548 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



which made a much stronger impression upon me. I mean the 

 grand and beautiful parks of London. 



If every thing one sees in England leads one to the conviction 

 that the English do not, like the French and Germans, possess the 

 genius of high art, there is no denying that they far surpass all 

 other nations in a profound sentiment of nature. Take, for exam- 

 ple, the West end of London, and what do you see there ? Mag- 

 nificent palaces, enormous piles of dwellings, in the shape of " ter- 

 races," " squares," and " places " the same costly town architecture 

 that you find every where in the "better portions of populous and 

 wealthy capitals. But if you ask me what is the peculiar and dis- 

 tinguishing luxury of ihis part of London, I answer, in its holding 

 the country in its lap. In the midst of London lie, in an almost 

 connected series, the great parks. Hyde Park, Regent's Park, St. 

 James's and Green Parks. These names are almost as familiar to 

 you as the Battery and Washington Square, and I fear you labor 

 under the delusion that the former are only an enlarged edition of 

 the latter. Believe me, you have fallen into as great an error as if 

 you took the " Brick meeting-house " for a suggestion of St. Peter's. 

 The London parks are actually like districts of open country mead- 

 ows and fields, country estates, lakes and streams, gardens and 

 shrubberies, with as much variety as if you were in the heart of 

 Cambridgeshire, and as much seclusion in some parts, at certain 

 hours, as if you were on a farm in the interior of Pennsylvania. 

 And the whole is laid out and treated, in the main, with a broad 

 and noble feeling of natural beauty, quite the reverse of what you 

 see in the public parks of the continental cities. This makes these 

 parks doubly refreshing to citizens tired of straight lines and for- 

 mal streets, while the contrast heightens the natural charm. Unac- 

 customed to this breadth of imitation of nature this creating a 

 piece of wide-spread country large enough to shut out for the time 

 all trace of the houses, though actually in the midst of a city, an 

 American is always inclined to believe (notwithstanding the abun- 

 dance of evidence to the contrary) that the London parks are a bit 

 of the native country, surprised and fairly taken prisoner by the 

 outstretched arms of this giant of modern cities. 



St. James's Park and Green Park are enormous pieces of real 



