andsome.

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 could boast of being the
only one in her favour; so no person could complain of having been ill
received.

Jermyn was displeased that she had made no advances to him, without
considering that she had no leisure for it; his pride was offended; but
the attempt which he made to take her from the rest of her lovers was
very ill-advised.

Thomas Howard, brother to the Earl of Carlisle, was one of them; there
was not a braver, nor a more genteel man in England; and though he was
of a modest demeanour, and his manners appeared gentle and pacific, no
person was more spirited nor more passionate. Lady Shrewsbury,
inconsiderately returning the first ogles of the invincible Jermyn, did
not at all make herself more agreeable to Howard; that, however, she paid
little attention to; yet, as she designed to keep fair with him, she
consented to accept an entertainment which he had often proposed, and
which she durst no longer refuse. A place of amusement, called Spring
Garden,--was fixed upon for the scene of this entertainment.

As soon as the party was settled, Jermyn was privately informed of it.
Howard had a company in the regiment of guards, and one of the soldiers
of his company played pretty well on the bagpipes; this soldier was
therefore at the entertainment. Jermyn was at the garden, as by chance;
and, puffed up with his former successes, he trusted to his victorious
air for accomplishing this last enterprise; he no sooner appeared on the
walks, than her ladyship showed herself upon the balcony.

I know not how she stood affected to her hero; but Howard did not fancy
him much; this did not prevent his coming up stairs upon the first sign
she made to him; and not content with acting the petty tyrant, at an
entertainment not made for himself, no sooner had he gained the soft
looks of the fair one, than he exhausted all his common-place, and all
his stock of low irony, in railing at the entertainment, and ridiculing
the music.

[Spring Garden: Th