Regent's Park was so named for the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. This park is extensive, and exceedingly beautiful. It has winding roads and shady paths, ornamental plantations, clear, shining sheets of water--noble trees and fairy-like bowers, so secluded and shadowy, that the birds sing and nest in them as fearlessly as in the deep heart of a country wood. Within this park are several elegant villas--among which I best remember St. Dunstan's Villa--the residence of the late Marquis of Hertford, about whom and this place I have heard a pretty little story, which I will tell you. In Fleet Street, London, stands the Church of St. Dunstan, built on the site of a church of the same name, which was torn down about thirty years ago. The old Church of St. Dunstan had a curious clock, which was considered a very wonderful piece of mechanism, almost a work of witchcraft. Standing out on the side of the church, in full view of the passers-by, were two figures of Hercules, holding clubs, with which they struck on two bells the hours and the quarters. All children took delight in watching these gigantic figures, but none so much as the little Marquis of Hertford, whose kind nurse used to take him to see them--whenever he was a particularly good boy. Every time that he saw them he would strike his hands together and declare that as soon as he was a grown man, he would buy those beautiful giants, and have them all to himself. Well, strangely enough, when the Marquis grew to be a man, and got possession of all his property, and built his new villa in Regent's Park, it happened that old St. Dunstan's Church was torn down, and that famous clock set up at auction. So, the Marquis, who had never forgotten his beloved giants, bought them, and set them up in his garden, where night and day, rain or shine, they still stand, sturdily swinging their big clubs, striking the hours and the quarters. St. Dunstan's Villa contains fine marble statues, rare bronzes, vases, and pictures, and much costly furniture; but nothing in all the house or grounds was half so dear to the Marquis as that quaint old clock, and those uncouth giants--for the sight of them always took him back to the time when he was a happy innocent child, and thought them the most wonderful things in all the world. Regent's Park contains The Botanical Gardens, where are to be seen almost all species and varieties of plants and flowers. In a great conservatory, I saw the _Victoria Regia_, the largest aquatic plant in the world. Its vast leaves lie on the water like those of the water-lily, which they resemble--and so broad and thick are they, that it is said a little girl of six years may stand on one of them, without weighing it down enough to wet her feet.