This, only this, the rigid law pursues,
This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.
The sober trader, at a tattered cloak,
Wakes from his dream and labours for a joke;
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze,
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.
Of all the griefs that harass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart."


When Don Manoel's account of London was written the fashionable
world was only beginning to migrate from Covent Garden--once a
garden belonging to the Convent of Westminster, and the first London
square inhabited by persons of rank and fashion--to Grosvenor
Square, of which Don Manoel describes the new glories. They
included a gilt equestrian statue of King George I. in the middle of
its garden, to say nothing of kitchen areas to its houses, then
unusual enough to need special description: "To the kitchens and
offices, which have little paved yards with vaults before them, they
descend by twelve or fifteen steps, and these yards are defended by
a high palisade of iron." Altogether, we are told, Grosvenor Square
"may well be looked upon as the beauty of the town, and those who
have not seen it cannot have an adequate idea of the place."

But Covent Garden is named by "Don Manoel Gonzales," with St.
James's Park, as a gathering-place of the London world of fashion.
The neighbouring streets, it may be added, had many coffee-houses,
wine-cellars, fruit and jelly shops; fruit, flowers, and herbs were