"Some drawings which I left with A. in London have been shown, accompanied by a letter from Du Maurier, to a man on London Society. Must wait a bit and go on working—especially studying horses, A. said."
From this parcel of Caldecott's drawings the present writer, being the "man" referred to, selected a few to be engraved; the sketch of the Rt. Hon. Robert Lowe on horseback in Hyde Park, on page [17], "Ye monthe of Aprile" and "Education under Difficulties" being amongst the first published.
Ye monthe of Aprile.
Sketch in Hyde Park—"Rotten Row."
It was suggested to him early in 1870 that he should come to London for a short time and make sketches in Hyde Park, and it touched Caldecott's fancy, (as he often mentioned afterwards,) that he whose experiences were far removed from such scenes should have been chosen as a chronicler of "Society." The sketches were made always from his own point of view, and some were so grotesque, and hit so hard at the aristocracy, that they were found inappropriate to a fashionable magazine!—one especially of Hyde Park in the afternoon, called "Sons of Toil," had to be declined by the Editor with real regret.