The rest I will leave you to hunt out for yourself. Some of it is in unlikely places, one of them not a hundred miles from Clifford’s Inn. I do not know if there is any trace of the pot of flowers Grinling Gibbons carved when he lived in Belle Sauvage Court on Ludgate Hill, and which Walpole said “shook surprisingly with the motion of the coaches that passed by.” He lived for forty-three years in Bow Street, Covent Garden. The house fell down, says an old record, in 1701, “but by a genial providence none of the family were killed,” and they seem to have propped up their house, for they went on living there till Grinling Gibbons died in 1721. CHAPTER XI PARKS HYDE PARK “Is there a more gay and graceful spectacle in the world than Hyde Park ... in the merry month of May or June?”--BEACONSFIELD. The London parks certainly do not deserve the epithet “unnoticed,” but I have met few people who knew anything about their story. Foreigners coming to London for the first time always exclaim at their beauty, but the Londoners take them as a matter of course, and hardly anyone stops to inquire their history or even the reason for their names. Yet much of the city’s history is bound up with that of the parks, and their story is a mirror of the changing fashions of London. Hyde Park, for instance--that vast space of 390 acres in the very heart of the city, enjoyed by prince and plutocrat and pauper with equal freedom so long as they keep on their feet, for the rule of the roadway is not so democratic--what a tale it could tell of the brave sights it has seen since it was first enclosed in 1592! Before Charles I.’s time the park, that took its name from the Manor of Hyde, was only to be enjoyed by the king and court, who hunted and hawked there; but in Stuart days there were foot and horse races and drives and merry-making. It has always been a favourite haunt of Mayfair. Evelyn used to “take the aire in Hide Park,” very annoyed at having to pay one shilling and sixpence for the privilege, and so did Pepys, obviously gratified that his wife attracted attention. De Gramont, the witty observer of Charles II.’s court, is quoted as saying: “Hyde Park everyone knows is the promenade of London--the promenade of beauty and fashion.” In the days of Charles II. all the world went to the Ring, a circular course of about 350 yards laid out by the Merry Monarch, between the Ranger’s Cottage and the present tea-house. How fashionable the drive was Pepys tells us when he says: “Took up my wife and Deb and to the park, where being in a hackney and they undressed, was ashamed to go into the Tour but went round the park and so with pleasure home.” In those days there was a cake-house, where cheese-cakes, syllabub and tarts were sold--refreshments probably more attractive than those of to-day.