The old court suburb; or, Memorials of Kensington, regal, critical, and anecdotical

Chapter I. Page

Nature of the Place, its General Associations, Name, and Growth 1 — 8 CHAPTEE II. Crystal Palace — Old Kensington Gore — Duchess of Kingston — Marquis Wellesley — Highest ground between London and Windsor Castle — Prince's Gate — Brompton Park Nursery 9 — 15

Kensington Church — Burial Grounds by Highways — The Callcotts — Philip Meautis — Sir Manhood Penriiddock — Addison's " Earl of Warwick " — The Colmans — Jortin — Thomas Wright . . 77 — 85

Chapter IX

Church and Church-Yard continued — Madan and his Thelypthora — George Colman the Elder — Dr Warren — Elphinstone again — The Bianchis — Mrs Inchbald — Spofforth — James Mill — George Colman the Younger — The Charnleys — Flowers on Graves — Urn-Burial. 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 Rowe'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-Plaee and Earl's-Court-Terrace — Mrs 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 — Inscription in Honour of Mr Rogers — Verses by Mr Luttrell — Gardens New and Old — Napoleon — Lord Camelford — Lady Diana Rich and Lady Elizabeth Thynne see their own Ghosts . . . . 119 — 129

Chapter XIII

Holland House continued — Bed-Rooms of Rogers 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 Marvel's Verses on Founders of Dutch States — The Beauclerks — Sir Walter Cope — The Rich Family — Earls of Holland — Performance of Plays — Earl of Anglesea— Sir John Chardin — Duchess of Buckinghamshire — Atterbury — William Penn — Shippen — William III. — The Riches, Joint Earls of Warwick and Holland — Wilham Edwardes, First Baron Kensington 136 — CONTENTS. VII

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 Winter 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 15S — 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 — Bentham and Sidney Smith — Addison Read — 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 Lechmere 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 Characters—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— Proposed History of them by Swift and Arbuthnot— Queen Anne's Hunting—Rise of the Kensington Garden Promenades in the Time of George the First— Fairy Story in Tickell's Poem on the Gardens— CONTENTS. Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline — Miss Hobart — Miss Howe— The Miss Bellendens— Miss Lepell — Miss Pitt — Other Prjmenaders 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 Caroline — 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 Dra wing-Room — Hervey Self-Condemned — Death of George the Second . . . . ' 248—278

Chapter XXIV

Kensington Palace ignored by George III., George IV., and yVilliam 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 — <, the OLD COUET SITBUEB.

Chapter I. Natube Of The Place, Its Geneeal Associations, Name, And Gbowth

The beauty and salubrity of Kensington, its com bination (so to speak) of the elegancies of town and country, and the multitude 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, which the new improvements wiU remove), but atten tion is fairly invited throughout. The way to it is the pleasantest out of town ; you may 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 HoUand House, in which you are not greeted with the face of some pleasant memory.

Here, to " minds' eyes," conversant with 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, "Walpole from visiting the Foxes, Johnson from a dinner with Elphinstone, Junius from a communication with Wilkes. 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 httle more 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 chintzes, 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 TMiss Howe, laughing with TNanty Lowther (who made her very grave after wards) ; there Chesterfield, Hanbury "Williams, Lord Hervey ; Miss Chudleigh, not over-clothed ; the Miss Gunnings, drawing crowds of admirers ; and here is George Selwyn interchanging wit with my Lady Townshend, the " Lady TBellaston " (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, therefore, 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 Coleridge shall bring 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 con founder 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 Green, and even some of the 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 Margaret'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 Bed Book, we shad consider the locality as circumscribed by Knightsbridge, Earl's Court, Hammersmith, Notting 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 things, when going along 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 say, 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 disputed. It is commonly derived from the Saxon Kyning's-t\xa., King's-town ; though, as it is written Chcnesitun in Doomsday Book, and in other old records, it has been thought traceable to some landed proprietor, of the name of Chcnesi, 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 Chcnesi family was probably the same as the modern Cheynes or Cheyneys, and Cheyne comes from the old French word chesne (oak), and "chensnet" -might have been chesne-nut, or chestnut, (oak and chesnut — chastain — having possibly the same root in French, and their timber, of which London was built, possessing a good deal in common), Saxon and Norman 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 stid 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 whjch 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. Whatever 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 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 TRoad, 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 Ver 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, probably, anything but a reverend personage, in the modern sense of the epithet, but a stalwart, jolly fellow, clad in arms cap-a-pie, was also Grand Justiciary of Eng land ; that is to say, one whose business it was to do injustice toEnglishmen,and see their goods andchattels delivered over to his countrymen, the Normans. Ac cordingly, to set a good legal example, the Justiciary seizes upon this manor of Kensington, which belonged, it seems, to one " Edward : " a name which signifies Happy Keeper.

So Happy Keeper (unless detained to keep the pigs) makes the best of his way off, bless ing this delightful bishop and judge, whose office it is to oust proprietors ; and he is, perhaps, stripped and murdered, somewhere about Notting Hill, by his Lord ship's chaplain.* , The De Veres, however, who afterwards gave twenty Earls of Oxford to the Enghsh 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, though there was a mansion belong 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. We shad 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 tdl HoUand 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 shaU have to speak, and who have rendered it one of the most inter esting objects in the neighbourhood of London, soon * For the crimes and iniquities of the military churchmen who came over with Wilham of Normandy, see Thierry's "History of the Con quest," passim. 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 famihes of distinction ; and its importance was completed, when King Wilham bought the house and grounds of the Finch family (Earls of Nottingham), 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 Gardens, are the seven oldest objects of interest in Kensington ; 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 prefatory 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 height of their season.

Chapter II. Crystal Palace Old Kensington Gobe

— DUCHESS OF KINGSTON MARQUIS WELLESLEY HIGHEST GROUND BETWEEN LONDON AND WINDSOR CASTLE — PBINCE's GATE — BROMPTON PABK 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 stiU occupy only one side of the way. It is a very pleasant way, especially if you come through the Park. When we quit PiccadiUy for Hyde Park Corner, we, for our part, always fancy that the air, somehow, feels not only fresher, but xohiter, and this feeling increases as we find the turf under our feet, and the fresh air in one's face. The roadway 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 illustrative of the advanced character of the age, and such, we believe, as no attempts to bring back a worse spirit in Europe will deprive of its good effects, how ever threatening those attempts may appear. We need not say that we allude to the Great Exhibition. 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 thought 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 wishes of miUions, restricted in their enjoyments.

But as soon as it was determined that the structure should reappear 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 staUs, dogs, penny trumpets, policemen, and extempore public-houses, which, 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 tranquil pleasure of the few.

A winter-garden, to be sure, would have been a good thing, and con servatories and other elegancies, aU the year round, would have been still better ; but aU 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 one day to a couple of foreigners who were showing symptoms of a set-to, " Go it, all nations."

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 spot 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 Kensington to St James's, for the purpose of facilitating the Queen's intercourse with ministers, seems in our days (observes the editor of his Lordship's ' Memoirs ') very 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 London) 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 gulf of mud. There are two ways through 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, with 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 Kingston — the Miss Chudleigh, 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 prospects of her husband varied, imposed herself on a duke for a spinster, and survived him as his duchess tdl unmasked by a Court of Law. She was a well-born and handsome, but coarse minded woman, qualified to impose on none but very * Vol. ii. p. 189. young or very shallow admirers. Her first husband, 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 outs-rown 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 WeUesley 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 the passion in him 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, happy hills ! ah, pleasing shade ! Ah, fields beloved in vain ! Where once my careless chddhood stray' d, A stranger yet to pain ! " 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 bi' of civil grudge against military ascendency (but aU in a spirit of kindliness, which the sensible Duke would 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. Next to this mansion is a row of new houses, each too high for its width, called Prince's Gate. They resemble a set of tall thin gentlemen, squeezinoto 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 Nursery, which figures in the pages of the " Spectator " as the estab hshment 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 green ghost before the rise of new buildings.

Chapter III. Kensington Gore Modern

— MRS INCHBALD — COUNT D'OBSAY — WILKES AND JUNIUS (SIB PHILIP EBANCIs). 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 emphaticaUy 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 building. 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 supernumeiTy 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 — aU 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 dl borne out.