tively recent euthanasia of the age of beaux and belles. Nash, under the auspices of George IV., effected another transformation in the appearance of St. James's Park. It was high time that something should be done. Rosamond's Pond had long passed away from this sublunary scene, having been filled up about 1770; the decoy had vanished; the tenants of the Bird-cage Walk were nowhere to be The line of the Mall, and the formal length of the central canal, alone remained—formal and neglected in their formality. Enclosure of the central space, a judicious deviation from the straight line on the banks of the canal, and the planting of some new trees and shrubs, were all that was required to produce the present pleasing scene.

seen.

The "silent sister" (to borrow an epithet applied by Oxford and Cambridge to the Irish University) of the Green Park has only had the hand of judicious ornament extended to it within the present year. Its history is in a great measure like Viola's imaginary sister-" a blank." It was not fenced in by royal residences like St. James's Park, on the verge of which the monarchy of England has built its bower-first at Whitehall, then at St. James's, and now at Buckingham Palace— for three hundred years, unable to tear itself away. St. James's Park is, in some sort, an out-of-door vestibule or ante-chamber to the Palace-frequented at times, it must be confessed, by courtiers of sufficiently uncouth appearance. But the Green Park was, until a recent period, away from the abodes of royalty and out of town. Looking from Constitution Hill to the west, south, and east, the eye rested upon fields and meadows interspersed with villages. Piccadilly was not the street of palaces it has since become many mean buildings being to be found in it. The Green Park too (compared with its neighbours) was left bare of adornment, more resembling a village green than an appendage of royalty. During the last century it was occasionally a haunt for duellists, and at times the scene of outrages, such as Swift mentions being perpetrated at the door of Lord Winchelsea's house by the Mohocks. About the middle of the century some labourers employed in cutting a drain across it from Piccadilly, east of the Ranger's lodge, found a human skeleton, which did not appear to have been in the ground above thirty or forty years, and which bore traces of violence on the skull. Under the auspices of the new police, the Green Park, retaining its homeliness, has hitherto been a place for hand-ball and such amusements. The adornments of its neighbour are now extending to this neglected corner: it too has been set apart for the "enjoying of prospects."

its

It only remains to be mentioned, before we turn our attention to Hyde Park, that St. James's, although the seat where amusement seems to have taken up favourite abode, has witnessed incidents of a more exciting character, in the same manner as the quiet of a domestic residence is sometimes invaded by the tragic occurrences of the restless world without. We read in the annals of the reign of Charles II., that the Duchess of Cleveland, walking one dark night across the Park from St. James's to Whitehall, was accosted and followed by three men in masks, who offered her no violence, but continued to denounce her as one of the causes of the national misery, and to prophesy that she would yet die the death of Jane Shore. It was at the entry to St. James's Palace from the Park that Margaret Nicholson attempted the life of George III. In the Park the same monarch received at one time the almost idolatrous homage of his subjects, and

at another was with difficulty rescued from the violence of the assembled multitude. Charles I. walked across the Park, guarded by a regiment of foot armed with partizans, to his execution at Whitehall. His son, James II., walked across the Park from St. James's, where he had slept, to Whitehall, on the morning of his coronation. When the Dutch guards of the Prince of Orange were by his orders marching through the Park to relieve the English guards of James posted at Whitehall, the stout old Lord Craven made show of resistance, but received his master's orders to withdraw, and marched off with sullen dignity. This was the nearest approach to the actual intrusion of war into the Park, except when Wyatt, in the reign of Mary, marched his troops along the outside of its northern wall, and the royal artillery playing upon them from the heights sent its balls into the Park. But the mimic show of war has often appeared there. George Colman the younger (who by the bye was a native of the Park-born in a house the property of the Crown, which stood near the south-east corner of Rosamond's Pond), referring to 1780, wrote:-" Although all scenery, except the scenery of a playhouse, was at that time lost upon me, I have thought since of the picturesque view which St. James's Park then presented: the encampment which had been formed in consequence of the recent riots (Lord George Gordon's) was breaking up, but many tents remained; and seeming to be scattered, from the removal of others, out of the formal line which they originally exhibited, the effect they produced under the trees and near the canal was uncommonly gay and pleasing." Such of the present generation as witnessed the tents of the artillery pitched in the Park the evening before the coronation of her present Majesty, can form a pretty accurate conception of the scene witnessed by Colman. To these reminiscences belong the childish splendour of the Temple of Concord, and fire-works in the Green Park, in 1749; and the Chinese Bridge and Pagoda, and fire-works in St. James's Park, in 1814.

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3. HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS.

KENSINGTON GARDENS are properly part of Hyde Park. William III., not long after his accession to the throne, purchased from Daniel, second Earl of Nottingham, his house and gardens at Kensington. The extent of the gardens was about twenty-six acres, and with this William seems to have been perfectly satisfied. Even in this small space a part of the original Hyde Park was already included; for not long after 1661, Sir Heneage Finch, then Solicitor-General, obtained a grant of All that ditch and fence which divide Hyde Park from the lands, grounds, and possessions of the said Sir Heneage Finch, adjacent to the said park, and all wood, underwood, and timber trees, growing and being within, upon, or about the said ditch and fence, containing in breadth ten feet, and in length one hundred and fifty roods, beginning from the south highway leading to the top of Kensington, and from thence crossing to the north highway leading to the town of Acton, which said piece of ground is by this grant disparked for ever." Queen Anne enclosed nearly thirty acres of the park (lying north of her conservatory) about 1705, and added them to the gardens. Caroline, Queen of George II., appropriated no less than three hundred acres of it, about 1730; and it is only since her time that the great enclosure of Kensington Gardens, and the curtailed Hyde Park, have a separate history.

R

In the survey of church lands made in pursuance of an Act of Parliament of the 26th of Henry VIII., and returned into the Court of First Fruits, the "Manerium de Hyde," belonging to the " Monasterium Sanct. Petr. Westm.,” is valued at "xiiij." No notice having been preserved of the original enclosure of this park, and the first keeper on record (George Roper, who had a grant of 6d. per diem for his service) having been appointed early in the reign of Edward VI., it has been conjectured that the park was enclosed while the manor was still in the possession of the Abbot and Convent. The list of keepers who succeeded Roper is unbroken down to the time of the Commonwealth. In a patent of 16th of Elizabeth, granting the office to Henry Cary, Lord Hunsdon, mention is made of "the herbage, pannage, and browse-wood for the deer." In 1596 the custody of Hyde Park was granted to Sir Edmund Cary, Knight, "with all the lodges, houses, and edifices in the same," reserving to Anne Baroness Hunsdon, during her life," the lodge and mansion in the park, with the herbage and pannage of the same." The resolutions adopted by the House of Commons in 1652 relative to the sale of the Crown lands contain some curious details regarding Hyde Park.

The House resolved on the 21st of December, 1652, that Hyde Park should be sold for ready money; and in consequence of this resolution it was exposed for sale in parts, and sold to Richard Wilcox, of Kensington, Esq.; John Tracy, of London, merchant; and Anthony Deane, of St. Martin in the Fields, Esq. The first parcel, called the Gravel-pit division, containing 112 acres, 3 roods, 3 poles, was sold to Wilcox for 41417. 11s., of which sum 24281. 2s. 6d. was the price of the wood. The Kensington division, consisting of 147 acres, 3 roods, 16 poles, was purchased by Tracy, who paid 39067. 7s. 6d., of which only 2611. 7s. 6d. was for the wood. The other three divisions-the Middle, Banqueting-house, and Old Lodge divisions-were sold to Deane, and cost him 9020l. 8s. 2d., of which 22107. was for the wood. At the south-west corner of the Banqueting-house division stood" that building intended at its first erection for a Banqueting-house:" its materials were valued at 1257. 12s. On the Old Lodge division stood the Old Lodge, with its barn and stable, and several tenements near Knightsbridge: the materials of the Lodge were valued at 1207. "The deer of several sorts within the said park" were valued at 7651. 6s. 2d. The ground and wood of Hyde Park were sold for 17,0691. 6s. 8d.; the wood on it being (exclusive of the deer and building materials) valued at 50997. 19s. 6d. The yearly rental of the park was assumed to be 894!. 13s. 81.

The specifications in the indentures of sale enable us to trace with accuracy the boundaries of the park at that time, and also to form some idea of its state and appearance. It was bounded by "the great road to Acton" on the north; by "the way leading from Brentford great road to Acton great road" on the east ; by the road designated, in one part of its course, the " Knightsbridge highway," and in another, "the highway leading from Knightsbridge to Kensington," evidently the "Brentford great road" mentioned above, on the south; and by part of the house and ground usually taken to belong to Mr. Finch of Kensington," and "the ground lying near the Gravel-pits," on the west. About three of these boundaries there is little difficulty: they are clearly the two great lines of road which pass along the north and south edges of the park at the present day, and what is now called Park Lane. The whole of the ground within these three

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upon

boundaries was within Hyde Park; for, in the description of Old Lodge division, especial mention is made of " that small parcel of ground formerly taken out of the park, and used as a fortification, being at the corner of this division called Park Corner." The fortification here alluded to was the large fort with four bastions thrown up by the citizens in 1642, on the ground now occupied by Hamilton Place. On this several houses were subsequently erected during the Protectorate, which were after the Restoration granted on lease to James Hamilton, Esq., the Ranger. Upon his death, the lease was renewed for ninety-nine years to Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton in 1692. Apsley House stands on the site of the Old Lodge, and is held under the Crown: the original Apsley House was built by Lord Bathurst, when chancellor. By these grants the triangular piece of ground between the present gate and Park Lane came to be cut off from the park, the south-east corner of which, in 1652, extended along the north side of the highway, quite up to the end of Park Lane. The gradual encroachments made the park at its west end render it more difficult to ascertain its extent in that direction. The following indications may assist:-When King William purchased his mansion of the Earl of Nottingham at Kensington, there were only twenty-six acres of garden-ground attached to it. The Palace Green, on the west of the palace, was part of these twenty-six acres. We know that the old conduit of Henry VIII., on the west side of Palace Green, was built by that monarch on a piece of waste ground, called "the Moor," outside of the park. The mansion of the Earl of Nottingham must therefore have stood pretty close upon the eastern limits of his twenty-six acres. This view is corroborated by two circumstances. The first is, that the grounds acquired by Sir Heneage Finch, Recorder of London, ancestor of the Earl of Nottingham, between 1630 and 1640, are described in old charters as lying within the parishes of Kensington, St. Margaret's, Westminster, and Paddington. These three parishes meet at a point to the west of Kensington Palace, nearly equidistant from its outer gate in the town of Kensington, the circular pond in Kensington Gardens, and the junction of Bayswater and Kensington Gravel-pits on the western descent of Bayswater Hill. The second circumstance alluded to is, that the grounds purchased by King William from the Earl of Nottingham contained a small part of the original Hyde Park; Sir Heneage Finch, son of the Recorder, having obtained from Charles II. a grant of a "ditch and fence which divide Hyde Park from the lands, grounds, and possessions of the said Sir Heneage Finch;" "the said ditch containing in breadth ten feet, and in length one hundred and fifty roods, beginning from the south highway leading to the town of Kensington, and from thence crossing to the north highway leading to the town of Acton, which said piece of ground is by this grant disparked for ever." All these considerations seem to warrant the assumption that Hyde Park originally extended at its western extremity almost up to the east front of Kensington Palace.

But the indentures of sale enable us also to form some kind of idea of the appearance of the ground within these boundaries at the time the park was sold by order of Parliament. Great care seems to have been taken, in dividing the park into five lots or parcels, to divide the "pools" in the park equally between them. Two are attached to the Gravel-pits, two to the Kensington, three to the Middle, and four to the Old Lodge division. The relative positions and extent of these