Meanwhile Hyde Park was the centre of a far wider evolution than that which has been already noticed in eighteenth-century London. A new era had dawned for Britain.

The power of colonisation—which to-day has attained the strength of Imperialism—had, after long infancy, developed into lusty youth clamouring for equal rights, for freedom, for independence.

Clive had fought and conquered at Plassey, Wolfe had won and died at Quebec. Wider issues were at stake, greater demands were made on English politicians, who were confronted by problems such as had never arisen in the world’s history.

In England itself the revival of literature continued, in spite of the thrust of the Westminster Gazette at the Macaronis. Brilliant orators, wily statesmen, long-headed, far-sighted diplomatists sprang to the front to devote their talents and their lives to these far-reaching questions.

In this awakened national life, Hyde Park, too, had its place. It was not merely a central point for the gathering of the fashionable and the frivolous. Many statesmen strolled thither, met one another and exchanged views, sometimes after lively debates in the House, seeking in the charm of its greenery and shade the solution of many a knotty problem. There, again, they found opportunities for obtaining influence in carrying through momentous measures.

We have seen Pitt on his little Welsh pony. In contrast to his simple figure, John Wilkes lolled in his gaudy equipage, ogling fair ladies, and posing as a hero of the people. Such appearances multiplied as the years went on.

There, Burke was often to be seen strolling alone, or chatting with a friend after a brilliant speech on a leading topic of the day. There, Windham took an early morning ride and watched the Guards at drill, or joined the fashionable throng later in the day.

There, the first Lord Holland was wont to alight from his carriage, and let it follow him as he wended his way from Whitehall to Holland House, talking as he went, to his friends. There, also, William Wilberforce held conversation when he lived at Gore House, and those who were privileged to be at his famous gatherings would take a turn through the Park, discussing that wonderful personality and his aims. There, Charles James Fox, Sheridan, the younger Pitt, and many others were to be seen day by day, but it was by no means with men alone that political issues of the time rested.

Fair ladies attached great importance to their daily visit to the Park. It was their battlefield, where they must—for their own peace of mind—mentally slay some rival, lay siege to some masculine stronghold, and render resistance useless. And be sure the gossips of the Georges had much to say about such actresses as Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Pritchard, Peg Woffington, Mrs. Clive, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Jordan, or such beauties as Lady Sarah Lennox, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, and Lady Elizabeth Foster, all of whom were familiar figures in the Park.

In that daily rendezvous in Hyde Park astute statesmen were coerced, ruled, and graciously governed by the feminine mind, and more power was acquired by Society ladies in those casual meetings than probably in any other way. Nowadays, women’s wise influence is chiefly brought to bear on public and political matters over the teacups—a pleasant social function which at that time had scarcely been established.

To what extent this feminine influence existed, and could be called upon on a moment’s notice, is shown in the following note, found in Vere Foster’s Two Duchesses of Devonshire. It was written by Charles James Fox from the House of Commons to the beautiful Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire in 1805, about a year before the death of both writer and recipient:

War with America gave zest to military affairs. Hyde Park was the nursery for new regiments. Ladies, including the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duchess of Beaufort, and Lady Sutton, appeared in a feminised edition of the military garb of their respective husbands’ commands. Near the site of Cumberland Gate targets were set up for ball practice, and it is not many years since the last of the stones used were removed.

Tyburn was already doomed, not because hanging had ceased to be a fashionable entertainment, but because all sorts and conditions of men attending the executions invaded the “Arcadia” of the beau monde, and rendered it hideous to them.

In 1783 the gallows were swept away.

During those final scenes around the “triple tree” a romantic figure had passed across the horizon of Hyde Park, who, but for an attack of fever in Newgate, to which he succumbed, might also have ended his days at the gallows. The peculiar personality of Lord George Gordon had been played out, and the Gordon Riots, which Dickens so graphically describes in Barnaby Rudge, had landed their instigator in gaol. Lord George had been a familiar frequenter of the Park, where he drove his own coach, though his income only reached the modest sum of £600 a year. The desire to be possessed of a coach was as strong, apparently, in England in those days as it is in Italy or Spain to-day, where folk will live on beans and olives, and save their money to drive behind a pair of horses.

When the riots broke out a camp was again formed in Hyde Park. It was much needed, for, after the burning of Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square, the nobility in Mayfair would not remain in their homes at night; and Wraxall tells us that the Duchess of Devonshire for many nights left her mansion in Piccadilly, and slept on a sofa at the house of Lord Clermont in Berkeley Square.

But these riots were quickly subdued, and Hyde Park again became the scene of gaiety, festivity, and frivolity, bordered on the east and south by its stately mansions, where magnificent entertainments were given, and the owners held small courts of their own. One of these—on the site of Dorchester House, the present American Embassy—belonged to Lord Milton, who was afterwards made Earl of Dorchester. He was famous for his regal hospitality, but so exclusive was the circle of friends admitted to its stately halls, that the house was known among the excluded ones as “Milton’s Paradise Lost.” Its owner, who was a man of great intellect, but reserved and haughty, was one of the most familiar figures in the Park.

It is passing strange that an American, in the charming person of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, should dispense royal hospitality on the very edge of Old Tyburn Lane.

Another remarkable personage, contemporary with Lord Milton, was Lord Deerhurst, the son of Lady Coventry (Miss Gunning). Although quite blind through a shooting accident, he would ride full gallop in Rotten Row. Once he cannoned into another horseman, but after a few days’ rest he again appeared in the saddle as reckless as ever.

Yet another strange personage to be seen was the Duke of Queensberry, known as “old Q,” whose worldliness and licentiousness in an era by no means strict in morals have given his name a sinister notoriety. He survived to the venerable age of eighty-six, sitting out to the last on his balcony in Piccadilly watching the gay world passing into the Park, a spectacle which caused Leigh Hunt to “wonder at the longevity of his dissipation and the prosperity of his worthlessness.” In his drawing-room in Piccadilly he enacted his famous reproduction of the scene on Mount Ida, with three of the most beautiful women in London to represent the goddesses—“in the same dress, so to speak,” as Mr. Street so tactfully puts it4—and himself as Paris to award the apple.

The Prince of Wales had already broken out into all sorts of extravagance, and his appearances in the Park were occasions for his greatest displays. His mock marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert at Carlton House, and their legal marriage in her own home in Park Street, Park Lane, near Hereford Gardens, were the talk of the day, and they were, before and after, constantly to be seen together in the Park. In the winter before this marriage there was again skating on the Serpentine, and the gay Prince appeared in a fur coat which cost £800, and a large black muff. In fact, one might devote a whole volume to the extravagance indulged in by this young man, in order that he might figure loudly in his favourite London resort.

Reviews and prize-fights were great attractions in the Parks. Gay ladies rode in Rotten Row, among whom a well-known personality was the wonderful Marchioness of Salisbury, who was seen there daily for so many years, and was also famous for her support of Pitt in his elections, while her rival, the Duchess of Devonshire, canvassed for Fox.

It was a critical time for England: wars without, the dark shadow of insanity resting on the Sovereign, men striving for first place in the realm; and the nation hailed with true rejoicing the news of King George III.’s recovery in 1789. London was one great blaze of illuminations from end to end. The monarch was at Kew, but the Queen and Princesses drove up to town to see the displays, making Apsley House their headquarters, and returning home very late at night. Hyde Park took no small share in these festivities.

Soon after the marriage of Caroline of Brunswick with the Prince of Wales, she appeared in the Park and was the object of great admiration, which, in spite of all her faults, was accorded to her by the English public until the end of her life. So far as a selfish man can love, the object of the Prince’s affection was Mrs. Fitzherbert, and he only submitted to the marriage with his cousin in order to pay his debts, for the Princess brought with her a dowry of a million sterling.

In spite of all his efforts, the Prince was about this time eclipsed in Hyde Park, for a man, who largely owed his position to Royal favour, outstripped him in the elegance and costliness of his dress. This was Beau Brummel, the son of one of the Whitehall Secretaries. His aunt, Mrs. Searle, lived as gate-keeper of the Green Park, inhabiting a little cottage in a small enclosure in which she kept cows. This good body often received visits from the Princes and Princesses, and it was here that the Prince Regent met the youthful Brummel, and was so attracted by him that he secured for him a commission in the army. Hyde Park saw much of this dandy in his finery, with his mincing ways and absurd conceits. He scored heavily for a time, but was destined to end his days in poverty.

In 1800, George III. was reviewing the Grenadier Guards in the Park, when a musket-ball entered the leg of a gentleman standing a few yards from him, piercing his thigh. It was subsequently found that the ball had gone through the coat of a Frenchman, and also struck a boy on the way. His Majesty remained where he was, and laughed the matter off. It was, however, thought to be an attempt on his life—a true surmise evidently, for a pistol was fired at him in the theatre the same evening.

After the overdressing of earlier days, with a superabundance of stuffs and ruffs, fashion had reduced the feminine attire to a sparseness that was indecent, and brought indignant denunciation from both the Pope and the Protestant clergy. The last year of the eighteenth century was a distinguished one in Hyde Park, on account of the number of beautiful women to be seen driving there. Many of them handled the ribbons in fine form, chief in this art being the Marchioness of Donegall and the Countess of Mansfield. A figure, long to adorn the Park with his presence, was Sir Arthur Wellesley. He was a faithful lover of the Row and those more secluded roads to the west and north, where he generally rode a beautiful Arab horse, and these graceful animals became the vogue. Humble heroes as well were brought to mind, for the King granted a little cottage near the Royal Humane Society’s House—not the present one, which was opened later by Sir Arthur Wellesley when Duke of Wellington—to Mrs. Sims, an unfortunate woman who had lost all her six sons in battle.

Strutt, writing in his Sports and Pastimes in 1801, says:

Moreover, that cosmopolitan touch, in which all Britons rejoice so long as it does not encroach, began to show itself, and in 1803, the exiled Bourbon Princes were often to be seem among the throngs in the Park, and they were present at a review held by the King, to which the Queen and Princesses also came, as well as six of the Princes. It was a most brilliant affair, and attracted crowds.

Those early nineteenth-century days were full of amusing eccentricities. The springs in Hyde Park were much sought after by people for bathing, others for drinking, and on Sundays a strange scientist and doctor, who resided in Mount Street, Martin van Butchell by name, used to attend, to distribute water from one of them. He was a well-known character, who rode daily among the throng on a white pony with a long, flowing tail, and this poor beast used at times to be painted whatever colour his master fancied. The advertisements of this self-advertising quack in the contemporary newspapers are most amusing.

Malcolm, in his Review of Society in 1807, says:

In 1808 it was suggested in Parliament that houses should be built in Hyde Park itself, but the proposal was quickly vetoed, for year by year it became more and more popular as a public rendezvous. The Prince of Wales came dashing down the Row in his tilbury, with his groom by his side, displaying a lack of dignity that shocked many people. The aged and infirm enjoyed a pleasant drive in the Park. Dr. Burney describes his daily outing after he was paralysed, as “an old lady’s drive about Hyde Park,” while it was the scene of a pathetic incident in the life of Princess Caroline and her daughter.

Forbidden to hold intercourse with her only child—the Princess Charlotte—and refused admittance at Windsor, Princess Caroline was one day driving, when she saw her daughter’s carriage going in another direction. She bade her coachman follow, and finally, in Hyde Park, overtook Princess Charlotte near the Serpentine. The carriages drew up side by side, the Royal occupants leaned over, kissed each other, and exchanged some cherished words of conversation. A crowd gathered, but no matter—it was a sympathetic English crowd, parents and children themselves, who would have defended the mother and daughter had need arisen.

Just about this period a Mrs. Browne came to London, lovely and to be pitied. She attracted the attention of the remarkable Lord Petersham. Henceforth this nobleman appeared in Hyde Park indicating to the world the trend his affections had taken by his brown hat and clothes, brown coach, brown horses, brown liveries, even to the servants’ hats.

Lord Petersham’s rival in eccentricity was a wonderful, wealthy magnate from Antigua. Society named him Diamond Coates, or Romeo Coates; the latter name arose from his passion for acting, and especially his performance as Romeo. His turn-out in the Park was most remarkable. Drawn by perfect horse-flesh, he posed in a luxurious carriage shaped like a shell,—altogether a most imposing and artistic affair,—but he spoilt the effect, and displayed the nouveau riche, by sticking his ridiculous crest all over his belongings. Nevertheless, he was the pet of fashion for some time.

Eccentricity was the rage. Each tried to outvie his neighbour in attracting attention. Another remarkable sight was the Persian Ambassador, who, mounted on a mule, was to be seen riding daily in the Row. A peculiarity of his attire was the extreme width of his trousers, which the wind used to inflate as he galloped along, rendering him a ludicrous spectacle, more fit for a circus than the dull skies of London.

The fall of Napoleon and his exile to Elba played an important part in Hyde Park’s doings, and the year 1814 was unequalled in Georgian days for the pageantry displayed in its precincts. The spring was marked by the procession of the exiled Bourbon, Louis XVIII., returning in full state to take possession of the throne of France. The Prince Regent had gone out from London to meet him on his way from Hartwell House, in Buckinghamshire, where he had spent his exiled days, and with all ceremonial possible conducted him to the metropolis, whence he set out for France.

The summer was filled with peace festivities. The Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and some of the Prussian Generals—Blucher among them—visited England, and were in the Park on many occasions. The Sunday crowd went mad at seeing them; in fact, many casualties were caused in the excitement when they were on their way to Kensington. The following Sunday a great review was held—the most brilliant ever witnessed—but the culmination of the festivities was the Great Fair.

Commencing on 31st July, 1814, no amusement was lacking, the chief show being a miniature naval engagement on the Serpentine. Extravagance, however, seems to have reigned supreme. During the week the fair lasted it cost the country £40,000.

The “Reminiscences” of Captain Gronow give many details of this time. A group of dandies was always to be found in the gay society of the Prince Regent, his chief friends being Beau Brummel, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Worcester, Lord Alvanley, Lord Foley, and others.

The most beautiful ladies were the Duchess of Rutland, the Duchess of Gordon, the Duchess of Bedford, and the Duchess of Argyll; Lady Cowper,—afterwards Lady Palmerston,—and the lovely daughters of the Marquis of Anglesea. Lady Cowper inherited her mother’s talent as a leader of Society—especially political Society,—while other brilliant hostesses were Lady Castlereagh, the Countess of Jersey, Lady Sefton, Princess Esterhazy, and the Countess Lieven.

It was a distinguished gathering still that was seen in Hyde Park at five o’clock in the afternoons, the ladies driving in their vis-À-vis, with their gorgeously embroidered hammer-cloths, be-wigged coachmen and resplendent footmen, while the dandies rode their smart horses and bedecked themselves with blue coats, leather breeches, top-boots, and wonderful stiff white cravats. To these men Beau Brummel was the motive power, the beginning and the end of their existence, and Brummel’s tailor was only second to the beau himself.

Truly Hyde Park has an unparalleled record. For four hundred years the makers of history, politicians, beauty, nobility, bravery—and knavery, alas!—have all tendered homage to the charm of its acres, its noble trees, its grassy sward. Generation after generation has proclaimed love for it; and now, indeed, what would the babies and the beauties do without the famous stretch from Marble Arch to Piccadilly?

But it is the fate of humanity that in the gayest scenes of life dark Tragedy will thrust her hand, and in the midst of this wonderful assembly in 1816 spread the news that Harriet Westbrook, the wife of the poet Shelley, had committed suicide in the Serpentine.

Fifty years later—to make a wide digression—Mrs. Jane Welsh Carlyle went for a drive in Hyde Park, entering at Queen’s Gate, where she alighted and took her little dog for a run. After returning to the carriage, she drove to a quiet place on the Tyburnia side of the Park, and the dog was put out again, but opposite Stanhope Place it was knocked over by a passing brougham. Mrs. Carlyle and the occupant of the other brougham alighted, and Mrs. Carlyle returned to her carriage with the dog, after which the coachman heard nothing but a slight whimper from the animal. After driving round the Park again, he was surprised at receiving no orders, and seeing his mistress in exactly the same posture as he had observed her some distance back, he asked a lady to look in, who found that Mrs. Carlyle had passed away.

Whether the tragedy of Shelley’s wife, and others of like kind, gave Society a distaste for the vicinity of the Serpentine, history does not say, but the drive from Apsley House to Cumberland Gate became the fashionable quarter. The four-rowed belt of walnut-trees had been removed some time before, and thus the road was considerably widened, but it was commonly crowded to excess. There were already evidences of the Man in the Street asserting his claim to this former Royal preserve, not so much on week days as on Sundays, and Greville tells us of the Duchess of Cambridge being mobbed to her very door, and so terrified that she almost fainted. Moreover, on such occasions as the Fair in 1814, the Coronation of George IV., and also the severe winters of 1820 and 1821, the populace reigned supreme, and Society was not by any means a mighty factor in Hyde Park.

It was during this migration to the east side of the Park and Park Lane in 1820 that two dozen chairs were first set out at Stanhope Gate, the forerunners of those 35,000 which are now to be found scattered about on the grass and by the gravel-walks.

Following closely on all the follies and shows in honour of George IV.’s Coronation came a most disgraceful scene. Caroline of Brunswick died a few days after she received the refusal of the King to allow her to enjoy the rights of a Queen. According to her desire she was to be buried in Brunswick, and the body was to be embarked at Harwich. The most direct route to that place would have been through the City, but, lest the citizens should wish to pay a last honour to the poor lady who had passed such an unhappy life in their country, the order was given that the body should be taken to Harwich by a circuitous route. The procession was denuded of all dignity, and directions were given that it should turn up Church Street, Kensington, into the Bayswater Road. But this the crowd, which numbered some thousands, would not permit. A company of Life Guards were sent for, but on their arrival they had to give way before the dense mob.

It was finally decided to take the direct route to London. Orders were again sent that the procession must go round, and not through the City. The crowd, however, prevented it from turning into Hyde Park or up Park Lane. But by a rapid manoeuvre, part of the troops with the hearse forced their way into the Park, the gate was closed on the mob, and the body was taken at full gallop from Hyde Park Corner to the Cumberland Gate. There the crowd forestalled them, and made all progress impossible. Volleys were fired, and caused a temporary giving way, which enabled the procession to move towards Edgware Road, which was also rendered impassable. All this went on in a terrible storm of wind and rain. After again firing on the populace, with the result that only a little headway was made, and struggling for seven hours to obey orders, those in command of the procession were forced to turn back and pass by Tyburn, Oxford Street, Holborn, and Drury Lane into the Strand, to the City. For thus giving way the officer in command lost his commission.

It is impossible to contemplate such an outrageous scene without a glance at that calm February morning, almost a century later, grey, still and chilly, when from early dawn the population of London—even to the loafer and the noisy hooligan of the street—went with subdued demeanour towards Hyde Park, there to stand, or sit in the trees for hours, until the funeral cortÉge of Queen Victoria should pass through London. Even Nature herself seemed to hold her breath as the stately procession wound its way across the Park, on that very road taken by the galloping horses eighty years before. Where a raging crowd had run yelling with fury and indignation in Park Lane, a mass of the people silently stood with bared heads—rows upon rows of them—as that simple gun-carriage, with its regal burden, slowly filed by and vanished through the Marble Arch. Where the clattering hoofs of the soldiers’ steeds at the funeral of Caroline of Brunswick had mixed with the fury of the storm, sovereigns, princes, ambassadors, statesmen, soldiers, and sailors, paced by with saddened mien, to the muffled strains of military bands—a pageant as imposing as it was solemn.

But returning to those days of George IV., one notable figure at least must not escape mention—the beautiful Lady Blessington. How beautiful she was subsequent generations have learnt from the picture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, now among the treasures of the Wallace Collection—a portrait which probably has been more often engraved than the work of any other British portrait-painter.

She is represented about eighteen years of age, when she had recently come from Ireland, and in the first flush of her maidenhood; though, in fact, she had been forced into marriage when only fourteen with a worthless Captain Farmer, whom she left after three months.

When a widow of twenty-nine she married the Earl of Blessington. From comparative penury, she was raised at one step into the most luxurious and fashionable life of the time. Her equipage was considered one of the most elegant in the Park, where she drove regularly until she went abroad with her husband.

Lord Blessington was a man of great wealth; but even his resources were taxed to meet the excessive extravagance of his wife. After his death in 1829 her reign in the social life of London really began.

Possessed at that time of a large fortune, she filled the house in Seamore Place with valuable furniture and objets d’art, and to her brilliant salon flocked all the wit and genius of the day. The Duke of Wellington, Bulwer Lytton, the two Disraelis, Lord Brougham, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Thomas Moore, Sir E. Landseer, Landor, Maclise, Ainsworth, Thackeray, and Lord John Russell were often to be found there. A contemporary has left a graceful pen picture of her.

Later Lady Blessington moved to Gore House, Kensington, where the great philanthropist, William Wilberforce, had preceded her. It stood on the site of the Albert Hall. Her entertainments were on a more lavish scale in this larger house, and troubles gathered round her.

Of Count D’Orsay’s relations with Lady Blessington much was said at the time. Married, by previous agreement with Lord Blessington, to his daughter—a mere child, and the stepdaughter of the Countess—he found his kindred spirit was really the child-wife’s stepmother.

No woman was more generous to those needing help, more modest over her beneficent works, nor has any woman’s weak point been more fostered by Fate than that of Lady Blessington. While the Earl lived, luxury and extravagance were showered upon her in every possible form. After his death she was under the influence of the Comte D’Orsay, a past master in the art of spending money. London went mad over the shape of a tie, if that shape was introduced by Comte D’Orsay. He was a man of genius, a talented painter and sculptor, a brilliant conversationalist, of the most prepossessing appearance. Generous to the many refugees of his country in London, extravagant in personal matters, he was in constant debt. He possessed faultless taste, and was the best horseman, fencer, and shot in Society. The two were undoubtedly the most often quoted and best-known figures of social life and the Park in the early nineteenth century. They lived at the rate of thousands a year, and seldom had a penny. Lady Blessington struggled to pay D’Orsay’s debts and her own, and to keep things going; but at length she could struggle no longer. Gore House was seized by the creditors, and its contents sold. In April 1849 the couple fled to Paris, where within two months Lady Blessington died in great poverty.

Lady Blessington was one of the first women to take up literature, and she was most handsomely paid for her work; so well, indeed, that at times she was in affluence, and at others plunged into the verge of bankruptcy. It was a strange coincidence that Lady Blessington’s first work described the ruin and selling up of a large establishment. Her whole life was one long romance, as pathetic and lonely at times as it was brilliant and splendid at others.

A great innovation during the Waterloo period was the Achilles Statue, of which much was written, the pen of Bernal Osborne and many others finding in it food for satire. It was the first nude statue erected in England, and shocked Society—none the less, to be sure, because it was the tribute of the ladies of England to the heroic Wellington. The subscribers protested that they were not consulted by Westmacott, the sculptor. An eccentric old Sheriff, who disported himself in Hyde Park, especially expressed himself on the subject. People turned their backs and fled to Rotten Row again.

The high brick wall that had been first placed round the Park in the reign of Charles II., when Hamilton restored the deer, and had been rebuilt in 1726, was now removed, and an iron railing was put up in its place. This was the greatest blow that had as yet been struck against the comparative monopoly of Hyde Park by the aristocracy. The old Curds and Whey House also disappeared. The parks—and in fact the whole of London—were still badly kept, and needed police supervision, and matters did not improve until the Police Act of 1829 was brought into force by the efforts of Sir Robert Peel. In its first year the new force numbered 3600 men; now the Metropolitan Police alone—not including the splendid body of City Constabulary—is over seventeen thousand strong.

When William IV. succeeded his brother George IV. on the throne, Hyde Park was the only scene of display, and there the rejoicings were limited to fireworks; but even these were mismanaged in some way, and several people were hurt by the falling rockets.

The King and Queen Adelaide used often to drive round the Serpentine. The latter was never really popular, but King William won the sympathy of the people by his simplicity. This very homeliness, however, kept his Ministers busy and anxious to know what fresh departure His Majesty was going to take. The Duke of Wellington must have often wished himself back at the head of his troops when negotiating for this irresponsible monarch.

One morning he informed the Duke that he would dine with him at Apsley House that evening.

At Apsley House all was bustle and scurry. Preparations for the dinner were at their busiest, the hour appointed had arrived, and the household was in a turmoil, when, to the horror of everybody concerned, a dusty, tired-out looking cavalcade came in sight, and proved to be the two Kings returning from Windsor. The people all crowded to Hyde Park Corner, and the Duke rushed hatless to do his Sovereign honour. But what could he have felt on finding that instead of the Kings being dressed in their best in honour of the feast, at least an hour must elapse before they could be even clean.

In 1831, during the agitation over the Reform Bill, the mob twice attacked Apsley House, and the second time broke all the windows. There was scarcely a whole sheet of glass left, and what made it more painful still, the Duke knew nothing of the anger of the populace, as he had for several days scarcely left the bedside of his wife, who, when the attack took place, was actually dying. It was not until two hundred police mustered that the rioters were dispersed. After this the Duke had iron shutters placed at all the windows, and would never have them removed, but they were taken down by his successor. Those now outside the windows facing the Park are made of wood.

The enclosure of land from Hyde Park, and his attitude to the Reform Bill and the Corn Laws, created a temporary unpopularity, but before long he was again received with acclamation everywhere. The Iron Duke never allowed himself to be carried away by a love of notoriety or popularity. One day, when he was returning to Apsley House by way of Constitution Hill, a large mob of admirers followed, cheering him. He rode calm and unmoved to the gate, where, wheeling round, he bowed sarcastically, and, silently pointing to his iron shutters, rode on to his door.

On the accession of Queen Victoria a great Coronation Fair was held in Hyde Park. The newspapers of the day give exhaustive accounts of it. On the wide area lying between the Serpentine and Park Lane were to be seen fat boys, living skeletons, giants, dwarfs, freaks of nature of all kinds. The acrobat, the conjurer, and wild beast shows were held forth as attractions. Boats were placed on the Serpentine. Aunt Sallies, roundabout swings, pony rides, fortune-tellers all helped to draw not only Londoners, but their country cousins as well, to Hyde Park. Innumerable stalls and booths were erected for the purpose of selling refreshments and mementoes of the event, and although the fair was only supposed to last two days it extended to four.

Probably up to that time no such crowd had ever assembled in Hyde Park, and it is recorded that it was orderly, jocular, fully determined to enjoy itself, evidently a typical London crowd, ever ready to abide by the laws. Before the fair closed the Queen drove through the Park to see it.

From time to time, after the formation of the Serpentine, this fine sheet of water has afforded good sport to Londoners in severe winters. Such a scene is handed down to us by the clever drawing of John Leech, which appeared in the Illustrated London News, together with an excellent description of the festivities.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in later days used to take a daily drive in Hyde Park. In 1840 a man named John Oxford shot at the Queen on Constitution Hill. Her Majesty fortunately escaped unhurt, so the drive was continued to Hyde Park Corner, and a visit paid to the Duchess of Kent in Belgrave Square. The next day Her Majesty and the Prince appeared as usual in the Park, and were the subject of remarkable popular demonstrations.

Victorian Hyde Park we still have with us, and such changes as have been introduced, except in the early days of the reign, are within the memory of some. Chief of these structurally is the Marble Arch. It has stood on its present site since 1851. The public entrance—for only the King and Queen use the centre Arch—is still known as Cumberland Gate, so named after the Duke of Cumberland, whose ruthless massacres after Culloden won for him the soubriquet of “the Butcher.”

Cumberland Gate, of which an old drawing is here reproduced, was erected in 1744, largely at the expense of the residents of Cumberland Place, of whose artistic taste little is to be said. It consisted of an ugly brick arch, with wooden gates below. Military executions took place inside the Park just west of it. For long it was known as Tyburn Gate, from the gallows which stood near by, so that its associations have always been sanguinary. Old Cumberland Gate was taken down in 1822, and in truth its disappearance was no loss.

The Marble Arch was originally placed in front of the chief entrance to Buckingham Palace by George IV. When the Palace was enlarged in 1846 there was no place for the arch in the plans, and it was removed piecemeal in 1850, and re-erected at Tyburn corner, the Cumberland iron gates being taken down, and arranged to the right and left. The curious may note the royal monogram of George IV. on the ironwork of the handsome centre gates in the Arch. The Carrara marble even yet retains its whiteness, and has undergone little of the toning down to grey, which afflicts all our public buildings nearer the smoke centre.

The arch was adapted by Nash from the Arch of Constantine at Rome, and cost £80,000. It will no doubt be seen to better advantage when its isolation now in process is carried out. The idea originated with Mr. F. W. Speaight, to whom all honour is due, for wishing to relieve the most congested bit of traffic in all London.

Many people will remember when Decimus Burton’s beautiful triple arch at Hyde Park Corner was surmounted by Wyatt’s ridiculous equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington. It was happily removed when the gateway was set back and the roads replanned in 1882-83, and London lost a perpetual subject of merriment to foreigners. It had been intended that the Marble Arch, at the other corner of the Park, should bear a statue of George IV. mounted on horseback, by Sir Francis Chantry, but this project was never carried out.

Only brief mention is here necessary of the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in the vast glass building erected by Paxton for the purpose in Hyde Park, which now constitutes the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Though but an enormous extension of Paxton’s design for a conservatory, built by him at Chatsworth for the flowering of the Victoria Lily, it was, by reason of its size and the material employed, considered one of the world’s marvels. The Palace was nearly twice the breadth, and fully four times the length, of St. Paul’s Cathedral. It covered twenty acres of park between Prince’s Gate and the Serpentine, and contained eight miles of tables.

A couple of most interesting letters written at the time of the opening of the Great Exhibition are contained in the recently published volumes of Letters of Queen Victoria. The first, bearing the date 2nd May 1851, is from the Duchess of Gloucester, who wrote to Her Majesty:

Queen Victoria on the next day writes to the King of the Belgians:

The Queen’s closed carriage was lined with steel, and drove to the exhibition at a fast trot.

At the outset public opinion had been by no means unanimous in approving the scheme, and for a time the subscriptions hung fire, but the advocacy and enthusiasm of the Prince Consort carried it through. It was the first of the international shows which have since attained such colossal proportions. Although, in the hopes of its authors, the Great Exhibition was to have inaugurated an era of universal peace, it was soon followed by the Crimean War, and then the Indian Mutiny.

As soon as the glass building had been removed, it was proposed to erect a statue of Prince Albert on the spot; but, alas, before this was finished the talented Prince was dead, and the statue then took the form of the Albert Memorial, which was placed to the west of where stood the Great Exhibition. The Memorial took some twenty years to complete. There is much good work in the sculptured detail; but happily the idea of placing a gilded colossal figure in modern dress, under a canopy not only too small for it architecturally, but too small even to keep off the rain, has not been repeated.

In the summer of 1860 an event of great moment was a review of 20,000 volunteers by the Queen. Enthusiasm rose to a boundless height, and the feelings of loyalty shown both by the volunteers and the crowd was so overwhelming that the Queen was overcome.

In these days of ententes cordiales it is difficult to realise that until Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited France in the ’forties, no reigning English sovereign had been the guest of our neighbours across the Channel, since Henry VIII. held his wonderful pageant at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Further, until Louis XVIII., as already noticed, passed through London on his way to take possession of the throne of France in 1814, no King of France had been in England since the days when the Black Prince led King John captive through the City.

From that friendly visit of our young Queen dates the growing cordiality between the two countries. In 1855, amidst the spring beauties of foliage and blossom, Napoleon III. and the Empress EugÉnie made a state procession through Hyde Park, driving round the Serpentine and out into Bayswater.