168 WINTER SUNSHINE 



it, or roll upon it, or play " one catch all " with 

 children, boys, dogs, or sheep upon it; and I took 

 my revenge for once for being so long confined to 

 gravel walks, and gave the grass an opportunity to 

 grow under my foot whenever I entered one of these 

 parks. 



This free-and-easy rural character of the London 

 parks is quite in keeping with the tone and atmos- 

 phere of the great metropolis itself, which in so 

 many respects has a country homeliness and sincer- 

 ity, and shows the essentially bucolic taste of the 

 people ; contrasting in this respect with the parks 

 and gardens of Paris, which show as unmistakably 

 the citizen and the taste for art and the beauty of 

 design and ornamentation. Hyde Park seems to 

 me the perfection of a city pleasure ground of this 

 kind, because it is so free and so thoroughly a piece 

 of the country, and so exempt from any petty artis- 

 tic displays. 



In walking over Richmond Park I found I had 

 quite a day's work before me, as it was like travers- 

 ing a township; while the great park at Windsor 

 Castle, being upwards of fifty miles around, might 

 well make the boldest pedestrian hesitate. My first 

 excursion was to Hampden Court, an old royal resi- 

 dence, where I spent a delicious October day wan- 

 dering through Bushy Park, and looking with covet- 

 ous, though admiring eyes upon the vast herds of 

 deer that dotted the plains, or gave way before me 

 as I entered the woods. There seemed literally to 

 be many thousands of these beautiful animals in thia 



