The season of 1752, practically the last at Cuper’s, lasted from May till near the end of September. The principal vocalist was Miss Maria Bennett.[279] The fireworks and scenic effects were novel and elaborate. A song commemorating the Prince of Wales’s birthday was “shown curiously in fireworks in the front of the machine.” The fireworks building, when the curtain was withdrawn, disclosed a perspective view of the city of Rhodes—sea, buildings, and landscape, with a model of the Colossus, from under which Neptune issued forth and set fire to a grand pyramid in the middle of the canal. Dolphins spouted water; water-wheels and rockets threw up air-balloons and suns blazed on the summit of the building.
On one occasion the crowd near the fireworks was so great that a gentleman took up his position in a tree, and when St. George and the Dragon came to a close engagement and the clockwork began to move the arms of St. George to pierce the Dragon, he let go his hands to clap like the rest and fell headlong upon the bystanders.[280]
The ‘Inspector’ of the London Daily Advertiser took his friend the old Major, to Cupid’s Gardens (as they were still called) on a pleasant August evening in this year. The Major was delighted with all he saw. “Now I like this. I am always pleased when I see other people happy: the folks that are rambling about among the trees there; the jovial countenances of them delight me ... here’s all the festivity and all the harmless indulgence of a country wake.”[281]
The country wake element was in evidence late in the evening, and constables stationed at the gate had occasionally to interfere. One night, for instance, a pretty young woman, accompanied by a friend, promenaded the gardens dressed as a man wearing a long sword. No small sensation was caused in the miscellaneous company, which included a physician, a templar, a berouged old lady and her granddaughter, and the sedate wife of a Cheapside fur-seller. “A spirited young thing with a lively air and smart cock of her hat” passed by. “Gad,” said she, as she tripped along, “I don’t see there’s anything in it; give us their cloathes and we shall look as sharp and as rakish as they do.” “What an air! what a gate! what a tread the baggage has!” exclaimed another.
But the days of Cuper’s were numbered. In the early part of 1752 the statute-book had been dignified by the addition of 25 George II., cap. 36, entitled, “An Act for the better preventing thefts and robberies and for regulating places of public entertainment and punishing persons keeping disorderly houses.” By section 2 of this enactment it was required that every house, room, garden, or other place kept for public dancing or music, &c., within the cities of London and Westminster, or twenty miles thereof, should be under a licence. The Act took effect from December 1, 1752, and the necessary licence for the season of 1753 was refused to the management of Cuper’s Gardens. The widow Evans complained bitterly that she was denied the liberty of opening her gardens, a misfortune attributed by her to the malicious representations of ill-meaning persons, but which was really owing, no doubt, to the circumstance that Cuper’s was degenerating into the place which Pennant says he remembered as the scene of low dissipation. Meanwhile Mrs. Evans threw open the grounds (June 1753) as a tea-garden in connection with the Feathers, and the walks were “kept in pleasant order.”
In the summer of 1755 entertainments of the old character were revived, but they were advertised as fifteen private evening concerts and fireworks, open only to subscribers, a one guinea ticket admitting two persons. It is to be suspected that the subscription was mythical, and was a mere device to evade the Act. However, a band was engaged, and on June 23 loyal visitors to Cuper’s commemorated the accession of King George to the throne by a concert and fireworks. Clitherow, who had been the engineer of Cuper’s fireworks from 1750 (or earlier), was again employed, but had to publish in the newspapers a lame apology for the failure of the Engagement on the Water on the night of August 2 (1755), a failure which he explained was not due to his want of skill but “owing to part of the machinery for moving the shipping being clogg’d by some unaccountable accident, and the powder in the ships having unfortunately got a little damp.”
From 1756–1759 Cuper’s Gardens were again used as the tea-garden of the Feathers. There was no longer a Band of Musick but (as the advertisements express it) “there still remains some harmony from the sweet enchanting sounds of rural warblers.”
The last recorded entertainment at the place was a special concert given on August 30, 1759 by “a select number of gentlemen for their own private diversion,” who had “composed an ode alluding to the late decisive action of Prince Ferdinand.” Any lady or gentleman inspired by Prussian glory was admitted to this entertainment on payment of a shilling.
For several years the gardens remained unoccupied, but from about 1768 three acres of them were leased to the firm of Beaufoy, the producers of British wines and vinegar. The orchestra, or rather the edifice used from 1750 for the fireworks, was utilised for the distillery. Dr. Johnson once passed by the gardens: “Beauclerk, I, and Langton, and Lady Sydney Beauclerk, mother to our friend, were one day driving in a coach by Cuper’s Gardens which were then unoccupied. I, in sport, proposed that Beauclerk, and Langton, and myself, should take them, and we amused ourselves with scheming how we should all do our parts. Lady Sydney grew angry and said, ‘An old man should not put such things in young people’s heads.’ She had no notion of a joke, sir; had come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable understanding.”[282]
