The Royal Horticultural Society, whose gardens, |--signifying that the Exhibition originated in as we have already stated, are enclosed by the England, and was supported by all other nations. Exhibition buildings on the south side of the Royal The monument stands upwards of forty feet in Albert Hall, was established in 1804, and incorpo- | height, and represents the Prince in his robes as rated by royal charter soon afterwards. The society Grand Master of the Order of the Bath. The was instituted for the improvement of horticulture body of the memorial is of grey granite, with in all its branches, and it has an extensive experi- columns and panels of red polished Aberdeen mental garden at Chiswick, five miles from London, granite; the statue of the Prince, and also those laid out tastefully, and filled with many rare plants. of the figures representing each quarter of the These gardens have acquired great celebrity from globe, being of bronze. their having been established at a period when In 1883-6 a large portion of the gardens of the gardening was in a very low condition in this Horticultural Society was utilised for the purposes country, and from having been the means of of International Exhibitions: the first, of everyraising it to its present greatly-improved state. thing connected with our "Fisheries" at home. Previously to purchasing the land at Chiswick, and abroad; the second, of matters concerning the Horticultural Society had temporarily occupied "Health" and Sanitary arrangements; and the a small piece of ground at Brompton, not far from third, of new Designs and "Inventions." These the gardens which we are about to notice. In were followed in 1886 by the Colonial and 1859 the society obtained (through the late Prince Indian Exhibition, the most important of all. Consort) possession of about twenty acres of land on this site, and new and splendid gardens were laid out. These were opened in the summer of 1862, forming a charming retreat from the bustle of the Exhibition.

The northern portion of these Gardens was utilised in 1889-90, after considerable discussion as to their suitability for the purpose, for the site of the new Imperial Institute, a site granted almost free of cost by the Royal Commissioners out of the profits of the first great International Exhibition of 1851. After the close of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, the Prince of Wales was struck by the happy idea of combining its associations and perpetuating its memory by erecting, as one of the means of celebrating the Queen's jubilee, a permanent building devoted to illustrating and en

Between the Kensington Road and Cromwell Road the ground falls about forty feet, and using this fact in aid of a general effect, the ground was divided into three principal levels. The whole garden was surrounded by Italian arcades, each of the three levels having arcades of a different character. The upper, or north arcade, where the boundary was semi-circular in form, being a modi-couraging the resources of that Empire on which fication of the arcades of the Villa Albani at Rome. the sun never sets. Accordingly, a body of ComThe central arcade was almost wholly of Milanese missioners, with the Prince of Wales at its head, brickwork, interspersed with terra-cotta, majolica, was appointed to carry out the idea; and after a &c., while the design for the south arcade was competitive exhibition of plans by British architects, adapted from the beautiful cloisters of St. John the design of Mr. T. Colcutt, F.R.I.B.A., was Lateran at Rome. None of these arcades were less adopted. The first stone of the building was laid than twenty feet wide and twenty-five feet high, and by the Prince of Wales. In its ground plan it they gave a promenade, sheltered from all weathers, is a lofty nave, with central and wing transepts. more than three-quarters of a mile in length. The The prevailing style is a free rendering of the arcades and earthworks were executed by the Com-Italian Renaissance. In the centre is a huge missioners for the Exhibition of 1851, at a cost of projecting entrance, sculptured with a representa£50,000, while the laying-out of the gardens and tion of Her Majesty seated, and surmounted with construction of the conservatory were executed by a tower about 300 feet in height. The building the Horticultural Society, and cost about the same consists of three storeys. The grand reception A noble memorial of the late Prince Con- hall, the conference hall, the long corridor, and the sort, the work of Mr. Joseph Durham, sculptor, staircases are all magnificent in their respective was originally intended only to commemorate the ways. The material used is almost entirely PortInternational Exhibition of 1851. The death of land stone; the rooms are as nearly fire-proof as is the Prince having occurred before the work was possible; and the building is lit throughout by completed, the memorial was made into a lasting electricity. It is isolated from the rest of the tribute to the "great founder of the Exhibition." buildings on the southern side by a wide street The idea embodied is Britannia (typified by the passing across the former gardens from east to west, Prince) supported by the four quarters of the globe and called "Imperial Institute Road.”

sum.

Descent of the Manor-A Parochial Enigma-Derivation of the Name of Kensington-Thackeray's "Esmond "-Leigh Hunt's ReminiscencesGore House-Mr. Wilberforce, the Philanthropist-Lord Rodney-The Countess of Blessington and her Admirers-An Anecdote of Louis Napoleon-Count D'Orsay's Picture-A Touching Incident-Sale of the Contents of Gore House, and Death of the Countess of Blessington -M. Soyer's "Symposium "-Sale of the Gore House Estate-Park House-Hamilton Lodge, the Residence of John Wilkes-Batty's Hippodrome-St. Stephen's Church-Orford Lodge-Christ Church.

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,

in the seventeenth century the Earl of Argyll and at Kensington Gore to its termination beyond 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 a wit talking with other wits at a garden-gate; 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.

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

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 in-visiting Addison; Walpole, from visiting the Foxes; stance, 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 literally a 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.

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 purpose; 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

Kensington.

GORE HOUSE.

119

was always most anxious to avoid. Mrs. Wilberforce supported in this mansion a school for poor girls, which was under her own personal superintendence. At Gore House the gallant admiral, Lord Rodney, was for some time "laid up in port." 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

lodge of some great mansion which had never actually been built; and the row, of which it formed a part, as Leigh Hunt observes, in his "Old Court Suburb," might easily lead one to imagine that it had been divided into apartments for the retainers 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 drawing-in salons than "spiritual" in Wilberforce's sense of room. 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."

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