The Lively Lady Townshend and Her Friends: An Effort to Set Forth the Doings and the Surroundings of a Typical Lady of Quality of the Eighteenth Century

Front Cover
W. Heinemann Limited, 1926 - 314 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 64 - I had a card from Lady Caroline Petersham to go with her to Vauxhall. I went accordingly to her house, and found her and the little Ashe, or the Pollard Ashe, as they call her ; they had just finished their last layer of red, and looked as handsome as crimson could make them.
Page 83 - Elizabeth's porter, from a picture in the guard-chamber at Kensington : they were admirable masks. Lord Rochford, Miss Evelyn, Miss Bishop, Lady Stafford, and Mrs. Pitt, were in vast beauty ; particularly the last, who had a red veil, which made her look gloriously handsome. I forgot Lady Kildare. Mr. Conway was the Duke in "Don Quixote," and the finest figure I ever saw.
Page 65 - We got into the best order we could, and marched to our barge, with a boat of French horns attending, and little Ashe singing. We paraded some time up the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall : there, if we had so pleased, we might have had the vivacity of our party increased by a quarrel ; for a Mrs.
Page 138 - ... low birth, and no breeding, have found themselves suddenly translated into a state of affluence, unknown to former ages; and no wonder that their brains should be intoxicated with pride, vanity, and presumption. Knowing no other criterion of greatness, but the ostentation of wealth, they discharge their affluence without taste or conduct, through every channel of the most absurd extravagance; and all of them hurry to Bath, because here, without any further qualification, they can mingle with...
Page 57 - I have been talking of, you must be informed that every night constantly I go to Ranelagh which has totally beat Vauxhall. Nobody goes anywhere else : everybody goes there. My Lord Chesterfield is so fond of it that he says he has ordered all his letters to be directed thither.
Page 4 - ... sometimes sicknesses of other kind, by reason of so many people being packed together, as, I believe, there never was before of that quality ; always in want, yet I must needs say, that most bore it with a martyr-like cheerfulness. For my own part, I began to think we should all, like Abraham, live in tents all the days of our lives.
Page 256 - If you disappoint me, attend to my curse :—May the hatred of all the young, beautiful, and virtuous, for ever be your portion! and may your eyes never behold anything but age and deformity ! May you meet with applause only from envious old maids, surly bachelors, and tyrannical parents! May you be doomed to the company of such, and after death may their ugly souls haunt you ! " Now make Lovelace and Clarissa unhappy if you dare...
Page 65 - At last, we assembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in the front, with the vizor of her hat erect, and looking gloriously jolly and handsome. She had fetched my brother Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with his petite partie, to help us to mince chickens. We minced seven chickens into a china dish, which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three pats of butter and a flagon of water, stirring, and rattling, and laughing, and we every minute expecting to have the dish fly about...
Page 4 - England had, we came to a baker's house in an obscure street, and from rooms well furnished, to lie in a very bad bed in a garret, to one dish of meat, and that not the best ordered ; no money, for we were as poor as Job ; nor clothes more than a man or two brought in their cloak bags...
Page 8 - Now it is necessary to say something of my mother's education of me, which was with all the advantages that time afforded, both for working all sorts of fine works with my needle, and learning French, singing, lute, the virginals and dancing...

Bibliographic information