was very willing at all times to be amused--"for
which great rejoicings" (why rejoicings?) "were made at Tunbridge; but
nobody was bold enough to make it the subject of satire, though the
same constraint was not observed with other ridiculous personages."
Upon the Prince the effect of his love seems to have been marked
enough. "From this time adieu alembics, crucibles, furnaces, and all
the black furniture of the forges; a complete farewell to all
mathematical instruments and chemical speculations; sweet powder and
essences were now the only ingredients that occupied any share of his
attention." Further of Mrs. Hughes there is nothing to relate, with
the exception of the use made of her name by the unseemly and
unsavoury Tom Brown in his "Letters from the Dead to the Living." Mrs.
Hughes and Nell Gwynne are supposed to address letters to each other,
exchanging reproaches in regard to the impropriety of their manner of
life. Nell Gwynne accuses her correspondent of squandering her money
and of gaming. "I am ashamed to think that a woman who had wit enough
to tickle a Prince out of so fine an estate should at last prove such
a fool as to be bubbled of it by a little spotted ivory and painted
paper.
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