of our tempers. Even now at the distance of thirty years, and though I freely admit that certain visits to the Zoological Gardens, and certain interviews with the bears have not been altogether without a soothing and balsamic effect upon my spirits, I never can feel quite comfortable in the “outer circle.” How I used to rejoice when those houses surmounted by the plum-puddings with spikes came in sight, because then I felt secure that the weary matutinal pilgrimage was nearly at an end. The improvement of St. James’s Gardens and the most judicious closing-up of the unwholesome tank at the top of the Green Park are quite of modern date.
Many of the places of suburban resort round London are very little changed. It is wonderful, for example, how lightly Time has laid his finger upon Hampstead. Of course there have been great changes in the Hampstead Road, and that pleasant back way by Primrose Hill, and through the fields pied with daisies and buttercups, has been so be-bricked and be-mortared as to be scarcely recognisable. The other day, however,—it was on a Sunday—I wandered up to Hampstead; and really, except that the distant ground to the eastward is more thickly built over than of old, there is marvellously little of change about the old place. There is Jack Straw’s Castle, and that melancholy-looking house which forms the end of the wedge which separates the Highgate! from the Hendon Roads just looking as melancholy as ever. There, too, are the donkeys standing by the little pond, who must be the grand-donkeylings, or great-grand-donkeylings, of the very animals I used to bestride in my own school-boy days. Yes! here comes a party—by George, we must be in the year 1832!—two, sort of half-housemaid, half-young-milliner-looking girls are skurrying on, with a youngster, who may rise to be a costermonger, behind them, urging the poor brutes on by severe flagellation. Then there is a showily-dressed young “gent” who is with them, and who no doubt would be happy to charm their hearts by a display of noble donkeymanship. The donkey-boy, however, is so sedulously intent upon the animals on which the young ladies are seated that he does not notice that the young gent has fallen astern; and there he is in the swampy ground, with evident symptoms of intentions on the part of the poor outraged brute to put his head between his knees, and toss his inexperienced rider into the muck. I hope he may. Now the donkey-boy goes to the young man’s rescue; and as I pass the ladies on my way to the pine-tree group, I hear one of these fair beings say to the other, “Heliza Jane, can’t you lend us an ’air-pin?” the intention of the young lady obviously being to use the implement in question as vicarious of the spur. To be sure, it is aggravating when you are boiling with the fury of the race, to find the noble animal which should carry you on to victory, or at least to a noble struggle, standing stock-still, and positively declining to proceed one step further. I hope this little fellow in knickerbockers, and his bright little sister, who are dashing past the very spot where John Sadleir was found one foggy morning with the cream-jug in his hand, will have better luck. Her little hat falls off; but not for that will she stop. The donkey-boy no doubt will see to that; but she won’t be behind in the race for a hundred hats. They have evidently chosen, or rather there have been selected for them two prime donkeys—I dare say the best to be found amongst that kind of donkey-Tattersall’s, which is held under the trees by the pond where Irving used to preach when his wits were gone.
I wish I had space to talk of the humours of the tea-gardens, more especially at the Bull and Bush, which is about three-quarters of a mile beyond Hampstead in the hollow. What fun it is to sit out in the arbours and have tea amongst the spiders’ webs, and how much better the cream and butter are there than they are anywhere else. How Mary Jane and her young man make off to the pine-trees, and love to sit there in heathery dalliance. I wonder what they’re saying. It is something not altogether displeasing to the young lady, that is clear; but, I dare say, twenty years hence, if they thrive in business, and the young man is “steady,” and Mary Jane “makes him a good wife,” they will wander up to the pine-knoll, and enjoy the thought of this distant sunny afternoon, in the year 1860, very much indeed,—“Twenty years ago now, only think, Mary Jane!” That will be a great deal better than to be compelled by hard fate to give utterance to the same lofty sentiment in the year 1860,—the sentiment referring back to, or involving in its scope, A.D. 1840. That’s where the shoe pinches. It is well with you, Mary Jane!
I have talked a good deal about places, and the mere brick and mortar features of the town, but what a change there is in the London streets in other respects within the last thirty years. I fancy I remember the first omnibus—if it was not the first, it was amongst the first. My recollection is of a great blue-bottle Shillibeer, which, on one particular day—I forget in what year—made its appearance in the New Road, to the grievous astonishment of the lieges. Just about the same time there was a steam-carriage which tried its fortune for a short time—if I remember right—in the same locality, and set all the horses capering and prancing, No wonder; that was opposition with a vengeance. It was some time, I think, before the omnibus system was developed to any great extent. These long machines used to go pounding up and down the New Road, plying between Maida Hill and the Bank for the accommodation of the City people, long before they were tried upon the other thoroughfares. However, when the system was fairly adopted it grew with a witness, until now the principal streets of London are so crowded with them that you can scarcely get to a railway-station in time, save you allow yourself an hour to spare for stoppages caused by omnibuses on the road. I am sorry to say I can remember the old Hackney coaches, and Jarvey with his gin-sodden eyes, and his multitude of capes, and the mouldy straw, and the ever-clinking steps. The shape of the cabs, too, has undergone strange permutations. At one time the driver sat before you on a little seat upon the flap or wooden apron; then he was stuck on to the side; then he was perched on to