Hyde Park and Kensington, Gardens. 285 



greatly preferable. These and other things we have suggested 

 to the editors of different newspapers and magazines. 



The new entrance-lodges to Hyde Park we greatly approve 

 o f ; as being handsome on every side, and having the yard and 

 other requisite appendages, sunk in the ground and judi- 

 ciously concealed or disguised. We think there ought to be 

 small stone lodges, with fire-places, at the principal garden 

 gates for the comfort of the door-keepers during winter. 

 We would encourage all the door-keepers to possess ma- 

 gazines, reviews, and newspapers, and lend them out, to 

 persons who might be disposed to read them in the garden. 

 We would also allow a certain number of coffee-houses, 

 both in the gardens and parks, under certain regulations, and 

 chiefly for the sale of tea, coffee, milk, and fruit. Each of 

 these establishments we would encourage to keep a musician 

 of some sort; on great occasions we would admit of fire- 

 works, and, once a-week at least, a band should perambulate 

 from Mr. Thompson's proposed fountains in St. James's Park, 

 to the Greenhouse in Kensington Gardens. This last build- 

 ing we would heat in Mr. Sylvester's manner, and arrange 

 it as a winter coffee-house and saloon; the summer coffee- 

 houses we should prefer built of wood, and placed in shady 

 retired places throughout the garden. 



As amusements for the populace, we would erect in Hyde 

 Park a variety of contrivances for games of amusement, for 

 recreation, and for spectacle. Those who have passed any 

 time at Vienna, Moscow, Berlin, and Paris, will be able to 

 form some idea of what we wish to suggest. To carry these 

 things into execution, little more would be necessary than 

 granting permission to proper persons, who would willingly 

 undertake them with a view to profit. We may be wrong, or 

 mistaken as to some particulars ; and perhaps if the whole of 

 this paper, including Mr. Thompson's observations, were re- 

 considered with a view to practice, many improvements might 

 suggest themselves; but taking the leading ideas, of — the 

 water continued on one level from the north side of Ken- 

 sington Gardens to the east side of the Green Park ; — the 

 fountains in St. James's Park ; — the continuation of the 

 gardens or dressed grounds from St. James's Palace to Ken- 

 sington Palace; — the water as a boundary between the 

 garden-scenery and parks ; and the introduction of music, 

 reading, and refreshments ; — it will not, we think, be denied, 

 that they are calculated to produce a degree of public orna- 

 ment, and popular enjoyment, beyond any thing that has 

 hitherto been proposed. They would probably also tend to 



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