MAY. 215 



dimensions, and forms a very ugly feature in the landscape, 

 particularly as viewed from the park. There are a few 

 groups of old trees on the south and west sides. 



Hyde Park, celebrated already for many interesting histor- 

 ical events, will henceforth be noted chiefly as having supplied 

 the site for the Exhibition Building of the industry of all 

 nations. 



The lesson I learned in Green and Hyde Parks was that of 

 bitter disappointment, for where I expected to find beauties 

 to imitate, I found only deformities and puerilities to be 

 avoided. 



KENSINGTON GARDENS. 



These gardens include 300 acres more, and are actually a 

 continuation of Hyde Park. Before George H.'s time, indeed, 

 nearly the whole of these gardens were actually included in 

 Hyde Park, Q,ueen Caroline having enclosed them, and 

 formed the Serpentine out of a number of small ponds. 



The foundation of these gardens was laid by William HI., 

 but, in his reign, they did not occupy more than 26 acres. 

 Q,ueen Anne enlarged them to 56 acres, and had them laid 

 out by her gardener, H. Wise, who afterwards became quite 

 a celebrity in landscape gardening. Addison, in his Spectator, 

 seems to have been delighted with those dawnings of the 

 modern natural manner, exhibited by this artist in his treat- 

 ment of the old Kensington gravel pits, thus converted into a 

 portion of Kensington Gardens. 



In the time of George II., however, Q,ueen Caroline ex- 

 tended these gardens to their present size, by taking nearly 

 300 acres out of Hyde Park, and having the whole laid out 

 by Bridgman. At this period, also, the Serpentine was 

 formed out of a series of ponds ; and a large and somewhat 

 circular basin of water was made in the neighborhood of the 

 palace, at the point from whence the principal avenues di- 

 verge. Kent was afterwards employed to alter these gardens, 

 and encountered much ridicule by endeavoring to imitate 

 nature so closely as to plant a number of dead trees. More 

 recent times have witnessed comparatively few changes in 

 Kensington Gardens, except that one or two of the broad 



