l
combinations in this district. The present terrace is, we believe, the
smallest in the park, but yields to none in picturesque effect and
harmonious design; and the variety of its composition renders it one of
the most attractive illustrations of our series. It is likewise worthy
of remark, that this portion of the Regent's Park, from its natural
beauties, is entitled to the first-rate embellishment of art, inasmuch
as the basement of Clarence Terrace commands a "living picture" of
extraordinary luxuriance; and from the drawing-room windows the lake may
be seen studded with little islands, and environed with lawny slopes and
unusual park-like vegetation:

With Nature the creating pencil vies
With Nature joyous at the mimic strife.

We have already indulged our fancy in anticipations of the future
splendour of the Regent's Park. As yet, art triumphs, and here the
lordlings of wealth may enjoy _otium cum dignitate_: but in a few years
Nature may enable this domain to vie with Daphne of old, and become to
London what Daphne was to Antioch, whose voluptuousness and luxury are
perpetuated in history. But the beginnings of such triumphs furnish more
pleasing reflections than their decline.

Clarence Terrace is on the western side of the park, and adjoins Sussex
Place, whose cupola tops were the signals for critical censure and
ridicule among the first structures in this quarter. The artists have,
however, profited by the lesson, and the architecture of the Regent's
Park bids fair to rank among the proudest successes of art.

* * * * *

ORIGIN OF PARISHES.

(_For the Mirror._)

How ancient the division of parishes is, may at present be difficult
to ascertain. Mr. Camden says, England was divided into parishes by
Archbishop Honorius, about the year 630. Sir Henry Hobart lays it down,
that parishes were first erected by the council of Lateran, which was
held A.D. 1179. Each widely differs from the other, and both of them
perhaps from the truth, which will probably be found in the medium,
between the two extremes. We find the distinction of parishes, nay, even
of mother churches, so early as in the laws of King Edgar, about the
year 970. The civil division of England into counties, of counties into
hundreds, of hundreds into tithings, or towns, as it now stands, seems
to owe its original to King Alfred; who, to prevent the rapines and
disorders which formerly prevailed in the