140 KEW GARDENS 



of men," godliness proved to him no small gain. 

 He is said to have had an income of 2000 a 

 year in his latter days, when, having lost the 

 helpmeet of those early struggles, he married 

 Lady Saunderson, widow of a Lord Mayor, with 

 whom he lived in a villa at Cricklewood. He 

 died at Tunbridge Wells, 1813, and was buried 

 at Jireh Chapel, in the outskirts of Lewes. 



It would make too long a story were one to 

 bring in all the celebrities and notorieties living 

 at Richmond, which has books enough of its 

 own to illustrate it, and a fame that would over- 

 shadow that of Kew. The latter place owes 

 everything, unless its river prospects, to princely 

 care ; but Richmond is so richly endowed by 

 Nature that it could not fail to be a favourite 

 place of residence. Perhaps the best known of 

 its inhabitants in the Georgian century was 

 James Thomson, the poet of The Seasons, who 

 ended his life at a cottage in Kew Foot Lane, 

 its place afterwards taken by the Richmond 

 Hospital. But there were lords, belles, and 

 fashionable folk who also had homes here. At 

 the time of the French Revolution, Richmond 

 society got a new element in some of the immi- 

 grant noblesse lucky enough to be able to rent 



