Sometimes he sought relaxation in Scarborough,
where fashionable beaux 'danced with the pretty ladies all night,' and
hundreds of Yorkshire country bumpkins 'played the inferior parts; and,
as it were, only tumble, whilst the others dance upon the high ropes of
gallantry.' Scarborough was full of Jacobites: the popular feeling was
then all rife against Sir Robert Walpole's excise scheme. Lord
Chesterfield thus wittily satirized that famous measure:--
'The people of this town are, at present, in great consternation upon a
report they have heard from London, which, if true, they think will ruin
them. They are informed, that considering the vast consumption of these
waters, there is a design laid of _excising_ them next session; and,
moreover, that as bathing in the sea is become the general practice of
both sexes, and as the kings of England have always been allowed to be
masters of the seas, every person so bathing shall be gauged, and pay so
much per foot square, as their cubical bulk amounts to.'
In 1733, Lord Chesterfield married Melusina, the supposed niece, but, in
fact, the daughter of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of George I.
This lady was presumed to be a great heiress, from the dominion which
her mother had over the king.
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