"His verse still lives, his sentiments still warms,
His lyre still warbles, and his wit still charms."

From the beginning of the sonnet he intimates forty as past the time of marriage, while at this time many marry then about, and bring up families.

After the death of Cromwell, and the restoration of King Charles, love," like a chemical spirit," extracted all the folly and flagitiousness of the age. Not to love, was not to be; and, therefore, all were lovers, from the half-fledged stripling fresh from the teacher's rod, to the hoary veteran, whose dim eyes could scarcely discern the charms with which he thought his heart was smitten,* from the impoverished swain whose last sixpence was bent into a " to and from my love,"† to him who could buy a heart with coronets, crowns, jewels, and pensions. Foppery in dress was the natural result of this overwheening desire to please, and gallants endeavoured to make themselves irresistible by the newest cut of a French suit, or an enormous fleece of perriwig. Foppery in speech was also as natural as foppery in dress; and it was now the fashion to interlard the conversation with French phrases, that it was "as ill-breeding to speak good English as to write good English, good sense, or a good hand." But the charm of charms was, for a lover to possess the reputation of a wit; and if he could pen a few smooth verses on the attractions of his mistress, the success of his suit was sure to answer his utmost wishes. Many who sought the reputation without the trouble of gallantry had their pockets stuffed with billet-doux, addressed to them which they had forged for the nonce; and these they paraded before company with as much pride as Caligula, when he led Roman slaves in his triumphal procession, disguised like German warriors. Those who sought random adventures repaired to the theatre, where they might accost a vizor in the pit without fearing to put it to the blush; or they could ascend to the gallery, which was the chosen place for such intrigues, and where every masked she adventurer might pass for a countess, or a goddess in a cloud. Even the penetralia of the theatre were not sacred from intrusion; and it was the fashion for gallants to haunt the stage behind the scenes, and invade the 'tiring-rooms of the actresses. The other resorts for such adventures were the

* The poet Crabbe has a pretty conceit when he compares an old newmarried couple to two dried sticks rubbed together, and chafed, till,

"All in one part unite the cheering rays,

And kindling burn, with momentary blaze."

-Like sixpence crooked,

With to and from my love it looked."-HUDIBRAS.

Wycherley's Gentleman's Dancing Master."

masquerades, which were now convenient places of assignation." Spring Garden, (Vauxhall,) which now enjoyed a double portion of its former bad repute; or the New Exchange, which, since St. Paul's walk was no more, was become the fashionable covered lounge, and where the little millinery shops that were profusely sprinkled about the piazzas, were kept by beautiful young women.

**

When love was, however, made in a more formal and open fashion, the lover sallied forth in the evening, at the head of a band of fiddlers, and serenaded under the window of his mistress with some choice sonnet. When courtship ended in matrimony, the wedding made the whole neighbourhood ring with crowding, fiddling, and dancing; and the loud flourish of fiddles was the first sound by which the happy pair was awoke on the following morning. The chief fashionable matrimonial markets in the metropolis were Hyde Park and Mulberry Garden; at the last of which places (now the gardens of Buckingham Palace,) especially, lovers nourished their mutual affection and plighted their troth over collations of cakes and syllabubs.†

Among the fashionable classes the spirit of gallantry was still more potent and active than that of politics. It appears very clearly from the popular literature, that the generality of these men, or rather these mice, dressed, looked, acted, and studied entirely with a reference to the tastes and humours of the fair sex. In the present day, when love is but an episode, rather than the great subject of life, a lady's man of the time of Queen Anne would be regarded as a lusus-nature; but the following features grouped together from the various editorial sketches of the period will, I hope, convey an idea of a numerous class of beings now happily become extinct, never to rise again till the day of dismal doom, as perhaps it may be to them.

From ten till twelve o'clock the fashionable beau received his visits in bed, where he lay or lolled in state, his perriwig, oh! those perriwigs, nicely powdered, was beside him on the sheet, while, on his dressing-table, near to him, were placed a few volumes of voluptuous love poetry, a cannister or two of the choicest Lisbon or Spanish snuff, a cut glass or richly enamelled smelling bottle, and other fashionable trinkets. The author of "Cambridge Learning, a Dialogue," thus speaks of them:

"Our gallants now to towne repaire,

What endless pleasures wait them there
One-half the day is past in sleep,

They study how the rest to waste."

*Ethridge's "Sir Fopling Flutter;" Wycherley's "Country Wife." + Wycherley's "Love in a Wood, or St. James' Park ;" Sedley's "Malberry Garden."

They were a match for the Sybarites of old, who boasted that "they never saw the sun rise, nor saw it set."

At twelve they rose, being fatigued with lying, and managed, if possible, to finish adorning the lazy carcass by three o'clock. In this complicated process they had to undergo various ablutions-perfume their clothes; soak their hands in various medicated washes, to make them delicately white; tinge their cheeks with carmine, so as to give them the gentle glowing blush which the bed had been robbing them of; arrange a few patches of court-plaster on their faces, to produce the effects of moles and dimples, to inspire in every beholder the thought, that "A hair brain'd sentimental trace,

Is deeply marked on the face."

BURNS.

The tying of the cravat, and squaring the ends, was a most weighty affair, which occupied much time, as well as the adjusting of the wig, and the proper cock of the hat; after he had surveyed the whole, arranged in a six feet looking glass,* it was necessary to practice before it the most becoming attitudes, arranging the due altitudes of the arms when set akimbo, to give his finery full effect, and study such smiles and simperings, as would show the whiteness of his teeth. He then dined, after which he ordered his Sedan,† and was carried out to the favourite cocoa or chocolate house, where he endeavoured, by his wit or gallantry; the former by railing at the last publication, or giving mysterious hints, that he had some hand in producing it; the latter, by pulling out some tailor's or laundress' bill, and kissing it with great fervour, pretending that it was some billet doux from a celebrated toasted lady of high rank. The bar of a coffee house was generally attended by some belle belonging to the establishment, whose charms were intended to draw company and custom to the place; and here the beau paid his usual devoirs, with his arms akimbo, and his snuffy nose within an inch of her face; while the poor damsel, who had no place of retreat, (the bars being so small,) was compelled to give ear to his impertinences.

After daudling an hour in this manner, it was time to repair to the theatre, upon which our spark readjusted his cravat and wig; sprinkled his face with snuff, to give him a critical air, and repaired to the house; but then, as he did not go to see, but to be seen, instead of seating himself quietly, he shifts

*Looking glasses, as furniture, did not become general, until the time of Charles II. And sashes, hung with weights and lines, came also into use during the same reign.

+ Up to the reign of Charles I., before Sedans were introduced, horse litters were often used by the fashionable, in their town visits.

Works of T. Brown. Spectator, vol. iii p. 66.

himself from seat to seat, like a fresh fledged robbin, fluttering about alternately the boxes, pit, and gallery, to exhibit his attractions, and win attentions. Amid these vagaries, the nice conduct of a clouded coloured cane was not forgotten; the frequent consequential taps upon his snuff box lid, garnished most commonly with some choice picture; or the graceful presentation of the pinch of snuff to his nasal organ, so as to display the rich brilliants on his rings.

It was shockingly vulgar to attend to the play, because there might be a good pointed hit at his eccentricities; therefore, he turned his back upon the stage. From the play, he repaired to the Park, buzzing, and chirping, and fluttering from lady to lady, talking to each a jargon of bad English, worse French, and execrable Latin; and was rewarded, as he wished, by many a rap on the shoulders with the fan, and the soothing epithet of "madfellow,"-" dear tormenting d-1," &c. &c. When that lounge was ended, he dropped into some fashionable party in Pall Mall, or St. James' street, to spend two or three hours, at ombre, or tic tac; where he chatted or rather twitted his empty nothings, and lost his money with an air of apparent fashionable indifference.*

This beau was ably matched by the assembled belles, with their tower or pyramidical head dresses, looking some of those of low stature, soon after in their hoops, as if they were enclosed in molasses puncheons, porter-butts, or moved about in draperied go-carts.

A less elaborately constructed beau, was ably matched by a cane dangling at his button, his breast open, no gloves, one eye tucked under his hat, and a gold tooth pick.†

But there were many ladies, who required, of course, admirers of sterner stuff; and, therefore, there were also abundance of those to suit them, and they were called bully-beaux, fellows who maintained a reputation for courage (though "never attained from the cannon's mouth,") and enterprize, by empty swagger, and violent assaults upon the peaceful members of society.

There were those who figured in Ramilies wigs, lined hats, black cockades, and scarlet suits; frequented the tilt-yard, coffee-house, the great resort of military men, that they might be taken as belonging to the army; these manfully besought a quarrel, that they might meanfully pull the nose of those quiet citizens who wore no swords. And, at length, plucked up courage, by practising a little upon a tavern keeper, who * If these pretty libertines had lived in the days of Charondas, they might have been punished by the state. See Plutarch's de Curiositate. Spectator, No. 267.

† Cibber's "Careless Husband."

dare not resent, for fear of losing his custom, or on a box keeper at the play house, he fearing he might lose his place. An individual of such a stamp, is thus sketched in Congreve's " Old Bachelor." "He is a pretender, and wears the habit of a soldier. You must know he has been abroad, went purely to run away from a foreign campaign; enriched himself by the plunder of a few oaths, and here vents himself against the general, who, slighting men of merit, and preferring those of slight interest, has made him quit the service." These swaggering blades seem always "big with daring determinations," and also to set at defiance the following couplet, from Dalton's "Country Justice :"

"Things must be recompensed by things, buffets with blowes;

And wordes with wordes, and taunts with mocks and mowes."

To the charms of dress and address, it was an advantage for the gallant if he added something of a literary accomplishment, if he was as graceful with his pen as he was with his cane. To compose a good billet-doux was well; to be, or at least to pass for a linguist was better, but to have a knack of tagging a few rhymes in laudation of a lady or her lap-dog, was a qualification that carried everything before it.

The general style of courtship by which ladies were wooed and won, comported with the character of the unintellectual coxcombs by whom the incense was offered, and in a love speech," angels, gods, racks, furies, tortures, and demons," ran through all the mazes of metaphorical and hyperbolical composition. This ridiculous medley, seasoned with poetical rant from the plays of Otway, Lee, and Dryden, and uttered with correspondent pomp and fervour, beat down the strongest defences and prior resolves of a female heart, and the fair or the frail "victor stood subdued by sound."

Custom had sanctioned these forced and foul expressions of feeling, the metaphors, tropes, and phraseology were all ready at hand, and the swains had not, they need not, strike into any new beaten path; add to this, that female education, so far as to enable women to detect the absurdity of such vapid and empty lip worship, was not a subject on which they had been taught better knowledge. So that it appeared to them the knowledge of truth, sincerity, and propriety, more especially as it was familiarized to their mind by the constant examples of the heroes of the stage.

They were delighted to be deified by the adoration of an Antony or an Oraandates, and would have broken their fans with disdain had a lover presumed to address them in the cold prosaic language of simplicity, nature, and sincerity. Ever