Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

“ Shrubs have been planted in endless variety, and—when the tree trunks stand out bare and bleak in winter, and the branches are leafless—give to the walks a pleasant bordering of green. The particular glory of the Park shrubs is to be found in the rhododendrons, which in the weeks when they are in full bloom are alone worth coming to London to see. Rotten Row spreads out a narrow line of tan, bordered with a perfect blaze of colour. ”

“ The flatness of the ground generally has no doubt set limitations on the work of the landscape gardener; and where the space is so large, the natural is better than the artificial landscape.
One need not be a botanist to admire the endless variety of the trees alone—their grotesque trunks314 and tapering stems; their leaves, so divergent in form and structure; the blooms that in season conceal the wealth of the green by a mass of bright colour, and when the chestnut spikes break out, Hyde Park can almost rival for a week or two the famous avenue in Bushey Park. ”

“ One forgets that one is in the heart of the capital of the world. Is it the Lüneburger Heide? Is it the land of Tristan, dark Cornwall? And will not the melancholy song of the shepherd be suddenly heard?
“Hyde Park, in a way, symbolises the English character. Just as it is not the Englishman’s way of charming at first sight, or to confide in a stranger, Hyde Park does not appeal to the foreigner when he visits it for the first time. But as one grows to love the English after a longer acquaintance, so does one grow to love Hyde Park, so different from anything else. ”

“ There was no fashionable chronicler of the day to tell us exactly which were the favourite resorts of Society, but it would not be surprising if the rough roads cut in the spacious parks which extended so far from Whitehall were first put to use for carriage exercise by Elizabeth’s courtiers. Hyde Park has been the fashionable drive for centuries. One likes to think of those bumpy old contrivances, of colossal weight and build, with the stoutness of a farmer’s cart, as setting the fashion of driving in the park which has come down unbroken to the present year of grace. ”

“ Wild and beautiful, no doubt, was the Hyde Park of Queen Anne, but it was not the luxurious garden that we now know. Let us obliterate for a moment from our mind’s eye the well-kept grounds of our favourite resort, with the waters of the Serpentine sparkling in the sun, and replace them by thickets and brushwood growing on marshy ground, here and there stagnant pools, with the pungent smell that ever pervades any tract of swampy forest-land ”

“ Hyde Park, however, is the common heritage of all, the meeting-ground of King and coster. It is the most truly democratic spot in all London. It is surprising what tolerance there is, what good feeling pervades the throng made up of such extraordinary mixtures and contradictions.
A well-dressed woman, who goes into a mean street of slum-land, is made the subject of audible remarks, mostly ribald, too often coarse. Her fashionable costume seems to excite hatred. The would-be finery of the Park no doubt envies the real finery. ”

“ Our modern coal cellars are far preferable, for at least their walls are whitewashed and they are drained to frustrate the damp. These terrible dungeons at Newgate, with slanting floors, slanting walls, and slanting roofs, and almost without light and ventilation, had contained dozens of human beings, who were literally herded together, to live or die as chance might ordain. Plague and pestilence swept through those loathsome dens, and after seeing them on the eve of their destruction, one realised how easy it was to start the great plague of London from them alone. ”

“ Earlier in the year, when the trees are throwing out their fresh green leaves, the almond blossom glows, the grass looks fresh, and the daffodils and narcissi give hope of coming achievement. Possibly Hyde Park possesses no trees so ancestral as the old elm which stands on the edge of the lake in the neighbourhood of St. James’s Park, beneath which the monks at Westminster are said to have fished for a Friday’s meal. It still bears leaves, and though its roots are plastered up, seems likely to thrive for many years. ”

“ There, amid the greenery, the gay world thronged. Cavaliers with waving plumes, some riding with spurs and swords, others in their new equipages, while bright-eyed ladies accompanied them to watch the races and the crowd. Gay gallants courted pretty wenches, smart diplomatists dropped secrets in the ears of beautiful women. Love-making and court intrigues were hatched in Hyde Park, and many a romance, many a comedy, was unfolded under the shade of the trees. ”

“ A great demonstration, with its twenty or fifty298 thousand people, is an occasional event. When agitators are busy there may be two or three such in a year. But never a week passes without the free air of Hyde Park being disturbed by the strident cries of somebody or other, airing the grievances of himself or his class, while there is a set of publicists—well-known figures—to whom the opportunities to hear their own voices, afforded by the Park, seem to be their meat and drink and vegetables. ”

“ There was a curious legend that long prevailed in country districts, that the cuckoo of summer turned into a sparrow-hawk in winter, and back again into a cuckoo in the spring. On 21st August 1895, there was the rare appearance of “a cuckoo flying up and down a London street, bewildered, sheltering in its limes.”
It is excellent news that a kingfisher was recently watched flying over the Serpentine, though it is too much to hope that the bird of brilliant plumage will ever leave its favourite solitudes for the streams of the town.
Bats haunt the parks in the dusk of night. ”

“ One of the prettiest sights in London to-day is that of the Guards riding through Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace for a Court, or some other grand festival. The sunlight on their clothes looks almost as if their uniforms were made of gold as they glint in the rays ”

“ Through the thick forests which surrounded London he rode forth, hawk on wrist, watchful for bird or hound to give sign of the hidden quarry. Bull and boar, deer, wolf, and hare were all victims of the Saxon’s sport. Harold is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry hawk on hand, his hounds round him, ready for the chase, which, like his predecessor, he may have enjoyed within the precincts of Hyde Park. ”

“ No wonder American women do not aspire to the tops of omnibuses, and no wonder that the bustling crowd stopped to look at a mad Englishwoman in her best frock attempting athletic feats. Even the fat Irish policeman, white bâton in hand, looked on and marvelled. Up-to-date as the Americans boast to be, it was curious to find such an obsolete old vehicle still doing duty in the heart of their metropolis. Many of the roads in important towns in America are to-day little better than those of London a century and a half ago. ”

“ It was a critical time for England: wars without, the dark shadow of insanity resting on the Sovereign, men striving for first place in the realm; and the nation hailed with true rejoicing the news of King George III.’s recovery in 1789. London was one great blaze of illuminations from end to end. The monarch was at Kew, but the Queen and Princesses drove up to town to see the displays, making Apsley House their headquarters, and returning home very late at night. Hyde Park took no small share in these festivities. ”

“ Never was more stir created about the fate of a malefactor at Tyburn than in the celebrated case of Dr. Dodd. A preacher of remarkable eloquence, who attracted crowds to listen to him, a man who moved in the highest Society and was known to everybody, he lived, like so many others of his day, far above his means, and was constantly in pecuniary embarrassment. The episode which brought him to the gallows was the forgery of the name of the Earl of Chesterfield—the godson and successor of the old beau—to a bond for about £4000. ”

“ But what, after all, is more glorious than an English heath in the first tints of autumn, what more health-giving and welcome in the heart of London than broad acres, over which313 one may roam undisturbed, owing their beauty to the whole panorama of lawn and tree and shrub, rather than to the attention to smaller details which gives delight to a well-ordered garden?
For really beautiful gardening, in the true sense, one must go to the Regent’s Park, or to Ranelagh Club. Let no one suppose, however, that Nature is the only gardener on the Park staff. ”

“ Riding became a passion. Favourite steeds were shown off in Hyde Park, wagers were made, and just as we proclaim that our Charron, our Panhard, our Mercedes, or our Daimler did such and such a distance in so many hours without a check, so in the early half of the eighteenth century the long journey accomplished at top speed by some favourite horse was the talk of the day. ”

“ Truly Hyde Park has an unparalleled record. For four hundred years the makers of history, politicians, beauty, nobility, bravery—and knavery, alas!—have all tendered homage to the charm of its acres, its noble trees, its grassy sward. Generation after generation has proclaimed love for it; and now, indeed, what would the babies and the beauties do without the famous stretch from Marble Arch to Piccadilly? ”

“ Can one imagine anything more horrible than being swung about in a litter for weeks as that poor woman was on her journey from London to Scotland? The bumps and shakes, the discomfort of the cramped position, seem terrible to think of in these days of Pulman cars, restaurants, and quick trains.
By the middle of the sixteenth century riding pillion fashion was again much in vogue, the lady sitting behind the gentleman, in a kind of chair similar to that used by the Anglo-Saxon dames. ”

“ Sporting ground, shambles, dwelling-place, scene of intrigue, theatre of Royal magnificence and military display, the Park through the centuries may be said almost to epitomise the history of England, and to the present day it has never ceased to be interesting. ”

“ And thus from generation to generation Hyde Park has been the playground of London’s rich and poor, the wide theatre upon which their tragedies and comedies have been enacted, the forum in which many public liberties have been demanded, the scene where national triumphs have been celebrated. ”

“ Hyde Park was more than ever the playground of the higher classes. Cricket matches, first introduced in the reign of William III., were the fashion; teams were formed from the ranks of the nobility, and graced by royalty, who batted merrily across the sward on summer days. Though cricket is no longer permitted in Hyde Park, it is still played in its much more beautiful rival, Regent’s Park. Skating on the Serpentine, too, was established on the first occasion that Jack Frost cast his silent grip over the new ornamental water. ”

“ They can no longer be seen above ground, although their springs help to flood our drains and keep them fresh and clean. As Dean Stanley says: “There is a quaint humour in the fact that the great arteries of our crowded streets, the vast sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed by the lifeblood of those old and living streams; that underneath our tread the Tyburn, and the Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wall Brook, are still pursuing their course, still ministering to the good of man.” ”

“ Gay as it is now in the season with its well-dressed saunterers, its beautiful equipages, its noble trees, and its wide expanse of water, it conjures up dark and evil memories, for the Park has been the scene of stirring events in our national history. ”

“ In the vehicle sat four women; a large crowd surrounded them. It was a suffragette meeting. An elderly woman was speaking, her audience was mainly composed of men of every class and grade,—from the Society man in immaculate silk hat and frock-coat to the tramp with his grubby bundle under his arm. Here and there a woman’s dress relieved the sombre-looking crowd with a bit of colour, and nurses wheeling perambulators, occupied by aristocratic babies, formed a fringed border to the gathering. Shouts of laughter rose every few seconds ”

“ We have seen Pitt on his little Welsh pony. In contrast to his simple figure, John Wilkes lolled in his gaudy equipage, ogling fair ladies, and posing as a hero of the people. Such appearances multiplied as the years went on.
There, Burke was often to be seen strolling alone, or chatting with a friend after a brilliant speech on a leading topic of the day. There, Windham took an early morning ride and watched the Guards at drill, or joined the fashionable throng later in the day. ”

“ Other amusements of the great consist in riding through Hyde Park: the ladies in their coaches, and the gentlemen on horseback in an adjoining road. He that would judge of the population of London should attend in the Park on any Sunday at three o’clock, from February till May; he must be astonished at the sight. The coaches, the horses, the populace of every rank who toil against the bleak East winds, are wonderfully numerous. ”