bought by George II., and in the next reign was settled on Queen Charlotte
instead of Somerset House, and called the "Queen's House." It was rebuilt
by George IV. but not occupied by him, and had been rarely used by King
William. Besides its gardens, which are of some extent, it shares with St.
James's, which it is near, the advantage of St. James's Park, one of the
most agreeable in London, and full of historic memories. Though it, too,
was modernised by George IV., its features have still much interest. It
was by its canal, which has been twisted into the Serpentine, that the
Merry Monarch strolled alone, lazily playing with his dogs, feeding his
ducks, and by his easy confidence flattering and touching his good citizens
of London. On the same water his gay courtiers practised their foreign
accomplishment of skating, which they had brought back with them from the
Low Countries. In the Mall both Charles and his brother, the Duke of York,
joined in the Court game of Palle Malle, when a ball was struck with a
mallet through an iron ring down a walk strewn with powdered cockle-shells.
At a later period the Mall was the most fashionable promenade in London.
While dinners were still early on Sunday afternoons, the fashionable world
walked for an hour or two after dinner in the Mall. An eyewitness declared
that he had seen "in one moving mass, extending the whole length of the
Mall, five thousand of the most lovely women in this country of female
beauty, all splendidly attired, and accompanied by as many well-dressed
men." For, as Mr. Hare, in his "Walks in London," points out, the
frequenters of the Mall were very different in one respect from the company
in the Row: "The ladies were in full dress and gentlemen carried their hats
under their arms."

One relic of the past survives intact in the park--that is, the cow-stalls,
which formerly helped to constitute "Milk Fair." Mr. Hare tells us "the
vendors are proud of the number of generations through which the stalls
have been held in their families."