(BY LAMAN BLANCHARD.)

These were the words—or rather, this was the line of heartbreaking octosyllabic verse—that met the gaze of the living on every dead wall of the metropolis. They stared at me from the newspapers, they glared on me from the shoulders of perambulating board-men, they rang in my ears everywhere—Vauxhall will close for ever! Had it been the "Pyramids to be sold by auction, by George Robins," or "the positively last fall of the Falls of Niagara;"—had it been the "final extinction of Mount Etna," or "the Moon shining for this night only, after which it will be disposed of to cheesemongers, by sale of candle, or private contract," my spirit had been comparatively untroubled;—but Vauxhall!

Truly does our great Wordsworth tell us that there are thoughts which lie too deep for tears. I cannot cry, though this be a crying evil; my pen must weep its ink-drops over the event.

Had a dozen Union-workhouses been erected on Epsom downs, or a national school supplanted the grand stand at Doncaster. Had the Bank of England itself been turned into alms-houses, or the Royal Academy announced the last day of drawing—these, and millions of such minor evils, I could well have borne. Some substitute for the departed might yet have been discovered. Were there no bread, cheap or dear, at home or abroad, and all the bakers above-ground had burnt themselves to cinders in their own ovens, still could we have gone to the pastry-cook's for comfort, and have eaten buns. But the Royal Gardens shut!—closed for ever!—hammered down!—the light put out, which no Promethean lampman can relume! Where should Othello go?

"The days of my youth," I exclaimed aloud, as I wandered sorrowfully through the brilliant avenues of the doomed garden on the last night—"the days of my youth, where are they?" and an echo answered, "Here we are!" And there they are indeed, buried for ever in dark Vauxhall, knocked down as part of the fixtures, swept away with broken lamps and glasses, with the picked bones of vanished chickens, and the crumbs of French rolls that are past.

To have visited Vauxhall, like bricks, for so many years, only to find bricks and Vauxhall becoming one!

But what a last night was that! There were many visions in one. From the Vauxhall of Victoria, fancy reverted to the Vauxhall of the first George, and the walks became immediately peopled with periwigged beaux, and courtly dames fresh from the frames of Kneller. Never did living eye behold such a congregation of grotesque beauties, out of a picture-gallery. The paint was brilliant as the great master's canvas, the arrangement of the patches was a triumph of art, the flash of the diamonds made the lamps look dim, the flutter of fans filled the air with a delicious freshness. All the wits of the last century were there, from Steele and Addison to Fielding and Goldsmith, and from these to Sheridan, and the gallant roysterers of a later era. There was Beau Brummell;—it was the first night the world ever saw the astonishing spectacle of a starched cravat—the first night the great Discoverer of Starch ever exhibited to the vulgar gaze his sublime invention. That morning, a friend who called upon him encountered his servant on the stairs, descending from the Beau's dressing-room, with a whole armful of stiffened but rumpled cravats—there were at least seventy of the curiosities.—"What, in the name of mystery, have you got there?" inquired the friend,—"what are those things?" "These, sir?" responded the valet,—"O, these are our failures!" The beau's cravat justified that night, by the perfection of its folds, the multiplicity of experiments. That seventy-first trial was indeed a triumph.

In the twinkle of an eye, what a change!—Beau Brummell had disappeared for ever! Renown and grace were dead. The stately dames had gone: fans, feathers, diamonds—all; and in their place appeared a very queer collection of feminine miscellanies, young and old, some from the country, some from the outskirts of the metropolis, dodging here and there, rushing from sight to sight, too eager and excited to see anything clearly; expressing their wonder in mingled peals of "My eye!" "Well, raally now!" and "Lauk-a-mercy!"—exclamations which were interrupted by frequent appeals to a bag of thick, home-manufactured sandwiches, borne on the arm—or critical observations on the ginger beer. The beaux, too, had vanished; and instead of the Sir Plumes, revelling in the "nice conduct of their clouded canes," came a crowd of London lads, with boots innocent of Warren and hands guiltless of gloves—creatures, at the bare sight of whom through a telescope, Sir Plume himself would have fainted. And as for the wits—behold, where they of late perambulated, a troop of practical jokers, staggering forwards through the walks, or gathered in twos and threes and half-dozens in the supper-boxes, extinguishing lamps, smashing crockery, beating in the crowns of hats, and it may be smoking cigars in a kind of open secrecy.

Short, however, is the duration of this scene. Retreating into another walk, out of the way of the reeling revellers, I obtained a new view of the yet famed and once fashionable gardens; and now, methought, their glory was indeed departed. The place, which before was brighter than the day, seemed the temple of Twilight. The most brilliant lamp it boasted shed but a miserable dimness round. The genius of Vauxhall was in the position of Damocles—only, instead of the sword it was a hammer that was suspended over her. Nothing flourished there but the universal enemy—Decay. The gardens seemed to hold a place between Earth and the Eternal Shades. The words "Darkness Visible," formed the most conspicuous object,—the letters, of an enormous size, were composed of grey and black lamps, which the rain, descending in torrents, was fast putting out. A transparency, representing Melancholy playing the bagpipes, had a very striking and sombre effect; and another exhibition of a fountain that had ceased playing, with a pair of black swans floating in the puddle beneath, proved truly attractive to the few low-spirited stragglers that remained. A beautiful dioramic view of the Elysian fields, brilliantly illuminated, drew my attention; but on going to look, I saw nothing but a few acres of gloomy waste land, with a board, displaying the notice, "This ground to let on building leases." The farce performed in the rotunda was "Blue Devils," at some of the scenes in which the audience were quite broken-hearted, and the actors were called for amidst general sobs. In the orchestra, the muffled drum was extremely admired; the violins, reduced to one string, crumbled under the hands of the players like touchwood, otherwise their notes would have been highly dispiriting; the larger instruments spoke in hollow murmurs; the flutes gave forth the parting sighs breathed into them by the asthmatic and fading musicians. Ramo Samee, reduced to a nonentity, flung the balls up without even an effort to catch them, and the sword, like Macbeth's amen, "stuck in his throat." One "swallow" would have been a summer to him. The waiters went about with umbrellas and lanterns to collect orders. Through their threadbare, meagre, fleecy habiliments—coats of Scotch mist, and continuations of London fog—might be traced their thin and fleshless forms. Something sharper than penury had worn them to the bones—the sense that their occupation was gone. They shuffled from walk to walk, from box to box, carrying broken plates with faint impressions of various delicacies; semi-sandwiches were on some, and on others were exhibited narrow slices of transparent and shadowy ham. The soda-water they brought had caught the hue of the bottles, and it trickled forth in showers of tears. The sparkling champagne was perfectly still; the very punch was "drowned" in the bowl, spiritless and stagnant. The chicken looked as if it had been deposited for the last few years in the mummy-room of the British Museum. The tongue might have belonged to the first fat buck shot by Robin Hood.

Those weak, wan, dilapidated waiters! Those fossil remains of a forlorn hope! As the night advanced they grew more attenuated. The "any orders?" dwindled to a whisper, and the "coming, sir!" lapsed into a scarcely audible sigh. They had hardly strength enough left to carry away the fragments of a tart. They glided about like ghosts amidst the expiring lamps. Another hour elapsed, and everything denoted the End of the Change. Ruin had seized on all. The arrack dried up in the bowl, ere it could be carried to the appointed box. Every glass was cracked, every fork had forfeited a prong; and in the darkness and confusion men carved with the handles of their knives, macadamising their suppers! The trees and shrubs lost their natural character, and became yews and cypresses; and extending from branch to branch were to be seen large cobwebs, having the hue and substance of slices of boiled beef. Then there was a general rush through the rain to see the Invisible Fireworks. What a sight was that! The catherine wheels were stationary; the rockets changed their minds as they were going up, and the whiz was but a consumptive cough; the Roman candles had all been accommodated with extinguishers; and the shells broke their inflammatory hearts in smoke and silence. Three reluctant and doubtful bangs from a solitary cracker sounded the requiem of the Pyrotechnic art!

Then methought the company began to "disperse" indeed. Arms put themselves within other arms, and moved on, while the legs that had once belonged to them sought the promenade in another direction, and dragged themselves across it as over a ploughed field. The persevering and inexhaustible spirit of Vauxhall, however, was yet animate in some; and my eye caught glimpses of strange groups—parts of people—sometimes the lower extremities—sometimes the upper—disjointed dancers, all performing quadrilles in spasmodic movements, under umbrellas, to inaudible music, supplied by the Apparitions of Fiddlers.

Now came, on a sudden, another change. A light appeared in what had always been the dark walks of the garden, and as it advanced exhibited the figure of the celebrated Old Hermit. His head hung on his breast, as with a consciousness that his hour of oblivion was nigh, and he carried his closed volume under his arm. Another figure, scarcely less shadowy, joined him; it was Simpson,—yea, Simpson's self! the unforgotten master of the ceremonies. They advanced, arm in arm; and as they approached the spot on which I stood, riveted with awe, who should make his appearance, as though he descended from the air, but a third great adventurer—one equally immortal, but happily far more mortal than either—the undaunted and untiring aeronaut, Mr. Green! On the instant, the ground beneath opened, and the great Nassau balloon sprung upward, already filled with gas. I saw that the finale had arrived. Green embraced the ghost of the departed master, and, surrendering his own place, handed him into the car, into which he was followed by many of the unfading luminaries of the "property" in past and present times. In the moment of ascent, Simpson, my venerable preceptor in the arts of politeness, the acquaintance of my youth, perceived me in the crowd; he stretched forth a hand, which felt as cold, damp, and impalpable as fog, and, shaking mine, exclaimed with his usual urbanity, "One pinch at—parting?" I felt in my pocket for my snuff-box, eager for a friendly participation, when suddenly—quick as lightning, in fact—I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder; and on looking round—

I found myself amidst the old well known blaze of lights, surrounded by myriads of smart and merry loungers, with police constable 142 X arousing me as people are aroused from dreams, and saying, for my comfort, "Come sir, come! Why, you're asleep as you walk. You've been robbed, I tell you; for your pocket's turned inside out."

I got home about three, and at last fell asleep in reality. I dreamed that Vauxhall Gardens were entirely built over, covered with finished and half-finished houses, in streets and terraces; and that I was actually reposing at that moment in No. 16, Arrack-place, looking upon Sky-rocket-crescent. Methought there was a universal complaint among the inhabitants, of supernatural noises in the night. Not a wink was to be had for the tunings of musical instruments, the calling for waiters, the shouting of "encore," the mingling of thousands of voices; all crowned with peals of laughter, and whispers of "How tired I am, sure-ly!" Each night at twelve, every occupier of a tenement on that famous site was awakened from his first sleep by a multitudinous exclamation of, "O! Oh! Oh-h-h!" accompanied by a light, blue, red, green, yellow, et cetera, and a shower of falling sparks.