THE LONDON PARKS. 555 



which, with all their treasures of art, are now the people's palace and 

 normal school of enjoyment. 



I am neither going to weary you with catalogues of pictures or 

 dissertations upon palace architecture. But I must give you one 

 more impression that of the magnificent surroundings of Hampton 

 Court. Conjure up a piece of country of diversified rich meadow 

 surface, some five or six miles in circuit ; imagine, around the pal- 

 ace, some forty or fifty acres of gardens, mostly in the ancient taste, 

 with pleached alleys (Queen Mary's bower among them), sloping 

 banks of soft turf, huge orange trees in boxes, and a "wilderness" 

 or labyrinth where you may lose yourself in the most intricate per- 

 plexity of shrubs ; imagine an avenue a mile and a quarter long, of 

 the most gigantic horse-chestnuts you ever beheld, with long vistas 

 of velvet turf and highly-dressed garden scenery around them ; ima- 

 gine other parts of the park where you see on all sides, only great 

 masses and groups of oaks and elms of centuries' growth, and all the 

 freedom of luxuriant nature, with a broad carpet of grass stretching 

 on all sides ; with distant portions of the park quite wild-looking, 

 dotted with great hawthorn trees of centuries' growth, with the tan- 

 gled copse and fragrant fern which are the belongings of our own 

 forests, and then fill up the scene in the neighborhood of the palace 

 and gardens as I have before said, on a holiday, with thousands of 

 happy faces, while in the secluded parts of the park the timid deer 

 flits before you, the birds stealthily build their nests, and the insect's 

 hum fills the silent air, and you have some faint idea of the value of 

 such a possession for the population of a great city to pass their 

 holidays in, or to go pic-nic-ing ! 



I am writing you a long letter, but the parkomanie is upon me ? 

 and I will not let the ink dry in my pen without a word about 

 Richmond Great Park also free to the public, and also within the 

 reach of the Londoner who seeks for air and exercise. Richmond 

 Great Park was formerly a royal hunting-ground, but, like all the 

 parks I have mentioned, has been given up to the people at least 

 the free enjoyment of it. It is the largest of all the parks I have 

 described, being eight miles round, and containing two thousand 

 two hundred and fifty acres. It is a piece of magnificent forest tract 

 open forest, with grass, tufts of hazel, thorns and ferns, the surface 



