When, after passing Lambeth Palace on the left,--and possibly receiving from neighbouring boats some of those flowers of rhetoric to which Johnson once so triumphantly retorted,--you reached Vauxhall Stairs, your experiences were still, in all probability, those of Lydia Melford and her friends. There would be the same crush of wherries and confusion of tongues at the landing-place, and the same crowd of mudlarks and loafers would come rushing into the water to offer their unsolicited (but not gratuitous) services. Once free of these, a few steps would bring you to the unimposing entrance of the garden,--a gate or wicket in the front of an ordinary-looking house. Here you either exhibited your ticket, or paid your shilling; hurried, not without a throb of anticipation, down a darkened passage; and then, if you were as young and unsophisticated as Fanny Bolton in 'Pendennis,' probably uttered an involuntary exclamation of wonder as, with a sudden sound of muffled music, the many-lighted inclosure burst upon your view. There seems to be no doubt as to the surprise, heightened of course by the mean approach, and the genuine fascination of this first impression. The tall elms and sycamores, with the coloured lamps braced to the tree-trunks or twinkling through the leaves, the long ranges of alcoves with their inviting supper-tables, the brightly-shining temples and pavilions, the fading vistas and the ever-changing groups of pleasure-seekers, must have combined to form a whole which fully justified the enthusiasm of contemporaries, even if it did not, in the florid language of the old guide-books, exactly 'furnish the pen of a sublime and poetic genius with inexhaustible scenes of luxuriant fancy.' The general disposition of the gardens was extremely simple and, in Miss Burney's opinion, even 'formal.' Opposite you, as you entered, was the Grand Walk, extending the entire length of the inclosure for a distance of 900 feet, and terminated, at the farther end, by a gilded statue of Aurora, apparently 'tip-toe on the mountain tops.' For this was afterwards substituted 'a Grand Gothic obelisk,' at the corners of which were painted a number of slaves chained, and over them the inscription:= `````Spectator `````Fastidiosus `````Sibi Molestus= Beyond the end of this walk was a sunk-fence or _ha-ha_ which separated the gardens from the hayfields then adjoining it. Parallel to the Grand Walk ran the South Walk with its triumphal arches; next to this again was the covered alley known indifferently as the Druid's or Lovers' Walk, made rather for 'whispering lovers' than for 'talking age;' and last came a fourth walk open at the top. Other walks, the chief of which was the Cross Walk, traversed the garden from side to side; and in the quadrangle formed by the Grand Walk, the Cross Walk, the South Walk, and the remaining side of the grounds, was a space of about five acres. This, which lay to the right of the entrance, was known as the Grove.