pe at the time.
It is by no means certain, however, that, in the first instance, these
reflections were all cast in letter-form; it is much more likely that
some were written in a diary. The letters appear as addressed to the
Countess of Bristol, to the Princess of Wales, to Mrs. Thistlethwayte,
to Lady Rich, to Alexander Pope, to the Abbe Conti, to Miss Sarah
Chiswell, to Mrs. Hewet, to Lady Mary's sister, the Countess of Mar, and
others.

At the beginning of August, 1716, Montagu, with his wife and son, and,
it is to be presumed, his suite, left England, and, after a very bad
crossing, landed at Rotterdam. From that city, the cleanliness of which
surprised and delighted Lady Mary--"you may see the Dutch maids washing
the pavement of the street with more application than ours do our
bed-chambers"--the party proceeded by way of the Hague, Nimeguen,
Cologne, Frankfort-on-the-Main, Wurzberg, and Ratisbon to Vienna, where
they arrived during the first week in September.

Lady Mary was all impatient to go to Court, for, as she put it, "I am
not without a great impatience to see a beauty that has been the
admiration of so many nations," but she was forced to stay for a gown,
without which there was no waiting on the Empress. Presently the gown
was ready, and Lady Mary was presented.

"I was squeezed up in a gown" (she wrote to her sister, Lady Mar), "and
adorned with a gorget and the other implements thereunto belonging: a
dress very inconvenient, but which certainly shews the neck and shape to
great advantage. I cannot forbear in this place 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 dia