THE

OLD COURT SUBURB.

CHAPTER I.

NATURE OF THE PLACE, ITS GENERAL ASSOCIATIONS, NAME, AND GROWTH.

THE beauty and salubrity of Kensington, its combination (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 will do away), but attention 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 Holland 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 little 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 Miss Howe, laughing with Nanty Lowther (who made her very grave afterwards); 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 Bellaston " (so, at least, it has been said) of "Tom Jones."

Who is to know of all this

and not be willing to meet it?

company,

To meet

TREATMENT OF SUBJECT.

5

it, therefore, we propose, both out of doors. and in-doors, not omitting other persons 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 chronologically, 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 demands.

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,