Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 046.djvu/224

216 "This is the place where people go to get rid of the dust, confusion, and noise of the city, and where the ladies, in fine weather, display their ornaments and charms, as well as their signals for intriguing. There are seats placed at convenient distances for refreshing the wearied joints of reduced officers, disappointed courtiers, and broken tradesmen; and those, whose fortunes as well as their linen are generally reversed, sit promiscuously together, debating on the fate of princes and nations, as pertinently as though they were the immediate ministers and agents of all the powers in Europe, although, unhappy wretches, not one in nineteen of them knows where to procure a meal's meat. Yet, by their constant attendance on these seats, they are called Benchers of the Park, sitting with as much state and solemnity as those of the Inns of Court do at their halls in Commons!"

The anonymous author of A Trip through the Town; or, a Humorous View of Men and Things, gives the following amusing account of the Park of St James's as it was:—