Burgundy, a bottle 6 0
Champagne 8 0
Frontiniac 6 0
Claret 5 0
Old hock, with or without sugar 5 0
Two pound of ice 6
Rhenish and sugar 2 6
Mountain 2 6
Red port 2 0
Sherry 2 0
Cyder 1 0
Table beer, a quart mug 4
A chicken 2 6
A dish of ham 1 0
A dish of beef 1 0
Salad 6
A cruet of oil 4
Orange or lemon 3
Sugar for a bottle 6
Ditto for a pint 3
A slice of bread 1
Ditto of butter 2
Ditto of cheese 2
A tart 1 0
A custard 4
A cheese cake 4
A heart cake 2
A Shrewsbury cake 2
A quart of Arrack 8 0
When Tyers leased the gardens in 1728 there was in the dwelling-house a
“Ham Room,” so that this famous Vauxhall viand must have been already
in request. The thinness of the slices was proverbial. A journal of
1762, for instance, complains that you could read the newspaper through
a slice of Tyers’s ham or beef. A certain carver, hardly perhaps
mythical, readily obtained employment from the proprietor when he
promised to cut a ham so thin that the slices would cover the whole
garden like a carpet of red and white.
The chickens were of diminutive size. Mr. Rose, the old citizen in
_The Connoisseur_ (15 May, 1755), found them no bigger than a sparrow
and exclaimed at every mouthful: “There goes twopence--there goes
threepence--there goes a groat ... why it would not have cost me above
fourpence halfpenny to have spent my evening at Sot’s Hole.”
Chicken, ham and beef remained the staple of Vauxhall fare, but from
about 1822 onwards the chicken cost four shillings instead of the
half-crown, at which the old citizen had grumbled. Ham remained steady
at one shilling a plate, and was cut no thicker. Thackeray speaks of
“the twinkling boxes in which the happy feasters made believe to eat
slices of almost invisible ham.”
In 1774 the same liquors were in demand, at the same prices as in 1762.
In 1822 the claret sold was half a guinea a bottle and Frontiniac had
risen from six shillings to ten shillings and sixpence a bottle. By
this time, arrack--the famous rack punch that Jos. Sedley drank so
freely--had risen from eight to twelve shillings a quart. In 1859 it
was ten shillings a bowl, and rum and whisky, and of course, Guinness
and Bass had taken their places in the bill. About 1802 Vauxhall Nectar
was a common summer beverage. It was “a mixture of rum and syrup with
an addition of benzoic acid or flowers of benjamin” and was taken with
water.
Having thus given a general sketch of the company and amusements at
Vauxhall, we must say something of the gardens themselves and of the
character of the musical entertainments.
[Illustration:
_A General Prospect of Vaux Hall Gardens._
_Shewing at one View the disposition of the whole Gardens._
_Vue Detaillee des Jardins de Vaux Hall._
GENERAL PROSPECT OF VAUXHALL GARDENS, 1751.]
The gardens[333] occupied about twelve acres and were laid out in
gravel walks flanked by a number of fine trees. On passing through
the principal entrance, that connected with the manager’s house[334]
at the western end of the gardens, the visitor beheld the Grand
(or Great) Walk, planted on each side with elms and extending about
nine hundred feet, the whole length of the garden, to the eastern
boundary fence, beyond which could be seen pleasant meadows with the
hay-makers at their task. At the eastern end of this walk there was a
gilded statue of Aurora, afterwards (before 1762) replaced by a Grand
Gothic Obelisk bearing the inscription _Spectator fastidiosus sibi
molestus_. This latter erection would hardly have borne inspection
by daylight, for, like much of the ‘architecture’ of Vauxhall, it
consisted merely of a number of boards covered with painted canvas.
Parallel to the Grand Walk was the South Walk with its three triumphal
arches through which could be seen a painting of the ruins of Palmyra.
A third avenue, the Grand Cross Walk, also containing a painted
representation of ruins, passed through the garden from side to side,
intersecting the Grand Walk at right angles. This cross walk was
terminated on the right by the Lovers’ (or Druid’s) Walk, and to the
left were the Wildernesses and the Rural Downs.
The lofty trees of the Lovers’ Walk formed a verdant canopy in which
the nightingales of Spring Gardens, the blackbirds, and the thrushes
were wont to build. This was the principal of the Dark Walks so often
mentioned in the annals of Vauxhall. In 1759 complaints were made of
the loose characters who frequented these walks, and in 1763 Tyers was
compelled to rail them off. When Vauxhall opened for the season in 1764
some young fellows, about fifty in number, tore up the railings in
order to lay the walks open.
The Rural Downs, at least in the earlier days of Vauxhall, were covered
with turf and interspersed with firs, cypresses and cedars. On one
of the little eminences was a leaden statue of Milton[335] seated,
listening to music, and at night-time the great Bard was illuminated
by lamps. Here were also the Musical Bushes where a subterraneous
band used to play fairy music till about the middle of the eighteenth
century when this romantic entertainment ceased, “the natural damp of
the earth being found prejudicial to the instruments.”
The Wildernesses were formed by lofty trees and were (about 1753)
the verdant abode of various “feathered minstrels, who in the most
delightful season of the year ravish the ears of the company with their
harmony.”
The orchestra, open in the front, stood, facing the west, in the centre
of what was called The Grove, a quadrangle of about five acres formed
by the Grand, Cross, and South Walks and by the remaining side of the
garden.
On each side of this quadrangle were the supper-boxes and pavilions,
placed in long rows or arranged in a semi-circular sweep. These were
decorated, about 1742, with paintings chiefly by Francis Hayman.
Hogarth allowed his “Four Times of the Day” to be copied by Hayman for
the boxes, and is said to have given Tyers the idea of brightening
Vauxhall with paintings. It is doubtful if any of the pictures in the
boxes can be traced directly to his hand, though an undoubted Hogarth,
“Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn” was presented by the artist to Tyers and
hung in the Rotunda. The pictures in the boxes chiefly represented
scenes in popular comedies and a number of common sports and pastimes
such as the play of seesaw, the play of cricket, the humorous diversion
of sliding on the ice, leap-frog, and the country dance round the
maypole. Some of the larger boxes, denominated temples and
pavilions, were more elaborately designed and decorated. Such were the
Temple of Comus (in the semi-circle of boxes on the left of the garden)
and the Turkish Tent behind the orchestra.
[Illustration:
_The Inside of the Elegant Music Room in VAUX HALL
GARDENS._
_Le dedans du Concert Elegant aux Jardins du VAUX HALL._
THE ROTUNDA (MUSIC ROOM), VAUXHALL, 1752.]
Roubillac’s celebrated marble statue of Handel, as Orpheus, stood in
various positions in the gardens (sometimes under cover) from 1738 to
1818.[336]
The principal structure was the Rotunda, entered through a colonnade to
the left of the Grand Walk. It was a circular building, seventy feet
in diameter, elegantly fitted up and containing an orchestra in which
the band performed on wet evenings. When first opened it was known as
the New Music Room or the Great Room, and in early days was nicknamed
the Umbrella from the shape of the roof. With the Rotunda was connected
a long room, known as the Saloon, or the Picture Room. This projected
into the gardens, parallel to the Grove.
Under Tyers’s management the concert began at five or six and lasted
till nine or ten. It consisted of sixteen pieces, songs alternating
with sonatas and concertos. An overture on the organ, always formed
part of the entertainment. Not much is known of the instrumental
music, for the Vauxhall advertisements, until late in the eighteenth
century, never gave the details of the programme. Arne, and Dr. John
Worgan, (the Vauxhall organist) were the composers during this period.
Valentine Snow, serjeant-trumpeter to the king, was a favourite about
1745, and Burney remarks that “his silver sounds in the open air, by
having room to expand, never arrived at the ears of the audience in a
manner too powerful or piercing.”
The songs consisted chiefly of sentimental ballads, and of a few more
sprightly ditties, such as Miss Stevenson’s song “You tell me I’m
handsome”:--
All this has been told me by twenty before,
But he that would win me must flatter me more.
The verse is highly conventional, but sometimes shows a glimmering
of poetic form that raises it somewhat above the level of our own
drawing-room ballads. The average Vauxhall song seems to our ears
sufficiently thin and trivial, but on the lips of Lowe or Mrs.
Weichsell, may easily have been successful. Of the popularity of the
songs at the time, there can be no question. The magazines, especially
_The London Magazine_, regularly published the words, and often
the music, of “A new song sung at Vauxhall,” and the contemporary
collections of Vauxhall songs, such as _The Warbler_ published at
a shilling in 1756, were numerous.
In the period 1745–1767, when the singers were few in number, the
chief male vocalist was Thomas Lowe, who possessed an inexhaustible
répertoire of Delias and Strephons which he sang with great applause
from 1745 till about 1763, when he entered on the management of the
Marylebone Gardens.[337] Mrs. Arne sang for a few years from 1745,
and Miss Stevenson frequently _circ._ 1748–1758. Miss Isabella
Burchell, better known as the Mrs. Vincent of Marylebone Gardens, sang
at Vauxhall from 1751 to 1760. She was originally a milk-girl employed
on Tyers’s estate in Surrey, and it was through his instrumentality
that she obtained instruction in music.
In 1764, the chief singers were Vernon and Miss Brent, who belong
rather to our next period. Miss Wright’s “Thro’ the wood, laddie,” was
popular in 1765.
[Illustration]
Jonathan Tyers died on 1 July, 1767. He had amassed a large fortune
and owned the estate of Denbies at Dorking, where he laid out a curious
garden containing a hermitage, called the Temple of Death, and a
gloomy valley of the Shadow of Death. In spite of these lugubrious
surroundings this “Master-builder of Delight” retained his love for
Vauxhall till the last, and shortly before his death had himself
carried into the Grove to take a parting look at the Spring Gardens.
He was succeeded at Vauxhall by his two sons, Thomas and Jonathan.
‘Tom’ Tyers, as he was called by Dr. Johnson, with whom he was a
favourite, had been bred to the law, but he was too eccentric and
vivacious to confine himself to practice. “He, therefore (says
Boswell), ran about the world with a pleasant carelessness,” amusing
everybody by his desultory talk and abundance of anecdote. He furnished
many songs for the gardens, but in 1785, sold his interest to his
brother Jonathan’s family. Jonathan was manager of Vauxhall from 1785
till his death in 1792.
§ 3. 1768–1790.
During this period the character of the entertainments of Vauxhall and
the arrangement of the gardens themselves, underwent no very material
changes,[338] and people of all ranks frequented the place as of old.
The singers, however, were more numerous, and there seems to have been
a general tendency to stay late. In 1783, the concert began at eight
and ended at eleven, and a London guide-book of 1786,[339] states
that the company at that time seldom left the garden till two in the
morning, if the weather was fine.
From about 1772–1778, a good deal of rowdyism appears to have disturbed
the harmony of Vauxhall, though it must be said that the company
under old Tyers had not always been distinguished for urbanity. The
rude treatment to which Fielding’s Amelia was subjected at the gardens
(_circ._ 1752), can hardly have been an isolated occurrence, and
in the summer of 1748 a party of ladies, apparently of good position,
used to crow like cocks when visiting Vauxhall, while their friends of
the male sex responded with an ass’s bray. One Mrs. Woolaston, attained
special proficiency in her imitations.[340]
At this time (1772–1778), it was the custom to violently emphasize the
importance of the _last night_ of the season. Young Branghton,
in _Evelina_ (_circ._ 1778), declares that the last night
at Vauxhall is the best of any; “there’s always a riot--and there the
folks run about--and then there’s such squealing and squalling! and
there all the lamps are broke, and the women run skimper scamper.”[341]
From the newspapers we learn that on the 4th of September, 1774,
“upwards of fifteen foolish Bucks who had amused themselves by breaking
the lamps at Vauxhall, were put into the cage there by the proprietors,
to answer for the damage done. They broke almost every lamp about the
orchestra, and pulled the door leading up to it off the hinges.”
[Illustration: _Vauxhall_]
The Dark Walk and Long Alleys were also not without their terrors.
Evelina, who had unwittingly strayed thither, was surrounded by a
circle of impudent young men, and the Branghton girls were also
detained, though they had gone more with their eyes open. “Lord,
Polly,” says the eldest, “suppose we were to take a turn in the Dark
Walks?” “Ay, do,” answered she, “and then we’ll hide ourselves,
and then Mr. Brown will think we are lost.” A quarrel in public between
two angry gentlemen was also a not uncommon incident, and the affair
sometimes assumed the heroic proportions of a Vauxhall “Affray.” For
example, one day in June 1772 two gentlemen, Captain Allen and Mr.
Kelly, created a scene. The words “scoundrel” and “rascal” were heard,
and Allen who had a sword would have overpowered Kelly who had only
his cane, if the bystanders had not interposed.[342] But the Vauxhall
Affray _par excellence_, was the affair of Bate, “the fighting
parson,” and Mr. Fitzgerald.[343] The Rev. Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart.
(as he afterwards was) was at Vauxhall on the evening of 23 July, 1773,
in company with Mrs. Hartley and some friends. A party of gentlemen sat
down near them, and made a deliberate attempt to stare the beautiful
actress out of countenance. Captain Crofts and Mr. George Robert
Fitzgerald were among the offenders, or at any rate took their part.
Bate expostulated loudly with Crofts, and a crowd gathered round. The
next day Bate and Crofts met at the Turk’s Head Coffee House in the
Strand, where matters were being peaceably adjusted, when Fitzgerald
appeared on the scene insisting on satisfaction for his friend Captain
Miles, who wanted to box the parson. Bate declared that he had offered
no insult to Miles, but ultimately the party adjourned to the front
dining-room of the Spread Eagle Tavern close by, and there in fifteen
minutes Bate had completely beaten Miles. A few days afterwards Bate
discovered that the supposed Captain Miles was Fitzgerald’s footman,
esteemed an expert bruiser. Bate published an account of the affair in
the papers, and Fitzgerald’s conduct was generally condemned, though he
tried to make out that the footman had only pretended to be beaten. A
further quarrel arising out of this incident led to a meeting between
Fitzgerald and a Captain Scawen in Flanders. As a finishing touch to
our picture of the Vauxhall manners of the period, we must recall an
evening in August 1782, when the Prince of Wales and a party of gay
friends visited the gardens. When the music was over the Prince was
recognised by the company, and being surrounded, crushed, and pursued,
had to beat a hasty retreat. The ladies followed the Prince, the
gentlemen pursued the ladies; the curious and the mischievous increased
the tumult, and in a few minutes the boxes were deserted, the lame
overthrown, and the well-dressed demolished.[344]
On May 10, 1769, a Ridotto al fresco was given at which not less than
ten thousand people are said to have been present. The Rotunda was
lit with nearly five thousand glass lamps, and a platform under an
awning was laid down in the gardens for dancing. The fancy dresses
were not numerous, and Walpole, who was there with his friend Conway,
only walked twice round, and was glad to get out of the mob and go
home. Some years later, on 29 May, 1786, there was another Ridotto to
celebrate (approximately) the Jubilee of Vauxhall Gardens. Fourteen
thousand additional lamps were displayed, and most of the company
appeared in dominoes, as at the original Ridotto of 1732.
[Illustration:
_A Collection_
of Favorite
_SONGS_]
During this period (1768–1790) the principal tenor was Vernon, who
had taken Lowe’s place in 1764. His répertoire appears to have been
somewhat less conventional than that of his predecessor, and his
gay and energetic manner rendered him popular in such songs as
the “English Padlock,” the “Crying and Laughing” Song, and “Cupid’s
recruiting Sergeant.” He was a constant singer at Vauxhall till the
end of the season of 1781. In 1783 Arrowsmith, a young tenor, pupil
of Michael Arne, aspired with some success to take Vernon’s place. He
sang till 1785, but in the summer of next year (1786) a more celebrated
tenor, Charles Incledon, then only twenty-two, made his appearance, and
sang till 1790.
The principal female singers were Mrs. Baddeley (about 1768); Mrs.
Weichsell (1769–1784); Miss Jameson (1770–1774); Miss Wewitzer
(_circ._ 1773); Mrs. Hudson (1773–1776); Mrs. Wrighten
(1773–1786); Mrs. Kennedy (1782–1785); Miss Leary (1786–1789); Mrs.
Martyr, the actress (1786–1789). Of these vocalists, Mrs. Baddeley
and Mrs. Kennedy were the well-known actresses. The latter possessed
a powerful voice, and often assumed male parts at Covent Garden.
Mrs. Wrighten had a vivacious manner and a bewitching smile, and
her “Hunting Song” was popular. Mrs. Weichsell, the mother of Mrs.
Billington the actress, was an especial favourite at the gardens. A
magazine poet of 1775[345] celebrates her among the best Vauxhall
singers.--
Sweet Weichsell who warbles her wood-note so wild,
That the birds are all hushed as they sit on each spray,
And the trees nod applause as she chaunts the sweet lay.
In 1774 James Hook was appointed organist and composer, and remained
at Vauxhall Gardens till 1820, exerting his facile, if not very
distinguished powers, as a music-writer. In 1775 Catches and Glees were
for the first time introduced into the concert. On an evening of July
of this year Lord Sandwich and a party of friends amused themselves
by starting some Catches and Glees of their own, which they sang from
their box near the orchestra. General Haile, who sat in the next box,
then requested a young lady who was with him to sing a song, which the
band obligingly accompanied, to the great delight of the audience.[346]
A favourite catch, “They say there is an echo here,” was performed
in 1780, by two sets of singers and musicians, the stanzas of the
principal band being answered by an invisible band of voices and wind
instruments stationed over the Prince’s box at the bottom of the garden.
[Illustration: _Vauxhall on a Gala Night_]
In 1783 Barthelemon led the orchestra, and a band of drums and fifes,
horns and clarionets, was introduced to perambulate the gardens after
the regular concert. These supplementary bands generally formed part of
the later Vauxhall entertainments.
§ 4. 1791–1821.
In 1792 the ordinary admission was raised from one shilling to
two shillings, and Grand Galas and Masquerades became features of
Vauxhall.[347] On 31 May, 1792, there was a successful masked ball, and
the gardens were a blaze of light. Amid a crowd of Haymakers, Punches,
Chimney Sweeps, and Sailors, Munden, the actor, attracted attention in
the character of a deaf old man.
People of all classes took part in these masqueradings. Deputy Gubbins
went as a very fat Apollo, and his spouse, a portly matron, as Diana
with a huge quiver. Master Gubbins was Cupid. But these characters were
misunderstood by the newspaper-reporter, who described the Deputy as
the Fat Knight, accompanied by his lady as Mother Quickly, and by the
hope of all the Gubbinses as an awkward Toxophilite.[348]
The “Dashalls” and “Tallyhos” sometimes caused trouble, and a newspaper
of 1812, describes how at a ball of this year, a crowd of masks
followed “Mr. Cockadoodle Coates” with crowing and exclamations of
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo.”
An imposing festival took place on 20 June, 1813, to celebrate the
Battle of Vittoria and Wellington’s victories. The Prince of Wales, and
all the Royal Dukes were present at the banquet.
During this period (1791–1821) some capable vocalists made their
appearance at Vauxhall; Darley (who had already sung at the gardens in
1789); Mrs. Franklin (who had previously appeared as Miss Leary); Mrs.
Mountain,[349] the actress (1793); the well-known Charles Dignum (1794)
and Mrs. Bland[350] the popular ballad-singer (1802). Dignum and Mrs.
Bland remained Vauxhall favourites for some years.[351]
[Illustration: M^{RS}. MARTYR.]
Fireworks, which had long before been usual at Cuper’s Gardens,
Marylebone Gardens, and Ranelagh, were not introduced at Vauxhall
till 1798. From about 1813, they became a permanent institution. In
1816, Mme. Saqui of Paris appeared at Vauxhall, and was the principal
attraction for several seasons. A mast about sixty feet high was
erected on the firework platform at the eastern end of the gardens, and
from its top depended an inclined rope 350 feet long. At twelve o’clock
a lady of muscular and masculine appearance, bedecked with spangles
and waving plumes, might be seen ascending this rope to the platform,
amid a glare of blue flame. Her appearance was almost supernatural:--
Amid the blaze of meteors seen on high,
Etherial Saqui seems to tread the sky;[352]
Having now reached the highest point, she made her descent in a shower
of Chinese Fire, and “in the face of a tempest of fireworks.” This
exciting performance became a necessity at Vauxhall, and Saqui’s feats
were afterwards reproduced by Longuemare and Blackmore.
[Illustration: CHARLES DIGNUM.]
At this period (_circ._ 1817) the newspapers describe the
orchestra as a “pagoda of lustre,” and the covered walks as arches of
fire. The songs, and the music, and the fireworks were the attractions
till about one o’clock, when the ordinary visitors withdrew. But the
noisy and the dissipated sometimes kept up the fun with reels and
waltzes till nearly four in the morning.[353]
We have now wandered far from the old Spring Garden of Jonathan Tyers
and the later history of Vauxhall must, in the present volume, be very
briefly summarised.
In the gardens themselves, some important changes had already been
effected. In 1786, a Supper Room had been added to the left of the
Rotunda, and in 1810–11 many of the trees in the Grove were cut down,
and part of the Grand Walk and two sides of the Grove were covered in
by a vaulted colonnade supported by cast-iron pillars. This colonnade
was brilliantly lit with lamps, and was convenient in the wet weather
that was proverbial at Vauxhall, but it greatly tended to destroy what
Walpole calls, “the gardenhood” of the place.[354] The last of the old
trees of Tyers’s period is said to have survived till 1805.
[Illustration: _Madame Saqui_
_The celebrated Performer on the Rope at Vauxhall._]
In 1821 Vauxhall Gardens passed out of the possession of the Tyers
family. After the death of Jonathan Tyers the younger in 1792, his
place was taken as proprietor and manager by his son-in-law Bryan
Barrett, who died in 1809. Barrett’s son, George Rogers Barrett then
acted as manager of the gardens for many years. In 1821, the property
was purchased from the Barrett family for £30,000[355] by T. Bish (the
lottery-office keeper), F. Gye, and R. Hughes.
§ 5. 1822–1859.