A Gi-ADL L\ HYDE PARK NEAR THE .MAGAZENE 



NATURE 'IN TOWN" 



HYDE PARK AND KENSINGTON GARDENS 



By ARTHUR SCAMMELL 



HYDE PARK may be regarded as 

 the meeting-place of two worlds : 

 a scene wherein the drama of 

 eager human life goes on side by side 

 with the slow calm processes of Nature. 

 The human picture is indeed a full 

 one. High life and low life ; kings 

 following the chase, and outlaws hiding 

 from justice ; royal cavalcades and sorry 

 processions to Tyburn ; rank and fashion 

 in daily parade, over against demon- 

 straticjns of the unemployed ; luxury in 

 a royal palace, and tired destitution in 

 uneasy slumber ui)on the ])ark l)enches ; 

 loyalty doffing to the king, whilst over there 

 the demagogue bellows upon his tub ; 



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Rotten Row upon the one hand, u])on the 

 other the Reformers' Tree and the re- 

 erected Hyde Park railings : and between 

 these extremes the constant coming 

 and going of the multitude of decent 

 citizens ; not making history perhaps, but 

 certainly making love ; taking the air 

 with their wives and children or, at the 

 least, exercising their dogs.' An epitome 

 of London is Hyde Park — a pageant of 

 English history. 



For the Nature side of the ])icture we 

 have six hundred and thirty-six acres of 

 gardens, pasture, lake, and ])lantation, 

 wherein five or si.x hundred varieties of 

 trees and shrubs are growing, mostly 



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