Alexander William Kinglake was descended from an old Scottish
stock, the Kinlochs, who migrated to England with King James, and
whose name was Anglicized into Kinglake. Later on we find them
settled on a considerable estate of their own at Saltmoor, near
Borobridge, whence towards the close of the eighteenth century two
brothers, moving southward, made their home in Taunton--Robert as a
physician, William as a solicitor and banker. Both were of high
repute, both begat famous sons. From Robert sprang the eminent
Parliamentary lawyer, Serjeant John Kinglake, at one time a
contemporary with Cockburn and Crowder on the Western Circuit, and
William Chapman Kinglake, who while at Trinity, Cambridge, won the
Latin verse prize, "Salix Babylonica," the English verse prizes on
"Byzantium" and the "Taking of Jerusalem," in 1830 and 1832. Of
William's sons the eldest was Alexander William, author of
"Eothen," the youngest Hamilton, for many years one of the most
distinguished physicians in the West of England. "Eothen," as he
came to be called, was born at Taunton on the 5th August, 1809, at
a house called "The Lawn." His father, a sturdy Whig, died at the
age of ninety through injuries received in the hustings crowd of a
contested election. His mother belonged to an old Somersetshire
family, the Woodfordes of Castle Cary. She, too, lived to a great
age; a slight, neat figure in dainty dress, full of antique charm
and grace. As a girl she had known Lady Hester Stanhope, who lived
with her grandmother, Lady Chatham, at Burton Pynsent, her own
father, Dr. Thomas Woodforde, being Lady Chatham's medical
attendant. {2} The future prophetess of the Lebanon was then a
wild girl, scouring the countryside on bare-backed horses; she
showed great kindness to Mary Woodforde, afterwards Kinglake's
mother. It was as his mother's son that she received him long