disapproving eyes, so
the sojourners in the Canongate and the Cowgate considered that the
inundation of modern population vulgarized their 'prescriptive
gentilities.' Cockburn's description of a Scottish assembly in the olden
time is most interesting.

'For example, Saint Cecilia's Hall was the only public resort of the
musical; and besides being our most selectly fashionable place of
amusement, was the best and most beautiful concert-room I have ever
seen. And there have I myself seen most of our literary and fashionable
gentlemen, predominating with their side curls and frills, and ruffles,
and silver buckles; and our stately matrons stiffened in hoops, and
gorgeous satin; and our beauties with high-heeled shoes, powdered and
pomatumed hair, and lofty and composite head-dresses. All this was in
the Cowgate; the last retreat now-a-days of destitution and disease. The
building still stands, through raised and changed. When I last saw it,
it seemed to be partly an old-clothesman's shop and partly a brazier's.'
Balls were held in the beautiful rooms of George Square, in spite of the
'New Town piece of presumption,' that is, an attempt to force the
fashionable dancers of the reel into the George Street apartments.

'And here,' writes Lord Cockburn, looking back to the days when he was
that 'ne'er-do-weel' Harry Cockburn, 'were the last remains of the
ball-room discipline of the preceding age. Martinet dowagers and
venerable beaux acted as masters and mistresses of ceremonies, and made
all the preliminary arrangements. No couple could dance unless each
party was provided with a ticket prescribing the precise place, in the
precise dance. If there was no ticket, the gentleman or the lady was
dealt with as an intruder, and turned out of the dance. If the ticket
had marked upon it---say for a country-dance, the figures, 3, 5; this
meant that the holder was to place himself in the 3rd dance, and 5th
from the top; and if he was anywhere else, he was set right or excluded.
And the partner's ticket must correspond. Woe on the poor girl who with
ticket 2, 7, was found opposite a youth marked 5, 9! It was flirting
without a licence, and looked very ill, and would probably be reported
by the ticket director of that dance to the mother.'

All this had passed away; and thus the aristocracy of a few individuals
was ended; and society, freed from some of its restraints, flourished in
another and more enlightened way than formerly.

T