We begin our perambulation, as proposed, on the side next the metropolis. We should rather say, next Piccadilly, for the metropolis, alas! and Kensington, are now joined ; though from Knightsbridge to the palace, the houses still occupy only one side of the way.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE.

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It is a very pleasant way, especially if you come through the Park. When we quit Piccadilly for Hyde Park Corner, we, for our parts, always fancy, that the air, somehow, feels not only fresher, but whiter, and this feeling increases as we find the turf under our feet, and the fresh air in one's face. The road-way through Knightsbridge, with its rows of houses on one side, and its barracks on the other, is not so agreeable; though by way of compensation, you have the chance of having your eyes refreshed with a dignified serjeant of dragoons, too fat for his sash, and a tall private, walking with a little woman.

The long, and again unoccupied side of the road, in the Park, reaching from the Knightsbridge Barracks to within a short distance of the Gardens, lately presented to the eyes of the world a spectacle singularly

illustrative of the advanced character of the age, and such, we believe, as no attempts to bring back a worse spirit in Europe will deprive of its good effects, however threatening those attempts may appear.

We

need not say that we allude to the Great Exhibition. We do not say "Crystal Palace," for it was a pity, though it was natural enough on its first rising with that fairy suddenness, that the building was so called; since it was neither crystal nor a palace. It was a bazaar, admirably constructed for its purpose, and justly surprising those who beheld its interior. When we thought it was to be destroyed, without renovation elsewhere, we felt amazed at the selfishness of such of its rich neighbours as could insist on the performance of a promise to that effect notwithstanding the wishes of millions, restricted in their enjoyments. But as soon

CRYSTAL PALACE.

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as it was determined that the structure should re-appear in another quarter, and this too with those improvements in point of size and treatment which the designer himself had longed for power to effect, we felt as glad to have the old trees and turf back again, undisturbed, as the most sequestered of the suburban aristocracies. We rejoiced in a result, upon which, in fact, all parties were to be congratulated; and we began to own that there certainly had been a dust and kick-up about the once quiet approach to Kensington, a turmoil of crowds, and omnibuses, and cabs, of hot faces and loud voices, of stalls, dogs, penny trumpets, policemen, and extempore public-houses, which, for the sake of the many themselves, one could hardly have wished to see continued, lest they also should ultimately have missed their portion in the tranquil pleasures

of the few. A winter-garden, to be sure, would have been a good thing, and conservatories and other elegancies, all the year round, would have been still better; but all these we are promised in the new premises at Sydenham; and though the near neighbourhood of London was an advantage in some respects, it was not such in others. Multitudes became somewhat too multitudinous. European brotherhood itself, now and then, felt its toes trodden upon a little too sharply. The most generous emulations, if they want elbow-room, are in danger of relapsing into antagonisms. A juvenile wit, in the shape of a pot-boy, who appears to have possessed a profound natural insight into this tendency of the meeting of extremes, cried out one day to a couple of foreigners who were showing symptoms of a set-to, "Go it, all nations."