" This reads like a recollection of
Quin in the Horatio of Rowe's _Fair Penitent_.
Upon Cookery M. Rouquet is edifying; and concerning the
eighteenth-century physician, with his tye-wig and gilt-head cane,
sprightly and not unmalicious. But we must now confine ourselves to
quoting a few detached passages from this discursive chronicle. The
description of Ranelagh (in the chapter on Music) is too lengthy to
reproduce. Here is that of the older Vauxhall:--"The Vauxhall concert
takes place in a garden singularly decorated. The Director of Amusements
in this garden [Jonathan Tyers] gains and spends successively
considerable annual sums. He was born for such enterprises. At once
spirited and tasteful, he shrinks from no expense where the amusement of
the public is concerned, and the public, in its turn, repays him
liberally. Every year he adds some fresh decoration, some new and
exceptional scene. Sculpture, Painting, Music, bestir themselves
periodically to render this resort more agreeable by the variety of
their different productions: in this way opportunities of relaxation are
infinite in England, above all at London; and thus Music plays a
prominent part. The English take their pleasure without amusing
themselves, or amuse themselves without enjoyment, except at table, and
there only up to the point when sleep supervenes to the fumes of wine
and tobacco.
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