IF we leave the Gardens, and, passing by the Albert Memorial, enter the high road near the Knightsbridge Barracks, we shall find ourselves at the eastern extremity of Kenna's Kingdom.

The parish here is narrowed into a little slip, like a triangle with the top cut off, and ladies will at once see how appropriate is the name of gore, or goar, as used by dressmakers, which derivation we much prefer to one that signifies " mud and dirt," for which the road from London to Kensington was at one time famous. The name is as old as the troubled times of wicked King John, during whose reign we find it mentioned under the outlandish appellation of Kinggesgor. We

In No. 2, lived Wilkes. , blackguard and fine gentleman, scholar and demagogue, political scribbler and libertine, idol of the city and the people, and general representative of Liberty. It is strange, indeed, under what forms that goddess is venerated. Wilkes was just as much a representative of Liberty as was the frail goddess of the French Republicans. Yet for some time Wilkes and Liberty followed each other as u follows q. "A wit of the time, indeed," says Leigh Hunt, " commenced a letter with ' Sir, I take the Wilkes and Liberty to assure you.' "

Wilkes in was the editor, and, indeed, almost entire writer of a scurrilous journal, the North Briton. In the celebrated No. 45 of that journal, he censured

In truth the libel was a dull one, and is described by Burke, as "a spiritless, though virulent perform ance,-a mere mixture of vinegar and water, at once vapid and sour."

The then Prime Minister, Charles Grenville, of whose heedlessness and incapacity England still witnesses the effects, had Wilkes arrested by a general warrant, one not specifying the names of any persons, but directed against the authors, printers, and publishers. Thus Wilkes became a martyr, and the No. 45 famous How Wilkes was released on his privilege as a member of Parliament; how he recovered damages in an action brought against the Under Secretary of State; how he was expelled the House of Commons and outlawed; how general warrants were declared illegal by the Rockingham administration which succeeded Grenville's; how Wilkes retired to France, and how he returned in , and was elected member for Middlesex; how the election was declared null and

When at length he was permitted in to take his seat for Middlesex, and was in the same month installed as Lord Mayor of London, he became nobody. Never, perhaps, in England had a greater scoundrel, a greater share of public popularity and admiration. Benjamin Franklin believed that if . had had a bad private character and John Wilkes a good one, the latter might have turned the former out of the kingdom.

The same statesman tells us how when visiting the neighbourhood of Winchester, there was for a length of sixty-four miles scarcely a window or door shutter next the road unmarked with "Wilkes and Liberty," and "Number 45." Without these safeguards, indeed, the windows would probably have been smashed, and the doors broken open.

The sound of Wilkes and 45 was so much disliked in the Court that George the Fourth, when a boy,

He was a very ugly man, tall and thin, with a sallow face, a squint, and an underhanging jaw. These graces of nature he set off by a suit of scarlet and buff, a rosetted cocked hat, and military boots. Ugly as he was, his impudence, audacity, and wit, made him a great favourite with the ladies. He himself would say that he wanted but a half-hour at starting to make him, the ugliest man in England, even with the handsomest.

Three doors from Wilkes' house lived, at a consider ably later period, a dandy of another sort-the handsomest man in England.

This was , but the Count can best be considered in connection with . Gore House was the last of the row-a low, unornamented, white-painted building, which stood not many yards to the east of the great entrance of the Albert Hall.

We wished to take a farewell look at the gardenthat garden where Wilberforce sat and read under the shade of the old walnut and mulberry trees, older still now by half a century, where Louis Napoleon chatted with the , and Tom Moore admired the last amateur effort of his artistic friend " the glass of fashion and the mould of form," Count D'Orsay; and where Soycr may have looked smilingly round on gormandizing visitors appreciating his culinary triumphs. Alas! when we arrived at the scene of these departed glories we found that all access to it was barred by a horribly unpicturesque hoarding, covered with still more unpicturesque advertisements. Not feeling interested in the statement that " The Moore and Burgess Minstrels never performed out of London," or speculating as to whether the Daily

The garden was in an awful mess, strewed with brick-bats and rubbish, very different to what it must have been in the time of William Wilberforce, who speaks of its thick foliage, and says he can almost imagine himself two hundred miles away from the great city. Its present state reminded us more of its first tenant, some miserly Government contractor, who was so stingy that he let the garden grow wild rather than waste a farthing over it. But to return to Wilberforce, who succeeded him. We like to think of this great man with gratitude, and speak of him after

The next name on the roll of celebrities is that of Margaret Power, .

Philosophers and historians have not yet decided how much of the career of a human being is due to his own inherent character, and how much depends on the modifications of external circumstance. But no one can doubt that in analyzing any one's character much importance must be attached to daily surroundings. If ever woman was surrounded by evil influences, that woman was Margaret Power.

Her father was " Edmund Power, Esq., of Knockbrit, near Clonmel, in the county of Tipperary." He was a type of that evil race of last century Irish squires, a curse to their country and themselves. Of those bad men Edmund Power seems to have been the worst. His character was that of a savage who has adopted all the vices which accompany civilization, with none of its benefits. In his native country he was known as the "Buck," "Shiver the Frills," and " Beau Power," and is said to have been " a fine looking man, of an imposing appearance, showy, and of an aristocratic air, very demonstrative of frills and ruffles, much given to white cravats, leather breeches

Such was Margaret's father.

Before she was fifteen, this father sold his daughter to a man as brutal as himself.

This man, a Captain Farmer, whom we may charitably believe to have been half a madman, used to strike his wife on the face, pinch her till her arms were black and blue, lock her up whenever he went abroad, and half starve her.

At length a separation took place. In , Farmer ended his worthless life by dropping, when drunk, from a two-pair-of-stairs window, leaving his widow, of whom, for about the space of nine years little is known, a free woman.

Her second husband was the Earl of , who, it has been said, was as foolishly mad as her first was mad mischievously.

After the marriage, the couple lived in a " style of princely splendour" in St. James' Square. Here the social status of the Earl, the fascinations of his wife, and the excellence of the cook, drew to the house a number of men of note-politicians, authors, artists, and aristocrats. Lord was more economical after marriage than he had been before, at least, so thinks Dr. Madden, her ladyship's biographer-he only spent all his annual income and six thousand a year besides! The Countess was profusely luxurious, her husband profusely lavish.

Among his favourites was Count Alfred D'Orsay, the son of a French general, one of the old nobility of France. The Earl's favour knew no bounds; he married the Count to his daughter, by a former wife, and with his daughter went one hundred thousand pounds to the Count's creditors. It was a similar case to Lady 's first marriage, only there the lady was sold, here the gentleman was purchased. The poor pale, girlish-looking Lady Harriet was fetched from the schoolroom, to marry a spendthrift, whom, a few weeks before, she had never seen, and whom, when she did see, she did not like. The marriage was not a happy one.

In a fit of apoplexy carried off the Earl; his widow with her stepdaughter and the Count returned to England. She took up her residence first at Seymour Place, and afterwards () at . Thither came separated from his wife. With the exception of a short stay in No. 5, the Count seems to have resided at or near until the break up of the establishment took place in . Here they gave the most recherche of parties, and became acknowledged leaders in the world of fashion and the world of literature. To came the wit and talent of the town. Here Moore, the poet, would enrapture the guests with one of his touching songs. Here, too, the night before Louis Napoleon made his rash expedition to Boulogne, he appeared at a dinner there, his black satin handkerchief "fastened by a large spread eagle in diamonds, clutching a thunderbolt of rubies," and invited the guests to dine with him at the Tuilleries on that day twelve months. That expedition ended in the prison of Ham, and on his escape thence six years later, Louis Napoleon again seized the first opportunity of entertaining a

"Bah," said the Count incredulously, when told that a sheriffs officer was in the house. On the next morning, he left with his valet and one portmanteau for Paris. Thither the Countess followed him. In their prosperity Louis Napoleon, then an exile, now President of the French Republic, had been their frequent guest; he seems now to have done little for his old friends. Lady began to furnish splendidly in Paris, but in June she died, and before long D'Orsay followed her to the grave. A sad and painful story, too sad and painful for us to wish to linger over it.

One more tenant of , and we have done. We are happy to say that it is a man who will put us into a good humour again. The world owes far more to than to . In Soyer opened as a restaurant for all nations," during the great Exhibition. Soyer might be considered as the leader of domestic economy for the people. If he could only have lived to have seen the school of cookery at South Ken

Afterwards was turned into a Cabinet Exhibition, and has now shared the fate of all old houses, and vanished off the face of the earth. We are glad to hear that the trees are, as far as possible, to remain undisturbed ; and we would ask our readers the next time they visit the Albert Hall, just to give a glance towards the spot where the old house stood. The memories it suggests if somewhat sad will probably do us good; and, at all events, we hope may help to pass an otherwise idle ten minutes.