DEATH OF THE SEASON. — Had the Gods made us poetical, we
should now write an elegy upon the departed season. Thomson sung the Seasons ; but we speak of " the season of the seasons," as the almanack-venders have it. What a solitude is the town ? Hyde Park is a desert, Kensington Gardens a wilderness. Tho echoes of a solitary horseman startle the ear of the melancholy street-pacer. He looks up at the palace-like residences, and closed shutters meet his eye • or a lingering old porter—" the last man "—sits in his coffin-chair in the open vacant hall. The neighbourhood of Belgrave Square seems " one vast city of the dead " : its stuccoed edifices nothing better than " whited sepul- chres." Every square is a blank. The Club-houses, half-lighted at night, show as great Chinese lanterns expiring. The disconsolate newsman raises in hopelessness his feeble cry of " News ! " that travels round the world for very vacancy. The last Levee has been held. The Parliament is up. The Speaker is no more. The Chancellor's Court, the most popular lounge of the day, is closed. The Opera is become matter for history. PAGANINI has waved his farewell bow : the last flight of his staccato notes yet ring in our ears, and the wailing of his har- monics sounds like the dirge of the musical world. Tearsorsr is fled : like Hope's, " her feet are last in heaven," but their twinkling steps have vanished " as the far-shooting star." Sights and shows are not. Every exhibition-room has closed its doors, • save where, in Pall Mall, the Old Painters have mustered their works, as in scorn of the moderns, who are scattered all over the country, gleaning the bright field of nature. All the splendid patrician " homes of England " are alive with gayety. Melton gives the note of preparation. The moors are familiar with the sounds of double-barrelled Manton (duly pro- vided, we hope, with our excellent friend Sommtvimm's most philanthropical Safety-locks).
They have been getting up fetes at the Surry Zoological Gardens, and at Vauxhall, and encampments at Windsor.
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