by Watteau, very fine; characteristic specimens of Jan Steen, one "After a Repast," very clever; also, good, if not choice, specimens of Cuyp, Vandervelde, Backhuysen, &c. Mrs. Stanhope, half-length, in white, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, very fine; 5 fine Landscapes, by Richard Wilson; large View in Venice, the masterpiece of Bonington; The Fishmarket, by Bonington; The Good Samaritan, by Etty, a choice specimen; 2 fine Italian Landscapes, by Turner, in the best time of his second period. (See Hints and Suggestions, p. xxxix.)

PARKS AND PUBLIC GARDENS.

HYDE PARK. A park of 387 acres, containing the Great Exhibition or Crystal Palace, and deservedly looked upon as one of the lungs of London, connecting the Green Park with Kensington Gardens, and thus carrying a continuous tract of open ground, or park, from Whitehall, to Kensington. The whole Park is intersected with well-kept footpaths, and the carriage drives are spacious and well attended. The Park is accessible for private carriages, but hackney-coaches and cabs are excluded. The triple archway at Hyde-Park-corner, combined with an iron screen, was erected in 1828 from the designs of Decimus Burton. It cost 17,0697. 1s. 9 d., including 1,000l. to Mr. Henning for the bas-reliefs from the Elgin marbles which surround it. The Park derives its name from the Hyde, an ancient manor of that name adjoining Knightsbridge, and, until the dissolution of religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII., the property of the abbots and monks of Westminster.

In this Park, in the London season, from April to July (between half past 5 and half past 6 p.m.), may be seen all the wealth and fashion and splendid equipages of the nobility and gentry of Great Britain. The bridle-road, running east and west of the Industrial Exhibition, is called Rotten Row, a corruption it is supposed of Route du Roi-King's Drive, and the sheet of water called the Serpentine was formed by Caroline, Queen of George II. The boats may be hired by the hour. Certain traces of the Ring, formed in the reign of Charles I. and long celebrated, may be recognised by the large trees somewhat circularly arranged in the centre of the Park. Near the Humane Society's Receiving-house (on the north bank of the Serpentine) is the great government store of gunpowder. In this house alone upwards of one million

rounds of ball and blank ammunition are kept ready for immediate use. A review of troops in Hyde Park is a sight worth seeing, but reviews of late years have been of very rare occurrence. They usually take place in June or July. Observe. Statue of Achilles, "inscribed by the women of England, to Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms," erected in Hyde Park, as the inscription sets forth, ". on the 18th of June, 1822, by command of his Majesty George IV." The statue was cast by Sir R. Westmacott, R.A., from cannon taken in the victories of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo, and the cost was defrayed by a subscription of 10,000l., raised among the ladies. The figure is copied from one of the famous antiques on the Monte Cavallo, at Rome, but most antiquaries agree that Achilles is a gross misnomer. The Marble Arch, facing Great Cumberland-street (near where Tyburn formerly stood), was moved from Buckingham Palace in 1850 and erected here in 1851. The original cost was 80,000l., and the cost of removal 11,000l. The equestrian statue of George IV., now in Trafalgar-square, was intended for the top of this arch. S. front of arch by Baily; N. by Sir R. Westmacott.

What

ST. JAMES'S PARK. A park of 83 acres (shaped not unlike a boy's kite), originally appertaining to the Palace of St. James's; first formed and walled in by Henry VIII.; replanted and beautified by Charies II.; and finally arranged by George IV., much as we now see it, in 1827-28-29. I shall call the head of the kite is bordered by three of the principal public offices: the Horse Guards in the centre, the Admiralty on its right, and the Treasury on its left. The tail of the kite is occupied by Buckingham Palace; its north side by the Green Park, Stafford House, St. James's Palace, Marlborough House, Carlton-House-terrace, and Carlton Ride; and its right or south side by Queen-square, and the Wellington Barracks for part of the Household Troops, erected in 1834. The gravelled space in front of the Horse Guards is called the Parade, and formed a part of the Tilt Yard of Whitehall: the north side is called the Mall, and the south the Birdcage-walk. Milton lived in a house in Petty France, with a garden reaching into the Birdcage-walk; Nell Gwyn in Pall Mall, with a garden with a mound and terrace at the end, overlooking the Mall; and Lord Chancellor Jefferies, in the large brick house north of Storey's Gate, with a flight of stone steps into the Park. This celebrated Park, with its broad gravel walks and winding sheet of water, was, till the time of Charles II., little more than a grass park,

with a few trees irregularly planted, and a number of little ponds. Charles II. threw the several ponds (Rosamond's Pond excepted) into one artificial canal, built a decoy for ducks, a small ringfence for deer, planted trees in even ranks, and introduced broad gravel walks in place of narrow and winding footpaths. Charles I., attended by Bishop Juxon and a regiment of foot (part before and part behind him), walked, Jan. 30th, 1648-49, through this Park from St. James's Palace to the scaffold at Whitehall. He is said on his way to have pointed out a tree near Spring Gardens, as planted by his brother Prince Henry. Here Cromwell took Whitelocke aside and sounded the Memorialist on the subject of a King Oliver. Some of the trees in this Park, planted and watered by King Charles II. himself, were acorns from the royal oak at Boscobel; none, however, are now to be seen. St. Evremont, a French Epicurean wit, was keeper of the ducks in St. James's Park in the reign of Charles II.

Observe.-Fronting the Horse Guards, the mortar cast at Seville, by order of Napoleon, employed by Soult at Cadiz, and left behind in the retreat of the French army after the battle of Salamanca. It was presented to the Prince Regent by the Spanish government. I have been informed by an officer of the Royal Engineers (often fired upon by this very mortar) that the heaviest shell it carried weighed about 108 lbs., and that its extreme range was 6220 yards. The same officer added, that he had seen a shell from this piece of ordnance range into Cadiz, when the whole of that splendid square, the Plaza de San Antonio, was crowded with the rank and fashion of the place, and fall most accurately in the centre of the square without injuring a single individual. The ducks in the park belong to the Ornithological Society. In January, 1846, the collection contained upwards of 300 birds, including 21 species and 51 distinct varieties. The Park was lighted with gas in 1822. The road connecting St. James's Park with Hyde Park, and skirting the garden wall of Buckingham Palace, now called Constitution Hill, was long known as "The King's Coach-way to Kensington." It was in the upper end of this road that Sir Robert Peel was thrown (1850) from his horse and killed. In this road Queen Victoria has been fired at by three idiots on three several occasions.

GREEN PARK. An open area of 71 acres between Piccadilly and St. James's Park, Constitution-hill, and the houses of Arlington-street and St. James's-place. It was occasionally called Upper St. James's Park, and was once much