A quaint manuscript is in existence, recording an outlay for the upkeep of Hyde Park at this period. “An account of monneys disbursed by Sʳ Walter Cope, Knight, in his Majesties Parke called Hide Parke, from October 1611 until October 1612: “Imprimis laid out for two hundred of lime trees brought out of the Lowe Countries at ten shillings the peece amounts unto twentie poundes; wᶜʰ were planted along the walkes in the places of those that were decaied. Also for mending the pondheads and gravelling them, being spoiled by the floudes in the winter. Also for reparacions about the lodges, the Parke pale, the standinges, and charges for making the haie for the deere twentie marks. All wᶜʰ amounts unto 33 li. (Signed) “WALTER COPE.” An order for the payment of these moneys follows in the handwriting of the Earl of Suffolk of the day. With all his usurpations and vagaries and the pedantry of a narrow mind, one retains a lingering fondness for James I. He was the last of the line of British monarchs, going back to the earliest feudal times, with whom the love of hunting the wild animal in his native glades remained an absorbing passion. When he passed the way of all men Hyde Park underwent a great change. It ceased to be a close game preserve, and became for the first time a real centre of social enjoyment, such as we still find it. In the wilder parts hunting was practised, but Charles I. seems to have thrown the park—or at least a large part of it—open to all comers, with few limitations. With the ill-fated Stuart King, rather than with Henry VIII., the park as a place of popular resort really begins. Life out of doors became more safe, people took more pleasure in going about, locomotion became easier and money circulated more freely. As the fashionable world began to take the air farther afield than St. James’s Park and Pall Mall, more keepers, more lodges, and more accommodation were required in Hyde Park. Mention is made in the State Papers that on 20th November 1635, £800 was paid for building a new lodge in Hyde Park; and three years later there was a payment of £1123, 5s. 5d. for further work done at the new lodge, according to the estimate of the famous architect, Inigo Jones. The area of the Park in which the fashion and beauty of Stuart London mostly foregathered was that which in after years became famous as “The Ring,” the precursor of modern racing. [Illustration: CHEESECAKE HOUSE. _Print from “The Gentleman’s Magazine.”_ _Where Society partook of syllabub, and the Duke of Hamilton was carried mortally wounded._]