It is possible that Miss Rose had adopted a
scantier and lighter method of attire than had prevailed with
preceding dancers. She had been caricatured, yet not very unkindly, by
Gillray, the drawing bearing the motto, "No flower that blows is like
the Rose." The bishop's speech was not without effect. Indeed, he had
announced his intention upon some future day to move an address to the
king praying that all opera-dancers might be ordered out of the
kingdom, as people likely to destroy our morality and religion, and as
very probably in the pay of France. The manager of the opera-house
deemed it advisable to postpone his ballet of "Bacchus and Ariadne"
until new and improved dresses could be prepared for it. Upon the
entertainment being reproduced, it was found that there had been
enlargement and elongation of the skirts of the performers, with the
substitution of inoffensive white silk stockings for the reprehensible
hose of flesh-colour that had originally been assumed. Of course much
talk followed upon this, with great laughter and ridicule; caricatures
of the spiritual peers and the opera-dancers abounded.
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