222 



PARKS AJsB PLEASURE-GROUNDS. 



museum in the Peel Park, at Manchester, is not the 

 least interesting part of it. Separate gymnasiums 

 should be constructed for the youth of both sexes, (it is 

 always well to give loiterers .something to do,) and 

 bowling-greens should be formed for persons of more 

 advanced years. 



We have already said that water should be em- 

 ployed as an ornament in public parks, in all suitable 

 localities ; that is, where the town is not built on such 

 a craggy or twisted surface as to preclude the possi- 

 bility of finding a sufficient extent of level space, or 

 where the vicinity of the sea, or a broad river, does 

 not throw an air of ridicule over the mimic efforts of 

 the designer. Most of the inland towns and cities of 

 the empire are so situated as to render artificial sheets 

 of water desirable ; and accordingly, they are to be 

 found, we believe, in all the public parks which have 

 been recently constructed. It must be confessed, how- 

 ever, that the very flatness of the localities often ren- 

 ders the successful execution of such works a matter 

 of great difficulty. It would be an easy, but a some- 

 what invidious task, to point out certain signal failures 

 in this department of designing. Nearly all the speci- 

 mens of this kind of waterworks which we have had 

 an opportunity of inspecting, are deficient in breadth 

 of effect; some of them are little better than wide 

 canals, and some are grotesque ponds, which the artist 

 seems to have copied from his own hand, with the 

 fingers spread out, as if in astonishment at his own 

 ingenuity. The taste is little exigecmt that is satisfied 

 with such tilings. The small lakes in the Eoyal Bo- 

 tanic Gardens, Eegent's Park, by Mr. Marnoch, and 

 those in the Queen's Park, Liverpool, by Sir Joseph 



