were wont to come here and crouch upon the
grass till routed up by park-keeper's cane,
dully listening to the music, and wistfully
gazing round from time to time in search
of eleemosynary pence. But they seldom
managed to elude the vigilance of the
guardians even sufficiently to pass the gate. By
times threadbare men who did not eat often,
pacing the noble avenues in abstract thought
or entranced perusal of learned books, would
come, accidentally, upon the aristocratic
throng; but they would glance at their
shabby clothes and sigh, and hie away quickly
on the other side, frightened like unto a fawn
leaping out from a covert into some glade of
Bushy Park, where a merry pic-nic party is
assembled, and betaking itself, startled, into
the umbrage of the oaks again. People
dressed to attend the band playing at
Kensington. Lines of empty carriages waited
outside the gates, while their possessors
promenaded the gardens. Round the braying
bandsmen were gathered the great London
dandies, the great London belles, the pearls
of aristocratic purity, and, I am afraid, some
other pearls of beauty and of price, but of
more Cleopatrean configuration, and whose
Antonies found here a neutral ground whereon
to vaunt their charms and their possession.
Could the wiry little terrier in the sulky
brougham by Victoria Gate have spoken,
he would have told you where the lady in the
long black ringlets, with so many diamonds,
and with gold flowers on her veil, was gone—
the coachman could speak, but would not—he
was discreet. The whole scene was a charmed
circle of moustaches and tufts (the beard
movement was not then), watchchains, fillagree
card-cases, Brussels lace, moiré antique
dresses, primrose kid gloves, vinaigrettes,
auburn curls, semi-transparent bonnets,
varnished boots, and bouquet de millefleurs.
As for smoking, who would have dared to
think of smoking in Kensington's sacred
garden, save, perhaps, wicked Captain Rolster
of the Heavies, or the abandoned Lieutenant
Lilliecrap of the Lancers? They smoked—
those incorrigible young men— but then it
was at some distance from the ladies (whose
points and paces, by the way, they
discussed not quite so respectfully, but with
something of a sporting gusto); and there is
a very difference, you will allow, between a
penny Pickwick and one of Hudson's regalias
at two and a half guineas per pound.

Miraculously to say, the swells (so
unaffectedly may I be allowed to term the
upper classes) remain. They positively, by a
charming condescension and inexplicable
affability, frequent the band-playing, now that
it takes place on Sundays; and, considering
the lateness of the season, in no diminished
numbers. But to this inner ring of perfumed
youths and jewelled dames, to these sons of
proconsols, and daughters of prætors, and
wives of ædiles, there is now added another
belt—thicker, stronger, coarser, if you will
(like a "keeper" to a ring of virgin gold)—a
belt of workers, of peasants, mechanics, artisans,
clerks, high middle-class, medium middle-
class, and low middle-class men, who come
here, Sunday after Sunday, rejoicing at, and
grateful for, the boon (infinitesimally small as
it is), who bring their wives and children, down
to the baby at the breast, with them; who
listen patiently and cheerfully to the music,
and, wonder of wonders, do not endeavour
to stone the musicians, root up the plants,
set fire to the grass, dash out the brains of
the children of the aristocracy against
stones, rend the swells limb from limb,
sell the daughters of the prætors into slavery,
defile the graves of the ædiles' wives,
smoke short pipes in the vicinity of the band,
fight among themselves, usurp the chairs by
force, and refuse to pay for them, carve their
names on the trunks of the trees, gather
flowers from the Birchbroomicus Busbiense,
introduced seventeen hundred and seventy-
three (as the label says), pelt the attendants
of the refreshment-rooms with ginger-beer
bottles, or purloin Mr. Gunter's cheese-cakes
and raspberry tarts! Who do none of these
things, though certain sections of thinkers
and speakers, even of a moderate description,
appear to think that every Sunday crowd
must necessarily commit acts of this nature.

My Sunday afternoon in Kensington
Gardens was not, perhaps, begun under the most
advantageous circumstances. Though the
day was hot, it was lowering, and the sky
seemed to say, Put on your white ducks and
book-muslins, and leave your umbrellas at
home, but in half-an-hour I rain. Again, I
entered the gardens by a wrong gate (there
are so many gates), and wandered about for
some time disconsolately, finding myself at
Bayswater when I wished myself at Knightsbridge,
and catching a glimpse of the hideous
Wellington statue at Hyde Park Corner
through the trees, when the next vista I
expected was of the red bricks of William
the Third's hideous but comfortable palace. Then
I came across two children whom I didn't
love, as I do most children, but looked upon,
on the contrary, with an evil eye, and
malevolent aspirations, for they were horrible
children; they squabbled one with the other,
and threatened to tell of one another. One
of them ran between my legs, and another
cut me across the ancles with a whip—
playfully, as he meant it, no doubt, fiendishly as I
thought. They were aided and abetted in all
this by a morose nurse, who looked darkly at
me, and wondered, mutteringly, "What
people thought of themselves."  I confess, as
far as I was concerned, that I thought it unjust
that people should be tripped up and cut
across the ancles. Then I was sorely annoyed
by a stern and forbidding man, who persisted
in walking before me, who had no right to
wear the boots he did—they being aggressive,
iron-heeled, and craunchiug the gravel as he
walked. He carried an umbrella as though