Twice in the course of the last week--for an essayist on astronomical matters ought to be conscientious--twice did the sun appear for a few minutes. It was late in the afternoon, and it looked out from the west, just above Regent's-park, where the largest menagerie in the world may be seen for one shilling, and, on Mondays, for sixpence. All the animals, from the hippopotamus down to the beaver, left their huts, where they were at vespers, and stared at the sun, and wished it good morning. It was a solemn moment! An impertinent monkey alone shaded his eyes with his hands, and asked the sun where it came from, and whether there was not some mistake somewhere? And the sun blushed and hid its face beneath a big cloud. The monkey laughed and jeered, and the tigers roared, and the turtle-doves said such conduct was shocking and altogether ungentlemanly. The owl alone was happy, and said it was; for it had been almost blind during the last five minutes; "and that," as he said, "was a thing it had not been used to in London."
But whatever ill-natured remarks we and others may make on the London sun, they apply only to the winter months. May and September shame us into silence. In those months, the sun in London is as lovely, genial, and--I must go the length of a trope--_sunny_ as anywhere in Germany; with this difference only, that it is not so glowing--not so consistent. In the country, too, it comes out in full, broad, and traditional glory. Its favourite spots are in the South of England--Bristol, Bath, Hastings, and the Isle of Wight. In those favored regions, the mild breeze of summer blows even late in the year; the hedges and trees stand resplendent with the freshness of their foliage; the meadows are green, and lovely to behold; the butterflies hover over the blossoms of the honeysuckle; the cedar from Lebanon grows there and thrives, and myrtles and fuchsias, Hortensias and roses, and passion-flowers, surround the charming villas on the sea-shore. Village churches are covered with ivy up to the very roof; gigantic fern moves in the sea-breeze; the birds sing in the branches of the wild laurel tree; cattle and sheep graze on the downs; and grown-up persons and children bathe in the open sea, while the German rivers are sending down their first shoals of ice, and dense fogs welter in the streets of London.