IDYLLIC BATTERSEA 



459 



"To earn his cream bowl, duly set, the gardener, above all other men, will 



Will III one night, ere glimpse of mom," ^ear NN'itness that " To travel hopefully is 



finish the task a better thing than to arrive, and the 



,,„,,. , ^ A t u ^A 4- A '• true success is to labour." 



" Which ten day labourers could not end. ™, , ^, , . , 



1 hough the reahsation has only come 



Less than si.xty years ago the site of about by slow degrees, it would be 



Battersea Park was a squalid waste, the pleasant to suppose that the whole scene, 



THE LAKE, BATTERSEA PARK. 



Photosrapli by Pictorial Agency. 



favourite scene for Sunday morning 

 fights, whether of dogs, game cocks, or 

 pugilists — a horrible example of the 

 suburban wilderness. 



Old tales are told of deserts miracu- 

 lously transformed by the divine power 

 of music ; the magic song of an Amphion 

 or an Orpheus causing gracious trees and 

 flowers to spring at once from the barren 

 soil, softening the jagged rocks, and 

 subduing the fierceness of brute beasts. 

 But far away lies the land, and long gone 

 by the age of these marvels, and " with 

 other notes than to th' Orphean lyre " 

 was this wilderness made to blossom as 

 the rose. Years of hard thinking and half 

 a century of hard work have gone to the 

 making of it ; and surely it is better so. 

 The means have been as good as the end ; 



as we ha^'e it to-day, and as those who 

 follow will see it to-morrow, lived com- 

 plete in the imagination of the designer ; 

 that with his mind's eye he saw the clouds 

 of willow green that overhang the lake, 

 and the arms of the white poplar lifted 

 in the sunlight ; that the elm tree ax'cnues 

 which he planted already cast their shadow 

 upon his path ; that he glanced down all 

 these pleasant little \'istas, and heard the 

 birds already singing in the branches. 



An artist is nex'er satisfied ; but surely 

 this man, could he revisit the scene of 

 his labours, would hardly say that his 

 dreams had not been realised, that his 

 weU laid plots had gone agley. One little 

 rift within the lute there would be, one 

 error to deplore. With the view of ob- 

 taining a wider spread and a more con- 



