As the
occasional abode of the Royal Family, its name has figured in the Court
records of the last half century. Of late years, however, Brighton has
assumed an extent and importance which may be referred to a spirit of
speculative enterprise unparalleled in the fortunes of any other town in
the United Kingdom. Not only has a palace, but squares of palatial
mansions, terraces, crescents, and streets, nay, very towns of splendid
houses, have sprung up with fairy-like rapidity; and Brighton has thus
become, not merely a fashionable resort for the season, but a place of
permanent residence for a very large proportion of wealthy individuals.
Our present purpose is, however, to illustrate the past obscurity and not
the present high palmy state of Brighton. Our own recollections would
carry us back nearly a score of years, when the Pavilion or Marine Palace
was a plain, neat, villa-like building, with verandas to command a
prospect of the sea; and when the Steines scarcely merited the designation
of enclosures: when a roomy yellow-washed mansion occupied the upper end
of the old Steine, and was pointed to as once the house of Dr.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39