t and all the interesting
district on the north, we turn to Kensington Square, which was begun
about the end of James II.'s reign, and from the very first was a
notably fashionable place, and more especially so after the Court was
established at Kensington Palace. In Queen Anne's reign, "for beauty of
buildings and worthy inhabitants," it "exceeds several noted squares in
London." The eminent inhabitants have indeed been so numerous that it is
difficult to prevent any account of them from degenerating into a mere
catalogue. "In the time of George II. the demand for lodgings was so
great that an Ambassador, a Bishop, and a physician were known to occupy
apartments in the same house" (Faulkner).

The two houses, Nos. 10 and 11, in the eastern corner on the south side
are the two oldest that look on to the square. They were reserved for
the maids of honour when the Court was at Kensington, and the wainscoted
rooms and little powdering closets speak volumes as to their bygone
days; these two were originally one house, as the exterior shows. Next
door is the women's department of King's College. J. R. Green, the
historian, lived at No. 14 until his death, and in No. 18 John S. Mill
was living in 1839. Three Bishops at least are known to have been
domiciled in the square: Bishop Mawson of Ely, who died here in 1770;
Bishop Herring of Bangor, a very notable prelate, who was afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury; and in the south-western corner Bishop Hough
of Oxford, Lichfield, and Worcester had a fine old house until 1732. The
Convent of the Assumption now covers the same ground in Nos. 20 to 24.
The original object of the convent was prayer for the conversion of
England to the Roman Catholic faith, but the sisters now devote
themselves to the work of teaching; they have a pleasant garden, more
than an acre in extent, stretching out at the back of the house. In the
chapel there is a fresco painting by Westlake.

No. 26 is the Kensington Foundation Grammar School. Talleyrand lived in
Nos. 36 and 37, formerly one house. He succeeded Bishop Herring in the
occupancy, after a lapse of fifty years, and the man who had abandoned
the vocation of the Church to follow diplomacy was thus sheltered by the
same roof that had sheltered a Churchman by vocation, if ever there were
one. Many foreign ambassadors patronized the square at various times.
The Duchess of Mazarin, already mentioned in the volume on Chelsea, was
here in 1692, and six