Those who wish to witness the out-of-door pomp and pride of mighty London must enter by the Horse-Guards and visit the parks; for there all the array of rank and fashion and aristocratic beauty congregate, under the open eye of heaven: mounted on splendid horses, or seated in richly ornamented chariots, and arrayed in the most approved costumes, they confer a mutual pleasure upon all, by issuing forth to see and to be seen. Here, from the humble pedestrian—the nursery-maid, with her children, walking within the Enclosure—the man-about-town, fashionably dressed, and who may either be taken for a member of the swell mob or a marquis,—the ranks ascend to celebrated statesmen, soldiers of renown, and lords and ladies, whose titles have figured for centuries in the pages of history, and who all appear to have no other object than that of inhaling the fresh air, and enjoying the beauty of the scenery. For in these places the leaves wave, and the flowers blow, and the waters run, as green, and sweetly, and freshly, as if the huge city, with its millions of murmuring voices, had been removed miles away. Yet, all is London; only a wider space in that great unbroken chain of streets and houses, whose squares are but the openings in the links that are locked together, in and out, and under and over, to the very ending.
St. James’s Park, in the reign of Henry VIII., appears to have been nothing more than a wide space of open fields, formerly occupied by an hospital; on the site of which bluff Hal erected a palace, and formed a park, which he enclosed with brick walls. To this park he added a chase, which he threw out like a wide open noose, from his palace at Westminster, and where the line fell it formed the circle which ran from St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields, up by Islington, round Highgate and Hornsey, Hampstead Heath, and back again to St. Giles and Westminster; and all subjects of every degree were forbidden either to hawk or hunt within these boundaries. Only three centuries have passed away since this proclamation was issued. Old Death himself, with dart in hand, hunted down Henry soon after he had taken possession of his new chase; and, after the leading hart of the herd had fallen, the whole chase was soon disafforested. Edward VI. possessed not his father’s organs of destructiveness; but, instead of forming parks, founded hospitals; one of which will cause the name of the Boy-King to be reverenced throughout all time. But few features of that old park now remain, although there are spots about it in which the spectator may stand in such a situation as to shut out every other object, excepting the grey old Abbey of Westminster, against which the trees seem to rest, half burying it, as they no doubt did three hundred years ago.
There are many “pretty bits” about St. James’s Park, as you look up towards where the pale marble arch formerly stood, on which the royal banner of England, that threw out its golden lions upon the breeze, used to float; when, seen through the opening green of the foliage, it seemed to carry back the imagination into the land of old romance and chivalry. Nor is the Palace itself less pleasing; for although in many points deficient of architectural beauty, it throws the old black-bricked, gloomy pile of St. James’s altogether into the shade. But the most beautiful walks lie beside the canal, or sheet of ornamental water, which is fairly alive with water-fowl, brought from almost every corner of the globe. Around this part there are many fine trees, which throw their green shadows into the water, broken at times by a hundred tiny ripples, which have been raised by the paddles of some strange-looking duck, or thrown up by the silver-breasted swans. We have seen little morsels mirrored in these “cool translucent waves” of the richest colour and beauty—the drooping gold of the laburnum, and the pearly white of the hawthorn, dangled amid moving shadows of green; while deep down, the blue sky lay sleeping, like another heaven, motionless, and without a cloud. This is the favourite haunt of children and nursery-maids; and few fowls are better fed in summer-time than those which skim about the water in the Park, for the handfuls of bread and biscuit which are thrown in by the “little dears” for the little ducks, and often gobbled up by the larger ones, would almost feed a workhouse. It has been a celebrated spot for love-making ever since the days of Charles II., and is frequently mentioned in the works of the dramatists who wrote at that period. In this it has not degenerated up to the present day, for many a “Corydon and Phillis” may yet be seen breathing out gentle vows in the most secluded retreats, some of the maidens with countenances as beautiful as ever figured in that gallery of graceless Graces which formed the seraglio of the Merry Monarch. In this park King Charles often amused himself by playing with his dogs, or feeding the ducks; or sometimes he stole away to have a gossip with Nell Gwynn, the Duchess of Cleveland, or Lady Castlemain, all of whom resided in the neighbourhood. Here he also played at “pall-mall,” for so is that game called by garrulous old Pepys. Horace Walpole makes mention of the Mall, and also tells us that pretty ladies were sometimes mobbed in the Park.
The Green Park possesses but little to interest us, beyond a walk beside the gardens which run up in a line with James-street, although far behind it. But those who know the locality will not pass without pausing to gaze at one house, conspicuous by its large bow-windows, the upper one of which is encircled by a gilt palisade. This is the residence of Samuel Rogers the poet. Within that house every distinguished literary man of the last half-century has been a guest. Here Scott, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and Campbell have many a time discoursed with the venerable poet. What a rich volume would that be, were it possible to write it, that contained all the good sayings which have been uttered beneath that roof! Here we first sat a guest, roaring with laughter at the wit of the late Sydney Smith; and here also we have listened with “bated breath” to the music murmured by the lips of Moore. Within those walls we first saw that true poetess and injured lady, Mrs. Norton; and from the host himself, in our early career as an author, received that encouragement and kindness, without which we might have “fallen on the way.” A description of this celebrated house, all it contains, and the guests it has received, would require the hand of another Walpole to illustrate. The name of Samuel Rogers would alone save the Green Park from oblivion, and give it a popularity which it would never, but for him, have possessed.
No stranger would ever think of entering Hyde Park without first casting a look at Apsley House, the abode of “the” Duke; if he did, the statue of Achilles, which seems stationed as if to point it out, would remind him where he was. This is the very maze and centre of fashion; here the pride and beauty of England may be seen upon their own stage; and on a fine day, in what is called the “season” in town, no other spot in the world can out-rival in rich display and chaste grandeur that which is here presented. It far excels St. James’s in pure rural scenery—there is less of art and more of nature in its appearance, and this is increased by the beauty of the Serpentine river. Then, be it remembered, we are in the vicinity of “Tyburn Tree,” the history of which has yet to be written. We have often pictured, while wandering here in the deepening twilight, the mouldering bodies of the stern Protector, Ireton, and Bradshaw, dangling upon that “triple-tree” in the sunset of a winter’s evening, after they had been dragged out of their graves in Westminster Abbey. This was indeed carrying revenge beyond the grave, and is one of the blackest blots that stain the memory of the Merry Monarch. Evelyn has a savage and unfeeling note in his “Diary” on the revolting exhibition. “On the 30th of January,” he says, “the carcases of those rebels—Cromwell, Bradshaw, the judge who condemned his Majesty, and Ireton (son-in-law to the Usurper)—were dragged out of their superb tombs in Westminster, among the kings, to Tyburn, and hanged on the gallows there from nine in the morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deep pit, thousands who had seen them in all their pride being spectators.”
Cromwell had a narrow escape in Hyde Park while driving his own coach; the horses ran away, and the stern Protector was thrown off the box, and falling on the pole, while his feet were entangled in the harness, he was carried some distance. On this accident the old rhyming cavalier Cleveland wrote the following lines: