as the American sea-serpent, and some inventions nearer home. The age was indeed credulous; but credulity and curiosity are nearly allied; and curiosity goes before comparison, and comparison goes before discontent, and discontent goes before revolt; and so in less than twenty years after Jonson's 'Staple of News' the country was plunged in civil war. We may trace in Jonson many of the evidences of a turbid state of public opinion. Amidst the luxuries and gaieties of those times there were some awful things which are quite unknown to us. The plague, for example, would break out in London: the Court would hurry to the country; every man of substance would follow the Court; all the places of public amusement would be shut; the voice of lamentation would be heard in the streets; with preachers denouncing God's judgments against the devoted city, in company with astrologers foretelling bad harvests, or recovering lost spoons. These things, upon the whole, made the people serious. The Puritans arose-James reasoned first with, and then persecuted them. The dramatists laughed at them. All Jonson's later comedies, as well as those of almost every other writer for the stage in the days of James, have a gird at Puritans. Subtle, in the 'Alchymist,' accuses the pastors and deacons who come to him in search of the philosopher's stone of endeavouring to win widows to give legacies, or make wives to rob their husbands. Jonson points boldly at their supposed ambition :—

In his Bartholomew Fair,' written in 1614, the "Rabbi Busy" is the butt of

the audience from the first act to the last.

The satire is not so bitter as that of felt it deeply, for it rendered them objects of contempt rather than of hatred. They had their revenge; which a dramatic writer after the Restoration has well described :

the Tartuffe,' but the Puritans must have

The literary life of Ben Jonson extended over nearly forty years: upon the whole, it was a successful literary life. He did not, like Shakspere, realize a competency by adding the business of a theatrical manager to the pleasanter labours of a poet. His plays, His plays, no doubt, produced him money; but his occasional productions for the Court and the City made him wealthier than most of his brethren. Aubrey tells us of his habitations:-"Long since, in King James's time, I have

heard my uncle Danvers say (who knew him) that he lived without Temple Bar, at a comb-maker's shop, about the Elephant and Castle. In his later time he lived in Westminster, in the house under which you pass as you go out of the churchyard into the old palace, where he died." He had a library so stored with rare and curious books that Selden could find there volumes which he vainly sought in other places. He appears at this time to have lived a life of learned ease, enjoying stipends from the Crown and from the City. From 1616 to 1625 he wrote no plays. After the death of James want probably drove him again to the stage. His later dramas are not to be compared with The Alchymist' and The Fox.' Disease and penury had come upon him. In the epilogue to The New Inn,' produced in 1630, he says,

"If you expect more than you had to-night,
The maker is sick and sad."

In the same epilogue he has a touching allusion to the King and Queen; and Charles instantly sent him an hundred pounds. The play itself was hooted from the boards; and Jonson took his revenge upon the town in his well-known ode:

Or thine own Horace, or Anacreon's lyre;

Warm thee by Pindar's fire:

And though thy nerves be shrunk and blood be cold,

Ere years have made thee old,

Strike that disdainful heat

Throughout, to their defeat,

As curious fools, and envious of thy strain,

May, blushing, swear no palsy 's in thy brain."

Supported by an increased pension, to which Charles added the "tierce of Canary," which the poets-laureat have ever since enjoyed, Jonson continued to write masques and other little poems for the Court. His quarrel with Inigo Jones, from whatever cause proceeding, is a painful circumstance; and it is well that the satire which he wrote upon the illustrious architect is suppressed. He died in 1637, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Aubrey says, “He lies buried in the north aisle, in the path of square stone (the rest is lozenge), opposite to the scutcheon of Robertus de Bos, with this inscription only on him, in a pavement square, blue marble, about 14 inches square-O RARE Ben JONSON!'-which was done at the charge of Jack Young (afterwards knighted), who, walking there when the grave was covering, gave the fellow eighteen-pence

to cut it."

XXIII. RANELAGH AND VAUXHALL.

Ir were a curious study to trace the progress of the public taste in matters of amusement, and to endeavour to investigate the causes of the variety of changes it has undergone. The latter, however, would, we suspect, be a difficult task to accomplish satisfactorily. Take, for instance, the once prosperous as well as famous places of entertainment mentioned at the head of this paper-and how should we explain the fact that one has long since disappeared, whilst the other, having made bankrupts of its latest proprietors, is now about, most probably, to give place to the formidable array of bricklayers and carpenters, who already look upon its beautiful groves as their own, and can neither listen to the melodies of the birds nor to the glorious harmonies of the mightier human performers, for the ringing blows of the axe and the crash of the falling trees, which they hear as it were by anticipation? We shall regret this destruction, if Vauxhall be destroyed, as we regret the fall of Ranelagh, were it only for the length of time both places have existed, and the agreeable link they made between ourselves and the generations that have passed away; but they have claims to favourable remembrance of a more important character. What reader of Addison, of Fielding, of Goldsmith, or of Johnson, but will miss the place they have so often visited for materials to minister to our instruction and delight? What lover of the beautiful but would like still to be able to look upon that spot (Ranelagh) which the author of the 'Rambler' said presented the finest coup d'œil he had ever seen; or to keep the other, whilst it is yet possible, of which a forgotten poet of the

last century, with a pleasant spirit of exaggeration, gives so high an origin?—he supposes Eden to have been borne up undestroyed by the Flood, and that

"After floating many a year,

At length it fix'd, and settled here :""

that is to say, at Vauxhall.

Ranelagh derived its name from the Earl of Ranelagh, who about 1690 built himself a house and laid out extensive grounds on a piece of land lying eastward of the Royal Hospital of Chelsea, to which it originally belonged. After the Earl's death, in 1712, the mansion passed into the hands of his daughter. In 1733 the estate was sold in lots, when Lacy, the patentee of Drury Lane, in conjunction with a person named Rietti, took a lease of the premises, with a view of establishing a place of amusement of an extent and magnificence previously unknown to the citizens of London. But the design was too gigantic for the means of its authors; accordingly the property was divided into thirty-six shares, and Ranelagh soon appeared in all its splendour. The great feature of the place was the Rotunda, a building which excited the astonishment of all visitors by its extraordinary size, its elegance, and its most ingenious and skilful adaptation to the purposes for which it was built. In Hughson's History of London,'* a minute but prolix description of this edifice, and of the place generally, is preserved, from which it appears that the Rotunda was a structure somewhat resembling the Pantheon at Rome. The external diameter was one hundred and eighty feet, the internal one hundred and fifty. The entrances were by four Doric porticos opposite each other, and the first story was rustic. Round the whole on the outside was an arcade, and over it a gallery, the stairs to which were in the porticos. The gallery was sheltered by a slated covering, which projected from the body of the Rotunda. Over the gallery were the windows, sixty in number; and over them the immense roof. The first thing that struck the spectator in the inside was what was formerly the orchestra, but afterwards called the fireplace, erected in the middle of the Rotunda, reaching to the ceiling and supporting the roof; but it being found too high to give the company the full entertainment of the music, the performers were removed into another orchestra, erected in the space of the porticos. The former, however, remained. It was a beautiful structure, formed by four triumphal arches of the Doric order, divided from each other by proper intervals, which, with the arches, formed an octagon. The pillars were divided into two stories, the base of each lined with looking-glass, against which were placed patent lamps. These pillars were the principal support of the roof, which, for size and manner of construction, was not to be equalled in Europe. The genius of the architect was here concealed from view by the ceiling; but it may be easily conceived that such a roof could not be supported by any ordinary methods; and if the timber-works above had been laid open, they would probably have surprised the spectator. The interior of this orchestra or fire-place was no less striking. In the centre of it was a curious contrivance for heating the building in cold weather, to any degree required. It consisted of a fireplace that could not smoke nor become offensive, and of a chimney reaching upwards to the ceiling. The latter had four faces, and by tins over each of them, which were taken off at pleasure, the heat was increased

* Vol. vi.

or diminished. The faces were formed by four stone arches, with stone pediments above. The corners of the four faces were supported by eight pieces of cannon, with iron spikes driven into them, and filled up with lead. These looked like black marble pillars. On the pediments, and in the spaces between them, were eight flower-branches of small glass lamps, which, when lighted, looked extremely brilliant. Above the pediments were four niches in wood, in each of which was a painting; and over all was a dome, which terminated this inner structure. The chimney, which proceeded to the top of the Rotunda, was of brick. The band of music consisted of a select number of performers, vocal and instrumental, accompanied by an organ. The concert began about seven o'clock, and, after singing and music, closed about ten. Round the Rotunda, and forming a portion of the building, were forty-seven boxes for the accommodation of the company, in which they were regaled with tea or coffee and other refreshments. In each of these boxes was a painting of some droll figure; and they were lighted by large bell lamps suspended between them. They were divided by wainscoting and square pillars. The latter were in front, and, being main timbers, formed part of the support of the roof. Each pillar was cased, and the front of every alternate pillar ornamented from top to bottom with an oblong looking-glass, in a gilt frame. At the back of each box was a pair of folding doors, which opened into the gardens, and were designed for the convenience of passing in and out without being obliged to use the grand entrances. Each of these boxes would commodiously hold eight persons. The gallery above was fronted with a balustrade and pillars resembling marble, encircled with festoons of flowers in a spiral form, surmounted by termini of plaster of Paris. This gallery also contained forty-seven boxes, lighted like those below. At the distance of twelve boxes from the orchestra, on the right hand, was the Prince's box, for the reception of any of the Royal Family. It was elegantly hung with paper, and ornamented in the front with the Prince of Wales's crest. The great ceiling of the Rotunda had a stonecoloured ground, on which, at proper intervals, were oval panels, with paintings of celestial figures on a sky-blue ground. Festoons of flowers, and other ornaments, connected the panels with some of a smaller size and of a square form, on which were arabesque ornaments in stone colour, on a dark-brown ground. From the ceiling hung twenty-three chandeliers, in two circles; each chandelier ornamented with a gilt coronet, and the candles contained in seventeen bell lamps. Twenty chandeliers were in the external circle, and eight in the internal. On the whole, it might have been said of Ranelagh, that it was one of those public places of entertainment for convenience, elegance, and grandeur unsurpassed.

The Rotunda was first opened on the 5th of April, 1742, with a public breakfast, a species of entertainment that was afterwards suppressed by act of Parliament, as detrimental to society. Morning concerts were also given for some time at Ranelagh, consisting chiefly of selections from oratorios. Musical performances of a more original and important character were gradually introduced. We learn from the Gentleman's Magazine' for 1767 that on the 12th of May, "At Ranelagh House were performed the much-admired catches and glees, selected from the curious collection of the Catch Club; being the first of the kind publicly exhibited in this or any other kingdom. The entertainment