| Citation |
BG.781.001
1 Jan 1781:21 (1375)
London, August 20. When the King was informed of the
capture of the East and West India fleets, by Don Louis de
Cordova, he was immediately seized with horrid paroxisms,
indicating the most violent symptoms of that species of
maddness, which attends persons in the east, when bit by a
tarantula. Lord North, the chief physician in politics,
sent directly for the band of state fiddlers, who having, as
on such occasions is usual played over several delectible
tunes to humour his Majesty's disorder, they at last fiddled
him into his senses, but he unfortunately relapsed
again---Lord North caught the disorder, and in a moment,
with epidemic swiftness, the whole court by its baneful
influence, were in a state of lunacy--Her Majesty the Queen
leaped out of bed naked as Venus; and the Prince of Wales
appeared as bare as Apollo of Delphini--The maids of honor
forgot their modesty: the lords in waiting forgot their
breeches; a general tumult ensued--The guards--the menial
domestics--and the lords of the council, with their
secretaries, mingled together in the great anti-chamber,
tag, rag & bobtail, where they danced and capered to and
fro, belly to belly, back to back, right and left, hands
across, &c. The doctors are disputing on the nature of the
distemper--the doctors of divinity are preparing to exercise
the spirit of madness which possessed the court--the doctors
of physic are preparing clysters and emetics to drive the
disorder up and down, and undertakers of the Kingdom are
snuffing for the funerals of such as might become defunct.
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