Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1901 — Historic House to be Sold [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Historic House to be Sold

William Makepeace Thackeray’s old house, 2 Palace Qreen, London, which the novelist built In accordance, with his Ideas and where he passed his last days, was recently to be sold at auction. Palace Qreen Is part of the fashionable district at the extreme upper end of Hyde park, and gets its name from the fact that it is close to old Kensington palace, where Queen Victoria was born end spent her childhood. No. 2 is S picturesque dwelling, set wall

back from the street and almost hidden by the trees by which it is surrounded. This is not one of the several London houses in which Thackeray’s bestknown novels were written, but was built by him tn his more prosperous old age. The circumstances of the transaction reveal the author of “Vanity Fair" in a rather new light, that of a careful provider. He wanted not only to buy a house where he could spend bis last days quietly, but to make a

speculation that would eventually benefit those whom he left behind, and fancying that property in the district would Increase in value as time went on he took a long lease of the site upon which at the time there stood an old sion 8 ° meWhat dilap,dated manThackeray’s first idea was to repair and alter this house, but he afterwar* decided to pull it down together The annual rental of the Palace Green Th?,t rty Wa *, ? 2 ’ 500 ’ a fi « ure which Thackeray s friends thought rather beyond his means, and when he began his building operations they were aghast at his extravagance. The authors Judgment was vindicated eventually, however, for when the house r i « B nfT d h,s death 14 brought 110,000 more than it had cost. A remarkable story is current regarding General Sir lan Hamilton’s spectacles. The general lost a pair of spectacles at the battle of Majuba Hill. They must have been picked up by a Boer whom they suited, and who kept them for twenty years. Hi the early part of the preseat year the spectacles were found on the dead J l ? er ' The caße had Ctaneral Hamilton s name on 4t, and the glasses were in due course returned to their original owner. Charles Algernon Parsons, the inventor and builder of the turbine engl.n ® 8 o4tl ”> i “' fated Viper a nd Cobra of the British navy, is a brother of Lord Rosse and a son of the famous Lord Rosse or the great telescope,from whom he inherited his strong bent toward scientific Tssearch and mechanics. » v