IX

The London parks—Old prints—Rural London—Deer in Hyde Park—Its Gates—Proposed railway station in the Park—Riots—Origin of the name “Rotten Row”—An unlucky suitor and his trousers—Lady Diana Beauclerk and the Baron de Géramb—Decadence of dress—The vis-à-vis—The end of duelling—Lord Camelford’s will—His burial-place—The first Lord Camelford—His Lines on Lady Hervey.

The history of the London parks is a very interesting one, tinged, as it is, with a certain amount of romance.

Of late a good deal of attention has been directed to prints of the parks by reason of Mr. Charles Edward Jerningham, the clever “Marmaduke” of Truth, having presented a collection of old prints, as well as of park keys, passes, and the like, to the nation—an interesting gift which, very appropriately, has now been permanently placed on view in a room specially set apart at Kensington Palace. As may be observed from those prints, the parks formerly had a much more rural air than is now the case, when they have become little more than regulated pleasure grounds for the people.

In the summer of 1739 an otter hunt took place in St. James’s Park. A large dog otter, having taken up his abode there, played great havoc with the fish in the ponds and canal, and eventually, as he would take no notice of the traps set for his destruction, a regular otter hunt was organised by the ranger, then Lord Essex. At nine o’clock in the morning of a summer day, Sir Robert Walpole’s pack of otter hounds, which had been borrowed for the occasion, appeared upon the scene, and after a hunt which lasted two hours the otter, having left the water and tried to run to the great canal, was speared by a Mr. Smith who hunted the hounds.