HISTORICAL GARDENS 
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amused the company at intervals, all through the years 
in which Ranelagh was prosperous. 
“ There thousands of gay lamps aspir’d 
To the tops of the trees and beyond; 
And, what was most hugely admired, 
They looked upside-down in a pond. 
The blaze scarce an eagle could bear 
And an owl had most surely been slain ; 
We returned to the circle, and then— 
And then we went round it again.” 
One of the last entertainments at Ranelagh was the 
Installation Ball of the Knights of the Bath in 1803 ; 
and a few years afterwards all trace of Ranelagh House, 
the Rotunda, and even the Garden was gone. The 
ground reverted to Chelsea Hospital, and not a vestige 
of the former glories is left. The pleasant shady walks 
and undulating lawns on the site, bear no resemblance 
to the lines of the former gardens, and only some of the 
older trees can have been there when Lord Chesterfield 
and Walpole were paying it daily visits. 
The most important of Chelsea gardens, and one of 
the most interesting in England, is the Physic Garden, 
which lies between the Embankment and Queen’s Road, 
now called Royal Hospital Road. The Garden, both 
horticulturally, botanically, and historically, has claims 
on every Londoner. England was much behind the 
rest of Europe in starting botanic gardens. That of 
Padua, begun in 1545, was the first on the Continent, 
and it was nearly a hundred years later before any 
were attempted in this country. Oxford led the way 
in 1632, and the Chelsea one followed in 1673. Its 
formation was due to the Apothecaries’ Company, and 
its first object the study of medicinal herbs. In those 
