with him alone. People would come from far to taste the Spaniard's sauce. The recipe is still extant. The inn and gardens, as seen in a little engraving by Chatelaine about 1745, were arranged in the Dutch fashion introduced by William III.; but only the old house now remains.

CHAPTER IV

DIVERSIONS OF PERSONS OF QUALITY IN LONDON INDOORS

Court and subscription masquerades: Heidegger, the Master of the Revels: Elizabeth Chudleigh, the aristocratic go-between: the great Teresa Cornelys early life and arrival in England: organisation of the masquerades and entertainments at Čarlisle House: the clever methods of advertising the new place: the ball for the Prince of Brunswick: the ball of the Tuesday Night's Club: "Running Footmen": funeral elegy at Carlisle House: funeral customs of the day: decline and downfall of Carlisle House: "asses' milk at Knightsbridge" sad death of the Cornelys: opening of the Pantheon: Sedan-chairs: the Pantheon masquerades: ball of the Savoir-Vivre Club: Boodle's: Goosetree's, late Almack's: Almack's Assembly Rooms: the first "Cock and Hen" Club: the rage for gambling: the "Redoubt": other concert halls and entertainments.

A CONTINUAL ROUND of drums, routs and rackets, or of interminable parties for ombre and quadrille, must have often proved monotonous to the gay person of quality, even the most inveterate card-player. Ladies of fashion, therefore, on the lookout for amusement, when the season or weather was not propitious for Ranelagh or Vauxhall, would turn their attention to the public assemblies and indoor masquerades of the

town.

The Court masquerades were, of course, the most modish of all. Every one had not the entrée to Court, or the privilege of receiving an invitation for entertainments that Royalty might provide. A very sensitive

lady of the inner Court circle would, therefore, not have to rub shoulders with a number of persons of doubtful standing and morality, who could only attend a public assembly and had not even a good enough position to obtain a voucher for one of the more exclusive entertainments-the Toms, Dicks and Harrys, in short, of the day, with their female companions.

It is true that at Court they were compelled to rub shoulders with many much more doubtful persons than those who had not the entrée: for the Court circle of that day was a very large net, sweeping into its meshes a good deal of rubbish. Still, with whatever rubbish there might be, there they were among the élite, and that doubtless compensated somewhat for having to meet notorious evil-livers, royal mistresses, or any curious personality that might be basking in the sunshine of the favour of those august damesthe Duchess of Kendal, the Countess of Darlington and the Countess of Yarmouth. It is to be feared that no lady of fashion would have dared to be so straightlaced as to refuse to receive or call upon any friend of a member of the Royal harem. Perhaps in this third decade of the twentieth century we live in an age more openly censorious, more publicly severe on the frailties of human nature than was the case two hundred years ago but the visiting list of the fashionable world, the real haut ton, is still based on the visiting list of the Palace.

Court masquerades in the reign of George II. were very splendid affairs. There was a regular Master of Revels to the King, one Heidegger, a Swiss, said to be the ugliest man of his day. His career had been a remarkable one. He came to London early in the eighteenth century, and at once became the fashion,

a position attained, perhaps, by his cleverness, his wit, and his perfect manners. Son of a clergyman at Zurich, he left his native country in consequence of some amour, became confidential servant to a gentleman of good position, and in that capacity visited the chief capitals of Europe, acquiring a taste for refinement and a knowledge of good living. He soon got himself received by persons of fashion in London, and rose to be manager of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, which stood on the site of the later Opera House and on the spot now filled by His Majesty's Theatre and the Carlton Hotel.

He was generally spoken of as "The Swiss Count", and in consequence of his extreme ugliness was a constant butt for the wits of the day, but his goodnature triumphed over the sarcasms, and his generosity appears to have so endeared him to every one that no ball or assembly was considered complete without him.

It was asserted that he made a very large income, a good proportion of which went in eating and drinking, but he was of a most charitable nature, and after a successful masquerade was known to give away hundreds of pounds in charity. He must always have been very much before the public, for he has been immortalised by Pope in the Dunciad, censured by Fielding in a poem called "The Masquerade ", and caricatured by Hogarth in one of his famous prints. He was probably responsible for establishing the opera in public favour in London, and even wrote an opera himself called Tomyris. He lived to be ninety years of age, died in Richmond in a house in Maids of Honour Row, and was buried in the parish church of that little town in 1749.

G

It was Heidegger who first organised those masquerades to which one was only admitted by a ticket obtained through a voucher from some person of recognised position in society. These tickets were generally procurable, in exchange for the voucher, at White's Chocolate House in St. James's Street. The greatest efforts were always made to keep the company very select, and persons of quality, who were subscribers and had vouchers for distribution, were requested not to lend their names to obtain tickets indiscriminately for others, and if they had any spare ones to send them back, when their cost would be returned.

Heidegger advertised that a sufficient guard was appointed within and without the house to prevent all disorder and indecencies, and strict orders were given not to deliver any bottles and glasses from the sideboards, and to shut them up early. Notwithstanding these precautions the utmost licence and disorder often prevailed among the company. Quarrels and duels were frequent. Bishops preached sermons warning their congregations against them. Poets satirised their follies and vices. But for all this Heidegger and his masquerades, as well as the more public imitations of them, continued to flourish for many a year.

Next in importance to these semi-official masquerades were those organised by persons of quality and known as Subscription Masquerades". One such is described by Walpole as follows:

On Monday there was a subscription masquerade, much fuller than that of last year, but not so agreeable or so various in dresses. The King was well disguised in an old-fashioned English habit, and much pleased with somebody who desired him to hold their cup as they were drinking tea. The Duke had a dress of the same kind, but so immensely corpulent that he looked like Cacofogo the drunken captain in Rule a Wife and