of the ancients, we seldom deal in any other manufacture;
and, though nature, after new combinations, lets forth new
characteristics, it is very rarely that they are added to the old fund;
else how could so striking a remark have escaped being made, as mine, on
the joint ingredients of tiger and monkey? In France the latter
predominates, in England the former; but, like Orozmades and
Arimanius,[1] they get the better by turns. The bankruptcy in France,
and the rigours of the new Comptroller-General, are half forgotten, in
the expectation of a new opera at the new theatre. Our civil war has
been lulled asleep by a Subscription Masquerade, for which the House of
Commons literally adjourned yesterday. Instead of Fairfaxes and
Cromwells, we have had a crowd of Henry the Eighths, Wolseys, Vandykes,
and Harlequins; and because Wilkes was not mask enough, we had a man
dressed like him, with a visor, in imitation of his squint, and a Cap of
Liberty on a pole. In short, sixteen or eighteen young lords have given
the town a Masquerade; and politics, for the last fortnight, were forced
to give way to habit-makers. The ball was last night at Soho; and, if
possible, was more magnificent than the King of Denmark's. The Bishops
opposed: he of London formally remonstrated to the King, who did not
approve it, but could not help him. The consequence was, that four
divine vessels belonging to the holy fathers, alias their wives, were at
this Masquerade. Monkey again! A fair widow,[2] who once bore my whole
name, and now bears half of it, was there, with one of those whom the
newspapers call _great personages_--he dressed like Edward the Fourth,
she like Elizabeth Woodville,[3] in grey and pearls, with a black veil.
Methinks it was not very difficult to find out the meaning of those
masks.

[Footnote 1: "_Orozmades and Arimanius._" In the Persian theology
Orozmades and Ahriman are the good and bad angels. In Scott's "Talisman"
the disguised Saracen (Saladin) invokes Ahriman as "the dark spirit." In
one of his earlier letters Walpole describes his friend Gray as
Orozmades.]

[Footnote 2: "_A fair widow._" Lady Waldegrave, a natural daughter of
Walpole's uncle, married the King's favourite brother, the Duke of
Gloucester, the _great personage_. The King was very indignant at the
_mesalliance_; and this marriage, with that of the King's other brother,
the Duke of Cumberland, to Mrs. Horton, led to the enactment of the
Royal Marriage Act.]