LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1907.

CONTENTS.-No. 158.

NOTES:-Fairy-haunted Kensington, 1-Lady Anne Hol-

Guevara

Thus it was that young Albion, a prince of

Britain, came to the haunts of the fairies,

was fostered by them, and grew to be the

bourne, 2-Dodsley's Famous Collection of Poetry, 3-wonder of the wood for height, and strength,

"First-Footing," A.D. 1907, 5- Cardinal Mezzofanti: and beauty :-

Jeremiah Curtin - King Alfonso's Marriage

Inscriptions at Stenigot: "Potie" Warden, 6-Admiral

Benbow's Death-" Firgunanum "-Christ's Hospital at

Hertford-"Churchyard Cough"-Long Public Service, 7.

QUERIES:-"Unconscionable time dying' "Thune":

"

A

His lofty port his human birth confest;

A foot in height! How stately did he show!

How look superior on the crowd below!

they sigh their love into each other's ears,
and plight their troth

In words so melting that, compared with those,
The nicest courtship of terrestrial beaux
Would sound like compliments from country clowns,
To red-cheeked sweethearts in their homespun

Eil-de-boeuf," French Slang Words-T. Caverley: Jean fairy princess falls in love with him, and

Cavalier-Gamelshiel Castle, Haddingtonshire-George he returns her affection with equal warmth.

Stepney- -Eleanor of Castile- Rev. R. Rauthmel, 8-

Beneath a lofty tulip's ample shade

'Cantus Hibernici'- "Unbychid" - H. S. Kemble
London and Neighbourhood, 1750-Sea-Voyage of

Aloysius'-Romney's Ancestry-Isle of Man and the

Countess of Derby - Doncaster: Image of the Blessed

Virgin, 9-Authors of Quotations Wanted-Boddington

Family Officers of State in Scotland-John Stivens-

Scott Illustrators, 10.

REPLIES:-First Female Abolitionist, 10-St. Oswald:

"Gescheibte Turm"-Cowper, Lamb, or Hood?-Mar-

quise de la Fayette-"Mony a pickle maks a mickle"-

"The Maghzen," 11-Authors of Quotations Wanted-

"Ito": "Itoland"-" Forest of Oxtowe "- Bibliotheca

Farmeriana-Carlyle on Religion-Myddelton Family, 12

-Illustrations of Shakespeare-André-George Eliot and

Dickens-St. George's Chapel Yard, Oxford Road-Oscar

Wilde Bibliography -

-Richard Humphries, the Prize-

fighter-Monkeys stealing from a Pedlar, 13-Walton,

Lancashire West Indian Military Records "Quap

ladde"-"Poor Dog Tray," 14-March 25 as New Year's

Day-Ausone de Chancel, 15-A Knighthood of 1603-

Dole Cupboards, 16-Sante Fé, 17-Courtesy Titles, 18.

NOTES ON BOOKS:- Sheridan's Dramatic Works

-

Dod's Peerage Clergy Directory Literary Year-

Book-Whitaker's Almanack '-' Whitaker's Peerage'—

"Muses' Library."

Obituary:-Mr. Arthur Hall.

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notes.

FAIRY-HAUNTED KENSINGTON.

IN choosing Kensington Gardens for the

haunt of Peter Pan and his elfish companions,

Mr. J. M. Barrie has followed the example

of an early eighteenth-century poet, Thomas

Tickell, who peopled the same district with

a fairy host who

played

was

On every hill, and danced in every shade.

In Tickell's time Kensington Gardens

a fashionable resort, where, he tells us,

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.

But charming as Kensington was to the

beaux and belles of early Hanoverian days,

the poet assures us that

Far sweeter was it when its peopled ground

With fairy domes and dazzling towers was crowned.

In the dim past the seat of Oberon, the Elfin

king, was situated here. Only fairies were

admitted into the beautiful domain that

surrounded his palace, except when some

daring elf stole a mortal child from

gowns.

King Oberon, all unseen, watches their

passionate love-making, and overhears their

Vows. He had cherished other views for

Kenna's future, and is furious at what he

has seen and heard. He decrees, as a

punishment for the luckless pair, the im-

mediate banishment of Albion from fairy-

land and the speedy marriage of Kenna to

another lover, Azuriel, whose large and fair

domains stretched

Where the skies high Holland House invades.

We need not pursue the story further

than to say that the death of Albion in

battle is followed by the destruction of the

fairy kingdom and the dispersal of the

fairies. All except heart-broken Kenna

seek a home elsewhere. She continued to

haunt the grove where her mortal lover,

trying to say,

"Kenna, farewell!" had sighed his soul away.

Her faithful attachment to scenes endeared
by the memory of a lost love has been
rewarded by the bestowal of her name upon
"the neighbouring town" of Kensington.

the lapse of a hundred and eighty-four years,
Such in brief is Tickell's story, and, after
the fertile fancy of another imaginative
writer has once more given to airy nothing
a local habitation and a name. Kenna's
home is again alive with fairies, and, aided
by the fantastic pencil of Mr. Arthur Rack-
ham, Mr. Barrie has conjured up for us a
twentieth-century vision of the doings of
the "little people " of Kensington, about
whose loving and fighting Thomas Tickell
tried to interest our ancestors in the days
when George I. was king.

Tickell may be safely classed among the
forgotten poets, though he wrote a good
deal, was the companion of Addison, and
in one instance appeared as the rival of
Pope. He was a North-Countryman, a