490 Domestic Notices : — England. 



Castle, and the grounds behind Buckingham Palace. As to the kitchen- 

 gardens at Windsor, Hampton Court, and Kensington, they have long been 

 beneath criticism ; the reason we have always understood to be, that money 

 enough was not allowed for keeping them up. Indeed, we should think it 

 much better, both for the King and the country, that there should be no 

 royal kitchen or forcing garden at all, because we know that the supplies for 

 the kitchen, the dessert, and for decorating the drawing-room, could be got 

 both cheaper and better from Covent Garden Market and the Bedford 

 conservatories. As to the different royal palaces and gardens, we confess 

 we take little interest in the former further than as public buildings, and in 

 the latter, Kensington gardens, for example, than as places for public re- 

 creation and enjoyment. As gardens and pleasure-grounds for the people, 

 we would extend and enrich them to the highest possible degree ; but we 

 would never put it in the power of any magistrate to erect such sumptuous 

 lodgings for himself as the new part of Windsor Castle, or Buckingham 

 Palace. The day, we trust, is gone by for these sort of things; and, 

 oppressed as this country is by debt, and the burden of providing for the 

 paupers both of the lowest class and the highest, we ought to look rather 

 to the example of economy shown us by France and America than follow 

 the reckless extravagance of George IV. and former times. We are not of 

 those architects or authors that think a king of Britain ought to have a 

 palace as much superior in gorgeousness to the palaces of every other country 

 as Britain is above every other country in wealth and power. We would 

 have sumptuous public buildings, picture galleries, museums, libraries, 

 assembly rooms, theatres, &c, which might be enjoyed by all, but we 

 would lodge the first magistrate, whether a king, or, what we should greatly 

 prefer, an elective vorsitzer, like a wealthy and respectable private gentleman, 

 and nothing more. 



But, to return to the royal gardens : we, about a year ago, got a petition 

 signed by the principal inhabitants of Bayswater, in favour of pulling down 

 the north wall of Kensington Gardens, substituting for it an open iron 

 railing, and, to preserve the seclusion of the gardens, raising within the 

 railing a mound, 5 ft. or 6 ft. high in the centre, and 15 ft. or 20 ft. broad, 

 and planting it with evergreens. After applying at five or six public offices, 

 having been directed from one to the other, we were at last informed 

 that we might write to the Lord Steward of the Household. We did so : 

 but it was not to be expected that this high personage, who kept the House 

 of Commons waiting three or four hours, would think fit to notice our 

 letter further than to send Mr. Aiton to inform us that we should hear 

 further on the subject. This, however, we have not yet done; and, being in 

 despair, we can only offer up our prayers to William IV., and say, that if 

 His Majesty is desirous of being popular among his faithful subjects at 

 Bayswater, and of rendering the entrance to London by that village the 

 most noble of all the London approaches, he will give orders to substitute 

 an open railing for a hideous, old, crooked, lofty wall, which is further 

 disfigured by innumerable handbills and chalk-writings, and by numerous but- 

 tresses, rendered the receptacles of all kinds of impurities, from the end of 

 Oxford Street to the Gravel Pits. The ground or plan line of the open rail- 

 ,ing ought to be in continuous curves, instead of abrupt angles, like this wall, 

 and there ought to be several gates, with invalid soldiers or sailors as gate- 

 keepers. We shall probably suggest other improvements in the interior of 

 the gardens at a future period ; one of these would of course be that of 

 tinning the whole of the kitchen-garden into pleasure-ground, which would 

 carry the line of open railing as far as Linden Grove. — Cond. 



Cambridge Botanic Gardens. — We are now settling the necessary pre- 

 liminaries for changing our botanic garden here, and I hope for the cordial 

 cooperation of botanists in establishing one worthy of the University. My 

 own ideas of what a botanic garden ought to be, will be found, I expect, to 

 .differ from those of some others ; but it seems to me that soil and aspect 



