HOLLAND HOUSE is the chief glory of Kenna's kingdom; yet it possesses so marked an individuality of its own, that we might at first feel inclined to fancy we had over-strayed the boundaries of that kingdom altogether. It is like some lofty mountain height, standing so much apart from the main group as to seem more like a detached summit than what it really is-the highest peak of the range. The only other building in Kenna's kingdom, which at all approaches in point of historical interest, is the Palace, and the palace falls short-very far short-of it, in the freshness and pleasantness of its memories. will lead us not into what is usually

At first we may experience some little surprise and some confusion at the number of persons whom the enchanter's wand, Memory, calls before us. Moneylenders of the reign of James the First, gallants of the time of the two Charles', travellers, quakers, seventeenth century players, roundheads, and cavaliers, Puritans and Presbyterians, painters, wits, authors, men of science, men of letters, lawyers, poets, and statesmen. Take for instance the names of those who are intimately associated with one apartment alone, the library.

The various ages, opinions and anecdotes which such groups of names suggest, may at first sight appear incongruous, but if we throw these nominal masses into our minds, and allow a few days for the mental threshing machine to perform its duty, we shall be surprised to find how the whole jumble has classified and arranged itself, and now appears to represent a natural sequence of events. This sequence does not commence until the seventeeth century, for we do not believe has much association with the nameless traditionary mansion of the De Veres, of which some traces are said to be still extant in Holland Park. It owes it origin to one of the money-lenders of James the First's reign-Sir Walter Cope. The builder was one John Thorpe, as is mentioned in the docket of a plan of the house, preserved by Walpole, which runs, "Sir Walter Coape's, at Kensington, erected by I. T."; but the house was afterwards altered and added to by Inigo Jones and Stone. It was commenced in . Sir

" By this marriage," says Clarendon, "the Earl became possessed of a good fortune, and, amongst other things, the manor and seat of Kensington, of which he was shortly made baron."

, first Baron Kensington, then, is the first well-defined figure which has for its background. His career is an interesting one. He was typical of a class of men not uncommon in the days of the Civil Wars, and by no means extinct. The earl was younger son of the noble house of Rich; In his youth he had served as a volunteer in the war in Holland. The favours, however, which his handsome mien, his winning ways, and fluent tongue, procured him from the king were, joined with his wife's portion, sufficiently substantial to enable him to

In the ensuing January Charles was brought to the scaffold, and shortly afterwards the Earl, too, was tried and condemned. He vainly endeavoured by his conciliatory demeanour, by petition, and by interest, to save his life, but when the end came, he died well and bravely, making many edifying reflections, and compounding with the executioner for his "cloathes" for ten pounds. As the aforesaid " cloathes " included a white satin waistcoat and white satin cap with silver lace, the executioner may not have made so good a bargain. "He was," says Clarendon, who makes many highly moral remarks on his fate and character, a very well-bred man, and a fine gentleman in good times; but too much desired to enjoy ease and plenty . . . when the king could have neither, and did think poverty the most insupportable evil that could befall any man in this world." Had his lot been cast in less troublesome times, he would probably have made a good and prosperous lord of the manor of the Copes, and a successful and honoured courtier. He

At length, with unusual lenity the Parliamentarians allowed the widow of the beheaded Earl to live again at . Her ladyship appears to have found time and money for making alterations and additions, if we may judge by the following inscription on a stone dug up near the stables in .

" This side done by ye la. Holland A.D. ."

She is also said to have given great encouragement to the strolling players, who were as much patronised by the Royalists as they were severely handled by the

John Chardin was a French Protestant, whom the revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove to English

Here is Penn's biography in Magnall's questions, the biography which the children of last generation, and many of the present, have been, and are taught:

"William Penn, a celebrated Quaker, born in London, ; died, . He colonized the province of Pennsylvania, built the town of Philadelphia, and was deservedly esteemed by the good of all persuasions."

Now a few words from as a commentary.

" Unhappily, it cannot be concealed that he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned not merely by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by the general sense of all honest men."

The aspersions of raised a storm of opposition, but they have never been disproved, and the whole affair is a warning against the danger of hero-worship. History is never tired of showing us that heroes, such heroes, at least, as man loves to make of his fellow-man, are few and far between, if

Chronologically, William Penn, as an inmate of , was succeeded by a man of whom formed a very different estimate to that which he did of Penn. This was Joseph Addison, poet, essayist, and statesman.

But was a portrait painter who loved to sketch his characters in black and white; he never used neutral tint. He has made a moral sweep of William Penn, he has made a moral miller of James Addison. Yet to a large, to a very large extent

"Thou Hill-whose brow the antique structures grace

Rear'd by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,

Why, once so lov'd, whene'er thy bower appears,

O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears !

How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,

Thy sloping walks, and unpolluted air !

How sweet the glooms beneath thy aged trees,

Thy noontide shadow and thy evening breeze !

His image thy forsaken bow'rs restore,

Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more;

No more the summer in thy glooms allay'd,

Thy evening breezes, and thy noonday shade.

The story of Addison's death-bed is well known, to some portions of it we have already alluded. How serenely he died; how he is said to have attempted to read a lesson to his step-son, the young Earl of Warwick, in the memorable words "See in what peace a Christian can die," how he sent for Gay, the poet, to , and implored his forgiveness for some wrong which Addison had, or fancied he had, inflicted on his brother poet, and the secret of which is unknown to the present day, and how in his forty-eighth year the great essayist passed away, with the peaceful trust in God of some little sinless childall this, and more than this has been told and retold, and is still worth the telling. Addison was buried in Westminster Abbey.

" Ne'er to these chambers where the mighty rest,

Since their foundation came a nobler guest,

Nor e'er was to the bow'rs of bliss conveyed

A fairer spirit or more welcome shade."

This of course is the partiality of friendship and the license of a poet.

A great poet Addison was not. He was no orator; he showed but little talent as a statesman, his dramatical productions, regarded from a dramatic point of view, were but second rate; his learning though extensive, was not remarkable. Yet as a writer of pure, clear, lucid English prose, he is probably unequalled. He was almost the originator of the essay, he was a humorist of the first water, and a satirist without being a cynic. He was a sincere moralist, a brilliant conversationalist, and a good man. His influence on the men and manners of his age was as great as the influence of any writer on the men and manners of any particular age has been, and it was an influence that was always exerted in the cause of morality, of humanity, and of learning. It was however, only among his chosen friends that his sparkling wit and conversational wealth displayed themselves. With strangers he was mute, and in his own words "he could draw a bill for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket." Indeed Lord Chesterfield declares that 'he was the

Many memorials of Addison are treasured at , and most of the rooms are more or less connected with his name. There is the present dining room, a fine old fashioned apartment, with richly laden sideboard, and pictures by Reynolds, Kneller, and Lely-here Addison died. There is the library, upwards of ninety feet in length, bay-windowed at either end, containing within its bookcases treasures priceless to the antiquary, the bibliomaniac, and the literary man, manuscripts of Lope de Vega, music copied by Jean Jaques Rouseau, when he in this manner, earned a miserable subsistence, and books of value innumerable. To this room belongs the story of Addison's pacings to and fro, with a bottle of wine at either end, and assisting the muse, by regularly taking a glass from each bottle. The story may or may not be true. Horace Walpole, indeed, caps the touching account of his death as commonly received, with the sarcastic words, " Unfortunately, he died of brandy." The brandy, at all events, if it did not assist, at least did not spoil Addison's papers in the Spectator Considering the habitual intemperance

After the death of Addison, still remained in the possession of the Warwick family. On the death of the young earl, which took place in the year following that of his stepfather, his cousin, William Edwardes, afterwards Baron Kensington, became possessed of the property, and under him the house appears to have been let or lent as frequently as before. Among these temporary tenants were Shippen, the plain, downright honest Jacobite, , the Whig lawyer, of whom we have spoken in connection with Campden House, and the daughter