“I know your town is the Kingdom of Cards, and the Reign of Mattadores I am disaffected to; here I enjoy all the pleasures of friendship, and the satisfaction of tranquillity....
“I hope you will find great benefit by your machine; if you will appoint a time for your imagination to take a flight, I will mount the Marquis of Lichfield’s Hobby Horse, and give you a meeting. Imagination gives Pegasus wings, and he often flies into the undiscovered country of fancy.”
MRS. WOFFINGTON
Mrs. Donnellan writes again on December 1 to say she and her sister, Mrs. Clayton, had been to two plays in one week—
“One of our plays was to see Mrs. Woffington perform the part of ‘Sir Harry Wild-air,’[187] and indeed I never saw anything done with more life and spirit; but at the same time she looked too young, too handsome, and her voice seemed more proper for Opera than the play; so that we see when things are out of nature, though they may have many beauties, in the whole they will not please, and a beard and a deep voice are as proper to make a man agreeable, as a soft voice and smooth face to a woman.”
[187] From the play of The Constant Couple.
THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH
The next letter of interest is of December 12, to Mrs. Robinson, from Elizabeth—
“Madam,
“It is long since I have had the pleasure of writing to you, for though I have much inclination to do so, I have little leisure. I am now coming on you with a great deal of news from the city of our Great King. The Parliament is all in a flame, the Court have had but a majority of seven. There is a great struggle between Giles, Earle, and Dr. Lee, which shall be for the Committees. The city is in great alarm that they are going to lose six hundred thousand pounds out of Leghorn, which it is expected will be taken, and the Port lost to our merchants.