raises the Ranelagh of that day far above the average tea-garden. The advertisements in the contemporary newspapers were full of thought for the comfort and convenience of folk attending this rather out-of-the-way place of amusement. Cut-purses and foot-pads abounded in the London of those days. Therefore, persons of quality were advised that there would be "a guard on horseback to patrole the road". In 1772 an additional number of lights were set up along the route, and about the same time, or perhaps a little earlier, we are told that the " footway from Buckingham Gate is lately mended and enlarged so as to make it very safe and easy for chairs". In one of these numerous notices, the company that come by Hyde Park Corner "are requested to order their carriages to keep the turnpike road by Pimlico to prevent the accidents that must invariably happen by going down the Descent of the New Road" (i.e. the modern Sloane Street) "by the Fire Engine". In almost all the notices it is carefully pointed out that "the Amphitheatre and other rooms are well-aired". The charge for admission to Ranelagh House on ordinary occasions was half-a-crown, for which you received tea, coffee and bread and butter gratis. On some evenings more was charged, and then it is always pointed out that "the best French and other Wines with a variety of Sweetmeats are provided for the Sideboard and the Beauffets in the Amphitheatre". The most popular entertainments were masquerades and ridottos, organised on special occasions from time to time down to the very last days of the gardens. One such special occasion was the ball on the evening of the great regatta of June 23, 1775. On that night Mrs. Cornelys, of Carlisle House notoriety (see next chapter), had the sole management of the decorations and the supper, but it was stated the next day that, although she had been allowed seven hundred guineas for the supper alone, it was, like most farmed ones, indifferent in quality and the wines very scarce. On another evening there was also apparently not enough to eat, for Sir Thomas Robinson (the "Long Sir Thomas", a great friend of my Lady Townshend), manager and general director of Ranelagh House, found himself compelled to invite all the company to have supper with him. On the whole it may be said that Ranelagh fairly maintained its aristocratic reputation to the last, though at times the company was undoubtedly "somewhat mixed", and assignations and intrigues not entirely unknown. In the eighteenth century, however, as in the twentieth, there were not wanting numbers of prurient Puritans who could not see any good in amusements of any kind, however well conducted. A group of such people made an attack on the pleasuregardens of the day, and a pamphlet was published as a sort of apology for and justification of their existence. This was called "Dame Ranelagh's Remonstrance in behalf of herself and her Sisters, humbly addressed to the G...d J..y of the C....y of M.................x This rather amusing skit is signed Ranelagh, Vauxhall, Marybone, etc., etc., and states that complaint has been made that they are "nurseries of idleness and debauchery, schools of impertinence and congresses of vice and impudence, assembled to laugh virtue and modesty out of countenance ". All these charges and many worse ones are boldly admitted, and it is urged that " notwithstanding we are evils, we are at least ...... as necessary ones as many others which continue to be tolerated under that notion ". The regatta alluded to above, terminating with a ball at Ranelagh House, must have been one of the most remarkable festivals that London had ever seen. We are told that the Duke of Richmond, His Grace of Montagu and the Earl of Pembroke had splendid companies on this occasion. Their houses were all in the neighbourhood of Whitehall, and my Lady Townshend was probably at one of their gatherings, unless indeed she had a splendid company of her own at her well-known house in the Privy Garden, the windows of which looked on to the river. Or unless she was out on one of her frolics (she was only sixty-seven years of age, a mere nothing for a woman of her spirit) and made one of the hundred "elegant ladies " in the City Barge! The Ladies in general, were dressed in white and the gentlemen in undress frocks of all colours and tis thought the procession was seen by at least two hundred thousand people. In a Word, from the mixed Multitude of Lords and Liverymen, Pinks and Pickpockets, Dukes and Dustmen, Drabs and Duchesses, the whole Scene afforded an admirable Picture of High Life below Stairs and Low Life above. Besides the crowds in the streets, on the river and on the bridges, there were about five hundred people in the stone and gilt galleries of St. Paul's to see the procession by water. The ball at Ranelagh in the evening was attended by two thousand persons, including the "first persons of distinction", whoever that might mean to imply. Ranelagh began to fall upon evil days in or about 1788, the year that saw the death of my Lady Townshend, though its glories were revived, more or less. |