176 Lights and Shadows of London Life. 



brocade replaced by an ample driving-coat, the charioteer appeared. 

 Here for a moment we must digress, to make you acquainted with 

 the companions of his drive. 



That slight, boyish figure, "bearded like the pard," wears his 

 moustaches in virtue of a commission in the Blues: with an open 

 hand and a warm heart the young Irish peer entered upon life. 

 There is a Scottish saying, "hawks do not pike out hawks' een," an 

 axiom which his career was destined to prove does not apply to those 

 of the land of the Shamrock. 



That tall, extra-superfine personage, whose open surtout displays 

 a drab body-coat beneath, fitting his anatomy like an eel-skin, that 

 is the quint-essential Lancer, whose boast it was in taperness of waist, 

 breadth of shoulder, and irresistibility of smile, to exceed all his 

 majesty's bad bargains. Poor B. ! thou art departed from among 

 us: we could have belter spared a better man. 



The third and last of our party is , but should you happen 



to be in town when this page meets your notice, or at any future 

 time while he is in the flesh, choose the hour of 3 p. M., and, secure 



as of turbot at Groves's or mutton at Giblett's, art thou of R in 



Bond-street. He is what is generally pronounced plain of feature, 

 and of a very excellent conceit in costume ; scrupulously vigilant of 

 neckcloth, and never lacking a substantial cane attached to his wrist. 

 To sum up his exterior pretension in his own words, it is "not hand- 

 some, but eminently correct." 



" Chalcroft," said he of the moustaches, withdrawing his cigar, 

 elevating his face towards the open casement, and speaking with a 



most unequivocal richness of delivery, " who's the box for? N 



don't go with us; in fact, he went an hour ago, and bade me olfer 

 polite regrets and all tha tsort of thing : when a lady *s in the case 

 you know all other " 



"Oh!" interrupted the person to whom he addressed himself, 

 " I'm not sorry N 's better engaged ; jump up yourself, tirst come 

 first served. I want to be steady to-day, and that's a word not found 

 in N 's vocabulary : so en route" he exclaimed, having descended, 

 and casting the eye of a workman over pole~chains, bearing-reins, 

 and couplings, while the others of the party took their seats. 



Comely as the line of beauty are the sweeps with which the mas- 

 ter's hand accomplished the angles by which Albemarle-street is 

 gained, and many a professional eye is rivetted as the artist points 

 his leaders into Piccadilly. Right merrily sped on their pilgrimage 

 of pleasure our light-hearted gallants, through lines of villages, where 

 every open casement displayed its fair and smiling occupant. In 

 fifty-five minutes Ewell corner is doubled, and in five more Epsom 

 in all her saturnalian pomp and revelry is before them. It was a 

 gala day, that Derby of 1828 when the forlorn hope of the southern 

 turf was so gallantly carried by Cadland and James Robinson : still 

 the record accords not with our present purpose ; it may be that our 

 muse is diffident in Olympics. In 1833 " The Quarterly" donn'd the 

 cap and jacket for a spree, and really showed with tolerable success 

 up to Tottenham corner, where its Pegasus sprained a wing, the 

 run-in with the apisode of the gipsy partaking more of the Sapphic 



