New-York tribune., 1883-06-17
NOTES FROM LONDON.
, pEcEPTION-A MEET IN THE HYDE PARK
PERSONALITIES.


,rRox TIE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBuSB.l
LONDON. June 2.
Ths official reception at the Foreign Office
an the evening of the Queens Birthday has
,orc been considered the most beautiful of
the large parties given IN London When
&he building was erected, suite OF rooms was
designed for the purposes of such festival as
this. There are fine approaches through Downing
At and beneath the archway and through the great
court. The entrance hall is spacious; the grand
ea,rcase one of the grandest in Europe, and always
decorated with masses of flowers. The galleries
surrounding it give perfect view of the ascending
and descending professions of guests. In the sue
cession of gayly painted and gilded saloons which
,nelose the four sides of the quadrangle, there is
room for 1000 persons or, perhaps. with much
crovding, 5000. Royalties are always present;
Generally good many of them. Republican notions
Of eouallty may suffer violence by the social homage
na,a To princes, hut 1t must be conceded that the
state which surrounds them, adds much to the
srIendor of a great entertainment. On Saturday
~. Prince of Wales had been dining with the
prme Minister In Downing-st.. just opposite. The
Princess picked him up about IL, and the two
arrived together Their approach is announced,
Lord and Lady Granville. who have been welcoming
ordinary guests on the first landing of the staircase
descend to the lowest step to receive the Prince
and Princess The band plays God Save the
oneenn The guests clustering in the hall, on the
staircase in the galleries above. and in the draw
;np.rooms range themselves in long avenue
through which the Royalties pass. The men bow
low: the women courtesy salutations which
Prince and Prncesses alike return with general
distribution Of smiles and incnations of the head.
The Prince is in full uniform-Field MarshaPs uni
FORM as guess with the Garter over his shoulder.
Tie Princess is all silk and lace and diamonds. OF
the guests, the men who have been at any OF the
numerous official dinners given the same evening,
are in uniform of some kind or in levee dress The
women are gorgeous: diamonds enough to ransom
half dozen kings cleaning on the stately pillars
of fair white throats and white necks and should
era Lady Granville wears tiara which am told
is most wonderful product of Brazilian mines and
the jewellers cunning. There arc, to say the least,
some hundreds of women in these rooms whose
Jewels arc each in their kind costly and splendid.
II you have heard that English women dress badly
you may well wonder who all these dlvlnely-
clothed creatures are. will not swear that their
dressmakers English. but the wearers OF the
gowns are in the proportion of nineteen out OF
twenty, as You may SEQ by their pure skins ana
shspsy figures not less plainly than by the English
stamp on their features. dare say the good Ameri-
$4,000
It ia mixed assemblage, no doubt. Political rea-
sons have something to do with the making UP of
Lady Granyille's list, and many reasons beside
those of purely social kind. heard one English
man, presumably himself composed of the most
superfne porcelain, declare audibly in the middle
of large room that he never before saw such
"beastly crowd" If il contained many men as
vulgar as the author of that speech. it certainly
deserved the epithet. This specimen of ilbreeding
the part of chance guest might better be
passed over in silence, but 1t expresses in
way the secret. unuttered scorn of the more select
and elegant society of London for these great
crushes. The more select and elegant are none
the less here in force, aud the best of them may
take note of the perfect goodbreeding and thought
full courtesy with which their host and hostess re-
ceive their guests of every degree. No use in Civ
ing you names-the better known of them fill two
columns of small print in the accredited organ of
The fashionable " world. 1t is long past of Sunday
morning before the last of them have got their
riages and driven away.
This is summer Of prodges. The Derby Day
was the greatest Derby knowu in respect Of the
humanity present If not Of horsehesb. The Foreign
Office reception was never before numerously OF
brilliantly attended And on Wednesday
came the meet of the Four-n-Hand Club in Hyde
Park, which the oldest stager declares drew a
greater crowd than any previous meet. The whole
world is in London, cried an enthusiastic Cockney.
On the other hand heard weli-known parsonage
remark only yesterday that London, between the
Derby and Ascot Is intoleIable. The true LOndoner
is eb0wed out of the way by his provincial and
continental brother; with some help from his kin
beyond the Atlantic sea- The weather has some
thing to do with it this year. Never has London
been seen to better advantage. Hyde Park on
Wednesday was IN perfection. The sun has shone
increasingly for fortnight, aud the umbrella
makers are all gong bankrupt. Even the Tories
admit that Mr. GladstODe's malcvolent influence
has not touched the foliage Of the trees OF the turf
or hndcred the rhododendrons from coming into
blossom. The Serpenilne is as blue as an ltaIIan
lake, and for the multitude who gathered at the
Magazine on Wednesday. the coloring of the whole
strelcH of park was thrown up by background of
bronze cloud IN the east and south, where the
smokeof the great factories down the river hung in
the sky From Hyde Park corner to the Magazine
q triple or quadruple row of carriages was drawn
mp: and what space they left was filed by cavaliers,
men and women, whom the police had marshaled
into regiments facing each other firmly from the
opposite sides of the drive Scores of thousands Of
pedestrians filed the walks and spread over the
fields. Whersthe roads part, just below the Maya
zine and above the water the twenty eight four-in-
hands were strung out in lines four deep, waiting
for the start. The Prince Of Wales was on the box
of Lord Castlcresghs coach, his two boys following
with Lord Charles BeTesf0rd. he Princess OF Wales
gazcd on the show from her victoria. When the
coaches had driven of and the crowd broke up, the
avenues of the park from the bridge to the corner
were one stream of we-dressed men and women.
Either avenue of Rotten Row was good as inn
paSsable and all this in heat and white blaze OF
light which, for London, might be called oppressive,
were 1t not tempered by breeze which fails not to
blow freshly from the northwest
There happened the other night division in the
House of Commons wherein, for once, the Conserva-
tive guerilas abandoned their Irish allies. and the
latter went into the lobby almost alone. In each
lnhhu snof whence IL ia nnsehle tn nhserxe hat