there were at this time a number of women to whom it was applied. They received special attention from the Prince of Wales, and hostesses would move heaven and earth to have them at their receptions. Their portraits were exhibited in every shop. Crowds assembled before their door every morning to see them start for Rotten Row. Mrs. Langtry, the incomparably beautiful, Mrs. Wheeler, who always appeared in black, and Lady Lonsdale, after wards Lady de Grey, were all of them famous Professional Beauties. We may doubt whether the movement, symbolised by these ladies, was quite in accord with the dignity and elegance that always should mark the best society. Any effort to make Beauty compulsory robs Beauty of its chief charm. But, at the same time, we do believe that this movement, so far as it came of a real wish to raise a practical standard of feminine loveliness for all classes, does not deserve the strictures that have been passed upon it by posterity. One of its immediate consequences was the incursion of American ladies into London. Then it was that these pretty little creatures, "clad in Worth's most elegant confections" first drawled their way into the drawing-rooms of the great. Appearing, as they did, with the especial favour of the Prince of Wales, they had an immediate success. They were so wholly new that their voices and their dresses were mimicked partout. The English beauties were very angry, especially with the Prince, whom alone they blamed for the vogue of their rivals. History credits the Prince of Wales with many notable achievements. Not the least of these is that he discovered the inhabitants of America.
It will be seen that in this renascence the keenest students of the exquisite were women. Nor, however, were men wholly idle. Since the days of King George the noble art of self-adornment had been sadly neglected by them. Great fops, like
