It is to be gathered from all sorts of sources that the great Exhibition at Wembley did not go so prosperously as might be desired. I wonder why. I believe the reasons are composite. In the first place, I suspect that the Exhibition was much too big; the Great Exhibition of 1851 went into the Crystal Palace. Then it was too technical. I think I have heard that six acres — the area of Trafalgar Square — were devoted1 to engineering exhibits. Perfectly2 enchanting3 — to engineers. But how I should loathe4 seeing six acres of wheels going round. And, lastly, there is the matter of “closing hours.” It is said that the first remark of the late Lord Tennyson on entering the Exhibition of 1851 was “Can one get a decent bottle of Bass5 here?” It is deplorable, no doubt; but to the average male mind Exhibitions and the modern closing hours are incompatible6.
It seems to me that we should begin by separating things which don’t go together in the least. Let the Engineers hold their exhibition at Olympia, or at the Agricultural Hall, Islington; let the Builders follow them; let the Dominion7 Products have their due turn. But what London wants of a summer night is a place of moderate size where, amidst agreeable surroundings, it can sit and eat and drink and smoke in the open-air, and listen to a band or two and dance a dance or two, and perhaps see a revue or two, with a few variety turns now and then, and a cabaret performance and an occasional concert. Fireworks, of course; and I think a Grand Guignol theatre, with the audience in the open air on fine nights. I doubt whether there would be room for an Amusement Park. The fact is, I am for a return to Vauxhall, and all that sort of thing, with all the improvements that modern ingenuity8 can suggest. Here is a note of a pleasant evening spent at Vauxhall, just 175 years ago.
“I had a card,” writes Horace Walpole, “from Lady Caroline Petersham, to go with her to Vauxhall. I went accordingly to her house, and found her and the little Ashe, or the Pollard Ashe as they called her; they had just finished their last layer of red, and looked as handsome as crimson9 could make them. . . . We marched to our barge10, with a boat of French horns attending and little Ashe singing. We paraded some time up the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall. . . . Here we picked up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny Whims11 (a Chelsea tavern). At last we assembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in the front with the vizor of her hat erect12, and looking gloriously jolly and handsome. She had fetched my brother Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with his petite partie, to help us to mince13 chickens. We minced14 seven chickens into a China dish, which Lady Caroline stewed15 over a lamp with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring and rattling16 and laughing, and we every minute expecting the dish to fly about our ears. She had brought Betty, the fruit-girl, with hampers17 of strawberries and cherries from Roger’s, and made her wait upon us, and then made her sup by us at a little table. . . . In short, the whole air of our party was sufficient, as you will easily imagine, to take up the whole attention of the Gardens; so much so, that from 11 o’clock till half an hour after one we had the whole concourse round our booth; at last they came into the little gardens of each booth on the sides of ours, till Harry18 Vane took up a bumper19 and drank their healths, and was proceeding20 to treat them with still greater freedoms. It was three o’clock before we got home.”
The company, as you perceive, was high, though distinctly jolly. Indeed, a contemporary writer describing Spring Gardens, as the place was then called, declares that they were laid out “in so grand a taste that they are frequented in the three summer months by most of the nobility and gentry21 then in and near London; and are often honoured with some of the Royal Family, who are here entertained with the sweet song of numbers of nightingales, in concert with the best band of musick in England. Here are fine pavilions, shady groves22, and most delightful23 walks, illuminated24 by above a thousand lamps, so disposed that they all take fire together, almost as quick as lightning, and with such a sudden blaze as is perfectly surprising.” In the generation before this Sir Roger de Coverley visited Vauxhaul “exquisitely pleasant in summer,” as his friend, the Spectator, declares. “When,” he says, “I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers25, with the choirs26 of birds that sang upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look on the place as a kind of Mahometan Paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call an Aviary27 of Nightingales. He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing28 when a Mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder and asked him if he would drink a bottle of Mead29 with her? But the Knight30 being startled at so unexpected a familiarity and displeased31 to be interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her she was a wanton baggage, and bid her go about her business. We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung beef.”
The gardens lingered on, I believe, into the fifties of the last century, but the shady groves had got too shady to be agreeable. The Mask or Baggage still frequented the walks, but the nightingales had flown away, and with them Lady Caroline Petersham, the little Ashe, Horace Walpole, Lord Orford, the Marquis of Granby, Harry Vane, Sir Roger and the Spectator. The last real party who went to Vauxhall were Amelia Sedley, Jos. Sedley, George Osborne, Dobbin, and Becky Sharp; when Jos. drank too much rack punch and called Becky his diddle-diddle-darling.
Vauxhall had many competitors, on the large scale and the small. In 1740, Ranelagh was begun on a site near Chelsea Hospital. “Vauxhall under cover” it was called: there was a Rotunda32 with balconies full of little alehouses. Of course, Horace Walpole went to Ranelagh.
“Two nights ago Ranelagh Gardens were opened at Chelsea; the prince, princess, duke, much nobility, and much mob besides were there. There is a vast amphitheatre, finely gilt33, painted, and illuminated, into which everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding is admitted for twelve pence. The building and disposition34 of the gardens cost sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a week there are to be ridottos at guinea tickets, for which you are to have a supper and music.”
Horace was inclined to sniff35 in a languid manner when Ranelagh was opened. Vauxhall, he thought, was “a little better.” But in two years the fashionable success of Ranelagh was assured, and the languid sniff has changed into a shrill36 squeak37. “Every night constantly I go to Ranelagh, which has totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes anywhere else — everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it that he says he has ordered all his letters to be directed thither38.” One of the first of the entertainment gardens of London was old Spring Gardens, close to Charing39 Cross, and it is strange to think that this place, with its grave, late memories of the serious and salutary labours of the London County Council, owed its name to a piece of simple jocularity. There was a jet, or spring, of water there, and a German, travelling in England in Queen Elizabeth’s days, writes:
“In a garden joining to this Palace (Whitehall) there is a jet d’eau, with a sundial, at which, while strangers are looking, a quantity of water forced by a wheel, which the gardener turns at a distance through a number of little pipes, plentifully40 sprinkles those that are standing41 around.”
The joke was improved later. A trap was contrived42 on the ground, and whoever trod on this trap was immediately deluged43. There were other amusements, a bathing pond, a pheasant yard, and a bowling44 green. In the time of King Charles I:
“There was kept in it an ordinary of six shillings a meal (when the King’s proclamation allows but two shillings elsewhere), continual bibbing and drinking wine all day under the trees; two or three quarrels every week.” There was also “a certain cabaret, in the middle of this paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling45 tarts46, neats’ tongues, salacious meats, and bad Rhenish.”
Then there were Cuper’s Gardens just opposite Somerset House, which became Cupid’s Gardens in the famous old song, and Marylebone Gardens, and Bagnigge Wells, and Sadler’s Wells, all popular in their day.
I believe I saw the last of the tribe one day in Camden Town. In a dreary47 street there was a drearier48 public house, with the dreariest49 little triangle of a garden beside it. Two dusty trees, six dusty bushes, four metal tables, and twice as many chairs, a small pipe from which a small jet of water might sometimes issue, traces of fairy lamps. . . . Such was the last echo of gorgeous, gay Vauxhall.
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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barge
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| n.平底载货船，驳船 | |
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WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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mince
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| n.切碎物；v.切碎，矫揉做作地说 | |
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minced
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| v.切碎( mince的过去式和过去分词 )；剁碎；绞碎；用绞肉机绞（食物，尤指肉） | |
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15
stewed
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| adj.焦虑不安的，烂醉的v.炖( stew的过去式和过去分词 )；煨；思考；担忧 | |
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rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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hampers
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的第三人称单数 ) | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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bumper
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| n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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bowers
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| n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人 | |
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choirs
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| n.教堂的唱诗班( choir的名词复数 )；唱诗队；公开表演的合唱团；（教堂）唱经楼 | |
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aviary
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| n.大鸟笼，鸟舍 | |
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musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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mead
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| n.蜂蜜酒 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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rotunda
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| n.圆形建筑物；圆厅 | |
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gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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34
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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35
sniff
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| vi.嗅…味道；抽鼻涕；对嗤之以鼻，蔑视 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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squeak
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| n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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charing
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| n.炭化v.把…烧成炭，把…烧焦( char的现在分词 )；烧成炭，烧焦；做杂役女佣 | |
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40
plentifully
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| adv. 许多地，丰饶地 | |
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41
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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43
deluged
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| v.使淹没( deluge的过去式和过去分词 )；淹没；被洪水般涌来的事物所淹没；穷于应付 | |
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44
bowling
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| n.保龄球运动 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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46
tarts
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| n.果馅饼( tart的名词复数 )；轻佻的女人；妓女；小妞 | |
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47
dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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48
drearier
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| 使人闷闷不乐或沮丧的( dreary的比较级 )； 阴沉的； 令人厌烦的； 单调的 | |
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49
dreariest
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| 使人闷闷不乐或沮丧的( dreary的最高级 )； 阴沉的； 令人厌烦的； 单调的 | |
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