Gray, and in their places appointed "two Democratic politicians, whose knowledge of parks was not of the greatest."

In 1893 Colonel Lee thought that the enthusiasm for parks had been somewhat overdone. In the course of an article in which he strenuously opposed the scheme for the Charles River Embankment, he said:

"The benefit of parks has been demonstrated, and a certain acreage, well selected and distributed and sufficiently opened up with walks and frugally embellished with trees, shrubs and vines, should be provided.

"But we have gone mad upon the subject. We have laid out too many parks, and have tormented the grounds out of their pristine beauty, and on these superfluous earthworks and on imported and rare plants have lavished money until the maintenance of these parks and parkways will impose an annual tax of millions.

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Setting aside the problem of expense, these parks are all beautiful, beneficial; but this new project of a prolonged Charles River Embankment is the maddest of all; it would not only not be beneficial, but destructive of one of the most precious relics of the old town of Boston."

The disastrous advent of Mr. Doogue into the Public Garden aroused Colonel Lee's ire. He hastened into print, as usual:

"I am glad to see a sensible protest against the vulgar bedizening of the Public Garden, many thousands of dollars spent every year to lessen instead of to increase its charm. The French have an expressive phrase for overdoing in architecture, which applies to Mr. Doogue's

injudicious elaborations, trop tourmenté, and while the public purse would be repleted, the public eye would be rested by the substitution of well-shorn, well-wet, wellfed sod for ribbon gardening, or misplaced, profuse beds of brilliant flowers. Grass, trees, flowering shrubs and sparse perennials are the proper ornaments of a public garden; these, arranged with reference to habits of growth, time of flowering, harmony of color, would gratify the eye more than this crude gorgeousness.

"We regret to say that Mr. Olmsted sins as well as Mr. Doogue; he spends vast sums in too much intervention, too much fussing, too extravagant planting."

The next day he condemned "the crowded, bedizened beds of discordant-colored tulips," complaining that "such an excess of gorgeousness begets satiety."

These protests, however, seemed to act, as such protests so often do, rather as stimulants than as deterrents in respect of the evil complained of.

In Brookline he conducted a desperate and prolonged defence against the widening of Boylston Street for the accommodation of the electric cars. The counsel for the destroyers said with beautiful eloquence that "the tide of humanity which is advancing over Brookline" required the widening, but Colonel Lee was successful in staying the project for a time. It is only since his death. that modern civilization has won its usual fatal success, and that the once beautiful road has become a hideous "boulevard." "The word boulevard," said Colonel Lee, "like all unintelligible words, supposed to stand for something magnificent, has misled our people into building most unreasonably wide roads with expanses of gravel

never driven over; costly to make, more costly to keep, and an eyesore to the lover of landscape." Apart from the special mischief plotted against Boylston Street, and incidentally against his beautiful place thereon, he always held electric cars in especial odium, as many another worthy citizen has done and still does; and frequent were the hostile screeds which the detestable machines called forth from him. In the course of this struggle in Brookline Colonel Lee made an appeal to sentiment which, though it seemed a feeble pellet with which to bombard an electric railway corporation, yet had an effect which quite astonished the opposing counsel:

"Mr. Chandler says that my opposition is sentimental. It is partly so. My affection for my place and its value to the town are enhanced by the antiquity and history of the old Boylston House, as I have endeavored to show. It is sentiment that has moved me to plead for the preservation of the Old State House, though its removal would replenish my purse. It is sentiment which has kept me for sixteen years treasurer of the fund for the preservation of the Old South, which induced me to work hard eleven years as treasurer of the Harvard Memorial Fund, and it is sentiment which makes me cherish the old trees and historic house which has passed into my possession."

An amusing story is told of him in connection with the extension of Commonwealth Avenue beyond Massachusetts Avenue. When that highway was still a mere expanse of freshly dumped gravel, Mr. Olmsted was engaged to furnish a scheme for rendering it beautiful. After duly pondering the problem he produced a