families there is far more rationality. Novels, Newspapers, Magazines, Reviews, and little articles contrived to attract the fancy, are spread abroad in the breakfast-room, and afford amusement and conversation, while the languid operation of eating is performing. Suppose the Gentlemen of the family set forward on their morning equestrian ride; the Ladies read, work with their needle, or play on the Piano; nay, little childish games sometimes engage their attention till the hour for Visiting and Shopping arrives. Then the streets resound with the hoofs of fiery steeds, and thunder from the hands of the footman announces on the door of a friend —— a card containing the visitors name; but there are instances, I believe, on record of Ladies alighting.
The hours of five, six, and seven o'clock reassemble the family to dinner, for which the party dresses in the most elegant manner, and frequently partake with their friends around them of the richest made dishes, joints of meat, fish, poultry, confectionary, &c. &c. served in two or three courses by a butler, and footmen stationed behind each chair of the company present. Tea and coffee generally make their appearance before the wine and fruit are removed; but there are some who retire to the drawing-room for the use of those refreshments. The supper hour cannot be named with precision;
it may be introduced from ten o'clock till two in the morning.
The amusements of the Rich and Noble consist of every possible enjoyment: birth-days, levees, breakfasts at private houses attended by two or three hundred persons at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, dinners, card-parties, suppers, and routs. The reader not yet born will, perhaps, thank my memory for adding that which may then be forgotten.
A fashionable and opulent inhabitant of Westminster often occupies a house calculated for the reception conveniently of the Master, the Mistress, two or three Children, a Nursery-maid, a Groom, a Coachman, a Butler, three Footmen, a Cook, and two or three House-maids, governed by a House-keeper; and we will finish the groupe by a Governess who speaks French. So far all is right; now, future Reader, comes the essence of my information. See this house confined to an ichnography of twenty-five feet by forty prepared for a rout: the floor is painted in graceful figures and flowers with coloured chalks for dancing; girandoles and lustres of splendid cut glass with numerous wax-candles lighted exhibit the lady in her jewels ready to receive her guests equally resplendent. Ay, but the number—what say you to an hundred, two hundred? There is pleasure, there amusement, and the inexpressible delight of languor, even fainting
through exertion, heat, and suffocation! The company endeavour to compress themselves for obtaining a space to dance in, and afterwards they crowd to the supper-table sparkling with polished plate, and loaded with every delicacy; there the amusements of Tantalus are renewed. Can we wonder that Aurora often lights our fashionables home, when we reflect on these fascinating inducements to keep late hours? But those to whom Fortune has been more propitious, in presenting them with vast mansions, have entertained as many as eight hundred persons through the night in a far less crowded state. Other amusements of the great consist in riding through Hyde-park; the Ladies in their coaches, and the Gentlemen on horseback in an adjoining road. He that would judge of the population of London should attend in the Park on any Sunday at three o'clock, from February till May: he must be astonished at the sight. The coaches, the horses, the populace of every rank who toil against the bleak East winds, are wonderfully numerous. Nor should he omit a visit to Kensington-gardens in May, to view the beautiful pedestrians that form our fashionable world; or a winter excursion to the Serpentine-river and the Canal in St. James's-park, where numbers skait, or attempt to skait.
It would be useless to more than mention the additional pursuits of the Rich, who visit the
annual exhibitions of Paintings and other attractive objects with eagerness, the Playhouse, Vauxhall, &c. &c.; but, alas! London becomes a mere blank after the 4th of June. Nobody remains in Town; it is too hot, too suffocating! Every body therefore retires to their seats, if they have them; and the rest fly to Margate, Ramsgate, and Brighton, those capacious receptacles.
Such are the follies of many: but, thanks to Heaven! there are numbers of our Nobility and Gentry who live and act for the general benefit of mankind.—And now,
Vale, Londinium!