Political Anecdotes of his own Times) that
tlie baronet killed himself by rising in the
middle of the night, when he was in a profuse
perspiration (the consequence of a medicine
taken to that end), and going downstairs for
the key of the cellar, which he had inadver
tently left on a table. " He was apprehensive
that his servants might seize the key, and rob
him of a bottle of his port-wine."

"This man (adds the doctor) died intestate,
and left more than two hundred thousand
pounds in the funds, which were shared
among five or six day-labourers, who were his
nearest relations."

"Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor."

The High Street of Kensington, though
the place is so near London, and contains so
many new buildings, has a considerable
resemblance to that of a country town. This
is owing to the moderate size of the houses,
to their general style of building (which is
that of a century or two ago), and to the
curious, though not obvious fact, that not one
of the fronts of them is exactly like another.
It is also neat and clean; its abutment on a
palace associates it with something of an air
of refinement; and the first object that
presents itself to the attention, next after the
sentinels at the Palace-gate, is a white and
pretty lodge at the entrance of the new road
leading to Bayswater. The lodge, however,
is somewhat too narrow. The road is called
Kensington Palace Gardens, and is gradually
filling with mansions, some of which are in
good taste and others in bad, and none of
these have gardens to speak of; so that the
spectator does not well see why anybody
should live there, who can afford to live in
houses so large.

Pleasant, however, as the aspect of High
Street is on first entering it, the eye has
scarcely caught sight of the lodge just
mentioned when it encounters a " sore," in the
shape of some poor Irish people hanging
about at the corner of the first turning on the
left hand. They look like people from the
old broken-up establishment of Saint Giles's,
and probably are so; a considerable influx
from the " Rookery" in that quarter having
augmented the " Rookery" in this; for so it
has equally been called. This Rookery has
long been a nuisance in Kensington. In the
morning you seldom see more of it than this
indication at the entrance; but in the evening
the inmates mingle with the rest of the
inhabitants out of doors, and the naked feet
of the children, and the ragged and dissolute
looks of men and women, present a painful
contrast to the general decency. We
understand, however, that some of these poor
people are very respectable of their kind, and
that the improvements which are taking
place in other portions of the kingdom, in
consequence of the attention so nobly paid of

late years to the destitute and uneducated,
have not been without effect in this quarter.
The men for the most part are, or profess to
be, labouring bricklayers, and the women,
market-garden women. They are calculated,
at a rough guess, to amount to a
thousand; all crammed, perhaps, into a place
which ought not to contain above a hundred.
The reader, from late and painful statements
on these subjects, knows how they must
dwell. The place is not much in sight.
You give a glance and a guess at it, as you
look down the turning, and so pass on.
There was a talk, not long since, of bringing
the new road, just mentioned, from over the
way, and continuing it through the spot, so
as to sweep it clean of the infection, as in the
case of New Holborn and St. Giles's; and
in all probability the improvement will take
place, for one advance brings another, and
Kensington has become of late so much
handsomer as well as larger, that it will
hardly leave this blemish on its beauty. But
leases must expire; and lettings and sub-
lettings for poor people die hard. It is not
the fault of the Archdeacon, non-resident in
Kensington (we mention it to his honour),
that these lettings and sub-lettings are still
alive.

Most of this unhappy multitude are
Roman Catholics. Their priests tell us of a
fine house at Loretto, in Italy, which the
Virgin Mary lived in at Nazareth, and which
angels brought from that place into the
dominions of the Pope. They also tell us
that miracles never cease, at least not in
Roman Catholic lands; and that nobody
feels for the poor as they do. What a pity
that they could not join these feelings, these
hands, and these miracles, and pray a set of
new houses into England for the poor
bricklayers.

Continuing our way from this inauspicious
corner, we come to the turning at Young
Street, which leads into Kensington Square,
formerly as important a place in this suburb
as Grosvenor Square was in the Metropolis.

Kensington Square occupies an area of
some hundred and fifty feet, and was commenced
in the reign of James the Second, and
finished towards the close of that of William.
It is now a place of obsolete-looking, though
respectable, houses, such as seem made to
become boarding-schools, which some of them
are; and you cannot help thinking it has
a desolate air, though all the houses
are inhabited. In the reigns of William, of
Anne, and the first two Georges, Kensington
Square was the most fashionable spot in the
suburbs; it was filled with frequenters of the
court; and these are the identical houses
which they inhabited. Faulkner says, that
"at one time upwards of forty carriages were
kept in and about the neighbourhood;" and
that " in the time of George the Second, the
demand for lodgings was so great that an
ambassador, a bishop, and a physician, were