Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...and Duchess of Kendal. These, however, are matters of history. It is sufficient for our purpose that the King was little seen in London, and that his followers did not add to the beauties of the Mall. We meet him once, on the 3oth of May, 1722, reviewing in St. James's Park a regiment of Hanoverian Grenadiers, with the rest of the Honourable Artillery Company, of which they formed part, commanded by Major Noah Fountaine, a Hanoverian. On that occasion his Majesty was wonderfully pleased, and ordered 500. to be given to the men as a gratuity; even the officers of the Guards declared "they never saw anything more uniform and regular in their lives." But whenever George could he was away to Hanover, with the glee of a schoolboy home for the holidays; and the Park, as well as the rest of England, got on perfectly well without him. It was in the last year of the reign of this King that a little pamphlet appeared under the title of "A 1.50 SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE PARK. Trip through London," as flimsy a composition as was ever manufactured by Grub Street pen and ink. But as rubbish of another kind may even be made useful, so we can find a few lines in it which will answer our purpose, so far as to assist us in peopling the old world with its then everyday visitors and inhabitants. The Park is noticed in the following terms:--"St. James's Park is a place which often takes up a great deal of my time and consideration. Upon the Parade is sic seen airs, cockades, oaths, great bluster-. ing and little money, and a perpetual discourse of war in times of the greatest calm and serenity, as confined prisoners are pleasing themselves with the hopes of grace, though the prospect of an act is ever so remote and distant. Here regiments of...