Evelyn, moreover, mentions, under the date of September 13, 1666, that "the queen was now in her cavalier riding. habit, hat, and feather, and horseman's coat, going to take the air." Three years later, the sac or sacque had won its way into womanly favor." My wife this day," writes Pepys, under date of March 2, 1669, "put on first her French gown, called a sac, which becomes her very well." It would extend this article beyond all reasonable limits were we to dilate further upon the tempting theme of English attire under the Restoration. We trust, therefore, that we have said enough concerning it to enable the reader to form an idea of its forms and fashion, and we now hasten on to consider that subject with which our remarks are more immediately connected, the life of the capital under the sway of "The Merry Monarch." tempt to fasten his cravat, as long again in the endeavor to adjust his wig and to "cock" his hat, as long again in the contemplation of his charms in the lookingglass, and as long again in the practice of such smiles as would display to the best advantage the ivory whiteness of his teeth - these were the processes through which he who desired to figure as a beau of the first magnitude was compelled in that age to pass. The character of the beau, so far as his outward and personal appearance was concerned, was now complete; and as in those days fashionable gentlemen used their legs to a much less extent than they do now, our imaginary beau would have directed his valet to order a sedan chair without delay. Into this he stepped, and was borne to the most fashionable haunt to the Mall in St. James's Park, or perhaps to the more ceremonious parade in Hyde Park, where, like a butterfly, he delighted to flutter in the train of some frail and jilting beauty, who gloried in nothing so much as "an equipage of fools," and who was perfectly willing for the nonce to furnish him with an excuse for toasting her in a tavern at night. Anon he might have been found twittering in the boudoir of some favorite nymph (the amusing part of it was that in that age every woman was a nymph, both on canvas and upon paper, decked out in pastoral embellishments of every conceiv able incongruity in the matter of poetical treatment!) and there the rest of the morning was generally dawdled away or worn out, just as it suited the humor of the company, with cards, forfeits, games at toys, or puzzles, or with songs and dancing to the harp, virginal, and all kinds of music. We ought to remember that during the whole of this time the gardens and other places of public resort in which the capital abounded were alive and astir with people of every rank and every conthat the Paradise in Hatton Garden was attracting hundreds of people to gaze upon its wonders and curiosities in geology and that the wives and daugh. ters of the citizens, arrayed in silk and satin raiment, displaying all the colors of the rainbow, were crowding the walks of Gray's Inn, ostensibly for the purpose of inhaling the odorous breezes that blew from the distant hills of Highgate and Hampstead, but reaily to take a sly glance at the men of law who, in the brief intervals afforded them by their professional duties, walked out in order to obtain a breath of fresh air. To the wearisome relaxations of the promenade and the The man of fashion and pleasure in the reign of Charles II. monopolized every body's attention, and it is therefore of the man of fashion and pleasure that we wish first to speak. The daily routine of his life from the time he rose until the time he retired to rest again, embraced, as in a microcosm, all the amusements and all the resources of the London of the second half of the seventeenth century. He who follows his footsteps through the day may behold the sights of the town, may observe the manners and customs of the people, and may even be admitted to their familiar conversation. The history of an ordinary day of a Restoration beau was something like this: From about ten till twelve he received visitors in his sleepingchamber, where he lay in state with his periwig thickly powdered lying beside him on the coverlet. Near at hand, on his dressing-table, the curious visitor might have noticed some little volumes of amatory verse, a canister of Lisbon or Spanish snuff, a smelling-bottle, and per-dition haps a few fashionable trinkets. As soon as he deemed proper, the beau arose, and with incredible difficulty proceeded to put on all his charms. To perfume his garments to soak his hands in washes for the sake of producing whiteness and delicacy to tinge his cheeks with carminative in order to give them that gentle blush which nature had denied them to arrange a number of patches upon his face so as to produce the effect of moles and dimples to dip his pocket-handkerchief in rose water and to powder his linen so as to banish from it the smell of soap to consume a quarter of an hour in the at boudoir succeeded the dinner time. Pub- To see and to be seen to renew the ance. Hyde Park for a drive in the open air. We suspect that some of our hypercrit- cates with a fair amount of correctness the mode of life which those who are included under the category of the middle classes of society were wont to lead. Change the scene of the action, substitute one locality for another, the Mall in Hyde Park for Marrowbone Gardens, St, James's for Spring Gardens or the Folly, and the life in such was only in a few respects dissimilar. Is it to be supposed that the people were not influenced by the example of the court? Is it to be supposed that they were less addicted to the pursuit of pleasure than those who socially were their superiors? Certainly not. The Puritan party had been crushed, and crushed effectually, and boundless was the national exultation at the event. Men, in the times of Puritan ascendency, had hardly dared to call their souls their own. He who had ventured openly to sigh for the fleshpots of the Caroline age, he who had ventured to recall the fragrant memories of the past, who had frequented Spring Gardens when in town and had indulged in hawking when in the country, soon found himself branded by "the righteous overmuch" as a malignant, as a heretic, or as a knave. To all this the Restoration effectually put an end. The people breathed freely once again. Nor can we be surprised that when they did breathe freely they should have acted freely, and should have rushed into the wildest excesses. Of all the many stains on national manners and morals for which the Restoration must be held responsible, that of gaming was certainly one of the deepest. During the whole of the second half of the seventeenth century, gaming under one form or another constituted the ordinary amusement of both sexes in the highest society of England. A residence abroad so prolonged as that of Charles II. had been, had initiated him into all the mysteries of the gamester's craft, and his followers were by no means slow in following his example. The consequence was, that when they returned to England in 1660, they returned proficient in all the wisdom of the Continental gamblers, and lost no time in communicating their knowledge to almost every one into whose company they were thrown. Forthwith Whitehall Palace became in everything but name a gambling hell. The same courtier who but a few short months before might fairly have been regarded as living in the odor of sanctity, who would have pretended to have been horror-stricken at the bare mention of cards or dice, now threw himself with heart and soul into the vortex, as if LIVING AGE. VOL. LXXIX. 4096 anxious at all hazards to make ameuds for his former abstinence. From the saloons of Whitehall to the booths of Moorfields or Smithfield the gambling mania raged. Many a man of fashion literally passed the whole of his life at play for the highest stakes that any one could be found to play with him, doing nothing else but gaming from the time he left his bed until the time he stepped into it again. The life of many another man was a continual alternation between poverty and wealth, winning one day, and losing the next. At the court the extent to which card-playing and dicing were carried on gave great offence to the few whom the all-prevailing mania had not affected. Thus, for example, John Evelyn entered in his "Diary," under date of January 6, 1662, a scene which he beheld with his own eyes, and which, it may be concluded, filled him with deep concern. "This evening," he wrote, "according to custom, his Majesty opened the revels of the night by throwing dice himself in the privy chamber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his £100. (The year before he won £1,500.) The ladies also played very deep. I came away when the Duke of Ormond had won about £1,000; and left them still at passage, cards, etc. At other tables both there and at the groom-porters, observing the wicked folly and monstrous excess of passion among some losers; sorry am I that such a wretched custom as play to that excess should be countenanced in a court which ought to be an example of virtue to the rest of the kingdom."* Nor was the amazement of that other veracious chronicler of contemporary fashionable folly less great than that of Evelyn. "This evening," wrote he in his "Diary," under date of February 17, 1667, "going to the queen's side (in the palace at Whitehall) to see the ladies, I did find the Queene, the Duchesse of York, and another or two, at cards, with the room full of great ladies and men; which I was amazed at to see on a Sunday, having not believed it; but, contrarily, flatly denied the same a little time since to my cosen Roger Pepys."† Much as Pepys had seen and heard of court life under the sway of his royal master, this came upon him as a revelation. The truth was that all the members of the royal family preferred the fashionable games at cards on the seventh day to the society and conversation of court chaplains and divines emi Diary, ed. Braybrooke, 1850, i., p. 359. ↑ Ibid. iii., pp. 406-10. nent for their talents or for their oratorical powers. Moreover, the Princess Mary, after she had been united in the bonds of wedlock to the Prince of Orange, introduced the practice into Holland, and in so doing scandalized in no small degree a people whose ecclesiastical polity and practice had been founded on the gloomy system of John Calvin, the great French teacher of Geneva.* What pity 'tis, those conquering eyes, To render certain allusions in the foregoing verses comprehensible to some of our readers, we must explain that in the game known as basset, which is now seldom or never played, "waiting for a knave," or "wishing for a ten," implied We may with great reason conclude that the anxiety which was attendant upon the the predilection which women displayed in turning-up of the winning cards, and that the Caroline age for gambling must have the last word of this last line of the third been very great indeed when it was re-verse, “alpue," was a term which was ap buked publicly on the stage in the pro- plied to the continuation of a bet on a logues and epilogues to plays, the sole particular card which had previously won. portions of dramatic compositions in Inability to gamble and to play cards conwhich playwrights endeavored to correct stituted an insuperable hindrance to introthat which was amiss in the public moral- duction into polite society. "Gaming," ity. Most of our readers who possess wrote the author of a treatise on the any acquaintance with the dramatic writ- games played "at court and in the assemings of the George Sand of the Restora- blies," written, as the title-page sets forth, tion, Mrs. Afra Behn a lady, who for the use of the young princesses to through her marriage with a Dutch mer- whom it was dedicated, "is become so chant of the city of London, gained an much the fashion among the beau monde entrance to the court of Charles II., whom that he who in company should appear she was wont to amuse with her witty ignorant of the games in vogue would be sallies and eloquent descriptions will reckoned low-bred and hardly fit for conbear us out when we say that it is impos-versation." These words occur in a sible, from what is known of her career, to admit her claim to be considered as a Yet sitting up so late, as I am told. publication bearing the suggestive title of The Compleat Gamester; or, Full and Easy Instructions for Playing the Games now in Vogue, &c. By Richard Seymour, Esq." This treatise was originally published in the year 1674, and subsequently passed through several editions, each of which was enlarged by the introduction of ample descriptions of later games, such as ombre, picquet, and chess. Roger North, in that instructive and entertaining sketch which he has left on record of the life of his brother Francis, Lord Guilford, is careful to mention that he attained con The celebrated dramatist, Sir George Etherege, again, whose life scandalized many even in that age, and whose affec-siderable proficiency in all games of cards, tion for the fair sex knew scarcely any bounds, was equally angry with the ladies for the decided partiality which they manifested for cards and dice. In a song of his on the game called basset, he remonstrated with them on the subject, saying, among other things: The time which should be kindly lent In waiting for a knave is spent, Stand in defence of your own charms, See in proof of this assertion the Diary of Dr. Edward Lake, published by the Camden Society. dice, and billiards, presumably in order to remove any misapprehension in the mind of the reader that he took no interest in the most fashionable forms of amusement in that age. About eight years after the Restoration the gambling mania for a time gave place to one for masquerading. The rage, of course, began in the court, but soon infected the whole town. "At this time," says Bishop Burnet, under date of 1668, "the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading; both the king and queen and all the court went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced there with a good deal of wild frolick. In • North's Life of Lord Guilford, i., p. 17. all this, people were so disguised, that without being in the secret none could distinguish them. They were carried about in hackney chairs. Once the queen's chairmen, not knowing who she was, went from her. So she was alone, and was much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach. Some say in a cart."* It has been remarked, and we think with much truth, that whenever masquerades in public or private constitute a popular armusement with the pleasure-loving public, including both the court and the aristocracy, it is a very bad sign of national morals. The midnight orgy and the mazy dance, Each to his humor - Comus all allows. Here for the present we must conclude. Certain periods of history are often surrounded with a halo of glory. Dazzling associations cluster round names. It is distance which lends enchantment to the view. Living witnesses who have known both the past and the present generations, will, by a law of human nature, always award the palm of superiority to the companions of their youth. Yet, unless we greatly deceive ourselves, it will require very strong arguments to convince thoughtful persons that the social powers of any class of English society have fallen off, while morality, taste, knowledge, general freedom of intercourse and liberality of opinion have been steadily advancing; that the comparison between the manners and morals of the seventeenth century and our own is not highly satisfactory; that intellectual tastes have not superseded the necessity which was then felt by the upper class of resorting to coarse indulgences and strong excitements; or that respect for public opinion does not compel those among them who continue unregenerate to conceal their transgressions from the eyes of the world. WILLIAM CONNOR SYDNEY. • Burnet's History of My Own Times, i., p. 368. From Temple Bar. SIMPSON WILLOUGHBY'S GROOM. IT was a chill September morning, not very light yet, and a thin haze clung over the face of all things. Mr. Simpson Willoughby had just finished stabling his horse after returning from a card-party. The ride had not been long enough to act as a tonic, and he was still heavy with whiskey and want of sleep as he went stumbling along through the stack-yard. Suddenly, with all the speed of a military projectile, a black figure shot down the slope of a small stack, and fetched up sharp just at his feet. The face, the clothes, the hands of this apparition were all black, and its smile, meant to be pleasant, showed like a ghastly grin through the mist. "Oh, the devil!" cried Simpson Willoughby, in a tipsy fright, and proceeded to bolt for the house. The sound of a human, unmistakably human, voice restored Willoughby to himself. "What are you doing here?" he thundered, as he strode to the black shape. "Who are you? Why do you stand grinning there? Don't you know I could have you up before the magistrates for this?" "Not much good, sir. Nothing to get out of me, sir. I'm only a poor sweep as took the liberty of sleeping in your straw." "Sweep be damned! Clear off the premises at once." Then Mr. Willoughby strode off again. But he had a tender heart, and something in the man's face and attitude had touched it. "Hi, you sweep!" he suddenly shouted, turning round. "Yes, sir," with a touch of the hand to the cap. "Where are you going to get your breakfast?" "Don't know, sir." “And probably don't know if you will get a breakfast at all?" "No, sir." "Come with me." Mr. Willoughby led the way to the kitchen door; his housekeeper was up and moving about. "Here, Mrs. Clack, I've brought you a sweep; you said yesterday the chimneys wanted sweeping. Give him a good breakfast beef and beer - then set him to work." "Thank ye, sir," said the sweep; then, to Mrs. Clack, with a very humble intonation: "Fine morning, missis." Mr. Willoughby went to his bedroom, kicked off his boots, and drawing a rug over his limbs, lay down on the bed and slept. He was a tall, broad man, with a dark face still retaining some traces of |