When Walpole had been to King George the Second’s Levee and Drawing-room, in 1742, he wrote of what he witnessed in this lively fashion:—“There were so many new faces that I scarce knew where I was; I should have taken it for Carleton House, or my Lady Mayoress’s visiting day, only the people did not seem enough at home, but rather as admitted to see the King dine in public. ’Tis quite ridiculous to see the numbers of old ladies, who, from having been wives of patriots, have not been dressed these twenty years; out they come, in all the accoutrements that were in use in Queen Anne’s days. Then the joy and awkward jollity of them is inexpressible. They titter, and wherever you meet them, they are always going to court, and looking at their watches an hour before the time. I met several on the birthday (for I did not arrive time enough to make clothes), and they were dressed in all the colours of the rainbow: they seem to have said to themselves twenty years ago, ‘Well, if ever I do go to court again, I will have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver;’ and they keep their resolution.” Walpole is quite right in designating the gaiety of the women as an awkward jollity. Rough enjoyment was a fashion at this time with the fair. Mrs. Sherwood, in her pleasant Autobiography, adverts to this subject in speaking of her mother’s early days, when undignified amusements were not declined by ladies of any age. One of these she describes as consisting of the following sort of violent fun. A large strong table-cloth was spread on the upper steps of the staircase, and upon this cloth the ladies inclined to the frolic seated themselves in rows upon the steps. Then the gentlemen, or the _men_, took hold of the lower end of the cloth, attempting to pull it downstairs; the ladies resisted this with all their might, and the greater the number of these delicate creatures the longer the struggle was protracted. The contest, however, invariably ended by the cloth and the ladies being pulled down to the bottom of the stairs, when everything was found bruised, except modesty. ‘High Life below Stairs’ could hardly have been too rampant in its exposition, if it really reflected what was going on above. We can hardly realize the matter. We hardly do so in merely fancying we see good Lord Shaftesbury Admiral Gambier, Baptist Noel, and Dr. M’Neil engaged in settling Miss Martineau, Catherine Sinclair, the “Authoress of Amy Herbert,” and Mrs. Fry on a table-cloth upon the stairs, and hauling them down in a heap to the bottom. It would be highly indecorous; but, I am almost ashamed to say, I should like to see it.