brilliant actions, nor distinguished rank, to set him off; and as for his fibre, there was nothing advantageous in it.  He was little:  his head was large and his legs small; his features were not disagreeable, but he was affected in his carriage and behaviour.  All his wit consisted in expressions learnt by rote, which he occasionally employed either in raillery, or in love.  This was the whole foundation of the merit of a man so formidable in amours.

The Princess Royal was the first who was taken with him:  Miss Hyde seemed to be following the steps of her mistress:  this immediately brought him into credit, and his reputation was established in England before his arrival.  Prepossession in the minds of women is sufficient to find access to their hearts:  Jermyn found them in dispositions so favourable for him, that he had nothing to do but to speak.

It was in vain they perceived that a reputation so lightly established, was still more weakly sustained:  the prejudice remained:  the Countess of Castlemaine, a woman lively and discerning followed the delusive shadow; and though undeceived in a reputation which promised so much, and performed so little, she nevertheless continued in her infatuation:  she even persisted in it, until she was upon the point of embroiling herself with the King; so great was this first instance of her constancy.

Such were the heroes of the court.  As for the beauties, you could not look anywhere without seeing them:  those of the greatest reputation were this same Countess of Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, Lady Chesterfield, Lady Shrewsbury, the Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. Middleton, the Misses Brooks, and a thousand others, who shone at court with equal lustre; but it was Miss Hamilton and Miss Stewart who were its chief ornaments.

[Lady Shrewsbury:  Anna, Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, eldest daughter of Robert Brudenel, Earl of Cardigan, and wife of Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury, who was killed in a duel by George, Duke of Buckingham, March 16, 1667.  She afterwards re-married with George Rodney Bridges, Esq., second son of Sir Thomas Bridges of Keynsham, in Somersetshire, knight, and died April 20, 1702.  By her second husband she had one son, George Rodney Bridges, who died in 1751.  This woman is said to have been so abandoned, as to have held, in the habit of a page, her gallant, the duke’s horse, while he fought and killed her husband; after which she went to bed with him, stained with her husband’s blood.]

The new queen gave but little additional brilliancy to the court, either in her person or in her retinue, which was then composed of the Countess de Panetra, who came over with her in quality of lady of the bedchamber; six frights, who called themselves maids of honour, and a duenna, another monster, who took the title of governess to those extraordinary beauties.