THE LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY [Illustration] [Illustration: _Drawn in the Gardens, on the night of August the 19^{th} 1833, by Robert Cruikshank Esq^r._---- C.H. SIMPSON, ESQ^R. M.C.R.G.V. _For upwards of 36 Years,--with a distant view of his Colossal Likeness in Variegated Lamps._ _To C. H. Simpson, Esq^r. M.C. of the Royal Gardens Vauxhall,--this Print, taken in the Sixty Third year of his age, on the Night of his benefit is, by express permission, most respectfully dedicated by his obliged and humble Servant,--the Publisher._ _London. Published by W. Hidd. 14. Chandos St.^t West Strand, August 20.^{th} 1833._] THE LONDON PLEASURE GARDENS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BY WARWICK WROTH, F.S.A. OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM ASSISTED BY ARTHUR EDGAR WROTH _WITH SIXTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS_ London MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. 1896 _The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_ “A great deal of company, and the weather and garden pleasant and it is very cheap and pleasant going thither.... But to hear the nightingale and the birds, and here fiddles and there a harp, and here a Jew’s trump, and here laughing and there fine people walking is mighty divertising.”--SAMUEL PEPYS. PREFACE In the following pages an attempt has been made to write, for the first time, a history of the London pleasure gardens of the last century. Scattered notices of these gardens are to be found in many histories of the London parishes and in other less accessible sources, and merely to collect this information in a single volume would not, perhaps, have been a useless task. It is one, however, that could not have been undertaken with much satisfaction unless there was a prospect of making some substantial additions--especially in the case of the less known gardens--to the accounts already existing. A good deal of such new material it has here been possible to furnish from a collection of newspapers, prints, songs, &c., that I have been forming for several years to illustrate the history of the London Gardens.[1]