 17 Are you fond of the water? is a question very frequently asked in hot summer weather by amphibious-looking young men. Very is the general reply. Ain't you? Hardly ever off it is the response, accompanied by sundry adjectives expressive of the speaker's heartfelt admiration of that element. Now, with all respect for the opinion of society in general, and cutter clubs in particular, we humbly suggest that some of the most painful reminiscences in the mind of every individual who has occasionally disported himself on the Thames must be connected with his aquatic recreations. Who ever heard of a successful water-party, or to put the question in a still more intelligible form, whoever saw one? We have been on water excursions out of number, but we solemnly declare that we cannot call to mind one single occasion of the kind which was not marked by more miseries than any one would suppose could be reasonably crowded into the space of some eight or nine hours. Something has always gone wrong. Either the cork of the salad-dressing has come out, or the most anxiously expected member of the party has not come out, or the most disagreeable man in company would come out, or a child or two have fallen into the water, or the gentleman who undertook to steer has endangered everybody's life all the way, or the gentleman who volunteered to row have been out of practice and performed very alarming evolutions, putting their oars down into the water and not being able to get them up again, or taking terrific pulls without putting them in at all, in either case pitching over on the backs of their heads with startling violence and exhibiting the soles of their pumps to the sitters in the boat in a very humiliating manner. We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at Richmond and tricking him. And other distinct havens, often sought though seldom reached, but from the reddest back to Blackfyre's Bridge, the scene is wonderfully changed. The penitentiary is a noble building, no doubt, and the sportive views who go in at that particular part of the river on a summer's evening may be all very well in perspective. But when you are obliged to keep inshore coming home and the young ladies will color up and look perseveringly the other way, while the married dittos cough slightly and stare very hard at the water, you feel awkward, especially if you happen to have been attempting the most distant approach to sentimentality for an hour or two previously. Although experience and suffering have produced in our minds the result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper sense of the fun which a look or on may extract from the amateurs of boating. What can be more amusing than Searle's yard on a fine Sunday morning? It's a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them. Two or three fellows in great rough trousers and Guernsey shirts are getting them ready by easy stages, now coming down the yard with a pair of skulls and a cushion, then having a chat with the Jack, who, like all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging about, then going back again and returning with a rudder line and a stretcher, then solacing themselves with another chat, and then wondering, with their hands in their capacious pockets, where then gentlemen's gut to has ordered the six. One of them, the headman, with the legs of his trousers carefully tucked up at the bottom to admit the water, we presume, for it is an element in which he is infinitely more at home than on land, is quite a character, and shares with a defunct oyster swallower the celebrated name of Dando. Watch him, as taking a few minutes respite from his toils, he negligently seats himself on the edge of a boat, and fans his broad, bushy chest with a cap scarcely half so furry. Look at his magnificent, though reddish whiskers, and mark the somewhat native humor with which he chafes the boys and prentices, or cunningly gammons the gentleman in the gift of a glass of gin, of which we verily believe he swallows in one day as much as any six ordinary men, without ever being one atom the worse for it. But the party arrives, and Dando, relieved from his state of uncertainty, starts up into activity. They approach in full aquatic costume, with round blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps of all sizes and patterns, from the velvet skull-cap of French manufacture to the easy headdress familiar to the students of the old spelling-books, as having on the authority of the portrait formed part of the costume of the reverend Mr. Dilworth. This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Sunday water-party. There has evidently been up to this period no inconsiderable degree of boasting on everybody's part relative to his knowledge of navigation. The sight of the water rapidly cools their courage, and the air of self-denial with which each of them insists on somebody else's taking an oar is perfectly delightful. At length, after a great deal of changing and fidgeting, consequent upon the election of a stroke oar, the inability of one gentleman to pull on this side, of another to pull on that, and of a third to pull at all, the boat's crew are seated. Shove her off, Christ the coxswain, who looks as easy and comfortable as if he were staring in the Bay of Biscay. The oar is obeyed, the boat is immediately turned completely round, and proceeds towards Westminster Bridge, amidst such a splashing and struggling as never was seen before, except when the Royal George went down. Backwater, sir! Shout, stand-o, backwater, you, sir, aft! Upon which everybody thinking he must be the individual referred to, they all backwater, and back comes the boat, stern first, to the spot whence it started. Backwater, you, sir, aft! Pull round, you, sir, forad, can't you? Shout, stand-o, in a frenzy of excitement. Pull round, Tom, can't you? Re-eckles one of the party. Tom ain't forad, replies another. Yes, he is, cries a third, and the unfortunate young man, at the immediate risk of breaking a blood vessel, pulls and pulls, until the head of the boat fairly lies in the direction of Vohal Bridge. That's right now. Pull all on you, shout, stand-o, again, adding, in an undertone, to somebody by him, bloat of heather I see such a set of muffs, and wage-ogs the boat in a zig-zag direction, every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time, and the yard is once more clear until the arrival of the next party. A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames is a very lively and interesting scene. The water is studded with boats of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions. Places in the coal-barges at the different wharfs are led to crowds of spectators. Beer and tobacco flow freely about. Men, women, and children wait for the start in breathless expectation. Cutters of six and eight oars glide gently up and down, waiting to accompany their protégés during the race. Bands of music add to the animation, if not to the harmony of the scene. Groups of watermen are assembled at the different stares, discussing the merits of the respective candidates, and the prize wary, which is rowed slowly about by a pair of skulls, is an object of general interest. Two o'clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come. Half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved so long, begins to flag, when suddenly a gun is heard, and a noise of distant hurrying along each bank of the river, every head is bent forward. The noise draws nearer and nearer. The boats which have been waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river, and a well-manned galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind them which are not yet visible. Here they are, is the general cry, and through darts the first boat, the men in her, stripped to the skin, and exerting every muscle to preserve the advantage they have gained, four other boats follow close astern. They are not two boats light between them. The shouting is tremendous, and the interest intents. Go on, pink, and give it her red. Solo in forever. Bravo, George! Now, Tom, now, now, now! Why don't your partner stretch out? Two pots to a pint on yellow, et cetera, et cetera. Every little public hose fires its gun and hoists its flag, and the men who win the heat come in amidst the splashing and shouting and banging and confusion which no one can imagine who has not witnessed it and of which any description would convey a very faint idea. One of the most amusing places we know is the steam-warf of the London Bridge or St. Catherine's Dock Company on a Saturday morning in summer, when the Gravescent and Margate steamers are usually crowded to excess, and, as we have just taken a glance at the river above bridge, we hope our readers will not object to accompany us on board a Gravescent packet. Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf, and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the fares resign themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters, who seize all the packages at once as a matter of course, and run away with them heaven knows where is laughable in the extreme. A Margate boat lies alongside the wharf. The Gravescent boat, which starts first, lies alongside that again, and as a temporary communication is formed between the two, by means of a plank and handrail, the natural confusion of the scene is by no means diminished. Gravescent inquires a stout father of a stout family who follow him under the guidance of their mother and a servant, at the no small risk of two or three of them being left behind in the confusion. Gravescent, pass on if you please, sir, replies the attendant, other boat, sir. Hereupon the stout father being rather mystified, and the stout mother rather distracted by maternal anxiety, the whole party deposit themselves in the Margate boat, and after having congratulated himself on having secured very comfortable seats, the stout father sallies to the chimney to look for his luggage, which he has a faint recollection of having given some man something to take somewhere. No luggage, however, bearing the most remote resemblance to his own in shape or form, is to be discovered, on which the stout father calls very loudly for an officer to whom he states the case in the presence of another father of another family, a little thin man who entirely concurs with him, the stout father, in thinking that it s high time something were done with these steam companies, and that as the corporation bill fail to do it, something else must, for really people s property is not to be sacrificed in this way, and that if the luggage isn t restored without delay he will take care it shall be put in the papers, for the public is not to be the victim of these great monopolies. To this the officer in his turn replies that that company, ever since it has been St. Catherine s dock company, has protected life and property, that if it had been the London Bridge Wharf Company indeed he shouldn t have wondered, seeing that the morality of that company, they being the opposition, can t be answered for by no one, but as it is he s convinced there must be some mistake, or he wouldn t mind making a solemn oath before a magistrate that the gentleman will find his luggage before he gets to Margate. Here the stout father, thinking he is making a capital point, replies that as it happens he is not going to Margate at all, and that the passenger to Gravesend was on the luggage, in letters of full two inches long, on which the officer rapidly explains the mistake, and the stout mother and the stout children and the servant are hurried with all possible dispatch on board the Gravesend boat, which they reach just in time to discover that their luggage is there, and that their comfortable seats are not. Then the bell, which is the signal for the Gravesend boat starting, begins to ring most furiously, and people keep time to the bell by running in and out of our boat at a double quick pace. The bell stops, the boat starts, people who have been taking leave of their friends on board are carried away against their will, and people who have been taking leave of their friends on shore find that they have performed a very needless ceremony in consequence of their not being carried away at all. The regular passengers, who have seasoned tickets, go below to breakfast. People who have purchased morning papers compose themselves to read them, and people who have not been down the river before think that both the shipping and the water look a great deal better at a distance. When we get down about as far as Blackwall, and begin to move at a quicker rate, the spirits of the passengers appear to rise in proportion. Old women who have brought large wicker hand-baskets with them set seriously to work at the demolition of heavy sandwiches, and pass round a wine-glass which is frequently replenished from a flat bottle like a stomach-warmer with considerable glee, handing it first to the gentleman in the foraging cap who plays the harp, partly as an expression of satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly induce him to play Dumbledome Dairy for Alec to dance to, which being done, Alec, who is a damp earthy child in red worsted socks, takes certain small jumps upon the deck to the unspeakable satisfaction of his family circle. Girls who have brought the first volume of some new novel in their reticule become extremely plaintive and expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young Mr. O'Brien, who has been looking over them on the blueness of the sky and brightness of the water, on which Mr. Brown, or Mr. O'Brien, as the case may be, remarks in a low voice that he has been quite insensible of late to the beauties of nature, that his whole thoughts and wishes have centred on one object alone, whereupon the young lady looks up and failing in her attempt to appear unconscious, looks down again, and turns over the next leaf with great difficulty in order to afford opportunity for a lengthened pressure of the hand. Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses of brandy and water cold without, begin to be in great requisition, and bashful men who have been looking down the hatchway at the engine find to their great relief a subject on which they can converse with one another and a copious one, too. Steam. Wonderful things, Steam, sir. Ah, a deep-drawn sigh. It is indeed, sir. Great power, sir. Immense, immense. Great deal done by Steam, sir. Ah, another sigh at the immensity of the subject, and a knowing shake of the head. You may say that, sir. Still in its infancy, they say, sir. Novel remarks of this kind are generally the commencement of a conversation which is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip, and perhaps lays the foundation of a speaking acquaintance between half a dozen gentlemen who, having their families at Gravesend, take season tickets for the boat and dine on board regularly every afternoon. CHAPTER XI. We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals in a book or shop window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the time when we were first initiated into the mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pins point following the letter to impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination, and wince involuntarily as remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady who instilled into our mind the first principles of education for nine pence per week, or ten and six pence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile hand occasionally by way of adjusting the confusion of ideas in which we were generally involved. The same kind of feeling pursues us in many other instances, but there is no place which recalls so strongly our recollections of childhood as Astleys. It was not a royal amphitheater in those days, nor had Ducro arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the sawdust of the circus. But the whole character of the place was the same. The pieces were the same, the clown's jokes were the same, the writing masters were equally grand, the comic performers equally witty, the tragedians equally hoarse, and the highly trained chargers equally spirited. Astleys has altered for the better, we have changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone, and with shame we confess that we are far more delighted and amused with the audience than with the pageantry we once so highly appreciated. We like to watch a regular Astleys party in the Easter or Midsummer Holidays, Pa and Ma, and nine or ten children varying from five foot six to two foot eleven from fourteen years of age to four. We had just taken our seat in one of the boxes in the centre of the house the other night, when the next was occupied by just such a party as we should have attempted to describe had we depicted our beau-ideal of a group of Astleys visitors. First of all there came three little boys and a little girl who in pursuance of Pa's directions issued in a very audible voice from the box-door occupied the front row. Then two more little girls were ushered in by a young lady evidently the governess. Then came three more little boys dressed like the first in blue jackets and trousers with lay-down shirt collars. Then a child in a braided frock and high state of astonishment, with very large round eyes open to their utmost width, was lifted over the seats, a process which occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs, then came Ma and Pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of fourteen years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he did not belong to the family. The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the little girls and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair. Then it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys was seated behind a pillar and could not see, so the governess was stuck behind the pillar and the boy lifted into her place. Then Pa drilled the boys and directed the stowing away of their pocket-hankages, and Ma, having first nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls' frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little troop. An inspection which appeared to terminate much to her own satisfaction, for she looked with a complacent air at Pa, who was standing up at the further end of the seat. Pa returned the glance and blew his nose very emphatically, and the poor governess peeped out from behind the pillar and timidly tried to catch Ma's eye with a look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the little boys, who had been discussing the point where their astleys was more than twice as large as Drury Lane, agreed to refer it to George for his decision, at which George, who was no other than the young gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant and remonstrated in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name repeated and so loud a voice at a public place, on which all the children laughed very heartily, and one of the little boys wound up by expressing his opinion that George began to think himself quite a man now, whereupon both Ma and Pa laughed too, and George, who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers, muttered that William always was encouraged in his impertinence, and assumed a look of profound contempt which lasted the whole evening. The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds. Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavored to look as if he wasn't. As for Ma, she was perfectly overcome by the drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed till every one of the immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess peeped out from behind the pillar again, and whenever she could catch Ma's eye put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared as in duty bound to be in convulsions of laughter also. Then, when the man in the splendid armour vowed to rescue the lady, or perish in the attempt, the little boys applauded vehemently, especially one little fellow who was apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carrying on a child's flirtation the whole evening with a small coquette of twelve years old who looked like a model of her mama in a reduced scale, and who, in common with the other little girls, who generally speaking have even more coquettishness about them than much older ones, looked very properly shocked when the night's squire kissed the princess's confidential chambermaid. When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more delighted than ever, and the wish to see what was going forward completely conquering Pa's dignity he stood up in the box and applauded as loudly as any of them. Between each feat of horsemanship the governess lent over to Ma, and retailed the clever remarks of the children on that which had preceded, and Ma, in the openness of her heart, offered the governess an assiduated drop, and the governess gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance, and the whole party seemed quite happy, except the exquisite in the back of the box, who, being too grand to take any interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by anybody else, occupied himself from time to time in rubbing the place where the whiskers ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory. We defy any one who has been to Astley's two or three times, and is consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at least, we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourselves we know that when the hoop composed of jets and gas is let down, the curtain drawn up for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring, the orange peel cleared away, and the sawdust shaken with mathematical precision into a complete circle, we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present, and actually join in the laugh which follows the clown's real shout of, here we are, just for old acquaintance's sake. Nor can we quite divest ourselves of our own feeling of reverence for the writing-master who follows the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with graceful dignity. He is none of your second-rate writing-masters in nankine dressing-downs, with brown frogs, but the regular gentleman attended on the principal-writers, who always wears a military uniform with a tablecloth inside the breast of the coat, in which costume he forcibly reminds one of a fowl-trust for roasting. He is, but why should we attempt to describe that of which no description can convey an adequate idea? Everybody knows the man, and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful demeanor, stiff as some misjudging persons have in their jealousy considered it, and the splendid head of black hair parted high on the forehead, to impart to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic felon-colly. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a little batonage, and the striking recollection of his own dignity with which he exclaims, now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Wolford, sir, can never be forgotten. The graceful air, too, with which he introduces Miss Wolford into the arena, and, after assisting her to the saddle, follows her very course around the circle, can never fail to create a deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present. When Miss Wolford, and the horse, and the orchestra, all stop together to take breath, he urbanely takes part in some such dialogue as the following, commenced by the clown. I say, sir, well, sir, it's always conducted in the politest manner. Did you ever happen to hear I was in the army, sir? No, sir? Oh, yes, sir. I could go through my exercise, sir. Indeed, sir, shall I do it now, sir? If you please, sir, come, sir, make haste. A cut with a long whip and ha, done now. I don't like it from the clown. Here the clown throws himself on the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic convulsions, doubling himself up and untying himself again, and making himself look very like a man in the most hopeless extreme of human agony, to the vociferous delight of the gallery, until he is interrupted by a second cut from the long whip, and a request to see what Miss Wolford's stopping for, on which to the inexpressible mirth of the gallery he exclaims, now, Miss Wolford, what can I count for to go, for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to do, for you, ma'am. All the ladies announcing with a sweet smile that she wants the two flags, they are with sundry grimaces procured and handed up. The clown facetiously observing after the performance of the latter ceremony, he-he, oh, I say, sir, Miss Wolford knows me, she smiled at me. Another cut from the whip, a burst from the orchestra, a start from the horse, and round goes Miss Wolford again on her graceful performance, to the delight of every member of the audience, young or old. The next pause affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the only additional fun being that of the clown-making ludicrous grimaces at the writing-master every time his back is turned, and finally quitting the circle by jumping over his head, having previously directed his attention another way. Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people who hang about the stage-doors of our minor theatres in the day-time? You will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on the pavement with an indescribable public-host powder swagger, and a kind of conscious air peculiar to people of this description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting. The lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat and very full light-green trousers pulls down the wristbands of his check-shirt as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen and cocks the white hat of the summer before last as knowingly over his right eye as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the dirty white Berlin gloves and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his thread-bear coat. Is it possible to see him for an instant and not come to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtoot, clean collar, and white trousers for half an hour and then shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes, who has to boast night after night of his splendid fortune with a painful consciousness of a pound a week and his boots to find to talk of his father's mansion in the country with a dreary recollection of his own two-pair back in the new cut, and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich heiress remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home is in the family way and out of an engagement. Next to him perhaps you will see a thin pale man with a very long face in a suit of shining black thoughtfully knocking that part of his boot which once had a heel with an ash-stick. He is the man who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, currets, landlords, and so forth. By the way, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some piece in which all the dramatic personae were orphans. Fathers are invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give the hero or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain rose, usually commencing with, It is now nineteen years, my dear child, sensual blessed mother, hear the old villain's voice falters, confided you to my charge, you were then an infant, etc., etc., or else they have to discover all of a sudden that somebody whom they have been in constant communication with during three long acts without the slightest suspicion is their own child, in which case they exclaim, ah, what do I see, this bracelet that smile, these documents, those eyes, can I believe my senses, it must be, yes, it is, it is my child, my father exclaims the child, and they fall into each other's arms and look over each other's shoulders, and the audience give three rounds of applause. To return from this digression, we were about to say that these are the sort of people whom you see talking and attitudinizing outside the stage doors of our minor theatres. At Astleys they are always more numerous than at any other place. There is generally a groom or two sitting on the windowsill, and two or three dirty, shabby, gentile men in checked neckerchiefs, and saddle linen lounging about, and carrying perhaps under one arm a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. Some years ago we used to stand looking open-mouthed at these men, with a feeling of mysterious curiosity, the very recollection of which provokes a smile at the moment we are writing. We could not believe that the beings of light and elegance in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs, who flitted on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes at night, with all the aid of lights, music, and artificial flowers, could be the pale, dissipated-looking creatures we be held by day. We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify the walking gentleman with a dirty swell, the comic singer with the public house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and distress. But these other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs, with the exception of Ducro, who can scarcely be classed among them, who ever knew a rider at Astley's, or saw him but on horseback. Can our friend in the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the comparatively unwanted costume of everyday life? Impossible. We cannot. We will not believe it. Fair. If the parks be the lungs of London, we wonder what Greenwich Fair is, a periodical breaking out, we suppose, a sort of spring rash, a three-days fever which cools the blood for six months afterwards, and at the expiration of which London is restored to its old habits of plotting industry as suddenly and completely as if nothing had ever happened to disturb them. In our earlier days we were a constant frequenter of Greenwich Fair for years. We have proceeded to, and returned from it in almost every description of vehicle. We cannot conscientiously deny the charge of having once made the passage in a spring van accompanied by thirteen gentlemen, fourteen ladies, an unlimited number of children, and a barrel of beer. And we have a vague recollection of having, in later days, found ourselves the eighth outside on the top of a hackedy-coach at something past four o'clock in the morning with a rather confused idea of our own name or place of residence. We have grown older since then, and quiet and steady, liking nothing better than to spend our Easter and all our other holidays in some quiet nook with people of whom we shall never tire, but we think we still remember something of Greenwich Fair and of those who resort to it. At all events we will try. The road to Greenwich during the whole of Easter Monday is in a state of perpetual bustle and noise. Cabs, hackedy-couches, sheikarts, coal-wagon, stages, omnibuses, sociables, gigs, donkey-chases, all cramped with people, for the question never is what the horse can draw but what the vehicle will hold, roll along at their utmost speed. The dust flies in clouds, ginger-beer-corks go off in volleys, the balcony of every public-hose is crowded with people, smoking and drinking, half the private houses are turned into tea-shops, fiddles are in great request, every little fruit-shop displays its stall of guilt, gingerbread and penny-toys, turnpike men are in despair, horses won't go on, and wheels will come off. Ladies in caravan scream with fright in every fresh concussion, and their admirers find it necessary to sit remarkably close to them by way of encouragement. Servants of all work who are not allowed to have followers, and have got a holiday for the day, make the most of their time with the faithful admirer who waits for the stolen interview at the corner of the street every night, when they go to fetch the beer, apprentices grow sentimental, and straw-bonnet makers kind. Everybody is anxious to get on, and actuated by the common wish to be at the fair or in the park as soon as possible. Pedestrians linger in groups at the roadside, unable to resist the allurements of the stout proprietress of the jack of the box, three shies of penny, or the more splendid offers of the man with three thimbles and a pee on a little round board, who astonishes the bewildered crowd with some such addresses. Here's the sort of game to make you laugh seven years after you're dead, and turn every air on your head gray with delight. Three thimbles and one little pee, with a one, two, three, and a two, three, one. Catch a moucan, look on, keep your eyes open, and never say die. Never mind the change in the expense, all fear and aboveboard, them as don't play, convince, and luck attend the royal sportsman. Bet any gentleman any sum of money from half a crowd up to a southern, as he doesn't name the thimble as kivors the pee. Here's some greenhorn, whispers his friend, that he distinctly saw the pee roll under the middle thimble, an impression which is immediately confirmed by a gentleman in top boots who is standing by, and who, in a low tone, regrets his own inability to bet, in consequence of having unfortunately left his purse at home, but strongly urges the stranger not to neglect such a golden opportunity. The plant is successful, the bet is made, the stranger, of course, loses, and the gentleman with the thimbles consoles him as he pockets the money, with an assurance that it's all the fortune of war. This time I bid, next time you win, never mind the loss of two bob and a bender, do it up in a small parcel and break out in a fresh place. Here's a sort of game, etc., and the eloquent harangue, with such variations as the speaker's exuberant fancy suggests, is again repeated to the gaping crowd reinforced by the accession of several newcomers. The chief place of resort, in the daytime, after the public houses, is the park, in which the principal amusement is to drag young ladies up the steep hill which leads to the observatory, and then drag them down again at the very top of their speed, greatly to the derangement of their curls and bonnet-caps, and much to the edification of lookers-on from below. Kiss in the ring and threading my grandmother's needle, too, are sports which receive their full share of patronage. Love-sick swains under the influence of gin and water, and the tender passion become violently affectionate, and the fair objects of their regard enhance the value of stolen kisses by a vast deal of struggling and holding down of heads and cries of, oh, had done then, George, oh, do tickle him for me, Mary, well, I never, and similar Lucretian ejaculations. Little old men and women with a small basket under one arm and a wine-glass without a foot in the other hand tender a drop of the right sort to the different groups, and young ladies who are persuaded to indulge in a drop of the aforesaid right sort display a pleasing degree of reluctance to taste it and cough afterwards with great propriety. The old pensioners, who for the moderate change of a penny exhibit the mast-house, the Thames and shipping, the place where the men used to hang in chains and other interesting sights through a telescope, are asked questions about objects within the range of the glass which it would puzzle a Solomon to answer, and request it to find out particular houses in particular streets which it would have been a task of some difficulty for Mr. Horner, not the young gentleman who ate mince pies with his thumb, but the man of coliseum notoriety, to discover. Here and there, where some three or four couples are sitting on the grass together, you will see a sun-burnt woman in a red cloak telling fortunes and prophesying husbands which it requires no extraordinary observation to describe for the originals are before her. Thereupon the lady concerned laughs and blushes and ultimately buries her face in an imitation cambrick handkerchief, and the gentleman described looks extremely foolish and squeezes her hand and feeds the gypsy liberally, and the gypsy goes away, perfectly satisfied herself, and leaving those behind her perfectly satisfied also, and the prophecy like many other prophecies of greater importance fulfills itself in time. But it grows dark. The crowd has gradually dispersed, and only a few stragglers are left behind. The light in the direction of the church shows that the fair is illuminated, and the distant noise proves it to be filling fast. The spot which half an hour ago was ringing with the shouts of boisterous mirth is as calm and quiet as if nothing could ever disturb its serenity. The final trees, the majestic building at their feet, with the noble river beyond, glistening in the moonlight, appear in all their beauty, and under their most favourable aspect, the voices of the boys singing their evening hymn are born gently on the air, and the humblest mechanic who has been lingering on the grass so pleasant to the feet that beat the same dull round from week to week in the paved streets of London feels proud to think as he surveys the scene before him that he belongs to the country which has selected such a spot as a retreat for its oldest and best offenders in the decline of their lives. Five minutes walking brings you to the fair, a scene calculated to awaken very different feelings. The entrance is occupied on either side by the vendors of gingerbread and toys. The stalls are gaily lighted up, the most attractive goods profusely disposed, and unbonneted young ladies in their zeal for the interest of their employers seize you by the coat and use all the blandishments of, do dear, there's a love, don't be cross now, etc., to induce you to purchase half a pound of the real spice-nuts of which the majority of the regular fair-goers carry a pound or two as a present supply tied up in a cotton pocket-handkerchief. Occasionally you pass a deal-table on which are exposed pennerths of pickled salmon, fennel included, in little white saucers, oysters with shells as large as cheese plates, and diverse specimens of a species of snails, wilks, we think they are called, floating in a somewhat billious- looking green liquid. Cigars, too, are in great demand, gentlemen must smoke, of course, and here they are, to a penny, in a regular authentic cigar-box with a lighted tallow-candle in the center. Imagine yourself in an extremely dense crowd which swings you to and fro and in and out and every way but the right one, add to this the screams of women, the shouts of boys, the clanging of gongs, the firing of pistols, the ringing of bells, the bellowings of speaker trumpets, the squeaking of penny-dittos, the noise of a dozen bands, with three drums in each, all playing different tunes at the same time, the hallowing of showmen, and an occasional roar from the wild beast-shows, and you are in the very center and heart of the fair. This immense booth, with the large stage in front so brightly illuminated with variegated lamps and pots of burning fat, is Richardson's, where you have a melodrama with three murders and a ghost, a pantomime, a comic song, an overture, and some incidental music, all done in five and twenty minutes. The company are now promenading outside in all the dignity of wigs, spangles, red ochre, and whitening. See, with what a ferocious air the gentleman who personates the Mexican chief paces up and down, and with what an eye of calm dignity the principal tragedy engays us on the crowd below, or converses confidentially with the harlequin. The four clowns who are engaged in mock broadsword combat may be all very well for the low-minded holiday-makers, but these are the people for the reflective portion of the community. They look so noble in these Roman dresses, with their yellow legs and arms, long black curly heads, bushy eyebrows, and scowl expressive of assassination and vengeance, and everything else that is grand and solemn. Then the ladies, were there ever such innocent and awful-looking beings as they walk up and down the platform in twos and threes, with their arms round each other's wastes, or leaning for support on one of those majestic men. Their spangled muslin dresses and blue satin shoes and sandals, a little the worse for wear, are the admiration of all beholders, and the playful manner in which they check the advances of the clown is perfectly enchanting. Just like going to begin, pray come forward, come forward, exclaims the man in the countryman's dress for the seventeenth time, and people force their way up and down the steps and crowds. The band suddenly strikes up, the harlequin and columbine set the example, reels are formed in less than no time, the Roman heroes place their arms akimbo and dance with considerable agility, the leading tragic actress and the gentleman who enacts the swell in the pantomime, foot it to perfection. All in to begin, shouts the manager, when no more people can be induced to come forward, and away rush the leading members of the company to do the dreadful in the first piece. A change of performance takes place every day during the fair, but the story of the tragedy is always pretty much the same. There is a rightful heir who loves a young lady and is beloved by her, and a wrongful heir who loves her too and isn't beloved by her. And the wrongful heir gets hold of the rightful heir and throws him into a dungeon just to kill him off when convenient, for which purpose he hires a couple of assassins, a good one and a bad one, who, the moment they are left alone, get up a little murder on their own account, the good one killing the bad one and the bad one wounding the good one. Then the rightful heir is discovered in prison carefully holding a long chain in his hands and seated despondingly in a large arm chair, and the young lady comes into two bars of soft music and embraces the rightful heir, and then the wrongful heir comes into two bars of quick music, technically called a hurry, and goes on in the most shocking manner, throwing the young lady about as if she was nobody, and calling the rightful heir a recreational, a wretch, and a very loud voice which answers the double purpose of displaying his passion and preventing the sound from being deadened by the saw-dust. The interest becomes intense, the wrongful heir draws his sword and rushes on the rightful heir, a blue smoke is seen, a gong is heard, and a tall white figure, who has been all this time behind the arm chair covered over with a tablecloth, slowly rises to the tune of often the stilly night. This is no other than the ghost of the rightful heir's father, who was killed by the wrongful heir's father, at sight of which the wrongful heir becomes apoplectic and has literally struck all of a heap. The stage not being large enough to admit of his falling down at full length. Then the good assassin staggers in, and says he was hired in conjunction with the bad assassin by the wrongful heir to kill the rightful heir, and he's killed a good many people in his time, but he's very sorry for it and won't do so any more, a promise which he immediately redeems by a dying offhand without any nonsense about it. Then the rightful heir throws down his chain, and then two men, a sailor and a young woman, the tenetry of the rightful heir, come in and the ghost makes dumb motions to them, which they by supernatural interference understand, for no one else can, and the ghost, who can't do anything without blue fire, blesses the rightful heir and the young lady by half suffocating them with smoke, and then a muffin-bell rings and the curtain drops. The exhibitions next in popularity to these itinerate theaters are the traveling menageries, or to speak more intelligibly the wild beast shows, where a military band in beef-eater's costume with leopard-skin caps play incessantly, and where large, highly-colored representations of tigers tearing men's heads open and a lion being burnt with red-hot irons to induce him to drop his victim are hung up outside by way of attracting visitors. The principal officer at these places is generally a very tall horseman in a scarlet coat with a cane in his hand, with which he occasionally wraps the pictures we have just noticed by way of illustrating his description, something in this way. Here, here, here, the lion, the lion, tap, exactly as he has represented on the canvas outside, three taps, no waiting, remember, no description, the ferocious lion, tap, tap, who bit off the gentleman's head last cambervel, was a twelve-month, and has killed on the average three keepers a year ever since he arrived at maturity. No extra charge on this account recollect the price of admission is only six pence. This address never fails to produce a considerable sensation, and six pence's flow into the treasury with wonderful rapidity. The dwarfs are also objects of great curiosity, and as a dwarf, a giantess, a living skeleton, a wild Indian, a young lady of singular beauty with perfectly white hair and pink eyes, and two or three other natural curiosities are usually exhibited together for the small charge of a penny. They attract very numerous audiences. The best thing about a dwarf is that he always has a little box about two feet six inches high, into which by long practice he can just manage to get by doubling himself up like a boot jack. This box is painted outside like a six-roomed house, and as the crowd see him ring a bell or fire a pistol out to the first floor window, they thoroughly believe that it is his ordinary town residence, divided like other mansions into drawing-rooms, dining-pillar, and bed-chambers. Shut up in this case the unfortunate little object is brought out to delight the throng by holding a facetious dialogue with the proprietor, in the course of which the dwarf, who is always particularly drunk, pledges himself to sing a comic song inside and pays various compliments to the ladies, which induce them to come forward with great alacrity. As a giant is not so easily moved, a pair of indescribables of most capacious dimensions and a huge shoe are usually brought out into which two or three stout men get all at once, to the enthusiastic delight of the crowd who are quite satisfied with the solemn assurance that these habiliments form part of the giant's everyday costume. The grandest and most numerously frequented booth in the whole fair, however, is the Crown and Anchor, a temporary ballroom. We forget how many hundred feet long the price of admission to which is one shilling. Immediately on your right hand as you enter after paying your money, is a refreshment place at which cold beef, roast, and boiled, French rolls, stout wine, tongue, ham, even fouls, if we recollect right, are displayed in tempting array. There is a raised orchestra, and the place is boarded all the way down in patches just wide enough for a country dance. There is no master of the ceremonies in this artificial Eden. All is primitive, unreserved, and unstudied. The dust is blinding, the heat insupportable, the company somewhat noisy, and in the highest spirits possible. The ladies, in the height of their innocent animation, dancing in the gentleman's hats and the gentleman promenading the gay and festive scene in the ladies' bonnets, or with the most expensive ornaments of false noses and low-crowned tinder-box-looking hats, playing children's drums and accompanied by ladies on the penny trumpet. The noise of these various instruments, the orchestra, the shouting, the scratchers, and the dancing is perfectly bewildering. The dancing itself beggars description. Every figure lasts about an hour, and the ladies bounce up and down the middle with a degree of spirit which is quite indescribable. As to the gentleman, they stamp their feet against the ground every time hands four round begins, go down the middle and up again with cigars in their mouths and silk handkerchiefs in their hands, and whirl their partners round, nothing loth, scrambling and falling and embracing, and knocking up against the other couples until they are fairly tired out and can move no longer. The same scene is repeated again and again, slightly varied by an occasional row, until a late hour at night, at a great many clerks and apprentices find themselves next morning with aching heads, empty pockets, damaged hats, and a very imperfect recollection of how it was they did not get home. End of Section 19 Richard III Duke of Gloucester, two pounds, Earl of Richmond, two pounds, Duke of Buckingham, fifteen shillings, Cape Statesby, twelve shillings, Tressel, ten shillings, sixpence, Lord Stanley, five shillings, Lord Mayor of London, two shillings, sixpence. Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentleman's dressing room or the green room where there is any at a private theatre, and such are the sums extracted from the shop till or overcharged in the office expenditure by the donkeys who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. This they do, in proportion to the scope afforded by the character for the display of their imbecility. For instance, the Duke of Gloucester is well worth two pounds, because he has it all to himself. He must wear a real sword, and what is better still, he must draw it several times in the course of the piece. The soliloquies alone are well worth fifteen shillings, and there is the stabbing King Henry, decidedly cheap at three and sixpence, that's eighteen and sixpence, bullying the coffin-bearers, say, eighteen pence, though it's worth much more, that's a pound. Then the love-scene with Lady Anne, and the bustle of the Fourth Act can't be dear at ten shillings more. That's only one pound ten, including the off-with-his-head, which is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very easy to do. Off with his head, very quick and loud, then slow and sneeringly. So much for bucking-ham! lay the emphasis on the ock. Get yourself gradually into a corner, and work with your right hand while you're saying it, as if you were feeling your way and it sure to do. The ten-scene is confessedly worth half a sovereign, and so you have the fight in, gratis, and everybody knows what that effect may be produced by good combat. One, two, three, four, over, then one, two, three, four, under, then thrust, then dodge, and slide about, then fall down on one knee, then fight upon it, and then get up again, and stagger. You may keep on doing this as long as it seems to take, say, ten minutes, and then fall down, backward, if you can manage it without hurting yourself, and die game. Nothing like it for producing an effect. They always do it at Astley's and Saddler's Wells, and if they don't know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does? A small child, or a female in white, increases the interest of a combat materially. Indeed, we are not aware that a regular, legitimate, terrific, broadsword combat could be done without, but it would be rather difficult and somewhat unusual to introduce the effect in the last scene of Richard III, so the only thing to be done is just to make the best of a bad bargain, and be as long as possible fighting it out. The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys, low-copying clerks, in attorneys' offices, capacious-headed youths from city counting-houses, Jews whose business as lenders of fancy dresses is a sure passport to the amateur stage, sharp boys who now and then mistake their master's money for their own, and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. A proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-seeing painter, or a low-coffee housekeeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. The theatre itself may be in Catherine Street, Strand, the pervues of the city, the neighbourhood of Grey's Inn Lane, or the vicinity of Saddler's Wells, or it may perhaps form the chief nuisance of some shabby street on the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge. The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and it is needless to add, are usually selected from one class of society. The audiences are necessarily of much the same character as the performers who receive, in return for their contributions to the management, tickets to the amount of the money they pay. All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest, constitute the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood. Each of them has an audience exclusively its own, and at any you will see the dropping into the pit at half-price, or swaggering into the back of a box, if the price of admission be a reduced one. Divers boys are from fifteen to twenty-one years of age, who throw back their coat and turn up their wrist-bands after the portraits of Count Dorsey, hum tunes and whistle when the curtain is down, by way of persuading the people near them that they are not at all anxious to have it up again, and speak familiarly of the inferior performers as Bill Suchewan and Ned So-and-So, or tell each other how a new piece called the Unknown Bandit of the Invisible Cavern is in rehearsal, how Mr. Palmer is to play the Unknown Bandit, how Charlie Scarton is to take the part of an English sailor, and fight a broadsword combat with six Unknown Bandits at one and the same time, one theatrical sailor is always equal to half a dozen men at least, how Mr. Palmer and Charlie Scarton are to go through a double hornpipe in fetters in the second act, how the interior of the Invisible Cavern is to occupy the whole extent of the stage, and other town-surprising theatrical announcements. These gentlemen are the amateurs, the Richards, Shilox, Beverley's, and Othello's, the young Dorntons, Rovers, Captain Absoluts, and Charles Surfaces, a private theatre. See them at the neighbouring public-house, or the theatrical coffee-shop. They are the kings of the place, supposing no real performers to be present, and roll about hats on one side, and arms a Kimbo, as if they had actually come into possession of eighteen shillings a week, and a share of a ticket night. If any one of them does but know an astly super-numerary, he is a happy fellow. The mingled air of envy and admiration with which his companions will regard him, as he converses familiarly with some moldy-looking man in a fancy neckerchief, whose partially corked eyebrows and half-ruised face testify to the fact of his having just left the stage or the circle sufficiently shows in what high admiration these public characters are held. With the double view of guarding against the discovery of friends or employers, and enhancing the interest of an assumed character by attaching a high-sounding name to its representative, these geniuses assume fictitious names which are not the least amusing part of the play-bill of a private theatre. Belleville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth are among the humblest, and the less imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker, Thompson, Barker, Solomon's, etc. are completely laid aside. There is something imposing in this, and it is an excellent apology for shappiness into the bargain. A shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of trousers, nay even a very dirty shirt, and none of these appearances are very uncommon among the members of the core dramatique, may be worn for the purpose of disguise and to prevent the remotest chance of recognition. Then it prevents any troublesome inquiries or explanations about employment and pursuits. Everybody is a gentleman at large for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleasant and unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must occasionally succumb elsewhere. As to the ladies, God bless them, they are quite above any formal absurdities. The mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society, for of course they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted into that close fellowship with them which acting engenders. They place implicit reliance on the manager, no doubt, and as to the manager, he is all affability when he knows you well, or in other words, when he has pocketed your money once and entertains confident hopes of doing so again. A quarter before eight. There will be a full house to-night, six parties in the boxes already, four little boys and a woman in the pit, and two fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, who have got through five overtures and seven o'clock the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances, and have just begun the sixth. There will be plenty of it, though, when it does begin, for there is enough in the bill to last six hours at least. The gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat, and brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the OP side, is Mr. Horatio St. Julian, alias Jim Larkins. His line is gentile comedy. His father's coal and potato. He does, Alfred Highflyer, in the last piece, and very well he'll do it at the price. The party of gentlemen in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and supporters of Mr. Beverly, otherwise logins, the Macbeth of the night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and gentlemanly, each member of the party, with his feet cocked upon the cushion in front of the box. They let him do these things here upon the same humane principle, which permits poor people's children to knock double-knocks at the door of an empty house, because they can't do it anywhere else. The two stout men in the centre-box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously placed before them, are friends of the proprietor, opulent country managers, as he confidentially informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain. Opulent country managers looking out for recruits, a representation which Mr. Nathan, the dresser, who is in the manager's interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm upon oath if required. Corroborative evidence, however, is quite unnecessary for the gulls to believe it at once. The stout Jewish, who has just entered, is the mother of the pale, bony little girl with the necklace of blue-glass beads sitting by her. She is being brought up to the profession. Pantamime is to be her line, and she is coming out tonight in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short, thin man beside Mr. St. Julian, whose white face is so deeply seared with the small pox, and whose dirty shirt front is inlaid with open work and embossed with choral studs like ladybirds, is the low-comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the audience, a totterable numerous one by this time, are a motley group of dupes and black-earns. The footlights have just made their appearance. The wicks of the six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes are being turned up, and the additional light thus afforded serves to show the presence of dirt and absence of paint, which forms a prominent feature in the audience part of the house. As these preparations, however, announce the speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep behind previous to the ringing up. The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither especially clean nor too brilliantly lighted, and the absence of any flooring together with the damp mildewy smell which pervades the place does not conduce in any great degree to their comfortable appearance. Don't fall over this plate-masket. It is one of the properties, the cauldron for the witches' cave, and the three uncouth-looking figures, with broken clothes, props in their hands, who are drinking gin and water out of a pint-pot, are the weird sisters. This miserable room, lighted by candles and sconces placed at lengthen intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room, common to the gentleman-performers, and the square-hole in the ceiling is the trap-door on the stage above. You will observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that support the boards and tastefully hung with cobwebs. The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their own clothes are scattered in hurried confusion over the wooden dresser which surrounds the room. That snuff-shop-looking figure in front of the glass is Banquo, and the young lady with the liberal display of legs, who is kindly painting his face with a hair's foot, is dressed for fleance. The large woman who is consulting the stage-directions in Cumberland's edition of Macbeth is the lady Macbeth of the night. She is always selected to play the part because she is tall and stout, and looks a little like Mrs. Siddins at a considerable distance. That stupid-looking mill-sop, with light hair and bow-legs, a kind of man who you can warrant town-made, is fresh-caught. He plays Malcolm to-night, just to accustom himself to an audience. He will get on better by degrees. He will play Othello in a month, and in a month more will very probably be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. The black-eyed female with whom he is talking so earnestly is dressed for the gentlewoman. It is her first appearance, too, in that character. The boy of 14, who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan, King of Scotland, and the two dirty men with the corked countenances in very old green tunics and dirty drab boots are the army. Look sharp below there, Gents exclaims the dresser, a red-headed and red-whiskered Jew calling through the trap. They are going to ring up. The flute says he'll be blowed if he plays any more, and they're getting precious noisy in front. A general rush immediately takes place to the half-dozen middle-steep steps leading to the stage, and the heterogeneous group are soon assembled at the side scenes in breathless anxiety and motley confusion. Now, cries the manager, consulting the written list which hangs behind the first P.S. wing. Scene one, open country, lamps down, thunder and lightning, already. White, this is addressed to one of the army. Already, very well. Scene two, front chamber. Is the front chamber down? Yes, very well. Jones, to the other army, who is up in the flies. Hello? Wind up the open country when we ring up. I'll take care. Scene three, back perspective with practical bridge. Bridge ready? White? Got the trestles there? All right. Very well, clear the stage, cries the manager, hastily packing every member of the company into the little space there is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and another. Places, places. Now then. Witches? Duncan? Malcolm? Bleeding officer? Where's the bleeding officer? Here, replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for the character. Get ready then. Now, white, ring the second music-bell. The actors who are to be discovered are hastily arranged, and the actors who are not to be discovered place themselves in their anxiety to peep at the house just where the audience can see them. The bell-rings and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, play three distinct chords. The bell-rings, the tragedy opens, and our description closes. End of Section 20. There was a time when, if a man ventured to wonder how Voxhall Gardens would look by day, he was hailed with a shout of derision at the absurdity of the idea. Voxhall, by daylight, a porter-pot without porter, the house of commons without the speaker, a gas-lamp without the gas, poo, nonsense, the thing was not to be thought of. It was rumored, too, in those times, that Voxhall Gardens, by day, were the scene of secret and hidden experiments that their covers were exercised in the mystic art of cutting a moderate sized ham into slices thin enough to pave the whole of the grounds that beneath the shade of the tall trees studious men were constantly engaged in chemical experiments with the view of discovering how much water a bowl of negus could possibly bear, and that in some retired nooks appropriated to the study of ornithology other sage and learned men were, by a process known only to themselves, incessantly employed in reducing fowls to a mere combination of skin and bone. Vague rumors of this kind, together with many others of a similar nature, cast over Voxhall Gardens an air of deep mystery, and as there is a great deal in the mysterious there is no doubt that, to a good many people at all events, the pleasure they afforded was not a little enhanced by this very circumstance. We loved to wander among those illuminated groves, thinking of the patient and laborious researchers which had been carried on there during the day, and witnessing their results in the suppers which were served up beneath the light of lamps and the sound of music at night. The temples and saloons and cosmaramas and fountains glittered and sparkled before our eyes. The beauty of the lady-singers and the elegant deportment of the gentleman captivated our hearts. A few hundred thousand of additional lamps dazzled our senses. A bowl or two of punch bewildered our brains, and we were happy. In an evil hour the proprietors of Voxhall Gardens took to opening them by day. We regretted this as rudely and harshly disturbing that veil of mystery which had hung about the property for many years, and which none but the noonday sun and the late Mr. Simpson had ever penetrated. We shrunk from going at this moment we scarcely know why, perhaps a morbid consciousness of approaching disappointment, perhaps a fatal presentiment, perhaps the weather, whatever it was we did not go until the second or third announcement of a race between two balloons tempted us, and we went. We paid our shilling at the gate, and then we saw, for the first time, that the entrance, if there had been any magic about it at all, was now decidedly disenchanted, being in fact nothing more nor less than a combination of very roughly painted boards and sawdust. We glanced at the orchestra and supper room as we hurried past. We just recognized them, and that was all. We bent our steps to the firework ground. There at least we should not be disappointed. We reached it and stood rooted to the spot with mortification and astonishment. That the Moorish Tower. The wooden shed with a door in the center, and dobs of crimson and yellow all around, like a gigantic watch case. That the place where night after night we had beheld the undaunted Mr. Blackmore make his terrific ascent, surrounded by flames of fire and peals of artillery, and where the white garments of Madame Somebody, we forgot even her name now, who nobly devoted her life to the manufacture of fireworks, had so often been seen fluttering in the wind as she called up a red, blue, or party-colored light to illuminate her temple. That the—but at this moment the bell rung. The people scampered away, pale-mailed to the spot from whence the sound proceeded, and we, from the mere force of habit, found ourselves running among the first as if for very life. It was for the concert in the orchestra. A small party of dismal men in cocked hats were executing the overture to Tancredi, and a numerous assemblage of ladies and gentlemen with their families had rushed from their half-emptied stout mugs in the supper-boxes and crowded to the spot. Intense was the low murmur of admiration when a particularly small gentleman in a dress-coat led on a particularly tall lady in a blue sarsenet-pillice and bonnet of the same, ornamented with large white feathers and forthwith commenced a plaintive duet. We knew the small gentleman well. We had seen a lithographed semblance of him on many a piece of music, with his mouth wide open as if in the act of singing, a wine-glass in his hand, and a table with two decanters and four pineapples on it in the background. The tall lady, too, we had gazed on, lost in raptures of admiration many and many a time. How different people do look by daylight and without punch, to be sure. It was a beautiful duet. First the small gentleman asked a question, and then the tall lady answered it. Then the small gentleman and the tall lady sang together most melodiously. Then the small gentleman went through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor indeed in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall lady responded in a similar manner. Then the small gentleman had a shake or two, after which the tall lady had the same, and then they both merged imperceptibly into the original air, and the band wound themselves up to a pitch of fury, and the small gentleman handed the tall lady out, and the applause was rapturous. The comic singer, however, was the special favorite. We really thought that a gentleman, with his dinner in a pocket-haggertchef who stood near us, would have fainted with excess of joy. A marvelously facetious gentleman that comic singer is. His distinguishing characteristics are a wig approaching to the flaxen, and an aged countenance, and he bears the name of one of the English counties if we recollect right. He sang a very good song about the seven ages, the first half hour of which afforded the assembly the purest delight of the rest we can make no report, as we did not stay to hear any more. We walked about, and met with a disappointment at every turn. Our favorite views were mere patches of paint, the fountain that had sparkled so showily by lamp-light, presented very much the appearance of a water-pipe that had burst. All the ornaments were dingy and the walks gloomy. There was a spectral attempt at rope-dancing in the little open theatre. The sun shone upon the spangled dresses of the performers, and their evolutions were about as conspirating and appropriate as a country dance in a family vault. So we retraced our steps to the firework ground, and mingled with a little crowd of people who were contemplating Mr. Green. Some half dozen men were restraining the impetuosity of one of the balloons, which was completely filled, and had the car already attached, and as rumors had gone abroad that a lord was going up, the crowd was more than usually anxious and talkative. There was one little man, in faded black with a dirty face and a rusty black neck-a-chief with a red border, tied in a narrow wisp round his neck, who entered into conversation with everybody, and had something to say upon every remark that was made within his hearing. He was standing with his arms folded, staring up at the balloon, and every now and then vented his feelings of reverence for the aeronaut. By saying, as he looked round to catch somebody's eye, he's a rum on his green, think of this hair being upwards of his two hundred a cent. He called the man as his equal to green, never had the toothache yet, nor won't have within this hundred year, and that's all about it. When you meet with real talent and native too to encourage it, that's what I say. And when he had delivered himself to this effect, he would fold his arms with more determination than ever, and stare at the balloon with a sort of admiring defiance of any other man alive, beyond himself and green, that impressed the crowd with the opinion that he was an oracle. Ah, you're very right, sir, said another gentleman, with his wife and children and mother and wife's sister, and a host of female friends in all the gentility of white-pocket handkerchiefs, frills and spencers. Mr. Green is a steady hand, sir, and there's no fear about him. Fear, said the little man, isn't it a lovely thing to see him and his wife are going up in one balloon, and his own son and his wife are jostling up against them in another, and all of them going twenty or thirteen miles in three hour or so, and then coming back in butt chases. I don't know where this here science is to stop, mind you, that's what bothers me. Here there was a considerable talking among the females and the spencers. What's the ladies are laughing at, sir? inquired the little man condescendingly. It's only my sister Mary, said one of the girls, as says she hopes his lordship won't be frightened when he's in the car and want to come out again. Make yourself easy about that, there, my dear, replied the little man. If he was so much as to move an inch without leave, Green would just fetch him a crack over the head with a telescope, as would send him into the bottom of the basket at no time, and stun him till they come down again. Would he, though, inquired the other man? Yes, would he, replied the little one, and think nothing of it neither if he was the king himself. Green's presence of mind is wonderful. Just at this moment all eyes were directed to the preparations which were being made for starting. The car was attached to the second balloon, the two were brought pretty close together, and a military band commenced playing with a zeal and fervor which would render the most timid man in existence but too happy to accept any means of quitting that particular spot on earth on which they were stationed. Then Mr. Green Sr. and his noble companion entered one car, and Mr. Green Jr. and his companion the other. And then the balloons went up, and the aerial travellers stood up, and the crowd outside roared with the light, and the two gentlemen who had never ascended before tried to wave their flags as if they were not nervous, but held on very fast all the while, and the balloons were wafted gently away, our little friend solemnly protesting, long after they were reduced to mere specks in the air, that he could still distinguish the white hat of Mr. Green. The gardens disgorge their multitudes, boys ran up and down, screaming, balloon! And at all the crowded thoroughfares people rushed out of their shops into the middle of the road, and having stared up in the air at two little black objects till they almost dislocated their necks, walked slowly in again, perfectly satisfied. The next day there was a grand account of the ascent in the morning papers, and the public weren't formed how it was the finest day but before in Mr. Green's remembrance, how they retained sight of the earth till they lost it behind the clouds, and how the reflection of the balloon on the undulating masses of vapor was gorgeously picturesque, together with a little science about the refraction of the sun's rays and some mysterious hints respecting atmospheric heat and eddying currents of air. And there was also an interesting account of how a man in a boat was distinctly heard by Mr. Green Jr. to exclaim, my eye, which Mr. Green Jr. attributed to his voice rising to the balloon, and the sound being thrown back from its surface into the car, and the whole concluded with a slight allusion to another ascent next Wednesday, all of which was very instructive and very amusing as our readers will see if they look to the papers. If we have forgotten to mention the date, they have only to wait till next summer and take the account of the first ascent, and it will answer the purpose equally well. END OF SECHSION XXI. We have often wondered how many months incessant travelling in a succession of early coaches an unfortunate mortal could endure. Breaking a man alive upon the wheel would be nothing to breaking his rest, his peace, his heart, everything but his fast, upon four. And the punishment of Ixion, the only practical person by the by who has discovered the secret of the perpetual motion, would not be the only one. And the punishment of Ixion, the only practical person by the by who has discovered the secret of the perpetual motion, would sink into utter insignificance before the one we have suggested. If we have been a powerful churchman in those good times when blood was shed as freely as water, and men were mowed down like grass in the sacred cause of religion, we would have lain by very quietly till we got hold of some especially obstinate miscreant who positively refused to be converted to our faith, and then we would have booked him for an inside place in a small coach, which travelled day and night, and securing the remainder of the places for stout men with a slight tendency to coughing and spitting, we would have started him forth on his last travels, leaving him mercilessly to all the tortures which the waiters, landlords, coachmen, guards, boots, chambermaids, and other familiars on his line of road might think proper to inflict. Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent upon a summons to undertake a hasty journey? You receive an intimation from your place of business, wherever that may be, or whatever you may be, that it will be necessary to leave town without delay. You and your family are forthwith thrown into a state of tremendous excitement, an express is immediately dispatched to the washer-women's, everybody is in a bustle, and you yourself, with a feeling of dignity which you cannot altogether conceal, sally forth to the booking-office to secure your place. Here a painful consciousness of your own unimportance first rushes on your mind. The people are as cool and collected as if nobody were going out of town, or as if a journey of a hundred odd miles were a mere nothing. You enter a moldy looking room ornamented with large posting-bills, the greater part of the place enclosed behind a huge lumbering rough counter, and fitted up with recesses that look like the dens of the smaller animals in a travelling menagerie without the bars. Some half-dozen people are booking brown paper parcels, which one of the clerks flings into the aforesaid recesses with an air of recklessness which you, remembering the new carpet-bag you bought in the morning, feel considerably annoyed at. Porters looking like so many atlases keep rushing in and out with large packages on their shoulders, and while you are waiting to make the necessary inquiries, you wonder what on earth the booking-office clerks can have been before they were booking office clerks. One of them with his pen behind his ear and his hands behind him is standing in front of the fire like a full-length portrait of Napoleon. The other with his hat half off his head enters the passengers' names in the books with a coolness which is inexpressibly provoking, and the villain whistles, actually whistles, while a man asks him what the fare is outside, all the way to Hollywood. In frosty weather, too. They are clearly an isolated race, evidently possessing no sympathies or feelings in common with the rest of mankind. Your turn comes at last, and having paid the fare you tremblingly inquire what time would it be necessary for me to be here in the morning. Six o'clock, replies the whistler, carelessly pitching the sovereign you have just parted with into a wooden bowl on the desk. Rather before than outer, adds the man, with the semi-roasted unmentionables with just as much ease and complacency as if the whole world got out of bed at five. You turn into the street, ruminating as you bend your steps homewards on the extent to which men become hardened in cruelty by custom. If there be one thing in existence more miserable than another, it most unquestionably is the being compelled to rise by candlelight. If you have ever doubted the fact, you are painfully convinced of your error on the morning of your departure. You left strict orders overnight to be called at half-past four, and you have done nothing all night but doze for five minutes at a time, and start up suddenly from a terrific dream of a large church-clock with a small hand running round with astonishing rapidity to every figure on the dial-plate. At last completely exhausted you fall gradually into a refreshing sleep. Your thoughts grow confused. The stagecoaches which have been going off before your eyes all night become less and less distinct until they go off altogether. One moment you are driving with all the skill and smartness of an experienced whip. The next you are exhibiting Ala Ducro on the off-leader. Anon you are closely muffled up inside and have just recognized in the person of the old school-fellow, whose funeral even in your dream you remember to have attended eighteen years ago. At last you fall into a state of complete oblivion from which you are aroused as if into a new state of existence by a singular illusion. You are apprenticed to a trunk-maker, how or why or when or wherefore you don't take the trouble to inquire, but there you are, pasting the lining in the lid of a portmanteau. Confound that other apprentice in the back how he is hammering. Wrap, wrap, wrap. What an industrious fellow he must be. You have heard him at work for half an hour past, and he has been hammering incessantly the whole time. Wrap, wrap, wrap again. He's talking now. What's that he said? Five o'clock. You make a violent exertion and start up in bed. The vision isn't once dispelled. The trunk-maker's shop is your own bedroom and the other apprentice, your shivering servant, who has been vainly endeavouring to wake you for the last quarter of an hour at the imminent risk of breaking either his own knuckles or the panels of the door. You proceed to dress yourself with all possible dispatch. The flaring flat candle with the long snuff gives light enough to show that the things you want are not where they ought to be, and you undergo a trifling delay in consequence of having carefully packed up one of your boots and your over-exiety of the preceding night. You soon complete your toilet, however, for you are not particular on such an occasion, and you shaved yesterday evening, so mounting your Peterson greatcoat and greened travelling shawl and grasping your carpet-beg in your right hand, you walk lightly downstairs lest you should awaken any of the family, and after pausing in the common sitting-room for one moment, just to have a cup of coffee, the said common sitting-room looking remarkably comfortable, with everything out of its place and strewed with the crumbs of last night's supper, you undo the chain and bolts of the street-door and find yourself fairly in the street. A thaw by all that is miserable, the frost is completely broken up, you look down the long perspective of Oxford Street, the gas lights mournfully reflected on the wet pavement, and can discern no speck in the road to encourage the belief that there is a cab or a coach to be had. The very coachmen have gone home in despair, the cold sleet is drizzling down with that gentle regularity which betokens a duration of four and twenty hours at least. The damp hangs upon the host-hops and lamp-posts and clings to you like an invisible cloak. The water is coming in, in every area, the pipes have burst, the water-butts are running over, the kennels seem to be doing matches against time, pump-handles descend of their own accord, horses and market carts fall down, and there's no one to help them up again. Policemen look as if they have been carefully sprinkled with powdered glass. Here and there a milkwoman trudges slowly along with a bit of list round each foot to keep her from slipping. Boys who don't sleep in the house are not allowed much sleep out of it, can't wake their masters by thundering at the shop-door and cry with the cold. The compound of ice, snow, and water on the pavement is a couple of inches thick. Nobody ventures to walk fast to keep himself warm, and nobody could succeed in keeping himself warm if he did. It strikes a quarter past five as you trudge down Waterloo Place on your way to the Golden Cross, and you discover for the first time that you were called about an hour too early, you have not time to go back, there is no place open to go into, and you have therefore no resource but to go forward, which you do, feeling remarkably satisfied with yourself and everything about you. You arrive at the office and look wistfully up the yard for the Birmingham Highflyer, which, for ought you can see, may have flown away altogether for preparations appear to be on foot for the departure of any vehicle in the shape of a coach. You wander into the booking office, which with the gas, lights, and blazing fire looks quite comfortable by contrast, that is to say, if any place can look comfortable at half past five on a winter's morning, there stands the identical bookkeeper in the same position as if he had not moved since you saw him yesterday, as he informs you that the coach is up the yard and will be brought round in about a quarter of an hour, you leave your bag and repair to the tap, not with any absurd idea of warming yourself, because you feel such a result to be utterly hopeless, but for the purpose of procuring some hot brandy and water, which you do, when the kettle boils, an event which occurs exactly two minutes and a half before the time fixed for the starting of the coach. The first stroke of six peels from St. Martin's Church, people, just as you take the first sip of the boiling liquid. You find yourself at the booking office in two seconds, and the tap water finds himself much comforted by your brandy and water in about the same period. The coaches out, the horses are in, and the guard and two or three porters are stowing the luggage away and running up the steps of the booking office, and down the steps of the booking office with breathless rapidity. The place which a few minutes ago was so still and quiet is now all bustle. The early vendors of the morning papers have arrived, and you are assailed on all sides with shouts of times, gentlemen, times. Here's Cron, Cron, Cron, Harold Mam, highly interesting murder, gentlemen. Curious case of breach of promise, ladies. The inside passengers are already in their dens, and the outsides, with the exception of yourselves, are pacing up and down the pavement to keep themselves warm. They consist of two young men with very long hair, to which the sleet has communicated the appearance of crystallized rat-stales, one thin young woman, cold and peevish, one old gentleman, ditto ditto, and something in a cloak and cap intended to represent a military officer, every member of the party, with a large stiff shawl over his chin, looking exactly as if he were playing a set of pans-pipes. "'Take off the cloths, Bob,' says the coachman, who now appears for the first time in a rough blue greatcoat, of which the buttons behind are so far apart that you can't see them both at the same time. "'Now, gentlemen,' cries the guard, with the way-bill in his hand, "'five minutes behind time already!' Up jump the passengers, the two young men smoking like lime-kills, and the old gentleman grumbling audibly. The thin young woman is gut upon the roof by dint of a great deal of pulling and pushing, and helping and trouble, and she repays it by expressing her solemn conviction that she will never be able to get down again. "'All right,' sings out the guard at last, jumping up as the coach starts, and blowing his horn directly afterwards, in proof of the soundness of his wind, "'Let him go! Harry, give him their heads!' cries the coachman, and off we start as briskly as if the morning were all right, as well as the coach, and looking forward as anxiously to the termination of our journey, as we fear our readers will have done long since to the conclusion of our paper. End of Section 22 16 Omnibuses It is very generally allowed that public conveyances afford an extensive field for amusement and observation. Of all the public conveyances that have been constructed since the days of the Ark, we think that is the earliest on record, to the present time commend us to an omnibus. A long stage is not to be despised, but there you have only six insides, and the chances are that the same people go all the way with you. There is no change, no variety. Besides, after the first twelve hours or so people get cross and sleepy, and when you have seen a man in his nightcap you lose all respect for him, at least that is the case with us. Then on smooth roads people frequently get prosy and tell long stories, and even those who don't talk may have very unpleasant predilections. We once travelled four hundred miles inside a stage-coach with a stout man, who had a glass of rum and water, warm, handed in at the window at every place where we changed horses. This was decidedly unpleasant. We have also travelled occasionally with a small boy of a pale aspect, with light hair and no perceptible neck, coming up to town from school under the protection of the guard, and directed to be left at the cross-keys till called for. This is perhaps even worse than rum and water in a close atmosphere. Then there is the whole train of evils consequent on a change of the coachman, and the misery of the discovery which the guard is sure to make the moment you begin to doze, that he wants a brown paper parcel which he distinctly remembers to have deposited under the seat on which you are reposing. A great deal of bustle and groping takes place, and when you are thoroughly awakened and severely cramped by holding your legs up like an almost supernatural exertion while he is looking behind them, it suddenly occurs to him that he put it in the fore-boot. Bang goes the door, the parcel is immediately found, off starts the coach again, and the guard plays the key bugle as loud as he can play it as if in mockery of your wretchedness. Now you meet with none of these afflictions in an omnibus, sameness there can never be. The passengers change as often in the course of one journey as the figures in a kaleidoscope, and though not so glittering are far more amusing. We believe there is no instance on record of a man's having gone to sleep in one of these vehicles. As to long stories, would any man venture to tell a long story in an omnibus? Even if he did, where would be the harm? Nobody could possibly hear what he was talking about. Again children, though occasionally are not often to be found in an omnibus, and even when they are, if the vehicle be full, as is generally the case, somebody sits upon them and we are unconscious of their presence. Yet after mature reflection and considerable experience we are decidedly of opinion that of all known vehicles from the glass couch in which we were taken to be christened to that somber caravan in which we must one day make our last earthly journey, there is nothing like an omnibus. We will back the machine in which we make our daily perigination from the top of Oxford Street to the city, against any bus on the road, whether it be for the godliness of its exterior, the perfect simplicity of its interior, or the native coolness of its cad. This young gentleman is a singular instance of self-devotion. His somewhat intemperate zeal on behalf of his employers is constantly getting him into trouble and occasionally into the house of correction. He is no sooner emancipated, however, than he resumes the duties of his profession with unabated ardour. His principal distinction is his activity, his great boast that he can chuck any old gentleman into the bus, shut him in and rattle off before he knows where it is going to, a feat which he frequently performs, to the infinite amusement of every one but the old gentleman concerned, who somehow or other never can see the joke of the thing. We are not aware that it has ever been precisely ascertained how many passengers our omnibus will contain. The impression on the cad's mind evidently is that it is amply sufficient for the accommodation of any number of persons that can be enticed into it. Any room cries a hot pedestrian, plenty a room, sir, replies the conductor, gradually opening the door and not discussing the real state of the case until the wretched man is on the steps. Where inquires the entrapped individual, with an attempt to back out again. Either side, sir, returns the cad, shoving him in and slamming the door. All right, Bill, retreat is impossible. The newcomer rolls about till he falls down somewhere, and there he stops. As we get into the city a little before ten, four or five of our party are regular passengers. We always take them up at the same places, and they generally occupy the same seats. They are always dressed in the same manner and invariably discuss the same topics, the increasing rapidity of cabs and the disregard of moral obligations evinced by omnibus men. There is a little testy old man with a powdered head who always sets on the right-hand side of the door as you enter, with his hands folded on the top of his umbrella. He is extremely impatient, and sets there for the purpose of keeping a sharp eye on the cad, with whom he generally holds a running dialogue. He is very officious in helping people in and out, and always volunteers to give the cad a poke with his umbrella when anyone wants to alight. He usually recommends ladies to have sixpence ready to prevent a delay, and if anybody puts a window down that he can reach, he immediately puts it up again. "'Now, what are you stopping for?' says the little man every morning. The moment there is the slightest indication of pulling up at the corner of Regent Street, and some such dialogue as the following takes place between him and the cad. "'What are you stopping for?' hear the cad whizzles and effects not hear the question. "'I say,' a poke, "'what are you stopping for?' "'For passengers, sir.' "'Bank tea?' "'I know you're stopping for passengers, but you've no business to do so. Why are you stopping?' "'Why, sir, that's a difficult question. I think it's because we prefer stopping here to going on. Now mind,' exclaims the little old man with great vehemence, "'I'll pull you up to-morrow. I've often threatened to do it. Now I will.' "'Thank ye, sir,' replies the cad, touching his hat with a mock expression of gratitude. "'Very much obliged to you, indeed, sir.' Hear the young men in the omnibus laugh very heartily, and the old gentleman gets very rid in the face and seems highly exasperated. The stout gentleman in the white neck-cloth at the other end of the vehicle looks very prophetic and says that something must shortly be done with these fellows, or there's no saying where all this will end, and the shabby, gentile man with the green bag expresses his entire concurrence in the opinion as he has done regularly every morning for the last six months. A second omnibus now comes up and stops immediately behind us. Another old gentleman elevates his cane in the air and runs with all his might towards our omnibus. We watch his progress with great interest. The door is open to receive him. He suddenly disappears. He has been spirited away by the opposition. Hereupon the driver of the opposition taunts our people with his having regularly done him out of that old swell, and the voice of the old swell is heard, vainly protesting against this unlawful detention. We rattle off. The other omnibus rattles after us, and every time we stop to take up a passenger they stop to take him too. Sometimes we get him, sometimes they get him, but whoever don't get him say they ought to have had him, and the cadds or the respective vehicles abuse one another accordingly. As we arrive in the vicinity of Lincoln's infields, Bedford Row, and other legal haunts, we drop a great many of our original passengers and take up fresh ones who meet with a very silky reception. It is rather remarkable that the people already in an omnibus always look at newcomers as if they entertain some undefined idea that they have no business to come in at all. We are quite persuaded the little old man has some notion of this kind, and that he considers their entry as a sort of negative impertinence. Conversation is now entirely dropped. Each person gazes vacantly through the window in front of him, and everybody thinks that his opposite neighbor is staring at him. If one man gets out at Chew Lane, and another at the corner of Farringdon Street, the little old gentleman grumbles and suggests to the latter that if he had got out at Chew Lane too he would have saved them the delay of another stoppage, whereupon the young man laugh again, and the old gentleman looks very solemn, and says nothing more till he gets to the bank, when he trots off as fast as he can, leaving us to do the same, and to wish as we walk away that we could impart to others any portion of the amusement we have gained for ourselves. End of Section 23