FINAL FETES OF VAUXHALL.
Trrs summer fetes of Vauxhall Gardens are in process of consumma- tion: moreover, their final fate is decreed. The besieging forces, whose munitions of war are bricks and mortar, have determined their plan of operations, and are drawing lines of approach ; and an advanced guard of hodmen are lying in ambush ready to rush i and plant their scaling-ladders. The ascent of Mr. GREEN'S balloon will be the signal for the fall of those groves, redolent of gas and gunpowder, the thread of whose existence was the drag-rope of its car. The glory of Vauxhall departed with SIMPSON, the genius loci of "the royal property " : its flame, once bright and fragrant when fed with the perfumed incense of fashion, had sunk so low in the socket that its revivification seemed hopeless. For the last two seasons its feeble flickerings had ceased altogether ; but it has now burst forth in a final flare-up, under the cherishing breath of Mr. Boma. Indeed, we cannot but think that ALFRED BUNN, with the prescience of a prophetic bard, had the fate of Vauxhall in his mind's eye when he penned that plaintive effusion " The Light of Other Days." The first of the final fetes was celebrated on Monday. The lustre of the illuminations and fireworks was more than usually effulgent ; as fires blaze brightest before they become extinct. The paintings with which BOGARTH adorned the supper-boxes wore their blackest, and the sanded walks their whitest hues ; but the bowls of hot punch and cool salad, flanking the attenuated chicken in its winding-sheet of ham, were rarely seen ; and even the mellifluous flageolet of COLLINET failed to inspire the feet of the visitors with Terpsichorean ardour. The orchestra, newly garnished without, shone brilliantly ; but to the view of a mournful fancy its luminous fretwork seemed glittering pinnacles of frost, soon to melt away before the sun of the Surrey Zoological, as Ranelagh faded before the rising splendours of Vauxhall: that massive shell which once was the sounding-board to the strains of BILLINGTON and INCLEDON, and echoed the vocal facetite of CHARLES TAYLOR and Tom COoKE, now canopied the flourishing of Monsieur JULIEN'S baton, the round bats of his band desecrating the dome beneath which the chapeau bras alone was worn till now. The German chorus occupied the stage of old devoted to the puppet-like evolutions of tight-rope dancers; and the floor of the rotunda was defiled with sawdust and trampled by the hoofs of Docitow's stud. The " lustrous long arcades," in days of yore swept by the hooped trains- of beauty and fashion, were trod by plebeian boots ; linen bloases usurped the place of court-suits; oaken cudgels supplanted the dress-sword and clouded cane ; and, horror of horrors t the smoke of cigars reeked where the perfume of lavender and musk once exhaled. Apart from these profanations, as a sexagenarian beau of the old school styled the changed usages, the aspect of the Gardens was as brilliant as we ever saw them on a gala- night, so far as the illuminations were concerned. The trophies and inscriptions in coloured lamps on black grounds had a very rich and magnificent effect ; and only the lugubrious fancy of our sexagenarian friend, whose pathetic lamentations on the altered condition of Vauxhall we have but faintly expressed, could have perceived in this dark back- ground of light a funereal character, or in an imperial crown of opaque yellow lamps, imitative of the effect of dead gold, an emblem of the dimmed lustre of the Royal Gardens. The dark walks are ornamented with statues and vases, whose whiteness and relief, combined with the fresh hues of the foliage and flowers in which they are embedded, produce a chaste and cool effect, at once agreeable and picturesque. " These must be the articles of virtue (vertu) that the bills tell us to take care of," exclaimed a roaring blade, hugging a plaster Diana, " for I see no others." The fountains squirted out very tiny streams, and some were absolutely dry ; for Neptune, driving his four sea-horses abreast, monopo- lized all the resources of the Lambeth water-works, his web-footed coursers emitting streams of water from the nostrils, and his trident spouting at every prong. The fire-works of D'ERNST were one of the most superb displays of pyrotechny that we ever saw—not so much for quantity as quality : the devices were most ingenious, and the colours intensely beautiful. The showers of sparks served as a golden fringe or setting to the luminous gems that blazed in the centre, like concentric circles of ruby, emerald, and sapphire, glowing with pre- ternatural lustre. The rockets rushed upwards as though they would reach the moon, and burst forth in showers of golden tears, silver stars, and amber balls ; while some changed as they fell from deep lustrous green to burning crimson : fiery rings darted to and fro like comets, jets of fire went spinning upwards, and nests of serpents were shaken out into the air. In short, D'ERNST might achieve a Gorgon's head with snaky tresses and flaming eye-balls, as a feat of feu d'ar- tifice, if he were so minded.
The company was numerous, and, with one or two exceptions, grave and sedate ; and, if rank gives ton to a place of amusement, the pre- sence of the Duke of BRUNSWICK and Prince ESTERHAZY, Count D'Oasex and the Marquis of WATERFORD, surely may suffice as a sample of the fashionable society frequenting the final fetes of Vaux- hall.
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