still behold the fairies, on moonlight nights, dancing their rounds in Kensington Gardens, with their faithful princess at their head, to the eternal honour of love, and the virgin snowdrops, and the reigning house of Albion. We think we see them now, while we are writing, gathering like fire-flies among the trees; skimming like swallows over the pond in front of the Palace; careering like doves round the Palace roof; going in procession, like mourning widows, to the sound of a feeble choir; gliding in a chain of whirling but grave-faced dancers with dishevelled hair; then, as if relieving themselves after those tragical reminiscences, imitating the graces and the follies that at different times have been developed by the events reigning in the Palace; coming down the Great Walk in a flood of hoops and other court-dresses, (see

the close of the chapter) in a style, and with a blaze of colours that might have made the "human mortals" die with envy; beating opera dancers in operatic dances, which end with whirring flights into the air like frightened coveys of birds; fantastically caricaturing (at least such among them as are

"The pert fairies, and the dapper elves.")

the absurdities of the Chesterfields, Horace Walpole, Duchesses of Marlborough and Kingston, &c., or forcing the actual and reluctant ghosts of those worthies to do it themselves; pursuing the wretched spectrè of Lord Hervey with pop-guns made of his own quills, and paper-pellets of his own pages, while the blushing shades of Queen Caroline, and her daughter Caroline,

look and shake their heads at him; then turning themselves all at once for refreshment into living parterres and flower-beds of the most gorgeous description, that breathe forth delighted sighs of pink and sweet-briar ; tuning the winds into harmonies beyond Æolian lyres; lighting the windows of the Palace on the birth-night of the Sovereign who was born there, with flame and colours beyond gas and jewellery; or forming themselves into figures of rose and lily, representing the letters of her name, and drawing it across the Palace front, till all the place is with a radiance which is at once light

lit

up

and odour.

But we must have done; or semi-utilitarian readers, who do not know what crowning use

there is in uselessness, will think us really

benighted.

FIRST KENSINGTON PROMENADERS.

129

To return, therefore, to flesh and bloodTickell's poem commences with a picture of the early Kensington promenades, justly painted in chintz and damask.

"Where Kensington, high o'er the neigb'ring lands,
'Midst greens and sweets, a regal fabrick stands,
And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers,

A snow of blossoms and a wild of flowers,
The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair

To groves and lawns, and unpolluted air.
Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies,
They breathe in sunshine, and see azure skies:
Each walk, with robes of various dies bespread,
Seems from afar a moving tulip-bed,

Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow
And chintz, the rival of the showery bow.

"Here England's Daughter, darling of the land,

(Caroline above-mentioned, to wit)

Sometimes, surrounded with her virgin band,

Gleams through the shades. She, towering o'er the

rest,

Stands fairest of the fairer kind confess'd;

Form'd to gain hearts that Brunswick cause denied
And charm a people to her father's side."

Caroline was a fine-looking woman, with a red and white complexion, and popular It was rather bold in the poet

manners.

to call a foreign Princess of Wales, "England's Daughter." Could the "father" have read the verses (for though he had inherited the English throne, the English language was unknown to him) he would have been anything but pleased with this ascription of his popularity to his son's wife; for he included her so strongly in his dislike of that gentleman, that he was in the habit of calling her "that devil, the Princess " or, (to use the rhyming French formula, which somehow or other had got into his head): "Cette diablesse, Madame la Princesse.'