day, and the most precise regulations were laid down. and insisted upon by Beau Nash for the conduct of these assemblies-regulations from which there was no appeal possible, no matter who the appellant or what the nature of the appeal. Before the coming of Nash, Lord Chesterfield at Bath wrote to his son in one of those inimitable letters which read so curiously in these days, complaining of the strange mixture of company which included bucks, bloods and bumpkins. He says of these three categories that-

the two first are offensive by their ill manners, the latter are only ridiculously awkward. They hunt all the morning, and appear often in the Publick Rooms in their boots and spurrs, their leathern caps and deerskin waittescoats. . . . How glad I am to be convinced that you will never appear anywhere in any of these ridiculous and offensive characters, and to know that you have already a just contempt for them all.

All this irregularity so deplored by the affected Chesterfield was changed by Nash, and, for the balls at any rate, the severest sumptuary laws were enacted. No boots for the gentlemen! No aprons for the ladies! These aprons seem to have been peculiar to England. In Angeloni's Letters there is one to an Italian Countess in which he speaks of the part of apparel which is called an apron and which he has no way of describing. Sometimes these aprons were of the most gorgeous and expensive kind. The Duchess of Queensberry (Prior's Kitty) came to a ball at Bath in an apron worth five hundred pounds. King Nash tore it off and threw it contemptuously aside, with the remark that such things were for abigails only. Her Grace bore the treatment good-temperedly and said no word of remonstrance-marvellous to relate, considering who

she was! As for the men, not only were their boots taboo, but later on their swords also. There was a good reason for this, in that, prior to this regulation being enforced, quarrels had been frequent and swords drawn on the slightest excuse.

On great ball nights, the minuets were always danced first, and by one couple at a time: it must have been a very solemn moment for any young débutante who might be led out to dance under the quizzing eyes of the more experienced performers of her own sex. There is a famous caricature by Bunbury of the Long Minuet as danced at Bath, which bears underneath it the following obscure inscription:

Longa Tysonum minuit, quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors.

This solemn succession of minuetting couples went on for about two hours, and then came the country dances, in which a due precedence was also observed -the ladies of rank dancing first. By the rules, all dancing had to finish precisely at eleven o'clock, even if the dancers were in the middle of a set; and Beau Nash on one occasion refused the request of Her Royal Highness the Princess Amelia, who had begged for an extra ".

According to our notions, it was a queer way of enjoying a ball, but was probably the best adapted to the age of wig, hoop and powder, which would have 3 She was the Lady Catherine Hyde, second daughter of the fourth Earl of Clarendon, so related to the Stuarts in no distant degree. She was noted for her beauty and her eccentricities, which occasionally bordered on insanity. She maintained a close friendship with some of the leading writers of the Augustan Age of English Literature, such as Congreve, Pope, Thomson, Gay and Prior. She said once to Quin the actor, "Pray, Mr. Quin, do you ever make love?" (alluding to his acting, for he generally played either the heavy lead or the comic characters). No Madam," replied Quin, “I always buy it ready made !" She died an old woman in 1777—beautiful to the last.

all been sadly disarranged if the dancers had attempted anything resembling, say, the " Kitchen Lancers!

Society at the Bath was like one united family. Every one met everybody else every day. People who in London would have found themselves in totally different cliques, mixed on a footing of perfect equality, and it was not at all necessary to know people" on the Mall" because one had perhaps exchanged courtesies with them in the Bath! In fact, as was remarked by Ferdinand Count Fathom, "two persons who lived in the most intimate correspondence in Bath or Tunbridge shall, in four and twenty hours, so totally forget their friendships as to meet in St. James's Park without betraying the least token of recognition".

Horace Walpole, who went everywhere, of course went to the Bath, but he seems to have spent a very short time there and to have hated it. He had lodgings in Chapel Court, a very fashionable quarter, and the day after his arrival writes peevishly to Harry Conway that he dislikes the place exceedingly and is disappointed

in it.

Their new buildings that are so admired look like a collection of little hospitals: the rest is detestable and all crammed together and surrounded with perpendicular hills that have no beauty. The river is paltry enough to be the Seine or Tiber. Oh! how unlike my lovely Thames !

It was not from want of companionship that Horace so hated the place. He met plenty of his own set at the Bath, and, in fact, speaks of Lord Camden the Chancellor, Lord Northington, Lord and Lady Powis, Lady Malpas, Miss Rich and Lady Vane. The last-named he went to see "open the ball and glimmer at fifty-four". My Lady Townshend could not have been there at the time, or, being a much greater lady, would have opened