The parks of London, like its districts, all have their special attributes, their special place in the social plane. Thus, Hyde Park is aristocratic, and in the season, its penny chairs, from Hyde Park Corner to the Albert Gate, are thronged with the smart world. Beautiful women, distinguished men, and gilded youths may be seen riding--the best riders and the finest horses in the world--along Rotten Row at the fashionable morning hour; and, in the afternoon, the whole of "Society" appears to take its afternoon drive round the magic "Ring" or circle of the Park, enjoying seeing and being seen. Three times round the Ring is a common afternoon allowance; exercise, surely, that habit must render, in time, not unlike a treadmill. In Hyde Park, too, takes place the yearly meet of the "Four-in-Hand" Club, extensively patronised by rank and royalty; on which the popular sentiment is delightfully echoed by the refrain of the cockney song of _The Runaway Girl_, "I'd have four horses with great long tails, If my papa were the Prince of Wales!" Here in the Park, on Sundays, takes place the famous "Church Parade," so paragraphed in the society papers; here, also, are often ratified on May mornings, the season's matrimonial engagements; and here fond mothers with pretty daughters keep a watchful outlook for "detrimentals." [Illustration: _Rotten Row._] "The Ring," in Stuart times, was the scene of frequent duels, the most noted of which was that between Lord Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton (made use of in Thackeray's _Esmond_), in 1712, when both combatants were killed. And one of the saddest modern associations of this circular drive is connected with Mrs. Carlyle's death here on April 21, 1866. The poor lady, to whom a brougham and an afternoon drive were luxuries of her later and invalid years, died quietly and silently in her carriage from heart failure caused by shock at a trivial accident to her small dog, which she had put out to run at Victoria Gate, near the Marble Arch; the coachman, knowing nothing of the fatality, driving on for some time before discovering the sad truth. The Tyburnia end of Hyde Park is that most frequented by the populace. If the smart world monopolises the vicinity of Hyde Park Corner, the green spaces fringing the Bayswater Road, and near the Marble Arch, are generally appropriated by tired workmen and idle loafers, who lie about on the grass, in enviable bliss, on hot days in summer, looking like nothing so much as an army of soldiers mown down by a Maxim gun, and contentedly appreciating the fact that here in London, for once, they have found free and undisputed possession--a place where: "no price is set on the lavish summer, June may be had by the poorest comer."