VAUXHALL.
The trees seen above the houses at the foot of the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge are those of Vauxhall Gardens, the site of which will soon be covered with buildings. These grounds were once the glory of English pleasure-gardens, frequented by the highest in the land from the gay days of Charles II. to those of "the Regency," and were celebrated in musical history for talent of the highest kind here introduced. In the old orchestra, whose towering summit may be seen from the Thames, the greatest musical celebrities have sung. Handel, Dr. Arne, and Hook superintended its concerts; and Hogarth decorated its walls with paintings. It obtained its name from a very old mansion that once stood near it. This old manor-house of Fawkes Hall, as it existed in the reign of Charles I., is shown in our engraving; at that time it was described as a "fair dwelling-house, strongly built, of three stories high, and a pier staircase breaking out from it nineteen feet square." This staircase occupied one of the towers, in accordance with the ancient plan, and the house was a curious specimen of the old timber houses of the gentry in the sixteenth century.
It appears to have obtained its name from Foukes de Breut, who married the heiress of the manor, the Countess of Albemarle, sister to Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury; and it was granted by the name of the manor of Foukeshall, by Edward III. to his favourite Hugh le Despenser. In 1615 the records of the Duchy of Cornwall prove the premises known as Vauxhall Gardens to have been the leasehold property of Jane Vaux, widow of John Vaux, citizen and vintner of London, and a benefactor to the parish of Lambeth. It has always remained, with the manor of Kennington, as the property of the crown, and belongs to the Prince of Wales as part of his Duchy of Cornwall. Vauxhall Gardens closed for ever on July 25th, 1859, with an al fresco fête.
EGYPTIAN TOILET BOXES.
The ladies of ancient Egypt were very fond of having their apartments set off with a profusion of knick-knacks, and among other articles of that sort, they usually had several different kinds of toilet-boxes on their dressing-tables. The above engraving represents a group of them. They have been found in considerable numbers among the ruins of the palaces, and they form interesting objects among the Egyptian curiosities in many of our museums. They were made of wood, or of ivory, often inlaid, and always elaborately carved. Sometimes they partook of the nature of spoons, the containing part being shallow, at the end of a long solid handle; the handle was carved into the most fanciful forms—a grotesque human figure, a woman, a fox, or a fish—and the spoon part was generally covered with a lid, which turned on a pivot. In one of those in the engraving, the spoon takes the form of a fish, the cover being carved to resemble its scales, while another, also in the form of a fish, has two cavities, the one covered, the other permanently open. Sometimes the body of a goose formed the box, either trussed for the table, or in the posture of life, and other forms were devised from the fancy of the artist. Some of these shallow boxes are supposed to have been used for holding small quantities of ointments and cosmetics upon the toilet-table.