sed to stand looking, open-mouthed,
at these men, with a feeling of mysterious curiosity, the very
recollection of which provokes a smile at the moment we are writing. We
could not believe that the beings of light and elegance, in milk-white
tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs, who flitted on sleek
cream-coloured horses before our eyes at night, with all the aid of
lights, music, and artificial flowers, could be the pale,
dissipated-looking creatures we beheld by day.

We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen
something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify
the walking gentleman with the 'dirty swell,' the comic singer with the
public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and
distress; but these other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of
the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the
exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed among them, who ever
knew a rider at Astley's, or saw him but on horseback? Can our friend in
the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the
comparatively un-wadded costume of every-day life? Impossible! We
cannot--we will not--believe it.

CHAPTER XII--GREENWICH FAIR

If the Parks be 'the lungs of London,' we wonder what Greenwich Fair
is--a periodical breaking out, we suppose, a sort of spring-rash: a three
days' fever, which cools the blood for six months afterwards, and at the
expiration of which London is restored to its old habits of plodding
industry, as suddenly and completely as if nothing had ever happened to
disturb them.

In our earlier days, we were a constant frequenter of Greenwich Fair, for
years. We have proceeded to, and returned from it, in almost every
description of vehicle. We cannot conscientiously deny the charge of
having once made the passage in a spring-van, accompanied by thirteen
gentlemen, fourteen ladies, an unlimited number of children, and a barrel
of beer; and we have a vague recollection of having, in later days, found
ourself the eighth outside, on the top of a hackney-coach, at something
past four o'clock in the morning, with a rather confused idea of our own
name, or place of residence. We have grown older since then, and quiet,
and steady: liking nothing better than to spend our Easter, and all our
other holidays, in some quiet nook, with people of whom we shall never
tire; but we think we still