THE hope expressed in our last chapter was not a vain one.

On the , Victoria was born here, and here also did she reside until her accession to the throne in . We are scarcely called upon to extend our rambles on what must, for the present, be hallowed ground. But traditions of the Princess still linger in the neighbourhood. Anecdotes of her punctuality, her activity, her early donkey rides, and her bracing walks, taken in all weathers, might easily be cited. William Wilberforce, whose acquaintance we shall soon make, at , tells us of a visit he paid to the

The last scene we have to depict at Kensington, forms a fitting concluding tableau to its long list of regal glories. At five o'clock on the morning of the , the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham, the Chamberlain, appeared before the gates of the Palace, having left the death-bed of William the Fourth only a few hours before. After knocking, ringing, and thumping for some time, the porter was at length aroused. Further delays ensued; the attendant at first refused to disturb the Princess, who was in a " sweet sleep." "But," continues our authority, " they said ' We are come to the Queen on business of State, and even her sleep must give way to that.'" In a few minutes she who had the night before retired to rest Princess, was awakened to find herself Queen. "She came into the room," we are told, "in a loose white nightgown and shawl, her night-cap thrown off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in her slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified." These tears called from the

"God save thee, weeping Queen, Thou shalt be well beloved The tyrant's sceptre cannot move As those pure tears have moved; The nature in thine eye we see Which tyrants cannot own The love that guardeth liberties. Strange blessing on the nation lies Whose Sovereign wept, Yea, wept to wear a crown."

At eleven o'clock on that memorable day, the first Cabinet Council of the present reign met at Kensington. The customary formalities were gone through, her uncle's death was officially announced to her, the proclamation was read, the doors of the adjoining chamber were then thrown open,and the Queen,leaning on the arm of the Duke of Sussex, entered the room. She was in mourning, and plainly dressed. She bowed to the Council, took her seat, and read the speech prepared for her clearly and distinctly, while any little timidity she may have shown on her entrance entirely disappeared, and she remained perfectly calm and selfpossessed during the rest of this certainly trying ordeal for a young girl not yet out of her teens. She

The Duke of Cumberland was the first to render her the customary homage, and " the Duke of Sussex rose to perform the same ceremony, but the Queen, with admirable grace, stood, and preventing him from kneeling, kissed him on the forehead." "The arrangements, however," adds the same author, " were so illmade, that the scene of swearing fealty was more like that of the bidding at an auction than anything else." One only of the ministers who took the oath of allegiance at that Privy Council, held forty-three years ago, still survives--Earl Grey, then Secretary at War, who has reached the age of seventy-eight. Great indeed have been the changes in those forty-three years. Thankful may we feel that they have been for the

As we leave the Palace and take a farewell glance over the regal inhabitants who have passed under our view, we shall look in vain for another of whom it may be said, as it has been said so truly and poetically by Tennyson of Victoria:

"Her court was pure, her life serene,

God gave her peace, her land reposed;

A thousand claims to reverence closed

In her, as Mother, Wife, and Queen."

Leaving the palace, our path lies through the Gardens. Their mythological origin which formed the subject of our first chapter, is separated by a long train of centuries from their authentic history. That is at first mixed up with the history of Hyde Park, for both parks are the remains of a vast forest, which in the time of the Romans, was infested with wild boars, wolves, and deer, and inhabited only by a stray swineherd, or a charcoal burner. This forest was bounded on the north by the line of the present railings, which faces the high road, and which therefore forms the natural boundary of Hyde Park, beyond which it never extended.

During the troubled times of the Commonwealth, the Park was sold for ready money, and the indentures of sale, composed with puritanical preciseness and dulness, may give us some little insight into the state at that period of the Gardens which were to be. The part around Kensington was meadow land, stocked with deer. The Park itself was intersected by a chain of eleven pools, the germ of the present Serpentine. But Kensington Gardens, as distinct from Hyde Park, did not exist until the time when King William purchased the Palace from the "orator dismal of Nottinghamshire." They then consisted of twentysix acres stretching westwards from the present broad walk, and including Palace Green, on the west side of which stood Henry the Eighth's conduit, said to have been built for the use of good Queen Bess in her childhood. In King William's time, the gardens were adorned in summer with orange, lemon, myrtle, and similarplants, which were put under shelter for the winter. added thirty acres to the north of the Banqueting House, as far as the Bayswater Road. "This," says Addison, "was at first nothing but a gravel pit" (being in fact the site of Oberon's

Crabbe, the poet, considered the effect of all this, new and striking, and that the Gardens had a very peculiar effect, " not exhilarating, I think, but alive and pleasant." With all these civilizing influences, the Gardens were in a tolerable state of nature for years afterwards. Even as late as , a keeper accidentally shot a man here while fox hunting. Such

We have as yet said nothing about the promenades; these, indeed, form the chief glory of the Gardens. They seem to have commenced in George the First's reign, and to have arrived at their culminating point in that of his son. The company was of the most select description. None were admitted except on

"Poor Adam and Eve were from Eden turned out,

As a punishment due to their sin ;

But here after eight, if you loiter about,

As a punishment, you'll be locked in."

The Saturday promenades were indeed glorious. Tickell thus celebrates them in the opening verses of the poem to which we are indebted for our title:

" Where Kensington high o'er the neighbouring lands,

'Midst greens and sweets, a regal fabric 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 gravel walks 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 chints, the rival of the showery bow."

Head and chief among the company were the maids of honour to the Queen. There might be seen the beautiful Mary Lepell-she whose charms even affected the dried-up heart of Voltaire, and who married our old acquaintance, the gossipping Lord Hervey. There was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, witty and pretty, but if report say true, no ardent admirer of the maxim that "cleanliness is next to godliness." There was Madge Bellenden,"the tallest of the land," and her sister Mary, afterwards Duchess of Argyle. The beauties would not be without cavaliers; Garth, , Addison, Steel, and Vanbrugh,all might be seen sauntering along the walks. Later on, their places were taken by ladies equally as fair, and cavaliers as renowned. The beautiful Miss Gunnings (you may see several portraits of them at the Bethnal Green Museum), Miss Chudleigh, afterwards Duchess of Queensbury, Lord Chesterfield, the cynic, George Selwyn, the rake, Beau Nash, and a long string of others, good, bad, and indifferent. But

The fashions of these promenades were absurd enough, but we are afraid we are not sufficiently acquainted with the subject to go into the technicalities of furbelows, patches, hoops, brocades, chintzes, drums, go-carts, sacks, negligees, mobcaps, laces and ribbons, hoods and flounces; nor indeed dare we even attempt any description of

" In Kensington-gardens to stroll up and down,

You know was the fashion before you left town;

The thing's well enough, when allowance is made

For the size of the trees and the depth of the shade.

But the spread of their leaves such a shelter affords

To those noisy, impertinent creatures called birds,

Whose ridiculous chirruping ruins the scene,

Brings the country before me, and gives me the spleen.

Yet though 'tis too rural-to come near the mark,

We all herd in one walk, and that nearest the Park;

There with ease we may see, as we pass by the wicket,

The chimneys of Knightsbridge, and footmen at cricket.

I must though in justice, declare that the grass

Which, worn by our feet, is diminish'd apace,

In a little time more will be brown, and as flat,

As the sand at Vauxhall or as Ranelagh mat.

Improving thus fast, perhaps by degrees,

We may see rolls and butter spread under the trees,

With a small pretty band in each seat of the walk,

To play little tunes, and enliven our talk."

But, reader, all that nonsense is now a century old. We at least have improved on our ancestors. Walk into Rotten-row any afternoon. Do you see dandies there now? Do you see conceited young jackanapes in patent leather boots, whisking canes, and making

After all, although the history of the Gardens is largely a record of pageants and fopperies, yet great men have passed within their gates, and great men have paced their avenues. Paioli, the Corsican patriot enjoyed a walk here with his friend Boswell, and, half a century later, Blucher sought refuge in the Gardens from the enthusiastic populace who wished one and all to shake hands with the great Prussian general.

Chateaubriand too, delighted to stroll under these beautiful trees, where, in the days of his exile, he used to meet his fellow sufferers, the French priests, reciting their breviary-those trees under which he had " indulged in many a reverie, under which he had breathed many a sigh for his home in La Belle France, under which he had finished ' Atala,' and had composed Rene'"

It would be wearisome to recount how often gaily dressed crowds have skated on the frozen Serpentine, and how the fashionables have meandered from one spot to another. The Gardens possess something more interesting than these promenades, human beings more attractive than languishing belles or youths redolent of " tags, feathers, and martial foolery." The proper time for a visit is about three or four in the afternoon. At that hour, on some summer's day, direct your steps to the Round Pond, or some other portion entirely devoted to the rising generation. What can be more enjoyable than to have some demure little maiden step up to you softly, with her hands nervously clasped behind her back, and in a voice trembling with excitement, enquire the time ? If you are wise you will not give a careless reply, or answer her abruptly with some vague guess, but, with an air befitting the importance of the occasion, draw forth your watch, make due allowance for its peculiarities, and tell her the hour to a minute. Then with a sudden dart your little questioner will skip away to communicate the result of her enquiries triumphantly to her playmates. On such afternoons the view from the round pond with the old

" They have shadowed many a group

Of beauties, that were born

In tea-cup times of hood and hoop,

Or while the Patch was worn."

Nay, the old trees have older memories, for they

"Fairies that will flit,

To make the greensward fresh."

Yet their work is not yet over, and so long as they afford a pleasant shelter to those who must pass their lives in this smoky, dingy, but after all, pleasant London, so long should Londoners join heartily in singing their praises.