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 426 kindles their tints and hollows out their recesses. I do not know a finer spectacle in any woodlands of any country than the trees in the London parks under an October sun. Then the Abbey towers, gradually disclosed against a pale-grey sky; and the superb Houses of Parliament: and, wherever one goes, some fine church or other, some line of imposing buildings, some green slope or gleam of water no longer covered or hidden by a crowd, delights one’s senses, and refreshes one’s mind. I do not think so ill of the Serpentine as it is the fashion to do; and many an hour have I spent beside it on fine mornings and evenings in autumn, or, more blissfully still, in the middle of the day, when I had the scene almost to myself. We hear from members of parliament that nobody knows the real beauty of London streets but themselves, and the market-people, and the police, because nobody else sees those streets under a clear, cool light, and in a state of repose. The autumn evenings have something of the same effect as the summer mornings before sunrise; and I claim to know the beauty of London streets without being a legislator, a market-gardener, or a policeman.

I am told the theatres are as full as ever when “London is empty.” I cannot say; for I could not spare evenings for the theatres when there was the whole winter before me for social pleasures. The opportunity of solitude could not be wasted by going into public assemblies. The time was short enough for the National Gallery, now a scene of peace and quiet; and for seeing London from St. Paul’s, and getting on with one’s studies at the Museum and its library, and strolling in the Temple Gardens, paying homage to the chrysanthemums, and giving a new contemplation to the Temple Church; and going out to Hampstead Heath, for a good bask on a calm day; and stepping over to Richmond for a row on the Thames, or a view of the sunset. It is a good time also for a day at Hampton Court, or at Windsor; and even the Crystal Palace may be associated with impressions of leisure. But I still turn to the remembrance of London itself, with its parks and gardens, as the scene of the peculiar pleasure that I am thinking of.

Some will object that this is not to be reckoned among the pleasures of nature. There is nothing rural about it. It is neither one thing nor another.

I answer, that if it is natural for men to congregate in great cities, and build fine churches and palaces, and lead bright waters, and lay out green spaces among them, it is a really natural beauty which grows up in consequence. Nature sheds her beauty over the work of man’s hands. At his solicitation she brings her verdure, her tree-forms, her flowers, her bright waters, and golden skies into the midst of man’s erections and arrangements, and harmonises them all together. If the scene is not rural, it may be as noble and sweet. It is peculiar; and one might say singular, but for the thought of Italian palaces, and some old English establishments, where there