in the seventeenth century the Earl of Argyll and three other persons joined in a conveyance of the property to Sir Walter Cope, whose daughter conveyed it by marriage to Henry Rich, Earl of Holland. The manor subsequently passed into the hands of Lord Kensington, who was maternally descended from Robert Rich, last Earl of Warwick and Holland, and whose barony, singularly enough, is an Irish one, although the title is derived from this place.

Parochially considered, Kensington is somewhat of an enigma, for it 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 Kensington Gardens are not in Kensington, but in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster.

The place, which now forms, as it were, part and parcel of London, was down to comparatively recent times a village, one mile and a half from Hyde Park Corner. The name is stated by some topographers to be derived from Koennigston, or from the Saxon Kyning's-tun, a term synonymous with King's End Town, and to be the same word as Kennington and Kingston; our monarchs from the earliest date having had residences at all three places. Possibly, however, the "Ken" may be an equivalent to "Kaen," or "Caen," which lies at the root of "Kentish" Town, "Caen-wood," &c.; but we will leave the origin of the name to be discussed by antiquaries, and pass on to a survey of the district in detail.

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 III. going from the palace
to open Parliament; Queen Anne, for the same pur-
pose; George I. and George II. (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 topknots and toupees.
Here comes 'Lady Mary,' quizzing everybody;
and Lady Suffolk, looking discreet; there, the
lovely Bellendens and Lepels; there, Miss Howe,
laughing with Nancy 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.'"
Probably there is not an old house in Kensington
in which some distinguished person has not lived,
during the reigns in which the Court resided there;
but the houses themselves are, as Leigh Hunt puts
it, "but dry bones, unless invested with interests of
flesh and blood."

"Whatever was the origin of its name," writes Leigh Hunt, in the "Old Court Suburb," "there is no doubt that the first inhabited spot of Kensington was an inclosure from the great Middlesex forest which once occupied this side of London, and which extended northwards as far as Barnet." Kensington has been always a favourite, not only with royalty, but with those who more or less bask The Royal Albert Hall and the gardens of the in the sunshine of princes-poets, painters, &c. Horticultural Society occupy the site of Gore House The healthfulness and fashion of the place attracted and grounds. This is probably the estate called numerous families of distinction; and its import- the Gara, or the Gare, which Herbert, Abbot of ance was completed when William III. bought the Westminster, gave to the nuns of Kilburn. The house and grounds of the Finch family (Earls of spot was, according to John Timbs, anciently called Nottingham), and converted the former into a Kyng's Gore. Old Gore House was a low, plain, palace, and the latter into royal gardens. It is and unpretending building, painted white, and emphatically "the old Court suburb," and is abutted on the roadway, about 150 yards to the familiar to all readers of Thackeray, who has por-east of the chief public entrance to the Albert Hall. trayed its features in many of his writings, especially Its external beauty, if it had any, belonged to its in "Esmond." Leigh Hunt observes that "there southern, or garden side. Standing close to the is not a step of the way, from its commencement roadside, it looked as if meant originally for the

lodge of some great mansion which had never was always most anxious to avoid. Mrs. Wilberactually been built; and the row, of which it formed force supported in this mansion a school for poor a part, as Leigh Hunt observes, in his "Old Court girls, which was under her own personal superinSuburb," might easily lead one to imagine that it tendence. At Gore House the gallant admiral, had been divided into apartments for the retainers Lord Rodney, was for some time "laid up in port.” of the Court, and that either a supernumerary set of maids of honour had lived there, or else that some four or five younger brothers of lords of the bedchamber had been the occupants, and expecting places in reversion. "The two houses," adds the writer," seem to be nothing but one large drawingroom. They possess, however, parlours and second storeys at the back, and they 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."

Mr. Wilberforce having occupied the house for thirteen years, from 1808 down to 1821, it next passed into the hands of a new meditator, but not so much on the beauties of nature as on those of art and literature-one who was more spirituelle in salons, that "spiritual" in Wilberforce's sense of the term-the "gorgeous" Countess of Blessington became in turn its proprietor. She lived here during her widowhood, surrounded by a bright and fashionable crowd of aristocratic and literary admirers. Gore House became indeed a centre of attraction to the world of letters; for besides giving such dinners as Dr. Johnson would have thought

herself on her success in "bringing people together," in order to please and be pleased in turn. Here were such men of the last generation as Lord Melbourne, the poet Campbell, Samuel Rogers, and many of the beaux of "the Regency" and of the reign of George IV., including Count D'Orsay, who married Lady Blessington's daughter, and made the house his home.

Here, for the best part of half a century, distinguished statesmen and philanthropists, and after-"worth being asked to," Lady Blessington prided wards the light and frivolous butterflies of West-end society, used to mix with men of letters and the votaries of science. Here the "lions" of the day were entertained from time to time; and there were few houses to which the entrée was more coveted. At the end of the last century it was little more than a cottage, with a pleasant garden in the rear attached to it, and it was tenanted by a Government contractor, who does not seem to have cared to go to any expense in keeping it in order. Early in the present century it was enlarged on coming into the possession of Mr. Wilberforce, who soon grew very fond of the spot, and here used to entertain Mr. Pitt, Lord Auckland (who lived hard by), and such eminent philanthropists as Clarkson, Stephen, Zachary Macaulay, and Romilly; indeed, it has often been said that the agitation which ended in the abolition of West Indian slavery was commenced in the library of Gore House. Of this place Mr. Wilberforce often speaks in his private correspondence; and in one place he mentions his rus in urbe in the following terms:-"We are just one mile from the turnpike at Hyde Park Corner, having about three acres of pleasure-ground around our house, or rather behind it, and several old trees, walnut and mulberry, of thick foliage. I can sit and read under their shade with as much admiration of the beauties of Nature as if I were down in Yorkshire, or anywhere else 200 miles from the great city." Here, too, his four sons, including the future Bishop of Oxford and of Winchester, were mainly brought up in their childhood and boyhood; and in the later years of its hospitable owner's life it is on record that "its costliness made him at times uneasy, lest it should force him to curtail his charities," a thing which he

"At Gore House," writes Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, "Prince Louis Napoleon met most of the intellectual society of the time, and became the friend of Count D'Orsay, Sir E. Lytton Bulwer, Sir Henry Holland, Albany Fonblanque, and many others who formed Lady Blessington's circle." The Prince dined at Gore House with a small party of West-end friends and acquaintances, including Lord Nugent and "Poodle" Byng, on the evening before he started off on his wild and abortive effort to make a descent on Boulogne in August, 1840. "It was the fashion in that day," says Mr. Planché, in his "Recollections," "to wear black satin handkerchiefs for evening dress; and that of the Prince was fastened by a large spread eagle in diamonds, clutching a thunderbolt of rubies. There was in England at that time. but one man who, without the impeachment of coxcombry, could have sported so magnificent a jewel; and though to my knowledge I had never seen him before, I felt convinced that he could be no other than Prince Louis Napoleon. Such was the fact. . . . There was a general conversation on indifferent matters for some twenty minutes, during which the Prince spoke but little, and then took his departure with Count Montholon. Shortly afterwards, Lord Nugent, Mr. Byng, and I, said good night, and walked townward together. As

Lady Blessington, Count D'Orsay, Walter Savage | home to become the property of strangers, and in Landor, Mr. John Forster, &c., whom he amused by recounting his recent adventure in detail.

took Lady Blessington's hand, said good-night, and our army, and was anxious to learn how he had was gone before a word was uttered. . . . I have heard of women fainting at a song of Moore's; and if the burden of it answered by chance to a secret in the bosom of the listener, I should think, from its comparative effect upon so old a stager as myself, that the heart would break with it."