Gazetter and Daily New Advertiser 22nd August 1780
For the GAZETTEER
Envy will kill, and ungratified detraction will consume, as sure as a cannon ball or a decline.
HOWEVER the daughters of detraction may invent lyes and fight against the fair Perdita, it must gratify her vanity to see the universal envy she has lighted up in the bosoms of her would-be rival countrywomen. Every laughable paragraph tends to encrease her consequence by proving the disappointed and wretched situation of half her sex. Perdita’s good fortune has caused more real anguish of mind in the female world than can be well imagined or described; and those who affect to disbelieve the reality of it now break forth with double vengeance to rail and aim at what they cannot reach. Bankrupts in fame, beauty, and all those accomplishments of the mind and graces of person which captivate the hearts of men, danglers, and puppies alike, those antiquated bona rebas divide their time between their city uncles, their stage and critic instructors, and their message acquaintance. This last worshipful society may not be sufficiently under the general description here given, but to the cognoscenti, the term will appear perfectly intelligible.
Not being one of the cognoscenti – I will need to seek out the meaning of “message acquaintance”.
Perditasroom's Blog 
Leave a comment