EUROPEAN FAME 203 



believe the book the infamous Gorani has written against 

 her : 'tis all false. 



" We go to town to-morrow to prepare for Sunday, 

 the King's birthday. We have a dinner of a hundred, 

 and an assembly of a thousand in the evening. In 

 England, where you count nobility by the hundreds, 

 we count them by thousands ; for at my ball of a 

 thousand there will be at least eight hundred Duchesses, 

 Princesses, etc. ; and not one of them worth a good 

 farmer's wife in England. However, I wish you was 

 there ; you would be delighted with the country and 

 characters. 



" I wish I could send you a curiosity I have got, 

 that you might examine her before the Royal Society. 

 Tis an old woman of 112, but she looks so young you 

 would not give her more than 50. She has neither teeth 

 nor gums ; she was blind, lame, and wrinkled till she 

 entered her hundredth year. She then, like a serpent, 

 changed her skin. Her eyesight came back ; she walked ; 

 and her skin became as fine as any young girl's ; her 

 neck, arms, etc., are very round, fine, and hard ; her 

 voice is like a girl's of ten years old ; she sings like a girl 

 whose voice is still changing from the girl to the woman ; 

 her memory is perfect, as she tells me things of the last 

 century ; not the least deaf ; has been fifty years a 

 widow ; had thirteen children, all dead of old age ; she 

 walks ten or twelve miles a day ; if sick, does not eat for 

 two days, and gets well. We asked her how she had con- 

 trived to live so long. Her answer was, ' Signora, non ho 

 preso mai ne medicamenti ne collera.' Her name is 

 Mary, but she is called Mariuccia, which is the abbreviation 

 of Mary, what we should say Polly. She has had a third 

 set of teeth ten years ago ; but drinking lemonade sour, 

 they all dissolved, as they were like the teeth of a fish. 

 She has five [?] a day to live on from the King, and I gave 

 her to eat. I told her I would speak to the Queen to get 



