fs; 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
entree, 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
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.

That Vauxhall gardens were under the especial 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--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, in painting the lily,
gilding refined gold? But, alas! Simpson, the tutelar deity, has departed
("died," some say, but we don't believe it), and at the moment he made his
last bow, Vauxhall ought to have closed; it was madness--the madness which
will call us, peradventure, superstitious--which kept the gates open when
Simpson's career closed--it was an anomaly, for like Love and Heaven,
Simpson was Vauxhall, and Vau