wet night--the lamps burnt dimly--the military band played
in the minor key--the waiters stalked about with so silent,
melancholy a tread, that we took their towels for pocket
handkerchiefs; the concert in the open _rain_ went off
tamely--dirge-like, in spite of the 'Siege of Acre,' which was
described in a set of quadrilles, embellished with blue fire and
maroons, and adorned with a dozen double drums, thumped at intervals,
like death notes, in various parts of the doomed gardens. The
_divertissement_ was anything but diverting, when we reflected upon
the impending fate of the 'Rotunda,' in which it was performed.

"No such damp was, however, thrown over the evolutions of 'Ducrow's
beautiful horses and equestrian _artistes_,' including the 'new grand
_entree_ and calvacade of Amazons.' They had no sympathy with the
decline and fall of the _Simpsonian_ {169b} empire. They were
strangers, interlopers, called in, like mutes and feathers, to grace
the 'funeral show,' to give a more graceful flourish to the final
exit. The horses pawed the sawdust, evidently unconscious that the
earth it covered would soon be 'let on lease for building ground';
the riders seemed in the hey-day of their equestrian triumph. Let
them, however, derive from the fate of Vauxhall a deep, a fearful
lesson!--though we shudder as we write, it shall not be said that
destruction came upon them unawares--that no warning voice had been
raised--that even the squeak of _Punch_ was silent! Let them not
sneer, and call us superstitious--we do _not_ give credence to
supernatural agency as a fixed and general principle; but we did
believe in Simpson, and stake our professional reputation upon
Widdicomb! {170a}

"That Vauxhall Gardens were under the special protection of, that
they drew the very breath of their attractiveness from, the
ceremonial Simpson, who can deny? When he flitted from walk to walk,
from box to box, and welcomed everybody to the 'Royal property,'
right royally did things go on! Who would _then_ have dreamt that
the illustrious George {170b}--he of the Piazza--would ever be
'honoured with instructions to sell'? that his eulogistic pen would
be employed in giving the puff superlative to the Elysian haunts of
quondam fashion--in other words--painting the lily-gilding refined
gold? But, alas!