it was proclaimed:  the King did not go to St. Paul’s, but at night the whole town was illuminated.  The next day was what was called “a jubilee-masquerade in the Venetian manner” at Ranelagh:  it had nothing Venetian in it, but was by far the best understood and the prettiest spectacle I ever saw:  nothing in a fairy tale ever surpassed it.  One of the proprietors, who is a German, and belongs to Court, had got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade the King to order it.  It began at three o’clock, and, about five, people of fashion began to go.  When you entered, you found the whole garden filled with masks and spread with tents, which remained all night very commodely.  In one quarter, was a May-pole dressed with garlands, and people dancing round it to a tabor and pipe and rustic music, all masqued, as were all the various bands of music that were disposed in different parts of the garden; some like huntsmen with French horns, some like peasants, and a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the little open temple on the mount.  On the canal was a sort of gondola, adorned with flags and streamers, and filled with music, rowing about.  All round the outside of the amphitheatre were shops, filled with Dresden china, japan, &c., and all the shopkeepers in mask.  The amphitheatre was illuminated; and in the middle was a circular bower, composed of all kinds of firs in tubs, from twenty to thirty feet high:  under them orange-trees, with small lamps in each orange, and below them all sorts of the finest auriculas in pots; and festoons of natural flowers hanging from tree to tree.  Between the arches too were firs, and smaller ones in the balconies above.  There were booths for tea and wine, gaming-tables and dancing, and about two thousand persons.  In short, it pleased me more than anything I ever saw.  It is to be once more, and probably finer as to dresses, as there has since been a subscription masquerade, and people will go in their rich habits.  The next day were the fireworks, which by no means answered the expense, the length of preparation, and the expectation that had been raised; indeed, for a week before, the town was like a country fair, the streets filled from morning to night, scaffolds building wherever you could or could not see, and coaches arriving from every corner of the kingdom.  This hurry and lively scene, with the sight of the immense crowd in the Park and on every house, the guards, and the machine itself, which was very beautiful, was all that was worth seeing.  The rockets, and whatever was thrown up into the air, succeeded mighty well; but the wheels, and all that was to compose the principal part, were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no changes of coloured fires and shapes:  the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait the finishing; and then, what contributed to the awkwardness of the whole, was the right pavilion catching fire, and being burnt down in the middle of the show.