there for the sake of it.
The Lord Jermin, afterwards Lord Dover, and, since his lordship’s
decease, Sir Robert Davers, enjoyed the most delicious seat of
Rushbrook, near this town.
The present members of Parliament for this place are Jermyn Davers
and James Reynolds, Esquires.
Mr. Harvey, afterwards created Lord Harvey, by King William, and
since that made Earl of Bristol by King George, lived many years in
this town, leaving a noble and pleasantly situated house in
Lincolnshire, for the more agreeable living on a spot so completely
qualified for a life of delight as this of Bury.
The Duke of Grafton, now Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, has also a
stately house at Euston, near this town, which he enjoys in right
of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Arlington, one of the chief
ministers of State in the reign of King Charles II., and who made
the second letter in the word “cabal,” a word formed by that famous
satirist Andrew Marvell, to represent the five heads of the
politics of that time, as the word “smectymnus” was on a former
occasion.
I shall believe nothing so scandalous of the ladies of this town
and the country round it as a late writer insinuates. That the
ladies round the country appear mighty gay and agreeable at the
time of the fair in this town I acknowledge; one hardly sees such a
show in any part of the world; but to suggest they come hither, as
to a market, is so coarse a jest, that the gentlemen that wait on
them hither (for they rarely come but in good company) ought to
resent and correct him for it.
It is true, Bury Fair, like Bartholomew Fair, is a fair for
diversion, more than for trade; and it may be a fair for toys and
for trinkets, which the ladies may think fit to lay out some of
their money in, as they see occasion. But to judge from thence
that the knights’ daughters of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk
– that is to say, for it cannot be understood any otherwise, the
daughters of all the gentry of the three counties – come hither to
be picked up, is a way of speaking I never before heard any author
have the assurance to make use of in print.
The assembly he justly commends for the bright appearance of the
beauties; but with a sting in the tail of this compliment, where he
says they seldom end without some considerable match or intrigue;
and yet he owns that during the fair these assemblies are held
every night. Now that these fine ladies go intriguing every night,
and that too after the comedy is done, which is after the fair and
raffling is over for the day, so that it must be very late. This
is a terrible character for the ladies of Bury, and intimates, in
short, that most of them are loose women, which is a horrid abuse
upon the whole country.
Now, though I like not the assemblies at all, and shall in another
place give them something of their due, yet having the opportunity
to see the fair at Bury, and to see that there were, indeed,
abundance of the finest ladies, or as fine as any in Britain, yet I
must own the number of the ladies at the comedy, or at the
assembly, is no way equal to the number that are seen in the town,
much less are they equal to the whole body of the ladies in the
three counties; and I must also add, that though it is far from
true that all that appear at the assembly are there for matches or
intrigues, yet I will venture to say that they are not the worst of
the ladies who stay away, neither are they the fewest in number or
the meanest in beauty, but just the contrary; and I do not at all
doubt, but that the scandalous liberty some take at those
assemblies will in time bring them out of credit with the virtuous
part of the sex here, as it has done already in Kent and other
places, and that those ladies who most value their reputation will