Manners & Cvstoms of ye Englyshe

    Monday, July 15, 1850.

This Evening to Vauxhall, where a Gala Night and much Company, mostly of the middling Sort, except the worse. Very few Gentlemen of any Condition do now visit this Place, but plenty of the whippersnapper Sparks that Shopmen used to call Gents, and a very good Word to distinguish them, although a vile, as much as to say Snobs. The better Sort of all there chiefly Medical Students. No Place for Ladies, but here and there a respectable but stupid Farmer from the Country with his Wife or Daughter. A bare, faded kind of a Garden, patched with shabby Trees, variegated Lamps hanging to their Branches among smoky Leaves. The Lamps do seem the main Attraction, the Bill of Entertainments advertise 10,000 additional every Night, which seems great Folly. However, the Outlines of all the Buildings picked out with parti-coloured Lamps mighty gay. A wooden Building on one Side called the Rotunda, where an Orchestra and they sing, and opposite an Alcove where a Band in Uniform play at the same Time Tunes which the Gents and their Partners dance to, waltzing and spinning round like Teetotums, droll to look upon. The Partners some pretty but nearly all ill-looking, and one or two horribly ill-favoured, and to see the People sit and look on, and among them a fat Country Wife, and prim starched old Maid very thin, make me ashamed. Also a fat singing Woman sung a Song, not at all to my Liking, and did throw herself about and make faces. Another Alcove hung with Lamps in Festoons, and in the Middle a Circus Theatre and a Crowd at the Door crowding to See a Dancing Girl jump through Hoops and dance upon Horseback. Other Alcoves with Seats for Eating and Drinking, and they eat Ham and Chicken, and I a Plate cost me 2s. 6d., and the Ham mighty thin, which is Vauxhall Fashion, and they drink Arrack, a Spirit I was curious to taste, and did and never shall again. But what did please me was a Drink newly come in from America, and called Sherry Cobbler, made of Sherry and Orange and lumps of Ice, and sucked up into the Mouth with a Straw, which to see two Gents do for the first Time did take me mightily, and I did do likewise, mighty cool and refreshing and did delight me much, and three Cobblers cost me 3 Shillings. Amused to see the Gents strut about so jaunty smoking Cigars, I think Cabbage Leaf steeped in Tobacco-Juice. They also drink Rhubarb Wine they call Champagne cost them 10s. a bottle, and bottled Stout, and good Lack to see the Lots of empty Bottles on the by-Tables! An old Fellow with a Pot-Paunch that had had too much Drink fallen asleep, a comical Sight, whilst pretty to see the Waiters dance Attendance with the Refreshments, and hear the hollaing and shouting, and altogether a good Deal of Fun, but dreary; but a Family of little Boys and Girls with their fat Father mighty merry, and clap their Hands to see the Balloon go up in another Part of the Gardens. A grand Display of Fireworks to conclude diverted me too, and so Home and to Bed, hoping after my Evening's Entertainment I shall not wake with a Headache in the Morning.

A SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION

    Friday (further date wanting in MS.).
    Weekly Evening Meeting.

This Evening to the Royal Institution, to hear Professor Owen, the Hunterian Professor to Surgeons' College, Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, on the Nature of Limbs. To the Institution early, to the Theatre, and there got a good Place, the Theatre already filling and soon crammed like any Playhouse where some leading Actor make his appearance in a great Part, Gallery and all, as they say, to the Ceiling. The Audience sitting on semi-circular Benches covered with red Stuff, Tier above Tier, behind the select Visitors to the Front in reserved Chairs. A mighty droll Sea of Faces, mostly wry, with Eyes peering and squinting, many through Spectacles, though some well-featured, one here and there a great Head, but few handsome, Ladies excepted, a good Sprinkling of belles, and they look mighty pretty, the rather by Comparison with their Elders, the strong-minded Women, and the Philosophers around them, for the greater Part to look at, as the Vulgar Phrase is, a rum Lot. In the Centre of the reserved Seats an Arm-Chair for the Chairman facing the Lecture Table, whereon Prints and Papers, a Book and a Water-Carafe and Tumbler. Behind on a Showboard on the Wall Diagrams and Plates of Skeletons of Extinct Animals, Fish, and Flying Lizards, and a Dinotherium, and Mastodon, and Mammoth, and withal a human Skull, the People contemplate, and the Ladies and Damsels even, with Complacence, and to think all those pretty Creatures have Skeletons in themselves! By-and-by at eight, enter the Chairman and take the Chair, a fine fat portly Man with a great Jole, and solemn Look, mighty noble, and was, a Medical Student say, an awful Swell. Then in come the Lecturer, the Professor, to great clapping of Hands, and he make his Bow, and begin. I mighty taken with his Discourse, and to see him point out with a long Wand he lean upon while he lecture, the Bones and other Parts in the Diagrams of the Skeletons behind him he Describe, and explain how this and that Bone, the same as a human Bone, exist only in a different Form in Animals, and strange the Pterodactyl's Wing-bone a great little Finger. Lack to think of such Animals nothing remain but fossil Bones, and the Animals, Geologists say, did live and die Ages before Adam, shake some People's Faith. But Mr. Holdfast think Geology Bosh, extinct Quadrupeds Monsters destroyed in ancient Times by the Heroes. Likewise the Fish Lizards and Pterodactyles Dragons, St. George and the Dragon all true, and St. George did verily slay a Dragon, and Accounts of real Reptiles under the name of Dragons handed down by Tradition; their Bones now dug up out of the Earth witness Legends true, and no Fable, and reconcile Orthodoxy with Science. However he do not say he believe they belch Fire and Smoke. So my Thoughts a little wandering from Professor Owen's Lecture, to listen attentively, but the Air so foul with much Breath and burning of Gas that I at last nearly asleep and fain to pinch myself to keep awake. Strange, in the chief of Chemical Lecture Rooms such bad Ventilation. But to think what a Philosopher Professor Owen is and can tell an unknown Animal whether Bird or Beast by a single Bone, and the French may brag of Monsieur Cuvier, but England have as good Reason to be proud of Professor Owen.