^Nimrod'' 



come. Any one who has been accustomed to admire the 

 muster of vehicles at the Tuileries, must indeed open his 

 eyes wide the first time he is in St. James's Street on the day 

 of a levee or drawing-room. Hyde Park, however, on any 

 fine afternoon, in the height of the London season, will be 

 more than enough to confound him. He will there see 

 what no other country under the heavens can show him, 

 and what is more, we may venture to add, what no other 

 country ever will show him. Let him only sit on the rail 

 near our Great Captain's statue, with his watch in his hand, 

 and in the space of two hours he will see a thousand well- 

 appointed equipages pass before him to the Mall, in all the 

 pomp of aristocratic pride, and in which the very horses 

 themselves appear to partake. Everything he sees is 

 peculiar : — the silent roll and easy motion of the London- 

 built carriage — the style of the coachmen ; it is hard to 

 determine which shine brightest, the lace on their clothes, 

 their own round faces, or their flaxen wigs ; the pipe-clayed 

 reins — pipe-clayed lest they should soil the clean white gloves ; 

 the gigantic young fellows, in huge cocked-hats bedaubed 

 with lace, in laced silk stockings, new kid gloves, and with 

 gold-headed canes, who tower above ' Mr. Coachman's ' 

 head ; not forgetting the spotted coach-dog, which has just 

 been washed for the occasion. The vis-a-vis^ containing 

 nobody but a single fair dame, with all its set-out^ has cost 

 at least a thousand pounds ; and the stream of equipages 

 of all calibres — barouches, chariots, cabriolets, etc., almost 

 all got up, as Mr. Robin's advertisements say, ' regardless of 



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