the way; that is, no gentlemen are admitted in dominos.' Mr. Harris could not be persuaded to join the fashionable assembly, but Mr. Fox--who had just commenced his official career, as a Lord of the Admiralty--was, at that time, more at home in such parties than in Parliament. Mrs. Harris was greatly delighted with it. The following is part of her account of it:-- 'Gertrude (Miss Harris) was dressed as the Pythian, that is, priestess to the temple of Apollo, a dress which she wore in one of the private plays. Louisa was an Indian Princess; Mr. Cambridge borrowed a dress for her which was pretty and fine--the habit, muslin with green and gold sprigs, with a turban and veil. I never saw anybody enter so strongly into the spirit of a masquerade as she did. She talked to numbers all in French, and had disguised her voice so well that even some of her friends did not discover her. Towards the end, she said she was frightened by the Devil speaking to her sister. Mine was a white domino, with a Mary Queen of Scots cap and ruff. 'Lord Edgecombe was a shepherdess, with a little lamb under his arm, and a most excellent figure he was. Mr. Banbury was a most excellent _friseur_; Lord Berkeley, a charlatan. Mrs. Crewe[9] looked beautiful as a nun with a yellow veil. Several gentlemen in women's clothes, not as old women.... 'On the whole we are greatly entertained, for it was the first masked ball I ever saw. We supped soon after one; and then everybody unmasked, and a number of acquaintances we found, though we had found out many before. We got home soon after five; and, old as I may be, I never left a public place with more regret.' Mrs. Cornely's rooms soon became the object of a jealous, and let us hope unfounded, attack. Giardini had opened an Opera there, which was 'greatly injuring that of Mr. Hobart's in the Haymarket;' and the latter gentleman 'informed against them' as an unlicensed house. There was a strong party on either side, 'harmoniacs' and 'anti-harmoniacs,' and the latter party brought forward scandalous charges. Only a week after the above-mentioned masquerade, Mrs. Harris writes thus:-- 'The Harmoniac is over, and, what is worse, they threaten hard to indict Mrs. Cornely's as a house of ill-fame, and say that forty beds are made and unmade every day, which is hard, for a friend of ours says it is never more than _twenty_. But, joking apart, if they choose to demolish Mrs. Cornely, all elegance and spectacle will end in this town; for she never yet had her equal in these things, and I believe got but little, as all she undertakes is clever to a degree.'