Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

348 THE PRINCESS LOUISA MARY. [1707.
"I know not," says Hamilton, "whether she lias bestowed
a single thought on you, since your departure, but I know,
even if she did, that a certain little son of nay Lady
Strickland, that widow uppermost, would cut the grass
from under your feet, at a fine rate. Although he is
neither so high in rank, nor so fine in his array as yourself,
neither has he won such great renown by military exploits,
yet he is very much the fashion in this court, whatever he
be. I have two words of advice to give you, in order to
enable you to retain her highness's favour. One is that
you get rid of your nickname, Brochet, or the pike, for she
has no taste for that fish ; the other, that immediately you
return, you set about learning a dance, which she has
composed, called les quatre faces. It is a dance which
seems to have been made on purpose for you, for you must
hold yourself as straight as a pike, make nine pirouettes to
the right, and eight to the left, without taking breath, and
then you will have to leap fifteen times, five feet only
from the ground. This is how I have seen him dance to
her royal highness, when in the midst of her young
nymphs." % ^
Whether Count Hamilton was in jest, or earnest,
touching the partiality of the Princess for her early play-
fellow, it is not easy to decide ; but it is certain that the
handsome Eoger Strickland, was prudently removed soon
after, from the perilous honour of being selected by her
royal highness for her partner, iu practising the steps and
movements in the figure dances invented by her for the
Shrovetide fetes.
* He was appointed page of honour to the Prince of Cond^, on that
prince endeavouring to be elected King of Poland, and died at Warsaw
in the flower of his a?e.