In
November (1737) she was attacked with what we should now call English
cholera. Dr. Tessier, her house-physician, was called in, and gave her
Daffey's elixir, which was not likely to afford any relief to the
deep-seated cause of her sufferings. She held a drawing-room that night
for the last time, and played at cards, even cheerfully. At length she
whispered to Lord Hervey, 'I am not able to entertain people.' 'For
heaven's sake, madam,' was the reply, 'go to your room: would to heaven
the king would leave off talking of the Dragon of Wantley, and release
you!' The Dragon of Wantley was a burlesque on the Italian opera, by
Henry Carey, and was the theme of the fashionable world.
The next day the queen was in fearful agony, very hot, and willing to
take anything proposed. Still she did not, even to Lord Hervey, avow the
real cause of her illness. None of the most learned court physicians,
neither Mead nor Wilmot, were called in. Lord Hervey sat by the queen's
bed-side, and tried to soothe her, whilst the Princess Caroline joined in
begging him to give her mother something to relieve her agony. At
length, in utter ignorance of the case, it was proposed to give her some
snakeroot, a stimulant, and, at the same time, Sir Walter Raleigh's
cordial; so singular was it thus to find that great mind still
influencing a court.
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