552 LETTERS FROM ENGLAND. 



audience (for the afternoon is a bright one), and as you see the r* 

 diant pleasure-sparkle in a thousand happy faces, young and old, 

 who are here enjoying a little pleasant mingling of heaven and 

 earth in an innocent manner, you cannot but be struck with the 

 fact that, if there is a duty belonging to good governments, next to 

 protecting the lives and property of the people, it is that of provid 

 ing public parks for the pent-up inhabitants of cities. 



" Imperial Kensington " is not only more spacious and grand 

 than Hyde Park, but it has a certain antique stateliness, which 

 touches my fancy and pleases me more. The trees are larger and 

 more grove-like, and the broad glades of soft green turf are of a 

 darker and richer green, and invite you to a more private and in- 

 timate confidence than any portions of Hyde Park. The grand 

 avenue of elms at the farther part of Kensington Gardens, coming 

 suddenly into it from the farther Bayswater Gate, is one of the 

 noblest geometric groves in any city, and was laid out and planted, 

 I believe, in King William's time. An avenue some hundreds of 

 years old, is always majestic and venerable, and when it adds great 

 extent and fine keeping, like this, is really a grand thing. And yet, 

 perhaps, not one American in fifty that visits Hyde Park, ever gets 

 far enough into the depths of its enjoyment to explore this avenue 

 in Kensington Gardens. 



No carriages or horses are permitted in Kensington Gardens, 

 but its broad glades and shadowy lawns are sacred to pedestrians, 

 and are especially the gambol-fields of thousands of lovely children, 

 who, attended by their nurses, make a kind of infant Arcadia of these 

 solemn old groves of the monarch of Dutch tastes. Even the dingy 

 old brick Palace of Kensington, which overlooks one side of the 

 great lawn, cannot chase away the bright dimples from the rosy 

 faces of the charming children one sees here, and the symbols of 

 natural aristocracy beauty and intelligence set upon these young 

 faces, were to my eyes a far more agreeable study than those of 

 accident, birth, and fortune, which are so gaudily blazoned forth in 

 Hyde Park. 



My London friend, who evidently enjoys our astonishment at 

 the vast ness of the London Parks, and the apparent display and 

 real enjoyment they minister to, calculates that not less than 50,000 



