Introduction
Richard, Viscount Ranelagh, opened the formal gardens of his house next to the Chelsea Hospital to the public in 1742. Horace Walpole was there the very next evening, but told his friend Horace Mann that he still preferred the older (and more rumbustious) pleasure gardens at Vauxhall.
To Horace Mann*
Downing Street, May 26th, 1742.
TO-DAY calls itself May the 26th, as you perceive by the date; but I am writing to you by the fire-side, instead of going to Vauxhall. If we have one warm day in seven, ‘we bless our stars, and think it luxury.’* And yet we have as much waterworks and fresco diversions, as if we lay ten degrees nearer warmth. Two nights ago Ranelagh-gardens were opened at Chelsea; the Prince, Princess, Duke, much nobility, and much mob besides, were there.* There is a vast amphitheatre, finely gilt, painted, and illuminated, into which everybody that loves eating, drinking, staring, or crowding, is admitted for twelvepence. The building and disposition of the garden cost sixteen thousand pounds. Twice a-week there are to be Ridottos,* at guinea-tickets,* for which you are to have a supper and music.
I was there last night, but did not find the joy of it. Vauxhall is a little better; for the garden is pleasanter, and one goes by water.
Sir Horace Mann (1706-1786), who served as British diplomatic representative to the Grand Dukes of Tuscany in Florence for most of his distinguished career. He and Walpole met in 1739, and kept up a friendly correspondence thereafter.
Walpole is quoting from Joseph Addison’s play ‘Cato: A tragedy in Five Acts’ (1712). Syphax is talking about an African crossing the Numidian desert, who relies on fortune to keep him alive:
And if the following day he chance to find
A new repast, or an untasted spring,
Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.
That is: King George II’s eldest son Frederick, Prince of Wales; Frederick’s youngest brother William, Duke of Cumberland; and one of their four sisters. Frederick predeceased his father, and the King’s grandson, George, subsequently became King George III in 1760.
That is, gaming tables. The term comes from Il Ridotto, a wing of Venice’s Palazzo Dandolo, which in 1638 was granted a government licence as a gambling house.
A guinea was both a coin and a unit of account equivalent to a pound and a shilling. Typically professional services in e.g. medicine would be reckoned in guineas, as were gambling debts. The coin took its name from the Guinea region of West Africa, renowned for its gold.