Note 181 — Chapter VI · Conversation Parties and Literary Assemblies

Hannah More’s piquant description of an assembly is worth quoting in full:

‘On Monday I was at a very great assembly at the Bishop of Saint Asaph’s. Conceive to yourself one hundred and fifty or two hundred people met together, dressed in the extremity of the fashion; painted as red as bacchanals; poisoning the air with perfumes; treading on each other’s gowns; making the crowd they blame; not one in ten able to get a chair; protesting they are engaged to ten other places; and lamenting the fatigue they are not obliged to endure; ten or a dozen card-tables, crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics, and yellow admirals; and you have an idea of an assembly.’ Roberts’ Memoirs of More 1. 242; cf. ib. 1. 311.