[377] The frequenters of the court appeared in clothes of unusual splendour on the birth-day of King, Queen, Prince or Princess of Wales. There are innumerable allusions in the writings of the time to the magnificence of the dresses at the birth-night balls.
[378] "The silver token" alludes to the silver pennies which fairies were said to drop at night into the shoes of maids who kept the house clean and tidy. "The circled green" refers to those rings of grass of a deeper hue than the surrounding pasture, which were formerly believed to be caused by the midnight dances "of airy elves." This was the lore taught by the nurse. The priest infused the legends of "virgins visited by angel-powers."—Croker.
[379] The drive in Hyde Park is still called the ring, though the site and shape have been changed.—Croker.
The box at the theatre, and the ring in Hyde Park, are frequently mentioned as the two principal places for the public display of beauty and fashion. Thus Lord Dorset, in his lines on Lady Dorchester:
Wilt thou still sparkle in the box
Or ogle in the ring.
And Garth, in the Dispensary, speaking of a deceased young lady, says:
How lately did this celebrated thing
Blaze in the box, and sparkle in the ring.
[380] Epilogue to Dryden's Tyrannick Love:
For after death we sprites have just such natures
We had, for all the world, when human creatures.—Steevens.