PREFACE 



FOR kind permission to make the drawings reproduced in the following 

 pages, and for the facilities so freely given me in doing so, my thanks are due 



To Her Gracious Majesty Queen Alexandra. 



His Grace the Lord Archbishop, of Canterbury. 



His Grace the late Duke of Northumberland. 



The Right Honourable Mary Countess of Ilchester. 



The Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London. 



Major Goldman, M.P., of Walpole House, The Mall, Chiswick. 



The late Dr. Tuke and Charles Tuke, Esq. 



Charles Grant Church, Esq., of 3, The Grove, Highgate. 



Warwick Draper, Esq., formerly of Kelmscott House, Upper Mall, 



Hammersmith. 

 The Trustees of Hogarth House, Chiswick ; The " Physicke Garden," 



Chelsea ; Carlyle House, Chelsea, and Leighton House, Kensington. 



I also cordially acknowledge the valuable aid I have received, through 

 information not otherwise obtainable, from Mary Countess of Ilchester, The 

 Lady Frances Balfour, The Hon. Charlotte Knollys and Lady Thornycroft. 



And there are two others to whom though I do not name them I am 

 deeply grateful, for without their sympathy and steady, kindly encourage- 

 ment I am inclined to think the book would never have been written or, 

 at least, completed. 



With regard to the work itself, I should like to say in explanation of a 

 certain want of continuity that may be felt in its pages, the manner of 

 its genesis should be known. 



Pictures in a picture gallery are regarded as distinct entities, but the 

 chapters of a book (unless it be frankly a collection of short stories) ought 

 to have some logical connection. I have dealt chronologically with the 

 various histories related in the following pages, as far as it has been possible 

 to do so. Also, if the Reader will look for it, there is a well-defined chain 

 of circumstance linking together many of the chapters in " Gardens of 

 Celebrities "but since its existence is accidental, and it is broken in places 

 the book, I fear, must plead guilty to a lack of cohesion. 



This is largely because the illustrations earliest in point of time those of 

 Kelmscott House, Hogarth House and Holland House, which were executed 



