and hoards-and of the perambulating newspapers.-Blessed at such a moment is the Londoner beyond the Parisian, the Viennese, the Berliner, or the lounger of Milan (did the Milanese ever lounge in the streets.) Supposing Kensington Gardens with their domes and pyramids of chestnut bloom, too much of an Ultima Thule for one sick of the Strand, and worn out with the pavement of Regent Street, and all its foreigners, "with diamond breastpins on dirty shirts," the April aspect of St. James's Park, is a thing to pay rent and taxes for.-Delicious green grass-almond trees "rosed" (as Tennyson has it) with a flush of tender bloom -the old elms lightly veiled with new leaves-the young shrubs budding out at every bough; with masses of rich and various architecture" coming in at every corner, just as if Marshall had marshalled them, or Grieve rejoiced in a happy inspiration by way of "flat"—are these things to be overlooked among the pleasures of "the London Season because they cost nothing,-because they must be shared with two hundred nursery maids, and two Life Guardsmen ?—If you are too busy to enjoy the gentle influences and refreshment they minister-I am sorry for you, Brother Operative! If you are too fine, or too travelled to think them worth enjoying, leave Nature in London to better spirits-pass on, and satiate yourself with its culinary art. There is the Clarendon for you to dine at-or M. Soyer's unambitious table in the Reform Palace-or that new and ambiguous establishment at the corner of Jermyn Street-where you will find the smell of-not the song of the Turtle; I mean the Royal Symposium!

To me, who am alike by nature and necessity a perverse Londoner, a lover of "The Season, a haunter of all places where men (and women) consort, something of a kindred relief is occasionally administered by the Picture Shows ;-by Christie, with its Hobbimas and Ruysdaels, and Karel du Jardins-and Dutch towns by Vander Heyden, looking so cozily asleep in the pellucid sun-shine,-or by the more set and formal exhibitions of modern Art. And no disrespect to the Goodalls and Inskips of Pall Mall-nor to the Huddlestones and Foggos of Suffolk Street, Pall Mall East-our landscape painters have the best of it. Lee and Allen shall lead you through quiet fields, and among woody lanes, and in and out of the Coombs of Devonshire, till you totally forget that there is such a property as a gas light," or such an Arcadian as a Policeman within a a stone's throw,-Creswick shall charm you by the gloom and the loneliness of his rock-scenery, till you almost expect Echo to

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reply to you "How beautiful!"-Linnell shall show you his own picturesque assortments of cloud and moorland, and huge forestgiants felled by the wood-cutter. But I beg to protest against Linnell's "brown tree" in spite of Sir George Beaumont's recorded predilection as a device more tricky than truthful. In this matter, however, I am open to conviction by either Michael Angelo Titmarsh or Felix Summerly, or the "Sketcher" who used to write landscapes so beautifully for Blackwood.

Let me mention while we are upon the subject, one threatening sign in our April exhibitions, small, but most significant; one which Her Majesty, anxious to protect her good subjects against revolutionary ideas, should look to :-namely, the undue excellence of female talent. What will the women do next? I beg to enquire of Mrs. Somerville-of Miss Hays-of the profoundlylearned and delicately womanly Authoress of "Azeth "—of Miss Laura Barker, whose duetts and glees beat those of our Balfes and Barnetts and Bishops hollow!-Step with me into the rooms of the New Water Colour Society, if we are agreed in fearing such matter for mischief. Doubtless you expected nothing worse than the portraiture of a bunch of grapes (with the bloom on 'em) by the side of a carved ivory cup, deliciously yellowed by Time the arch-Connoisseur. Doubtless you conceived that the utmost stretch reached by female audacity (albeit dear evergreen Lady Morgan has memorialised The Pope, about "a remainder" of her old "Italy")—— would be an encounter of York and Lancaster Roses, or a standard of tricolor pelargoniums.-All these deeds, Mrs. Margetts has done-but, if you fancied that this was all "the sex" could and should dare, you have reckoned without your host, it is clear :as Miss Setchell and Miss Egerton will presently convince you. Holding to the Salique law, as you do, profound will be your discouragement at the sight of the former lady's "Silken gown" (I love to be precise-numbered 54, in the Catalogue.) Perhaps the maiden whose temptation was so prettily told in the Scotch ballad, looks here a trifle too forlorn, in her resolution to prefer a whole heart and "Donald" to fine clothes, and "siller to spare."-I am myself, rather plagued with misgivings, that, after all is said and sung, she will do what other women have done-yield; and shortly figure in the Times and Daily News, as Mrs. Robin Gray!-But this is the ballad-monger's fault-the fault, too, of the old air, which is one of the melancholy tunes. Both have conspired to make the transaction intolerably sentimental, instead of hopeful—cheerful—

natural. And Miss Setchell has painted up to the ditty, rather than to Woman's noble heart and honest love. But, the traditional reading granted, how true is the expression of her drawing!-how simple, but clever its arrangement-how masterly its colour! Even Messrs. Haghe and Wehnert,-who seem resolved to prove that water is richer than oil,-have nothing to teach this lady.— And I love her all the better," as the song says, because her painting has never a touch of the Sand, or the Bettina, or the what's-her-name American Preacheress, in it—but is purely womanly, and strong in its purity and its womanhood.

But the Woman rises into the Lady in a little oval picture by Miss Egerton-numbered 276-and christened "Madonna Laura." This is no "Lady," in the acceptation of My Lady's Abigail— as little one of those complimented by the American divine whom Miss Martineau sat under, when he asked, “Who were last at the Cross? Ladies. Who were first at the Sepulchre? Ladies."But here is a Lady, such as Petrarch sung; such as, in his time, Palma Vecchio painted; graceful: refined: nobly-bred; unconscious,―neither a strong-minded woman-nor a wit—nor a woman over and above skilled in tongues, known or unknown,—but a sweet, serene, gentle donna, swift to attach love; sure to secure respect a Lady whose colours Honour were honoured to wear; in whose smile Faith might put faith;-A Lady such as Browning has shown us, in his exquisite Duchess Colombe, (I hope, gracious reader you have heard of her "Birthday,") shaming all the tawdry compositions of Court millinery and Opera simplicity,—all the "Adelaides of taste," and the Clementinas of May Fair.

If the Paintress of this picture, be not herself, a Lady, too,-Art is a lie; and Poetry another; and Experience a third." Madonna Laura" should find a place in a Royal Cabinet.-Perhaps she will.

But, like King George of civil memory, "belike" you may enjoy neither Boetry nor Bainting:" but prefer taking a round of the play-houses.-This every one discourages you from doing. Those who don't like going to plays themselves, are human and benevolent and accordingly resolve that you shall take no pleasure in the old Englishman's delight.-And it may be true that we have fallen on a bad year.-For, as to the theatres: what can be odder than the "pasture of affairs as Will Jenkins hath it-within their wooden O-s? Peep into the "Legitimates

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first. Drama is dead, cry the Curdles who are perpetually talking of "palmy days" and old plays and actors of an impossible excellence. And so (mark the sequence!) we have had Beaumont and Fletcher in Portman Market: "The Scornful Lady" looked to the life by beautiful Mrs. Warner; and her Abigail (no better Abigail could have held the train of Abington or Farren) "done to a turn," as epicures say, by capital, quaint Miss Saunders: and since "The Scornful Lady, we have had "The Double Marriage," that grand impassioned Tragedy, somewhat over-strained, but worth a dozen of the "Mourning Brides" and "Fatal Marriages" and "Venice Preserveds" in which Siddons thrilled the Town, when Tragedy "was."-And, so, (the Drama being still dead) Mr. Phelps has been playing Shakespeare play after Shakespeare play at "the Wells "-and showing the world how glorious and charming they are, as compared with the "Evadnes," and such flimsy and turgid productions as made the ladies "cry quarts," during the O'Neill epidemic, when Tragedy still “ was. "And so in a third place (The Drama being particularly dead) has Mr. Macready been going his favourite round, auspice Mr. Maddox'supported" as the phrase is by Mrs. Butler-a phrase more fitting than metaphorical-since to the whole of "Lear," as digested by him, were parcelled out the fewest possible lines of Cordelia which could be allotted to her. Doubtless there were some inscrutable reasons for this, which simple lovers of Shakespeare are not expected to understand: but seeing how impassioned was her Desdemona, how royal her Queen Katharine, we humbly submit that the Lady might have been trusted with the entire part—and not a few scraps and shreds thereof!-Further, to authenticate the Drama's utter death, have we not had the triumph of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kean in clever Mr. Lovell's clever Play The Wife's Secret?"-to say nothing of the apparition. in the old haunt of Elliston and Vestris, of Master Gustavus Brooke-figuring like Macheath betwixt a pair of "mournful maids,' not "merry wives,"-to wit, Miss Glyn and Miss Duret, -a Brooke, willing, it has seemed, to flow two ways at once, -a proceeding as unheard of in theatrical history as the pair of banks taking the same side of the Thames, so energetically admonished by Mr. Puff. And, lastly, (by this time it may be presumed that we have reached the Drama's burial,) can we overlook the invasion recently made on Britain's shores, by a bevy of

brave American ladies ?-Mrs. Barrett the jocund, and Mrs. Mowatt the literary and interesting,-and Miss Cushman, the great actress, whose Romeo has plagued more people than enough: because it was so good and owed no traditions to any body. As for talking of Lady Boothby, and Mrs. Keeley, and Madame Vestris the perennial-and Mrs. Sterling, whose Anne Bracegirdle, in Mr. Oxenford's "" Tragedy Queen," beat the French heroine of the original "Tiridate" hollow,-were I once to begin, I should never end. Wherefore, I say to the playgoer, as well as to those who believe in Mr. Satan Montgomery- "Clear your mind of cant," and when you hear that the Drama is dead, take a Hansom or an Omnibus, and enquire for yourselves. You won't find "the aristocracy," perhaps, at "the play," as of old; you will find some Mr. Chronicle in the next box, who shall grumble to you for any given time, over the past dynasties of actors and actresses. But look on the stage, and watch the humours of the pit, and I will bet you a crown, to be spent in any treat you like, from the Opera down to Madame Wharton's show, that you will change your mind, be the cry ever so noisy.

Then, ere we approach those magnificent haunts of Illegitimacy, our three Opera Houses; ere we deal with such Dalilahs as Mdlle. Lind-or such a Herodias as Cerito-to say nothing of Cleopatra Grisi, or Cressida Alboni-the talker-over of the "London Season and its entertainments, must not forget one very choice pleasure-the Shakspearian Readings of Mrs. Butler. If, not contented with talking-over plays, he have ever himself tried to read a Play aloud-to make one voice supply foot-lights and set-scenes, and exits and entrances, and the stolidity of Dogberry, and the concentrated Jewish hate of Shylock-and the wit of Beatrice-and the melancholy sarcasm of Jaques-and have felt, how the keenest intelligence and most immediate sympathy were all insufficient to provide against fatigue and to supply the defects of limited power-to meet the difficulty of getting over level ground, and the necessity for instant and subtle change of mood-the poetry, the art, the dramatic intelligence of "the Daughter of the Kembles" will come over him with "a special wonder," as something rare and delicate-claiming honour and recognition even when their manifestation parts company with every thoughtful man's own most peculiar and fastidious fancy. But since every one agrees that the Drama is dead-there has been enough, and too much perhaps, said on the subject.