George's own life, meantime, and ever afterwards, with the usual injustice of his sex, was full of license. He was a short, round-featured, ease-loving, selfish, dull man ; not ill-natured, where he was not thwarted, but capable otherwise of hating stubbornly enough, as he did in the instances both of his wife and his son; the latter, perhaps, for some supposed likeness to Köningsmark, which was long a jest against the Hanover succession, with the partizans of the house of Stuart. George could not speak English; never cared to learn it; cared, in fact, for nothing but his ease, and his German diversions; that is to say, for his old habits, whatever they were; and, fortunately, for the English nation, he put its government, and its security from the Stuarts, into the hands of Sir Robert Walpole, who, if he was a

corrupt minister in regard to money, certainly applied the corruption to the maintenance of the best interests of the country. George brought over two mistresses with him from Germany; one, the Duchess of Kendal, dismally thin; the other, the Countess of Darlington, overflowingly corpulent; both of them the scorn and jest of the nation, whom they fleeced in return. They were both also as dull as himself; and, lawless as they were, occasioned no sort of vivacity in the court. Before he died (which was not at Kensington, or in England, but during one of his visits to Germany) George added to the seraglio which he is supposed to have gathered about him, an English damsel of the name of Brett, daughter of Savage's mother, the Countess of Macclesfield; and such a daughter, black-browed and bold, as

such a mother might be supposed to have given birth to. Establishments of this kind, begun by the kings of France, had spread over Europe, as a fashion, and a matter of course; and thus acquired a sort of privileged allowance.

The unprincely, reserved, insignificantlooking Elector of Hanover was not fond of appearing before his new subjects. Kensington Gardens, therefore, remained with him as dull and limited as he found them ; and his son, who was always at variance with him, appeared at the court there as little as he could help. Yet it is during the reign. of George the First, that the fashionable promenades in the gardens, which became so popular, and the last glittering skirts of which are still within the memories of old people, would seem to have first made their

appearance.

Caroline of Anspach, the Prince of Wales's consort, probably gave rise to them, when she came with her bevy of maidens to court. People would throng to see them; the ladies would take the opportunity of showing themselves in the walks; persons of fashion, privileged to enter the Gardens, would avail themselves of the privilege, and at last the public would obtain admission, and the show be complete. The full promenade, it seems, was at first confined to Saturdays. It was afterwards changed to Sundays, and continued so till the custom went out with the closing days of George the Third.

But we must leave mistresses and Maids of Honour awhile.

The poets of the time now began to sing of Kensington Gardens. Addison's friend,

120 TICKELL'S "KENSINGTON GARDENS."

Tickell, leading the way. His poem, indeed, under that title, though, like the court wine, it was "something small," had real merits of fancy and elegance, and by the help of a catholic taste, which rejects nothing that has flavour at all, may still be read with gratification. There is even a story in the poem, not destitute of invention, and so very local, that, before proceeding further, we are bound to give some account of it.

Tickell informs us that, in the earliest times of those princes who gave their name of Albion to this island, and who were descended on the mother's side from Neptune, the ground now occupied by Kensington Gardens contained the capital and the palace of the English Kingdom of the Fairies. The walks were their streets, full of such houses as