Yours ever.

[Footnote 1:  Mme. de Mailly was the first of the mistresses of Louis XV.  She was the elder sister of the Duchesse de Chateauroux and Mme. de Lauragais.  She has the credit, such as it is, of having been really in love with the King before she became acquainted with him; but she soon retired, feeling repentance and shame at her position, and being superseded in his fancy by the more showy attractions of her younger sisters.]

A MASQUERADE—­STATE OF RUSSIA.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Feb. 27, 1770.

It is very lucky, seeing how much of the tiger enters into the human composition, that there should be a good dose of the monkey too.  If Aesop had not lived so many centuries before the introduction of masquerades and operas, he would certainly have anticipated my observation, and worked it up into a capital fable.  As we still trade upon the stock of the ancients, we seldom deal in any other manufacture; and, though nature, after new combinations, lets forth new characteristics, it is very rarely that they are added to the old fund; else how could so striking a remark have escaped being made, as mine, on the joint ingredients of tiger and monkey?  In France the latter predominates, in England the former; but, like Orozmades and Arimanius,[1] they get the better by turns.  The bankruptcy in France, and the rigours of the new Comptroller-General, are half forgotten, in the expectation of a new opera at the new theatre.  Our civil war has been lulled asleep by a Subscription Masquerade, for which the House of Commons literally adjourned yesterday.  Instead of Fairfaxes and Cromwells, we have had a crowd of Henry the Eighths, Wolseys, Vandykes, and Harlequins; and because Wilkes was not mask enough, we had a man dressed like him, with a visor, in imitation of his squint, and a Cap of Liberty on a pole.  In short, sixteen or eighteen young lords have given the town a Masquerade; and politics, for the last fortnight, were forced to give way to habit-makers.  The ball was last night at Soho; and, if possible, was more magnificent than the King of Denmark’s.  The Bishops opposed:  he of London formally remonstrated to the King, who did not approve it, but could not help him.  The consequence was, that four divine vessels belonging to the holy fathers, alias their wives, were at this Masquerade.  Monkey again!  A fair widow,[2] who once bore my whole name, and now bears half of it, was there, with one of those whom the newspapers call great personages—­he dressed like Edward the Fourth, she like Elizabeth Woodville,[3] in grey and pearls, with a black veil.  Methinks it was not very difficult to find out the meaning of those masks.

[Footnote 1:  “Orozmades and Arimanius.” In the Persian theology Orozmades and Ahriman are the good and bad angels.  In Scott’s “Talisman” the disguised Saracen (Saladin) invokes Ahriman as “the dark spirit.”  In one of his earlier letters Walpole describes his friend Gray as Orozmades.]