KENSINGTON

But we must not forget that we are travelling to Brentford sixty-two years ago. Let us, therefore, whip up the horses, and, passing the first milestone at the corner of the lane which a future generation to that of 1837 is to know by the name of the Exhibition Road, hurry on to Kensington.
Image unavailable: TOMMY ATKINS, 1838.
TOMMY ATKINS, 1838.

Kensington in this year of the accession of Her Majesty Queen Victoria is having an unusual amount of attention paid to it. Every one is bursting with loyalty towards the girl of eighteen suddenly called upon to rule over the nation, and crowds throng the old-fashioned High Street of Kensington at the end by Palace Green, eager to see Her Majesty drive forth from Kensington Palace. They are kept at a respectful distance by a sentry in a dress which succeeding generations will think absurd. White trousers, coatee, stiff stock, rigid cross-belts, and a shako like the upper part of the funnel of a penny steamer were whimsical things to go a-soldiering in, but the Tommy Atkins of that time had no other or easier kind of uniform, and it will be left for the Crimean War, seventeen years later, to prove the folly of it.

The palace is well guarded, for the Government, for their part, have not yet learned to trust the{54} people; nor, indeed, are the people at this time altogether to be trusted. The long era of the Georges did not breed loyalty, and for William the Fourth, just dead, the people had an amused contempt. They called him ‘Silly Billy.’ At this time, also, aristocracy drew its skirts daintily from any possible contact with the lower herd. Alas! poor lower herd, and still more, alas! for aristocracy.
Image unavailable: OLD KENSINGTON CHURCH.
OLD KENSINGTON CHURCH.
REMINISCENCES

Our fellow-traveller in the Brentford stage has a friend with him, and, as we jolt from Kensington Gore into the High Street, points out the palace, and tells how William the Third and Queen Mary lived and died there, amid William’s stolid Hollanders. He tells a story which he heard from his grandfather, of how Dr. Radcliffe, called in to look at the King’s dropsical ankle............