Palace Yard, Richmond.
Richmond Park itself would be worth visiting for any countryman because of its deer. Deer standing about in the bracken; deer asleep in thick fern under great oaks; deer feeding slowly up wind on a distant slope of green; deer leaping shadows of tree-stems one after another as if the shadows were water, which is one of the deer's prettiest games in the sun: deer trotting off as you try to come nearer to them, with that curious quivering, shaking amble which is born of lissom daintiness and muscles like steel; deer with hot sunlight on their coats—it is the Richmond Park deer which are the creatures to come and see. How many are there? Who should count them? Sixteen hundred fallow deer and fifty red deer, the figures are given; Farnham Park, I think, comes next in Surrey, with three hundred fallow deer.
The great palace has left little more than an archway on Richmond Green. More history belongs to it, or rather to the succession of palaces which have stood at Sheen, which was the old name, than I can deal with. Edward III died at Sheen Palace, unloved and alone. Richard II's queen, Anne of Bohemia, died there seventeen years later, and Richard in his grief threw the palace down. It was rebuilt by Henry V, burnt down in 1497, rebuilt and renamed Richmond by Henry VII; then the Richmond who named it died in his new palace. But the overmastering sense of unhappiness which somehow has set itself about the story of Richmond Palace belongs to the closing days of Elizabeth. Elizabeth's death, and the month that went before it, patch English history like a week of night. She had been so strong, so untiring, so wise in her council chamber and so magnificent in her victorious fleet, and the fortune that followed her like a wind; the life of her body had been so unfailing, she had jested, wittily and coarsely, with so many courtiers; she had commanded the chivalry of young and splendid nobles, she had lived to see one of her favourites die and to send another to the block; and now she herself was dying. She knew it, and she would not hear of death. She was never so ready for the gaiety she could not enjoy. Her strength left her, she was a skeleton; still she sat with her dress unchanged, staring before her, flashing sudden rages at her ministers, rallying at the mention of an heir's name. Beauchamp, heir to the Suffolks, they put forward; she cried out he was the son of a rogue. The King of Scots? they asked; she answered nothing. Dead, propped among her pillows, an old woman in ruff and stays, the memory of her last days shadows Richmond Palace like a drawn blind.
Richmond Hill.
To the north beyond Richmond Hill and the huge hotel, twice burnt down, which looks over the woods and the river, one may come by tramways and railways to Kew and Kew Gardens. Kew, too, once had a palace, or an attempt at a palace. Frederick Prince of Wales, George III's father—the prince who did so much for Surrey cricket, and died, perhaps, from the blow of a cricket ball—lived at Kew House, and so did George III after him. George III pulled down Kew House in 1803, and built another; to be not less royal, George IV pulled that down. A smaller building, vaguely named Kew Palace still, stands in the Gardens; Queen Charlotte died there; you may see the room, and look, if you wish, on the tables and sofas she knew. But the pictures in Kew Palace were not all Queen Charlotte's; they are catalogued to-day, and so are many manuscripts and autograph letters of royal persons which attract careful readers. From remarks which can be overheard in those sombre rooms, many visitors, I think, imagine the paintings of still life, of flowers in vases, odd representations of game and fruit, and so forth, to have been selected and hung in the house as specially suitable for public gardens. The portraits of royal gentlemen in blue and red puzzle them; why should they be shown these at Kew? These are for palaces and galleries; Kew is for a flower show.
What is the chief, the compelling fascination of Kew Gardens? What is it that sets Kew apart, not more beautiful than other gardens, but different from them, with a different attraction peculiarly its own? Is it the sense of change from roaring streets to quiet lawns, noble trees, spaces and scents of grass and flowers? There may be a sense of change, but that is not all the secret, for Kew keeps the same charm for one who has come fresh from the broad aisles and avenues of some great country garden. Is it the rarity and the wealth of the Kew museums and houses—the orchid houses with their strange, lovely, uncanny inflorescences, flowers that have fancies and wilfulnesses, flowers that would people the dark with faces; or the lily-houses and the superb Victoria regia that would cradle a water-baby; or the great palm houses, where you may walk in a gallery among enormous leaves and tropical creepers as if you were back again with your grandfathers in the tree tops? That is an attraction, but it is not all of it. Nor is it the achievement of the gardens in the separate spheres of gardening. The sheets of crocuses in the low March sunlight, and of daffodils shaking in an April wind, add a glory to the spring at Kew, but it is a glory that can belong to other lawns and other vistas of flowers. The Kew rose-garden has a wealth of roses, but it has, too, a wealth of old tree stems and broken branches which a garden meant for nothing but roses would hide. The herbaceous border grows luxuriant phloxes and delphiniums, but the background of glass houses sets a wrong light about it. The rock garden shows more rock and fewer masses of Alpine flowers than other English gardens more lately made, with better knowledge of what wall and rock flowers need.
Then what is the abiding charm? To me, at all events, Kew has much the same appeal as the Londoner finds in Richmond Hill. It is a London garden, the garden of a town, perfectly made for its purpose. It can never, even with its glorious trees and its wide spaces of grass, have the peace or know the spirit of a country garden. Too many feet tread its lawns; too many voices chatter in its walks. It may spread its wild flowers and grow its curious blossoms for those who know where and how to look for them; but its main effects must be of ordered gravel, of shaven grass, of patterned beds, of flowers that will suit artificial lakes and buildings and stone balustrades. The keynote of Kew is by the wide pond, with the smooth green turf and the white stone, and the masses of pansies and heliotrope and brilliant red geraniums. Those are the flowers which suit best the steps down to the water, and the fountains, and the swimming ducks and the birds on the banks. There is the right touch of artificiality about them; the right note of London. The birds are Londoners themselves. The stately brown geese stalk over the lawns careless of poulterers or punt-guns. The cormorant, who most certainly knows he is being watched, dives to show off before admiring children. Even the blackbirds have forgotten their country habits, and will sing when country blackbirds are silent for the year. Once, late in July, I heard four singing in evening sunshine after rain. They would take any countryman back to the days of chestnut blossom and the scent of Surrey may; but that indolent melody, in July sunshine, belongs to London.
