BRIGHTON 257 



semicircular bayed fronts did not : they are York 

 Place, Hanover Terrace, Gloucester Place, Adelaide 

 this, Caroline that, and Brunswick t'other : all names 

 associated with the late Georgian period. 



The Old Steyne was in Florizel's time the rendezvous 

 of fashion. The " front " and the lawns of Hove have 

 long since usurped that distinction, but the gardens 

 and the old trees of the Old Steyne are more beautiful 

 than ever. They are the only few the town itself can 

 boast. 



Treeless Brighton has been the derision alike of 

 Doctor Johnson and Tom Hood, to name no others. 

 Johnson, who first visited Brighton in 1770 in the 

 company of the Thrales and Fanny Burney, declared 

 the neighbourhood to be so desolate that " if one had 

 a mind to hang one's self for desperation at being 

 obliged to live there, it would be difficult to find a tree 

 on which to fasten a rope." At any rate it would 

 have needed a particularly stout tree to serve Johnson's 

 turn, had he a mind to it. Johnson was an ingrate, 

 and not worthy of the good that Doctor Brighton 

 wrought upon him. 



Hood, on the other hand, is jocular in an airier and 

 lighter-hearted fashion. His punning humour (a kind 

 of witticism which Johnson hated with the hatred of a 

 man who delved deep after Greek and Latin roots) is 

 to Johnson's as the footfall of a cat to the earth- 

 shaking tread of the elephant. His, too, is a manner 

 of gibe that is susceptible of being construed into praise 

 bv the townsfolk. " Of all the trees," says he, " I 

 ever saw, none could be mentioned in the same breath 

 with the magnificent beach at Brighton." 



But though these trees of the Pavilion give a grateful 

 shelter from the glare of the sun and the roughness of 

 the wind, they hide little of the tawdriness of that 

 architectural enormity. The gilding has faded, the 

 tinsel become tarnished, and the whole pile of cupolas 

 and minarets is reduced to one even tint, that is not 

 white nor grey, nor any distinctive shade of any 

 colour. How the preposterous building could ever 



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