and you will understand what Johnson meant when he declared that the coup d’oeil of Ranelagh was the finest thing he had ever seen.  The ordinary charge for admission was half a crown, which secured you tea or coffee and bread-and-butter.  The gardens were usually open Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and the amusements were music, tea-drinking, walking, and talking.  Mr. Wroth quotes a Frenchman, who, after visiting Ranelagh in 1800, calls it ’le plus insipide lieu d’amusement que l’on ait pu imaginer,’ and even hints at Dante’s Purgatory.  An earlier victim from Gaul thus records his experience of Ranelagh:  ’On s’ennui avec de la mauvaise musique, du the et du beurre.’  So true is it that the cheerfulness you find anywhere is the cheerfulness you have brought with you.  However, despite the Frenchman, good music and singing were at times to be heard at Ranelagh.  The nineteenth century would have nothing to do with Ranelagh, and in 1805 it was pulled down.  The site now belongs to Chelsea Hospital.  Cuper’s Gardens lacked the respectability of Marylebone and the style of Ranelagh, but they had their vogue during the same century.  They were finely situated on the south side of the Thames opposite Somerset House.  Cuper easily got altered into Cupid; and when on the death of Ephraim Evans in 1740 the business came to be carried on by his widow, a comely dame who knew a thing or two, it proved to be indeed a going concern.  But the new Licensing Bill of 1752 destroyed Cupid’s Garden, and Mrs. Evans was left lamenting and wholly uncompensated.  Of Vauxhall Mr. Wroth treats at much length, and this part of his book is especially rich in illustrations.  Every lover of Old London and old times and old prints should add Mr. Wroth’s book to his library.

OLD BOOKSELLERS

There has just been a small flutter amongst those who used to be called stationers or text-writers in the good old days, before printing was, and when even Peers of the Realm (now so highly educated) could not sign their names, or, at all events, preferred not to do so—­booksellers they are now styled—­and the question which agitates them is discount.  Having mentioned this, one naturally passes on.

No great trade has an obscurer history than the book trade.  It seems to lie choked in mountains of dust which it would be suicidal to disturb.  Men have lived from time to time of literary skill—­Dr. Johnson was one of them—­who had knowledge, extensive and peculiar, of the traditions and practices of ‘the trade,’ as it is proudly styled by its votaries; but nobody has ever thought it worth his while to make record of his knowledge, which accordingly perished with him, and is now irrecoverably lost.

In old days booksellers were also publishers, frequently printers, and sometimes paper-makers.  Jacob Tonson not only owned Milton’s Paradise Lost—­for all time, as he fondly thought, for little did he dream of the fierce construction the House of Lords was to put upon the Copyright Act of Queen Anne—­not only was Dryden’s publisher, but also kept shop in Chancery Lane, and sold books across the counter.  He allowed no discount, but, so we are told, ’spoke his mind upon all occasions, and flattered no one,’ not even glorious John.