The coach was drawn by six milk-white
horses, and loaden behind with the same number of powdered footmen.
Just before the lady were a couple of beautiful pages, that were
stuck among the harness, and, by their gay dresses and smiling
features, looked like the elder brothers of the little boys that
were carved and painted in every corner of the coach.
The lady was the unfortunate Cleanthe, who afterwards gave an
occasion to a pretty melancholy novel. She had for several years
received the addresses of a gentleman, whom, after a long and
intimate acquaintance, she forsook upon the account of this shining
equipage, which had been offered to her by one of great riches but a
crazy constitution. The circumstances in which I saw her were, it
seems, the disguises only of a broken heart, and a kind of pageantry
to cover distress, for in two months after, she was carried to her
grave with the same pomp and magnificence, being sent thither partly
by the loss of one lover and partly by the possession of another.
I have often reflected with myself on this unaccountable humour in
womankind, of being smitten with everything that is showy and
superficial; and on the numberless evils that befall the sex from
this light fantastical disposition.
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