This barbarous notion of covering a lovely tract of land with barracks, and converting it into a grand parade ground, was long after altogether abandoned; and in 1811, when the Duke of Portland's lease had expired, several eminent architects were invited by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to survey the Crown lands of Marylebone Park, and, after considering the several documents communicated to them, to report upon the most advantageous and eligible method of letting the property, "always having in view the beauty of the metropolis, and the health and convenience of the public."
In pursuance of these instructions, surveys were made, and plans submitted by Mr White, Messrs Leverton and Chawner, and of that architectural nuisance, Mr John Nash, whose plans had the sole merit of being the plans of the surveyor to the Office of Woods and Forests, and for that sole reason were, of course, preferred, and the plan carried into execution, with slight alterations as it now appears. Space will not permit us to give a detailed description of the beauties of the Regent's Park; we must, therefore, be content with a slight sketch, or general survey, leaving the tasteful perambulator to detect the minuter excellences for himself. Although the newest of the Parks, this, even in its present immature state, is the most beautiful of any, and will become more and more so every succeeding year. It might with propriety be called the Park of Reunion, combining, as it does, all the excellences of all the public walks of the Metropolis,—extent—variety of prospect and of scenery—noble walks, of imposing breadth and longitudinal extent—a surface gently and pleasingly undulated—ornamental water—villas, encircled each by its little paradise of pleasure-ground and, for its years, a very considerable quantity of shade.
The most beautiful portion of the Park is, as might be expected, that portion to the north, which is hardly interfered with by the hand of art, and where the natural disposition of the ground has scope to show itself; whereas, wherever the hand of Mr John Nash is manifest, beauty is at once exchanged for artificial littleness, as in his greater and his lesser circuses, his ornamental bridges over puddles four feet wide, his Swiss cottages, and his terraces crowned with cupolas, that convey to the mind of the spectator the idea of a grotesque giant in his dressing-gown and night-cap. By far the most extensive and varied view within the limits of this delightful retreat, is that from the rising ground immediately above the master's lodge of St Catharine's Hospital, embracing to the northward the gentle rise of Primrose Hill, behind it, the thickly wooded Hampstead, and its sister hill—close to your feet, the Babel of inarticulate sounds that greets your ears, indicates that modern Ark of Noah—the Zoological Gardens.
We have thus enumerated a very few of the leading features, to borrow a phrase of the prince of auctioneers, of the Lungs of London—the great vehicles of exercise, fresh air, health, and life to the myriads that congregate in the great metropolis. We have been sufficiently minute, we hope, without departing from our original plan of non-interference with the province of the guide-books, and yet not sufficiently discursive to disgust the reader with a subject in a moral, economical, national, and salutary point of view, so deeply interesting. We are surprised, we repeat, that this subject has not been taken up by abler pens—by Mr Jesse, for example, one of the most natural, easy, and graceful writers who ever put pen to paper on the subject of our parks and royal palaces—a worthy brother of the angle, too—one of Father Isaak's quiet decent men, who fear God, honour their king, love their neighbour, and peacefully go their ways a-fishing. We cannot help thinking the metropolitan parks would furnish a theme not unworthy the pen of this gentleman,
"The apt historian of our royal plains."
But we must not conclude without adverting once again to the moral, if we may so call it, of our description—to the great object, towards the realization whereof we were incited to put pen to paper on this subject. The total destitution of the people of the east end of the metropolis in the means of taking exercise, or gulping a mouthful of "caller" air, must have painfully obtruded itself on every body who is familiar with that terra incog-
