set up a laugh, which Jenkins is obliged to swallow, though he longs to run at every

one of them, and kick their souls out of their provoking and prematurely-insolent little bodies.

CHAPTER IV.

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

IT is to be hoped, that in the course of the local improvements which are now being effected in this quarter of Kensington, a

road will be opened between Campden Hill and the Palace. It would be a great convenience to the natives, and to pedestrians of all kinds, the topographer included; but as there is no such thing at present, we must content ourselves with returning into the High Street, and so keeping the north side of the way till it brings us to the Palace gates. When we entered Kensington, we kept the south side. We thus return to the point at which our survey of the town commenced; and we enter on the climax of our task.

It is not improbable that Kensington Palace and Gardens originated in the royal nursery to which allusion has been made as having been established in this district, for the benefit of his children, by King Henry the Eighth. If so, here Queen Elizabeth grew up awhile, as well as Queen Victoria;

and here health was in vain attempted to be given to the sicklier temperaments of Edward the Sixth, who died young, and his sister, Queen Mary, who lived only to be an unhappy bigot.

As the circumstance, however, does not appear ascertainable, antiquaries must put up with the later and less illustrious origin which has been found for these distinguished premises, in the house and grounds belonging to the family of the Finches, Earls of Nottingham. Whether the tenement which they occupied had once been royal or not, it seems to have been but a small mansion in their time; probably consisting of nothing more than the now least-visible portion of it north-west; and indeed, though it was subsequently enlarged under almost every one of the sovereigns by whom it was occupied, it was never, in one respect, anything but what

VOL. II.

E

it still is, namely, one of the plainest and least-pretending of princely abodes.

In vain we are told, that Wren is supposed to have built the south front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) the east front. We can no more get up any enthusiasm about it as a building, than if it were a box, or a piece of cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity; it can be imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; in a good air; and though it is a palace, no tragical history is connected with it; all which considerations give it a sort of homely, fireside character, which seems to represent the domestic side of royalty itself, and thus renders an interesting service to what is not always so well recommended by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to receive monarchs in; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in; Kensington Palace seems a place to drink tea in;