Samuel Rogers (_Table Talk_), who must have known Ranelagh from about 1786 till its close, was struck by the solemnity of the whole thing: “all was so orderly and still that you could hear the whishing sound of the ladies’ trains as the immense assembly walked round and round the room.” An “affray” of the kind familiar at Vauxhall and not infrequent at Marylebone was practically unknown at Ranelagh. On May 6th, 1752, Dr. John Hill was caned in the Rotunda by an angry gentleman, and the newspapers and caricaturists were momentarily excited, chiefly because Hill’s injuries were supposed to be a sham. One almost welcomes a scene at Ranelagh. On the 12th of May, 1764, four footmen were charged before Sir John Fielding with riotous behaviour at Ranelagh House, “hissing several of the nobility, relative to their not giving or suffering vails to be taken, pelting several gentlemen with brick-bats and breaking the windows.”[225] Throughout its career of more than a hundred and sixty years, Ranelagh fairly maintained its position as a fashionable resort, but at all periods the company was a good deal mixed. Philomides, “a gentleman of sprightly wit, and very solid judgment,” has described[226] the frequenters of the place four or five years after it was first opened. My Lord (he says) was sure to meet his tailor there, and Statira would see her toyman “cursing himself for letting this Statira have a service of very fine Dresden china, which she assured him her Lord would pay for immediately.” The ubiquitous Templar was easily recognised--a pert young fellow in a fustian frock, and a broad-brimmed hat “in an affected impudent cock.” There was an Oxford scholar, a political pamphleteer and a spruce military spark smelling of lavender water. A coxcomb just returned from his travels was more absurd. He had set up as virtuoso, and brought home a headless Helen and a genuine ‘Otho’ coined at Rome two years ago. He might now be heard talking Italian in a loud voice and “pronouncing the word Gothic fifty times an hour.” In 1760 a fashionable lady complains that there were too many tradesmen’s wives at Ranelagh. But compared with Vauxhall it was fashionable, at least according to a lady’s maid in “High Life Below Stairs” (_circ._ 1759, Act I. sc. 2):-- _Lady Charlotte’s Maid_: Well, I say it again, I love Vauxhall. _Lady Bab’s Maid_: Oh, my stars! Why, there is nobody there but filthy citizens--_Runelow_ for _my_ money. [Illustration: THE ATTACK ON DR. JOHN HILL AT RANELAGH, 6 MAY, 1752.]