REGENT'S PARK 



1055 



Tiih WATKK-GARDKN, REGENT'S PARK. 



the growth and ripening of the corn, 

 the reaping and the stacking ; to have 

 at least one great meadow, where daisies 

 might grow long-stemmed in the lengthen- 

 ing grass, golden with buttercups, and 

 sheeted white with the marguerites of 

 June ; then to hear the mower whetting 

 his scythe, to smell the sweet scent of hay, 

 and to see the snugly thatched rick 

 beneath the winter elms. We might have 

 had sheep, not only grazing in the summer, 

 but folded on the frozen ground, and fed 

 with roots from our own mound, and hay 

 from our own rick, and have heard from 

 the snugly littered lambing pens in March 

 the tender cry of new-born lambs. 



Was it quite impossible ? less possible 

 than the establishment and painful main- 

 tenance of tropical hot-houses and sub- 

 tropical gardens, with potted tree-ferns, 

 flannel-swathed palms, and grotesque 

 orchids ? At any rate, some of the farm 

 buildings might have been left standing — 

 (and used, one would say, for gardening 

 purposes) weather boarded and red-tiled ; 

 with the grace of antiquity about them, 



they would have pleased us better than 

 the smartest and newest of kiosques, 

 bandstands and pavilions. 



It is too late to talk of all this here ; 

 conceivably in the laying out of future 

 suburban parks, this very general love of 

 rusticity may one day be considered. 

 Meanwhile we will try to make the most 

 of what H.R.H. and Mr. Nash the architect 

 have given us. Nature has well done 

 her part, and it were ungracious to 

 complain, for here is, indeed, a noble 

 spread of elegant and cultured sceneiy, 

 beautiful at all times and seasons. 



Pleasant it is to enter from the street 

 into a world of green ; to see the prospect 

 bounded by tree-tops instead of houses, and 

 to let the sight travel to distant Highgate 

 hill, crowned with lofty trees and loftier 

 church spire ; to take delight in undulating 

 masses of foliage, and the bright colours 

 of flowers ; to see sheep at pasture under 

 the trees, and eager boys hurrying to their 

 cricket, each one certain of making forty 

 runs at least ; smooth, clean shorn lawns 

 in the sunshine, and long grass under the 



