Cache-Control: public, max-age=1024000 Covent Garden Ladies 1788: Miss Davenport

Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies for the year 1788

Miss Davenport

Miss D—v—np—rt, No 14, Lisle-street, Leicester-fields.

The nymphs like Nereids round her couch were plac'd,
Where she another sea-born Venus lay;
She lay and lean'd her cheek upon her hand,
And cast a look fo languishingly sweet,
As if secure of all beholders hearts,
Neglecting she could take 'em.

This young charmer, for she is not yet past the bloom of eighteen, has so beautiful a face, that though here and there the general ravager of beauty has left his dented marks in a skin, that the finest tints of the tulip, carnation, or rose, blended with the hue of the fairest lily, cannot equal, (so vastly superior is the vermilion tinge of nature, in this her choicest and most animated work over all other) yet their effect is rather pleas- ing than otherwise; and perhaps have tempered a blaze of beauty, which with- out them would have been insupportable. Her eyes are of that colour, which the celebrated Fielding has given the heroine ofhis most admirable work, and which dart a lustre peculiar to themselves. From such an eye each look has power to raise

"The loosest wishes in the chastest heart,"'

and melt the soul to all the thrillings of unasked desire, till quite overpowered with the transporting gaze, the senses faint, and hasten to enjoyment. Her hair is also black, of which great orna- ment, nature has been lavishly bountiful, for when loose, it flows in unlimited tresses down to her waist; nor are the tendrills of the moss covered grotto thinner distributed, but though not yet bushy, might truly be stiled Black Heath; how early this thicket of her maidenhead was penetrated through, by the natural invader of Middlesex, we cannot pretend to say; moft probably when it was only a small brake; for from its present state, and the extraordinary warmth of the soil, it must have began to shoot very early, and the mother of all things must have opened the sanguinary sluices in this delightful Channel, at an early period. The mount above, has a most delicious swell, as ambitious to receive on it downy bed, its swelling rival and antagonist, and it is so well clothed, that it may be justly called the Cyprian Grove; whilst her breasts are so fine and so fully shaped, as to entitle her to be stiled en bon point, in the richest sense of the words, and they have a springinness that defies any weight whatever, of amo- rous pressure. Here the voluptuary might revel in pleasure, better imagined than described, in

"Soft silent rapture and extatic bliss."

Her teeth are remarkably fine; she is tall, and so well proportioned (when you examine her whole naked figure, which she will permit you to do, if you per- form Cytherean Rites like an able priest) that she might be taken for a fourth Grace, or a breathing Animated Venus de Medicis. Her disposition and tem- per is remarkably good, so sweet that it is your own fault if it be soured; for she is possesed of an uncommon share of politeness, nothing rude or un- courteous in her manner, but abounding with civility and good breeding; her connections are good, and she has a keeper (a Mr. H—nn—h) both kind and liberal; notwithstanding which, she has no objection to two supernumerary guineas.