Colley Cibber, in his _Apology for my Life_, writes: “Kynaston (the celebrated actor) at that time was so beautiful a youth that the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in their Coaches to Hyde Park, in his Theatrical Habit, after the Play, which in those days they might have sufficient time to do, because Plays then were us’d to begin at four a-clock, the Hour that People of the same Rank are now going to Dinner.” What would poor old Colley Cibber, who was so surprised at a four o’clock dinner, say to the fashionable hour in London of eight or half past? Everything is later. We get up later, breakfast later, lunch later; have instituted “tea” since those days, and have our dinner when those good folk had their suppers. And what would the theatrical world say to a performance beginning at four o’clock in London, although in many German towns it still starts at six; but then in the little German towns people dine at one o’clock, as they used to do in England formerly. Only in Berlin does Society wear dress clothes, and take the meal after seven o’clock in full feckle. Knowing the attractions of Hyde Park for a certain section of great folk in the reign of Edward VII., it is amusing to read the _Tattler_ of two hundred years ago speaking of the strange infatuation of walking in the Park in spring. The gossiping writer says that “No frost, snow, nor east wind can hinder a large set of people from going to the park in February, no dust nor heat in June. And this is come to such an intrepid regularity, that those agreeable creatures that would shriek at an hind-wheel in a deep gutter, are not afraid in their proper sphere of the disorder and danger of seven crowded rings.” Later, Addison, remarking on this same custom, points out the mischief-making done by the servants when waiting for their masters and mistresses at the entrance to the Park: “The next place of resort,” he says, “wherein the servile world are let loose, is at the entrance of Hyde Park, while the gentry are at the Ring. Hither people bring their lacqueys out of state, and here it is that all they say at their tables, and act in their houses, is communicated to the whole town.” Whether these comments put an end to servants wasting their time, wagging their tongues, and their general want of law and order while waiting at the Park, is unrecorded, but the rule forbidding them access to Kensington Gardens was still in existence, as quoted in the Introduction: “Working people, servants in livery, and dogs were not allowed in Kensington Gardens. On the occasion of a storm the rule was relaxed, and footmen, for once, were allowed to bring in the umbrellas.” CHAPTER VII IN GEORGIAN DAYS