The Committee was presided over by Lady Jersey, and included, besides Lady Cowper, the Ladies Castlereagh, Sefton, and Willoughby, and the Princesses Esterhazy and Lieven. Almack’s was the “seventh heaven” of the fashionable world, and people would almost sell their souls to gain admission. Its exclusiveness will be understood when it is realised that of the three hundred officers of the Foot Guards only six were admitted.[25] Quadrilles were first danced there in 1815. The rules as to punctuality and the costume to be worn, especially by the gentlemen, were extraordinarily strict, and had to be obeyed by all, without respect of person. One of the rules, that seems, however, to have been relaxed later, was that no one was to be admitted after 11 p.m. One night shortly after its enactment that hour had already struck when an attendant announced that the Duke of Wellington was at the door. “What time is it?” asked Lady Jersey. “Seven minutes after eleven, your ladyship.” She paused a moment, and then said with emphasis and distinctness, “Give my compliments--give Lady Jersey’s compliments to the Duke of Wellington, and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of exclusion is such that hereafter no one can complain of its application. He cannot be admitted.” This occurred in 1819. Lady Jersey is described in Disraeli’s _Sybil_, under the name of Lady St. Julians, as one of the great political ladies who “think they can govern the world by what they call their social influences.” Almack’s made a very brilliant scene: the halls were large, beautifully lighted, and the music and the floor of the best. All the arrangements tended to ease and comfort, there was no ceremony, no regulations or managing--that is to say, once within the charmed circle, there were no hindrances to perfect enjoyment and perfect freedom within the limits of good breeding. It may be mentioned here that Lord Palmerston, considered to be something of a dandy in the second decade of the nineteenth century, was at that time one of the leading lights of Almack’s, and a special favourite of Lady Jersey and Lady Cowper. Bulwer, the novelist, who as a young man was a frequenter of Almack’s, wrote a poem entitled “Almack’s, a Satiric Sketch”[26] in which he pays testimony to the beauty and charm of Lady Cowper in the following lines: “But lo! what lovely vision glides So graceful through the charmed throng? Oh, ne’er did Daughter of the tides The yielding waters float along With shape as light and form as fair As those which spell the gazer there. Enchanting C*w**r, while I muse On thee--my soul forgets awhile Its blighted thoughts and darken’d hues, And softens satire to a smile.”