48 FAMILIAR LONDON by Government out of a portion of the estate of a lady who died intestate, and had, during her life, often advised the erection of a fountain on that spot. Thornycroft was happy in the manner in which he adapted his work to the triangular site on which it is placed, with its three marble statues of England's greatest poets-Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer ;-Shakespeare supported by Tragedy and Comedy, Milton standing between Tragedy and History, and Chaucer with Comedy and History on either side. The whole is crowned by the winged figure of Fame, with one foot on a globe and bearing a wreath. III THE MANOR OF HYDE-DUELLING IN THE PARK CORONATION OF KING EDWARD ILLUMINA- FRIARS It is nowadays difficult to imagine that Hyde Park-beautiful as it is in the London Season with the wealth of colour that it holds with its profusion of flowers and shrubs, its glittering kaleidoscope of human beings, carriages, and horses-that our Hyde Park of to-day was once, as Mr Larwood remarks, “in the midst of virgin forests which for more than ten centuries after continued to surround London to the north and the west. Wild boars and bulls, wolves, deer, and smaller game, a few native hunters, swineherds, and charcoal-burners were in all probability the only inhabitants of these vast wildernesses." 52 FAMILIAR LONDON The Manor of Hyde, once the property of the Abbey of Westminster, was, about the time of the Reformation, appropriated by King Henry, probably with the object of extending his hunting grounds to the north and west of London, and a proclamation was issued in July 1536 as follows: "As the King's most royal Majesty is desirous to have the games of hare, partridge, pheasant, and heron preserved in and about the honour of his palace of Westminster, for his own disport and pastime, no person, on the pain of imprisonment of their bodies, and further punishment at his Majesty's will and pleasure, is to presume to hunt or hawk, from the Palace of Westminster to St Giles-in-thefields, and from thence to Islington, to our Lady of the Oak, to Highgate, to Hornsey Park, and to Hampstead Heath." Rangers were afterwards appointed. Queen Elizabeth gave the post of Ranger to her friend Lord Hunsdon, with the salary of "fourpence a day, together with herbage, pannage, and browsage for the deer." The word " 'pannage means the feeding of swine on the "mast" from the trees. After the execution of Charles I. an Act of Parliament decreed the sale of Crown lands; but Hyde Park was made the subject of a special |