rs. Robert Tyler, the
young wife of the president's son. Even a fancy-dress ball was included
among the White House entertainments of that time, one being given in
honor of the president's little granddaughter, Mary Fairlie Tyler, who
appeared thereat as a fairy, with gossamer wings, a diamond star on her
brow, and a silver wand in her hand. The ball given at the White House
in 1841, in honor of the young Prince de Joinville, was another notable
event in the social world. Perhaps a more truly noteworthy function
there, however, was the official reception attended by Charles Dickens,
who was received by President Tyler and Mrs. Semple, and who afterward
spoke in warm terms of the order which was preserved by the concourse of
over three thousand people who had been attracted by his fame.

Though there was now no talk of "republican simplicity," there were
still some old-fashioned people who were repelled by the ever-increasing
dominance of society and social interests at the capital of the nation,
and who reprobated the state with which the chief executive and his
family held their court. Mrs. Fremont tells us that the second Mrs.
Tyler was made the object of much animadversion because "she drove four
horses (finer than those of the Russian minister) and because she
received seated, her armchair on a slightly raised platform, in a velvet
gown with three feathers in her hair;" and certainly, though the number
of feathers would seem to have no bearing upon the matter of
republicanism, that raised platform is unpleasantly suggestive of the
dais of a throne. The first wife of Mr. Tyler died after a residence in
the presidential mansion of little more than a year, and her successor
in the heart of the president and to the dignities of "the first lady of
the land," Miss Julia Gardner, of New York, enjoyed but eight months of
official leadership. She was greatly admired for the ease and dignity
with which she wore her high honors; but that raised platform suggests
that it may not have been ill for some of the still cherished
institutions of our country, even in its social aspects, that she was
mistress of the White House and its customs no longer than was actually
the case.

The last administration during the first half century of the nineteenth
of our era, that of President Taylor, was not remarkable for social
innovations; but it is noteworthy for the fact that one of the prominent
members of the society of the capital was th