Fireworks, which had long before been usual at Cuper’s Gardens, Marylebone Gardens, and Ranelagh, were not introduced at Vauxhall till 1798. From about 1813, they became a permanent institution. In 1816, Mme. Saqui of Paris appeared at Vauxhall, and was the principal attraction for several seasons. A mast about sixty feet high was erected on the firework platform at the eastern end of the gardens, and from its top depended an inclined rope 350 feet long. At twelve o’clock a lady of muscular and masculine appearance, bedecked with spangles and waving plumes, might be seen ascending this rope to the platform, amid a glare of blue flame. Her appearance was almost supernatural:-- Amid the blaze of meteors seen on high, Etherial Saqui seems to tread the sky;[352] Having now reached the highest point, she made her descent in a shower of Chinese Fire, and “in the face of a tempest of fireworks.” This exciting performance became a necessity at Vauxhall, and Saqui’s feats were afterwards reproduced by Longuemare and Blackmore. [Illustration: CHARLES DIGNUM.] At this period (_circ._ 1817) the newspapers describe the orchestra as a “pagoda of lustre,” and the covered walks as arches of fire. The songs, and the music, and the fireworks were the attractions till about one o’clock, when the ordinary visitors withdrew. But the noisy and the dissipated sometimes kept up the fun with reels and waltzes till nearly four in the morning.[353] We have now wandered far from the old Spring Garden of Jonathan Tyers and the later history of Vauxhall must, in the present volume, be very briefly summarised. In the gardens themselves, some important changes had already been effected. In 1786, a Supper Room had been added to the left of the Rotunda, and in 1810–11 many of the trees in the Grove were cut down, and part of the Grand Walk and two sides of the Grove were covered in by a vaulted colonnade supported by cast-iron pillars. This colonnade was brilliantly lit with lamps, and was convenient in the wet weather that was proverbial at Vauxhall, but it greatly tended to destroy what Walpole calls, “the gardenhood” of the place.[354] The last of the old trees of Tyers’s period is said to have survived till 1805. [Illustration: _Madame Saqui_ _The celebrated Performer on the Rope at Vauxhall._] In 1821 Vauxhall Gardens passed out of the possession of the Tyers family. After the death of Jonathan Tyers the younger in 1792, his place was taken as proprietor and manager by his son-in-law Bryan Barrett, who died in 1809. Barrett’s son, George Rogers Barrett then acted as manager of the gardens for many years. In 1821, the property was purchased from the Barrett family for £30,000[355] by T. Bish (the lottery-office keeper), F. Gye, and R. Hughes. § 5. 1822–1859.