191 



pleasure grounds from the open area or general play ground, so that the grass 

 might be kept short by letting in sheep at hours when the ground was 

 otherwise unoccupied. This I consider the cheapest way of keeping in order 

 so large a space. Such a fence would also have been useful in preventing 

 the formation of tracks in order to gain the shortest access to any particular 

 spot. Of such tracks there were soon many, in addition to the walks originally 

 laid down, and which, I understand, has resulted in many additional walks 

 being made, whereby the boldness and freedom of the whole has been to a 

 great extent destroyed. I mention this to prevent similar errors. 



It is much to be regretted that nowhere amongst our public parks in 

 England, or in any part of her Majesty's dominions, are there to be found 

 General good specimens of the English style of Landscape Gardening, even 

 in places where there has been ample scope to admit of the finest examples. 

 Our metropolitan parks are amongst the worst of all. Where lies the 

 blame '? Surely it cannot be said that this has happened for want of artistic 

 skill, while we have had a Repton, a Gilpin, and a Loudon. Had their taste 

 and talent been called into action, such barbarous productions as we see in 

 these national parks would not have presented themselves. It requires no 

 great skill to detect that the arrangement of the three metropolitan public 

 parks, where much might have been expected, namely, Hyde Park, Regent's 

 Park, and the Green Park, has not been guided by an experienced hand. 



Of these parks, it can only be said that they are open and healthy places 

 of resort for the public, who may choose to leave the confined streets and 

 alleys of the metropolis, to resort to them. But it appears to me that such 

 praise is far less than they might have merited. London is the grand 

 emporium of the world, to which people from all parts and all nations resort, 

 and who naturally expect great things there ; consequently, in the parks of 

 London ought to be exhibited the chief model of the English style of Land- 

 scape Gardening, not only as a pattern for her Majesty's subjects to copy, but 

 to put to silence the censure of other nations. In illustration of this, I may 

 mention that a very severe criticism was passed upon the English style of 

 Landscape Gardening generally, by a German tourist, in the pages of the 

 Gardeners Magazine, vol. vi., page 31, and it fell to my lot to vindicate it in a 

 succeeding number of the same volume, page Oil. But if these parks had 

 been the only objects of his censure, and I had been called upon to establish 



