LONDON.

You return from your ramble in “the city” by two o’clock. A bright day

“toward,” and the season in its palmy time. The old veterans are just

creeping out upon the portico of the United Service Club, having crammed

“The Times” over their late breakfast, and thus prepared their politics

against surprise for the day; the broad steps of the Athenæum are as yet

unthronged by the shuffling feet of the literati, whose morning is

longer and more secluded than that of idler men, but who will be seen in

swarms, at four, entering that superb edifice in company with the

_employés_ and politicians who affect their society. Not a cab stands

yet at the “Travellers,” whose members, noble or fashionable, are

probably at this hour in their dressing-gowns of brocade or shawl of the

orient, smoking a hookah over Balzac’s last romance, or pursuing at this

(to them) desert time of day some adventure which waited upon their love

and leisure. It is early yet for the Park; but the equipages you will

see by-and-by “in the ring” are standing now at Howell and James’s, and

while the high-bred horses are fretting at the door, and the liveried

footmen lean on their gold-headed sticks on the pavement, the fair

creature whose slightest nod these trained minions and their fine-limbed

animals live to obey, sits upon a three-legged stool within, and in the

voice which is a spell upon all hearts, and with eyes to which rank and

genius turn like Persians to the sun, discusses with a pert clerk the

quality of stockings!

Look at these equipages and their appointments! Mark the exquisite

balance of that claret-bodied chariot upon its springs—the fine sway of

its sumptuous hammercloth in which the un-smiling coachman sits buried

to the middle—the exact fit of the saddles, setting into the curve of

the horse’s backs so as not to break, to the most careless eye, the fine

lines which exhibit action and grace! See how they stand

together—alert, fiery, yet obedient to the weight of a silken thread;

and as the coachman sees you studying his turn-out, observe the

imperceptible feel of the reins and the just-visible motion of his lips,

conveying to the quick ears of his horses the premonitory, and, to us,

inaudible sound, to which, without drawing a hair’s breadth upon the

traces, they paw their fine hoofs, and expand their nostrils

impatiently! Come nearer, and find a speck or a raised hair, if you can,

on these glossy coats! Observe the nice fitness of the dead-black

harness, the modest crest upon the panel, the delicate picking out of

white in the wheels, and, if you will venture upon a freedom in manners,

look in through the window of rose-teinted glass, and see the splendid

cushions and the costly and splendid adaptation of the interior. The

twin-mated footmen fly to the carriage-door, and the pomatumed clerk who

has enjoyed a _tête-à-tête_ for which a Prince Royal might sigh, and an

Ambassador might negociate in vain, hands in his parcel. The small foot

presses on the carpeted step, the airy vehicle yields lightly and

recovers from the slight weight of the descending form, the coachman

inclines his ear for the half-suppressed order from the footman, and off

whirls the admirable structure, compact, true, steady, but magically

free and fast—as if horses, footmen, and chariot were but the parts of

some complicated centaur—some swift-moving monster upon legs and

wheels!

Walk on a little farther to the Quadrant. Here commences the most

thronged promenade in London. These crescent colonnades are the haunt of

foreigners on the lookout for amusement, and of strangers in the

metropolis generally. You will seldom find a town-bred man there, for he

prefers haunting his clubs; or, if he is not a member of them, he avoids

lounging much in the Quadrant, lest he should _appear_ to have no other

resort. You will observe a town dandy getting fidgety after his second

turn in the Quadrant, while you will meet the same Frenchman there from

noon till dusk, bounding his walk by those columns as if they were the

bars of a cage. The western side toward Piccadilly is the thoroughfare

of the honest passer-by; but under the long portico opposite, you will

meet vice in every degree, and perhaps more beauty than on any other

_pavé_ in the world. It is given up to the vicious and their followers

by general consent. To frequent it, or to be seen loitering there at

all, is to make but one impression on the mind of those who may observe

you.

The two sides of Regent street continue to partake of this distinction

to the end. Go up on the left, and you meet the sober citizen

perambulating with his wife, the lady followed by her footman, the grave

and the respectable of all classes. Go up on the other, and in color and

mien it is the difference between a grass-walk and a bed of tulips. What

proof is here that beauty is dangerous to its possessor! It is said

commonly of Regent street, that it shows more beauty in an hour than

could be found in all the capitals of the continent. It is the beauty,

however, of brilliant health—of complexion and freshness, more than of

sentiment or classic correctness. The English features, at least in the

middle and lower ranks, are seldom good, though the round cheek, the

sparkling lip, the soft blue eyes and hair of dark auburn, common as

health and youth, produce the effect of high and almost universal beauty

on the eye of the stranger. The rarest thing in these classes is a

finely-turned limb, and to the clumsiness of their feet and ankles must

be attributed the want of grace usually remarked in their movements.

Regent street has appeared to me the greatest and most oppressive

solitude in the world. In a crowd of business men, or in the thronged

and mixed gardens of the continent, the pre-occupation of others is less

attractive, or at least, more within our reach, if we would share in it.

Here, it is wealth beyond competition, exclusiveness and indifference

perfectly unapproachable. In the cold and stern mien of the practised

Londoner, it is difficult for a stranger not to read distrust, and very

difficult for a depressed mind not to feel a marked repulsion. There is

no solitude after all like the solitude of cities.

“O dear, dear London” (says the companion of Asmodeus on his return from

France,) “dear even in October! Regent street, I salute you! Bond

street, my good fellow, how are you? And you, oh, beloved Oxford street,

whom the opium-eater called ‘stony-hearted,’ and whom I, eating no

opium, and speaking as I find, shall ever consider the most kindly and

maternal of all streets—the street of the middle classes—busy without

uproar, wealthy without ostentation. Ah, the pretty ankles that trip

along thy pavement! Ah! the odd country-cousin bonnets that peer into

thy windows, which are lined with cheap yellow shawls, price one pound

four shillings marked in the corner! Ah! the brisk young lawyers

flocking from their quarters at the back of Holborn! Ah! the quiet old

ladies, living in Duchess street, and visiting thee with their eldest

daughters in the hope of a bargain! Ah, the bumpkins from Norfolk just

disgorged by the Bull and Mouth—the soldiers—the milliners—the

Frenchmen—the swindlers—the porters with four-post beds on their

backs, who add the excitement of danger to that of amusement! The

various shifting, motley group that belong to Oxford street, and Oxford

street alone! What thoroughfares equal thee in the variety of human

specimens! in the choice of objects for remark, satire, admiration!

Besides, the other streets seem chalked out for a sect—narrow-minded

and devoted to a _coterie_. Thou alone art catholic—all-receiving.

Regent street belongs to foreigners, segars, and ladies in red silk,

whose characters are above scandal. Bond street belongs to dandies and

picture dealers. St. James’s street to club loungers and young men in

the guards, with mustaches properly blackened by the _cire_ of Mr.

Delcroix; but thou, Oxford Street, what class can especially claim thee

as its own? Thou mockest at oligarchies; thou knowest nothing of select

orders! Thou art liberal as air—a chartered libertine; accepting the

homage of all, and retaining the stamp of none. And to call thee

‘stony-hearted!’—certainly thou art so to _beggars_—to people who have

not the WHEREWITHAL. But thou wouldst not be so respectable if thou wert

not capable of a certain reserve to paupers. Thou art civil enough, in

all conscience, to those who have a shilling in their pocket—those who

have not, why do they live at all?”