VAUXHALL GARDENS.

Some of the melancholy duties of this life afford a more subdued, and,
therefore, a more satisfactory pleasure than scores with which duty has
nothing to do, or those of mere enjoyment. If, for instance, the friend,
whose feeds we have helped to eat, whose cellars we have done our part to
empty for the last quarter of a century, should happen to fall ill; if the
doctors shake their heads, and warn us to make haste to his bedside, there
is always a large proportion of honey to be extracted, in obeying the
summons, out of the sting of parting, recounting old reminiscences, and
gossipping about old times, never, alas! to return. But should we neglect
the summons, where would the stings of conscience end?

Impelled by such a sense of duty, we wended our way to the "royal
property," to take a last look at the long-expiring gardens. It was a 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 reflect 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
entrée, and cavalcade of Amazons." They had no sympathy with the decline
and fall of the _Simpsonian_ empire. They were strangers, interlopers,
called in like mutes and feathers, to grace the "funeral show," to give a