MELLOW ENGLAND. 



171 



walk upon the grass, but lie upon it, or roll upon it, or 

 play " one catch all " with children, boys, dogs, or 

 sheep upon it ; and I took my revenge for once for be- 

 ing so long confined to gravel walks, and gave the grass 

 an opportunity to grow under my feet whenever I en- 

 tered one of these parks. 



This free and easy rural character of the London 

 parks is quite in keeping with the tone and atmosphere 

 of the great metropolis itself, which in so many respects 

 has a country homeliness and sincerity, and shows the 

 essentially beaucolic taste of the people ; contrasting 

 in this respect with the parks and gardens of Paris, 

 which show as unmistakably the citizen and the taste 

 for art and the beauty of design and ornamentation. 

 Hyde Park seems to me the perfection of a city pleas- 

 ure ground of this kind, because it is so free and so 

 thoroughly a piece of the country, and so exempt from 

 any petty artistic displays. 



In walking over Richmond Park I found I had quite 

 a day's work before me, as it was like traversing a 

 township ; while the great park at Windsor Castle, be- 

 ing upwards of fifty miles around, might well make the 

 boldest pedestrian hesitate. My first excursion was to 

 Hampden Court, an old royal residence, where I spent 

 a delicious October day wandering through Bushy Park 

 and looking with covetous, though admiring eyes upon 

 the vast herds of deer that dotted the plains or gave 

 way before me as I entered the woods. There seemed 

 literally to be many thousands of these beautiful ani- 



