Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/631

TO 1760.] through the life of England than during this period. Real religion had nearly died out, till revived by Wesley and Whitefield. Morals were at the lowest ebb, and people now seemed to live for nothing but parade and sensual folly and brutality. In these respects there was little difference in the two sexes. Women of the highest rank were remarkably ignorant, not even, in scores of cases, being able to spell decently; and the greater part of the upper classes of women spent their time in the merest emptiness—balls, routs, operas, visits to Ranelagh and Vauxhall, gambling, flirtations, assignations, and listening to and using language which would now disgrace the veriest Billingsgate women. The picture of society which we derive from the political contests, the party animosity, and the authors, especially the comedy writers of the time, is something astounding for its lack of all that is beautiful in spirit and pure and estimable in sentiment. Politics had become the universal passion. All classes entered into the discussions of the acts of the government with unprecedented boldness, and the fury of party spread through all ranks. The stage was especially made the arena



of attack on government, and this grew to so intolerable a pitch, that Walpole, in 1737, passed a bill through parliament, prohibiting the acting of any play without the license of the lord chamberlain—a regulation which continues still to exist. Ladies entered into the rage of political conflict with the most intense fervour, and the patching we have mentioned was carried on in political animosity long after it would have died out as a fashion.

At the theatres, whig and tory ladies sat on the opposite sides of the house, and showed their party by their patches and the colour of their hoods.

As for the gentlemen, they met in their clubs, and coffee-houses, and chocolate-houses for the same purposes, and these places had wonderfully increased with the diffusion of that violent party spirit which raged through this period. Club-houses abounded in every parish of the metropolis, and were crowded at the west end with nobles and gentry, in the city with merchants and traders of all degree, who discussed the national affairs with all the warmth of the house of commons itself. The great chocolate-houses of the nobles and gentry were the "Cocoa Tree" and White's. The "Cocoa Tree" was the great tory house, as St. James's coffee-house was that of the whigs. The only charge for a cup of coffee and the perusal of the newspapers was a penny, so that crowds flocked thither to spend their time, and listen to the great oracles of political knowledge, or to indulge their own sense of discernment; and the "Tatler" tells us that a distinguishing mark of a deep politician at these places was a liberal display of snuff on his upper lip. Mug-houses, or beer-houses, were also established in all quarters of London for the lower race of politicians, and these were encouraged by the whigs in opposition to the tory coffee-houses at the commencement of the reign of George I. Politics, in fact, amazingly encouraged drinking, for in all these resorts, whatever was the name, strong liquors were sold, and the penny entrance was but a mere prelude to deeper expenditure. So riotous did the mug-houses become, that their frequenters often rushed out to attack their opponents in the streets, and they were obliged to be put down by act of parliament.

But the political phase was but one in the many under which the fashionable man exhibited himself. His whole day was one regular round of folly and vice. We find him first holding a levée in bed, where he lay from ten till twelve o'clock in state, having his periwig, superbly powdered, lying by him. At twelve he rose, and betwixt the arduous labour of his toilet and the dallying with the volumes of amatory poetry on his table, and the empty tattle of his equally empty associates, he finished that business by three. He perfumed himself and descended to dinner, whence he adjourned to the coffee-house, and thence to the theatre. His business there was not to see the play, but to be seen himself; and, as it was the particular criterion of superior taste to pay no attention to the play, he moved from place to place in the house to gossip with his friends, and to display his clouded cane, his gold snuff-box, within the lid of which was generally some indecent picture. Having shown his contempt of the play, and paraded his fine clothes and diamond rings, he drove thence to the park or to Ranelagh, where he flirted with the equally empty, equally foolish women of the time. The comedies of Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Cibber retail to us the disgusting colloquies of these odious beaux