She shot a side-glance at the unfortunate Mrs. Howard who between the brow-beatings of her Sultan and the darts of the Queen was more to be pitied than envied on her glittering eminence. The lady curtseyed meekly. ’Twas not a subject she could handle with freedom. The Queen continued: “But is’t not a scandalous business that a person of her rank should announce her protection for a libertine and a——?” The chaplain’s loud Amen drowned the epithet in sanctity, and her Majesty and the prayers pursued their respective ways. “A bishopric would buy Swift,—he was always for sale in the late Queen’s day, and were it not that the man, though well enough as a lampooner, turns my stomach as a divine I would buy him tomorrow. But though not too squeamish myself I protest I can’t swallow him. This paper he has writ on Bolton is as fine as I have seen anywhere, if ’twere not disgraceful a man of his cloth should further such an intrigue. ’Tis plain he hath abandoned all hope of a bishopric or he had not done it. The raillery is excellent.” She picked up the paper from her table and read aloud— “‘’Tis to be sure an unpardonable proceeding and an affront to all religion that this love matter was not conducted with the decent slyness befitting the humour of a chaste people such as inhabit these Isles. Had the Duke of Bolton concealed the lady in such a bower as the Fair Rosamond’s and visited her by stealth (as indeed the example of a noble reticence is set us in the highest quarters where the very names of such ladies are unknown) there had been nothing but applause on a gallant freedom. ’Tis his Grace’s lamentable sincerity that is the rock of offence and may lead to disastrous consequences. For suppose it incumbent on great sovereigns to go with flourish of drums and trumpets to the ladies they delight to honour, to pension them from the public purse and what not, where shall it end? We may yet have the chaste names produced to the world that are whispered only by Princes in their hours of relaxation from the burdens of state, and the delicacy which now surrounds our court and others entirely disappear.’” Her Majesty read this with malicious enjoyment to see the colour mount in Mrs. Howard’s face. “The whole is worth studying as an example of irony,” says her Majesty, “and I commend it to you, my good Howard. Had Swift not chose the profession he has, he had been at the top now. I know none more neat in his sayings than— ‘A very little wit is valued in a woman as we are pleased with a few words spoken plain by a parrot.’— That’s one I recall daily.” “It can’t appear reasonable to your Majesty,” says Mrs. Howard endeavouring to make her court and hide her vexation. The Queen laughed aloud. “O, I can talk as foolish as another when I have a mind, and ’tis the reason why I can endure the follies of others as I do daily. See—my neck handkerchief, Howard. Here comes the King.”