Chelsea Part 4

"But now came a scene worth the showing, The fireworks, midst laughs and huzzas; With explosions the sky was all glowing, Then down streamed a million of stars.

With a rush the bright rockets ascended, Wheels spurted blue fire like a rain; We turned with regret when 'twas ended, Then stared at each other again.

"There thousands of gay lamps aspir'd To the tops of the trees and beyond; And, what was most hugely admired, They looked all upside-down in a pond.

The blaze scarce an eagle could bear And an owl had most surely been slain; We returned to the circle, and there-- And there we went round it again.

"'Tis not wisdom to love without reason, Or to censure without knowing why; I had witness'd no crime, nor no treason; 'Oh, life, 'tis thy picture,' said I.

'Tis just thus we saunter along; Months and years bring their pleasure or pain.

We sigh midst the right and the wrong; And then we go round them again!"

Though Bloomfield's metre can be scarce held faultless, yet his power of detailed description has preserved us a living picture of Ranelagh in the height of its glory. b.a.l.l.s and fetes succeeded each other. Lysons tell us that "for some time previously to 1750 a kind of masquerade, called a Jubilee Ball, was much in fashion at Ranelagh, but they were suppressed on account of the earthquakes in 1750."

The masked b.a.l.l.s were replaced by other festivities. In 1775 a famous regatta was held at Ranelagh, and in 1790 a magnificent display of fireworks, at which the numbers in attendance reached high-water mark, numbering between 3,000 and 4,000 exclusive of free admissions. In 1802 an aeronaut ascended from the gardens in a balloon, and the last public entertainment was a ball given by the Knights of the Bath in 1803. The following year the gardens were closed. Sir Richard Phillips, writing in 1817, says that he could then trace the circular foundation of the rotunda, and discovered the broken arches of some cellars which had once been filled with the choicest wines. And Jesse, in 1871, says he discovered, attached to one or two in the avenue of trees on the site of the gardens, the iron fixtures to which the variegated lamps had been hung. The promenades at Ranelagh, for some time before its end, were thinly attended and the place became unprofitable. It was never again opened to the public after July 8, 1803.

In 1805 Ranelagh House and the rotunda were demolished, the furniture and fittings sold, and the organ made by Byfield purchased for the church of Tetbury, in Gloucestershire. Lysons adds that the site was intended to be let on building leases. This plan was, however, never carried out, and the ground reverted to the Royal Hospital. The gardens are now quite differently planned from what they were originally. The public is admitted to them under certain restrictions. One or two ma.s.sive elms, which must have seen the Ranelagh entertainments blossom into life and fade away, are the only ancient relics remaining.

With this account of the Ranelagh Gardens we close our description of Chelsea, having wandered west and east, north and south, and found everywhere some memento of those bygone times, which by their continuity with the present const.i.tute at once the glory and fascination of London, the greatest city in the world.

THE END