The houses in Kensington Court, near by, are elaborately decorated with ornamental terra-cotta mouldings. They stand just about the place where once was Kensington House, which had something of a history. It was for a while the residence of the Duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de Querouaille), and later was the school of Dr. Elphinstone, referred to in Boswell's "Life of Johnson," and supposed, on the very slightest grounds, to have been the original of one of Smollett's brutal schoolmasters in "Roderick Random"; though the driest of pedagogues, Elphinstone was the reverse of brutal. The house was subsequently a Roman Catholic seminary, and then a boarding-house, where Mrs. Inchbald lodged, and in which she died in 1821. Close by was another old house, made notorious by its owner's miserliness; this man, Sir Thomas Colby, died intestate, and his fortune of L200,000 was divided among six or seven day labourers, who were his next of kin. A new Kensington House was built on the site of these two, and is said to have cost L250,000, but its owner got into difficulties, and eventually the costly house was pulled down, and its fittings sold for a twentieth part of their value. Near at hand are De Vere Gardens, to which Robert Browning came in June, 1887, from Warwick Crescent. Further eastward we come to Palace Gate. Some of this property belongs to the local charities. It is known as Butts Field Estate, and was so called from the fact that the butts for archery practice were once set up here. KENSINGTON GARDENS AND PALACE. The Gardens are so intimately connected with the Palace that it is impossible to touch upon the one without the other, and though Leigh Hunt caustically remarked that a criticism might be made on Kensington that it has "a Palace which is no palace, Gardens which are no gardens, and a river called the Serpentine which is neither serpentine nor a river," yet in spite of this the Palace, the Gardens, and the river annually give pleasure to thousands, and possess attractions of their own by no means despicable. The flower-beds in the gardens nearest to Kensington Road are beautiful enough in themselves to justify the title of gardens. This is the quarter most patronized by nursemaids and their charges. There are shady narrow paths, also the Broad Walk, with its leafy overarching boughs resembling one of Nature's aisles, and the Round Pond, pleasant in spite of its primness. The Gardens were not always open to the public, but partly belonged to the palace of time-soiled bricks to which the public is now also admitted.