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JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. V. 



OCTOBER, 1850. 



No. 4. 



MR. DO"WNING'S LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



My Dear Sir — I iutcnded to say something 

 to you ill this letter of the enormous parks 

 of London — absolute woods and prairies, in 

 the midst of a vast and populous city ; but 

 the subject is one that demands more space 

 than I have at my disposal to-day, and I shall 

 therefore reserve it for the future. I will 

 merely say, at passant, that every American 

 who visits London, whetlicr for the first or 

 the fiftieth time, feels mortified that no city 

 in the United States has a public 2;a;-A: — here 

 so justly considered both the highest luxury 

 and necessity in a great city. What are 

 called parks in New- York, are not even apolo- 

 gies for the thing ; they are only squares, or 

 paddocks. In the parks of Loudon, you may 

 imagine yourself in the depths of the country, 

 with, apparently, its boundless space on all 

 sides ; its green turf, fresh air, and, at certain 

 times of the day, almost its solitude and re- 

 pose. And at other times, they are the 

 healthful breathing zone of hundreds of thou- 

 sands of citizens ! 



The National Garden at Kew. — I 

 have just come from a visit at Sir William 

 Hooker's, at Kew Park. He is the direc- 

 tor of the Roj-al Gardens at Kew, — a short 

 distance from his house, — where we spent 



Vol. v. 10 



almost the entire day together, exploring in 

 detail the many interesting features of this 

 place, now admitted to be the finest public 

 botanic garden in Europe. 



It is only within a few years that Kew 

 gardens have been given up to the })ublic ; 

 and it is wholly owing to the spirited ad- 

 ministration of Sir Wm. Hooker — so well 

 known in both hemispheres for his botanical 

 science — that it has lately reached so high a 

 rank among botanical collections. Originally, 

 the place is interesting, as having beeu the 

 favorite suburban residence of various branch- 

 es of the royal family. George III. lived 

 here ; and here Queen Charlotte died. 

 The botanical taste of the latter is well known, 

 and has been commemorated in that striking 

 and beautiful plant, the Strelitzia, named in 

 her honor* by Sir Joseph Banks. For a 

 long time the garden was the receptacle of all 

 the rare plants collected by English travel- 

 lers — Capt. Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Cun- 

 ningham, and others. What was formerly 

 of little value has, however, lately become a 

 matter of national pride ; and this is owing 

 to the fact, that the present c^ueen has wholly 

 given Kew up to the public, even adding a 



* She was Princess of the House of Meckleaberij Strelitz. 



