Haswell says that in this year there was a “fancy” ball given by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Brevoort and that the date was February 24th.  It certainly was the same one, but he adds that it was generally pronounced “most successful.”  This one may doubt, since the results made masked balls so severely thought of that there was, a bit later, a fine of $1,000 imposed on anyone who should give one,—­one-half to be deducted if you told on yourself!

Nevertheless, George S. Hellman says that Mrs. Brevoort’s ball, February 24, 1840,—­was “the most splendid social affair of the first half of the nineteenth century in New York.”

There was great preparation for it, and practically all “society” was asked—­and nothing and nobody else.  It was incidentally the occasion of the first “society reporting.”  Attree, of the New York Herald, was an invited guest and went in costume—­quite an innovation for conservative old Manhattan.

Lossing tells us:  “At the close of this decade the features of New York society presented conspicuous transformations.  Many exotic customs prevailed, both public and private, and the expensive pleasures of the Eastern Hemisphere had been transplanted and taken firm root.  Among other imported amusements was the masked ball, the first of which occurred in the city of New York in 1840, and produced a profound sensation, not only per se, but because of an attending circumstance which stirred ‘society’ to its foundation.”

The British Consul in New York at that time was Anthony Barclay,—­he lived at College Place,—­who was destined later to fall into evil repute, by raising recruits here during the Crimean trouble.  He had a daughter, Matilda, who was remarkably lovely and—­if we may believe reports—­a very great belle in American society.  She had a number of “suitors,” as they were gracefully called in those days, and among them was one Burgwyne, from South Carolina—­very young, and, we may take it, rather poor.

Lossing says:  “There was also in attendance a gay, young South Carolinian named Burgwyne.”

The Consul and Mrs. Barclay disapproved of him strongly.  But Matilda who was beautiful, warm-blooded and wayward did not.  She loved Burgwyne with a reciprocal ardour, and when the masked ball at the Brevoorts’ came on the tapis it seemed as though the Goddess of Romance had absolutely stretched out her hands to these two reckless, but adorable lovers.

They had a favourite poem—­most lovers have favourite poems;—­theirs was “Lalla Rookh.”

There may be diverse opinions as to Thomas Moore’s greatness, but there can scarcely be two as to his lyric gift.  He could write charming love-songs, simple and yet full of colour, and, given the Oriental theme, it is no wonder that youths and maidens of his day sighed and smiled over “Lalla Rookh” as over nothing that had yet been written for them.  It is a delightful tale, half-prose and half-poetry, written entirely and whole-heartedly for lovers, and Burgwyne and Matilda found it easy to put themselves in the places of the romantic characters in the drama—­Lalla Rookh, the incomparably beautiful Eastern Princess and Feramorz, the young Prince in disguise, “graceful as that idol of women, Crishna.”