is early Victorian. Here to the mind's eye how easy it is to
conjure up ghosts of men in baggy trousers and long flowing
whiskers, of prim women in crinolines, in hats with long trailing
feathers and with ridiculous little parasols, or with Grecian-
bends and chignons--church-parading to and fro beneath the trees
or by the water's edge--perchance, even the fascinating Lady
Crinoline and the elegant Mr. Macassar Jones, whose history has
been written by Clerk Charley in the pages we are introducing to
the 'gentle reader'. As a poetaster of an earlier date has
written:--

Where Kensington high o'er the neighbouring lands
'Midst green and sweets, a royal fabric, stands,
And sees each spring, luxuriant in her bowers,
A snow of blossoms, and a wild of flowers,
The dames of Britain oft in crowds repair
To gravel walks, and unpolluted air.
Here, while the town in damps and darkness lies,
They breathe in sunshine, and see azure skies;
Each walk, with robes of various dyes bespread,
Seems from afar a moving tulip bed,
Where rich brocades and glossy damasks glow,
And chintz, the rival of the showery bow.

Indeed, the historian of social manners, when dealing with the
Victorian period, will perforce have recourse to the early
volumes of Punch and to the novels of Thackeray, Dickens, and
Trollope.

There are certain authors of whom personally we know little, but