HYDE PARK IN HIGH SEASON.
"Aix is not barren !"—London, at least, in the fair West, is an exception. Like bright Midsummer it has reached the culmi- nating point, and, graced and heightened in zest by the return of the Queen, blazes in meridian splendour, and nowhere with more fulness and glory than in the Parks and Gardens. It is refresh- ing to find one spot, one great gathering of mortals, apparently exempt from the common lot, and free from want, 'We, or -wailing. Still it is not the grandeur of the scene that dazzles and rejoices; in this wise it is not diatingue or overpowering. In costume or equipage there is nothing remarkably line or picturesque ; Eng- lish skies and tastes alike interdict ultra glitter and display : what most impresses are utilitarian indications—the vastness of the throng of the well-dressed, well-mounted, well-vehicled, and well-behaved, met for recreation, or, more available preliminary, an appetite for dinner. If no clouds threaten, and the band of the Royal Horse Guards (Blue attend, then the coup d'oeil is enhanced in richness, becomes • y gay and animated—but always de- corous—by the elite of the British isles, elegantly arrayed in car- riage or promenade attire. The -witching hour is about fivep. m., Tuesday and Friday ; when may be seen some thousands of Eve's daughters in dense files, or more widely scattered in groups on the verdant turf, under shady elms or weeping beech, listening to Meyerbeer, Rossini, or other musical divine, and realizing in some sort what poets have feigned, but man never fully experienced, of Elysian bliss. Rotten Row is the Patrician's Exchange, where the flowers and fruit of social exuberance most do congregate to transact and talk over the chief business of their lives, save politics and the odds, which are reserved for the clubs, Tattersall's, and the betting- rooms. All other notable matters en passant are entertained ; banquets and balls, the opera, morning concert, shows, exhibitions, panoramic view of Australia, New Zealand, the Nile, or South Africa, the Passage of the Alps, horticultural fetes fiery bazaars, Fortnum and Mason's, and whatever else enters into the staple engagements of high class existence.
Can all suffice to fill the aching void ? At least it has this gua- rantee of satisfaction and permanence, that, for the most part, it is simple and innocuous, and thus far excels preexisting appliances. Morning concerts, indeed, Wilberforce—who loved music notwith- standing--considered not more sanative than "morning drams " ; but a ride, drive, or pedestrian feat, is harmless, and may be salu- tary ; and the worship of works of art, with literary and scientific reunions, which enter largely into Corinthian pastimes, will bear any test or retrospection. In this respect, Victoria's age trans- cends her illustrious predecessor's, whose maids of honour dejeuned on "beefsteaks," and perhaps onions, washed down with dagger-ale, mad-dog, or huff-cap, and than hied to the tilt-yard to regale on the baiting of animals, or a noisy concert of bells, fifes, cornets, and kettle-drums. Into all these sports the " Vaiden Queen" heartily entered. " On this day," say the Sydney Papers, "she appoints a Frenchman to doe feats upon a rope in the conduit- court; tomorrow she has commanded the beans, the bull, and the apes, to be bayted in the tilt-yard; and on Wednesday she will have solemne-dawnoing." For a century or two longer this round of coarse delights continued with little improvement; but that "merrie England" under Elizabeth could not be a very pleasant or safe country to live in, is attested by the fact of the execution of four hundred ruffians per annum for the general security. But our own age is not perfect, and a vacuum exists in high life which man abhors, whether Nature, as Aristotle held, does or not. Horne Tooke remarked, in a period of hot war and polities, that young men of rank on leaving school or college were much at a loss for a rational pursuit. But the distress has become more general ; both with rich and poor there has been a curtail- ment of amusing resources ; and in every class spare moments may be found more frequently, we suspect, than the other alleged con- temporary affliction of spare capital. The noble scion was wont to finish off with the "grand tour" under an Adam Smith or other tutorial guidance ; Tooke himself was a bear-leader : but France, Rome, and Mont Blanc, are either blackballed or commonplace ; and the substitute of the Pyramids or the mummies of Memphis cannot yield long or solid nutriment to adolescent adventure.
What, then, is to be done in this dearth of recreatives far the opulent of the rising generation ? Idleness is the mother of mis- chief, and new resources must be opened. Ancient Greece, the prolific parent of useful examples, must again be resorted to. Her youth used to visit Egypt in search of learning, and the Romans in turn repaired to Greece for the same purpose ; but neither of these precedents now can be usefully followed. What challenge emu- lation are the noble schemes of enterprise and colonization in which the Greeks indulged, and of which the expedition of the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece is a memorable instance. In this line a hint may be taken, and a substitute found for the dull circuit of the Serpentine, or the hardly more enlivening winter in- terlude of hare-hunting and partridge-shooting. But even these cannot long be relied upon, if the doctors have truly reported that the Cockney Mediterranean is fast filling up with the slime of the sewers ; and game assuredly can never long coexist with wheat at forty shillings. Outside the " old countrie " there is ample verge for "younger sons" to gratify a love of superiority, enterprise, or sport ; limitless hunting-grounds, apt for rifle, spear, or fowling- piece, and well-stocked preserves that have never yet been poached uPon•
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