The Prince and Princess of Wales showed themselves continually in the West End, and in places where the quality of the town most did congregate. At first they walked in St. James’s Park every day, attended by a numerous suite, and followed by a fashionable, and would-be-fashionable, crowd. But after a time the Princess, who was as fond of outdoor exercise and fresh air as the old Electress Sophia, declared that St. James’s Park “stank of people,” and she migrated to Kensington, driving thither by coach, and then walking in the gardens. Kensington was at that time in the country, and separated from the town by Hyde Park and open fields. The palace, a favourite residence of William and Mary and Queen Anne, was the plainest and least pretending of the royal palaces, though Wren was supposed to have built the south front. But the air was reckoned very salubrious, and the grounds were the finest near London. The gardens were intersected by long straight gravel walks, and hedges of box and yew, many of them clipped and twisted into quaint shapes. Pope made fun of them, and gave an imaginary catalogue of the horticultural fashions of the day, such as: “Adam and Eve in yew, Adam a little shattered by the fall of the Tree of Knowledge in a great storm, Eve and the Serpent very flourishing”. “St. George in box, his arm scarce long enough, but will be in condition to stick the dragon by next April.” “An old Maid of Honour in wormwood.” “A topping Ben Jonson in laurel,” and so forth. As soon as the Princess of Wales took to walking at Kensington, the gardens became a fashionable promenade. The general public was not admitted except by ticket, but persons of fashion came in great throng. The poets now began to sing of Kensington and its beauties. Tickell gives a picture of these promenades in the following lines:-- Where Kensington, high o’er the neighb’ring lands, ’Midst greens and sweets, a regal fabrick stands, And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers, A snow of blossoms and a wild of flowers, The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair To groves and lands and unpolluted air. Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies, They breathe in sunshine and see azure skies; Each walk, with robes of various dies bespread Seems from afar a moving tulip-bed, Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow, And chintz, the rival of the showery bow. Here England’s Daughter,[56] darling of the land, Sometimes, surrounded with her virgin band, Gleams through the shades. She towering o’er the rest, Stands fairest of the fairer kind confess’d; Form’d to gain hearts that Brunswick cause denied And charm a people to her father’s side.