Category:The Last Bit of Scandal

English: Contemporary reviews: "In a quiet aristocratic quarter of the town the porters have set down their respective sedan-chairs, to allow the occupants time to exchange their bits of gossip gathered here and there in their morning calls. There is nothing very exciting apparently in what they have to tell, and the yawn of one of the porters will be found, perhaps, contagious by the spectator... Everything in the picture is carefully studied; no doubt we have before us an actual bit of old London..." "In these days of rapid modes of locomotion, of 'hackney' cabs and steam, the old-world scene which the painter has here presented is a deep dip into the sands of time. An elderly 'buck' and a fashionable beauty of the Georgean era have met, whilst taking the air in the now obsolete sedan-chair. The sturdy bearers have put their burdens down in one of those fashionable streets which even at this day give to the neighbourhood of St. James's an air of respectable and courtly antiquity." "An old beau and a young belle, both gorgeously attired, confabulating at the corner of a street. The tops of their sedan-chairs are being held for them by their attendants, one of whom is wearily yawning. The beau is relating the last bit of spiteful gossip, and the young lady is complacently listening. Very comical is the intent stare of which the little black servant carrying the pug-dog fixes on the beau."