Gardens

"Mr Rushworth," said Lady Bertram, "if I were you, I would have a very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine weather."

In the evening, I went with a party of Americans to Vauxhall gardens. They are situated about a mile and a half from London, on the south side of Lambeth, on the Surry side of the river. The gardens cover a number of acres, the whole surface is perfectly smooth, free from grass, and rolled hard. Avenues of lofty trees are planted every where, and the confines are filled with shrubs. I came to the gardens with the impression that I was about to see something excelling all other splendid objects which I had hitherto beheld. Nor was I disappointed. For, as we entered, a scene presented itself splendid beyond description, exceeding all that poets have told of fairy lands and Elysian fields.

From the trees, even to their very tops and extremities, from the long arched passages, open at the sides and crossing each other in geometrical figures, from the alcoves and recesses which surround the whole, and from the orchestra and pavillions, such a flood of brightness was poured out from ten thousand lamps, whose flames were tinged with every hue of light, and which were disposed in figures, exhibiting at once all that is beautiful in regularity, and all that is fascinating in the arrangements of taste and fancy--that one might almost have doubted whether it were not a splendid illusion which imagination was playing off upon his senses. Do not suspect me of exaggeration, for, what I have now written can give you but a faint idea of this abode of pleasure.

The arched passages to which I just now alluded, cross the gardens at right angles with each other, and yet, not in such a manner as to obscure the trees. In the recesses which bound the gardens on several sides, and also beneath the trees, tables are placed, furnished with cold collations, confectionaries and other refreshments. Transparent paintings rendered conspicuous by lights behind them, terminate several of the avenues, and all the arbours and walks are painted in a splended manner.

The rotunda is a magnificent room; it is finely painted, its walls are covered with mirrors and gilding, and two of the principal arched passages cross each other here. The flags of several nations are suspended within, accompanied by paintings characteristic of the several countries.

The orchestra is erected nearly in the centre of the gardens. It is in the form of a Grecian temple; the second story is open in front, and there the musicians are placed.

About 10 o'clock, thousands of well dressed people thronged the gardens. The first entertainment consisted of vocal and instrumental music from the orchestra, and then a noble company of musicians, in number about thirty, most splendidly dressed, and known by the name of the Duke of York's band, performed in a very superior style. The orchestra itself is one of the most beautiful objects that can be imagined. It is a Grecian temple of no mean size, and it is illuminated with such a profusion of lamps arranged in the lines of the building that its appearance is extremely splendid. These lamps are simple in their form but very beautiful in their effect. They are somewhat spherical, open at the top and suspended by a wire. The wick floats in the oil, and the whole forms a little illuminated hall.

The entrance to the gardens presents you with double rows of these lamps arranged in perpendicular lines on the pillars, and then with other rows, corresponding with the form of the roof of the arched passage under which you enter. Along the concave of this roof, extending a great way into the gardens, other lamps are suspended so as to represent the starry heavens. Conceive farther that these lamps are are thus disposed in every part of the gardens, in very various and beautiful forms, among the trees and green leaves, in the alcoves, recesses, and orchestra, and that some are green, others red, others blue, &c. thus transmitting rays of these colours only, and you may then form some idea of the gardens of Vauxhall.

Our little party in the gardens was under the direction of an American captain, who was familiar with the place. As soon as the band had finished performing, he told us to run after him, which we did with all possible speed, and we saw every body running that way, although we knew not why. Having reached the end of one of the arched passages, the captain, in language perfectly professional told us to haul our wind and lay our course for the fence. This we did, and the mystery was soon explained. For, down in a dark wood, we perceived a curtain rise, which discovered London bridge, and the water-works under it nearly as large as the original. The scene was produced by a combination of painting and mechanism. An old woman was sitting and spinning at the foot of the bridge; the mail and heavy coach passed over into town, and a fierce bull followed driving before him an ass. The thing was very well done, and it was at once so odd, unexpected and puerile, that it afforded us more diversion then a fine strain of wit could have done.

After this exhibition there was music again from the orchestra.

It was not past eleven o'clock, and the bell rung for the fire-works. These were exhibited from the bottom of a long dark avenue, terminated by a grove. They were very splendid, and as the night was uncommonly dark, they produced their full effect. It is impossible to give any adequate idea of them by description.

After the fire-works there was an intermission, while every body that was disposed sat down to the cold collation. Our party had engaged a table in one of the boxes, as they are called. They are, in fact, little apartments without doors, closed on three sides, and opening into the gardens. I was now no longer at a loss for the meaning or propriety of the proverbial expression, a Vauxhall slice; for the ham was shaved so thin, that it served rather to excite than to allay the appetite. We sat, until the music, beginning again, animated the company to new feats.

Beside the musicians in the orchestra, several other bands now appeared in different parts of the gardens, seated on elevated platforms, railed in, and covered with splendid canopies. Music now broke out from various quarters, and a new entertainment was opened to the company. The assemblies in these gardens always include a crowd of genteel people, among whom are, frequently, some of the nobility, and occasionally, even the king and queen and royal family appear at Vauxhall.

But, in addition to these, no small part of the crowd is composed of courtesans. They are of that class who dress genteely, and whose manners are less indecorous than is usual with persons of their character. The renewal of the music was, it seems, a signal for them to commence dancing. This they did in several groups in various parts of the gardens, and the young men readily joined them. There was among these dancing females a large share of beauty and elegance, and some of them could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years of age. Their manners and modes of dancing, while they were not so gross as necessarily to excite disgust, were such as I ought not to describe. I can hardly believe what I heard asserted, that some respectable ladies, of more than common vivacity, and less than common reflection, occasionally, in a frolic, mix in these dances. However this may be, it is certain that both ladies and gentlemen, and little misses and masters, are always spectators of these scenes, and I saw numerous instances where young men would leave ladies who were under their care, and join the dances, and then return to their friends again.

This scene continued till half after one o'clock in the morning, when our party came away, and I was told that it would probably continue till three o'clock.

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According to Sir Richard Phillips, in “Modern London,” published in 1804, the gardens were open to the public at that time only from spring to autumn; and, curiously enough, servants in livery were excluded, as also were dogs. Thirty years later the gardens are described as being open “all the year round, to all respectably-dressed persons, from sunrise till sunset.” About that time, when it happened that the hour for closing the gates was eight o’clock, the following lines, purporting to have been written “by a young lady aged nineteen,” were discovered affixed to one of the seats: ---

“Poor Adam and Eve were from Eden turned out,
As a punishment due to their sin;
But here after eight, if you loiter about,
As a punishment you’ll be locked in.”

It was during the reign of George I. that the fashionable promenades in the Gardens became so popular, and the glittering skirts, which still lived in the recollection of our grandparents, would seem to have made their first appearance. Caroline of Anspach, the Prince of Wales’s consort, probably introduced them, when she came with her bevy of maidens to Court. People would throng to see them; the ladies would take the opportunity of showing themselves, like pea-hens, in the walks; persons of fashion, privileged to enter the Gardens, would avail themselves of the privilege; and at last the public would obtain admission, and the raree-show would be complete. The full-dress promenade, it seems, was at first confined to Saturdays; it was afterwards changed to Sundays, and continued on that day till the custom went out with the closing days of George III.

In fact, during the last century the broad walk in Kensington Gardens has become almost as fashionable as the Mall in St. James’s Park had been a century earlier, under Charles II. There might, probably, have been seen here, on one and the same day, during the portentous year 1791, Wilkes and Wilberforce; George Rose and Mr. Holcroft; Mr. Reeve and Mr. Godwin; Burke, Warren Hastings, and Tom Paine; Horace Walpole and Hannah More (whom he introduced to the Duke of Queensberry); Mary Walstonecroft and Miss Burney (Madame d’Arblay), the latter avoiding the former with all her might; the Countess of Albany (the widow of the Pretender); the Margravine of Anspach; Mrs. Montagu; Mrs. Barbauld; Mrs. Trimmer; Emma Harte (Lady Hamilton), accompanied by her adoring portrait-painter, Romney; and poor Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV., come to look after some jewels of which she has been robbed, and little thinking she would return to be guillotined. The fashions of this half century, with the exception of an occasional broad-brimmed hat worn both by gentlemen and ladies, comprised the ugliest that ever were seen in the old Court suburb. Head-dresses became monstrous compounds of paste-board, flowers, feathers, and pomatum; the hoop degenerated into little panniers; and about the year 1770, a set of travelled fops came up, calling themselves Macaronis (from their intimacy with the Italian eatable so called), who wore ridiculously little hats, large pigtails, and tight-fitting clothes of striped colours. The lesser pigtail, long or curly, prevailed for a long time among elderly gentlemen, making a powdered semicircle between the shoulders; a plain cocked-hat adorned their heads; and, on a sudden, at the beginning of the new century, some ladies took to wearing turbans, surmounted with ostrich feathers, and bodies literally without a waist, the girdle coming directly under the arms. There was a song in those days beginning ---

“Shepherds, I have lost my love;
Have you seen my Anna?”

This song was parodied by one beginning ---

“Shepherds I have lost my waist;
Have you seen my body?”

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Lady Brownlow, in her “Reminiscences of a Septuagenarian,” tells us that after the Peace of Amiens, in 1802, she here met the celebrated Madame Recamier, who created a sensation at the West-end, partly by her beauty, but still more by her dress, which was vastly unlike the unsophisticated style and poke bonnets of the English ladies. “She appeared in Kensington Gardens à l’antique, a muslin gown clinging to her form like the folds of drapery on a statue; her hair in a plait at the back, and falling in small ringlets round her face, and greasy with huile antique; a large veil thrown over her head completed her attire, which not unnaturally caused her to be followed and stared at.” No doubt, dressed in such a costume, and at such a period, Madame Recamier might well have been the “cynosure of neighbouring eyes.”

It is stated by Count de Melfort, in his “Impressions of England,” published in the reign of William IV., that the Duke of St. Albans --- we suppose, as Grand Falconer of England --- is the only subject, except members of the royal family, who has the right of entering Kensington Palace Gardens in his carriage. This fact may be true, but it wants verifying.

The author of an agreeable “Tour of a Foreigner in England,” published in 1825, remarks; --- “The Palais Royale gives a better idea of the London squares than any other part of Paris. The public promenades are St. James’s Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens, which communicate with each other. I am sometimes tempted to prefer these parks to the gardens of the Luxembourg and the Tuileries, which, however, cannot give you any idea of them. St. James’s Park, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens are to me the Tuileries, the Champs Èlysees, and the Jardin des Plantes united. On Sundays the crowd of carriages which repair thither, and the gentlemen of fashion who exhibit their horsemanship with admirable dexterity in the ride, remind me of Long Champs; but hackney coaches are not allowed to enter there to destroy the fine spectacle which so many elegant carriages afford. Sheep graze tranquilly in Hyde Park, where it is also pleasing to see the deer bounding about. At Kensington Gardens you are obliged to leave your horse or carriage standing at the gate. Walking through its shady alleys I observed with pleasure that the fashionable ladies pay, in regard to dress, a just tribute to our fair countrywoman. Judging from the costumes of the ladies, you might sometimes fancy walking under the chestnut trees of the Tuileries.

The gardens attached to Kensington Palace, when purchased by William., did not exceed twenty-six acres. They were immediately laid out according to the royal taste; and this being entirely military, the consequence was that closely-cropped yews, and prim holly hedges, were taught, under the auspices of Loudon and Wise, the royal gardeners, to imitate the lines, angles, bastions, scarps, and counter-scarps of regular fortifications. This curious upper garden, we are told, was long “the admiration of every lover of that kind of horticultural embellishment,” and, indeed, influenced the general taste of the age; for Le Nautre, or Le Notre, who was gardener to the Tuileries, and had been personally favoured by Louis XIV., in conjunction with the royal gardeners, was employed by most of the nobility, during the reign of William, in laying out their gardens and grounds. Addison, in No. 477 of the Spectator, thus speaks of the horticultural improvements of this period: --- “I think there are as many kinds of gardening as of poetry: your makers of pastures and flower-gardens are epigrammists and sonneteers in this art; contrivers of bowers and grottoes, treillages and cascades, are romantic writers; Wise and Loudon are our heroic poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out any passage of their works to commend, I shall take notice of that part in the upper garden at Kensington which was at first nothing but a gravel-pit. It must have been a fine genius for gardening that could have thought of forming such an unsightly hollow into so beautiful an area, and to have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into.”

In 1691 these gardens are thus described: --- “They are not great, nor abounding with fine plants. The orange, lemon, myrtle, and what other trees they had there in summer, were all removed to London, or to Mr. Wise’s greenhouse at Brompton Park, a little mile from there. But the walks and grass were very fine, and they were digging up a plot of four or five acres to enlarge their gardens.” Queen Anne added some thirty acres more, which were laid out by her gardener, Wise. Bowack, in 1705 describes here “a noble collection of foreign plants, and fine neat greens, which makes it pleasant all the year...Her Majesty has been pleased lately to plant near thirty acres more to the north, separated from the rest only by a stately greenhouse, not yet finished.” It appears from this passage, that previous to the above date, Kensington Gardens did not extend further to the north than the Conservatory, which, as stated in the previous chapter, was originally built for a banqueting-house, and was frequently used as such by Queen Anne. This banqueting-house was completed in the year 1705, and is considered a fine specimen of brickwork. The south front has rusticated columns supporting a Doric pediment, and the ends have semi-circular recesses. “The interior, decorated with Corinthian columns,”

Mr. John Timbs tells us in his “Curiosities,” was fitted up as a drawing-room, music-room, and ball-room; and thither the queen was conveyed in her chair from the western end of the palace. Here were given full-dress fêtes à la Watteau, by the profusion of ‘brocaded robes, hoops, fly-caps, and fans,’ songs by the court lyrists, &c.” When the Court left Kensington, this building was converted into an orangery and greenhouse.

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The eastern boundary of the gardens would seem to have been in Queen Anne’s time nearly in the line of the broad walk which crosses them on the east side of the palace. The kitchen-gardens, which extend north of the palace, towards the gravel-pits, but are now occupied by some elegant villas and mansions, and the thirty acres lying north of the conservatory, added by Queen Anne to the pleasure-gardens, may have been the fifty-five acres “detached and severed from the park, lying in the north-west corner thereof,” granted in the reign of Charles II. to Hamilton, the Ranger of Hyde Park, and Birch, the auditor of excise, “to be walled and planted with ‘pippins and redstreaks,’ on condition of their furnishing apples or cider for the king’s use.” This portion of the garden is thus mentioned in Tickell’s poem: ---

“That hollow space, where now, in living rows,
Line above line, the yew’s and verdure grows,
Was, ere the planter’s hand its beauty gave,
A common pit, a rude unfashion’d cave.
The landscape, now so sweet, we may well praise;
But far, far sweeter, in its ancient days---
Far sweeter was it when its peopled ground
With fairy domes and dazzling towers was crown’d.
Where, in the midst, those verdant pillars spring,
Rose the proud palace of the Elfin king;
For every hedge of vegetable green,
In happier years, a crowded street was seen;
Nor all those leaves that now the prospect grace
Could match the numbers of its pygmy race.”

At the end of the avenue leading from the south part of the palace to the wall on the Kensington Road is an alcove built by Queen Anne’s orders; so that the palace, in her reign, seems to have stood in the midst of fruit and pleasure gardens, with pleasant alcoves on the west and south, and the stately banqueting-house on the east, the whole confined between the Kensington and Uxbridge Roads on the north and south, with Palace Green on the west; the line of demarcation on the east being the broad walk before the east front of the palace.

Bridgeman, who succeeded Wise as the fashionable designer of gardens, was employed by Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to plant and lay out, on a larger scale than had hitherto been attempted , the ground which had been added to the gardens by encroaching upon Hyde park. Bridgeman’s idea of the picturesque led him to abandon “verdant sculpture,” and he succeeded in effecting a complete revolution in the formal and square precision of the foregone age, although he adhered in parts to the formal Dutch style of straight walks and clipped hedges. A plan of the gardens, published in 1762, shows on the north-east side a low wall and fosse, reaching from the Uxbridge Road and the Serpentine, and effectually shutting in the gardens. Across the park, to the east of Queen Anne’s Gardens, immediately in front of the palace, a reservoir was formed with the “round pond;” thence, as from the centre, long vistas or avenues were carried through the wood that encircled the water --- one as far as the head of the Serpentine; another to the wall and fosse above mentioned, affording a view of the park; a third avenue led to a mount on the south-east side, which was raised with the soil dug in the formation of the adjoining canal, and planted with evergreens by Queen Anne. This mount, which has since been levelled again, or, at all events, considerably reduced, had on the top a revolving “prospect house.” There was also in the gardens a “hermitage:” a print of it is to be seen in the British Museum. The low wall and fosse was introduced by Bridgeman as a substitute for a high wall, which would shut out the view of the broad expanse of park as seen from the palace and gardens; and it was deemed such a novelty that it obtained the name of a “Ha! ha!” derived from the exclamation of surprise involuntarily uttered by disappointed pedestrians. At each angle of this wall and fosse, however, semi-circular projections were formed, which were termed bastions, and in this particular the arrangement accorded with the prevailing military taste. Bridgeman’s plan of gardening, however, embraced the beauties of flowers and lawns, together with a wilderness and open groves; but the principal embellishments were entrusted to Mr. Kent, and subsequently carried out by a gentleman well known by the familiar appellation of “Capability” Brown. The gardens, it may be added, are still sufficiently rural to make a home for the nightingale, whose voice is often heard in the summer nights, especially in the part nearest to Kensington Gore.

On King William taking up his abode in the palace, the neighbouring town of Kensington and the outskirts of Hyde Park became the abode of fashion and of the hangers-on at the Court, whilst the gardens themselves became the scene of a plot for assassinating William, and replacing James II. on the throne. The large gardens laid out by Queen Caroline were opened to the public on Saturdays, when the King and Court went to Richmond, and on these occasions all visitors were required to appear in full dress. When the Court ceased to reside here, the gardens were thrown open in the spring and summer; they, nevertheless, long continued to retain much of their stately seclusion.

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The following description of Sydney-Gardens, Bath, is taken from Pierce Egan's "Walks Through Bath....", published in 1819.

The Entrance to Sydney Tavern and Gardens has to boast of much respectability; and the tavern is a capacious and elegant erection. SYDNEY-GARDENS is one of the most prominent, pleasing, and elegant features attached to the City of Bath.
The hand of taste is visible in every direction of it; and the plants and trees exhibit the most beautiful luxuriance. Upon gala-nights, the music, singing, cascades, transparencies, fire-works, and superb illuminations, render these gardens very similar to Vauxhall. The Orchestra is close to the back of the Tavern, neatly arranged and elevated, with a large open space before it, well gravelled. The gradual ascent of the principal walk, that leads to the top of the gardens up to a half-circular stone pavillion, which is paved and covered in, with a seat round it, and supported by several stone pillars, upon a gala-night has a most brilliant effect, from the numerous variegated lamps with which it is ornamented. The walks are all well rolled and gravelled; and seats and places for refreshment are to be met with in various parts of the gardens. The view, when seated in the above pavillion down to the orchestra, across the arches covered with lamps, gives it a very captivating appearance. Upon those nights set apart for promenading only, a military band attends; and music also enlivens the scene, when public breakfasts are given. There are also several swings, adapted for the ladies; and others for gentlemen. Numerous covered-in boxes; and several alcoves formed with much botanical taste, grottos, &c. render this promenade highly attractive during the summer evenings. In the most retired parts of the gardens one of these grottos, it appears, was once the happy meeting-place, and dedicated to the tender passion, with a sincerity and animation unrivalled, by one of the greatest geniuses that ever adorned this or any other country, but who is gone to that “bourne from whence no traveller returns,” following the superior, amiable, and affectionate object of his heart, who had also long been previously consigned to the icy tomb of death. The remembrance of the late RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, Esq. and his wife, Miss Linley, (termed the syren and angel of the concerts at Bath,) must render this grotto a most interesting feature to every lover of talent, elegance, and virtue, and in which the following copy of verses were written by the above patriotic senator, and left for that lady’s perusal:

-- Uncouth is this moss-covered grotto of stone,
And damp is the shade of this dew-dripping tree;
Yet I this rude grotto with rapture will own;
And willow, thy damps are refreshing to me.
In this is the grotto where DELIA reclin’d,
As late I in secret her confidence sought;
And this is the tree kept her safe from the wind
As blushing she heard the grave lesson I taught.
Then tell me, thou grotto of moss-covered stone,
And tell me, thou willow with leaves dripping dew,
Did DELIA seem vex’d when HORATIO was gone?
And did she confess her resentment to you?...

(this continues for about 10 more verses) Upon the whole, SYDNEY-GARDENS must be viewed not only as a great ornament to Bath, but is another, among the numerous proofs of the great anxiety of the inhabitants to render the amusements of this elegant City, without a parallel in the kingdom! The Kennet and Avon Canal runs through the gardens, with two elegant cast-iron bridges thrown over it, after the manner of the Chinese; and the romantic and picturesque scenery, by which they are surrounded, is fascinating beyond measure. Great opposition, it seems, was originally made to the canal running through these gardens by the proprietor; but it gives such a variety to the walks, that its introduction is now viewed as a great addition. It would be a matter of some difficulty to point out a spot of ground so tastefully laid out as SYDNEY-GARDENS. Vauxhall, it is true, may boast of its superiority for brilliancy, and number of lamps, and vocal performers; but, in other respects, viewed as a garden, the competition would be perfectly ridiculous. The Labyrinth, shown here at three-pence each person, is an object of curiosity. The inducement to enter it is one of Merlin’s swings, which appears not only very prominent, but easy of access. However, it might puzzle any cunning person, if left to himself and without a clue, for six hours, to acquire the much wished for spot; and it is rather a difficult task when the explorer of the Labyrinth has the direction pointed out to him from a man stationed in the swing. The inns and outs necessary to be made, it is said, measure half a mile. When the swing is made, and the secret unravelled, the guardian of this sort of Fair Rosamond’s bower conveys the visitor once more into the public walks; the variety of which, that continually meet the eye of the promenader are truly attractive. A most delightful piece of ground, like a bowling green, enveloped with trees, and a small natural cascade from a spring, cannot be passed with indifference. The company, generally, are of the most respectable description; and upon some of the gala-nights, upwards of 4000 persons have paid for admission, which is 2s. 6d. each. In fact, the most fastidious observer cannot find fault with SYDNEY-GARDENS, which have also another advantage to recommend them to the visitors of Bath, namely, in having a surrounding ride, for the accommodation of ladies and gentlemen on horseback, that commands beautiful and romantic views, and of being free from dust in the summer, and dirt in the winter. The terms of subscription for walking are for one month, each person, 4s.; for 3 months, 7s. 6d.; and the season, 10s. If two in one family, each 7s 6d; if three or more, each 6s. Non-subscribers, for walking, 6d. each time. Nursery-maids with children in arms, one subscription. Gentlemen and families may be accommodated with elegant apartments at Sydney-House. The terms of subscription to the ride, one month, 2s. 6d. each person. Three months, 6s. Six months, 10s. The year, 15s. Non-subscribers, 6d. each time.

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