eholders," for how would the sweet creatures themselves be affected
"should they meet a man on horseback, in his breeches and jack-boots,
and at the same time dressed up in a commode[A] and a night raile?"

[Footnote A: A cumbersome head-dress made of lace or muslin.]

How charming it would have been to watch the whole gay crew, just
as Addison and Steele must have done, and to feel, like these
two delightful philosophers, that you were a little above the
surroundings. Poor Dick Steele may not always have been above those
surroundings; we can fancy him taking things comfortably in some
tippling-house, red-faced, happy, and winey, but even the most
puritanical of us will forgive him. Read, by the way, what he says of
the Spa's morals[A]--"I found a sober, modest man was always looked
upon by both sexes as a precise, unfashioned fellow of no life or
spirit. It was ordinary for a man who had been drunk in good company,
or.... to speak of it next day before women for whom he had the
greatest respect. He was reproved, perhaps, with a blow of the fan,
or an 'Oh, fy!' but the angry lady still preserved an apparent
approbation in her countenance. He was called a strange, wicked
fellow, a sad wretch; he shrugs his shoulders, swears, receives
another blow, swears again he did not know he swore, and all was well.
You might often see men game in the presence of women, and throw at
once for more than they were worth, to recommend themselves as men of
spirit. I found by long experience that the loosest principles and
most abandoned behaviour carried all before them in pretentions to
women of fortune."

[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 154. Steele is writing as Simon
Honeycomb.]

Into this merry throng came Anne Oldfield during that
never-to-be-forgotten summer--not, however, as an equal, but as an
humble player of the troupe from Drury Lane. They had moved down from
London, these happy-go-lucky Bohemians, as they were wont to do each
season, among them being the ubiquitous Cibber, the gentlemanly Wilks,
and that very talented vagabond, George Powell. Powell it was who
liked his brandy not wisely but too well, and who made such passionate
love on the stage that Sir John Vanbrugh used to wax nervous for the
fate of the actresses. One great artiste was missing, however. Mrs.
Verbruggen was ill in London, and that shining exponent of light
comedy, who Cibber said was mistress of more variety of humour than
he ever knew in any one actre