MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 3, 1749.

I am come hither for a few days, to repose myself after a torrent of
diversions, and am writing to you in my charming bow-window with a
tranquillity and satisfaction which, I fear, I am grown old enough to
prefer to the hurry of amusements, in which the whole world has lived
for this last week. We have at last celebrated the Peace, and that as
much in extremes as we generally do everything, whether we have reason
to be glad or sorry, pleased or angry. Last Tuesday it was proclaimed:
the King did not go to St. Paul's, but at night the whole town was
illuminated. The next day was what was called "a jubilee-masquerade in
the Venetian manner" at Ranelagh: it had nothing Venetian in it, but was
by far the best understood and the prettiest spectacle I ever saw:
nothing in a fairy tale ever surpassed it. One of the proprietors, who
is a German, and belongs to Court, had got my Lady Yarmouth to persuade
the King to order it. It began at three o'clock, and, about five, people
of fashion began to go. When you entered, you found the whole garden
filled with masks and spread with tents, which remained all night _very
commodely_. In one quarter, was a May-pole dressed with garlands, and
people dancing round it to a tabor and pipe and rustic music, all
masqued, as were all the various bands of music that were disposed in
different parts of the garden; some like huntsmen with French horns,
some like peasants, and a troop of harlequins and scaramouches in the
little open temple on the mount. On the canal was a sort of gondola,
adorned with flags and streamers, and filled with music, rowing about.
All round the outside of the amphitheatre were shops, filled with
Dresden china, japan, &c., and all the shopkeepers in mask. The
amphitheatre was illuminated; and in the middle was a circular bower,
composed of all kinds of firs in tubs, from twenty to thirty feet high:
under them orange-trees, with small lamps in each orange, and below them
all sorts of the finest auriculas in pots; and festoons of natural
flowers hanging from tree to tree. Between the arches too were firs, and
smaller ones in the balconies above. There were booths for tea and wine,
gaming-tables and dancing, and about two thousand persons. In short, it
pleased me more than anything I ever saw. It is to be once more, and
probably finer as to dresses, as there has since been a subscription
masquerade, and people will go in their rich