Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/85

15 NOTES BY THE WAY. LEIGH HUNT'S LONDON RESIDENCES.

Mr. Charles Kent, in his biographical introduction to 'Leigh Hunt as Poet and Essayist,' relates that

"early on Wednesday evening, the 9th of August [1859], I was with him again it was for the last time for him and for me at that last of all his London homes, 7, Cornwall Road, Hammersmith. There I remained with him, in the midst of the home group of his daughters and his grandchildren, until long after nightfall. In all my intercourse with him I never remember him more delightful. Throughout the evening he charmed us all by his varying moods, according to the fluctuating themes of the conversation among us. Late that night we all stood at the garden gate of his little villa to see him drive away to the house of his old friend Mr. Charles Reynell at Putney, where so soon afterwards, on the 28th of August, 1859, he died, within two months of the completion of his seventy-fifth year."

HAMPTON COURT PALACE.

In the course of the excavations for the effluent pipe of the new Thames Valley drainage along the towing path by the Palace gardens, it appears, from the following account in The Daily News of the 13th of June, that

"between the railings of the private gardens opposite the end of Queen Mary's bower, the foundations of the old water-gate or 'water gallery,' built by Henry VIII., have been cut through. The walls or piers are of immense thickness, being no less than twenty-five feet wide, of the hardest chalk, faced with stone. The opening through which the State barges passed is clearly discernible. On these massive foundations which were built in the river, formerly rose a large picturesque building of several stories. The structure was famous for being the place in which Queen Elizabeth was kept by her sister as a prisoner of State and in which she was privately visited by Philip II. It was afterwards occupied by the consort of William of Orange while Sir Christopher Wren was building the new State apartments, and after her death it was demolished, by order of William III., as obstructing the view of the river from his windows."

PASSAGE IN DICKENS.

In 'John Francis, Publisher of The Athenæum' (Bentley), vol. ii. p. 525, will be found the following:—

"On the 18th of November, 1843, in reviewing 'The Keepsake,' The Athenæum quotes a poem by Dickens entitled 'A Word in Season, which, 'we should think, will startle a round hundred at least of aristocratic readers in their country houses.'"