g he is the popular preacher. Ah, Smith!
Flummery has ceased to be a popular preacher these twenty years. "What a
sweet girl is gone!" exclaims old Jones, as he hears of the death of an
ancient flame. Jones forgets the sweet girl had become an old maid of
seventy, and had not a tooth in her mouth or a lock of hair on her head
but what was artificial. So with Vauxhall. It lives as many a man, or
newspaper, or magazine, or institution, on its name. Judge for yourself
if you won't take my word. A cab will take you there from the Strand in
half an hour, and for the very moderate sum of one shilling the gate will
be unlocked and entrance effected. The specialty of the place is the
blaze of lights from thousands of lamps. Supposing you to have got over
the bewilderment created by their lustre, to eyes not accustomed to such
"hall sof dazzling light," you perceive a kind of square (the precise
definition of it I leave to the mathematicians) with a dancing platform
in the middle, a supper room on one side, and boxes all round, where
refreshments and seats are supplied. Opposite to the supper-room is a
lofty orchestra, glittering all over with many coloured lamps; further on
and behind are walks, and trees, and a fountain, with gigantic horses
snorting water through their nostrils, and a space for fireworks, the
demand for which on the part of the pleasure seekers of the metropolis,
if we may judge by the supply, is insatiable. Let us not forget also the
Rotunda, a large building with pit, boxes, and gallery, chiefly devoted
to horsemanship, neither worse nor better than what is usually seen at
such places. The comic singing is a feature of the place. Popular comic
songs are not very fresh, nor very witty nor refined, and require, when
delivered in public, a good deal of elocution. The point must be
apparent, and the emphasis clearly enunciated, but they are much the same
here as elsewhere. When you have heard one or two of them, you have
heard them all. So much by way of description. The people who come here
are the people whose pleasures are of the lowest character; who are
dependent on others; whose life is all outward rather than inward. They
are not readers nor thinkers, you may be sure, but the class precisely to
whom such places are as hurtful as they are attractive. If a man is to
be known by the company he keeps, what are we to think of the habitues of
Vauxhall? for after all life is, or ought to be, to