In the days of Dandyism (an epoch so completely obsolete, that it might serve instead of ‘In the time of King Arthur,’ to date the commencement of a fairy tale !), it was an indispensable evidence of exclusivism, for even the most inveterate London-haunters, to absent themselves during the holidays. The faculties of the young gentlemen of wit and fashion about town were understood to be so exhausted by the exercise of their Parliamentary duties, as to require a week’s recess at Brighton. Official men wanted rest; the Court was either at the Windsor Cottage or the Pavilion; and when the sun and planets were no longer visible, stars of a lesser magnitude disdained to shine! Those who had villas, or friends with villas, departed south, west, north, and east,, to Herts, Kent, Surrey, or Berks; and those who had none, departed to their back drawing and dining rooms, closed their shutters, and were ‘out of town.’

‘Nous avons changé tout cela!’ Families or individuals with villas, still naturally absent from a metropolis sans theatres, sans balls, sans House, sans everything; and Hatfield, Pesinger, the Deepdene, Sion, Wrotham, and fifty other enchanted regions, are perhaps as gay as ever. Those who remain, however, whether from necessity or inclination, no longer amuse themselves with imaginary excursions; but are satisfied with being in London without pretending to be at Brighton or Salt Hill; appearing in Hyde Park on Easter Sunday as boldly as though it were Longchamps; and exhibiting themselves as fearlessly at Crockford’s or the Travellers,’ as if House were still sitting, and they were only counting the minutes to be in at the division. Half the idle pretences of false fashion are happily explored, and, although fully aware that this our diatribe will be read by one half our subscribers with green grass and budding branches before their eyes we are satisfied that the other half will experience neither regret nor shame in passing Easter week (where every week passes quickest and most agreeably between November and May,) in the mighty Babylon, whose very dullest day presents varying round of social enjoyments.

From: The Court Journal or Gazette of the Fashionable World. April 6, 1822. No. 206.