552 LE^T'EItS FROM ENGLAND. 



audieacef (for, the afternoon is a bright one), and as you see .the ra- 

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

 who are here enjoying a ilittle pleasant mingling of heaven and 

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

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

 protecitjng the Uyes 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 gra.nd 

 than Hy4e 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 ^een, and invite you to a mcJre 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 ^om the farther Bayswatfer Gate, is one of the 

 noblest geometric groves in^y city, and was laid out and planted, 

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

 years old, is always majestia and venerable, and when it add? great 

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

 perhaps, inot 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 horse's are permitted in Kensington (gardens, 

 but its broad glades and shad*wy 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 Pala«ie of Kensington, which overlooks one sid,e of the 

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

 faoes'of the charming children one sees here,' and the symbols pt 

 natural aristocracy — ^beauty and intelligence — set upon these young 

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

 accident, birth, ajid 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 notless than 50,000 



