ful, even in England: long custom
had given such a languishing tenderness to her looks, that she never
opened her eyes but like a Chinese; and, when she ogled, one would have
thought she was doing something else.

Jermyn accepted of her at first; but, being soon puzzled what to do
with her, he thought it best to sacrifice her to Lady Castlemaine. The
sacrifice was far from being displeasing to her; it was much to her
glory to have carried off Jermyn from so many competitors; but this was
of no consequence in the end.

Jacob Hall (the famous rope-dancer) was at that time in vogue in London;
his strength and agility charmed in public, even to a wish to know what
he was in private; for he appeared, in his tumbling dress, to be quite
of a different make, and to have limbs very different from the fortunate
Jermyn.

["There was a symmetry and elegance, as well as strength and
agility, in the person of Jacob Hall, which was much admired by the
ladies, who regarded him as a due composition of Hercules and
Adonis. The open-hearted Duchess of Cleveland was said to have been
in love with this rope-dancer and Goodman the player at the same
time. The former received a salary from her grace."--Granger, vol.
ii., part 2, p. 461. In reference to the connection between the
duchess and the ropedancer, Mr. Pope introduced the following lines
into his "Sober Advice from Horace:"

"What push'd poor E--s on th' imperial whore?
'Twas but to be where Charles had been before,
The fatal steel unjustly was apply'd,
When not his lust offended, but his pride
Too hard a penance for defeated sin,
Himself shut out, and Jacob Hall let in."]

The tumbler did not deceive Lady Castlemaine's expectations, if report
may be believed; and as was intimated in many a song, much more to the
honour of the rope-dancer than of the countess; but she despised all
these rumours, and only appeared still more handsome.

While satire thus found employment at her cost, there were continual
contests for the favours of another beauty, who was not much more
niggardly in that way than herself; this was the Countess of Shrewsbury.

The Earl of Arran, who had been one of her first admirers, was not one
of the last to desert her; this beauty, less famous for her conquests
than for the misfortunes she occasioned, placed her greatest merits in
being more capricious than any other. As no person coul