damning the play,
ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to
the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace
audience.

[Footnote A: "It seem'd to me as if the World was turn'd top-side
turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government
or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering
fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an
affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the
petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what
was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been
amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence
to their females."--"The Mall as described by Ned Ward."]

And the women: what of them? They played cards, often for highly
respectable(?) stakes, or went to the theatre when there was nothing
better to do, and frittered away the greater number of the twenty-four
hours in a mode that the fashionable woman of 1898 would consider
positively scandalous. Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll
in the Mall, there to meet the English coxcombs with French manners,
or else they paid a few visits.

"Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal
to digest it, next let it be ratafia, or any other favourite liquor,
scandal must be the after draught to make it sit easy on their
stomach, till the half hour's past, and they have disburthen'd
themselves of their secrets, and take coach for some other place to
collect new matter for defamation."[A]

[Footnote A: Thomas Brown.]

Drury Lane must have presented an animated but none the less
disorderly scene any evening during the season when a popular play
was to be given. Women in the boxes talking away for dear life, beaux
walking about the house, chattering, ogling and laughing, or even
sitting on the stage while the performance was in progress,[A] and the
orange girls running around to sell their wares and, not infrequently,
their own souls as well.

[Footnote A: Owing in great part to the efforts of Queen Anne, this
wretched custom of allowing a few spectators to sit on the stage was
practically abolished before the close of the reign.]

"Now turn, and see where loaden with her freight,
A damsel stands, and orange-wench is hight;
See! how her charge hangs dangling by the rim,
See! how the balls blush o'er the basket-brim;
But little t