with a rapturous description of all her beauties; adding, that this goddess, who came to visit me with the most favourable intentions, did not counteract them by any unreasonable cruelty.  This was not sufficient to satisfy Miss Stewart’s curiosity:  I was obliged to relate every particular circumstance of the kindness I experienced from this delicate phantom; to which she was so very attentive, that she never once appeared surprised or disconcerted at the luscious tale.  On the contrary, she made me repeat the description of the beauty, which I drew as near as possible after her own person, and after such charms as I imagined of beauties that were unknown to me.

“This is, in fact, the very thing that had almost deprived me of my senses:  she knew very well that she herself was the person I was describing:  we were alone, as you may imagine, when I told her this story; and my eyes did their utmost to persuade her that it was herself whom I drew.  I perceived that she was not in the least offended at knowing this; nor was her modesty in the least alarmed at the relation of a fiction, which I might have concluded in a manner still less discreet, if I had thought proper.  This patient audience made me plunge headlong into the ocean of flattering ideas that presented themselves to my imagination.  I then no longer thought of the king, nor how passionately fond he was of her, nor of the dangers attendant upon such an engagement:  in short, I know not what the devil I was thinking of; but I am very certain that, if you had not been thinking for me, I might have found my ruin in the midst of these distracted visions.”

Not long after, the court returned to London; and from that time, some malevolent star having gained the ascendant, every thing went cross in the empire of Love:  vexation, suspicions, or jealousies, first entered the field, to set all hearts at variance; next, false reports, slander, and disputes, completed the ruin of all.

The Duchess of Cleveland had been brought to bed while the court was at Bristol; and never before had she recovered from her lying-in with such a profusion of charms.  This made her believe that she was in a proper state to retrieve her ancient rights over the king’s heart, if she had an opportunity of appearing before him with this increased splendour.  Her friends being of the same opinion, her equipage was prepared for this expedition; but the very evening before the day she had fixed on to set out, she saw young Churchill, and was at once seized with a disease, which had more than once opposed her projects, and which she could never completely get the better of.