WITH the decease of George the Second,

George the Fourth probably regarded the place as a homely concern, quite out of his line. It might suit well enough the book- collecting inclinations of his brother, the Duke of Sussex, with which he had no sympathy; was not amiss as a means of affording a lodging to his brother, the Duke of Kent, with whose habits of regularity,

Adieu then, for the present, and for we know not how long a time hereafter, to Court-holdings in the Palace; to Court

As we cannot help giving a loving and pitying look at the departing Maids, we here transcribe, for the benefit of the sympathizing reader, the latest account we can find of them, in King George the Third's History. It is the latest account of the sisterhood, in any history; and must be taken with allowance for the exaggerations natural to the scape-grace to whom it is attributed; namely, the " wicked Lord

" To make up at least two Court suits in a year (says the writer) ; to dance as many Court minuets in the same space; to sidle, on days of duty, through the presence- chamber, at the tail of a royal procession; to take her place in an established corner of the drawing-room; to say 'Yes, Sir,' or

"But they are not without their rewards. A moderate salary, and a thousand pounds, when Miss gets an husband; an apartment in a palace, and, I believe, a dinner from a royal kitchen; in a rotation of six weeks, a seven days' possession of a royal coach, a royal coachman, and a shabby pair of royal horses, for the purpose of shopping in the city, and paying distant visits; airings in the King's Road, and the

"This brief history, my dear friend, you well know to be founded on fact, and will, therefore, be ready to applaud the tender pity I feel for these virgin automatons. I

"A Lady of the Bed-chamber is obliged only to do partial duty; and, during the short period of her attendance, is, in some degree, the companion of her royal mistress; while the Virgins of Honour are not admitted, as I have been informed, to stick a pin in a royal handkerchief. Even the Women of the same department figure only in her Majesty's cast off gowns, on royal

"I remember, when I was little more than a boy, to have seen a young lady in training for this important office; and the whole of that serious business consisted in nothing more than a practical lecture upon entrances and exits, the language of courtesies, and the art of conducting a large hoop in all modes and forms of possible pliancy. * * *

"After this manner did I treat the Honourable Subject of her Majesty's Honourable Virgins; and little did I think it would beget a long admonitory epistle from you,

So much for the disparagements of the poor maids by the wit that would not speak evil of dignities! The lovely Dillons and Stanleys of the present day will know how to estimate such ungallant distinctions at their just value, and smile to think how little they need the pity bestowed on the unmarrying attendants of grudging Queen Charlotte.

But if no reigning sovereign has lived in Kensington Palace, since the time of George the Second, a sovereign grace, of a new description, has occurred to it; for Queen Victoria was born, as well as bred, within its walls. We regret, as a special personal disappointment, (if many loyal and loving reasons may warrant us in so speaking,)

A magnificent footman, in scarlet, came behind her, with the splendidest pair of calves, in white stockings, that we ever beheld. He looked somehow like a gigantic fairy, personating, for his little lady's sake, the grandest kind of footman he could think of; and his calves he seemed to have made out of a couple of the biggest chiase-lamps in the possession of the godmother of Cinderella.

Writing to his friend, Hannah More,

Hearty reason has the nation to rejoice, that neither Mr. Wilberforce nor Miss Hannah More had anything to do with their Queen's education; though, had the case been otherwise, we trust that the good sense which she inherited from both her parents, would have rendered it harmless. She had too much joyfulness, and justice, and universality, in her nature, to allow her to fall into those supposed-religious, but really profane, desecrations, both of this world and the next, which such persons would inflict on us. And thus we have a Queen who sees fair play to all that mean well, and who can rejoice and grieve impartially with her subjects of all classes, like a right, sovereign, human creature; and not stint and begrudge her

So much for the latest points of remembrance in connexion with the Palace at Kensington. We will now look back a little in order to finish with those of the Gardens; for the death of George the Second did not put an end to the weekly promenades. They lasted throughout the long reign of his successor, and only terminated with his son's accession to the Regency. Hence, we may still fancy all that was brilliant and fashionable, or in any manner distinguished, good or bad, in the successive generations of the last half of the eighteenth century, and the two first decades of the nineteenth, making its appearance as such in the Kensington Great Walk, delighting the scientific eyes of drapers and mantua-

At the beginning of the new reign, the promenaders would be much the same as before, with the addition of a few Germans, who had come over with the new Queen. The Queen herself would hardly be there; for one publicity of expectancy begets another; and the new sovereigns kept much, and economically, at home; gave no dinners or gala-days; nor, though a ball now and then, even a supper after the ball.

Miss Chudleigh, not yet Duchess of Kingston, was still in request. The young ladies who have figured as actresses at Holland House, Lady Susan Fox, and the charming Lady Sarah Lenox, with whom the young King had been said to be in love, were, perhaps, the greatest attractions in the Walk.

There, also, might probably be seen the beautiful Countess of Waldegrave, an illegitimate Walpole, who, before the marriage- act had put an end to such ambitions, became the wife of the King's brother, the Duke of Gloucester, and mother of the late Duke, not long deceased. Kitty Clive, the actress, would also be there, looking more intelligent than handsome; and the notorious Kitty Fisher, the Venus of the day, would contribute a face as insipid as Venus herself (that is to say, the Venus de Medicis). Her charm consisted, we suppose, in the unexpected things which such a face would utter; we mean, in the way of slang: a contrast in which Horace Walpole found something very bewitching.

This is the lady, we believe, who, by way of making a sensation, and showing her

We know not whether Johnson was ever to be found in these promenades a little later in the reign; but very likely he was, considering

A few years later, poor Miss Ray is in

Meantime, George, Prince of Wales, has arrived at "years of indiscretion;" and the Mary Robinsons, the Crouchs, and the Fitzherberts, pass in fascinating succession down the Walk. Then Mrs. Siddons, very respectable

And now the French Revolution brings an inundation of emigrants, male and female, preceded by Egalite, Duke of Orleans, who is come to add orgies to orgies at Carlton

The fashions of this half-century, with the exception of an occasional broad-brimmed hat, worn both by gentlemen and ladies, comprised the ugliest that ever were seen. Head-dresses became monstrous compounds of pasteboard, flowers, feathers, and pomatum; the hoop degenerated into little panniers; and about the year , a set of travelled fops came up, calling themselves

"Shepherds, I have lost my love: Have you seen my Anna ?"

This song was parodied by one beginning-

"Shepherds, I have lost my waist; Have you seen my body ?"

We remember this dress in our boyhood, and never have we beheld anything so monstrous.

The French Revolution put an end to cocked-hats, to pigtails, to hair-powder; and, by degrees, introduced the classical female costume that prevailed at the Tuilleries under the First Consul. The hoop, under the regency of the Prince of Wales, disappeared from its last stronghold, the Court. The Prince liked to contemplate the shapes of the ladies, though he had now become willing enough to disguise his own in stays and trowsers, which, accordingly, became fashionable; and

To this novelty, a very agreeable and unexpected one was added not many years since; to wit, a considerable strip of public flower garden. The flowers, and the trees also, are labelled with their botanic as well as popular names; and as many of both are not common, and, at the same time are beautiful, not only is general information diffused, but cultivators learn what to ask for of gardeners and nurserymen, and gardens in general profit accordingly.

It is calculated, that England is now three or four times the country it used to to be in regard to its shew of flowers, and that the importation of foreign trees, particularly from America, has given its parks, and will ultimately give its woods and field-sides, an addition of autumnal colours, very like changing its landscape from northern to

The late public-spirited Mr. Loudon, who had a main hand in bringing about the recent improvements of this kind, both here and elsewhere, got the old wall in the Bayswater Road exchanged for an iron railing, which gives the wayfarer a pleasant scene of shrubs and green leaves as he goes along, instead of dusty old brick-work; and though too many of the shrubs and new trees, in the line of the railing, are not yet sufficiently grown to keep up the old sense of seclusion, and so render the walker in the gardens equally content with the change, a few years will restore him his satisfaction. New trees had become necessary not only in this part of the gardens, but in the whole of them. Multitudes of the old ones had grown up slender

Besides the rarer trees in the strip of garden-ground properly so called, and the trees common to woody places in the Gardens in general, there are some good specimens of beech here, and some more than usually fine

Ordinary birds of course abound, both singing and cawing, though it has never been our good fortune to hear the nightingale. The return of rooks towards nightfall often gives Kensington the look of a remote country town. The nut-hatch has been frequently caught in the Gardens; it is not improbable that the rare and beautiful bird the hoopoe (Upupa epops) may be seen there during the prevalence of the east winds, which are understood to drive it hither from the continent; and we ourselves have seen the jay,

As to fish, all we can say is, that we have seen boys, with faces no wiser than the fish they caught, succeed in throwing a number of " tittle-bats" on the grass by the Serpentine, where they leaped and gasped out their wretched little souls with ineffectual efforts to gulp the air.

A satirical or hypercritical observer of Kensington might say, that it has a Palace which is no palace, Gardens which are no gardens, and a river called the Serpentine, which is neither serpentine nor a river. It is an angular piece of water made (as before stated) out of some ponds; which ponds, we have now to add, were made, we believe, out of a brook which rises in West-End Lane, Hampstead. The brook makes a considerable

The most unpretending piece of water is the great pond, or basin, in front of the Palace, from the sides of which the principal walks diverge. In summer time, the refreshment of its appearance is increased by the hot gravel of the walks; and in winter, the ear is pleasantly greeted by the tinkling, and the eye by the crowding, of the happy skaiters, not the less happy, and very reasonably so, because the pond is shallow; for a cold bath in winter time is not to be desired, especially with ones clothes on; and though life itself is not to be put into competition with great calls for its sacrifice, there is something ridiculous, as well as grievous, in losing it by such a thing as a ducking.

It is pleasant, however, in default of having a real and a better river at hand, to walk by the Serpentine in fine weather;

"Had shot as he was used to do."

The poet may turn his verse, the philosopher his axioms, and the lover his affectionate

The most affecting consideration suggested by places like these, is the one which calls to mind the past splendour and gaiety, the frivolity, the vice, and the virtue also, which

The chief abiding thought in any garden is, or ought to be, a combined consciousness of the beauty of vegetation and the tranquillizing effect of quiet. This, we doubt not, is the reflection and the reward of those who frequent Kensington Gardens in general; and such of them as meet with this book will gladly see it finish with a quotation from a poet, who was one of the truest brother-lovers of gardens that ever lived, and also, as his friend Evelyn was here sometimes,

" Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good, Hail, ye plebeian underwood, Where the poetick birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food, Pay with their grateful voice. " Here Nature does a house for me erect, Nature, the fairest architect,

Who those fond artists does despise, That can the fair and living trees neglect, Yet the dead timber prize. "Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me flying, With all their wanton boughs dispute, And the more tuneful birds to both replying, Nor be, myself too, mute. " A silver stream shall roll his waters near, Gilt with the sunbeams here and there, On whose enamell'd bank I'll walk, And see how prettily they smile, and hear How prettily they talk. " Ah, wretched and too solitary he, Who loves not his own company! He'll find the weight of't many a day, Unless he call in sin or vanity, To help to bear't away.

And again, in his Essay entitled "The

" Methinks I see great Diocletian walk In the Salonian garden's noble shade, Which by his own imperial hands was made. I see him smile, methinks, as he does talk With the ambassadors, who came in vain To entice him to a throne again. "'If I, my friends,' said he, 'should to you show All the delights which in these gardens grow, 'Tis likelier much that you should with me stay, Than 'tis that you should carry me away. And trust me not, my friends, if every day I walk not here with more delight, Than ever, after the most happy fight, In triumph to the Capitol I rode, To thank the gods, and to be thought, myself, almost a god.'"

THE END. LONDON: Printed by Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street. 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH ST., LONDON. MARCH .