It is easy to imagine the crowds thronging between the painted grenadiers[293] that stood sentinel on either side of the gates, or walking up the grand old avenue, or dispersing over the greensward, fluttering and glittering amongst the trees and glades, for, after all, gold and silver lace, steel sword-hilts, brilliant buckles, hoods of all hues, that made a box at the theatre in those days look like a bed of tulips, hooped petticoats, gorgeously-coloured gowns, and floating scarfs and ribbons, are fine things at a _fête champêtre_. One can fancy the blue sky with fleecy cloudlets dappling it, and a tepid breeze lifting the leaves, rippling the long grass in the adjacent meadows, and giving motion to the lace and ribbons of the ladies’ dresses—a sunny, breezy day of ‘leafy June,’ before our seasons grew sophisticated, and the prime of the year took to the ways of April, and became lachrymose—for June was always the grand month of the season at Belsize, and, looking back, one sees the day and the place in all its pristine brightness. If we could pass out of the breezy sunshine and shifting shadows into the Long Room, where balls and concerts were given, we should find it, according to the satirist before quoted, the focus of the quintessence of vanity in both sexes. The women were there to captivate, the men to admire and be admired; and if outward appearance counts for anything, the embroidered coats and waistcoats, gold-clocked stockings, red-heeled shoes, feathered hats, and clouded canes of the beaux, betrayed as absolute a desire for effect as any modish madam or lisping coquetilla of the day could have aspired to. Gay describes them on the promenade ‘tuning soft minuets between their pretty nothings,’ but here, between the breathings of the dance, the snuff-box helped their little affectations, and ‘Spanish snuff to modish nose is put: At which the perfumed handkerchief’s drawn up, T’ adjust some bold disorder of the face, And put the chin-patch in its proper place.’ No doubt Gay, for all his despondency and ill-health, being at Hampstead this summer, visited the fair gardens at Belsize, and yet oftener the assembly and gaming rooms, where the Captain Macheaths and Polly Peachums of the times were frequent visitors. This mention of the Captain naturally reminds one of the state of the roads, which, owing to the fields and woods in the vicinity, were so beset with footpads and highwaymen that in the handbills of the entertainments at Belsize House for this season (1722) it is stated that for the safety of the company the proprietor has hired twenty stout labouring men, well known about Hampstead, to line the road betwixt Belsize and London, so that they will be as safe by night as by day. In the first announcement of this arrangement the number of these bucolic guardians of the road is only twelve, so that the highways round the Metropolis had meanwhile become doubly hazardous.