bringing before us as in a mirror the London of Queen Anne's day.
Bickerstaff takes us from club to coffee-house, from St. James's to the
Exchange; we see the poets and wits at Will's, the politicians at
White's, the merchants at Garraway's, the Templars at the Smyrna; we see
Betterton and the rest on the stage, and the ladies and gentlemen in the
front or side boxes; we see Pinkethman's players at Greenwich, Powell's
puppet-show, Don Saltero's Museum at Chelsea, and the bear-baiting and
prize-fights at Hockley-in-the-Hole. We are taken to the Mall at St.
James's, or the Ring in Hyde Park, and we study the fine ladies and the
beaux, with their red heels and their amber-headed canes suspended from
their waistcoats; or we follow them to Charles Lillie's, the perfumer,
or to Mather's toy-shop, or to Motteux's china warehouse; or to the
shops in the New Exchange, where the men bought trifles and ogled the
attendants. Or yet again we watch the exposure of the sharpers and
bullies, and the denunciation of others who brought even greater ruin on
those who fell into their clutches. We see the worshipping and the
flirtations in the church, with Smalridge and Atterbury, Hoadly and
Blackall among the preachers, and hear something of the controversies
between High and Low Church, Whig and Tory. We hear, too, of the war
with France, and of the hopes of peace. Steele tells us not only of
Marlborough and Prince Eugene, but of privates and non-commissioned
officers, of their lives and tragedies, of their comrades and friends.
All Sergeant Hall knew of the battle was that he wished there had not
been so many killed; he had himself a very bad shot in the head, but
would recover, if it pleased God. "To me," says Steele, recalling his
own service as a trooper, "I take the gallantry of private soldiers to
proceed from the same, if not from a nobler impulse than that of
gentlemen and officers.... Sergeant Hall would die ten thousand deaths
rather than a word should be spoken at the Red Lattice, or any part of
the Butcher Row, in prejudice to his courage or honesty." His letter to