vicarage, he could not find his hat, and summed up the events of the day on his return home by saying, "I have lost my hat, but got a living." Leigh Hunt, whom we mentioned above, used to say the churchyard was too near the bustling streets. If he thought so twenty years ago, what would he have said now? He lies in Kensal-green Cemetery safe from the turmoil of the great city.

We missed many of the old inscriptions, and sincerely hope there is no truth in the report that “many old brasses and monuments were either destroyed or sold as 'rubbish.'" How such utter want of feeling, of taste, of reverence could be shown, we cannot imagine. The church possessed the usual amount of quaint epitaphs, among which the usual examples of those inscriptions which strive to keep up some didatic personality even beyond the grave were to be found. In an oval over the churchwardens' pew, Mr. Lionel Ducket somewhat startlingly reminded us that::

My play is over, and I'm gone,

Reader! your part will soon come on.

Mr. Thomas Wright bade this vain world farewell,

and informed us that he has had enough of it, nor values what it may say of him. "What faults you've seen in me," he concludes, "take care to shun; go home, and see there's something to be done." And certainly one fault Mr. Wright seems to have possessed, an insufferable amount of conceit. The following on a flat stone in the Churchyard to a young lady of seventeen, must, we should think, have proceeded from the pen of her lover:

Sleep soft in dust until the Almighty's will,

Then rise unchanged, and be an angel still.

After all, is there not much of worldly parade and conceit in thus puffing off the virtues of deceased relatives to every casual passer by? Surely the remembrance of our lost ones, except the world claim them among its great, are best enshrined in our own bosoms.

The alterations consequent on the rebuilding of the Church, have certainly taken away all the charm of country seclusion from Kensington Churchyard. The level of the ground has been raised by some feet, and those tombstones which have not been raised too are almost hidden within four walls of earth. We suppose

such things are unavoidable, and that in this busy, improving, building age, even God's acres cannot remain undisturbed. Such a train of thoughts makes us wonder whether after all cremation is so uncomfortable an idea. Surely we would rather have the remains of those we loved near to us, and in such a form that they would be but memorials, than think of them tossing about, where all traces of their identity must soon be lost. From a sanitary point of view, the question is, perhaps, still more important, and as the dead must always give way to the living it may not, perhaps, be long before tombstones are a thing of the past, and will be hunted up by antiquarians with as much zest as Roman urns are at present.

175

CHAPTER IX.

CAMPDEN HOUSE.

Baptist Hicks, the Merchant Baronet-The Sad Story of the Little Duke of Gloucester-Lechmere, and Swift's Ballad.

IF any of us had found ourselves in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, some few years back, we might have cudgeled our brains with the statements on the milestones that we were two miles, or four miles, or three miles, from the spot where Hick's Hall formerly stood. Here was an enigma rivalling in difficulty the "Who's Griffiths?" or the "Ozokerit" of a later age. Charles Knight, in his "London," thus paints the perplexity of a worthy country schoolmaster, on his first visit to the Metropolis. "Who was Hicks? How did Hicks obtain such a fame, that even the milestones were inscribed to his memory? What was his Christian name? Was he General Hicks, or

Admiral Hicks, or Bishop Hicks, or Chief Justice Hicks? Or was he plain Mr. Hicks? And if so, was he M.P., or F.R.S., or F.S.A., or M.R.I.A., and why did he build a hall?" The simple solution to all this was that one Baptist Hicks built, in Clerkenwell, a Sessions House for the Justices of Middlesex, which was called after him Hicks' Hall. But Hicks possesses another interest for us besides that which caused his name to be handed down on the milestones, for this said Baptist Hicks built Campden House, and thus we feel as much curiosity as the country pedagogue to know all about him. Baptist was the son of a rich silk mercer in Cheapside, was brought up to the business, and made a large fortune. Part of this fortune he invested in the embellishments of his signature, an easy matter in those days. King James the First, "the wisest fool in Christendom," was on the throne. King James wanted money, and he looked about, as persons naturally do when in want of cash, for something to sell. A clever expedient was hit upon. Titles were put up to sale. The demand was great at first; but the fees were heavy, and some economical people refused the