The Mysteries of the Court of London by Pauline Clarendon — page 154: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE PRINCE OF WALES 151 bottles of scent, and cosmetics of all descriptions, a stranger would have imagined that this dressing-table was spread for, the use of at least a dozen persons; whereas all that luxury of the toilet was prepared for a single individual! On a large oval table in the middle of the chamber lay a miscellaneous collection of articles which to some extent bespoke the tastes of their royal owner, and in other respects served as an index to that wanton extravagance which lavished the gold wrung from the very vitals of the toiling millions, as if 1t were so much dross to be had for the mere trouble of stooping to pick it up. Boxing-gloves, foils, small swords, and single-sticks, riding and hunting whips, gold and silver spurs, new. bridles, Jockeys’ caps, and two or three pairs of white leathern tops for boots, fowling-pieces, duelling-pistols, rifles, powder-horns, shot-belts, and new flints for the locks of the firearms, a pile of indecent pictures just imported from Paris,— and the more calculated to inflame the imagination because the designs and the colouring were executed with an artistic perfection and a natural truthfulness well worthy of better subjects, — several elegantly bound books, the contents of which would bring a blush to the cheeks of even the inmates of a brothel, a quantity of China monsters, which were much in vogue in those days and fetched an immense price, watches, rings, breastpins, stars, orders, and diamond garters, — all heaped pell-mell as if they were things of no worth, — ex- quisite specimens of the beautiful art of carving in ivory, displayed in miniature figures representing the most eminent actresses of the age, curious articles of virtu, —-such as old coins, fragments of weapons used by the ancient Britons, pieces of pottery dug up from the ruins of a Roman villa, and even Catholic relics for which enormous sums had been given, — innumerable letters and billets-doux, from a count- less host of ladies, and all scattered in the greatest confusion, some of them indeed never having been era while out of others peeped locks of hair, Gch were the principal items in that miscellaneous galection which covered the table in the centre of the room. On a chiffonier placed between two of the windows stood a large and remarkably handsome writing-desk, of a dark wood inlaid with golden ornaments of exquisite and very curious workmanship, and the lock was coztrived in such Gomilcboo CS (Ele)