n
Oxford, and will testify to the authenticity of the fact
here related. His present majesty never passed through
Oxford without presenting Mother Goose with a donation, but
of course without knowing her early history.

~163~~

Having, as Echo expressed it, now broke cover, and being advanced one
step in the study of the fathers, we prepared to quit the Abingdon fair
and rural shades of Bagley on our return to Oxford, something lighter in
pocket, and a little too in morality. We raced the whole of the distance
home, to the great peril of several groups of town raff whom we passed
in our way. On our arrival my friends had each certain lectures to
attend, or college duties to perform. An idle Freshman, there was
yet three hours good before the invitation to the spread, and as kind
fortune willed it to amuse the time, a packet arrived from Horatio
Heartley. He had been spending the winter in town with his aunt, Lady
Mary Oldstyle, and had, with his usual tact, been sketching the varied
groups which form the circle of fashionable life. It was part of the
agreement between us, when leaving each other at Eton, that we should
thus communicate the characteristic traits of the society we were about
to amalgamate with. He has, in the phraseology of the day, just come
out, and certainly appears to have made the best use of his time.

KENSINGTON GARDENS--SUNDAY EVENING.

Singularities of 1824.

[Illustration: page164]

~164~~

WESTERN ENTRANCE INTO THE METROPOLIS;

A DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH.

General Views of the Author relative to Subject and Style--
Time and Place--Perspective Glimpse of the great City--The
Approach--Cockney Salutations--The Toll House--Western
Entrance to Cockney Land--Hyde Park--Sunday Noon--
Sketches of Character, Costume, and Scenery--The Ride and
Drive--Kensington Gardens--Belles and Beaux--Stars and
Fallen Stars--Singularities of 1824--Tales of Ton--On Dits
and Anecdotes--Sunday Evening--High Life and Low Life, the
Contrast--Cockney Goths--Notes, Biographical, Amorous, and
Exquisite.

[Illustration: page165]

Its wealth and fashion, wit and folly,
Pleasures, whims, and melancholy:
Of all the charming belles and beaux
Who line the parks, in double rows;
Of princes, peers, their equipage,
The splendour of the present age;
Of west-end fops, and crusty