A BATH BALL
At one of the balls Sarah did not dance, but she said she did not regret it, “having no inclination to dance with any man but Mr. Pitt,[299] and that I have not acquaintance enough with him to expect, I can only cherish my hopes of future good fortune.” At another ball she dances with Mr. Vanburgh, “a very pretty sort of man, but our affections to him are quite Platonic, as he is in love with the youngest Miss Nash.” This must have been the sister or daughter of Mr. Richard Nash[300] (“Beau Nash”), the despotic Master of the Ceremonies at Bath. He was not well at this time, and Mrs. Montagu sends her kind regards and condolences on his health. Amongst other people mentioned at Bath by Sarah were the Duke of Hamilton, Lord Berkeley, Mr. Powlett, and Mr. Bathurst, son of Lady Selina, the two Offleys, Mr. Greville, and Lord Robert Carr, said to be very handsome.
“Last night in the middle of the dancing we drank tea with a gentleman who had invited about twenty of us some days before. They give tea now almost as much of common days as they used to do on Sundays.”
[299] Afterwards Earl of Chatham.
[300] Richard Nash, for fifty years Master of the Ceremonies, Bath.
Sarah says she is going to play shuttlecock with a Mr. Amiens,[301] at the end of this letter; and in the next she states—
“I played at Shuttlecock about half an hour, there were five couple of us: in truth I played so much better than any in the room, I put them all in amazement, but it was rather owing to their bad play, and to my being matched with the two men that played the best, than my superior skill.... In my last I mentioned I was going to the ball: there was a table of sweetmeats, jellies, wine, Biskets, cold Ham and Turkey set behind two Screens, which at 9 o’clock were taken away, and the table discovered.... Above stairs there was a hot supper for all that would take the trouble to go up.”
[301] I think this was Mr. Amyand?
“MATHEMATICAL INSTERATION!”
The ignorance of some ladies of this period is shown by Sarah in the following extract:—