M. FIELD.

THE parks of London are its greatest ornament and luxury. They are called the lungs of the metropolis. They are of immense extent. Regent's Park contains three hundred and sixty acres, and Hyde Park is still larger; and all laid out with exquisite English taste. You enter a broad, shady avenue, which stretches before you for a mile. On either side are little lakes, fringed with trees and shrubbery. Swans are swimming about and sporting in the water. Clumps of oaks dot the green in every direction, and invite you to sit down and enjoy the mild evening. Here, on a summer afternoon, troops of children come and gambol over the smooth-shaven lawn. It makes one's heart light to see so many happy creatures in this sorrowful world.

I often wondered, while in London, at the remissness and indifference of our American cities to secure these priceless luxuries. There is not a single park in this country that is worthy to be compared with those in London. Boston Common approaches nearest to an English park. But that has so few trees that it looks naked and cold.

In New York we have nothing that is worthy to be called a park. We have several little grass-plots, such as Union Square and Bowling Green, through which children can trundle their hoops. But we have not a single open space large enough to permit the introduction of much variety of landscape. Washington Square answers very well for a parade-ground, but there

is nothing rural about it. No one walking through it would ever imagine himself in the country. It is a mere oblong piece of ground, flat as a prairie, and divided by a dozen paths which cross it in straight lines. There is no variety in the laying out of the grounds; no deep wood, penetrated by winding walks; no cool grove; no alternations of mound and dell, and murmur of waterfalls, such as enter into the composition of an European park. If in New York a belt of land were set apart, a quarter of a mile wide, and running from the North to the East River, it would not be larger than the Champs Elysees in Paris. Imagine such a park in New York, long avenues lined with trees, stretching from one river to the other, where the rich could drive in their carriages, and the poor could saunter and converse through the summer twilight, and what a source of health and happiness would it be to our population. The merchant, feverish from the excitement of business, would find his spirit soothed under the cool shade; and the poor man, in the enjoyment of nature, would forget his labor and his care. It would be the resort of the student, of the professional man, of the artist, the mechanic; of the invalid, of the young and the old. All classes and ages would resort to it to enjoy the simple pleasures of exercise, of walking and talking in the open air. The influence of such a promenade for the whole city might be traced farther, in the increased cheerfulness, softened manners and improved character of our population.

WE judge too rashly both of men and things,
Giving to-day's opinions on the morrow
Utter denial, while we strive to borrow
Hollow apologies that-like the wings

Of butterflies-show many colors. Sorrow
Hideth its tears, and we disclaim its presence
Where it hath deepest root; Hate softly brings
A smile, which we account Love's sweetest

essence;

Simplicity seems Art; and Art we deem
White-hearted Innocence-misjudging ever
Of all we see! Let us, then, grant esteem,
Or grudge it with precaution only; never
Forgetting that rash haste right judgment mars:
What men count but as clouds may prove bright
stars!