Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M-y W-y M-e | Page 6

and I have been
magnificently entertained at her house, which is one of the finest here.
You know, that all the nobility of this place are envoys from different
states. Here are a great number of them, and they might pass their time
agreeably enough, if they were less delicate on the point of ceremony.
But instead of joining in the design of making the town as pleasant to
one another as they can, and improving their little societies, they amuse
themselves no other way than with perpetual quarrels, which they take
care to eternize (sic), by leaving them to their successors; and an envoy
to Ratisbon receives, regularly, half a dozen quarrels, among the
perquisites of his employment. You may be sure the ladies are not
wanting, on their side, in cherishing and improving these important
picques, which divide the town almost into as many parties, as there are
families. They chuse rather to suffer the mortification of sitting almost
alone on their assembly nights, than to recede one jot from their
pretensions. I have not been here above a week, and yet I have heard
from almost every one of them the whole history of their wrongs, and
dreadful complaint of the injustice of their neighbours, in hopes to draw
me to their party. But I think it very prudent to remain neuter, though,
if I was to stay amongst them, there would be no possibility of
continuing so, their quarrels running so high, that they will not be civil
to those that visit their adversaries. The foundation of these everlasting
disputes, turns entirely upon rank, place, and the title of Excellency,
which they all pretend to; and, what is very hard, will give it to no body.

For my part, I could not forbear advising them, (for the public good) to
give the title of Excellency to every body; which would include the
receiving it from every body; but the very mention of such a
dishonourable peace, was received with as much indignation, as Mrs
Blackaire did the motion of a reference. And indeed, I began to think
myself ill-natured, to offer to take from them, in a town where there are
so few diversions, so entertaining an amusement. I know that my
peaceable disposition already gives me a very ill figure, and that 'tis
publicly whispered as a piece of impertinent pride in me, that I have
hitherto been saucily civil to every body, as if I thought nobody good
enough to quarrel with. I should be obliged to change my behaviour, if
I did not intend to pursue my journey in a few days. I have been to see
the churches here, and had the permission of touching the relicks,
which was never suffered in places where I was not known. I had, by
this privilege, the opportunity of making an observation, which I doubt
not might have been made in all the other churches, that the emeralds
and rubies which they show round their relicks and images are most of
them false; though they tell you that many of the Crosses and Madonas
(sic), set round with these stones, have been the gifts of emperors and
other great princes. I don't doubt, indeed, but they were at first jewels
of value; but the good fathers have found it convenient to apply them to
other uses, and the people are just as well satisfied with bits of glass
amongst these relicks. They shewed me a prodigious claw set in gold,
which they called the claw of a griffin; and I could not forbear asking
the reverend priest that shewed it, Whether the griffin was a saint? The
question almost put him beside his gravity; but he answered, They only
kept it as a curiosity. I was very much scandalised at a large silver
image of the Trinity, where the Father is represented under the figure
of a decrepit old man, with a beard down to his knees, and triple crown
on his head, holding in his arms the Son, fixed on the cross, and the
Holy Ghost, in the shape of a dove, hovering over him. Madam ---- is
come this minute to call me to the assembly, and forces me to tell you,
very abruptly, that I am ever your, &c. &c.
LET. VII.
TO THE COUNTESS OF ----.

Vienna, Sept. 8. O. S. 1716.
I AM now, my dear sister, safely arrived at Vienna; and, I thank God,
have not at all suffered in my health, nor (what is dearer to me) in that
of my child, by all our fatigues. We travelled by water from Ratisbon, a
journey perfectly agreeable, down the Danube, in one of those little
vessels, that they, very properly, call wooden houses, having in them
all the conveniences of a