The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-08-18 00:00:00

ST. JAMES'S PARK.

" In the time of King Henry VIII." says a ncte to Dr.
King's Poems, in Chalnlet's collection' " the Park was a
wild wet field ; but that Prince, on building St. James's
Palace, enclosed it, laid it out in walks, and collecting the
waters together, gave to the new-enclosed ground and new-
raised buildings the name of St. James's. It was much
enlarged by Chants 11., who added to it several fields,'
planted it with rows of lime trees, laid out the Mall,
formed the canal with a decoy, and otln r ponds for
water-fowl. The lime-trees or Min, whose blossotns are
uncanunonly fragrant, were probably planted in conse-
quenee of a suggestion of Mr. Evelyn, in his F,,ruftegiatn,
published in 1661."
Charles 11. was very fond of the Park. Ilia habit of
walking there, attended by his dogs, both sad and merry,
ihas been noticed before. II is ducks, which he also amused
himself with feeding, inhabited a spot called Duck Island,
which was erected into a " government," in order to fur-
nish the French exile and wit, St. Evremtmd, with a pen-
sion. Bird-cage-walk must not be forgotten, which was an
aviary of Charles's raising, and retains it appellation.—
Waller speaks of the improvements of St. JaineT s Park in
the gratuitous style of a poet. The libertines of the Court
were to sport about the canal, like the harmless wantons of
a golden age, while Chatles walks among the trees in all
the dignity of a Numa, and settles the desti,Aett of the
world.

fhe Park is the scene of some of the most libertine
plays of that period. I do not know where the Mul-
berry-garden stood, which gives a title t 9 one of the co-
medies of Sedley ; perhaps on the site of Spring-garden,
which was a place of entertainment up to a late period.
The milk fresh front the cow, which is still sold under the
trees at the entrance from that quarter, and which has a
pleasing effeet on emerging front the streets, appears to be
a remnant of the former traffic.

Marlborough House, now the residence of Prince Leo-
pold, was one of the national acknowledgments to the
Duke of Marlborough. It was built partly in a garden
belonging to the Queen. Her Majesty had thus her de-
fender and her old friend the Duchess by her side; and on
the other side, in the palace still called by his name, lived
her old friend and admirer (who they say courted her in
his youth), Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. Ile married
her sister, natural child of James 11. by the daughter of
S:r Charles Sedicy. Sheffield built the mansion and laid
out the garden. He adorned the four sides of the house
with inscriptions, one of which is much to the purpose:—
I ustidiusus apertatar uhi malady,: " A fastidious spectator
is his own annoyance." This is die nobleman of whom
the Totterspeaks as the " Duke that lives at Marybone."
A strange story is related in Pennant, of his giving a dinner
to " the most infamous sharpers of the time," who gam-
bled at that place, and of a toast with which he concluded
it:—" May as many of us as remain unhanged next
spring meet hire again." " I remember," says Pennant,
" the facetious Quin telling this story at Bath, within the
hearing of the late Lord Chesterfield, when his Lordship
was surrounded by a crowd of worthie s of the same stamp
with the above." I cannot help thinking that the company
was more suited to the author of the Letters than the
writer of the Minor Poems. Sheffield is one of the

" twinkling stare in the " Miscellanies," and has a lurk-
ing goodness in the midst of his libertinism. He has been
accused of pride and arrogance, but they say he was ami-
able in private. His sharping contimions do not look like
the man of whom his widow specks so highly in his
Remains; but it is astonishing what strange things come
together in high life, and with what accommodating philo-
sophy the Great regard their own contradictions.
St. James's Palace was built by Henry VIII. on the site
of an ancient hospital for lepers. The name was the name i
of the hospital. The palace was fitted up by William for
the l'rincess Anne and her husband, Prince George of
Denmark. She retained it as her residence when Queen ;
and it has ever since been the head-quarters of the British
Court. Pennant bays, that although the outside is un-
sightly, it is the most convenient Palace for legal parade
of any in Europe. There were some interesting pictures
there in his time, probably still remaining. One of them
was " The Diminutive Manhood of Geoffrey Hudson."
" Here," says Pennant, " is to be seen the famous picture'
by Mabuse, of Adam and Eve."
In books of fifty and a hundred tears back, if you meet
with a hungry gentleman who did not know where to get a
dinner, you always find him sitting on a bench in the
Park. Others generally accompany him, most of whom
are politicians. Bickerstaff meets here his acquaintance the
Upholsterer, who lets his affairs tun to ruin in his zeal for
the King of Sweden. People do not app oar so patient
now-a-days to hunger and thirst, thouLli their politics are
more zealous than ever.

It would appear from novels, that the Park enjoyed
some privilege from arrest. In Fielding's Amelia, if I re-
member, the hero often walks in the Mall, when he can go
nowhere else. Dining the existence of the old Cathedral
of St. Paul's, the inside of that chur 41 was the resort of
the hungry ; who, iu allusion to a tom b supposed to contain
the body of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, gave rise to
the saying of dining with Duke lipmphrry.
The Mall, is so called from the fame of Mall, to which
Waller alludes. Charles 11. transferred it from Pall-mall.
It is a great pity that these and similar exercises bare been
left off. Without canting clout the degeneracy of the
times, it is a reasonable deduction from our abandonment
of healthy and manly games, that we are an inferior rate
Ito our ancestors in point of bodily grace and vigour. But
more of this another time. _ _

In a house looking into 1 Ilentham's garden, in Bird-
cage-walk, lived Milton. The front of it is in York-
street, and, without being the anciont one, is in very squalid
condition.

.....
The Horn-guards was in poor condition in the time of
Charles. The stables looked like the open corridors of an
old inn ; and a toy of a building, with a staircase outside,
appears to have been the guard-house. These conclusions
are drawn from the print in Pennant. I thought the de-
sign of the present building was by Vanbrugh ; but Pen-
nant says he believes it was the work of sn architi-et of the
; name of Vardy. The structure is not older than the reign
of George 11. There is something fantastic in the custom
of setting two soldiers a horseback to mount guard iu those
tenements at the entrance, like a couple of live statues.
But they are fine speciinens of the weight and steadiness of
a pair of English dragoons, and keep a gravity becoming
their situations. Some sav they have been seen eating
pudding and apples; but this is what I will not believe.
The band on parade is worth hearing. They play some
of the hest pieces of Mozart and Haydn, which the wind
carries hither and thither in trininpb.—Eraminer.

We learn that the first day of the sh9oting sexton af-
forded excellent sport. The attendants upon the sports-
men returned heavy ladcu with the spoils of the Moors.—
Glasgow C orier.