and many gallantries of the same nature.  All the men of quality at Vienna were spectators; but only the ladies had permission to shoot, and the Archduchess Amelia carried off the first prize.  I was very well pleased with having seen this entertainment, and I do not know but it might make as good a figure as the prize-shooting in the Eneid, if I could write as well as Virgil.  This is the favourite pleasure of the emperor, and there is rarely a week without some feast of this kind, which makes the young ladies skilful enough to defend a fort, and they laughed very much to see me afraid to handle a gun.

My dear sister, you will easily pardon an abrupt conclusion.  I believe, by this time, you are ready to fear I would never conclude at all.

To MRS. SARAH CHISWELL

Ingrafting for small-pox

Adrianople, 1 April, O.S. [1717].

In my opinion, dear S., I ought rather to quarrel with you for not answering my Nimeguen letter of August till December, than to excuse my not writing again till now.  I am sure there is on my side a very good excuse for silence, having gone such tiresome land-journeys, though I don’t find the conclusion of them so bad as you seem to imagine.  I am very easy here, and not in the solitude you fancy me.  The great number of Greek, French, English, and Italians, that are under our protection, make their court to me from morning till night; and, I’ll assure you, are many of them very fine ladies; for there is no possibility for a Christian to live easily under this government but by the protection of an embassador—­and the richer they are, the greater their danger.

Those dreadful stories you have heard of the plague have very little foundation in truth.  I own I have much ado to reconcile myself to the sound of a word which has always given me such terrible ideas, though I am convinced there is little more in it than a fever.  As a proof we passed through two or three towns most violently infected.  In the very next house where we lay (in one of them) two persons died of it.  Luckily for me, I knew nothing of the matter; and I was made believe, that our second cook who fell ill here, had only a great cold.  However, we left our doctor to take care of him, and yesterday they both arrived here in good health; and now I am let into the secret that he has had the plague.  There are many that escape it; neither is the air ever infected.  I am persuaded that it would be as easy to root it out here as out of Italy and France; but it does so little mischief, they are not very solicitous about it, and are content to suffer this distemper instead of our variety, which they are utterly unacquainted with.