A Reverie in Regent-street. 409 



as if ashamed of its present appearance, and thinking on days of 

 former splendour days of hoops, link-boys, and running footmen, 

 unlike these degenerate times when it was foremost in the press, 

 and listened complacently to the stentorian roar of " The Duke of 



's carriage stops the way." 



" Oh ! times admired and mourned I" 



The poor old coach looked as uncomfortable as we might imagine 

 'a decayed gentleman would feel on suddenly encountering a party 

 of fashionables with whom he had formerly been intimate, and 

 being conscious of a fracture in the elbow of his vesture. 



I was beginning to moralize upon the crazy vehicle, and the jaded 

 cattle that with hanging heads were tagging it along, and was com- 

 placently drawing a vastly original parallel between them and the 

 decay of human grandeur, and the consequent futility of human 

 pride, when my attention was attracted by a very different object. 



Opposite to the door of a shop was drawn up a barouche, in which 

 was seated the fairest creature my eye e'er dwelt upon, a being 

 such as those that visit us in dreams, and leave us in despair that 

 earth's mould can produce aught lovely enough to vie in its reality 

 with the uncorporeal images of imagination. I was entranced in 

 the bright apparition of beauty ; my senses were rapt in the one 

 ecstacy of gazing; and I became insensible to all objects save that 

 which had rivetted my attention. I passed and re-passed as if wait- 

 ing, but was careful that the point of attraction should not be per- 

 ceivable. The lady held a volume, the leaves of which she turned 

 over with her right hand, ungloved, and of such marble whiteness t 

 Occasionally her eye stole from the page towards the shop window, 

 with an expression slightly approaching to impatience. " Excellent," 

 thought I; "her mind is as rich and cultivated as her person is 

 beautiful. She disdains the petty trifling of shopping, and prefers 

 the charms of literature to lace and laventines." I then observed 

 that her broad high forehead presented, phrenologically, a remark- 

 able developement of the intellectual and perceptive faculties. The 

 bonnet unfortunately prevented me from speculating on the posterior 

 half of her skull. "And she must be amiable," I argued, " for with 

 what sweet resignation she waits the convenience of her friends." As 

 I contemplated her in the pride of her glorious beauty, I almost 

 sorrowed that the visions of mythology had been dispersed, and I 

 wished myself a pagan that I might believe her to be a goddess. But 

 the silk bonnet with blonde edging, the rich lavender-coloured dress, 

 were sad hinderances to these classic fancies. One cannot well asso- 

 ciate the idea of a goddess with a fashionably-trimmed gown and 

 Mrs. Bell's corsets, nor imagine a veritable feminine angel in shoul- 

 der-of-mutton sleeves. Virgil tells us that Venus herself got rid of 

 all superfluous clothing, even though the costume of a nymph, before 

 she was fully apparent as divine 



pedes vestis defluxit ad imos, 



Et vera incessu patuit Dea," 



Perhaps it is some consideration of this kind which causes modern, 

 fashionable belles to be emulous of the nudity of antiquity. 



