uld well survive side by side with any amount of humour. It is
interesting to try and imagine what Phil May would have made of the
scene. It was intended for a poignant one, but it becomes chiefly a very
attractive one in du Maurier's hands, the pathos lying with the wording
rather than the picture.

The drawing affords us many characteristics of his work. The lady in
white reclining in the vehicle is a very embodiment of elegance, and the
discerning drawing that defines the coachman repays observation, as also
the "style" with which the white horse is swiftly shaded in. It was once
the custom for the carriages of people in fashion to draw up under the
trees in Berkeley Square, in summer, for tea brought out from Gunter's.
Last summer one of the evening papers asked the question why the custom
had lapsed. Du Maurier's drawing of the scene was accompanied by the
following lines, which perhaps provide the answer.

BERKELEY SQUARE, 5 P.M.

The weather is warm as I walk in the Square,
And observe her barouche standing tranquilly there,
It is under the trees, it is out of the sun,
In the corner where Gunter retails a plain bun.

How solemn she looks, I have seen a mute merrier--
Plumes a sky-blue, and her pet a sky-terrier--
The scene is majestic, and peaceful, and shady,
Miss Humble sits facing: I pity that lady.

Her footman goes once, and her footman goes twice,
Ay, and each time returning he brings her an ice.
The patient Miss Humble receives, when he comes,
A diminutive bun; let us hope it has plums!

Now is not this vile. When I tickle my chops,
Which I frequently do, I subside into shops:
We do not object to this solemn employment,
But why _afficher_ such material enjoyment?

Some beggars stand by--I extremely regret it--
They wish for a taste. Don't they wish they may get it?
She thus aggravates both the humble and needy,
You'll own she is thoughtless, perhaps she is greedy.

The pictures "Queen Prima Donna" and "Proxy" are two early nursery
scenes of the many du Maurier contributed to _Punch_. They show the
style, the flowing and painter-like stroke of the pen that revealed such
a Rossetti-like sense of material beauty in his earlier drawings--a
style worthy of the refinement of the subject in "Proxy," the charm in
it of sentiment that humour strengthens rather than displaces. The
drawing expresses childhood, in circumsta