champêtre which Watteau would not have despised. Nature and Art put on their finest costumes at the same moment; and the ladies come out, like the trees, in all that is new and bright. Colour! the air is full of it. The balconies are all alight with flowers. If you turn into the dullest street of yellow-brickness, of shabby shutters and doors, the shabby scene turns into a picture, from the brilliant centre afforded by that high priest of Art and Nature the costermonger, with his cart full of flowers – which throws up all the lesser tones, and forms in a moment an artistic composition of which an Academician might be glad to make use. And not only the parks, the squares, the balconies, and the costermongers' carts, but every back-garden, generally so hopeless, has a hint of what is going on, and makes its effort with a bit of pale lilac or a faint laburnum to echo in. In May all the means that Nature has at hand come into play. The lilacs scent the very streets; the chestnut builds its milky turrets of blossom; the very hawthorn blooms, so that you are aware of it from one square to another for miles of crowded ways.
Therefore let us pronounce that Fashion is right, as she is from time to time, notwithstanding all that can be said to the contrary. Now and then, even in May, there will come a dim day – alas! sometimes many dim days; sometimes it will rain – but May rain is sweet and makes everything better after, which is not the case with later showers. And if you abrogate for this particular occasion the new style which is no longer new, and secretly going back to the old which is forgotten, make your May begin in the middle of the month, you will do all the better. We do not speak, it must be remarked, for those to whom London and the season are habitual – who come when it begins, and remain till it ends, and are unconscious of the existence of people who have not a town house, and can even exist from year to year without a season at all. Dear brethren of the country, it is to you we address ourselves – you who come for a month, or perhaps for a fortnight, to see the pictures, as you say modestly, to see the world – you whose friends live in South Kensington, or even perhaps in Russell Square, who know but little of Belgravia, whose hearts beat a little higher when you are asked to go to Grosvenor Place to see the fine folk coming from the Derby, or are recognised as you stroll along the Row by some party riding in that beatific enclosure. The Row itself is naturally one of the first places to which you will go, to see, as the foreigner says, the most beautiful women, on the finest horses, under the noblest trees in the world. Perhaps the trees are scarcely worthy of this high praise; but the beautiful creatures that prance, and toss their fine heads, and jingle their harness, and reflect in their shining coats the morning sun, are not to be surpassed; and the still more beautiful creatures that ride them, in that sobriety of garb which enhances every charm, with their dainty waists, their coils of shining hair, their English bloom, it would be strange if we were not proud of them – and prouder still to think, that in their perfection they are no more than the sweetest commonplace of English life. For whether the girls ride, with all that luxury and wealth can do to make their simplicity a perfect work of art, – or whether they walk,
