already.


LET. IX.

TO THE COUNTESS OF ----.

_Vienna, Sept_. 14. O. S.

THOUGH I have so lately troubled you, my dear sister, with a long
letter, yet I will keep my promise in giving you an account of my
first going to court. In order to that ceremony, I was squeezed up
in a gown, and adorned with a gorget and the other implements
thereunto belonging; a dress very inconvenient, but which certainly
shows the neck and shape to great advantage. I cannot forbear 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 diamonds, pearls, red, green, and yellow stones, that
it certainly requires as much art and experience to carry the load