinating novel to read this work for themselves. They will find it well worth their while. There are a freshness and origm- ality about it quite charming, and there is a certain nobleness iu the treatment both v( eentimeut and incident which is not often ioaaX"—Atheuieu7n. HURST & BLiCKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY XIL— THE OLD JUDGE ; OR, LIFE IN A COLONY. BY SAM SLICK. " A peculiar interest attaches to sketches of colonial life, and readers could not have a safer guide than the talented author of this work, who, by a residence of half a century, has practically grasped the habits, manners, and social conditions of the colonists he de- Bcribes. All who wish to form a fair idea of the difficulties and pleasures of life in a new country, unlike England in some respects, yet like it in many, should rey.d this book."— John Bull. XIII.— DARIEN; OR, THE MERCHANT PRINCE. BY ELIOT WARBURTON. "This last production of the author of 'The Crescent and the Cross' has the same elements of a very wide popularity. It will please its thousands.'' — Globa. "Eliot Warburton's active and productive genius is amply exemplilled in the present book. We have seldom met with any work in which the realities of history and the poetry of fiction were more happily interwoven." — Illustrated Neics. XIV.— FAMILY ROMANCE ; OR, DOMESTIC ANNALS OF THE ARISTOCRACY. BY SIR BERNARD BURKE, ULSTER KING OP ARMS. "It were impossible to praise too highly this most interesting book, whether we should have regard to its excellent plan or its not less excellent execution. It ought to be found on every drawing-room table. Here you have nearly fifty captivating romances with the pith of all their interest preserved In undiminished poignancy, and any one may be read in half an hour. It is not the least of their merits that the romances are founded on fact — or what, at least, has been handed down for truth by long tradition — and the romance of reality far exceeds the romance of llction." — Standard. XV.— THE LAIRD OF NORLAW. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. "We have had frequent opportunities of commending Messrs. Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library. For neatness, elegance, and distinctness the vo'umes in this series surpass anything with which we are familiar. 'The Laird of Norlaw' will fully sustain tbe author's high reputation. Tiie reader is carried on from first to last with an energy of sympathy that never flags."— .b'"»(/-.J.(/ Times. "'The Laird of Norlaw' is worthy of the author's reputation. It is one of the most exquiaite of modern novels. " — Observer. XVL— THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN ITALY. BY MRS. G. GRETTON. "Mrs. Gretton had opportunities which rarely fall to the lot of strangers of becoming acquainted with the inner life and habits of a part of the Italian peninsula which is the very centre of the national crisis. We can praise her performance as interesting, unexag- gerated, and full of opportune instruction." — The Tunes "Mrs. Gretton's book is timely, life-like, and lor every reason to be recommended It ia impossible to close the book without liking the writer as well as the subject The woili is engaging, because real" — Athenxum. XVIL— NOTHING NEW. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." " 'Nothing New' displays all those superior merits which have made 'John Halifax one of the most popular works of the day. There is a force and truthfulness about thesa tales which mark them as the production of no ordinary mind, and we cordially recom- mend them to the perusal of all lovers of flctioa' — Morning Post. 20 IIUEST & BLACKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY XVIIL— LIFE OF JEANNE D'ALBEET, QUEEN OF NAVARRE. BY MISS FREER. "We have read this book with great pleasure, and have no hesitation in recommending it to general perusal. It reflects the highest credit on the industry and ability of Miss Freer. Nothing can be more interesting than her story of the life of Jeanne D'Albret, and the narrative is as trustworthy as it is attractive." — Morning Post. XIX.— THE VALLEY OF A HUNDRED FIRES. BY THE AUTHOR OF " MARGARET AND HER BRIDESMAIDS." "If asked to classify this work, we should give it a place between 'John Halifax ' and 'The Caxtons.' " — Standard. "The spirit in which the whole book is written Is reflned and good." — Athenxwn. "This is in every sense a charming novel." — Messmi/ar. XX.— THE ROMANCE OF THE FORUM ; OR, NARRATIVES, SCENES, AND ANECDOTES FROM COURTS OF JUSTICE. BY PETER BURKE, SERJEANT AT LAW. "This attractive book will be perused with much interest. It contains a great variety of singular and highly romantic stories." — John Bi'll. " A work of singular interest, which can never fail to charm and absorb the reader's attention. The present cheap and elegant edition includes the true story of the Colleen Bavvn." — Illuitrated A'ews. XXL— ADELE. BY JULIA KAVANAGH. "'Ad^le' is the best work we have read by Miss Kavanagh; it is a charming story, full of delicate character-painting. The interest kindled in the first chapter burns brightly to the close." — Atlienwian. '• ' Adlle ' will fully sustain the reputation of Miss Kavanagh, high as It already ranks." —John Bull. "'Ad'ele' is a love-story of very considerable pathos and power. It is a very clever novel." — Daily News. XXII.— STUDIES FROM LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTIiEMAN." "These 'Studies ' are truthful and vivid pictures of life, often earnest, always full of right feeling, and occasionally lightened by touches of quiet, genial humour. The volume is re- markable for thought, sound sense, shrewd observation, and kind and sympathetic feeling fo r all things good and beautiful." — Morning Post. •'These 'Studies from Lite ' are remarkable for graphic power and observation. The book will not diminish the reputation of the accomplished author." — Saturday Review. XXIII.— GRANDMOTHER'S MONEY. BY F. W. ROBINSON. "We commend 'Grandmother's Money' to readers in search of a good novel. The characters are true to human nature, and the story is interesting ''—Athenxum. IIURST & BLACKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY XXIV.— A BOOK ABOUT DOCTOES. BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESOX. " A book to lie read and re-read; fit for the study as well as the drawing-room table and the circulating library." — Lancet. "This is a pleasiint book for the fireside season, and for the seaside season. Mr. .Teaffre- son has. out of hundreds of volumes, collsBted thous-auds of good things, adding thereto much that appears in print for the tlrst time, and which, of course, gives increased value to this very readable iioo]i."—Athma;uin. XXV.— NO CHURCH. BY F. W. ROBIN'SON. "We advise ail who have the opportunity to read this booli. It is well worth tiie study.'" — At/ienceum. "A work of great originality, merit, and power." — Standard. XXVI.— MISTEESS AND MAID. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEJIAN." "A good wholesome book, gracefully written, and as pleasant to read aa it is instruc- tive." — Athenwum. '■ A charming tale, charmingly \.o\di."— Standard. XXVII.— LOST AND SAVED. BY THE HON. MRS. NORTON. '"Lost and Saved' will be read with eager interest by those who love a touching story ; it is a vigorous novel." — Times. 'This story is animated, full of exciting situations and stirring incidents. The char.ic- ters are delineated with great power. Above and beyond these elements of a good novel, there is that indefinable charm with which true genius invests all it touches." — Daily Seics. XXVIIL— LES MISEEABLES. BY VICTOR HUGO. Authorised Copijright English Translation. "The merits of 'Les Miserables ' do not merely consist in the conception of it as a whole ; it abounds with details of unequalled beauty, M. Victor Hugo has stamped upuu every page the hall-mark of genius " — Quarterly Review. XXIX.— BARBAE A' S HISTOEY BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS. "It is not often that we light upon a novel of so much merit and interest as 'Barbara's History.' It is a work conspicuous for taste and literary culture. It is a very graceful and charming book, with a well-mauaged story, clearly-cut characters, aud Bentiiiients expressed with an exquisite elocution. The dialogues especially sp-irkle with repartee. It is a book which the world will like. This is high praise of a work of art, and so we intend it" — The Times. XXX.— LIFE OF THE EEV. EDWARD IRVING. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. " A good book on a most interesting theme" — Times. "A truly interesting and most affecting memoir. 'Irving's Life' ought to have a niche in every gallery of religiuu;; biography. There are few lives that will be fuller of in- Btruction, interest, and consolation." — Huturday Review. HURST & BLACKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY XXXI.— ST. OLAVE'S. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JANITA^S CROSS." "This novel is the work of one who possesses a great talent for writing, as well as experience and knowletige of the world. The whole book is worth reading." — Atheixfiim. •• • St. Olave's ' belongs to a lofty order of liclion. It is a good novel, but it is something more. It is written with unflagging ability, and it is as even as it is clever. The author has determined to do nothing short of the best, and has succeeded.'' — Morning Post. XXXIL— SAM SLICK'S TRAITS OF AMEEICAN HUMOUR. "Dip where you will into this lottery of fun, you are sure to draw out a prize. These ' Traits ' exhibit most successfully the broad national features of American humour." — Post. XXXIII.— CHRISTIAN'S MISTAKE. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." "A more charming story has rarely been written. It is a ohoice gift to be able thus to render human nature so truly, to penetrate its depths with such a searching sagacity, and to illuminate them with a radiance so eminently the writer's own." — Times. XXXIV.— ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN. BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. "No account of this story would give any idea of tho profound interest that pervades the work from the first page to the last." — At hen te urn. "A novel of uncommon merit. Sir Walter Scott said he would advise no man to try to read 'Clarissa Harlowe ' out loud in company if he wished to keep his character for manly superiority to tears. We fancy a good many hardened old novel-readers will feel a rising in the throat as they follow the fortunes of Alec and Annie." — Pall Mull Gazette, XXXV.— AGNES. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. " 'AgnesV is a novel superior to any of Mrs. Oliphant's former works." — Athenoeum. "Mrs. Oiiphant is one of the moat admirable of our novelists. In her works there are always to be found high principle, good taste, sense, and refinement. 'Agnea' is a story whose pathetic beauty will appeal irresistibly to all readers." — Morning Post. XXXVI.— A NOBLE LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." "Few men and no women will read 'A Noble Life' without feeling themselves the better for the effort." — Spectator. "A beiiutifully written and touching tale. It is a noble book."— il/orni>p(/ Post. "'A Noble Life' is remarkable for the high types of character it presents, and the skill with which they. are made to work out a story of powerful and pathetic interest" —DaUy News. XXXVII— NEW AMERICA. BY W. HEPWORTH DIXON. "A very interesting book. Mr. Dixon has written thoughtfully and well.''~7'imf.?. "We recommend everyone who feels any interest in human nature to read Mr Dixon's very juleresting hoi^^."— Saturday Review. XXXVIII.— ROBERT FALCONER. BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. "'Robert Falconer' is a work brimful of life and hunnur and of the deepest human interest. It is a book to be returned to again and itgain for the deep and seaiching knowledge it evinces of human thoughts and feelings."— ./U/ic/iOJU/^- HURST & BLACKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY XXXIX.— THE WOMAN'S KINGDOM. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." " 'The 'Woman's Kingdom' sustains the author's roputatioa as a writer of the purest and noblest kind of domestic stories." — Alherueum. ■" The Woman's Kingdom ' is remarlsable for its romantic interest. The characters are masterpieces. Edn* is worthy of the hand that drew John Halifax." — Morning Post. XL.— ANNALS OF AN EVENTFUL LIFE. BY GEORGE WEBBE DASENT, D.C.L. "A racy, well-written, and original novel. The interest never flags. The whole work Bparklea with wit and humour." — Quarterly Review. XLI— DAVID ELGINBROD. BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. "A novel which is the work of a man of genius. It will attract the highest class of readers. " — I'iuies. XLII.— A BRAVE LADY. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." "■We earnestly recommend this novel. It is a special and worthy specimen of the authors remarkable powers. The reader's attention never for a moment flags." — Pust ••'A Brave Lady' thoroughly rivets the unmingled sympathy of the reader, and her histoiy deserves to stand foremost among the author's works."— Z*ai7i/ Tdegraph. XLIII.— HANNAH. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." "A very pleasant, healthy story, well and artistically told. The book is sure of a wide circle of readers. The character of Hannah is one of rare beauty." — Standard. "A powerful novel of social and domestic life. One of the most successful efforts of a successful novelist."— £»ai/^ News. XLIV.— SAM SLICK'S AMERICANS AT HOME. "This is one of the most amusing books that wo ever read." — Standard. "'The .\merican3 at Home' will not be less popular than any of Judge Halliburton's previous works." — Morning Post. XL v.— THE UNKIND WORD. BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." " These stories are gems of narrative. Indeed, some of them, in their touching grace and simplicity, seem to us to possess a charm even beyond the authoress's most popular novels. Of none of them can this be said more emphatically than of that which opens the series. -The Unkiud Word," It is wonderful to see the imaginative power displayed in the few delicate touches by which this successful love-story is sketched out" — Ttte Echa XLVL— A ROSE IN JUNE. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. "'A Rose in Jime' is as pretty as its title. The story is one of the best and most touching which we owe to the industry and talent of Mrs. Oliphant, and may hold its owa with even ' The Chronicles of Carlingf ord.' "—Tines. HURST & BLACKETT'S STANDARD LIBRARY XLVII.— MY LITTLE LADY. BY E. FRANCES POYNTER. "This story presents a number of vivid and very charming pictures Indeed the whole book is charming. It is interesting in both character and story, and thoroughly good of its kind." — Saturday Review. XLVIII.— PHCEBE, JUNIOR. BY WHS. OLIPHANT. "This last 'Chronicle of Carliugford' not merely takes rank fairly beside the first which introduced us to 'Salem Chapel,' but surpasses all the intermediate records. Phoebe, Junior, herself is admirably drawn." — Academy. XLIX.— LIFE OF MAEIE ANTOINETTE. BY PROFESSOR CHARLES DUKE YONGE, " A vfork of remarkable merit and interest, which will, we doubt not, become the most popular English history of Marie Antoinette."— .Spectator. L.— SIR GIBBIE. BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. " ' Sir Gibbie ' is a book of genius."— faH Mall Gazette. " This book has power, pathos, and humour." — Athenceum. LI.— YOUNG MRS. JARDINE. BY THE AUTHOR OF " JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." "'Young Mrs. Jardine ' is a pretty story, written in pure English."— TTic Tunes " There is much good feeling in this book. It is pleasant and wholesome." — AtheiKEum. LII.— LORD BRACKENBURY. BY AMELIA B. EDWARDS. '• A very readable story. The author has well conceived the purpose of hiih-class novel-writing, and succeeded in no small measure in attaining it. There is p.euty of variety, cheerful dialogue, and general ' verve' in the book." — Athenieum. LIII.— IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS. BY MRS. OLIPHANT. "In' It was a Lover and his Lass,' we admire Mrs. Oliphant exceedingly. It would be worth reading a second time, were it only for the sake of one ancient Scottish spinster, who is nearly the counterpart of the admirable Mrs. Margaret Maitland."— rimes. LlV.— THE REAL LORD BYRON— THE STORY OF THE POETS LIFE. BY JOHN CORDY JEAFFRESON. " Mr. Jeaffreson comes forward with a narrative which must take a very important place in Byrouic literature; and it may reasonably be anticipated that this book will be regarded with deep interest by all who are concerned in the works and the fame of this great English poet" — The Times. LV.— THROUGH THE LONG NIGHT. BY MRS. E. LY^NN LINTON. "It is scarcely necfessary to sign 'Through the Long Night,' for the practised pen of Mrs. Lynn Linton stands revealed on eveiy page of it. It is like so many of its prede- cesi-o s, hard and bright, full of entertaining reheotion and brisk development of plot."— Saturday Review. "WOEKS BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D. Each in One Volume, Frontispiece, and Uniformly Bound, Price 5s. ALEC FORBES OF HOWGLEN. "No account of this story would give any idea of the profound interest that perrades the work from. the first page to the last." — Athemp.um. "A novel of uncommon merit Sir Walter Scoit said he would advise no man to try to read 'Clarissa Harlowe' out loud in company if he wished to keep his character for manly superiority to tears. We fancy a good many hardened old novel-readers will feel » rising in the throat as they follow the fortunes of Alec and Annie." — Pall Mall Oazette. "The whole story is one of surpassing excellence and beauty." — Dailt/ News. " This book is full of good thought and good writing. Dr. Mac Donald looks in his storiei more to the souls of men and women thaa to their social outsida He reads life and Nature like a true poet" — Examiner. ROBERT FALCONER. " 'Eohert Falconer' is a work brimful of life and humour and of the deepest human Interest It is a work to be returned to again and again for the deep and searchinff knowledge it evinces of human thoughts and feelings." — Athenoeum. "This story abour.ds in exquisite specimens of the wurri-painting in which Dr. Mao Donald excels, charmmg transcripts of Nature, full of light, air, and colour." — Saturday Review. •■ This noble story displays to the best advantage all the powers of Dr. Mao Donald's genius." — IliiiMriited London iVewi. "■ Robert Falconer " is the noblest work of Action that Dr. Mao Donald has yet pro- duced." — British Quarterly Review. "The dialogues in 'Robert Falconer' are so finely blended with humour and pathos as to make them in themselves an intellectual treat to which the reader returns again and again." — Spectator. DAVID ELGINBROD. "A novel which is the work of a man of genius. It will attract the highest class of readers." — Times. " There are many beautiful passages and descriptions in this book. The characters are extremely well drawn." — Athenceum. "A clever novel. The incidents are exciting, and the interest is maintained to the close. It may be doubted if Sir Walter Scott himself ever painted a Scotch fireside with more truth than Dr. Mac Donald." — Morning Post. •' David Elginbrod is the finest character we have met in fiction for many a day. The descriptions of natural scenery are vivid, truthlul, and artistic; the general reflections are those of a refined, thoushtful. and poetical philosopher, and the whole moral atmosphere of the book is lofty, pure, and invigoratmg." — Globe. SIR GIBBIE. " ' Sir Gibbie ' is a book of genius." — Pall Mall Oatette. "This book has power, pathos, and humour. There is not a character which is not lifelike. There are many powerful scenes, and the portraits will stay long in our memory." — Athenceum. "'Sir Gibbie' is unquestionably a book of genius. It abonnds in humour, pathos, insight into character, and happy touches of description." — Gruphic. '"Sir Gibbie' contains some of the moat charming writing the author has yet pro- duced " — Scotsnuxn. '"Sir Gibbie' is one of the moit touching and beautiful stories that has been written for many yetrs. It is not a novel to be idly read and laid aside ; it Is a grand work, to b« kept near at hand, and studied and thought over." — Morning Post. LONDON : HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED. WORKS BY MRS. OLIPHANT. Each in One Volume, Fi-ontispiece, and Uniformly Bound., Price 5s. ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY. " ' Adam Graeme ' is a story awakening genuine emotions of interest and delight by its tflmirable pictures of Scottish life and scenery. The plot is cleverly complicated, and there is great vitality in the dialogue, and remarkable brilliancy in the descriptive pas- sages, as who that has read 'Margaret Mailand' would not be prepared to expect? But the story has a 'mightier magnet still,' in the healthy tone which pervades it, in its feminine delicacy of thought and diction, and in the truly womanly tenderne^^s of its sentiments. The eloquent author sets before us the essential attributes of Christian virtue, their deep and silent workings in the heart, and their beautiful manifestations in the life, with a delicacy, a power, and a truth which can hardly ba surpassed."— J/ur«ino fott. THE LAIRD OF NORLAW. "We have had frequent opportunities of commending Messrs. Hurst and Blackett's Standard Library. For neatness, elegance, and distinctness the volumes in this series surpass anything with which we are familiar. ' The Laird of Norlaw ' will fu.ly sustaio tue author's high reputation- The reader is carried on from first to last with an energy of sympathy that never flags." — Sunday Times. "'The Laird of Norlaw' is worthy of the author's reputation. It is one of the most exquisite of modem novels." — Observer. IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS. "In 'It was a Lover and his Lass ' we admire Mrs. Oliphant exceedingly. Her stnry Is a very pretty one. It would be worth readini; a second time, were it only for the shk» of one ancient Scottish spinste*, who is nearly the counterpart of the admirable Mrs. Mar- garet Maitlaud.".— /Yfftei. AGNES. " ' Agnes ' is a novel superior to any of Mrs. Oliphant's former sf 07)19."— Athmrrum^ "Mrs Oiipuant is one 01 the moat admirable of our novelists. In her works there ara always to be found high principle, good taste, sense, and reflnement. ' Agnes ' Is a story whose pathetic beauty will appeal irresistibly to all readers." — Morning Pott. A ROSE m JUNE. "*A Bose in June' is as pretty as its title. The story is one of the best and most touching which we owe to the in.luatry and talent of Mrs. Oliphant, and may hold ili own with even ' The Chronicles of Carlingford.' " — Tvna. PHCEBE, JUNIOR. "This last 'Chronicle of Carlingford' not merely takes rank fairly beside the first which introduced us to 'Salem Chapel,' but s-urpasses all the intermediate records. Phoebe, Junior, herself is admirably drawn." — Academy. LIFE OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING. "A good book on a most interesting theme." — Time). "A truly interesting and most affecting memoir. 'Irving's Life' ought to hive a nicbe In every gallery of religious biography. There are few lives that will be fuller of in- Dtruclion, interest, and consolation." — Saturday Review. LONDON : HUEST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY This book is DUE on the last date stamped below JUN Form L-0 lO/n -3, '30(7752) 12 W9 TOHVERSITY OF CAUFORNttt AT LOS ANGELES UBRARY 158 00477 1381 DA 685 K4H9 yC SOUTHERN REGIOfJAL 1 IBRARY FACI AA 000 410 427 9 «