“The whip again! away! ’tis too absurd
That thou should’st lash with whip-cord now, but sword.
I’m pleased to fancy how the glad compact
Of hackney-coachmen sneer at the last act.
Hark how the scoffing concourse hence derives
The proverb, ‘needs must go when the devil drives.’
Yonder a whipster cries, ‘’Tis a plain case,
He turn’d us out to put himself i’ the place;
But, God-a-mercy, horses once, for ye
Stood to ’t, and turn’d him out as well as we.’
Another, not behind him with his mocks,
Cries out, ‘Sir, faith you were in the wrong box;
He did presume to rule, because, forsooth,
He’s been a horse-commander from his youth;
But he must know there’s difference in the reins
Of horses fed with oats and fed with grains.
I wonder at his frolic, for be sure
Four hamper’d coach-horses can fling a Brewer:
But ‘Pride will have a fall,’ such the world’s course is,
He who can rule three realms can’t guide four horses;
See him that trampled thousands in their gore,
Dismounted by a party but of four.
But we have done with ’t, and we may call
This driving Jehu, Phaeton in his fall:
I would to God for these three kingdoms’ sake,
His neck, and not the whip, had given the crack.”
We wonder whether Cromwell remembered the wish conveyed in the last line when the old royalist colonel had to petition the Protector for his deliverance from Yarmouth gaol. The letter he sent (now before us) is headed, “To the Protector, after long and vile durance in prison. May it please your Highness,” &c.
Hyde Park is mentioned as early as the reign of Edward VI, and was no doubt enclosed long before that period. During the time of the Commonwealth it was put up to auction and sold in lots, the deer alone being valued at near upon a thousand pounds. At that period it extended to the Acton-road one way, and to Knightsbridge the other; the boundary citywards being, as now, near Park-lane, while the distance it extended westward is at this day unknown. The consort of George II. was allowed to possess three hundred acres of this Park in her day, and early writers state that Queen Anne had enclosed thirty acres within Kensington Gardens.
Hyde Park was the great mustering-ground for the May-day holidays in the olden time. Cleveland, who wrote and fought in the time of the first Charles, makes mention of it in a poem entitled “May-day,” which contains many beautiful lines. He speaks of “Delight beating her silvery wings,” warbling over the “dappled lawns;” of “snow-white milk-maids crowned with garlands;” of the youths and maidens tumbling and rolling upon the grass, and of revelling in the luxuries of “curds and cream.” Even Cromwell, with all his gloomy Puritanism, went to witness the wrestling in Hyde Park, little dreaming that after he had been long dead and buried, his body would be hanged on the neighbouring gallows, which must have loomed ominously above those merry-makings. Gossiping good-natured old Pepys regrets, in his “Diary,” that he could not be in Hyde Park one May-day among the great gallants and fine ladies.
Regent’s Park has greater attractions than its scenery, although many portions of it are very beautiful. Here we find the Zoological Gardens and Colosseum, both important enough to deserve a separate notice in our Sketches of London, had we the space. On entering the Gardens you see a beautiful terrace, which reaches from the rural lodges to some distance, while below are placed the cages which contain the noble animals; and these are very commodious and airy. Beyond this terrace there is a pleasant rustic walk, hemmed in by luxuriant foliage, at the end of which there is an opening commanding an extensive view of the Park. To the right you have the domestic aviaries, well worth visiting, as they contain some fine specimens of the fowls of Peru and Mexico. To the left of the terrace there is a little morsel of real Watteau-like scenery, with its smooth lawn and clear pond, near to which are placed the gorgeous macaws, whose hues out-rival the colours of the rainbow. Further on there is another “green nestling spot,” adjoining a sheet of water, which, with its fountain and variety of aquatic fowls and beautiful beech-trees, tempted us to linger longer. Then there is the mossy rock, where the otter is located, with its silent water, into which live fish are thrown, when the long-bodied inhabitant plunges in after them, compelled to wet his jacket before he can enjoy his dinner. But were we to describe the monkeys and parrots, and every variety of bird and beast which are here assembled, we should require the whole space of our volume. The catalogue sold at the Gardens consists of nearly thirty pages, and to this we refer our readers when they visit Regent’s Park.
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. Breathing-room has been sadly neglected of late around the metropolis. Let any one cross over London Bridge, and turn up by St. George’s Church in the Borough, along the Old Kent Road, and as far as New Cross, he will find it one continuous and unbroken chain of buildings. Yet here is space ample enough, and grounds of but little value, that might be formed into a spacious park. If this is not done, those who twenty years hence live in this neighbourhood of railways will be compelled to wander as far as Blackheath or Greenwich Park, to obtain a mouthful of pure air. Kennington Common is but a name for a small grassless square, surrounded with houses, and poisoned by the stench of vitriol-works, and black, open, sluggish ditches; what it will be when the promised alterations are completed we have yet to see.
Walworth Common has vanished; and the little fairy Green before the Swan at Stockwell is now no more; while even Clapham Common seems in our eyes to lessen every year. Wandsworth had set out in good earnest to reach Lambeth, and would soon have been near the Nine Elms station, had not Government stopped its career, by stepping in between at Battersea Fields. Cross the water, and some of the miscalled Parks are like the one named Whetstone—thrust into the corner of a square. Barnsbury Park is in any street which the conductor of the Islington omnibus may please to set you down at; while Islington, Highbury, Pentonville, and King’s Cross are all so jostled together, that you cannot tell which is the beginning or the end of either the one or the other. We have heard of a neighbourhood that stretches somewhere behind Houndsditch and Bishopsgate, and seen something of it while gazing from the dome of St. Paul’s; but from the view thus obtained of it, we should as soon hope to find our way out of the Cretan labyrinth, if once in it, as to extricate ourselves from this maze of streets and alleys. We can imagine some stranger losing his way in this perplexing maze, and ever moving on until he grew grey, without a hope of finding his way out again. The new Park in progress near this neighbourhood may, at last, be something like a landmark by which we can see through such an unknown wilderness. How the inhabitants of such localities as these must pine for
“The populous solitude of bees and birds,
And fairy-form’d and many-colour’d things,
Who worship Him with notes more sweet than words,
And innocently open their glad wings,
Fearless and full of life; the gush of springs,
And fall of lofty fountains; and the bend
Of stirring branches, and the bud that brings
The swiftest thought of beauty.”—Byron.