THE BOTANIC GARDEN IN REGENT'S PARK. 519 



lawn. * As you ramble about the finely planted and well grown 

 walks, which form the border to this lawn now quite concealed 

 from all observation in a thicket of foliage now emerging upon 

 some pretty garden vista, and again opening upon a little separate 

 nook, devoted to some single kind of culture, as groups of rhodo- 

 dendrons, or American plants, or a flower garden set in turf, 

 or a rock-work filled witn* curious alpines you imagine you 

 have been introduced into some pleasure-grounds of fifty acres, 

 instead of the moderate compass of less than twenty. The sur- 

 face is most gracefully undulating, so as to give that play of light 

 and shade those sunny smiles, so pleasant in a lawn, and to pre- 

 vent your eye from ranging over too large a sweep at one time ; 

 and though this variation of surface was, as I was told, wholly the 

 work of art when the grounds were laid out, it has none of the stiff 

 and hard look of the surface in the arboretum at Derby, but is 

 charmingly like the most pleasing bits of natural flowing surface. I 

 cannot, therefore, but believe that Mr. Marnock, the able landscape 

 gardener who laid out this place, convinced me by this single speci- 

 men, that he is a man of great skill and refined taste in his art. I 

 saw no new place abroad laid out in a more entirely satisfactory 

 manner. 



In order to give the garden a character and purpose, beyond that 

 of mere pleasure-grounds (although enjoyment of it in the latter 

 sense is the main object), a botanical arrangement and a medical 

 arrangement of plants, are both very well carried out here I believe 

 for the use of the students of the London University. But instead 

 of bringing these scientific arrangements into the pleasure-ground 

 portion, which meets the eye of the ordinary visitor of the garden, 

 they are kept in one of the side scenes quite in the background ; 

 so that though they add greatly to the interest, and general extent 

 of the garden when sought for, they do not mar the beauty or 

 elegance of its conspicuous outlines. 



In the great conservatory, though the larger number of the 

 plants were out in their summer quarters, the whole effect was still 

 extremely pleasing, from the noble specimens of certain showy sum- 

 mer-blooming plants, growing here and there throughout the open 

 space, which was elsewhere turned into a broad gravel walk. These 



