LATING-OUT OF PUBLIC PARKS. 221 



upward of sixty acres, tliese grounds should be parks 

 ill the proper sense of the word, furnished with a few 

 inclosures for pasture, broad and well-formed walks 

 or drives intersecting and sweeping round the whole, 

 large masses of trees, approaching at times to the 

 character of woods, together with a reserve of some 

 acres, by way of pleasure-grounds or dressed grounds, 

 attached to the park. 



The buildings essentially necessary to a public park 

 are few ; in short, a house for the superintendent, and 

 a cottage or two for the gate-keepers, may suffice ; but 

 where flower-gardening is included in the operations, 

 as it ought to be at least to a moderate extent, we 

 should be inclined to insist on the addition of a small 

 green-house, to be employed in the propagation, and 

 in the protection during winter, of those tender orn-a- 

 raental plants which are bedded out in summer. We 

 have already noted the defect in this kind of park, 

 arising from the absence of a mansion-house, and we 

 should recommend the supplying of this want by the 

 erection in it of any suitable public buildings. Nothing 

 would be more appropriate, for example, than a pic- 

 ture-gallery. Statues, too, erected to distinguished 

 citizens, or other illustrious characters, would find 

 there a more suitable station, and a more comfortable 

 home, than in the crowded thoroughfares of streets 

 and squares, where their uncovered heads, and their 

 limbs scantily draped in classic costume, are alter- 

 nately soiled by dust and soot, amid all the changes 

 of rain and sunshine, of snow and thaw. Museums 

 containing objects of natural historj^ and collections 

 of antiquities, are also desirable and instructive accom- 

 paniments of these places of public resort. The 



