SOCIETY AT ROYAL TUNBRIDGE WELLS - Online Book

People, Society & Culture of Tunbridge Wells in the 18th Century & later.

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Eighteenth Century Post-Bag
leave no method untried to pay their Court. If she laughs (and sometimes Princesses laugh at nothing) we all grinn, remembering the good old saying, " the frightfull'st Grinner, be the Winner." If she looks grave, we put on countenances more sorrowfull than the Mutes at a Funeral. When She walks, the Lame and the Blind hobble after Her. If she complains of the Toothache, the ugly faces of the Women of Quality are wrop'd up in Flannel. In all reasonable Pleasures, nay in Pains as far as the Toothache and the Vapours, we humbly imitate her. . . . Under the Rose, I believe the renowned Wells are not of any great use. We are ordered down here commonly pour la Maladie Imaginaire, for the spirits and the melancholy to which our whole Nation are too subject. The Diversions and Amuse­ments of the Place send us home again chear-full, and the foggy Air of London with the common Disappointments of Life urge our Return the following Year. The Water has a brackish taste never palatable. The situa­tion of the Wells is pretty, the houses are not bad, and the Environs, amongst which is Penshurst, are delightfull. Among the in­finite variety of People now here there is a
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