ST. JAMES'S & GREEN PARKS 73 



Rosamund's Pond had, in the course of time, become 

 stagnant and unpleasant, and there were frequent com- 

 plaints of its unsavoury condition. About 1736 a machine 

 for pumping out water was invented by a Welshman, 

 and used successfully to empty the pond, and it was 

 thoroughly cleansed. Thirty years later the same evil 

 began again to be a nuisance, and it was decided to drain 

 and fill up the pond entirely, which was accomplished 

 about 1772. The trees on the island were felled, and 

 those near the bank died from the lack of water, so at 

 first the absence of the slimy pond must have been dis- 

 figuring. The shady walk near it, known as the Close 

 Walk or the Jacobites' Walk, must have disappeared 

 when the trees died. About the same time the swampy 

 moat round Duck Island was filled up and the canal 

 cleaned out. When these improvements were completed 

 in 1775 some birds were put on the canal. One of them 

 was a swan called Jack, belonging to Queen Charlotte, 

 which was reared in the garden of Buckingham House. 

 This bird ruled the roost for many a day, and was a 

 popular favourite. It lived until 1840, when some 

 new arrivals, in the shape of Polish geese, pecked and 

 ill-treated the poor old bird so seriously that he died. 



About 1786 fashion began to desert the Mall for the 

 Green Park, and the crowds which collected there were 

 no longer intermingled with the Court circle. In a letter 

 to her daughter Madame Roland describes the company 

 in the Mall as very different from what it was a few years 

 earlier, for though it was "very brilliant on a Sunday 

 evening, and full of well-to-do people and well-dressed 

 women, in general they are ail tradespeople and citizens." 

 A generation later the Mall seems to have become quite 

 deserted. Sir Richard Phillips, in his morning's walk 



