Identifier: besantsouthlondon00besa (find matches)
Title: South London
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Besant, Walter, Sir, 1836-1901
Subjects: London (England) -- Description and travel
Publisher: London : Chatto & Windus
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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h have drawn the materialfor their excellent work. The Pleasure Gardens grew out of the old Bear BaitingGardens. The London citizen loved sport first and above allthings : next, he loved the country : to sit under the shade oftrees in the summer: to walk upon the soft sward ; to smell theflowers : to rest his eyes upon country scenes. He has alwaysyearned for the country while he remained in town. Withthese things he desired, as a concomitant of the entertainment,good eating, good drinking, the merry sound of music not softlybut loudly played : the voices of those who sang: and a plat-form or floor for dancing. All these things he could get inParis Gardens so long as that place existed, together with itsbears and dogs. When the bears disappeared, what followed ?The Gardens continued without the bears. There were alsothe Mulberry Gardens on the site of Buckingham House, andthe Spring Gardens at Charing Cross. In the month of July1661 Evelyn visited the new garden of Foxhall, afterwards
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284 SOUTH LONDON Vauxhall, and in June 1665, the year of the Plague, Pepysspent the evening at the same place, for the first time, andwith great delight. The Pleasure Garden apart from the sport of Bear andBull Baiting was then beginning. Before long it became anecessity of life—at least, of the gregarious and social lifeof which the eighteenth century was so fond. Many thingsare said about that century, now so nearly removed from usby the space of another century, but we cannot say that itwas not social, and that it was not gregarious. It had itscoffee houses : its clubs : its taverns : its coteries : its societies :it loved the theatre : the opera : the concert: the oratorio : themasquerade : the Assembly : the card-room: but most of allthe eighteenth century loved its Pleasure Gardens. It tookevery opportunity of getting away from the quiet house tocrowds and noise and the scene of merriment. Many things were required to make a Pleasure Garden.There must be, first, abundance of t

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