ST. JAMES'S & GREEN PARKS 69 



beautiful and fascinating women, great ladies as well 

 as more humble charmers, and bold adventuresses, were 

 to be seen there daily. 



The crowds seem to have been very free in their 

 admiration of some of the distinguished ladies. When 

 the three lovely Misses Gunning captivated everybody 

 with their wit and beauty, they had only to appear in 

 the Mall to be surrounded by admirers. On one occasion 

 they were so pressed by the curious mob that one of 

 these matchless young charmers fainted and had to be 

 *' carried home in a sedan," 



On looking at an old print of the ladies in their thin 

 dresses walking in the Mall, it is customary to bemoan 

 the change of climate, to wonder if our great-great-grand- 

 mothers were supernaturally strong and not sensitive 

 to cold, or to conclude that they only paraded there in 

 fine weather. Apparently this last is not the correct 

 solution, for in 1765 they astonished Monsieur Grosley 

 by their disregard of the elements. He is horrified at 

 the fog. " The smoke," he writes, " forms a cloud 

 which envelopes London like a mantle ; a cloud which 

 the sun pervades but rarely ; a cloud which, recoiling 

 back upon itself, suffers the sun to break out only 

 now and then, which casual appearance procures the 

 Londoners a few of what they call glorious days. The 

 great love of the English for walking defies the badness 

 of other days. On the 26th April, St. James's Park, 

 incessantly covered with fogs, smoke, and rain, that 

 scarce left a possibility of distinguishing objects at a 

 distance of four steps, was filled with walkers, who were 

 an object of musing and admiration to me during the 

 whole day." Few ladies nowadays fear a little fog or 

 rain, but to walk in it they must be attired in short 



