The Sun.
London, England, 1850-05-21 00:00:00

CREMORNE GARDENS.

But a very few years since it was considered snob-
bish for a fashionable man to be seen at a place fre-
quented by the vulgar multitude. A court of
etiquette would have placed such a delinpuent under
arrest, and finally sent him to Coventry for the term
of his natural life, there to expiate the dire offence
of being seen in a tea-garden condescending to smile
in the midst of rejoicing industry, and to laugh,
chat, and dance, aye, dance too with mechanics'
wives, their daughters, their sons, and their babies,
their rosy-cheeksd, feathered, and cockaded blessed
little babbies. Oh, what a culprit .would such a man
have been in the days of the gorgeous George the
Fourth ! That marvel in dandyism, Brurnmel, would
have fainted at the thought, the very idea in more
modern times would have poisoned D'Orsay, and, to use
a favourite aphorism of the late Mr. Pierce
Egan, " flabbergasted" Hughes Ball ; but in the
reign of our beloved Queen Victoria—a reign that,
unlike the two preceeding it, has made babbies fashion-
able—we smile, laugh, chat, and dance under im-
proved times, and, it is confidently hoped, improved
opinions; there are few left who, to quote Tom
Moore, would

- " rather be
Genteelly damn'd beside a duke
Than saved in vulgar company."

We are led to this retrospective reflective exordium
by two visits to Cremorne Gardens—the one Sunday
evening, the other yesterday—the opening day of the
amusement season. On Sunday evening, there must
have been, men, women, and children, at least seven
thousand in the gardens between six and seven o'clock.
In this large assemblage of well-dressed and well-
conducted persons, here and there we detected men
of high rank and fashion, several M.P.'s, and two
subordinate Members of her Majesty's Government.
We entered the mansion, now devoted to tavern
purposes, where we found more fashionables feeding,
engrossed in discussing the delicacies of French
cookery at the table d'hote. The coffee-room, and
indeed the private rooms, • appeared to be crowded
with dinnerists. Simpson, the new proprietor, better
known at the Albion, was even more mercurial than
ever, walking from table to table with anxious in-
quiries as to the satisfaction of his guests. Simpson's
attention, and the undeniable excellence of the
articles he sells, which in his advertisement he face-
tiously describes a la Albion, will doubtlessly render
Cremorne as desirable a tavern for a gentleman to
dine as the gardens are agreeable to the artizan and
family to take tea. Lord Byron said that he had
been accused of writing puffs for Warren's blacking ;
Mr. Wakley once declared in the House, in his utter
contempt for the genius of Wordsworth, that he could
make verses by the yard quite equal to anything that
the Poet Laureate could produce. If we were not
cognizant of the onerous duties, Parliamentary and
judicial, so . regularly and ably performed by the
Member for Finsbury, we should suspect him of
being the Cremorne poet. Every attraction of the gar-
dens is invested with poetic descriptive embellishment.
We shall be happy to hear it said of Simpson, as of
Warren by a writer in the Quarterly Review—
" Star, Post, and Globe, the Courier, and the Times,
Attest thy fame, and circulate thy rhymes;
While in thy deep Pactolean pockets glow
Rich streams of gold that jingle as they flow."
The Thames is the true Pactolus to Simpson, it bears
upon its bosom his golden cargoes, the Public, with-
out obliging him, to dive for its treasures, or bathe
himself as did Midas in the stream of Lydia. Being
directed by the poetical programme to notice the day-
light attractions of the grounds, we proceeded to the
Emigrant's Log Hut,which is certainly all it is repre-
sented, being composed of logs, the only available
architectural essential in the wilds of America or
Australia ; en passent, we suggest a ruder scenery to
surround this model, a neat Brixton-bill or Hamp-
stead-cottage-garden is not precisely the botanical
beauty we should expect to meet in the Prairies.
The Maze, which is described as larger than the one
at Hampton-court, was so full of juvenile Colum-
busses, all bent on discovery that we passed it for
the illustration of Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night—a
very perfect picture containing exquisite statuary of
the Cotter and his family, all in the best possible
taste. The new view, as it is called, has a twofold ad-
vantage, ge subject for the eye by day,
andva
am
'artinllgouas adjunct.pleasing
to the Pyrotechnic effects at
night. It is called the Polychrome Palace of Pavia—
the introduction of this architectural picture is a very
great improvement to the grounds ; it completely
obscures the anything but picturesque building, the
Bowling Saloon, which last season, to our thinking,
defaced the gardens. As a picture in the Italian
style of building, the new view is well chosen, and
standing in the centre of a luxuriant garden, the
Idilllnese Oketeb is rendered complete. On a terrace
, 4