“Hyde Park, in a way, symbolises the English character. Just as it is not the Englishman’s way of charming at first sight, or to confide in a stranger, Hyde Park does not appeal to the foreigner when he visits it for the first time. But as one grows to love the English after a longer acquaintance, so does one grow to love Hyde Park, so different from anything else. “It is also interesting to watch the different aspects it presents at different times of the day. How fascinating, is it not, to see the strong, youthful figures of young England plunging into the cool water, racing, boxing, and playing games, and to see the men, of the same steel-like, well-proportioned race as the magnificent English horses galloping up and down. “After four o’clock Hyde Park displays a spectacle of wealth, beauty, and elegance such as can only be found in cities of a very ancient culture; perhaps only in the Vienna ‘Prater’ or in the ‘Buen-Retiro’ of Madrid. But while in Vienna the light ‘fiacre’ predominates, and in Madrid the heavy state-coaches drawn by majestic Andalusians, London shows every conceivable kind of vehicle, from the stately turn-out with footmen with powdered hair to the modern electric-car.” [Illustration: An Airing in Hyde Park, 1793. _From a Print in Crace Collection, British Museum._] The keynote of this fully appreciative criticism lies in a single sentence—“so different from anything else.” Let us take credit to ourselves that we have been content to let Nature work its own will to a great extent. In return Nature has given us much of her best. To those familiar with the cultivated glories of Versailles and others of the huge continental gardens, where rows and rows of well-laid flower-beds and lawns of velvet testify to the loving care of an army of custodians, there may seem something disparaging in the comparison to “an English heath.” But what, after all, is more glorious than an English heath in the first tints of autumn, what more health-giving and welcome in the heart of London than broad acres, over which one may roam undisturbed, owing their beauty to the whole panorama of lawn and tree and shrub, rather than to the attention to smaller details which gives delight to a well-ordered garden? For really beautiful gardening, in the true sense, one must go to the Regent’s Park, or to Ranelagh Club. Let no one suppose, however, that Nature is the only gardener on the Park staff. Because the hand of man is unobtrusive, it does not follow that there is a lack of attention in assisting Nature in her beautiful work. An immense amount of planting and bedding is constantly going on, results of which are seen in the always fresh appearance of the Park, and the glories of the flowering plants as they follow one another in season. If “landscape gardening”—a much-abused term—be looked for, it may be admitted there is little of it.