Flemish, and cost from £50 to £80 each. This brewery, in a much less developed state than at present, belonged to Thrale, Dr. Johnson's Streatham friend. On his death, it was sold to a descendant of Barclay, the author of the well-known "Apology for the Quakers." Perkins, his partner, was a clerk in the establishment, and the descendants of these two gentlemen are at this day possessed of the property. The brewery is thought to cover the site of the Globe Theatre, Bankside, with which Shakspere was connected.

In Haydon Square, Minories, is the ale depot of Messrs. Allsopp of Burton, covering 20,000 square feet. Another vast manufacture is that of candles, as conducted by Price's Patent Candle Company. These are amongst the most interesting manufacturing establishments in the metropolis. The company has works both at Belmont, Vauxhall, and at Battersea. At the latter place the works cover 11 acres; the capital invested in apparatus and machinery is £200,000, and 800 persons are employed, although machinery is used as much as possible. For permission to inspect the works apply by letter to the managing director.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH.

THE PARKS.

Battersea Park-The Green Park-Hyde Park-Kensington Gardens -St James' Park-Kennington Park-Victoria Park.

NOTHING in London pleases a foreigner more than our parks, and to the Londoners themselves they are, in a sanitary point of view, of the utmost value. Large sums are ungrudgingly laid out upon them, whilst they are jealously guarded from encroachment. These " lungs of London" are seven in number: Hyde Park with Kensington Gardens, the Green Park, St. James' Park, and the Regent's Park, in the west of London; Victoria Park in the east; and Kennington and Battersea Parks on the south of the Thames. We will speak of them alphabetically.

BATTERSEA PARK lies on the south bank of the Thames over against Chelsea Hospital. It is of recent formation, and contains about 185 acres ornamentally laid out with trees, shrubs, flowerplots, and a sheet of water. For the land £246,500 were paid, and the laying out made the total cost amount to £312,900. The best mode of approaching this park from the north is by the new iron suspension bridge called Battersea Park Bridge. The orator and statesman, Viscount Bolingbroke, lies interred in the family vault of the St. John's at St. Mary's church, Battersea. The monument, with a bust of himself and his second wife, was executed by Roubiliac; the epitaphs were written by Bolingbroke himself.

THE GREEN PARK, on the south side of Piccadilly, contains about 70 acres. It adjoins St. James' Park, and is separated by the road called Constitution Hill from the private gardens of Buckingham Palace. At its western termination, near Hyde Park Corner, is a gateway in the form of an arch, imitated from the arch of Titus at Rome. Upon its top has been placed M. C

Wyatt's colossal equestrian statue in bronze of the Duke of Wellington. It was cast in eight pieces, which were fastened together with screws. The weight of the whole is 40 tons, and a good deal of difficulty was encountered in placing so heavy an object in its present position, which took place in August 1846. The height of the group is nearly 30 feet, its length 26 feet. It cost £30,000. On the east side of the Park are several handsome mansions of the nobility. Stafford House, the Duke of Sutherland's, is at the corner next to St. James' Park, then comes Bridgewater House, the Earl of Ellesmere's, succeeded by Spencer House, Earl Spencer's, ornamented with finial statues. The poet Rogers had a house a little higher up, looking into the Park (22 St. James' Place), where he had a valuable collection of pictures, which have been dispersed since his death. The reservoir in the north-east corner belongs to the Chelsea Waterworks Company, and contains a million and a half of gallons.

HYDE PARK derives its name from the ancient manor of Hyde, situated here, and conveyed to Henry VIII. in 1530. After Charles I.'s death the Parliament sold the park to one Anthony Dean, who levied tolls on all carriages that entered it. It seems to have been early the haunt of the gay and fashionable, for the Puritans complained that it was the resort of " most shameful powdered hair men and painted women;" and, after the Restoration, when it was bought back to the Crown, it was, in De Grammont's words, "the rendezvous of fashion and beauty." Queen Anne and George II.'s queen took away a considerable portion of it to increase the size of Kensington Gardens, and the latter caused the sheet of water now called the Serpentine to be formed. It now contains about 390 acres. Footpaths cross it from gate to gate for the convenience of the public, and there is a carriage drive round it. The fashionable drive is on the north bank of the Serpentine; the ride for equestrians, called Rotten Row, a name of uncertain derivation, is at the other side of the water, and is nearly a mile and a half in length. Here let strangers come between five and six on a fine afternoon in the height of the season, and they will see something that no other city in the world can shew them-beautiful women, splendid equipages, and fine horses, in astonishing numbers. In this park reviews take place, and afford the Londoners the sight of as large an army as they are ever likely to see. The number of troops collected here is however small, in comparison with that which

can be massed together in Paris and other continental cities, a fact which need not be deplored. There are eight gates into the Park, viz., Kensington, Prince's, and Albert Gates, and the gate at Hyde Park Corner, all on the south side; Stanhope and Grosvenor Gates on the east side; Cumberland and Victoria Gates on the north side. The gate at Hyde Park Corner is very handsome. It consists of three carriage archways in a colonnaded screen, designed by Decimus Burton, and erected in 1828 at a cost of £17,000. The Green Park Arch, surmounted by the bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, is on the opposite side of the road. The two gateways, together with Apsley House and St. George's Hospital, form a striking architectural group. At Cumberland Gate, on the north-east corner of the Park, stands the Marble Arch, which was built for George IV. at a cost of £80,000, and placed in front of Buckingham Palace, from which it was removed when the east front was added to that palace. Its taking down and rebuilding here cost £4300. The bronze gates, which cost £3150, deserve notice for the elegance of their design. Park Lane, on the east side of the park, contains several handsome houses: Holdernesse House (the Marchioness of Londonderry), near the south end, Dorchester House (R. S. Holford, Esq.), near Stanhope Gate, and Grosvenor House (the Marquis of Westminster), are the most noteworthy. In the south-east angle of the park is a colossal statue in bronze, cast from cannon taken at the battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo. It was erected on the 18th of June 1822, and was " inscribed by the women of England to Arthur Duke of Wellington and his brave companions in arms.” Its cost, £10,000, was subscribed by ladies. The statue is miscalled Achilles; it is a copy of one of those on Monte Cavallo, Rome, named by antiquarians Castor and Pollux.

The Serpentine is the resort of a vast number of early bathers during the summer months; and during a hard frost, the ice attracts a great crowd of skaters. Pleasure-boats are kept for hire. The Royal Humane Society have a receivinghouse close by, which is frequently put to use by the carelessness of persons resorting to the lake. The present structure was designed by J. B. Bunning, and the first stone was laid by the late Duke of Wellington in 1834. The society was founded in 1774; it is said that £3000 a year are expended in supporting the receiving-houses in the parks. Near this house is a Govern

ment magazine of gunpowder and ammunition, to which it would be a mistake to apply the motto inscribed above the entrance to the receiving-house-" Lateat scintillula forsan" (perhaps a spark may be concealed), illustrating the device of a boy attempting to rekindle an almost extinct torch.

This park has been the scene of many duels, the usual place of encounter being the Ring about the middle of the park. One of the most fatal of these duels was that between the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Mohun, in which both were killed. “ "They fought at seven this morning," writes Swift in his Journal on the 15th of November 1712. "The dog Mohun was killed on the spot; and while the Duke was over him, Mohun shortened his sword and stabbed him at the shoulder to the heart. The Duke was helped to the cakehouse, by the ring in Hyde Park, where they fought and died on the grass, and was brought home in his coach by eight, while the poor Duchess was asleep." Lord Mohun was the last of a very ancient race.

The site of the great house of glass and iron which formed the exhibition building of 1851, is near Prince's Gate. Nothing remains to shew that it stood in this park, save some beautiful gates of wrought-iron placed at the west end of Rotten Row ; these formed the entrance gates to the south transept of the building.

KENSINGTON GARDENS adjoin Hyde Park, and have been principally formed at the expense of that park, from which they are divided by a ha-ha fence. They comprise about 360 acres, of which 300 were added by Caroline, Queen of George IL, who intrusted the laying out to Kent. Here we have long avenues of tall trees, offering delightful promenades in the summer. They are best seen from the neighbourhood of the palace. Standing on the Broad Walk, a promenade 50 feet in breadth, extending from the Bayswater Road to the Kensington Road, we see three diverging avenues beyond a round pond. Walking down any of these, we shall perceive that other avenues cross them in different directions. About half the Serpentine is in the gardens, and this sheet of water is crossed by an elegant bridge, designed by Sir John Rennie, which connects the gardens with Hyde Park. Not far distant from this bridge is the station of the military band that plays once or twice a week during summer, and attracts a crowd of fashionable people. In another part are shrubberies and a flower garden, where the plants are