348 



THE NATURE BOOK 



1665. Refugees from the Great Fire ; 

 duels, coronatious. Crystal Palace— the old 

 elms have seen it all. Well may they 

 wear a gra\'e aud re\'erend look, as those 



" That have kept watch o'er man's mortality." 



But in truth the trees are not at all 

 concerned with man and his doings ; 



bourne only known as a brook which ran 

 across to Westminster imder Knight's 

 Bridge, feeding the ponds on its way. 

 Hyde Park, therefore, was quite in the 

 country ; an enclosed piece of the County 

 of Middlesex. 



IMiddlesex, the homehest of the home 

 counties, where no one looks to be excited 



THE WATER GARDEN ; HYDE PARK. 



their fealty is to the great god Pan ; 

 their business to draw by rootlet and leaf 

 the meat and drink they need from the 

 earth and air. For the life of vegetation 

 has the greater strength of slowness and 

 endurance ; the earth was green before we 

 came upon it, and green will be the grave 

 of the last man. And it is a sense of 

 this dominance of Nature which causes 

 some of us in Hyde Park to-day to 

 get away as far as may be from the 

 ephemeral people, and sit in solitude 

 upon the carpet of grass that will never 

 wear out, and look up into the everlasting 

 roof of the branches. 



In Mr. Pcpys' day, Kensington and 

 Bayswater were small villages, and West- 



by fine scenery ; but where trees are many, 

 and the lanes long and quiet ; where the 

 colouring is always subdued and restful ; 

 dark and cool in summer, and in winter 

 still soft and verdant ; the paradise of 

 the haymaker, the land of the meadow 

 and the elm tree. 



It seems quite in the natural order, 

 therefore, to find the elm the dominant 

 tree in Hyde Park. The tree of the 

 homestead and the hedgerow, never of 

 the forest : of the country, but not of the 

 wild ; not quite a city tree, but never 

 far from human neighbourhood. The 

 silver birch needs the mountain slope 

 and the brook for environment, the beech 

 the chalk hills, wliilst the oak should 



