I, however, read the newspapers.
What my brother thinks of her majesty's case is not easy to divine;
but Sabre is convinced of the queen's guilt, upon some private and
authentic information which a friend of his, who has returned from
Italy, heard when travelling in that country. This information he
has not, however, repeated to me, so that it must be very bad. We
shall know all when the trial comes on. In the meantime, his
majesty, who has lived in dignified retirement since he came to the
throne, has taken up his abode, with rural felicity, in a cottage in
Windsor Forest; where he now, contemning all the pomp and follies of
his youth, and this metropolis, passes his days amidst his cabbages,
like Dioclesian, with innocence and tranquillity, far from the
intrigues of courtiers, and insensible to the murmuring waves of the
fluctuating populace, that set in with so strong a current towards
"the mob-led queen," as the divine Shakespeare has so beautifully
expressed it.
You ask me about Vauxhall Gardens;--I have not seen them--they are
no longer in fashion--the theatres are quite vulgar--even the opera-
house has sunk into a second-rate place of resort.
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