Charles I., in opening the parks for free ingress and egress, reserved the crown rights over them as crown lands. Thirteen years after Mrs. Merrick wrote so fondly about it, that is to say, in 1652, the Parliament ordered Hyde Park to be sold for ready money. More than 600 acres fetched a little over 17,000_l._ The Protectorate did not exclude the people, but everyone who was aristocratic enough to appear in a carriage or on horseback was compelled to pay, each horseman a shilling, a coach half-a-crown, for admission. The fee was roughly levied by fellows armed with sticks, who were the agents of the purchasers of the land, and therefore were empowered by the state to levy the toll. One would like to know if Oliver, when he drove his own coach so awkwardly through the gate, had to pull up, and fumble under his doublet for a shilling. The higher classes grumbled. They could formerly take the air _gratis_, while Charles and his queen walked on the grass, looked on at the races, or affected to taste the milk offered them by the daintiest of maids. The nightingales and cuckoos never visited the park after it became ‘common.’ Cromwell and his friends, however, made a pretty show in the park, and were ‘mobbed,’ as our manner is. Not every man who stood near and shouted loudest was a Commonwealth man. Assassins watched their opportunity when he rode, or drove, or witnessed military pageants, or was a spectator of the horse-racing or of the hurling by Cornish gentlemen. They never had heart to draw trigger. Even when Cromwell tumbled from his own coach-box, no pistol was discharged save the one which he carried, and that went off by accident. The scene was entirely changed when, after the tap of Monk’s drums was heard coming up the then rural and sweet-savoured Gray’s Inn Lane, the troops by whom monarchy was to be restored encamped in Hyde Park, and all the world went thither to welcome them. Charles II. resumed the possession of the parks, reserving as before the crown rights. He bought the meadows which skirted the Reading Room (Piccadilly) and out of them made what is now called the Green Park. It was added to the land which Henry VIII., when he lived in Whitehall, honestly acquired. It was marshy land, with a hospital for female lepers upon it. Henry removed the leprous ladies, built a palace, and enclosed the park, to which Charles II. added the Upper St. James’s or Green Park, a portion of which was built over at a later period. Hyde Park felt the Restoration. It had become a field: Charles made it a pleasaunce. Fashion went to it rather than to the Mall. There was enjoyment within it all the year through, with high festival on May-day. When it became formal, the gayer pedestrians took possession of St. James’s and the Mall. But formality was not to be seen in the ride or the drive. Coach as well as horse-racing drew crowds of delighted spectators; but this was nothing to the joyous