Lady Mary Wortley Montague

Not long after this business, in fact, in February, 1752, Lady Mary was reporting that she was well enough in health. She had been reading Coventry's Pompey the Little, and tells her daughter that she saw herself in the character of Mrs. Qualmsick:

"You will be surprised at this, no Englishwoman being so free from vapours, having never in my life complained of low spirits or weak nerves; but our resemblance is very strong in the fancied loss of appetite, which I have been silly enough to be persuaded into by the physician of this place. He visits me frequently, as being one of the most considerable men in the parish, and is a grave, sober thinking great fool, whose solemn appearance, and deliberate way of delivering his