114 KEW GARDENS 



the Green, where the Herbarium now stands. 

 From first to last he may have been a good deal 

 in this neighbourhood, for he painted Charles I. 

 at Hampton Court, and after doing the same 

 service for Cromwell, he became the fashionable 

 artist of Charles II. 's Court, whose frail beauties 

 still live on his canvas. His successor in vogue 

 was Sir Godfrey Kneller, who contributed to 

 artistic vocabulary in his portraits of the Kit-Cat 

 Club, that had its rendezvous at Barn Elms, 

 now the Ranelagh Club. He also settled not 

 far off, in the house behind Twickenham named 

 Kneller Hall, that, after various vicissitudes, has 

 become the Army School of Music. 



Swift, in his letters to Stella, mentions dining 

 with the Duke of Argyll at Kew in 1712. I do 

 not find any other allusion to this residence : 

 perhaps Swift landed at Kew and went on to 

 Sudbrook Park, where the Duke had a seat, 

 that should rather be reckoned as belonging to 

 Petersham, united with Kew as one dependent 

 district of the Kingston parish. This mansion 

 was near the famous avenues of his birthplace, 

 the Duke of Lauderdale's Ham House, said to 

 have been originally intended for Prince Henry, 

 son of James I., and chosen by the Lords of the 



