[Illustration: Drop-T]he Court of George II. opened the new year with a reckless gaiety that reminds one of Whitehall in the time of Charles II., as described by Evelyn. Twelfth Night was especially dissipated in its character. There was a ball at St. James’s, and there were numerous gaming tables for those who did not dance. The king and queen lost 500 guineas at Ombre; the Earl of Sunderland, more than twice as much. General Wade lost 800 guineas, and Lord Finch half that sum. The winners were Lord William Manners, of 1,200 guineas; the Duchess of Dorset, of 900 guineas; the Earl of Chesterfield, of 550 guineas. The play was frantically pursued, and a madder scene could not have been exhibited by the Stuarts themselves. ◆[Sidenote: _MIST’S JOURNAL._]◆ Mist’s Jacobite Journal referred sarcastically to the brilliant dissipation. On the wit and repartee which duly distinguished a royal masquerade at the opera-house, Mist made a remark by which he contrived to hit the Parliament. ‘They may be looked upon,’ he said, ‘as a Prologue to the Top Parts that are expected to be soon acted in another place.’ The death of an honest Scotch baronet, named Wallace, gave Mist another opportunity which he did not let slip. ‘Sir Thomas’ was declared to be ‘a lineal descendant of the famous Sir William Wallace of Eldersly, called the Restorer of the Liberties of Scotland, in whose days our distressed country wanted not a worthy patriot to assert her rights.’ On the anniversary of Queen Anne’s birthday, Mist eulogised her as ‘that great and good Queen,’ praised the lovers of Justice, Religion, and Liberty who kept the day; and added that she was the zealous defender of all three, ‘and therefore dear to the memory of all such whose hearts are _entirely English_.’ For less than this, men had stood in the pillory. Edmund Curll, the publisher, was standing there at this very time for nothing worse than publishing a ‘Memoir of John Ker of Kersland.’ The times and the manners thereof were, the first, miserable; the second, horrible. Robbery and murder were accounted for ‘by the general poverty and corruption of the times, and the prevalency of some powerful examples.’ In June, the ‘wasp sting’ takes this form: ‘There is no record of any robberies this week;――_we mean, in the street_.’