A Distinguished Traveller
Lady Cramly was, or rather had been during her husband’s lifetime, the authoress of a solitary work, upon the memory of which she still lived and revelled. She had published two volumes of travels. In some of the countries which she described she really had been, but in others certainly not; but wherever the scene was laid, Lady Cramly and Seraphine were at the top of the tree. Princes were proud to hand them to their carriage—crowned heads opened their palaces to receive them—Lady Cramly received medals, orders, and decorations, which never before had been conferred upon females. Seraphine—with a pug nose, low forehead, and high shoulders—had been painted by all the first artists, and modelled by all the first sculptors on the Continent. The book of travels had gone through eleven editions—Mr. Liberal, the eminent publisher, had made six thousand pounds by it, and would have made more, only that he had foolishly insisted, out of respect to the character of her particular friend the Pope, upon expunging the authoress’s account of her having waltzed with his Holiness at a masquerade during the carnival, to which he went only to have the pleasure of being her partner. Upon this circumstance, and her having been made a Burgher (or rather Burgheress) at Bruges (the only instance of the honour ever having been bestowed upon a lady), she not unfrequently descanted, and so often had she told the histories amongst others, that all who heard them, including Seraphine herself, felt certain, that if nobody else believed them, Lady Cramly did.
It was of Lady Cramly the wag said that her authority ought never to be doubted, for she must always be re-lied upon. Nevertheless, her poetical prose was very amusing, and upon Waller’s principle (we presume) she was certainly an extremely eloquent and entertaining companion.