The laying-out was probably due to Le Notre, who was employed at Wrest, the best of the trees which had existed before his time having been blown down in the great storm which marked the night of Oliver Cromwell's death. Near the south-west corner was Rosamund's Pond, the "Rosamund's Lake" of Pope, painted by Hogarth, and mentioned by

Otway, Congreve, Addison, Colley Cibber, and many other authors: it was filled up in 1770. In 1827-29 the whole plan of the Park was modernised, and both water and walks were made to wind and twist under George IV.: their rural character was, however, still sufficient to give application to the title of Wycherley's comedy-Love in a Wood, or St. James's Park.

St. James's is far the prettiest of the London parks, and the most frequented by the lower orders. On Sundays they come by thousands to sit upon the seats mentioned by Goldsmith,* where, "if a man be splenetic, he may every day meet companions, with whose groans he may mix his own, and pathetically talk of the weather," and they bring bread to feed the water-fowl, which are the direct descendants of those introduced and fed by Charles II. Hither Pepys came (Aug. 18, 1661) to gaze at "the great variety of fowle" which he never saw before; and here Charles II. increased his popularity by coming unattended to look after his favourite ducks.

"Even his indolent amusement of playing with his dogs, and feeding his ducks in St. James's Park (which I have seen him do), made the common people adore him, and consequently overlook in him what in a prince of a different temper they might have been out of humour at." -Colley Cibber's Apology. 1740.

At the time the water-fowl were first introduced, St. James's Park became also a kind of Zoological Garden for London.

"9 February, 1664-5. I went to St. James's Park, where I saw various animals. The Parke was at this time stored with numerous flocks of severall sorts of ordinary and extraordinary wild fowle, breeding about the Decoy, which, for being neere so grette a City, and among such a concourse of souldiers and people, is a singular and diverting thing. There were also deere of severall countries,-white; spotted like leopards; antelopes; an elk; red deere; roebucks; staggs; Guinea goates; Arabian sheepe, &c. There were withy-potts or nests for the wild fowle to lay their eggs in, a little above ye surface of ye water."-Evelyn.

The exiled Cavaliers had brought back with them the habit of skating, and to St. James's Park Evelyn went

• Essays.

(Dec. 1, 1662) to see them skate "after the manner of Hollanders ;" and Pepys (Dec. 15, 1662) followed the Duke of York into the Park, "where, though the ice was broken and dangerous, yet he would go slide upon his scates." The exercise, however, seems to have passed out of fashion, for in 1711 Swift wrote to Stella of "delicious walking weather, and the canal and Rosamund's Pond full of rabble sliding, and with skaitts, if you know what it is."

The artificial water is now crossed by an ugly iron bridge, from which, however, there is a noble view of the new

Foreign Office. On the peace of 1814, a Chinese bridge and pagoda were erected here, and illuminated at night. It was this which caused Canova, when asked what struck him most in England, to answer, "that the trumpery Chinese bridge in St. James's Park should be the production of the Government, while that of Waterloo was the work of a private company." * One of the most remarkable sinecures ever known was that of the salaried Governor of Duck Island, which once adorned the water near this point, an appointment which was bestowed by Charles II. upon St. Evremond, and by Queen Caroline upon Stephen Duck, "the thresher poet," ridiculed by Swift. It was while walking in St. James's Park on August 12, 1678, that Charles II. received the first intimation of the so-called "Popish Plot." One Kirby, a chemist, came up to him and said, "Sir, keep within company; your enemies have a design upon your life, and you may be shot in this very walk." + Prior and Swift used constantly to walk round the Park together. "Mr. Prior," said Swift, "walks to make himself fat, and I to keep myself down."

When he laid out the Park, Charles II. removed the Mall, for the game of Palle Malle, from the other side of St. James's Palace to the straight walk on its north side, upon which the gardens of Stafford House, the Palace, Marlborough House, and Carlton Terrace now look down. Here the fashionable game of striking a ball with a mallet through an iron ring down a straight walk strewn with powdered cockle-shells was played by the cavaliers of the Court. Pepys (April 2, 1661) mentions coming to see the Duke of York play, and Charles himself was fond of the game. The flatterer Waller * says

"Here a well-polished Mall gives us the joy

To see our Prince his matchless force employ.”

Till the present century, the Mall continued to be the most fashionable promenade of London, but the trees were then ancient and picturesquely grouped, and the company did not appear as they do now by Rotten Row, for the ladies were in full dress, and gentlemen carried their hats under their arms.

"The ladies, gaily dress'd, the Mall adorn

With various dyes, and paint the sunny morn."

Gay. Trivia.

"My spirits sunk, and a tear started into my eyes, as I brought to mind those crowds of beauty, rank, and fashion, which, till within these few years, used to be displayed in the centre Mall of this Park on Sunday evenings during the spring and summer. Here used to promenade, for one or two hours after dinner, the whole British world of gaiety, beauty, and splendour. Here could be seen in one moving mass, extending the whole length of the Mall, 5000 of the most lovely women in this country of female beauty, all splendidly attired, and accompanied by as many well-dressed men."-Sir Richard Phillips. Morning Walk from London to Kew, 1807.

* Poem on St. James's Park, 1661.

While he played at Palle Malle here in his prosperity, James Duke of York must often have remembered his escape by this way in his fifteenth year, when, while all the young people in the palace were engaged late at night in playing at hide-and-seek, he slipped up to the room of his sister Elizabeth, shut up there the favourite little dog which was sure to have betrayed him, and gliding down the back stairs and through the dark garden, let himself out of a postern door into the Park, and so to the river.

It was by this road also that Charles I. (Jan. 30, 1648-9) walked to his execution.

"About 10 o'clock Colonel Hacker knocked at the King's chamber door (in St. James's Palace), and, having been admitted, came in trembling, and announced to the King that it was time to go to Whitehall; and soon afterwards the King, taking the Bishop (Juxon) by the hand, proposed to go. Charles then walked out through the garden of the palace into the Park, where several companies of foot waited as his guard; and, attended by the Bishop on one side, and Colonel Tomlinson on the other, both bare-headed, he walked fast down the Park, sometimes cheerfully calling on the guard to 'march apace.' As he went along, he said 'he now went to strive for a heavenly crown, with less solicitude than he had often encouraged his soldiers to fight for an earthly diadem.'""-Trial of Charles I. Family Library, xxxi.

Till a very few years ago, when it was blown down, there existed in Sir John Lefevre's garden, at the corner of Spring Gardens, a tree, which the king on this his last walk lingered to point out, saying, "That tree was planted by my brother Henry." And there still remains, at this corner of the Park, a remnant of old days coeval with the king's execution, in Milk Fair, as the pretty cow-stalls which still exist under the elm-trees used to be called. The milkvendors are proud of the number of generations through which the stalls have been held in their families. We