country charms and illusions. As you gazed from an eminence, no rows of monotonous houses reminded you of the vicinity of a large city, and the atmosphere of Hyde Park was then much more like what God has made it, than the hazy, gray, coal-darkened half twilight of the London of to-day. The company, which then congregated daily about five, was composed of dandies and women in the best society, the men mounted on such horses as England alone then could produce. The dandy’s dress consisted of a blue coat with brass buttons, leather breeches, and top boots; and it was the fashion to wear a deep, stiff, white cravat, which prevented you from seeing your boots while standing. All the world watched Brummell to imitate him, and order their clothes of the tradesman who dressed that sublime dandy. One day, a youthful beau approached Brummell, and said, ‘Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?’ ‘Ah!’ replied Brummell, gazing complacently at his boots, ‘my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence; it is made with the finest champagne!’
“Many of the ladies used to drive into the Park in a carriage called a vis-à-vis, which held only two people. The hammer-cloth, rich in heraldic designs, the powdered footmen in smart liveries, and a coachman who assumed all the gravity and appearance of a wigged archbishop, were indispensable. The equipages were, generally, much more gorgeous than at a later period, when democracy invaded the parks, and introduced what may be termed a ‘Brummagem society,’ with shabby-genteel carriages and servants. The carriage company consisted of the most celebrated beauties, amongst whom were remarked the Duchesses of Rutland, Argyle, Gordon, and Bedford, Ladies Cowper, Foley, Heathcote, Louisa Lambton, Hertford and Mountjoy. The most conspicuous horsemen were the Prince Regent (accompanied by Sir Benjamin Bloomfield); the Duke of York, and his old friend Warwick Lake; the Duke of Dorset, on his white horse; the Marquis of Anglesea and his lovely daughters; Lord Harrowby and the Ladies Ryder; the Earl of Sefton and the Ladies Molyneux; and the eccentric Earl of Morton on his long-tailed grey. In those days, ‘pretty horsebreakers’ would not have dared to show themselves in Hyde Park; nor did you see any of the lower, or middle classes of London intruding themselves in regions which, with a sort of tacit understanding, were then given up, exclusively, to persons of rank and fashion.”
But there was one constant visitor well within the memory of man, belonging both to 1814 and the Park, which he used almost daily until his death. I mean the first Duke of Wellington, with whose sharply-defined features, blue frock coat, and white trousers, every Londoner was familiar.
The Queen, too, until the great grief of her life fell upon her, was a pretty constant visitor to the Park—in her younger days on horseback; and who has not seen the Princess of Wales and her children there? Although, as Captain Gronow justly observes, the frequenters of the Park are not so aristocratic as they used to be, and society generally is much more mixed.
