LONDON.
If you dine with all the world at seven, you have, still an hour or more for Hyde Park, and “Rotten Row;” this half mile between Oxford street and Piccadilly, to which the fashion of London confines itself as if the remainder of the bright green Park were forbidden ground, is now fuller than ever. There is the advantage of this condensed drive, that you are sure to see your friends here, earlier or later, in every day—(for wherever you are to go with the horses, the conclusion of the order to the coachman is, “home by the Park”)—and then if there is anything new in the way of an arrival, a pretty foreigner, or a fresh face from the country, some dandy’s tiger leaves his master at the gate, and brings him at his Club, over his coffee, all possible particulars of her name, residence, condition, and whatever other circumstances fall in his way. By dropping in at Lady ——’s soirée in the evening, if you were interested in the face, you may inform yourself of more than you would have drawn in a year’s acquaintance from the subject of your curiosity. Malapropos to my remark, here comes a turn-out, concerning which and its occupant I have made many inquiries in vain—the pale-colored chariot, with a pair of grays, dashing toward us from the Seymour gate. As it comes by you will see, sitting quite in the corner, and in a very languid and elegant attitude, a slight woman of perhaps twenty-four, dressed in the simplest white cottage-bonnet that could be made, and, with her head down, looking up through heavy black eyelashes, as if she but waited till she had passed a particular object, to resume some engrossing revery. Her features are Italian, and her attitude, always the same indolent one, has also a redolence of that land of repose; but there has been an English taste, and no ordinary one, in the arrangement of that equipage and its dependants; and by the expressions, never mistaken in London, of the well-appointed menials, you may be certain that both master and mistress (if master there be,) exact no common deference. She is always alone, and not often seen in the Park; and whenever I have enquired of those likely to know, I found that she had been observed, but could get no satisfactory information. She disappears by the side toward the Regent’s park, and when once out of the gate, her horses are let off at a speed that distances all pursuit that would not attract observation. There is a look of “Who the deuce can it be?” in the faces of all the mounted dandies, wherever she passes, for it is a face which once seen is not easily thought of with indifference, or forgotten. Immense as London is, a woman of anything like extraordinary beauty would find it difficult to live there, incognito, a week; and how this fair incomprehensible has contrived to elude the curiosity of Hyde-park admiration, for nearly two years, is rather a marvel. There she goes, however, and without danger of being arrested for a flying highwayman, you could scarcely follow.
It is getting late, and, as we turn down toward the Clubs, we shall meet the last and most fashionable comers to the Park. Here is a horseman,[[4]] surrounded with half a dozen of the first young noblemen of England. He rides a light bay horse with dark legs, whose delicate veins are like the tracery of silken threads beneath the gloss of his limbs, and whose small, animated head seems to express the very essence of speed and fire. He is the most beautiful Park horse in England; and behind follows a high-bred milk-white pony, ridden by a small, faultlessly-dressed groom, who sits the spirited and fretting creature as if he anticipated every movement before the fine hoof rose from the ground. He rides admirably, but his master is more of a study. A luxuriance of black curls escapes from the broad rim of a peculiar hat, and forms a relief to the small and sculpture-like profile of a face as perfect, by every rule of beauty, as the Greek Antinous. It would be too feminine but for the muscular neck and broad chest from which the head rises, and the indications of great personal strength in the Herculean shoulders. His loose coat would disguise the proportions of a less admirable figure; but, au reste, his dress is without fold or wrinkle and no figurante of the ballet ever showed finer or more skilfully developed limbs. He is one of the most daring in this country of bold riders; but modifies the stiff English school of equestrianism, with the ease and grace of that of his own country. His manner, though he is rather Anglomane, is in striking contrast to the grave and quiet air of his companions; and between his recognitions, right and left, to the passing promenaders, he laughs and amuses himself with the joyous and thoughtless gayety of a child. Acknowledged by all his acquaintances to possess splendid talents, this “observed of all observers” is a singular instance of a modern Sybarite—content to sacrifice time, opportunity, and the highest advantages of mind and body, to the pleasure of the moment. He seems exempt from all the usual penalties of such a career. Nothing seems to do its usual work on him—care, nor exhaustion, nor recklessness, nor the disapprobation of the heavy-handed opinion of the world. Always gay, always brilliant, ready to embark at any moment, or at any hazard, in anything that will amuse an hour, one wonders how and where such an unwonted meteor will disappear.
But here comes a carriage without hammercloth or liveries—one of those shabby-genteel conveyances, hired by the week, containing three or four persons in the highest spirits, all talking and gesticulating at once. As the carriage passes the “beau-knot,” (as ——, and his inseparable group are sometimes called) one or two of the dandies spur up, and resting their hands on the windows, offer the compliments of the day to the old lady within, with the most earnest looks of admiration. The gentlemen in her company become silent, and answer to the slight bows of the cavaliers with foreign monosyllables, and presently the coachman whips up once more, the horsemen drop off, and the excessive gayety of the party resumes its tone. You must have been struck, as the carriage passed, with the brilliant whiteness and regularity of the lady’s teeth, and still more with the remarkable play of her lips, which move as if the blood in them were imprisoned lightning. (The figure is strong, but nothing else conveys to my own mind what I am trying to describe.) Energy, grace, fire, rapidity, and a capability of utter abandonment to passion and expression, live visibly on those lips. Her eyes are magnificent. Her nose is regular, with nostrils rimmed round with an expansive nerve, that gives them constantly the kind of animation visible in the head of a fiery Arab. Her complexion is one of those which, dark and wanting in brilliance by day, light up at night with an alabaster fairness; and when the glossy black hair, which is now put away so plainly under her simple bonnet, falls over her shoulders in heavy masses, the contrast is radiant. The gentlemen in that carriage are Rubini, Lablache, and a gentleman who passes for the lady’s uncle; and the lady is Julia Grisi.
The smoke over the heart of the city begins to thicken into darkness, the gas lamps are shooting up, bright and star-like, along the Kensington road, and the last promenaders disappear. And now the world of London, the rich and gay portions of it at least, enjoy that which compensates them for the absence of the bright nights and skies of Italy—a climate within doors, of comfort and luxury, unknown under brighter heavens.
| [4] | Count D’Orsay. |