THE ARCH FIEND.
WHIT to do with the Marble Arch ? was the great question of 1850 ; and genius, roaming through the Woods and Forests, hit upon the expedient of sending it to Cumberland Gate, at Tyburn turnpike, to be an equipoise for the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner : but the question still is, What to do ? Unfortu- nately, it is so obvious where it stands ; not at all shaded in " the umbrageous shadow of the shade," as it would have been across the Mall in St. James's Park. It bestrides a strip between the two carriage-entrances into Hyde Park, and is very visible from the comparatively desolate approach of Great Cumberland Street ; but most passengers catch a sidelong view of it, and can enjoy the level expanse of its dead side-wall. The general audience sees it all behind the scenes. Now people who have the credit of the country at heart are much alarmed at the fact that the foreigners flocking to the Exposition will see this oddity : there will be the Exposition at Prince's Gate, the Exposure at Cumberland Gate. The public feels like a thoughtless girl who has irretractably put on a piece of unbecoming tasteless finery, and hears a well-known knock at the door announcing precisely the accomplished and critical stranger most dreaded. She blushes at the tawdry raiment, still more at what will be thought of her for having deliberately put on such a thing ; she tries to concoct some romance about her being obliged to do so, without being able to help ; but she knows that it was her own degraded taste, and dares not venture the lie to her own soul. Poor public is undergoing that crimson shame.
But it needs not fear. Many foreigners are not so rude as we English are ; and their courtesy is usually in proportion to their taste. The Englishman cannot hold in a horse laugh at "broken English " ; the musical Italian listens to the most comminuted Tuscan with the gravest benignity. We are convinced that they willnot laugh : they will preserve a grave face even when passing the Cumberland Arch ; they will politely keep their eyes upon the ground as they pass under the abdomen of the Wellington horse, with the cast-iron plume defying the breeze above.
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