Yet once more has St. James’s Park been subjected to renovation. The work, which is a memorial to our late beloved Queen Victoria, is not yet completed, so its description must be imperfect. The design aims at drawing together the several quarters of the Park towards Buckingham Palace and a central group of statuary. The Mall is now the scene of ceaseless traffic, and the sauntering pedestrian is a thing of the past. A wide road runs at right angles across the Green Park, and so once again more closely associates the Upper with the Lower St. James’s Park. Probably the greatest praise of the alterations would be to say that Le Nôtre would have approved them. They seem to complete the design in a fitting manner, but they banish once and for all time, the semi-rural character which for so many centuries clung to the Park. The design includes a series of formal parterres which are filled with bedding-out plants raised in Hyde Park. In the summer of 1906 they were planted with scarlet geraniums with an edging of grasses and foliage and a few golden privets, and on hot July days there were many people ready to pronounce the arrangement as extremely bad taste. It seemed a reversion to the days when a startling mass of colour was the only effect aimed at. As they appeared all through the mild October days, when a soft foggy light enveloped the world, and the trees looked dark and dreary, with their leaves, devoid of autumn tints, still struggling to hold on, the vivid colouring of the beds gave a very different impression. The charm of the warm red tone against the cold blue mists must have given a sensation of pleasure to any one sensitive to such contrasts. [Illustration: A CORNER OF THE QUEEN VICTORIA MEMORIAL GARDENS, IN FRONT OF BUCKINGHAM PALACE] The Park in spring has nothing of the stiff, early Victorian gardening left. Under the trees crocuses raise their dainty heads, as cheerily as from out of Alpine snows, and the slopes of grass spangled with a “host of golden daffodils” are a delight to all beholders. The palmy days of St. James’s Park may have passed away--no longer is the fate of nations and the happiness of lives decided under its ancient elms--but those days have left their mark. Every path, every tree, every green-sward, could tell its story. The Park is now more beautiful than it ever was, even though fashion has deserted it. The last changes are but one more link in the long historic chain. It brings the Park of the Stuarts, the Mall of the Queen Anne’s age of letters, down to our own great Queen and the days of Expansion and Empire. A stroll under its shady trees and by its sparkling water must be replete with suggestions to the moralist, with thoughts to the poet, and with an inexpressible charm to the ordinary appreciative Londoner. CHAPTER IV REGENT’S PARK _When Philomel begins to sing The grass grows green and flowers spring; Methinks it is a pleasant thing To walk on Primrose Hill._