ver, with its historic background and the busy activities of the
river at its feet. A sentiment which is speedily dispelled when one
realizes that it is but a mere granite shell hung together by invisible
iron girders. Something of the solidity of the Tower and the sincerity of
a former day is lacking, which can but result in a natural contempt for
the utilitarianism which sacrifices the true art expression in a city's
monuments.

Of the great breathing-places of London, Hyde Park ranks easily the first,
with Regent's Park, the Green Park, St. James' Park, Battersea Park, and
Victoria Park in the order named. The famous Heath of Hampstead and
Richmond Park should be included, but they are treated of elsewhere.

Hyde Park as an institution dates from the sixteenth century, and with
Kensington Gardens--that portion which adjoins Kensington Palace--has
undergone no great changes during the past hundred years.

At Hyde Park Corner is the famous Apsley House presented by the nation to
the Duke of Wellington. At Cumberland Gate was Tyburn. The "Ring" near
Grosvenor Gate was the scene of gallantries of the days of Charles II.; of
late it has been devoted to the games of gamins and street urchins. The
Serpentine is a rather suggestively and incongruously named serpentine
body of water, which in a way serves to give a variety to an otherwise
somewhat monotonous prospect.

The first Great International Exhibition was held in Hyde Park in 1851,
and rank and fashion, in the mid-Victorian era, "church paraded" in a
somewhat more exclusive manner than pursued by the participants in the
present vulgar show. The Green Park and St. James's Park touch each other
at the angles and, in a way, may be considered as a part of one general
plan, though for a fact they vary somewhat as to their characteristics and
functions, though under the same "Ranger," a functionary whose office is
one of those sinecures which under a long-suffering, tax-burdened public
are still permitted to abound.

The history of Regent's Park, London's other great open space, is brief.
In 1812, the year of Dickens' birth, a writer called it "one of the most
fashionable Sunday promenades about town." It certainly appears to have
been quite as much the vogue for promenading as Hyde Park, though the
latter retained its supremacy as a driving and riding place. The
Zoological Gardens, founded in 1826, here situated, possess a perennial
interest for young and old. The prin