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In the same letter, however, Goldsmith allows the beauty of the women and the good-breeding of the men.

It may add to the curiosity of the whole affair, that when the Assembly was reconstituted in February 1746, after several years of cessation, the first of a set of regulations hung up in the hall[33] was: ‘No lady to be admitted in a night-gown, and no gentleman in boots.’ The eighth rule was: ‘No misses in skirts and jackets, robe-coats, nor stay-bodied gowns, to be allowed to dance in country-dances, but in a sett by themselves.’

In all probability it was in this very dingy house that Goldsmith beheld the scene he has so well described. At least it appears that the improved Assembly Room in Bell’s Wynd (which has latterly served as a part of the accommodations of the Commercial Bank) was not built till 1766.[34] Arnot, in his History of Edinburgh, describes the Assembly Room in Bell’s Wynd as very inconvenient, which was the occasion of the present one being built in George Street in 1784.