In ordinary civilian dress, men wore long green, blue, or brown cloth coats with stocks and frilled ruffles. In the _Man of Feeling_ a man casually met with is wearing “a brownish coat with a narrow gold edging, and his companion an old green frock with a buff coloured waistcoat,” while an ex-footman trying to play the gentleman has on “a white frock and a red laced waistcoat.” At that time footgear for men consisted of slippers in the house, and riding-boots for out of doors. When Beau Nash was forming the assemblies at Bath, as has been said he made a dead set against the habit some men had of wearing boots in the dancing-room. “The gentlemen’s boots also made a very desperate stand against him, the country squires were by no means submissive to his usurpations, and probably his authority alone would never have carried him through, had he not reinforced it with ridicule.” His ridicule took the form of a squib, one verse of which was as follows:— “Come Trollops and Slatterns, Cockt hats and white aprons, This best our modesty suits; For why should not we In dress be as free As Hogs-Norton squires in boots.” “The keenness, severity, and particularly the good rhymes of this little _morceau_ which was at that time highly relished by many of the nobility at Bath, gained him a temporary triumph. But to push his victories he got up a puppet show, in which Punch came in, booted and spurred in the character of a country squire. When told to pull off his boots he replies:—’Why, madam, you may as well bid me pull off my legs. I never go without boots, I never ride, I never dance without them; and this piece of politeness is quite the thing in Bath. We always dance at our town in boots, and the ladies often move minuets in riding boots.’ From this time few ventured to appear at the assemblies in Bath in riding dress.” (_Life of Nash_, 1772.) CHAPTER XIV AT SOUTHAMPTON