splendour of effeminate beauty, (heightened by theatrical dress), for
which he was so distinguished.  (1) Mrs Marshall, the original Roxana in Lee’s Alexander, and the only
  virtuous woman then on the stage. She was carried off in the manner
  described, by Lord Orrery, who, finding all his solicitations
  repelled, had recourse to a sham marriage performed by a servant in
  the habit of a clergyman.Plays being then performed at four o’clock, allowed ample time for the
evening drive, and the midnight assignation, when the parties met by
torch-light, masked, in St James’s park, and verified the title of
Wycherly’s play, “Love in a Wood.” The boxes, as Stanton looked round
him, were filled with females, whose naked shoulders and bosoms, well
testified in the paintings of Lely, and the pages of Grammont, might
save modern puritanism many a vituperative groan and affected
reminiscence. They had all taken the precaution to send some male
relative, on the first night of a new play, to report whether it was fit
for persons of “honour and reputation” to appear at; but in spite of
this precaution, at certain passages (which occurred about every second
sentence) they were compelled to spread out their fans, or play with the
still cherished love-lock, which Prynne himself had not been able to
write down.The men in the boxes were composed of two distinct classes, the “men of
wit and pleasure about town,” distinguished by their Flanders lace
cravats, soiled with snuff, their diamond rings, the pretended gift of a
royal mistress, (_n’importe_ whether the Duchess of Portsmouth or Nell
Gwynne); their uncombed wigs, whose curls descended to their waists, and
the loud and careless tone in which they abused Dryden, Lee, and Otway,
and quoted Sedley and Rochester;--the other class were the lovers, the
gentle “squires of dames,” equally conspicuous for their white fringed
gloves, their obsequious bows, and their commencing every sentence
addressed to a lady, with the profane exclamation of (2) “Oh Jesu!” or
the softer, but equally unmeaning one of “I beseech you, Madam,” or,
“Madam, I burn(3).” One circumstance sufficiently extraordinary marked
the manners of the day; females had not then found their proper level in
life; they were alternately adored as goddesses, and assailed as
prostitutes; and the man who, this moment, addressed his mistress in
language borrowed from Orondates worshipping Cassandra, in the next
accosted her with ribaldry that might put to the blush the piazzas of
Covent Garden(4).  (2) Vide Pope, (copying from Donne).      “Peace, fools, or Gonson will for Papists seize you,
       If once he catch you at your Jesu, Jesu.”  (3) Vide the Old Bachelor, whose Araminta, wearied by the repetition
  of these phrases, forbids her lover to 

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