Settlement, which was placed full in the eye of the virgin that sat
upon the throne. Both the sides of the hall were covered with such
Acts of Parliament as had been made for the establishment of public
funds. The lady seemed to set an unspeakable value upon these
several pieces of furniture, insomuch that she often refreshed her
eye with them, and often smiled with a secret pleasure as she looked
upon them; but, at the same time, showed a very particular
uneasiness if she saw anything approaching that might hurt them.
She appeared, indeed, infinitely timorous in all her behaviour: and
whether it was from the delicacy of her constitution, or that she
was troubled with vapours, as I was afterwards told by one who I
found was none of her well-wishers, she changed colour and startled
at everything she heard. She was likewise, as I afterwards found, a
greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with, even in her own
sex, and subject to such momentary consumptions, that in the
twinkling of an eye, she would fall away from the most florid
complexion and the most healthful state of body, and wither into a
skeleton. Her recoveries were often as sudden as her decays,
insomuch that she would revive in a moment out of a wasting
distemper, into a habit of the highest health and vigour.

I had very soon an opportunity of observing these quick turns and
changes in her constitution. There sat at her feet a couple of
secretaries, who received every hour letters from all parts of the
world, which the one or the other of them was perpetually reading to
her; and according to the news she heard, to which she was
exceedingly attentive, she changed colour, and discovered many
symptoms of health or sickness.

Behind the throne was a prodigious heap of bags of money, which were