The space which could be allotted to each for the doing of a salutation was excessively brief; and what with the solemnity of the ladies, and the scowling of the heavens, it had more the air of a funeral procession than of a festive assembly. When it was over, or perhaps a little before, the daughters of Caledonia found out, that though they could be gorgeous at a drawing-room, they could not be gay. They did not indeed look like “fishes out of the water;” but they looked like fishes that had never been in it. It was so novel in itself, and they had so exhausted themselves in the preparation, that the parade itself was gloomy; and though it furnished abundant evidence of the existence of high talents and higher pride among them, it also afforded proof that time and change would neither be idle nor in haste, if they were to be thoroughly prepared for gliding and glittering at court.
Themselves and their male relatives seemed indeed to have been aware of this,—to have known that there was another and more appropriate arena for the displaying of them to advantage; and, though it had not been set forth in the gazette, I could have discovered, from the looks of speculation that were quietly exchanged in the proximity, and even in the presence of majesty, that there would be a chapter of the Highland fling. Those tender telegraphings were as new to me as any part of the proceedings; and they led me to observe the unique and characteristic nature of a modern Athenian ogle.
The Athenian damsels, or dames, as it happens, cannot have so many of the soft propensities of the flesh as their more plump neighbours of the south, not having so much flesh wherein the same may be contained; but, from all that I could discover, they have not, upon the whole, less of the mater amoris in them; and being a more firm and substantial matter—more “bred in the bones” as it were, it is perchance more deep and more durable. Thus, while the dimple of an English cheek tells its soft tale of love, the jutting angle of an Athenian cheek-bone hints at the same; and there is often more amatory demonstration in a single Caledonian wrinkle, than in all the blushes of the most blooming dame southward of the Tweed. The extreme vigilance, too, with which the ladies of the Athens watch each other, and especially the cat-like lurkings which the plain and decaying have for those who have more of the species and are more in the season of bloom, gives a wariness to the character of every woman within that metropolis, and makes even the most accredited and creditable love an affair of mystery and intrigue. If a gentleman is detected walking with or speaking civilly to one lady, eyes, from loop-holes of which he dreams not, are instantly upon him, and the affair is handed about from coterie to coterie, as a marriage, or as something worse; while, if he is seen with two or more, he is a Don Juan of the first magnitude, and they, “poor dear lost things, are—very much to be pitied indeed.” So far as I know, they have no tendency to pity themselves in such cases; but this may be the very reason why they have so much of it to spare to their neighbours.
This propensity could not be restrained even by the counter-excitation of the royal presence; and while everybody upon whom the King was pleased to smile at the shows (and he was graciously pleased to smile upon a great number) was pitied, or, as it might have been, envied, as the object of regal flirtation, those blowsy country sisters and cousins, whom awkward accountants and spruce scribes kept lumbering along the streets upon the resting days, were, in the bitterness of the Athenian anguish, set down as spouses soon to be.
A handsome young gentleman from the south, whose form promised love, and whose appearance bespoke the wherewithal to support it, had brought down his mother and three sisters to amuse themselves, and see the sights. The matron, though her family were come to what are in the Athens termed the “years of discretion,” has still as much bloom as half a score of the six-flight-of-stairs virginity of that city; and, it so happened, that there was no family resemblance either in form or features among the young people. The gentleman appeared at one place with his mother, at another place with one or other of his sisters, sometimes with two, and sometimes with the whole; and the quantity of speculation, and wonder, and pity, and lamentation, which his so appearing excited, would have drained the tears, and exhausted the words of fifty Jeremiahs.
All those circumstances are enough, and more than enough, to impose upon the amatory signals of the Athenians a closeness and caution, of which those who live in a more free and liberal state of society can form no conception; and while they thus force the people to put on the semblance of intrigue where there is no necessity for it, they at the same time forward the reality of intrigue in cases of which perhaps scarcely another people would dream; and thus, in consequence of the very rigour of the external laws of decorum, the Athenians are, perchance, in fact and in secret, the most indecorous in the whole island of Great Britain,—the which would lead one fond of scandal and of similies to conclude, that the white trains and the spangled robes were not chosen in vain; but I am a novice in both, and therefore I shall say nothing about the matter.
The exhibition of faces and forms, and the actual contact with royalty, not being sufficient either to show off or to satisfy the ladies of Scotland, they resolved to make the general attack upon the King with their heels; and, as the Athens contained no hall ample enough for showing off the whole at once, and further, as the same parties might be shown off twice under different appellations, once as the planets of the peerage, and again as the comets of Caledonia, the assembly rooms in George Street were destined to be twice trodden by the same feet, in the two enactings of the Peers’ ball, and the Caledonian ball. These were not consecutive; but it will be no great anachronism to bring them together.
The Peers’ ball took place in the assembly rooms, on the evening of Friday the 23d of August; and, as there the people were more at home, and more employed than in the merely state ceremonies, its effect was at once more pleasing and more characteristic.
The portico of the rooms was tastefully illuminated, the columns being wreathed, and the pediments outlined, with golden-tinted lamps,—the emblems of royalty shining in the centre. The pillars in the ante-room were twined with flowers, surmounted by emblematical tablets, over which the dome glowed with coloured lights. The principal room, tea-room, and refectory, were very handsome: the first had a platform and throne, covered with crimson; the second was ornamented with paintings, in water-colour; and the third was well stored with viands. The whole was simple, but there was an air of freshness, neatness, and good taste about it. At rather an early hour, say eight o’clock, the elegantes began to pour in, and the people to throng to the adjoining street, in order to catch a glimpse of their fair forms and nodding plumes. By nine o’clock, the rooms were completely filled, and the downy feathers which now reeled to and fro in mid air, with the mingling darker lines of the other sex, and the sheen of tartan and gold lace, and ribbon, and star, and spangle, waved “like wave with crest of sparkling foam.” If Scotland had honour from the general appearance and conduct of the people upon this occasion, she had glory in her daughters. If they had not the light heart and laughing eye of the daughters of the south, they were fully equal to them in dignity and intellectual beauty. Their dresses were elegant rather than splendid, and their movements had perhaps as much of stateliness as of grace. The sustained and chastened joy which they all displayed, and the keen glance of intellect and national pride, which mingled with their mirth, threw an interest over it, which is unknown in lands of lighter skies, and warmer suns. The noblemen and gentlemen were in every variety of dress (meaning, of course, every elegant variety). The duke of Hamilton was splendidly attired in the Douglas tartan. And Mac Cailin Mhor was most conspicuous in the broad bands of the Sliabh nan Diarmid. The chiefs, too, were in their various tartans; but Sir William appeared in a plain court suit, abandoning the applying of “the kelt aërial to his Anglian thighs,” with as much care as he would watch not to let “lignarian chalice, filled with oats, his orifice approach.” His majesty came at half after nine, just when the rooms were in the height of their splendour. He was greeted with a cheer by the people outside, and most respectfully received by those within. He remained about an hour, and then retired. Immediately after his departure, the company passed to the supper-room by sections, but without any distinction of rank.
I detail not the dancing, of which, by the way, there was much less than of promenading; but, in general, they were national enough, to “eschew both waltz and quadrille, and addict themselves to the good old orthodox fling.” In this their favourite and characteristic movement, they showed equal firmness of foot and flexture of limb; and though the room thinned a little upon his majesty’s departure, the evolutions were continued till full three hours beyond the “keystane o’ night’s black arch,” and thus, according to every canon of witchery, the charms of the ladies were overpowering and triumphant. Notwithstanding the great concourse of people, and the closeness with which they were wedged together, there was no confusion; and though a guard of cavalry was in readiness, it was not in the slightest degree required.