To Vauxhall Gardens. All Americans went there in those days, as they go
to Madame Tussaud's in these times. There were fireworks and an
exhibition of polar scenery. "Mr. Collins, the English PAGANINI,"
treated us to music on his violin. A comic singer gave us a song, of
which I remember the line,
"You'll find it all in the agony bill."
This referred to a bill proposed by Sir Andrew Agnew, a noted Scotch
Sabbatarian agitator.
To the opera to hear Grisi. The king, William the Fourth, was in his
box; also the Princess Victoria, with the Duchess of Kent. The king
tapped with his white-gloved hand on the ledge of the box when he was
pleased with the singing.--To a morning concert and heard the real
Paganini. To one of the lesser theatres and heard a monologue by the
elder Mathews, who died a year or two after this time. To another
theatre, where I saw Listen in Paul Pry. Is it not a relief that I am
abstaining from description of what everybody has heard described?
To Windsor. Machinery to the left of the road. Recognized it instantly,
by recollection of the plate in "Rees's Cyclopedia," as Herschel's great
telescope.--Oxford. Saw only its outside. I knew no one there, and no
one knew me.--Blenheim,--the Titians best remembered of its objects on
exhibition. The great Derby day of the Epsom races. Went to the race
with a coach-load of friends and acquaintances. Plenipotentiary, the
winner, "rode by P. Connelly." So says Herring's picture of him, now
before me. Chestnut, a great "bullock" of a horse, who easily beat the
twenty-two that started. Every New England deacon ought to see one Derby
day to learn what sort of a world this is he lives in. Man is a sporting
as well as a praying animal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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