We have always regarded "Cromwell House," as it is called, with veneration. In our earliest acquaintance with a neighborhood, in which we lived so long and still love so well, this giant dwelling, staring with its whited walls and balconied roof over the tangled gardens which seemed to cut it off from all communication with the world, was associated with our "Hero Worship" of Oliver Cromwell. We were told he had lived there (what neighborhood has not its "Cromwell House?")--that the ghastly old place had private staircases and subterranean passages--some underground communication with Kensington--that there were doors in the walls, and out of the walls; and, that if not careful you might be precipitated through trap-doors into some unfathomable abyss, and encounter the ghost of old Oliver himself. These tales operated upon our imagination in the usual way; and many and many a moonlight evening, while wandering in those green lanes--now obliterated by Onslow and Thurloe Squares--and listening to the nightingales, have we watched the huge shadows cast by that solitary and melancholy-looking house, and, as we have said, associated it with the stern and grand Protector of England. Upon closer investigation, how grieved we have often been to discover the truth, for it destroyed not only our castles in the air, but their inhabitants; we found that Oliver never resided there, but that his son, Richard, had, and was a rate payer to the parish of Kensington for some time. To this lonely sombre house Mr. and Mrs. Burke and their son removed, in the hope that the soft mild air of this salubrious neighborhood might restore his failing strength; the consciousness of his being in danger was something too terrible for them to think of. He had just received a new appointment--an appointment suited to his tastes and expectations; he must take possession of it in a little time. He was their child, their friend, their treasure, their all! Surely God would spare him to close their eyes. How could death and he meet together? They entreated him of God, by prayer, and supplication, and tears that flowed until their eyes were dry and their eyelids parched--but all in vain. The man, in his prime of manhood, was stricken down; we transcribe, from an article in the _Quarterly Review_, on "Fontenelle's Signs of Death," the brief account of his last moments: