IN this chapter, we shift our focus to a grander scale of middling sociability: to balls, assemblies, resort towns, and the play that happened there. In moving from the drawing rooms of private homes to larger and more widely accessible locales, sociability moved into a new and ambiguous space, a semi-public space. In such arenas, the potential for social disaster was magnified, and the pressure to shine more intense. Middling players found themselves paying close attention to the fine points of selfpresentation, displaying not only their material wealth and good taste but also their genteel manners and good carding sense.

Assemblies

The home-based sociability we saw in Chapter 3 was predicated on a small, select guest list, suitable to the size and amenities of the middling home. When social circles became too large to be comfortably hosted in most middling homes, a new space was needed, one that could provide the standard of hospitality that polite society had come to expect. Assemblies and balls solved this problem neatly, permitting large, mixed-sex groups to dance, gossip, and play their favourite games in comfort. As these new entertainments became popular, purpose-built assembly rooms appeared in shire towns and county seats, and smaller towns turned to their inns to provide suitable space for genteel gatherings. In balancing the leisure requirements of large groups with the admission controls still desired by polite society, assemblies became the first truly semi-public venues for card play.

The assembly was an eighteenth-century invention. Large, wellattended balls with such extras as tea and card tables were first held in spa and resort towns and, like so many other leisure trends, were adopted throughout England as travellers returned to their own homes. The fashion was quickly taken up by the burgeoning London ‘Season’, which became justly famous for its busy winter-long round of entertainments and cultural offerings.