Surely the most obstinate and prejudiced traducer of London must admit that the

Cockney is well provided with greenery.

The picturesqueness of the St. James's and Regent's Parks, and of Kensington Gardens, is not to be matched by any capital with which I am familiar, or of which I have heard. In these open places there are sylvan recesses and sylvan views that carry the mind and heart hundreds of miles from the noise and dirt of . The scene which my fellow-Pilgrim drew, lying upon the grass in the , summer afternoon, would suggest a view cut

London under green leaves presents, in short, to the foreigner, a constant source of wonder and delight.

Then, again, the suburbs of London are renowned, wherever travelled people abide, for their rich and rare natural beauties. The sylvan glories of the English home counties have attracted all who, having business in London, can afford to escape well away from the sound of Bow Bells (sound that many a Cockney never heard) and enjoy a sleep within sight of the buttercups. Having finished our labors for the day among all classes, and shades of classes, of the metropolis, and had more than our share of fog and smoke, we have often hied to the outskirts. In this way, bit by bit, we have made a journey round the world of London-watching the great city, upon the ruins of which Lord Macaulay's New-Zealander is to gaze, from every height: from Muswell Hill on the north, and Sydenham on the south; from Highgate and Hampstead; and, lastly, from the hill of Richmond.

The general view of London in the time of Charles the , that Macaulay has included in the famous chapter of his history, and which was the result of laborious days in the , and a vast stretch of reading through obscure pamphlets and correspondence, is of the kind we contemplated--only of the London that was living and toiling under our

Whoever examines the maps of London,

which were published towards the close of the reign of Charles the

Second

, will see that only the nucleus of the present capital then existed. The town did not, as now, fade by imperceptible degrees into the country. No long avenues of villas, embowered in lilacs and laburnums, extended from the great centre of wealth and civilization almost to the boundaries of Middlesex, and far into the heart of Kent and Surrey. In the east, no part of the immense line of warehouses and artificial lakes which now stretches from the Tower to

Blackwall

had even been projected. On the west, scarcely

one

of those stately piles of building which are inhabited by the noble and wealthy was in existence; and

Chelsea

, which is now peopled by more than

forty thousand

human beings, was a quiet country village with about a

thousand

inhabitants. On the north, cattle fed, and sportsmen wandered with dogs and guns over the site of the borough of Marylebone, and over far the greater part of the space now covered by the boroughs of Finsbury and of the Tower Hamlets.

Islington

was almost a solitude; and poets loved to contrast its silence and repose with the din and turmoil of the monster London. On the south, the capital is now connected with its suburb by several bridges, not inferior in magnificence and solidity to the noblest works of the Caesars. In

1685

a single line of irregular arches, overhung by piles of mean and crazy houses, and garnished, after a fashion worthy of the naked barbarians of Dahomey, with scores of mouldering heads, impeded the navigation of the river.

The face of the historian is familiar to most of us. Many of us have heard his voice in the Senate: the chosen few have been charmed with his ripe, full talk in the study and at the breakfast-table. And yet his contrasts,

If externals are forever changing, however, in this London which has few venerable aspects, because of the energy of the race that dwells within it, the citizens themselves are modified by slow degrees; and it is with these, chiefly, that we have dealt. They are nowhere to be studied to greater advantage than upon the broad green spots which are the glory of London; and for which the Londoner would fight more ferociously than for any other right or privilege whatever.

In the , betimes in spring and summer, are to be

at the height of the season; on an afternoon when the -in-Hand Club is out in full force, is the best picture we can present to the stranger of the pride and wealth, the blood and bearing, the comeliness, beauty, and mettle of Old England.

In the Park are the grand headquarters of fashion that are not to be matched for stateliness, variety, and natural beauty; and where all the loveliness seen on drawing-room nights at the Opera is to be met betimes gathering fresh roses amid the greenery.