The full dress of Queen Anne’s time was perhaps never seen to more advantage than at the grand _soirées_ which the obese lady gave in that conservatory at Kensington which, as Defoe says, she was afterwards pleased to turn into a summer supper-room. The well-known old building was indeed divided into three rooms,—a ball-room, with a drawing and music-room on either side. The Corinthian pillars, the elegant friezes, and the niches for statues bearing girandoles, are yet to be seen. The Queen came to the parties given in this modest Trianon in a chair, by the gate on the north-west of the palace. Concerts, balls, and illuminated galas _al fresco_, were the usual entertainments; and to witness them the wealthy public were admitted, on condition of their appearing in full dress;—the ladies patched, feathered, sacked, or hooped; the gentlemen in three-cornered hats, velvet coats with stupendous skirts, powder on the head, a bodkin across the loins, and two inches of heel to give increase of dignity. Where the Broad Walk now exists there was then a railing; and through this the mobility,—worse dressed, but probably not less washed, than their betters,—looked on at the genteel people who glided about the gardens in brocaded robes, hoops, fly-caps, and fans. Indifferent as Anne’s clothing was, there were terrible squabbles, touching the cast-off garments, between the Duchess of Marlborough, who was Mistress of the Robes, and the bed-chamber women and dressers. These complained that they only received _very_ old mantuas, and sacks, and gowns, petticoats, commodes, head-clothes, and _mantes_, from the Duchess, who kept all the best of the old clothes, they said, for her own wear. Her Grace, in return, rated them as hussies; told them that she had a right to _all_, and that they could claim none, although she gave, out of her liberality, more than they deserved. Nay, she so well distributed the cast-off garments among the subaltern ladies, that of petticoats and other habits left, she had, as she protested, “only two or three for my own service.” Such was the delicacy of a ducal Mistress of the Robes in the palmy days of Queen Anne.