1830.] The Bower ; a Vauxliall View. 221 



there, sometimes, of course yet is seldom seen but at supper-time, as 

 if he were a sprite conjured up by indigestion and head-ache. You 

 enter the box, and up jumps Jack. You sit down, and there he is ; you 

 get up, and he is gone. He may spring from under the table, or drop 

 from one of the lamps, for any thing you can tell. He may be brought 

 in, like Asmodeus, in a bottle ; he may hide himself, like care, at the 

 bottom of a bowl. You only know that there he stands, hoping you 

 are comfortable, and bowing you into good-humour with an expensive 

 supper. But catch him in the walks afterwards, if you can ; you go 

 into them all, whether dark or dazzling, without finding him. At last, 

 you determine to sup a second time, by way of experiment just to 

 solve the mystery and to see whether he will make his appearance. It 

 is served up and the very next minute he is asking you the age of 

 your fowl, and trusting that it is tender. 



But the most extraordinary fact remains to be told ; " the greatest is 

 behind." During the season he is indefatigable in his attendance. He 

 is never a minute too late, or a step out of the way. He seems to grow 

 in the gardens like one of the trees. But the instant the season closes, 

 he disappears ; and is never seen again till the hour of its recommence- 

 ment the next year. No human being could ever guess where he goes to. 

 The visitors retire, the lamps are extinguished, and he takes his leave. 

 He and the lights go out together ; he melts, like Ossian's heroes, into 

 mist. He quits his suburban sitting-room, places a receipt for his rent 

 in his pocket-book, makes a conclusive and valedictory bow to his 

 landlady, and becomes a query, a conundrum the most undiscoverable 

 of riddles the most marvellous of absentees. The proprietors have no 

 knowledge of his whereabout; they are sure of seeing him in time for the 

 re-opening, and give themselves no further trouble on the subject. If 

 he should not appear the first night, when " God save the King" 

 commences, he is no longer a tenant of this world ; if living, there he 

 will be found. Never wss he known to fail. Faithful to the moment, 

 in he walks, apparently in the same white waistcoat, as if it had been 

 washed in Juno's bath, and endowed with perpetual purity and youth. 

 His cane looks as if it had been wrapt up in cotton since last season. 

 He taps at the door, touches his hat, and offers the usual compliments 

 to the " honoured and worthy proprietors." Like the bulletin of a 

 battle, a brilliant illumination follows his appearance. He is the most 

 punctual of periodicals the Vauxhall Annual. People know the period 

 of the year, by his coming ; one swallow makes not a summer, but 

 he does. The migrations of birds have given rise to many curious 

 speculations, and have puzzled the zoologists of all ages some con- 

 jecturing that they lie for months at the bottoms of pools and rivers, and 

 other impossible places. We should like to know what natural phi- 

 losophy has to say to the migration we have recorded, and whether 

 there is any chance of discovering the winter quarters of our venerable 

 friend the crysalis of our summer visitor. Is he asleep for the rest 

 of the year? Does he hide himself in a nut-shell at-home, or travel 

 to the Indies and back ? Does he take an excursion in a balloon for a 

 few months, or creep for security into the corner of a poor-box ? But 

 the subject baffles conjecture ; all speculation is idle. It is one of those 

 secrets that most probably will never be divulged. 



Wheresoever he goes, we trust that he may long experience, during 

 the drearier seasons of the year, the courtesies and urbanity he extends 

 to others in the merrier one ; and that, like the best blacking, he may 

 retain his virtues in any climate. B. 



