its desire, All-London buttons up its great-coat and waits timidly but eagerly for the first Horticultural. But the London season is an outrage upon, and an insult to nature, and nature takes her change out of the first Horticultural; it is a pouring wet day, Chiswick becomes Keswick, and the Duke of Devonshire’s grounds, yielding to hydraulic pressure, cease to be dry grounds any longer. Dr. Lindley... we have not the pleasure of that gentleman’s personal acquaintance, but we can imagine Dr. Lindley feels disappointed and... expresses it. Then All-London exchanges its greatcoat for a paletot, and looks forward with a timid anxiety to the second Horticultural, which being in June enjoys the advantage of April weather, and is only showery, so the boldest quarter of London goes, from the Herbert Fitz-tip-tops, careless of the bronchial tubes of their serving-men and carriage-horses, down to the Robinson Joneses, safe in the immunity of a hack brougham, driver, and horse--a long-suffering trio, so accustomed to wait in the rain, that use has become a second nature to these amphibious hirelings. Our enterprising pleasure-seekers come back ere dewy eve, and say that, considering the fact that flowers won’t blow out of doors in cold weather, and that the gravel was a swamp, and the turf a morass, the tents very hot, and the east wind very cold, and that there was nobody there except a few dreadful people, who really ought not to be anywhere--(Mrs. Robinson Jones was actually pushed up against Mr. Cutlet and his rib, her own butcher, who makes a clear £2000 a-year, while genteel Robinson Jones scarcely averages £1500 at the Bar; but what does that signify?)--and that the female Quarter-of-London had got the ridiculous soles of its little French shoes wet through in five minutes, and had felt a tightness at its chest ever since; allowing for these and several other slight drawbacks, it really was not such a complete failure after all! But even English weather has its bright side; and, content with taking the shine out of the first two, on the third Horticultural _fête_ the sun seems resolved to come out strong, and, setting parasols at defiance, imprint his burning kisses on the pale features of all the pretty women in town, like an ardent old luminary as he is. And All-London, finding that it really is a beautiful day, puts on its best bib and tucker, and takes its wife and daughters to Chiswick. Where the roads are watered they are very muddy, where they are not watered they are dusty; and as the dust sticks to the carriages, and the dust sticks to the mud, and the horses get first very hot going there, then very cold waiting there, and the pole of every other carriage invariably runs through the back panel of the vehicle immediately preceding it, coachmen are not, as a general rule, fond of the third Horticultural; but nothing _can_ please everybody, and these Flower-shows “please the ladies” (to quote Mr. Crane’s favourite