her upper petticoat thrown over her head, her daughters with turned-up skirts, and Paterfamilias with his flapped hat tied round with a pocket handkerchief, his coat buttoned to save his lace waistcoat, and his wife's cardinal spread wrong side out over his shoulders to save his coat. Thus they sally out to their hack--he lamenting half humorously, half ruefully, that he might have spent his evening at Sot's Hole for fourpence halfpenny, whereas Vauxhall, with the coach hire, will have cost him 'almost a pound.' In the 'Wits' Magazine' for 784, you may see the whole group depicted to the life after the broad, ungentle fashion of the time. That the cost of the refreshments was a fertile topic of discussion is, to cite but one of many witnesses, confirmed by Miss Burney in 'Evelina;' and the popular legend that an expert Vauxhall carver could cover the entire garden (about eleven acres) with slices from one ham, may be accepted as corroborative evidence. Old frequenters, indeed, pretended to remember the particular angle at which the plates had to be carried to prevent their leaf-like contents from becoming the plaything of the winds. But the above picture from the 'Connoisseur,' it must be noted, is a picture of the occasional visitor,--the visitor who made but one annual visit, which was the event of the year. The main supporters of the place were the persons of quality, of whom Walpole gossips so delightfully in his correspondence; and it is to his pages that one must go for a faithful representation of High Life at Vauxhall. In one of his letters to George Montagu, he describes, with his inimitable air of a fine gentleman on a frolic, a party of pleasure at which he has assisted, and which (he considers) exhibits 'the manners of the age.' He tells how he receives a card from Lady Caroline Petersham (the Duke of Grafton's daughter) to go with her to Vauxhall. Thereupon he repairs to her house, and finds 'her and the little Ashe, or the Pollard Ashe, as they call her,' having 'just finished their last layer of red, and looking as handsome as crimson can make them.' Others of the company are the Duke of Kingston, Lord March of Thackeray's 'Virginians,' Mr. Whitehed, 'a pretty Miss Beauclcre, and a very foolish Miss Sparre.' As they 'sail up the Mall,' they encounter cross-grained Lord Petersham (my lady's husband), 'as sulky as a ghost that nobody will speak to first,' and who declines to accompany his wife and her friends. So they march to their barge, which has 'a boat of French horns attending,' and 'little Ashe' sings. After parading up and down the river, they 'debark' at Vauxhall, where at the outset they narrowly escape the excitement of a duel. For a certain Mrs. Lloyd of Spring Gardens (afterwards married to Lord Haddington), seeing Miss Beauclerc and her companion following Lady Petersham, says audibly, 'Poor girls, I am sorry to see them in such bad company,' a remark which 'the foolish Miss Sparre' (she is but fifteen),