Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M-y W-y M-e | Page 9

and assured me, this was a celebrated piece. I shall conclude my letter
with this remarkable relation, very well worthy the serious
consideration of Mr Collier. I won't trouble you with farewel (sic)
compliments, which I think generally as impertinent, as courtesies at
leaving the room, when the visit had been too long already.
LET. IX.
TO THE COUNTESS OF ----.

Vienna, Sept. 14. O. S.
THOUGH I have so lately troubled you, my dear sister, with a long
letter, yet I will keep my promise in giving you an account of my first
going to court. In order to that ceremony, I was squeezed up in a gown,
and adorned with a gorget and the other implements thereunto
belonging; a dress very inconvenient, but which certainly shows the
neck and shape to great advantage. I cannot forbear giving you some
description of the fashions here, which are more monstrous, and
contrary to all common sense and reason, than 'tis possible for you to
imagine. They build certain fabrics of gauze on their heads, about a
yard high, consisting of three or four stories, fortified with numberless
yards of heavy ribbon. The foundation of this structure is a thing they
call a Bourle, which is exactly of the same shape and kind, but about
four times as big as those rolls our prudent milk-maids make use of to
fix their pails upon. This machine they cover With their own hair,
which they mix with a great deal of false, it being a particular beauty to
have their heads too large to go into a moderate tub. Their hair is
prodigiously powdered to conceal the mixture, and set out with three or
four rows of bodkins (wonderfully large, that stick out two or three
inches from their hair) made of diamonds, pearls, red, green, and
yellow stones, that it certainly requires as much art and experience to
carry the load upright, as to dance upon May-day with the garland.
Their whale-bone petticoats outdo ours by several yards, circumference,
and cover some acres of ground. You may easily suppose how this
extraordinary dress sets off and improves the natural ugliness, with
which God Almighty has been pleased to endow them, generally
speaking. Even the lovely empress herself is obliged to comply, in
some degree, with these absurd fashions, which they would not quit for
all the world. I had a private audience (according to ceremony) of half
an hour, and then all the other ladies were permitted to come and make
their court. I was perfectly charmed with the empress; I cannot however
tell you that her features are regular; her eyes are not large, but have a
lively look full of sweetness; her complexion the finest I ever saw; her
nose and forehead well made, but her mouth has ten thousand charms,
that touch the soul. When she smiles, 'tis with a beauty and sweetness
that forces adoration. She has a vast quantity of fine fair hair; but then

her person!--one must speak of it poetically to do it rigid justice; all
that the poets have said of the mien of Juno, the air of Venus, come not
up to the truth. The Graces move with her; the famous statue of
Medicis was not formed with more delicate proportions; nothing can be
added to the beauty of her neck and hands. Till I saw them, I did not
believe there were any in nature so perfect, and I was almost sorry that
my rank here did not permit me to kiss them; but they are kissed
sufficiently; for every body that waits on her pays that homage at their
entrance, and when they take leave. When the ladies were come in, she
sat down to Quinze. I could not play at a game I had never seen before,
and she ordered me a seat at her right hand, and had the goodness to
talk to me very much, with that grace so natural to her. I expected every
moment, when the men were to come in to pay their court; but this
drawing-room is very different from that of England; no man enters it
but the grand-master, who comes in to advertise the empress of the
approach of the emperor. His imperial majesty did me the honour of
speaking to me in a very obliging manner; but he never speaks to any
of the other ladies; and the whole passes with a gravity and air of
ceremony that has something very formal in it. The empress Amelia,
dowager of the late emperor Joseph, came this evening to wait on the
reigning empress, followed by the two arch-duchesses her daughters,
who are very agreeable young princesses. Their imperial majesties rose
and went to meet her at the door of the room, after which she