The most unpretending piece of water is the great pond, or basin, in front of the Palace, from the sides of which the principal walks diverge. In summer time, the refreshment of its appearance is increased by the hot gravel of the walks; and in winter, the ear is pleasantly greeted by the tinkling, and the eye by the crowding, of the happy skaiters, not the less happy, and very reasonably so, because the pond is shallow; for a cold bath in winter time is not to be desired, especially with ones clothes on; and though life itself is not to be put into competition with great calls for its sacrifice, there is something ridiculous, as well as grievous, in losing it by such a thing as a ducking.

It is pleasant, however, in default of having a real and a better river at hand, to walk by the Serpentine in fine weather;

for the water flows, and there is air upon it, and grass is under one's feet, and trees round about us. With the Hyde Park half of it we have nothing to do in these pages; nor is the sense of the pleasure there so sequestered as that in the Gardens. What may be called the river-side of the Gardens, is on this account altogether the most agreable; meaning by river-side, not merely the side of the water, but the wood in its neighbourhood, and its sequestered-looking paths. Prospects of any kind the Gardens can hardly be said to possess, for none even of the vistas are worth mentioning, except that, perhaps, such as it is, and as topographers have observed, which looks from one point in this quarter towards the Palace. Nevertheless, as comparativeness gives value to everything, great or small, Kensington Gardens are a truly

valuable possession to the neighbourhood, and to the metropolis in general. They afford safe walks to invalids and to children; sequestered ones to lovers of quiet; shades in summertime to the heated; dry passages in winter to crossers over the district; birds, trees, and flowers to the lovers of them: and upon the whole, something altogether different to those who wish it, from town, from noise, or from the town's most painful or perplexing sights; for here, though angling is allowed, which is a pity and ridiculous, sporting in general is not. You hear no sound, and see no sight, to make you wish that the setter of his wits against hare and pheasant

"Had shot as he was used to do."

The poet may turn his verse, the philosopher his axioms, and the lover his affec

tionate thoughts, with no greater interruption than the call of a bird, or the sound of a child's voice; and if a foolish old gentleman is now and then seen haunting a nurserymaid, or a younger vagabond desecrating some alcove with the literature of St. Giles's, we are to comfort ourselves with hoping that the nursery-maid is laughing at the venerable Adonis, and that the vagabond, when he goes home, will get as many boxes on the ears for loitering by the way, as he has given causes of trouble to the sponge of the garden inspector. We must not expect to be too Paradisaical, even in Kensington Gardens.

The most affecting consideration suggested by places like these, is the one which calls to mind the past splendour and gaiety, the frivolity, the vice, and the virtue also, which

they have seen; all now gone into another world, to join the greatest of all publics, the public of the dead. Rather let us say, of the departed; for what do we know of the dead, except that the life has departed out of them? The qualities which they evinced while living were more or less mixed up with their opposites; the gaiety with gloom, the frivolity with thoughtfulness (for did not all suffer?) the melancholy with mirth (for did not all enjoy ?) Even Lord Hervey thought he hated ingratitude and hypocrisy, and perhaps he did so, in others, though he was not as alive to them as he ought to have been in his own person. Let us rest assured that the claims of the dead have been all since adjusted, and with final evil to no one; for as they were all created souls, they were all children of heaven as well as of earth. Such were they who have gone; such are