Royal Park

“ Enough of the forest remains, in conjunction with the park, to enable the visitor to make many delightful excursions. The most agreeable way of seeing this sylvan country is on horseback. Perhaps nowhere in the world can one get a more delicious canter. By a little management it is easy to take a ride of twenty-five miles without more than a couple of miles off the turf. In 1607 the Great Park was stated at 3650 acres: it consists now of about one thousand acres less.
The principal royal park in modern days, next to Windsor, is Richmond. ”

“ A wooded alley leading to the great park runs between the main edifice and the Chateau d'Enghien, a gentle incline descending again to the sunken gardens in a monumental stairway of easy slope, the whole a quintessence of much that is best of the art of the landscape gardener of the time. ”

“ Towards the southern extremity of the park is a beautiful and extensive piece of water, over which is an elegant stone bridge, which, together with the water, considerably enlivens and adds dignity to the whole.
The royal forest, making a circuit of about 56 miles, abounds with deer, and every other species of game, and is possessed of every attraction for the sports of the field, which, with the manly exercises of the chase, has been the favourite amusements of many successive Kings of England. ”

“ The record of another merry party at Saint Germain is that which recounts that summer evening when the king and court scuttled about the park enjoying themselves as only royalty can—when some one else pays the bills. The terrace, the gravelled walks and the alleyed paths of the forest all led to charming and discreet rendezvous. ”

“ The park is to-day the chief attraction of the [Pg 228] neighbourhood, like the one at Saint Cloud, which it greatly resembles. Across the park lies the great highway from the capital to Versailles, over which so many joyous cavalcades were wont to amble or gallop in the days of gallantry. The pace is not more sober to-day, but gaily caparisoned horses and gaudy coaches have given way to red and yellow "Rois des Belges," the balance lying distinctly in favour of the former mode of conveyance, so far as picturesqueness is concerned. ”

“ It does not mean that they shall be stifled for want of air, or cramped for room to exercise in. Everywhere over the kingdom, the traveller sees shady parks, pleasant gardens, breezy downs, and wide heaths, open to the public, and as much for the enjoyment of the poor as the rich.
The great Hyde Park of London, has been the property of the crown since the time of Henry VIII. It was formerly walled in, and held deer for royal hunting—but in the reign of George IV. it was inclosed with an open iron railing, and is now only used for drives, promenades, rides, and military reviews. ”

“ It is all very "stagy"—but, since it exists, can hardly be called unreal.
The park proper, containing more than twelve hundred hectares, is one of the largest and most thickly wooded in France. Between the parterre and the French and English garden and the park lie the Farm and the Laiterie de la Reine, the caprice of Louis XVI when he would content Marie Antoinette and give her something to think about besides her troubles. Napoleon stripped [Pg 323] it of its furnishings to install them, for a great part, at Malmaison, for that other unhappy woman—Josephine. ”

“ In addition to the foregoing list of amusements, the Public will have a full view of the Royal Booth, and of the grand fire-works in the Green Park, which will be displayed from a fortress or Castle, the ramparts of which are 100 feet square, surmounted by a round tower in the centre, about 60 feet in diameter, and rising to the height of over 50 feet above the ramparts. ”

“ Of the Park habitués, Royalty must necessarily come first. Between nine and ten o’clock almost any morning of the week, when he is in town, the Prince of Wales, faultlessly mounted, and generally attended by Sir Arthur Bigge, may be seen entering the Park at Hyde Park Corner. To the most of the world he goes unnoticed. He rides as quietly as any other gentleman in the Row, and so as not to disturb his pleasure no one bows unless personally acquainted with his Royal Highness. ”

“ The park is nothing more than a semicircle, formed of an alley of trees, which enclose a large green area in the middle of which is a marshy pond.
The cows feed on this green turf, and their milk is sold here on the spot, quite new.
In all the alleys or walks there are benches, where you may rest yourself. When you come through the Horse Guards (which is provided with several passages) into the park, on the right hand is St. James’s Palace, or the king’s place of residence, one of the meanest public buildings in London. ”

“ How wise that such places as Richmond, Greenwich, and such old parks in the neighbourhood of the Metropolis, are kept up and kept open, that our citizens may occasionally get out of the smoke and noise of the great Babel, and breathe all their freshness, and feel all their influence! Who does not often, in the midst of brick-and-mortar regions, summon up before his imagination this old park or forest scenery? ”

“ One may doubt whether any fragment of the globe has so high a percentage of perfect streets and roads—no wonder, surely, when it may have its asphalt in unlimited quantities for the mere digging—and the giants of the forest which everywhere spread their canopies give its rather placid landscape a beauty which makes up for its lack of ruggedness. Behind Queen’s Park is a delightfully informal botanical garden in the middle of which sits the massive stone residence of the governor. ”

“ The Park, in front of this palace, which had continued for nearly a century in one state of formal, tasteless insipidity, has been laid out as a large pleasure-garden, interspersed with lawn, clusters of shrubs and flowers, winding walks, varied surface, and a lake, whose margin is made to wind with every inequality of surface, spreading occasionally into a broad expanse, and then contracting to a narrow arm. In the midst of the larger spaces are islands, covered with aquatic trees and shrubs. ”

“ Next to its fine position on a very beautiful reach of the Thames, the chief glory of Richmond—a glory shared, however, by five other parishes, Petersham, Ham, Kingston, Putney, and Mortlake—is its noble park, known as the New or Great Park, to distinguish it from the one that was connected with the palace. It comprises two thousand acres of charming undulating scenery, grand oak woods and plantations of other trees alternating with fern-clad dells and dales, in the midst of which are the picturesque Pen Ponds, so called because they are near the enclosures for the deer. ”

“ Happiest of little Londoners are those who are so fortunate as to live near enough to the Regent's Park for it to form their daily playground. To them the wooded shores of the winding lake, with its three long arms crossed by bridges that rock delightfully, must seem like a little world, with mountains, bays, capes, forests, and many more wonderful things, just as in the great world itself. ”

“ There are a thousand excellent or notable things—some due to chance and antiquity, some to deliberation and design—but the Park as a whole has no supremacy over others of the same or even less extent. I have no sooner admired the exquisite giant birches, or the craggy vast oaks, or the perfectly formed younger ones, than I come to lines of rhododendrons, the symbols of very modern riches, or to lines of venerable stately trees which are not satisfying except on the rare occasions when they overhang some human stateliness or splendour. ”

“ The Parsi horse-hoof hat, with adornment, will yet be well known beyond the borders of India and Persia, for milliners will induce their customers to adopt that style of headdress.
The city is well provided with parks. On the west side is a large strip of land, on which English sports, including polo games, are common; this park is used also for other forms of recreation. Music is provided in this part of the city every evening. In another section is located Victoria Gardens, a very pretty place, containing a good museum and a creditable zoo. ”

“ The congested capitals of Europe had already learnt this lesson; traveled Americans, like William Cullen Bryant, brought it home; and Central Park, planned in 1853, was the first of the great landscape parks to serve as a people’s pleasance. Conceived in contrast to the deflowered landscape and the muddled city, the park alone re-created the traditions of civilization—of man naturalized, and therefore at home, of nature humanized, and therefore enriched. And even today our parks are what our cities should be, and are not. ”

“ Beyond the business section is an immense savanna, smooth as a billiard-table—magnificent, indeed, it seems to the traveler who has seen no really level open ground for weeks—called Queen’s Park. Here graze large herds of cattle, half Oriental, too, like the people. There is ample playground left, too, for all the city’s population. In the afternoon, particularly of a Saturday, it presents a vast expanse of pastimes seldom seen in the tropics. ”

“ In all parts of England to-day we have parks, belonging to big mansions; and our big towns and cities have their parks too, which are usually recreation-grounds for the people. A park in Norman and in Early English times was very different in appearance from our parks, whether in town or country. Just as the king had his great forests for hunting wild beasts, so in the later Norman times the great lords were anxious to enclose pieces of waste and forest land for the same purpose. ”

“ The Park is in no wise taken away from nature, but is rendered back to her, when all has been done to beautify it, an American woodland, breaking into meadows, here and there, and brightened with pools and ponds lurking among rude masses of rock, and gleaming between leafy knolls and grassy levels. It stretches and widens away, mile after mile, in the heart of the city, a memory of the land as it was before the havoc of the city began, and giving to the city-prisoned poor an image of what the free country still is, everywhere. ”

“ That some actually are so and yet command the admiration of people of taste is an indication of their essential qualities and fundamental differences from parks proper. Few cities have anywhere near as many ornamental squares as they should. It ls particularly desirable that a city should have several of its principal public buildings facing upon a large public square, as the new custom house in New York faces upon the Bowling Green, not occupying it as the postoffice and municipal buildings occupy the City Hall Park. ”

“ Of these, none were more agreeable to me than the promenades in the great parks—Hyde Park, the Green Park, Regent’s Park, which last, alone, is several English miles in circumference. On Sundays, one sees them crowded with well-dressed people, mostly of the working classes; children tumble about freely on the green turf, which remains green and fresh notwithstanding, or feed with bread the beautiful swans or other aquatic birds which swim about on the river-like winding pieces of water. ”

“ The ground occupied by Regent’s Park is not without its interest. The old monastic house of Marylebone stood within its boundaries in former days, and had in the time of Elizabeth its park and deer. Here also was a famous bowling-green, which the Duke of Buckingham in his day visited.
The new Parks which are now forming around the metropolis do great credit to Government, and will, like charity, cover a multitude of minor transgressions; for those who legislate for the benefit of posterity must be influenced by something more noble than narrow and selfish views. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The parks of London have been described so very often that we must pass them with brief allusion. Their vast extent is what first strikes the American visitor with astonishment, especially those who have moulded their ideas after Boston Common, or even Central Park of New York. Hyde Park, in London, contains three hundred and ninety acres; and we took a lounge in Rotten Row at the fashionable hour, between five and six in the afternoon, when the drive was crowded with stylish equipages; some with coroneted panels and liveried footmen, just such as we see in pictures. ”

“ The house and stables and courts are such as they ought to be for the great estate that surrounds them; and the park is everything that is beautiful. On one side of the house, looking over a fine piece of water, you see a distant valley, opening between lofty hills: on another side the ground descends a little at first, then goes gently rising for a while, and then rapidly, to the distance of a mile perhaps, where it is crowned with trees in irregular patches, or groups, single and most magnificent trees being scattered all over the whole of the park ”

“ Some twenty of the best instrumental musicians of London station themselves under the trees in this superb park—for though called “gardens,” it is but a park with old trees and greensward—and up and down the fine silky carpet stroll hundreds of the fashionables of “May Fair and Belgrave Square,” listening a little, perhaps, and chattering a great deal certainly. It is a good opportunity to see what celebrated beauties look like by daylight ”