YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
From the Estate of
Prof . W. Walker

MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENGLAND
During the Reigns of William and Mary, Queen
Anne, and the First and Second Georges
Volume III.

Memoirs of John Heneage Jesse
<^
Complete in 30 volumes
«^
Now ready
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENG
LAND, duting the reigns of the Stuarts,
including the Protectorate of Oliver Crom
well .  6 vols.
MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF ENG
LAND, during the reigns of 'William and
Mary, Queen Anne, and the First and
Second Georges ...... 4 vols.
MEMOIRS OF THE PRETENDERS AND
THEIR ADHERENTS . . . . 3 vols.
HISTORICAL AND LITERARY MEMa
RIALS OF THE CITY OF LONDON 2 vols.
In preparation
MEMOIRS OF RICHARD THE THIRD . J voL
MEMOIRS OF GEORGE THE THIRD . 5 vols.
MEMOIRS OF GEORGE SELWYN AND
HIS CONTEMPORARIES ... 4 vols.
MEMOIRS OF CELEBRATED ETONL\NS 2 vols.
MEMOIRS OF LONDON AND ITS CE
LEBRITIES  3 vols.
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L. C PAGE & COMPANY
Publishers
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" FooU k^t backing and bowing.'
Original etching by Adrian Marcel.

Memoirs of the Court
of England ^ %^ ^
During the Reigns of William and Mary,
Queen Anne, and the First and Second
Georges .^ ^ ^ .at jt
By
John Heneage Jesse
In Four Volumes
Volume III.

Boston J- Ji J- J> J>
L. C. Page & Company
j^ J. J^ MDCCCCI

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER 1.
CHARLES MORDAUNT, EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. paob
Lord Peterborough's Romantic and Adventurous Tum of
Mind — His Birth — Embarks for Tangiers — Joins the
Prince of Orange at The Hague, and Is Subsequently
Appointed a Lord of the Bedchamber and First Lord Com
missioner of the Treasury — Created Earl of Monmouth
— Serves under King William — Engaged in an Intrigue
against the Duke of Ormond and Lord Orford — Pub
lishes an Attack against the Duke — Committed to the
Tower in Consequence — His Publication Bumed by the
Common Hangman — Succeeds to the Earldom of Peter
borough — Gets into Favour with Queen Anne — Anec
dote of the Earl Related by Richardson — The Earl's
Contempt for Appearances — His Letter to Pope — His
Admiration of Penn the Quaker — Accompanies Him to
Pennsylvania — His Character as a Letter Writer —
Specimen of His Poetry — His Literary Society — Pope's
Account of His Last Illness — His Singular Letter to
Lady Suffolk — His Death — Sketch of His Person —
His Autobiography Suppressed by His Widow . . 21
CHAPTER II.
FRANCIS ATTERBURY, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
Educated at Westminster and Oxford — His Literary Attain
ments — Assists His Pupil, C. Boyle, in His Dispute with
7

8 CONTENTS. PAGE
Bentley — His Jacobitism — His Letter to His Father
— His Skepticism in Early Life — Enters into Holy
Orders — Marries a Lady of Fortune — Appointed Chap
lain in Ordinary to King William — Enters into a
Controversy with Doctor Wake — Created Dean of
Westminster and Bishop of Rochester — His Polemical
Controversies — The Reputed Author of the Speech
Made by Sacheverel on His Trial — George the First's
Accession Fatal to Atterbury's Ambitious Hopes — His
Disaffection — Committal to the Tower — Speaker Ons
low's Character of Him — Public Sympathy for Atter-
bury — His Harsh Treatment in the Tower — His Letter
to Pope — His Eloquent Speech on His Trial — Sen
tence Passed on Him — Trial of Strength between
Atterbury and Sir R. Walpole during the Proceedings
against the Former — Atterbury Quits England, and
Resides Chiefly in Paris till His Death — Death of His
Favourite Daughter — The Duke of Wharton's Poetical
Address to Atterbury — Atterbury's Letter to Diccon-
son on His Daughter's Death — His Last Meeting with
Her at Toulouse — His Death at Paris in 1731 — His
Body Brought to England, and the Coffin Opened by
Order of Government — His Interment in Westminster
Abbey  5*
CHAPTER IIL
MRS. MASHAM.
Abigail Hill, Afterward Mrs. Masham, Daughter of Mr.
Hill, a Turkey Merchant — Placed as a Waiting-woman
with Lady Rivers — Her Relationship to the Duchess of
Marlborough, Who Places Her in the Queen's House
hold — Anecdote of Her Related by the Duchess — The
Latter's Communication to Bishop Burnet — Extract
from the Duchess's Memoirs — Her Kindness to the
Hill Family — Abigail Hill's Marriage to Mr. Masham,
Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince George of
Denmark — Queen Anne Present at the Ceremony —

CONTENTS. 9
PAGE
Extracts from the Duchess of Marlborough's Memoirs
— The Duke's Remarks on Mrs. Masham's Influence
— His Letter to the Queen — Brief Account of Mr.
Masham — He Is Created Baron Masham of Otes —
Lord Dartmouth's and Swift's Opinions of Mrs. Masham
— She Retires with Her Husband, on the Death of
the Queen, to Her Seat at Otes — John Locke Their
Guest — Mrs. Masham's Death in 1734 . . .85
CHAPTER IV.
ROBERT FIELDING, BEAU FIELDING.
Beau Fielding, the " Orlando " of the Tatler — Descended
from an Old Warwickshire Family — Sent to London to
Study the Law — His Great Personal Beauty and Fop
pish Habits — His Extraordinary Popularity with the
Fair Sex — His Success as a Gambler — Fantastic Liv
eries of His Servants — Portraits of Him by the Three
Great Artists of the Day — His First Wife, Daughter and
Heiress of Lord Carlingf ord — His Second, the Celebrated
Duchess of Cleveland, Mistress of Charles the Second
— Their Matrimonial Unhappiness — Duchess's Dis
covery that He Had Committed Bigamy — He Is Tried
at the Old Bailey — Singular Evidence Adduced at the
Trial Respecting Fielding's Intrigues to Obtain the Hand
of a Rich Widow, Deleau — Curious Statement Made
by the Counsel for the Prosecution — Evidence of Mrs.
Villars, and of Fielding's Servant, Boucher — Fielding
Found Guilty, but Afterward Pardoned by Queen Anne
— His Marriage with the Duchess of Cleveland Annulled loi
CHAPTER V.
BEAU V^riLSON.
Beau Wilson's Mysterious Rise from Poverty to Affluence
— Serves a Campaign in Flanders — Is Broken for
Cowardice, and Retums to England with Forty Shil-

IO CONTENTS. P&GB
lings in His Pocket— His Extraordinary Show of
Wealth Immediately after His Return — Various Con
jectures on the Subject — Extract from Madame Dunois's
Memoirs — Her Belief That Wilson Owed His Good
Fortune to the Favour of the Duchess of Cleveland —
Wilson Engaged in a Duel with Law, and Killed — Extract
from Evelyn's Diary — Law Tried and Condemned — His
Escape from Prison— His Death at Venice m 1729 . 114
CHAPTER VI.
GEORGE THE FIRST.
His Birth — His Near Relationship to the Stuarts — Sketch
of His Mother — Serves a Campaign under His Father,
When in His Fifteenth Year — Fights in the Im
perial Army against the Turks — Accompanies King
William during a Series of Campaigns — Created by
Him a Knight of the Garter — Is Subsequently Created,
by Queen Anne, Marquis and Duke of Cambridge, etc.,
with Precedency of All the Peers of Great Britain —
Visits England with a View to Make Overtures for the
Hand of the Princess Anne, Afterward Queen — Recalled
by His Father, and Forced to Marry the Daughter of
the Duke of Zell — Story of Sophia Dorothea, of Zell
— Her Compulsory Marriage with George the First in
Her Sixteenth Year — Her Beauty and Intelligence —
Neglected and Insulted by Her Husband — Count
Coningsmark's Avowed Admiration of Her — Indig
nation of Her Father-in-law — Imprisoned in the Castle
of Alden — Divorced from Her Husband in 1694 — Her
Criminality Doubtful — Her Son's Affection for Her —
Her Dignified Conduct during Her Imprisonment —
Her Death in 1726 — George the First's Accession to
the English Throne — His Indifference on the Subject
— His Arrival at Greenwich — Anecdote — His Person
and Habits — Extracts from Horace Walpole and
Archdeacon Coxe — The King's Male Favourites —
Their Rapacity — The King's Aversion to the English
— His Profligate Expenditure  120

CONTENTS. II
PAGE
CHAPTER VIL
GEORGE THE FIRST.
Attachment of the University of Oxford to the House of
Stuart — Whig Principles of the University of Cambridge
— Doctor Trapp's Epigram on the Occasion — Sir W.
Browne's Retort — James Shepherd's Attempt to Assas
sinate the King — His Execution — Lord Chesterfield's
Remark on the Subject — The King's Good-humour,
and Love of Music — His Aversion to Pomp — Anecdote
of His Humour — Anecdotes of the Duchess of Bolton
and of Dean Lockier — The King's Liberality of Feeling
toward the House of Stuart — Extract from Horace
Walpole — The King's Generosity toward Prisoners for
Debt — Horace Walpole Presented to Him, When a
Mere Child — His Account of the Presentation —
The King's Liaison with Anne Brett, Daughter of the
Repudiated Countess of Macclesfield, by Her Second Hus
band — Her Insolence and Ambition — Anecdote of Her
Related by Horace Walpole — The King's Superstitious
Feehngs— He Orders His Wife's WiU to Be Bumed —
His Hatred of Her and His Son, George the Second —
His Departure from England in 1727 for His Electorate
— Archdeacon Coxe's Details of His Last Dlness — Ex
tract from the Marchmont Papers — Romantic Anecdote
Related by Lockhart — ^The King's Death in 1727 —
His Character as a Man, and as a King — His Indif
ferent Education — Anecdote of Him — His Daughter
Sophia Dorothea Married in 1 706 to Frederick William,
King of Prussia — Her Beauty and InteUigence — Her
Husband's Brutal Treatment of Her — Her Death in
1757  14S
CHAPTER VIIL
MELESINA, DUCHESS OF KENDAL.
Sister of the Count of Schulenberg — Appointed Maid of
Honour to the Electress Sophia, Mother of George the

12 CONTENTS. PAGE
First — The Duchess's Birth in 1659 — Her Personal
Appearance — Reluctantly Accompanies George the First
to England — Created an Irish Peeress, Duchess of
Munster, in 1716 — Afterward Created an English Peer
ess, Duchess of Kendal, for Life, and Subsequently Prin
cess of Eberstein in Germany — Supposed to Have
Contracted a Left-handed Marriage with George the
First — Her Assumption of Piety — Sir R. Walpole's
Mean Opinion of Her — Her Pohtical Influence — Let
ter Respecting Her from Count Broglio to Louis the
Fifteenth — The Latter's Reply — The Duchess Presides
at the King's Evening Parties — His Nightly Visits
to Her Apartments — Accompanies Him on His Last
Visit to Hanover — Her Grief on Hearing of His Death
— Singular Anecdote — The Duchess's Death in 1743 . 165

CHAPTER IX.
SOPHIA CHARLOTTE, COUNTESS OF PLATEN AND DARLINGTON.
Sister of Count Platen, One of the Most Influential Noble
men in Hanover — The Family of Platen Supply the
Electoral House with Mistresses — The Young Countess
Taken by her Ambitious Mother to the Electoral Court
— She Thwarts Her Mother's Schemes by Falling in
Love with the Son of a Hamburg Merchant — She Mar
ries Him, in Order to Preserve Her Character — Her
Mother's Disappointment and Death — The Countess
Separates from Her Husband, and Squanders the For
tune Left Her by Her Mother — Becomes George the
First's Mistress — His Vexation at Her Indiscretions
and Extravagance — She Accompanies Him to England
— Character of Her by Lady M. W. Montagu — Her
Liaison with Mr. Methuen — Created Countess of
Darlington — Horace Walpole's Portrait of Her in Her
Old Age — Her Daughter by George the First Married
to Viscount Howe of Ireland — Death of the Countess in
1730  174

CONTENTS. 13
PAGE
CHAPTER X.
PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.
His Birth — His Early Thirst for Distinction — Lord Gal.
way's Advice to Him — His Opinion of the University
of Cambridge — His Habits of Life There — His Own
Account of His Pedantry — Makes the Tour of Europe
— Elected Member for St. Germains, and Appointed
Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Prince — Ap
pointed Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard in 1723
— Succeeds to the Earldom — Sent Ambassador to
Holland — • His Splendid Style of Living — Extracts
from the Suffolk Correspondence — Created a Knight
of the Garter — Takes an Active Part in the Debates
of the House of Lords — Opposes the Excise Bill, and Is
Dismissed from All His Offices — Marries the Duchess of
Kendal's Reputed Niece — Appointed Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland — His Successful Administration There —
Appointed Principal Secretary of State — Resigns His
Secretaryship — Horace Walpole's High Opinion of His
Eloquence — His Wit and Conversational Powers —
Pope's Compliment to the Earl's Wit— The Earl's
Epigram on Sir Thomas Robinson — His Literary Asso
ciates — His Patronage of Literary Men — Specimen
of His Versification — His Attachment to His Natural
Son — Addresses His Celebrated Letters to Him —
Character of the Letters — Sarcastic Epigram on Them
— Character of the Earl's Natural Son — His Death in
1768 — Publication of the Letters in 1774 — The Earl in
His Old Age — Characteristic Anecdote of His Last Mo
ments — His Death in 1773  '80
CHAPTER XL
JOHN, LORD HERVEY.
Eldest Son of the First Earl of Bristol — His Birth in 1696
— Educated at Cambridge — Appointed Gentleman of
the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales — Retumed

14 CONTENTS. PAGE
to Parliament for Edmondsbury — Called to the House
of Peers as Lord Hervey, of Ickworth, during His
Father's Lifetime — Nominated Keeper of the Privy
Seal in 1740 — His Oratorical Powers — Supports Sir
Robert Walpole- — Resigns the Privy Seal on the Over
throw of That Minister — His Political Writings — His
Duel with Pulteney — Circumstances That Gave Rise to
It — Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's Verses on the Duel
— Lord Hervey's Quarrel with Pope — The Latter Sati
rises Him under the Character of Sporus — Lord Hailes's
Account of Lord Hervey — Extract from Archdeacon
Coxe — Personal Warfare Commenced by Lord Hervey
on Pope — His Satirical Address to That Poet — Pope's
Prose Letter to Lord Hervey — Suppressed during Their
Lifetime — Brief Memoir of Hammond, the Poet — His
Unfortunate Attachment to Catherine Dashwood, Ward
of Lord Hervey — The Latter's Opposition to Their
Union — Hammond's Despondency in Consequence, and
Death in His Thirty-third Year, 1742 — Doctor Middle-
ton's Fulsome Dedication of His Life of Cicero to Lord
Hervey — The Latter's Unamiable Character — Queen
Caroline's Partiality for Him — His Effeminacy and
Affectation — His Success with the Fair Sex — Prin
cess Caroline's Romantic Attachment to Him — His
Desertion of Sir Robert Walpole — Extracts from
Horace Walpole's Letters — Lord Hervey's Death in
1743  2"

CHAPTER XII.
MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY.
Daughter of General Lepel — Born in 1700 — Appointed
at an Early Age Maid of Honour to the Princess of
Wales, Afterward Queen Caroline, and Mistress of
the Robes on the Princess's Accession — Miss Lepel's
Extraordinary Beauty and Accomplishments — Extracts
from the "Suffolk Correspondence" — Pope's Admira
tion of the Young Beauty — His Moonlight Walk with

CONTENTS. 15
PAGE
Her in the Gardens at Hampton Court, and Letter on
the Subject — His Poetical Address to Miss Howe —
Compliments by Gay and Voltaire to Miss Lepel — Lord
Chesterfield's Praises of Her Manners and Accomplish
ments — Lively Verses Addressed to Her by Lords
Chesterfield and Bath — Her Marriage in 1720 to Lord
Hervey — Extract from Lady Montagu's Letters — Quar
rel with Lady Hervey — Singular Particulars Respecting
Its Origin — Lady Hervey's French Tastes and Partialities
— Her Education of Her Children — Her Irreligious
Feelings, and Repeated Attacks of Illness — Churchill's
Eulogium on Her Youngest Daughter, Lady Caroline
— Lady Hervey's Death in 1768 — Posthumous Pubhca
tion of Her Letters — Their Character .... 231

CHAPTER XIIL
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.
Her Birth in 1690 — Her Early Love of Reading — Teaches
Herself Latin, and Translates Epictetus — Anecdote of
Her Father Related by Herself — Her Acquaintance
with Mr. Wortley Montagu — His Literary Tastes —
He Proposes for Her Hand to Her Father, and Is Re
jected — He Elopes with and Is Privately Married to Her
— Lady Mary's First Appearance at St. James's — Attends
the Evening Parties of George the First — Accompanies
Her Husband on His Embassy to Constantinople — Her
Familiarity with the Turkish Ladies — Anecdote — Intro
duces into England the Oriental Practice of Inoculation
for the Smallpox — Returns Home, and Takes a House
at Twickenham — Her Intimacy with Pope — Addison
Warns Her against Him — Her Subsequent Quarrel
with Pope — Her Account of Its Origin — Her Splenetic
Feelings toward Him — Retires to the Continent —
Her Separation from Her Husband — Extracts from
Horace Walpole's Letters — Pope's Remarks on Lady
Mary's Want of Cleanliness — Anecdote of Lady Mary
— Indecency of Some of Her Letters — Brief Memoir

l6 CONTENTS. PAGE
of Her Son, Edward Wortley Montagu — His Eccen
tricities Abroad — Extract from Horace Walpole's Let
ters  Mr. Montagu Disinherited on His Father's Death
 jjis Extraordinary Advertisement in the Public
Advertiser — His Sudden Death at Lyons — His Literary
Production — Lady Mary's Retum to England after the
Death of Her Husband— Horace Walpole's Descrip
tion of Her— Her Death  251
CHAPTER XIV.
MARY BELLENDEN.
Daughter of the Second Lord Bellenden — At an Early
Age Appointed Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales
— Her Great Vivacity and Wit — Horace Walpole's
Description of Her — Extract from Gay's " Welcome
to Pope" — George the Second's Admiration of Her —
Anecdotes — Her Private Marriage in 1720 to Colonel
Campbell, Afterward Duke of Argyle — Specimen of Her
Epistolary Style from the "Suffolk Correspondence" —
Period of Her Death — Enumeration of Her Family . 285
CHAPTER XV.
GEORGE THE SECOND.
His Birth in 1683 — Early Neglected by His Father, George
the First — His Marriage — Made a Knight of the Garter
in 1706, and Created Duke of Cambridge, vrith Pre
cedence over All Other Peers — Serves under Marl
borough, and Is Present at the Battle of Oudenarde in
1 708 — His Daring Valour on That Occasion — Anecdote
of Him — Created Prince of Wales on the Accession of
His Father to the Throne — Extract from Lady M. W.
Montagu's Works — Origin of the Misunderstanding
between the Prince and His Father — Extract from
Horace Walpole — Put under Arrest, and Deprived of
the Appurtenances of Royalty — Singular Paper, Relative
to the Prince, Found in George the First's Cabinet

CONTENTS. 17
PAGE
after His Death — Extract from the Marchmont Papers
— The King's Attempt to Deprive the Prince and
Princess of All Power over Their Own ChUdren — The
Twelve Judges Consulted on the Occasion — Sir Robert
Walpole Effects a Partial Reconciliation between the
King and the Prince — Death of George the First,
and Proclamation of the Prince as George the Second
— Bums His Father's WUl  291
CHAPTER XVL
GEORGE THE SECOND.
Personal Habits and Tastes of George the Second — His
Love of Punctuality — Cause of His Dislike to the Duke
of Newcastle — His Fondness for Hunting — His Per
sonal Appearance — His Social Character — His Cold
and Phlegmatic Manners — Anecdote of His Generosity
— Account of His Last Interview with Sir R. Walpole as
Minister — His Sensibility on That Occasion ^ Singular
Story Related by Hume — George the Second's Tolera
tion in Religion and Pohtics — His Belief in Vampires
— His Military Tastes — ¦ Challenges His Brother-in-law,
the King of Prussia, to Single Combat — Successful
Interference of the Prussian Ambassador — George the
Second's Bravery at the Battle of Dettingen — Enthu
siasm of the EngUsh on the Occasion — Amusing Anec-
] dote — His Overwhelming Attachment to His German
Possessions — His General Severity toward His ChUdren
— His Grief for Their Loss — His Occasional Irrita
bility — Strikes His Grandson, George the Third — His
Mistresses — His Affectation of Gallantry in His Old
Age — Vast Sums Expended by Him in Defence of
Hanover — His Kindness to Voltaire — His Contempt
for Literature and the Fine Arts — Anecdotes — George
the Second's Love of a Joke — Characteristic Anecdotes
— The King's Popularity in His Declining Years —
His Sudden Death in 1760 — Summary of George the
Second's Character  310

l8 CONTENTS. PACE
CHAPTER XVII.
CAROLINE, QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND.
Bom in 1683 — Educated at the Court of BerUn — Her
Personal Attractions — Refuses the Hand of the Arch
duke Charles — Her Marriage to George the Second
— Seized Soon Afterward with the Smallpox — George
the First's Dislike of the Princess — Dignity and Decorum
of the Princess as Queen — Her Patronage of Men of
Wit and Learning — Her Levees — The Queen Patronises
Butler, Savage, and Stephen Duck — PhUosophical Dis
putation between Clarke and Leibnitz Referred to the
Queen as Arbitress — Her Fondness for Divinity —
Promotes the Arian Doctrines — Her Patronage of
Doctor Clarke — Offers Him the See of Canterbury,
Which He Declines — Curious Interview on the Subject
between Clarke and Walpole — The Queen's Dislike
of Fashionable Masquerades — Her Uniform Support
of Sir R. Walpole — The Queen Dines Frequently with
Sir R. Walpole, at Chelsea — Strict Etiquette on These
Occasions — Causes of Walpole's Great Influence over
the Queen's Mind — The Queen's Adroit Management
of the King, and Commanding Influence over Him —
Anecdote of the King and Queen — The King's Affection
for His Wife — Her Toleration of His Mistresses . . 362

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

" Foote kept backing and bowing " (See page 346)
Frontispiece
Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough 38
Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester . 62
George the First  128
Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield . .192
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu .... 264

Vol. 9.

THE COURT OF ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.
CHARLES MORDAUNT, EARL OF PETERBOROUGH.
Lord Peterborough's Romantic and Adventurous Tum of Mind
— His Birth — Embarks for Tangiers — Joins the Prince of
Orange at The Hague, and Is Subsequently Appointed a Lord
of the Bedchamber and First Lord Commissioner of the Treas
ury — Created Earl of Monmouth — Serves under King WUl
iam — Engaged in an Intrigue against the Duke of Ormond
and Lord Orford — Pubhshes an Attack against the Duke —
Committed to the Tower in Consequence — His Publication
Bumed by the Common Hangman — Succeeds to the Earl
dom of Peterborough — Gets into Favour with Queen Anne
— Anecdote of the Earl Related by Richardson — The Earl's
Contempt for Appearances — His Letter to Pope — His Ad
miration of Penn the Quaker — Accompanies him to Pennsyl
vania — His Character as a Letter Writer — Specimen of His
Poetry — His Literary Society — Pope's Account of His Last
Illness — His Singular Letter to Lady Suffolk — His Death
— Sketch of His Person — His Autobiography Suppressed by
His Widow.
Lord Peterborough appears to have been the
'. last of that peculiar class of heroes who mingled,
with an almost romantic courage and a Quixotic

22 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
love of adventure, a taste for literature and a de
votion to poetry and the fine arts. To these quali
ties may be added a chivalrous admiration of the
fair sex, an agreeable figure, and a graceful wit.
He was formed in the same mould as Lord Her
bert of Cherbury, Sir Kenelm Digby, and the
Admirable Crichton, and if the days of chivalry
be indeed over, they may be said to have expired
with the hero of Barcelona and the accomplished
courtier of Queen Anne.
Charles, eldest son of John, first Viscount Mor
daunt, was born in 1658. He was descended from
an ancient family, his ancestor, Sir Osbert le Mor
daunt, having accompanied William the Norman
to England, and having been rewarded with a
grant of land by the Conqueror. His family
appear to have ever devotedly attached them
selves to the service of their sovereign ; and dur
ing the civil wars, both his father, Lord Mordaunt,
and his uncle, the Earl of Peterborough, having
zealously supported the royal cause, were declared
traitors by the Parliament, and deprived of their
estates. They both figured in their generations
as gallant, but profligate men ; in addition to
which the circumstance of their professing the
Roman Catholic religion rendered them peculiarly
obnoxious during the rule of the Puritans. Their
gallantry and their profligacy appear to have been
the only qualities which descended from them to
their illustrious relative. Rejecting those preju-

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 23
dices in favour of passive obedience, which had
long been the characteristic of his race, he seems
to have regarded with equal contempt the prin
ciple of non-resistance and the doctrine of tran
substantiation. In the one case, he deserted the
fortunes of King James for those of King Will
iam ; and in the other, rejected the tenets of th4-
Church of Rome to profess himself a deist.
Of the youthful days of Lord Peterborough we
know little beyond his own confession, that he
had been guilty of three capital crimes before he
was twenty.' In 1675, at the age of seventeen,
he succeeded his father as Viscount Mordaunt ; and
on the 4th of June, 1680, embarked with Sheffield,
Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Plymouth,
for Tangiers, where he distinguished himself in
some encounters with the Moors. He served also
in his youth under Admirals Byng and Narbor-
ough against the Algerines.
During the brief reign of James the Second,
Lord Mordaunt joined in the secret intrigues
against the government of that monarch, and is
said to have been the first of the English nobility
who invited the Prince of Orange to England.
He afterward joined the prince at The Hague,
and accompanied him during his expedition to
England ; on which occasion, according to Burnet,
' One of these vaunted crimes was probably the share which
he had in the intrigues of Algemon Sidney and Lord Russell,
the former of whom he accompanied to the scaffold.

24 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
it was solely owing to his advice that the prince
was induced to land his forces in the west. His
services met with an adequate reward. William,
almost immediately after his being called to the
throne, appointed him a lord of the bedchamber,
a member of the Privy Council, and first lord com-
ipissioner of the treasury. At the same time, on
the 9th April, 1689, he was created Earl of Mon
mouth, and the following month was appointed
lord lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county
of Northampton.
During the reign of King William, there occurs
little in Lord Mordaunt's history worthy of rec
ord. He served, however, under that monarch in
Flanders during the campaign of 1692, and, in
1697, we find him engaged in a disgraceful at
tempt to suborn the unfortunate Sir John Fen-
wick, to accuse the Duke of Ormond and Lord
Orford of a design of restoring King James.
About the same time, conjointly with Doctor
D'Avenant, he published an attack against the
Duke of Ormond, under the name of Smith.
The share which he had in this transaction sub
sequently transpired, and his conduct met with
the punishment which it deserved. He was com
mitted a prisoner to thfe Tower; the House of
Peers ordered the book to be burned by the com
mon hangman ; and the Commons declared it to
be a scandalous attempt to breed dissensions
between the king and his best friends. The

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 25
same year (1697) he succeeded, by the death
of his uncle, to the Earldom of Peterborough.'
On the accession of Queen Anne, he once more
found himself in favour at court, and was reap
pointed lord lieutenant of the county of North
ampton, and on the 27th of March, 1705, was
readmitted to the Privy Council. It was at this
period that he was afforded a proper stage for
displaying that military genius and romantic dar
ing for which his character is principally conspicu
ous. The English government having determined
to land forces in Spain, for the purpose of expelling
Philip the Fifth from the throne of that country,
and of securing the accession of Charles the Third,
the command of the expedition was entrusted to
the Earl of Peterborough. At the same time, he
was appointed joint admiral of the fleet, with Sir
Cloudesley Shovel, with whom he sailed from
England the 24th of May, 1705.
The expedition having, in the first instance,
touched at Lisbon, for the purpose of taking on
board King Charles, eventually effected a landing
in the Bay of Barcelona. The pen and the sword
of Lord Peterborough were immediately put in
requisition. With the former he composed mani-
' In a letter dated the 13th of May in this year, he is spoken
of as " talking only of following the plough, and his wife»of
being a dairy woman." His uncle, whose heir he was, died
on the 19th of the following month, which probably altered his
views.

26 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
festoes, which had a powerful effect in exciting the
inhabitants in his favour, while, with the latter, he
performed a series of exploits only to be paralleled
in the pages of romance. His first attempt was
on Fort Montjovi, which commands the city of
Barcelona, which he took, sword in hand, at the
head of a thousand men, notwithstanding the place
had hitherto been regarded as impregnable. Of
this exploit, which, unfortunately, cost the Prince
of Darmstadt his life, we find the following notice
in the London Gazette : " Our men, who were with
the Prince of Darmstadt, upon his Highness's
being killed, began to give ground, but the Earl
of Peterborough came immediately, and rallied
them ; and, being animated by his lordship's
presence and example, they beat the enemy into
the fort, and lodged themselves in all the out
works." The capture of this place, as a nec
essary consequence, led to the capitulation of
Barcelona, into which town Charles the Third
made his entrance in triumph.
From this period, success followed success, and
one feat of chivalry succeeded another, till, in an
incredibly short space of time, Lord Peterborough
found himself in possession of Catalonia, Valencia,
Arragon, and Majorca, with a considerable part
of Murcia and Castile. Valencia he overran and
conquered with a force amounting to only two
hundred and eighty horse and nine hundred foot.
It has been objected to him, in his capacity of

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 27
general, that his exploits were but " happy temeri
ties ; " that he possessed neither the genius nor the
prudence to command a large army ; and that,
though he undoubtedly arrived at extraordinary
results with very inadequate means, yet that his
successes were owing rather to a happy combina
tion of circumstances, and to the chivalrous spirit
which he had infused into his men, than to any
superiority of military talent.
There may, possibly, be some truth in these ob
jections. Nevertheless, the world will ever regard
that man as a hero, who, during a long series of
splendid exploits, never despatched a hundred men
on an expedition without accompanying them him
self, and, moreover, we can scarcely fail to award
him the merit of being a great general, when we
consider that, though at the head of only ten
thousand men, he drove PhUip the Fifth and the
French army out of Spain, the forces of the latter
being nearly treble his own.
It was consequent on these extraordinary suc
cesses that the Earl of Galway was enabled to
advance, without opposition, to Madrid, and that
Charles the Third had an opportunity of fixing
himself at the Escurial. Unfortunately, however,
Charles hesitated to follow up his good fortune,
and, by his refusal to proceed to the capital, as
well as by his conduct on other occasions, seems
to have occasioned great annoyance to the English
^general.

28 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
To the Duchess of Marlborough, Peterborough
writes in July, 1706: "Your Grace has, before
this can come to your hands, heard of my Lord
Galway's being at Madrid, but will wonder, when
I tell you, we cannot prevail with the King of
Spain to go thither ; and his wise ministers have
thought fit to defer it from the time it was pos
sible, at least two months, if some accident do not
prevent it for ever. I might, before now, have
sent your Grace letters from thence, and the king
have passed thither without difficulty or danger ;
and three several councils of war had resolved his
Majesty's march by Valencia, when I was forced
to make a siege, and take Requens to clear his
way, which, when done, he is advised to take
another, contrary to all I could write, or the Por
tuguese ambassador and the queen's envoy could
say. Her M'ajesty's happy stars and our good
luck may prevent accidents ; but I cannot but
lament to your Grace the trying such dangerous
experiments. Your Grace has not been without
some great mortifications of this kind, when the
want of power has prevented the amazing suc
cesses which always attended the Duke of Marl
borough when at liberty; but mine of this kind
are eternal, and no history ever produced such an
everlasting struggle of the ministers against the
interest of their master."
Throughout his Spanish campaign, Peterborough
no less distinguished himself by his romantic gal-

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 29
lantry than by his humanity to the inhabitants
and his even-handed justice. When at Barcelona,
he restored to the citizens the property of which
they had been plundered by the troops of the
Prince of Hesse, while, on the other hand, a Span
iard having killed a British officer, he hung the
offender at the knocker of his own door.' His
disinterestedness was no less remarkable. Far
from attempting to enrich himself at the expense
of his country, he was extremely frugal of the
public money, and when compensation was offered
him for the loss of his baggage, valued at ;£8,ooo,
he positively refused the proffered indemnification,
insisting only that his army should be supplied
with corn, of which it stood in need.
His love of women, indeed, was carried beyond
all bounds ; and Spain, a country so proverbially
famous for beauty and intrigue, afforded him op
portunities enough of indulging in this passion.
Many years afterward, he writes to the famous
Countess of Suffolk, then the professed idol of
his affections : " The Spanish ladies, of all others,
have the most noble and reasonable sentiments of
love. From the queen, down to the maid of hon
our, they all accept of a profession of love with a
decent gratitude ; they never pretend to scorn or
reprove a lover, but will thank and — refuse.
They know how to make themselves understood ;
' He once said to Pope, speaking of General Cadogan, that,
after all, " A general was but a hangman-in-chief."

30 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
but then they expect to be obeyed, and not im.
portuned. The unhappy admirer must acquiesce
upon the first hint ; he soon perceives his good
or bad destiny. If it be a man the lady esteems,
he commonly becomes her confessor, and she gives
him the best excuse, owning she likes elsewhere.
As this justifies the lady, it probably may cure
the lover ; and thus wounds (if curable) are healed
without rancour against the fair one who inno
cently gave them." A characteristic story is
related of Lord Peterborough, that, during his
Spanish campaign, a beautiful woman having taken
refuge in a convent, he ordered artillery to be
pointed against the walls in order that, by fright
ening her forth, he might obtain a view of her
person. Whatever may have been the causes of differ
ence between Lord Peterborough and Charles the
Third, certain it is that the former was recalled
from the scene of his glory in consequence of the
charges preferred against him by the Spanish
monarch. These charges were afterward inves
tigated in the House of Lords, when not only
were they declared to be utterly unfounded, but
the House voted that " during the time he had the
command of the army in Spain, he performed many
great and eminent services, for which he had the
thanks of their House." The lord chancellor ad
dressed him in a most flattering speech, in which
his "wonderful and amazing success," his "per-

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 31
sonal bravery and conduct," and his "wise coun
sels " are dwelt upon in the most glowing language.
"My lords," said Lord Peterborough, in reply,
"for the great honour and favour I have received
from your lordships, I return my most humble
thanks, with a heart full of the truest respect and
gratitude. No service can deserve such a reward.
It is more than a sufficient recompense for my
past hardships, and to which nothing can give an
addition. I shall endeavour in all my future actions
not to appear unworthy of the unmerited favour I
have this day received from this great assembly."
According to Lord Lansdowne, immediately after
quitting this splendid scene, he ordered his coach
to stop at a poulterer's shop, where he alighted
and purchased a fowl for his dinner.
During the years 17 10 and 1711, Lord Peter
borough was employed in various embassies at
Vienna, Turin, and the Italian courts. So rapid
were his movements at this period, that it was
said of him that he had seen more kings and more
postilions than any man in Europe. Swift writes
to him, about this time, that, not knowing where
to address his letters, instead of writing to him, he
wrote at him. In the closet he appears to have
exercised the same expedition with his pen ; in
deed, so wonderful is said to have been his despatch
of business, that, according to an eye-witness, he
was able to dictate to nine different amanuenses,
on as many different subjects, at the same time.

32 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
This circumstance was related by Pope to Spence.
"Lord Peterborough," said Pope, "could dictate
letters to nine amanuenses together, as I was as
sured by a gentleman who saw him do it, when
ambassador at Turin. He walked about his room
and told each in his turn what he was to write.
One, perhaps, was a letter to the emperor, another
to an old friend, a third to a mistress, and a fourth
to a statesman, and so on ; and yet he carried so
many and so different connections in his head all
at the same time."
His civil services appear to have been rewarded
more liberally than his military. On his return to
England in 1712, he was appointed colonel of the
horse guards, and general of marines, and on
the 4th of August, 1 71 3, was created a Knight of
the Garter. At the close of the year he was sent
ambassador to the King of Sicily, at whose court
he remained tUl the death of Queen Anne. Two
years after that event, whUe wandering among
the Italian states, we find him arrested at Bologna,
by order of the papal legate, on a charge of
intending to assassinate the Pretender. His inno
cence was easily proved, and on his speedy release
from prison, not only was every reparation offered
by the papal government for the indignity, but it
was questioned whether the English fleet would
not receive orders to avenge it.
Originally, a friendly feeling had existed be
tween the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Peter-

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 33
borough, which ceased, however, as soon as they
became rivals for fame. Shortly after the acces
sion of Queen Anne, the latter had been named
for the appointments of Captain-General of the
plantations of America, and Governor of Jamaica,
but owing to a remonstrance of the Duke of
Marlborough, that it was unadvisable to confide
such important trusts to a man whose temper
was so uncertain, and whose passions were so
headstrong, the government excused themselves
from fulfilling their intentions. The duke's share
in this transaction not improbably rankled in the
mind of Peterborough ; for though we still find
him corresponding in friendly terms with the
Duchess of Marlborough, yet, not long afterward,
he openly opposed the measures of the duke in
Parliament, and latterly is said to have spoken of
him with contempt.
Generally speaking, the animosities of the Duch
ess of Marlborough were those of her husband,
and, consequently, the seeds of dissension were
no sooner sown between Peterborough and her
lord than the hero of Barcelona became an object
of the most virulent abuse. Her invectives are,
on all occasions, amusing from their cordiality,
and in the case of her old friend. Lord Peterbor
ough, are not a little curious. Speaking of him
conjointly with Lord Rivers," she says: "It is
' Richard Savage, fourth Earl Rivers. He married Penelope,
daughter of John Downs, Esq., of Wardley, in Lancashire, and

34 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
hardly worth while to mention two lords, who,
being discontented that favours and rewards were
not heaped upon them by the ministry, became
mere tools to promote the designs of their ene
mies. The one was Lord Rivers, a man scandal
ous and vUe in his character to a very low degree,
of no better reputation than a common cheat or
pickpocket, having robbed his own father, and
gone under the name of Tyburn Dick for many
years. The other was Lord Peterborough, a man
who, to the same vUeness of soul, had joined a
sort of knight-errantry that made up a very odd
sort of composition ; one who had wasted his
fortune and worn out his credit, and had nothing
left but so much resolution and so little honour,
as made him capable of anything they had to put
upon him."
Even after the death of Queen Anne, when the
interests of Peterborough and her husband no
longer clashed, and when both of these celebrated
men were treated with equal indifference by the
new monarch, the duchess expresses herself not a
little provoked at the earl entering her drawing-
room with the same ease and unconcernedness as
if their interests had ever been the same, and as if
he had never been the opponent of her Ulustrious
lord. For instance, on one of his early letters to
died without leaving male issue, in 1712. On the death of his
kinsman and successor, John, fifth Eari Rivers, the earldom
became extinct.

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 35
her, we find the following very curious endorse
ment in her own handwriting : " This lord made
speeches against the Duke of Marlborough in Par
liament when he served my Lord Oxford's Abigail,'
and since the queen's death he comes to me and
talks as if he had always been of our interest
and of our opinion." It would seem by this pas
sage that the rancour of the duchess originated
quite as much in his having espoused the cause
of Mrs. Masham as in his having been the
maligner of the duke. To have been the enemy
of her husband might have been forgiven ; but to
have been the confidant of her detested rival was,
in the mind of the acrimonious duchess, a crime
the most heinous that could possibly have been
committed. An anecdote is recorded of Lord Peterborough,
which, while it displays the quickness of his wit,
shows how ready he was to exercise it at the
expense of his illustrious contemporary, the Duke
of Marlborough. At the time when the latter was
in the height of his unpopularity, a mob, mistak
ing Lord Peterborough for the duke, gathered
rather tumultuously around his chair, and began
to threaten him with personal violence. " Gentle
men," said the earl, " I can convince you, for two
reasons, that I am not the Duke of Marlborough.
In the first place, I have only five guineas in
' Abigail HUl, the celebrated Mrs. Masham.

36 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
my pocket, and, in the second, they are heartily
at your service."
In a letter dated the 23d of January, 1697,
from James Vernon, secretary of state to King
WUliam, to the Duke of Shrewsbury, there is an
amusing account of one of Lord Peterborough's
early adventures :
" Sir John Talbot," says Vernon, "came to me
last night upon a very remarkable occasion which
he had in the morning communicated to my lord
keeper ; and it is thus : One Talbot tells him
he has had a pretty long acquaintance with one
Brown, whom he knew a student in the Temple,
where his father made him reasonable allowance
till his estate came to be forfeited ; and since that
time he has lived by play, sharping, and a little on
the highway. This man, with three or four more,
set upon my Lord Monmouth last summer. The
account he gives of it is that they took from him
his hat, sword, periwig, a ring he had on his
finger, and six shillings in money, which was all
he had.
"My lord, making them a compliment, that
by their behaviour they looked like gentlemen,
and to take that course only out of necessity, and
therefore desired to know how he might place ten
guineas upon them. They immediately gave him
all his things again, except the six shUlings which
he would not take. The guard from Chelsea col
lege coming to the hedge-side about that time,

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 37
and firing upon them, they told my lord they
should be obliged to mischief him, if he did not
call to the guard that there were none but friends,
which he did, and bid his coach drive on.
" Some time after this. Brown made my lord
a visit and told him his errand. My lord asked
him how he durst venture himself in coming
thither. He returned my lord his compliment,
that he knew he was a man of honour, he came
with assurance of what he had said to them, and
those who were necessitated to lead his life ran
great dangers elsewhere. My lord gave him a
guinea or two, and encouraged his coming again,
and after that he had frequent meetings with his
lordship at some mistress's lodgings."
Of the hearty manner in which Lord Peter
borough enjoyed a joke, the following anecdote is
related by the younger Richardson. "The great
Earl of Peterborough," he says, "who had much
sense, much wit, and much whim, leaped out of
his chariot one day on seeing a dancing-master
with pearl-coloured silk stocking slightly stepping
over the broad stones, and picking his way, in
extremely dirty weather. He ran after him — • who
soon took to his heels — with his drawn sword,
in order to drive him into the mud, but into which
he of course followed himself."
From the period when Lord Peterborough
ceased to figure as a soldier and a statesman, — or
rather from the time when he was unable to

38 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
obtain employment from the state, — we find him
solacing himself with the society of the wits of
the period, and assuming a character for that kind
of phUosophy which affects a superiority to the
common evUs of life, and delights in laughing at
coxcombs and fools. His utter contempt of the
fops of the day, and of all outward appearances,
seems to have carried him into the opposite ex
treme, slovenliness, and into a disregard for the
decencies of life. His personal eccentricities, and
especially his indifference to the common observ
ances of society, are frequently alluded to by
his contemporaries. Lady Hervey writes to Lady
Suffolk from Bath, on the 7th of June, 1725:
" Lord Peterborough is here, and has been so
some time, though, by his dress, one would be
lieve he had not designed to make any stay ; for
he wears boots all day, and, as I hear, must do
so, having brought no shoes with him. It is a
comical sight to see him with his blue ribbon and
star, and a cabbage under each arm, or a chicken
in his hand, which, after he himself has purchased
at market, he carries home for his dinner."
The change which had taken place in Lord
Peterborough's character — a change from the
indulgence in headstrong passions to phUosophical
pursuits — is dwelt upon by him, apparently with
much satisfaction, in one of his letters to Pope :
" I must give you some good news," he writes,
"with relation to myself, because I know you

Charks Mordaunt, Earl of Peterboroughin
Photo-etching after the painting by Knell er.

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 39
wish me well. I am cured of some diseases in
my old age, which tormented me very much in
my youth. I was possessed with violent and
uneasy passion, such as a peevish concern for
truth, and a saucy love for my country. When
a Christian priest preached against the spirit of
the gospel ; when an English judge determined
against Magna Charta ; when a minister acted
against common sense, I used to fret. Now, sir, let
what wUl happen, I keep myself in temper. As I
have no flattering hopes, I banish all useless fears."
Notwithstanding the anxiety which he professes
in this passage that Christianity should be preached
in its true spirit. Lord Peterborough is well known
to have been a deist. He once paid a visit to
the amiable Fenelon at the episcopal palace at
Cambrai. After prolonging his stay for some
weeks, he one day observed to the Chevalier Ram
say : " Upon my word, I must quit the archbishop
as soon as I can ; for if I stay a week longer, I
shall be made a Christian of in spite of myself."
He remarked on another occasion, in conversation
with Pope : " One morning, I went to hear Penn
preach ; for 'tis my way to be civil to all religions."
Such was his admiration of Penn, that he once
accompanied the philanthropist across the Atlantic
for the purpose of visiting his new colony of
Pennsylvania, from whence he returned, highly
gratified with its primitive enjoyments and admi
rable laws.

40 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Horace Walpole observes of Lord Peterborough
that he was " one of those men of careless wit and
negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bon-mots
and idle verses, which we painful compilers gather
and hoard, tUl the owners stare to find themselves
authors." The poetry of Lord Peterborough, how
ever, is now deservedly forgotten, and his letters,
for which he was once famous, have also been
stripped of their celebrity. According to Pope,
"he would say pretty and lively things in his
letters, but they would be rather too gay and
wandering." Swift also remarks on a letter which
he had received from him : " He writes so well, I
have no mind to answer him ; and so kind that
I must answer him." Even Walpole has conde
scended to praise his epistolary talents, observing
that "four very genteel letters of his are printed
among Pope's." Posterity, however, has recently
had access to many private collections, and among
the correspondence of the last century several
letters of Lord Peterborough have seen the light.
These, for the most part, are in the highest degree
disappointing. Occasionally, indeed, we find a
caustic remark ; a well-turned though elaborate
sentence ; and something like an approach to
humour. Whenever he addresses a woman, how
ever, his compliments out-herod even the stately
nonsense of the day ; whUe his love-letters — of
which several, addressed to Mrs. Howard, are
inserted in the " Suffolk Correspondence " — are,

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 41
without a single exception, turgid, and often
absurd. Notwithstanding the slender claims of Lord
Peterborough to the reputation of a poet, his
character is in every respect so remarkable, that
a single specimen of his poetical powers may not
be unacceptable to the reader. The following
verses, indeed, which he addressed to Mrs. How
ard, the celebrated mistress of George the Second,
are not without the merit which such trifles may
claim, and are at least superior to the ponderous
prose eulogiums which he addressed to the same
lady :
" I said to my heart, between sleeping and waking,
' Thou wild thing that always art leaping or aching,
What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation,
By turns has not taught thee a pit-a-pat-ation ? '
" Thus accused, the wild thing gave this sober reply :
' See, the heart without motion, though Celia pass by!
Not the beauty she has, not the wit that she borrows,
Give the eye any joys, or the heart any sorrows.
«< ' When our Sappho appears, — she, whose wit so refined
I am forced to applaud with the rest of mankind —
Whatever she says is with spirit and fire ;
Every word I attend, but I only admire.
" ' Prudentia as vainly would put in her claim,
Ever gazing on heaven, though man is her aim:
'Tis love, not devotion, that turns up her eyes —
Those stars of this world are too good for the skies.

42 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
" ' But Chloe, so lively, so easy, so fair,
Her wit so genteel, without art, without care ;
When she comes in my way — the motion, the pain,
The leapings, the achings, retum all again.'
" O wonderful creature ! a woman of reason !
Never grave out of pride, never gay out of season ;
When so easy to guess who this angel should be,
Would one think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she ? "

There are two rather curious circumstances
connected with these verses. In the first place,
at the period when Lord Peterborough was thus
addressing Mrs. Howard in the language of a
lover, the one had attained to his sixty-fifth, and
the other to her fortieth year. In the next place,
Horace Walpole (whom we have seen speaking
of himself as a " painful compUer " in regard to
the " bon-mots and idle verses " of Lord Peter
borough) falls into a strange error in recording
the verses to Mrs. Howard. "This lord," he
says, "wrote a ballad beginning, 'I said to my
heart, between sleeping and waking.' He was also
the author of those well-known lines, ' Who'd have
thought Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she .' ' "
The reader will have seen that Walpole has manu
factured two poems out of one, having quoted the
first and last line of the verses to Mrs. Howard,
as the initial lines of two separate productions.
Lord Peterborough lived on the most intimate
terms with Swift, Pope, Gay, and the many cele-

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 43
brated men who have immortalised the reign of
Queen Anne as the Augustan age of England.
By his contemporaries, he seems to have been
both loved and admired ; and it was no slight com
pliment to his talents that, though Pope spoke of
him as " not near so great a genius " as Lord
Bolingbroke, yet that he should for a moment
have thought of coupling his idol and Peterborough
in the same breath, thus indirectly implying that a
comparison was possible. " I love the hang-dog
dearly," was the remarkable encomium of Swift ;
and Pope once observed of him : " He has too
much wit as well as courage to make a solid
general." Early in life Lord Peterborough had united him
self to Carey, daughter of Sir Alexander Fraser,
of Dotes, in Scotland. By this lady he had two
sons, who seem to have shared the impetuous
valour of their father, and' who distinguished
themselves in the service of their country ; he
had also one daughter, Henrietta, married to
Alexander, second Duke of Gordon, the grand
father of the last duke of that title. Lady Peter
borough died in May, 1709, and within eleven
months from that event her husband had also
occasion to bewail the loss of his two gallant
sons. John, Lord Mordaunt, his eldest son, died
of the smallpox on the 6th of April, 17 10, surviv
ing his younger brother, Henry, who died of the
same disease, about six weeks.

44 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
In 173s, more than a quarter of a century after
the death of his first wife. Lord Peterborough, at
the age of seventy-seven, acknowledged his mar
riage with a beautiful singer, Anastasia Robinson.
She was the daughter of a Mr. Robinson, a
painter, whom she supported, in his old age, by
singing at the opera and teaching music and
the Italian language. Gay celebrates her vocal
powers :
" O soothe me with some soft Italian air,
Let harmony compose my tortured ear !
When Anastasia's voice commands the strain,
The melting warble thrills through every vein.
Thought stands suspended, silence pleased attends,
While in her notes the heavenly choir descends."
Of the year in which they were married we have
no record ; indeed, it was only when broken down
by disease, and when harassed by her repeated
refusals to live under the same roof with him,
unless he acknowledged her as his wife, that he
was induced to make the confession to the world.
When he proclaimed his weakness, it was in a
very characteristic manner, by calling aloud in the
rooms at Bath "for Lady Peterborough's chair,"
when the company immediately arose and congrat
ulated her on her marriage. Their intercourse,
however, must have been long notorious, for as
many as twelve years before Lord Peterborough
had horsewhipped a foreign singer, Senesino, at

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 45
a rehearsal, for some offence which he had given
to Miss Robinson.'
For some years previous to his death. Lord
Peterborough appears to have suffered acutely
from disease in an aggravated form. Yet if mortal
ever was superior to pain, it was this extraordinary
man. "I am not afraid," he once observed, "I
never saw occasion to fear." In October, 1730,
at the age of seventy-two, he writes to Lady Suf
folk, with something of his former gallantry : " It
is certain you or none must have the credit of my
recovery. The doctors have told me mine is an
' Lady Mary W. Montagu writes to her sister, the Countess
of Mar, in 1723: "Would any one believe that Mrs. Robinson
is, at the same time, a prude and a kept mistress ? She has
engaged half the town in arms, from the nicety of her virtue,
which was not able to bear the too near approach of Senesino
in the opera, and her condescension in her accepting of Lord
Peterborough for a champion, who has signalised both his love
and courage upon this occasion in as many instances as ever
Don Quixote did for Dulcinea. Poor Senesino, Uke a, van
quished giant, was forced to confess upon his knees that Anas
tasia was a nonpareU of virtue and beauty. Lord Stanhope, as
dwarf to the said giant, joked on his side, and was challenged
for his pains. Lord Delawar was Lord Peterborough's second ;
my Lady miscarried, — the whole town divided into parties on
this important point. Innumerable have been the disorders
between the two sexes on so great an account, besides half the
House of Peers being put under arrest. By the providence of
Heaven, and the wise cares of his Majesty, no bloodshed en
sued. However, things are now tolerably accommodated, and
the fair lady rides through the town in triumph, in the shining
merlin of her hero, not to reckon the more solid advantage of
;f 100 a month, which 'tis said he aUows her."

46 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
inward pain ; if so, I can have no cure from any
other person. You blame me for seeking no
remedies, and yet you know vain attempts of any
kind are ridiculous. I have, some time since,
made a bargain with fate to submit with patience
to all her freaks ; some accidents have given me a
great contempt, almost a distaste of life. Shake
speare shall tell you my opinion of it :
" ' Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale.
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Life is a walking shadow, — a poor player
That frets and struts his hour upon the stage,
And then is seen no more.'
Do not wonder, then, if the world is become so
indifferent to me that I can even amuse myself
with the thoughts of going out of it. I was writ
ing, some days ago, a dialogue betwixt me and one
that is departed before me ; one that would have
kept his promise to you, if possible. When the
case falls out, Mr. Pope shall give it to you."
Pope has bequeathed us some very curious
particulars respecting the last days of Lord Peter
borough. "'Tis amazmg," he says, "how Lord
Peterborough keeps up his spirits under so painful
and violent an illness as that he is afflicted with.
When I went down to see him in Hampshire, a
few weeks ago, I did not get to him till the dusk
of the evening ; he was sitting on his couch, and
entertained all the company with as much life and

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 47
sprightliness of conversation as if he had been per
fectly well ; and when the candles were brought
in, I was amazed to see that he looked more like
a ghost than a living creature. Dying as he was,
he went from thence to Bristol ; and it was there
that it was declared that he had no chance for a
recovery, but by going through the torture of a very
uncommon chirurgical operation, and that, even
with it, there were a great many more chances
against him than for him. However, he would
go through it ; and the very day after set out from
Bristol for Bath, in spite of all that St. Andrd and
the physicians could say to him."
" It was some time after this," adds Spence, who
continues the narrative, " that I saw him at Ken
sington ; I was admitted into his ruelle, for he kept
his bed, and everybody thought he would not last
above five or six days longer, and yet his first speech
to me was : ' Sir, you have travelled, and know the
places ; I am resolved to go to Lisbon or Naples.'
That very day, he would rise to sit at dinner with
us, and, in a little time after, actually went to Lis
bon." Pope informs us that he seriously con
templated accompanying him, and when Spence
remonstrated that it must be a melancholy thing
to be constantly with a person in so distressing a
condition, "That is true," he said; "but if you
consider how I should have been employed in
nursing and attending a sick friend, that thought
would have made it agreeable." During his UI-

48 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
ness. Lady Peterborough is said to have attended
him with unwearying kindness.
The chirurgical operation alluded to by Pope
was the very painful one of being cut for the
stone. He refused to be bound during the oper
ation, and when the surgeon remonstrated with
him on his obstinacy, " No, sir," he said, " it shall
never be reported that a Mordaunt was seen
bound : do your best, sir." He then desired to
be placed in the position most favourable for
using the knife, and underwent the agony with
out flinching. Three weeks afterward, he was at
his own seat at Bevis Mount.
It was about this period that, at the age of
seventy-seven, he addressed the following singu
lar letter to Lady Suffolk, — a lady whom he had
formerly addressed in the language of a lover, and
with whom he still corresponded as a friend :
"Bevis Mount,' July, 1735.
" Madam : — I return you a thousand thanks for
your obliging inquiry after my health. I struggle
on with doubtful success ; one of my strongest
motives to do so is the hopes of seeing you at
my cottage before I die, when you either go to
Bath or to Mrs. Herbert's.
'The seat of Lord Peterborough, in Hampshire. Horace
Walpole writes to Richard Bentley, Esq., on the i8th of Sep
tember, 1735 : "Going into Southampton, I passed Bevismount,
where my Lord Peterborough
" ' Hung his trophies o'er his garden gate ; '

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 49
" In my most uneasy moments I find amuse
ment in a book, which I therefore send you ; ' it is
one of the most interesting I ever read. I had
gathered to myself some notions of the character
from pieces of history written in both extremes,
but I never expected so agreeable and so fair an
account from a priest. In one quarter of an hour,
we love and hate the same person without incon
stancy. One moment, the emperor is in posses
sion of our whole heart, and the philosopher fully
possessed of our soul ; within four or five pages,
we blush for our hero, and are ashamed of our
philosopher. "What courage, what presence of mind in
danger ! the first and bravest man in a Roman
army ; sharing with every soldier the fatigue and
danger ! The same animal hunting after fortune
tellers, gazing upon the flight of birds, looking
into the entraUs of beasts with vain curiosity ;
seeking for cunning women (as we call them) and
silly men to give him an account of his destiny,
and, if it can be believed, consenting to the high-
but General Mordaunt was there, and we could not see it : we
walked long by moonlight on the terrace along the beach."
Walpole's quotation, though somewhat mangled, is from a
couplet of Pope, in which the poet was thought to allude to
the entrance of Lord Peterborough's lawn at Bevismount :
" Our generals now, retired to their estate.
Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gate."
' Apparently, the " Life of Julian the Apostate," by the Abbe
de la Bldterie, published in 1735.

50 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
est inhumanities in pursuit of magical experi
ments. " Yet, when we come to the last scene, the most
prejudiced heart must be softened. With what
majesty does the emperor meet his fate ! showing
how a soldier, how a phUosopher, how a friend of
Lady Suffolk's ought — only with juster notions
of the Deity — to die.
"The lady, the book, or both together, have
brought me almost into a raving way ; I want •
to make an appointment with you, Mr. Pope,
and a few friends more, to meet upon the summit
of my Bevis hUl, and thence, after a speech and a
tender farewell, I shall take my leap toward the
clouds, as Julian expresses it, to mix amongst the
stars ; but I make my bargain for a very fine day,
that you may see my last amusements to advantage.
"Wherever be the place, and whenever the
time, I shall remain to the utmost possibility,
etc., Peterborough."
It was observed of Lord Peterborough by Pope,
that " he would neither live nor die like any other
mortal." In his last illness he said, alluding to
"Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time,"
which had recently been published, "I would
wUlingly live to give that rascal the lie in half
his history." The work in question he carried
with him when he departed for Lisbon, having
ahready illustrated it with several marginal notes.

EARL OF PETERBOROUGH. 51
which, unfortunately, have never been permitted
to see the light.
Lord Peterborough died on his passage to Por
tugal on the 25th day of October, 1735, in his
seventy-eighth year. His remains were brought
to England, and interred at the ancient seat of his
famUy, Turvey, in Bedfordshire. He was suc
ceeded in his titles by his grandson, Charles Mor
daunt, in whose son, Charles Henry Mordaunt,
. fifth Earl of Peterborough, the earldoms of Peter
borough and Mordaunt became extinct.
In person. Lord Peterborough was above the
common height, but was so thin that Swift called
him a skeleton. " He is a well-shaped thin man,"
says Macky, " with a very brisk look." The same
writer adds : " He affects popularity, and loves
to preach in coffee-houses and public places ; is
an open enemy to revealed religion ; brave in his
person ; hath a good estate ; does not seem expen
sive, yet always in debt, and very poor." There
is extant a fine portrait of Lord Peterborough by
Kneller. The great Lord Peterborough, in addition to
other literary corapositions, was the author of his
own memoirs, which his widow, unfortunately,
suppressed. Literature must ever regret the loss
of such a treasure. Lady Suffolk told Horace
Walpole that Lord Peterborough had himself
shown her as many as three volumes of his
autobiography.

CHAPTER II.
FRANCIS ATTERBURY, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.
Educated at Westminster and Oxford — His Literary Attain
ments — Assists His Pupil, C. Boyle, in His Dispute with
Bentley — His Jacobitism — His Letter to His Father — His
Skepticism in Early Life — Enters into Holy Orders — Marries
a Lady of Fortune — Appointed Chaplain in Ordinary to
King William — Enters into a, Controversy with Doctor
Wake — Created Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Roch
ester — His Polemical Controversies — The Reputed Author
of the Speech Made by Sacheverel on His Trial — George
the First's Accession Fatal to Atterbury's Ambitious Hopes —
His Disaffection — Committal to the Tower — Speaker Ons
low's Character of Him — Public Sympathy for Atterbury —
His Harsh Treatment in the Tower — His Letter to Pope —
His Eloquent Speech on His Trial — Sentence Passed on
Him — Trial of Strength between Atterbury and Sir R. Wal
pole during the Proceedings against the Former — Atterbury
Quits England, and Resides Chiefly in Paris tiU His Death —
Death of His Favourite Daughter — The Duke of Wharton's
Poetical Address to Atterbury — Atterbury's Letter to Dic-
conson on His Daughter's Death — His Last Meeting with
Her at Toulouse — His Death at Paris in 1731 — His Body
Brought to England, and the Coffin Opened by Order of
Government — His Interment in Westminster Abbey.
This elegant scholar and ambitious churchman
was born on the 6th of March, 1662, at his father's
52

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 53
rectory at Milton-Keynes, near Newport-Pagnel,
\n Buckinghamshire. He was educated at West
minster school, from whence he was removed in
1680, to Christ Church college, Oxford, where he
was indefatigable in his pursuit after knowledge,
and very shortly distinguished himself by his
classical attainments. As early as 1682, when
only in his twenty-first year, he published a
Latin version of Dryden's poem of " Absalom and
Achitophel." He translated, also, about the same
period, the two exquisite odes of Horace, " Donee
gratus era-m tibi " and " Quem tu Melpomene semel,"
of which odes Scaliger said that he would sooner
have been their author than be King of Aragon.
Like all others who have attempted the impossible
task of translating Horace, Atterbury has, unques
tionably, faUed. His versification, however, is not
without merit, and, as he is little known as a poet,
a single specimen of his muse may not be unac
ceptable. We prefer giving the following trifle,
which he is said to have addressed to the lady
whom he afterward married :
"ON A lady's fan.
" Flavia, the least and slightest toy.
Can with resistless art employ.
This fan, in meaner hands, would prove
The engine of small force in love ;
Yet she, with graceful air and mien.
Not to be told, or safely seen.

54 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Directs its wanton motions so.
That it wounds more than Cupid's bow ;
Gives coolness to the matchless dame, —
To every other breast a flame.''
In 1684 Atterbury took his degree of Bachelor
of Arts, and in 1687 that of Master of Arts. In
the latter year he published his " Considerations
on the Spirit of Martin Luther, and the Original
of the Reformation," and is said also to have mate
rially assisted his pupil, Charles Boyle, afterward
Earl of Orrery, in his spirited dispute with Bentley,
as to the genuineness of the epistles of Phalaris.
Atterbury appears to have instUled into the mind
of his pupU not only his classical taste, but his
Jacobite principles. When the bishop was com-
mitted a prisoner to the Tower, in 1722, on ac
count of his presumed intrigues in the cause of
the Pretender, he was shortly afterward joined
by his old pupil, who was incarcerated on the same
charge. The change which had taken place in
their habits and principles could not fail to sug
gest very striking reflections to each of them.
The academical seclusion of Christ Church was
exchanged for the dangerous solitude of the
Tower ; the champion of Martin Luther and of
the principles of the Reformation had enlisted in
the cause of a Roman Catholic prince ; whUe both
tutor and pupU, instead of engaging in classical
discussions on the bulls of Phalaris, found
themselves far more deeply interested in the

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 55
proceedings of the Pretender and the bulls of
the Pope.
Restless, turbulent, and ambitious ; dissatisfied
with the small credit to be derived by academical
preeminence; wearied with conventual rules and
habits, and with a society necessarily restricted to
the narrow understandings proverbially generated
by a collegiate life, the spirit of Atterbury fretted
within the narrow limits of a cloister, and he
looked about him for a wider sphere on which to
exercise his talents, and for a communion with men
whose intellectual faculties were more congenial
with his own.
After a residence at the university of about ten
years, he writes to his father from Oxford, 14th
October, 1690: "My pupU (Mr. Boyle) I never
had a thought of parting with tUl I left Oxford.
I wish I could part with him to-morrow on that
score, for I am perfectly wearied with the nause
ous circle of small affairs, that can now neither
divert nor instruct me. I was made, I am sure,
for another scene and another sort of conversa
tion, though it has been my hard luck to be
pinned down to this. I have thought and
thought again, sir, and for some years ; now I
have never been able to think otherwise, than that
I am losing time every minute I stay here. The
only benefit I ever propose to myself by the place
is studying, and that I am not able to compass.
Mr. Boyle takes up half my time, and I grudge it

56 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
him not, for he is a fine gentleman ; and whUe I
am with him, I will do what I can to make him a
man. College and university business take up
a great deal more ; and I am forced to be useful
to the dean in a thousand particulars ; so that I
have very little time."
Judging from the contents of the foregoing
letter, it is, perhaps, not uncharitable to presume
that, when Atterbury entered into holy orders the
following year, the step was taken rather with a
view to temporal aggrandisement, and as offering
the means of escaping from the tedious thraldom
of a college life, than from any laudable zeal for
the sacred profession. We have the authority,
indeed, of his friend Pope, that, though religion
was afterward the boasted solace of Atterbury in
his misfortunes, yet that in early life he was a
skeptic. His skepticism, however, seems, at this
time, to have been confined to his own breast, for
it certainly proved no bar to his preferment. No
sooner, indeed, did he appear in the metropolis,
whither he seems to have hastened as offering the
best stage on which to display his talents, than
his extraordinary eloquence in the pulpit rapidly
brought him into notice and repute. -About this
period, with the view of advancing his worldly
interests, he married a lady named Osborne, a
relation of the Duke of Leeds, with whom he
received a fortune of £,7,000.
The first step of any importance which After-

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 57
bury obtained in his profession was the appoint
ment of chaplain in ordinary to King William and
Queen Mary, shortly after which he was elected
preacher at Bridewell, and lecturer of St. Bride's.
A sermon " On the Power of Charity to Cover
Sin," which he preached before the governors of
Bridewell in 1 694, brought him into further notice.
It was attacked by Hoadley, afterward Bishop of
Winchester ; while another sermon which he
preached the same year, before Queen Mary at
Whitehall, entitled the " Scorner Incapable of
True Wisdom," was no less severely commented
upon by an anonymous writer. These attacks,
added to the fame of his eloquence and to his
acknowledged powers as a writer, brought him into
great repute ; whUe his celebrity was by no means
diminished by a controversy which he entered into,
in 1700, with Doctor Wake, afterward Archbishop
of Canterbury, " On the Rights, Powers, and Privi
leges of Convocations." Such was the learning and
ingenuity which he displayed during this celebrated
dispute, that the Lower House of Convocation
voted him their solemn thanks for his "learned
pains in asserting and vindicating the rights of
convocation," whUe the University of Oxford con
ferred on him the degree of Doctor in Divinity.
The some year he was installed in the Archdea
conry of Totness.
On the accession of Queen Anne, the continued
zeal with which Atterbury had advocated the doc-

58 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
trines of the High Church procured him the hon
ours and preferment at which he aimed. He was
immediately appointed one of the queen's chap
lains ; in October, 1 704, he was raised to the Dean
ery of Carlisle;' in 171 2, he was appointed Dean
of Christ Church, and in June, the following year,
was advanced to the Deanery of Westminster and
Bishopric of Rochester. During the few years
which preceded this last step, his busy and conten
tious spirit appears to have been seldom at rest.
In 1706 he entered into a fresh dispute with
Hoadley, concerning the advantages of virtue with
regard to the present life, which, in 1707, was fol
lowed by another controversy respecting passive
obedience. Neither was his pen solely employed
in polemical discussions. He was one of the
divines engaged to revise an intended edition of
the Greek Testament ; and besides being the
reputed author of the celebrated speech delivered
by Doctor Sacheverel on his trial, he had the prin
cipal share in drawing up a once famous document,
the " Representation on the Present State of the
Church and Religion."
The elegant taste of Atterbury led him to seek
the society and to become the friend of the wits.
He was the intimate companion of Pope, Boling-
' In 1709, Sir John Trevor made him preacher of the RoUs
Chapel, entirely from the admiration which he had conceived of
his talents, and the dehght with which he had listened to his elo
quence in the pulpit.

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 59
broke. Swift, and Gay, and by his social wit and
intellectual powers shone forth not the least brU
liant luminary in that hemisphere of genius. Gay
celebrates him in his " Epistle to Pope," —
" See Rochester approving nods his head,
And ranks one modern with the mighty dead."
And Pope exclaims, in his " Epistle to Arbuth
not," —
" How pleasing Atterbury's softer hour ;
How shines his soul unconquered in the Tower! "
It would be interesting to search into the secret
history of remarkable friendships. For instance,
Atterbury, Bolingbroke, and Pope were pro
fessedly, and are now historically, spoken of as
friends. And yet we find Bolingbroke observ
ing of Atterbury, that there is "no man living
whom he has less reason to trust ! " and when
Atterbury had once an opportunity of defending
the character of Pope, he chose to shake his head
significantly. " Mens curva," he said, " in corpore
curvo." (" He has a crooked mind in a crooked
body.") The former anecdote will be found in the
"Townshend Papers," the latter in Horace Wal
pole's letters.
Of Atterbury's conversational talent and wit,
more than one specimen has been recorded. " In
171 5," says Doctor King, " I dined with the Duke

60 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
of Ormond at Richmond. We were fourteen at
table. There was my Lord Marr, my Lord Jersey,
my Lord Arran, my Lord Lansdowne, Sir WUliam
Wyndham, Sir Redmond Everard, and Atterbury,
Bishop of Rochester. The rest of the company I
do not exactly remember. During the dinner there
was a jocular dispute (I forget how it was intro
duced) concerning short prayers. Sir WUliam
Wyndham told us that the shortest prayer he
had ever heard was the prayer of a common sol
dier just before the battle of Blenhehn, ' O God, if
there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul ! '
This was followed by a general laugh. I immedi
ately reflected that such a treatment of the subject
was too ludicrous, at least very improper, where a
learned and religious prelate was one of the com
pany. But I had soon an opportunity of making
a different reflection. Atterbury, seeming to join,
and applying himself to Sir William Wyndham,
said, ' Your prayer, Sir William, is indeed very
short ; but I remember another as short, and a
much better, offered up likewise by a poor soldier
in the same circumstances, " O God, if in the day
of battle I forget thee, do thou not forget me ! " '
This, as Atterbury pronounced it with his usual
grace and dignity, was a very gentle and polite
reproof, and was immediately felt by the whole
company. And the Duke of Ormond, who was
the best bred man of his age, suddenly turned the
discourse to another subject." The author imag-

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, 6 1
ined, on first meeting with this anecdote, that the
retort of Atterbury was merely a happy invention
of the moment. He has since discovered, however,
that it was actually the prayer of a gallant cavalier.
Sir Jacob Astley, before the battle of Edgehill.
"O Lord," he said, "thou knowest how busy I
must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou
forget me." He then rose from his knees, and,
exclaiming to his men, " March on, my boys ! " led
them on to battle.
Of the ready wit of Atterbury, a still more pleas
ing instance is related by Doctor King. " Atter
bury, when a certain bill was brought into the
House of Lords, said, among other things, 'that
he prophesied last winter this bill would be at
tempted in the present session, and he was sorry
to find that he had proved a true prophet.' My
Lord Coningsby, who spoke after the bishop, and
always spoke in a passion, desired the House to
remark, 'that one of the right reverend bishops
had set himself forth as a prophet ; but for his
part he did not know what prophet to liken him to,
unless to that furious prophet Balaam, who was
reproved by his own ass.' The bishop in reply,
with great wit and calmness, exposed this rude
attack, concluding thus : ' Since the noble lord
hath discovered in our manner such a similitude,
I am well content to be compared to the prophet
Balaam ; but, my lords, I am at a loss how to
make out the other part of the parallel. I am sure

62 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
that I have been reproved by nobody but his lord
ship.' " Doctor King informs us, that such was
the elegance and propriety of Atterbury's lan
guage, that if everything which he let fall in
common conversation had been committed to
writing, it would have been regarded as the model
of a beautiful style.
The decease of Queen Anne, and the accession
of George the First to the throne, proved a death
blow to the ambitious hopes of Atterbury. He
was well known to be attached to the exUed house
of Stuart, and, consequently, his dangerous princi
ples and high rank in the Church rendered him
peculiarly an object of dislike and distrust. His
disaffection, indeed, is said to have proceeded to
such lengths that, on the death of Queen Anne,
when statesmen and soldiers alike held back for
fear of the consequences, the churchman was the
only adherent of the exiled family who boldly pro
posed to proclaim the Pretender as King of Eng
land. Among others whom he endeavoured to gain
over to his views was the lord chancellor, Simon,
Lord Harcourt. According to the statement of
that personage, as related in Birch's papers, Atter
bury paid him a visit on the queen's death, and
gave as his opinion, in the present juncture of
affairs, that nothing remained but immediately
to proclaim King James. He further added that
they had only to give him a guard, and he would
put on his lawn sleeves and head the procession.

Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
Photo-etching after the painting by KneUer.

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 63
"Never," he afterward exclaimed to a friend, "was
a better cause lost for want of spirit."
Some curious evidence in support of these facts
was brought forward by Dean Lockier in conver
sation with Spence. The latter informs us on the
authority of the dean : " Upon the death of the
queen, the Duke of Ormond, Atterbury, and Lord
Mareshal held a private conversation together ;
in which Atterbury desired the latter to go out
immediately, and to proclaim the Pretender in
form. Ormond, who was more afraid of conse
quences, desired to communicate it first to the
councU. 'Damn it,' says Atterbury, in a great
heat, for he did not value swearing, ' you very well
know that things have not been concerted enough
for that yet, and that we have not a moment to
lose.' Indeed it was the only thing they could
have done. Such a bold step would have made
people believe that they were stronger than they
really were, and might have taken strangely. The
late king, I am fully persuaded, would not have
stirred a foot, if there had been a strong opposi
tion ; indeed, the family did not expect this crown ;
at least nobody in it but the old Princess Sophia." '
Sir Robert Walpole, in a speech delivered some
years afterward in the House of Commons, ob-
' Mother of George the First. She was the daughter of Fred
erick, King of Bohemia, by Elizabeth, daughter of James the
First, King of England. Had she survived Queen Anne, the
crown would have descended to her by the act of succession.

64 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
served : " Evident proofs wUl appear of a meeting
having been held by some considerable persons,
one of whom is not far off, wherein it was pro
posed to proclaim the Pretender at the Royal
Exchange." The person to whom allusion is made
as not far off was, unquestionably, the Bishop of
Rochester, who was referred to as being in his
seat in the House of Lords.
The neglect which Atterbury encountered from
George the First and his ministry tended not a
little to increase his disaffection to the govern
ment. Accordingly, when — on the landing of
the Pretender in Scotland in 171 5 — the Arch
bishop of Canterbury called on the bishops in and
near London to testify their abhorrence of the
rebellion, and to exhort the clergy and people,
under their care, to be zealous in the discharge of
their duties toward King George, Atterbury boldly
opposed himself to the wishes of the primate, and
indeed positively refused to sign the declaration
of the bishops, of their attachment to the Crown.
At length, after he had secretly intrigued against
the existing government for about eight years, the
ministry, aflfirming that they had obtained certain
information of his being engaged in a plot in
favour of the Pretender, caused him to be appre
hended on the charge of high treason. He was
seated in his dressing-gown in the deanery at
Westminster, when the under-secretary of state,
accompanied by one of the messengers of his office,

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 65
suddenly entered his apartment, and declared him
a prisoner of the state. His papers were immedi
ately seized, and Atterbury himself was hurried
before the Privy CouncU at the Cockpit, by whom,
however, he is said to have been treated with the
utmost respect. During his examination, he is
reported to have replied to a question put to him
in the words of our Saviour, " If I tell you, ye
will not believe, and if I also ask you, ye will not
answer me, nor let me go." The investigation
lasted three-quarters of an hour, and at its conclu
sion he was ordered to be conveyed to the Tower
in his own coach.
The ambition of Wolsey and the High Church
principles of Laud, appear to have centred in the
breast of Atterbury. Speaker Onslow observes :
"Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, was a man of
great parts and of a most restless and turbulent
spirit ; daring and enterprising, though then very
infirm, and capable of any artifice ; but proud and
passionate, and not of judgment enough for the
undertakings he engaged in. His views were not
only to be the first churchman, but the first man
also in the state — not less than Wolsey, whom
he admired and thought to imitate, and found he
could only succeed in this by the merit of his
overturning the present government, and advanc
ing that of the Pretender in its stead." The plot,
of which he was accused, is believed to have been
communicated to the English government by the

66 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Regent Duke of Orleans, who, however, is said to
have stipulated that no one should suffer on the
scaffold through his means.
The committal of Atterbury to the Tower ap
pears to have excited in the strongest degree the
commiseration of the pubhc. On the ground of
his being in UI health, — and it appears that he
was really suffering acutely from the gout, —
he was publicly prayed for by the clergy in most
of the churches of London and Westminster; a
print of him also was in circulation, wherein he
was represented as looking through the bars of a
prison, holding in his hand a portrait of Arch
bishop Laud, to which were added some verses
describing him as :
" . . .a second Laud,
Whose Christian courage nothing fears but God."
With reference to the arrest of Atterbury, the
following anecdote has been related: Shortly
after the committal of the bishop to the Tower,
some of the leading Whigs discussing in the
drawing-room the best means of disposing of him.
Lord Cadogan observed, somewhat brutally, " Fling
him to the lions." "The bishop," says Spence,
"was told of this, and soon after, in a letter to
Mr. Pope, said that he had fallen upon some verses
by chance in his room, which he must copy out
for him to read. These were four extremely severe

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 67
lines against Lord Cadogan ; and, in the last in
particular, he called him, —
" 'A bold, bad, boisterous, blustering, bloody booby.' "
The four lines in question (a sufficiently fierce
tirade, considering the author was a bishop) are
said to have been as follows :
" By fear unmoved, by shame unawed,
Offspring of hangman and of bawd.
Ungrateful to th' ungrateful man he grew by,
A bold, bad, boisterous, blustering, bloody booby."
Notwithstanding the respect with which Atter
bury had been personally treated, when under
going his examination before the Privy CouncU,
the usage which he afterward experienced, when
a prisoner in the Tower, was, to say the least,
disgraceful to the ministry who authorised such
cowardly oppression.' Atterbury himself says, in
his celebrated trial speech in the House of Lords :
" I have been under a very long and close confine
ment, and have been treated with such severity
and so great indignity as I believe no prisoner in
the Tower, of my age and function and rank, ever
was ; by which means, what strength and use of
' Coxe, in his " Life of Sir Robert Walpole," endeavours to
exculpate the ministry from the charge of cruelty toward Atter
bury ; his defence, however, amounts to little more than the
relation of a single act of leniency on their part, and in no degree
exonerates them from the harshness of which they have been
accused.

68 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
my limbs I had when I was first committed in
August last is now so far declined that I am very
unfit to make my defence against a bill of such
an extraordinary nature. The great weakness of
body and mind under which I labour, such usage,
such hardships, such insults as I have undergone,
might have broken a more resolute spirit and much
stronger constitution than falls to my share." This
eloquent description of his sufferings and Ul-usage
there is no reason to believe exaggerated. It has
even been asserted that he was encouraged to
write private letters, in order that the contents
might afterward be employed to support the accu
sation against him. At all events, his favourite
daughter was for some time refused admission to
him, and, even when the restriction was withdrawn,
their free communion was interrupted, and all ex
pression of natural feeling repressed by the pres
ence of one of the underlings of the administration.
Moreover, during the early visits paid him by his
son-in-law, Mr. Morrice, who came to assist him in
preparing his defence, the bishop was only allowed
to communicate with him from a distance. Atter
bury, during their interviews, was compelled to
give his direction from a two pair of stairs win
dow, whUe Mr. Morrice was standing in an open
area below. Among further evidences of the strict
ness with which he was guarded, and of the pre
cautions taken to prevent his communicating with
his friends, it may be mentioned that even some

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 69
pigeon pies, which he was in the habit of receiv
ing for his dinner, underwent a rigid examination
by order of the government. " It is the first
time," writes Pope to Gay, "that dead pigeons
have been suspected of carrying intelligence."
The following letter, addressed by Atterbury to
his friend Pope, during the period of his imprison
ment, is not only interesting, owing to the peculiar
circumstances under which it was written, but may
also be received as a fair specimen of the bishop's
epistolary style : "Tower, 10 April, 1723.
" Dear Sir : — I thank you for all the instances
of your friendship, both before and since my mis
fortunes. A little time will complete them, and
separate you and me for ever. But in what part
of the world soever I am, I wUl live mindful of
your sincere kindness to me ; and wUl please my
self with the thought that I stUl live in your
esteem and affection as much as ever I did, and
that no accidents of life, no distance of time or
place, wUl alter you in that respect. It never can
me, who have loved and valued you ever since I
knew you, and shall not fail to do it when I am
not allowed to tell you so, as the case wUl soon
be. Give my faithful services to Doctor Arbuth
not, and thanks for what he sent me, which was
much to the purpose, if anything can be said to be
to the purpose in a case that is already determined.

70 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Let him know my defence will be such that neither
my friends shall blush for me, nor wUl my enemies
have great occasion of triumph, though sure of
the victory. I shall want his advice before I go
abroad, in many things. But I question whether
I shall be permitted to see him, or anybody, but
such as are absolutely necessary toward the des
patch of my private affairs. If so, God bless you
both ! and may no part of the Ul-fortune that attends
me ever pursue either of you ! I know not but I
may call upon you at my hearing to say somewhat
about my way of spending my time at the deanery,
which did not seem calculated toward managing
plots and conspiracies. But of that I shall con
sider. You and I have spent many hours together
upon much pleasanter subjects ; and that I may
preserve the old custom, I shall not part with you
now tUl I have closed this letter with three lines
of Milton, which you will, I know, readily, and not
without some degree of concern, apply to your
ever affectionate, etc.
" ' Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon,
The world was all before him where to choose
His place of rest, and Providence his guide.' "
On the 9th of April, 1723, a bill passed the
House of Commons, proposing the infliction of
certain pains and penalties on Francis, Lord Bishop
of Rochester, which the same day was carried up
to the House of Lords for their concurrence. On

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 71
the 6th of May, the day fixed upon by the Lords
for the first reading of the bUl, Atterbury was
brought from the Tower to Westminster. The
proceedings lasted altogether about a week, at the
expiration of which time the bishop received per
mission to plead for himself. It was then that he
delivered that celebrated oration, which even the
counsel for the prosecution admitted to be almost
unrivalled for eloquence, and which, with the ex
ception of Strafford's memorable appeal before a
simUar tribunal, was, perhaps, the most brUliant
and forcible appeal that was ever addressed by a
state criminal to his peers.
The principal evidence adduced against Atter
bury, and that which had been particularly insisted
upon by Pulteney, who drew up the report of the
secret committee, was derived from a trifling but
somewhat singular incident. The government, it
seems, had obtained possession of some treasonable
letters, written under the fictitious names of Illing-
ton and Jones, in several of which there were allu
sions to a little dog about to be sent to "Mrs."
lUington from France. It was by this means that
the ministry obtained a clue to the real authors
of the correspondence. The animal was traced to
the house of a Mrs. Barnes, who subsequently un
derwent an examination before the Privy CouncU.
It appeared by the evidence of this person that
"a spotted little dog called Harlequin, which was
brought from France, and had a leg broken,

72 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
was left with her to be cured ; that the said dog
was not for her, but for the Bishop of Rochester ;
and that one Kelly, who had sent over the dog,
had promised to get it of the Bishop of Rochester
for her in case it did not recover of its lameness."
This would clearly identify the bishop and Illing-
ton as the same person, and though Atterbury did
not condescend to take notice of the circumstance
in his defence, it is said to have made no little
impression on the minds of his judges. Swift has
agreeably ridiculed it in his verses " On the horrid
plot discovered by the Bishop of Rochester's French
dog:" " Now let me tell you plainly, sir.
Our witness is a real cur,
A dog of spirit for his years ;
Has twice two legs, two hanging ears.
His name is Harlequin, I wot,
And that's a name in every plot :
Resolved to save the British nation,
Though French by birth and education;
His correspondence, plainly dated,
Was all deciphered and translated :
His answers were exceeding pretty
Before the secret wise committee ;
Confessed as plain as he could bark.
Then with his fore foot set his mark."
At the period when the House of Lords sen
tenced Atterbury as a criminal, it may reasonably
be questioned whether they had sufficient evidence
before them to justify their decision, and whether.

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 73
if the sentence were a just one, it was in fact
strictly legal. Documents, indeed, have since
been brought to light which sufficiently establish
Atterbury's guUt, but stUl the evidence which they
contain was not in the possession of his judges,
and consequently could in no degree have influ
enced their decision. It is principally on account
of the light which they throw on Atterbury's con
duct that these documents are now of value.
Considering, indeed, what unquestionable evidence
they contain of his criminality, we are not a little
startled at the passionate protestations which at his
trial he made of his innocence, and the solemnity
with which he appealed to Heaven for their truth.
A single extract from Atterbury's famous de
fence may, perhaps, not be unacceptable to the
reader. After affecting to ridicule the very ex
istence of the plot in which he was accused of
having been engaged, "What could tempt me,"
he says, " to step thus out of my way ? Was it
ambition and a desire of climbing into a higher
station in the Church .' There is not a man in my
office farther removed from this than I am. Was
money my aim ? I always despised it too much,
considering what occasion I am now like to have
for it, for out of a poor bishopric of five hundred
pounds per annum, I have laid out no less than a
thousand pounds toward the repairs of the church
and episcopal palace ; nor did I take one shilling
for dilapidations. The rest of my little income

74 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
has been spent as is necessary, as I am a bishop.
Was I influenced by any dislike of the established
religion, and secretly inclined toward a church of
greater pomp and power ? I have, my lords, ever
since I knew what popery was, opposed it ; and the
better I knew it the more I opposed it. I began
my study in divinity when the popish controversy
grew hot, with that immortal book of TUlotson's
when he undertook the Protestant cause in gen
eral ; and as such I esteemed him above all. You
will pardon me, my lords, if I mention one thing :
thirty years ago I wrote in defence of Martin
Luther, and have preached, expressed, and wrote
to that purpose from my infancy ; and, whatever
happens to me, I wUl suffer anything, and, by
God's grace, burn at the stake, rather than depart
from any material point of the Protestant religion,
as professed in the Church of England." '
The bishop concludes his appeal as follows :
" If, on any account, there shall still be thought
by your lordships to be any seeming strength in
the proofs against me, if, by your lordships' judg-
' Even the worst enemies of Atterbury admit that he never
swerved from the principles of the Reformed religion. " He
reprobated with warmth,'' says Coxe, "the conduct of the
Duke of Wharton, Lords North and Grey, and others, who had
sacrificed their religion with a view to obtain the Pretender's
favour ; he even quarrelled with the Duke of Berwick, who
proposed giving a Catholic preceptor to the young Duke of
Buckingham, and used his influence over the duchess to place
none but Protestants about the person of her son."

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 75
ments, springing from unknown motives, — if, for
any reasons or necessity of state, of the wisdom
and justice of which I am no competent judge, —
your lordships shall proceed to pass this bUl
against me, I shall dispose myself quietly and
tacitly to submit to what you do. God's wUl be
done : naked came I out of my mother's womb,
and naked shall I return ; and whether he gives or
takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord ! "
The bishop's speech, according to his own com
putation and that of Pope, lasted two hours. On
the following Monday he was again brought from
the Tower, to hear the rejoinder of the king's
counsel, and three days afterward, on the i6th of
May, after a vehement opposition from his own
party, the bill, declaring him guUty of high trea
son, passed the House of Lords, by a majority of
eighty-three to forty-three. Agreeably with its
provisions, he was deprived of all his benefices ;
declared incapable of exercising any office, and
enjoying any dignity, within the king's dominions ;
and sentenced to be exiled for life. He was even
debarred from the society of his countrymen re
siding abroad ; the bUl providing that whoever
should hold any correspondence with him, unless
licensed under the king's sign manual, should be
adjudged felons, without the benefit of clergy.
The following interesting anecdote, which has
reference both to Atterbury's imprisonment in the
Tower, and to his presumed skepticism in regard

76 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
to revealed religion, was frequently related by Lord
Chesterfield, in conversation with his friends. " I
went," he said, " to Mr. Pope one morning at
Twickenham, and found a large folio Bible, with
gilt clasps, lying before him upon his table ; and
as I knew his way of thinking upon that book,
I asked him, jocosely, if he was going to write an
answer to it. ' It is a present,' said he, ' or rather
a legacy, from my old friend, the Bishop of
Rochester. I went to take my leave of him
yesterday in the Tower, where I saw this Bible
upon his table. After the first compliments, the
bishop said to me, " My friend Pope, considering
your infirmities, and my age and exile, it is not
likely that we should ever meet again ; and, there
fore, I give you this legacy to remember me by it.
Take it home with you, and let me advise you to
abide by it." " Does your lordship abide by it your
self > " " I do." " If you do, my lord, it is but lately.
May I beg to know what new light or arguments
have prevaUed with you now, to entertain an opin
ion so contrary to that which you entertained of
that book all the former part of your life ? " The
bishop replied : " We have not time to talk of these
things ; but take home the book, I wUl abide by
it ; and I wUl recommend to you to do so too, and
so God bless you ! " '" Doctor Johnson, in his
"Life of Pope," incidentally mentions Atterbury
presenting the poet with a Bible, at their last
interview in the Tower, but seems to have been

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 77
ignorant of the interesting circumstances con
nected with the gift. Pope once said of Atterbury
in a moment of unusual tenderness, " Perhaps it is
not only in this world that I may have cause to
remember the Bishop of Rochester."
We have already seen Atterbury writing to his
friend Pope, intimating that he might possibly
require his evidence at his trial. The poet, it
seems, was actually summoned as a witness, — a
circumstance which appears to have caused him
some embarrassment. Alluding, sometime after
ward, to his having been present at the trial, " I
never could speak in public," he says, "and I do
not believe that, if it was a set thing, I could give
an account of any story to twelve friends together ;
though I could tell it to any three of them with a
great deal of pleasure. When I was to appear for
the Bishop of Rochester on his trial, though I had
but ten words to say, and that on a plain, easy
point, — how that bishop spent his time whUe I
was with him at Bromley, — I made two or three
blunders in it ; and that, notwithstanding the first
row of lords, which were all I could see, were
mostly of my acquaintance."
But, perhaps, the most remarkable event which
took place during the proceedings against Atter
bury was a trial of strength between the bishop
and the prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, the
latter, probably by his own contrivance, having
been summoned as a witness for the prosecution.

78 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Speaker Onslow observes, in his " Remarks on
various parts of Sir Robert Walpole's conduct : "
"The bishop used all the art his guUt would
admit of, to perplex and make Walpole contra
dict himself ; but he was too hard for the bishop
upon every turn, although a greater trial of skUl
this way scarce ever happened between two such
combatants. The one, fighting for his reputation,
the other for his acquittal. The expectation of
people in it, as they were differently inclined to the
parties, and the cause and solemnity of it, from
the place and the audience it was in, made it look
like a listed field for a combat of another sort,
and the joy of victory as great as there."
On the 1 8th of June, 1723, Atterbury bade
farewell for ever to his country. Accompanied
by his favourite daughter, Mrs. Morrice, he em
barked on board the Aldborough, man-of-war,
from which vessel he was landed at Calais. Sir
Robert Walpole writes to Townshend on the 20th
of the month : " The Bishop of Rochester went
away on Tuesday. The crowd that attended him
before his embarkation was not more than was
expected; but great numbers of boats attended
him to the ship's side. Nothing very extraordi
nary, but the Duke of Wharton's behaviour, who
went on board the vessel with him ; and a free
conversation betwixt his Holiness and WUliam-
son ; ' with menaces of a day of vengeance."
• The Governor of the Tower.

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 79
A popular commotion, it seems, had been appre
hended by the ministry, but the affair passed off
quietly, and without the slightest tumult.
The Duke of Wharton, it may be remarked, in
addition to defending Atterbury in a magnificent
speech in the House of Lords, commemorated his
exile in a copy of verses of some merit :
" Farewell ! renowned in arts, farewell !
Thus conquered by thy foe ;
Of honours and of friends deprived.
In exile must thou go :
Yet go content ; thy look, thy will sedate,
Thy soul superior to the shocks of state.
" Thy wisdom was thy only guilt.
Thy virtue thy offence ;
With god-like zeal thou didst espouse
Thy country's just defence ;
Nor sordid hopes could charm thy steady soul.
Nor fears nor guilty numbers could control."
From Calais, Atterbury proceeded, in the first
instance, to Brussels and thence to Paris, in which
capital he continued principally to reside tUl his
death. Here, he formed acquaintance with the
most distinguished men of letters in France, in
whose society he was enabled at times to forget
that he was an exile, and to escape from a melan
choly communion with his own thoughts. The
turbulent spirit of Atterbury was, indeed, far
from being at rest. Like his friend, Bolingbroke,

80 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
he boasted a serenity of mind which he did not
experience, and preached a phUosophy which he
was unable to practise. At the very time when
he was vaunting the consolation which he derived
from religion and books, and when his loyalty to
King George, and his respect for the existing in
stitutions of his native country, formed the topics
on which he principally dwelt in his private letters
to his friends, we have now certain evidence to
prove that he was secretly corresponding with the
partisans of the Pretender, and devoting his whole
energies to advance the cause of that unfortunate
prince.' Atterbury, notwithstanding his many faults, was
a person of strong affections, and, latterly, all the
tenderness of his nature was centred in his beloved
daughter, Mrs. Morrice, who accompanied him in
his exile, and tended him in his old age. The
death of this amiable woman, who expired in his
arms, in the latter part of 1729, affected him in
the most sensible manner. Separated from his
own famUy, and debarred from the society of
' These facts are proved, first, by the bishop's correspondence
with the rebels in Scotland, published by Sir David Dalrymple ;
secondly, by the accounts received by the English government,
from their spies at Paris ; thirdly, from Atterbury's private letters
to his son-in-law, Mr. Morrice, published by Coxe, in his supple
mentary volumes of the "Life of Sir Robert Walpole;" and,
lastly, from a particular letter addressed by the bishop to Mr.
Morrice, in which, in 1728, he mentions that he has quitted the
service of the Pretender, not from principle, but from disgust.

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 8 1
his countrymen, the once splendid and admired
Atterbury was left, by this bereavement, almost
alone among strangers, and was condemned to
pass the brief remainder of his long life in a man
ner which might have excited the commiseration
of even his enemies.
It is impossible to read, without emotion, the
following passage, in which Atterbury communi
cates to his friend, Mr. Dicconson, the tidings of
his daughter's decease. The passage in question
occurs in a letter dated Montpelier, 4th December,
1729: "I have your letter of the isth November, and
am much obliged to you for the friendly con
cern you express in it. As to the article of my
poor daughter, of whom, seven days before the
date of it, God was pleased to deprive me, upon
a melancholy but comfortable meeting I had with
her at Toulouse, where she survived her arrival
twenty-four hours, and spent that little time that
was left her in such a manner as wUl make
her memory ever dear and valuable to me. I
thought nothing could have added to the affec
tion and esteem I had for her, but I found myself
mistaken in those last moments when she took
her leave of me. She is gone and I must follow
her. When I do, may my latter end be like hers !
It was my business to have taught her to die ;
instead of it, she has taught me. I am not
ashamed, and I wish I may be able to learn that

82 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
lesson of her. What I feel upon her loss is not
to be expressed, but the reflection on the manner
of it makes me some amends. God has tempered
the severity of the one by the circumstances of
the other, and has dealt with me, as in the rest
of his inflictions, so as, together with the great
burden he laid on me, to enable me at the same
time in some measure to bear it."
In a letter from a Mr. Evans, who had accom
panied Mrs. Morrice and her husband from Eng
land, we find the following passage : " It was well
worth my whUe to have taken so long a voyage,
though I was immediately to return home again,
and reap no other benefit from it than seeing what
passed in the last hours of Mrs. Morrice." The
fact is a striking and painful one, that not only
did the last melancholy meeting between Atter
bury and his expiring daughter take place in a
land of strangers, but the permission granted
them to meet once more was wrung from the
English ministry only by the most humble solic
itations on the part of the exUed prelate, and
on payment of very large and inconvenient fees
of office. When Mrs. Morrice obtained permis
sion to embrace her father for the last time, con
sumption had made such terrible ravages in her
constitution that she was unable to undergo the
fatigues of a land journey. She proceeded as far
as Bourdeaux by sea (the bishop being then at
Toulouse expecting her), but was so exhausted

BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. 83
on reaching the land that it seemed unlikely she
would be reserved for further exertions. It had
been her earnest prayer that she might be per
mitted to behold her father once more, and that
prayer was granted. Ill as she was, she ventured
all night up the river Garonne, and the next
morning was in the presence of her father at
Toulouse. Twenty-four hours afterward she ex
pired in his arms.
The bishop, it may be remarked, in addition to
the misfortunes of proscription and exile, had
already had occasion to lament the loss of a wife
and three children. His only remaining issue was
the Rev. Osborne Atterbury, Rector of OxhUl, in
Warwickshire. Atterbury expired at Paris on the 1 5 th of Feb
ruary, 1 73 1, in his sixty-ninth year, surviving the
loss of his beloved daughter only fifteen months.
His body was brought to England, and it may be
mentioned as a curious circumstance that the
hearse which contained his remains was stopped
in its progress to the metropolis, and the coffin
opened by order of the government. The circum
stance occasioned a great outcry at the time. It
was affirmed, however, by the partisans of the
rpinistry, that the outrage was solely the act of
the custom-house officers, who had obtained in
formation that some brocades, and other pro
hibited articles of foreign manufacture, were
concealed in the coffin. The remains of After-

84 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
bury were interred, on the 12th of May, 1731, in
the sacred repository of departed genius, West
minster Abbey. The country, which had rejected
him when living, seemed proud to receive his ashes
when dead.

CHAPTER IIL
MRS. MASHAM.
AbigaU HiU, Afterward Mrs. Masham, Daughter of Mr. HUl, a
Turkey Merchant — Placed as a Waiting-woman with Lady
Rivers — Her Relationship to the Duchess of Marlborough,
Who Places Her in the Queen's Household — Anecdote of
Her Related by the Duchess — The Latter's Communication
to Bishop Burnet — Extract from the Duchess's Memoirs —
Her Kindness to the HUl FamUy — AbigaU HiU's Marriage
to Mr. Masham, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince
George of Denmark — Queen Anne Present at the Ceremony
— Extracts from the Duchess of Marlborough's Memoirs —
The Duke's Remarks on Mrs. Masham's Influence — His iX^ -
ter to the Queen — Brief Account of Mr. Masham — He Is
Created Baron Masham of Otes — Lord Dartmouth's and
Swift's Opinions of Mrs. Masham — She Retires with Her
Husband, on the Death of the Queen, to Her Seat at
Otes — John Locke Their Guest — Mrs. Masham's Death
in 1734.
It is remarkable how little is known of this
celebrated woman, who, from an almost menial
situation, rose to be the favourite of her sovereign ;
who governed both Queen Anne and her coun
cUs; who expelled ministries, and gave birth to
others almost at her wUl ; and who, without
positive talent, or, apparently, merit of any sort,
8S

86 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
could boast that she had on more than one occasion
changed the destinies of Europe.
The maiden name of Mrs. Masham was HUl.
She was the daughter of a Mr. HUl, a Turkey
merchant, and, according to Lord Dartmouth,
who was well acquainted with her, had originally
been a " waiting-woman " to a Lady Rivers, in
Kent.' She was an indigent relation of the Duch
ess of Marlborough, a circumstance which, added
to the general propriety of her conduct, her ap
parent humUity, and a character which she had
obtained of being a peculiarly trustworthy person,
appears to have induced the duchess to place her
relative near the queen. It was an act of good
nature which she very shortly had reason to
repent ; and, in after years, any allusion to the
" incurable baseness " of Mrs. Masham — almost
the very mention of the name of the aspiring
bedchamber-woman — was sufficient to throw the
duchess into a tempest of rage. " After I brought
this woman into the court," observes her Grace,
" she always had a shy, reserved behaviour toward
me ; always avoided entering into a free conver
sation, and made excuses when I asked her to go
abroad with me. And what I thought, then, iU-
' The assertion that Mrs. Masham had been a " waiting-
woman " to Lady Rivers is corroborated by a statement of
Coxe. " Abigail," he says, " was so reduced as to enter into the
service of Lady Rivers, wife of Sir John Rivers, Bart., of Chaf-
f ord, in Kent, as I was informed by the late John Rivers, Esq.
She was raised from her humble situation by the duchess."

MRS. MASHAM. 87
breeding, or surly honesty, has since proved to be a
design deeply laid, as she had always the artifice to
hide very carefully the power and influence she had
over the queen, an instance of which I remember,
when I was with the queen at Windsor, and went
through my own lodgings a private way and unex
pected. She unlocked the door in a loud, familiar
manner, and was tripping across the room with
a gay air, but upon seeing me she immediately
stopped short, and, acting a part like a player,
dropped a grave curtsey, and when she had gone a
good way without making any, and, in a faint, low
voice, cried, ' Did your Majesty ring, pray .' ' "
The reflection, indeed, must have been not a little
provoking to the imperious duchess, that she had
not only been outmanoeuvred by her humble kins
woman, but owed her own fall, and that of her
husband, to the machinations of a woman whom
she affected to have raised from the dirt.
Amongst the mass of acrimonious abuse with
which the duchess, alike in her memoirs and her
private letters, invariably loads the name of her
rival, we occasionally find some curious particulars
relating to Mrs. Masham. To Bishop Burnet, who
had apparently applied to her for some addition to
the stock of agreeable scandal which he was pre
paring for posterity, the duchess — anxious, on all
occasions, that her name should stand well with
posterity — thus eagerly replies.: "You inquire
into the ground of favour to the HUls. I can

88 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
only tell you, that I did not know there were
such people tUl about twenty years ago, when I
was told by an acquaintance that I had relations
that were in want, and that this woman was a
daughter of my father's sister.' My father had
in all two and twenty brothers and sisters, and
though I am very little concerned about pedigrees
or famUy, I know not why I should not tell you
that his was reckoned a good one, and that he had
in Somersetshire, Kent, and St. Albans four thou
sand pounds a year. However, it was not strange
that, when the chUdren were so many, their por
tions were small, and that one of them married
this Mr. HUl, who had some business in the city,
rather as a merchant or proprietor, and was some
way related to Mr. Harley, and by profession an
Anabaptist. From the time I knew their condition,
I helped them every way as much as I could, to
which I had no motive but charity and relation
ship." The duchess, in her memoirs, introduces some
further and no less interesting particulars respect
ing the early history of Mrs. Masham, and her
own share in establishing the fortunes of the
future favourite. After again adverting to their
relationship, she adds that she has been informed,
on good authority, that her uncle HUl "lived
very well" in the city, tUl he turned projector,
'It appears by this statement that the Duchess of Marl
borough and Mrs. Masham were first cousins.

MRS. MASHAM. 89
when his indiscretions entaUed ruin on his famUy.
"But," proceeds the duchess, "as this was long
before I was born, I never knew there were such
people in the world tUl after the Princess Anne
was married, and when she lived at the Cockpit,
at which time an acquaintance of mine came to
me, and said she believed I did not know that I
had relations who were in want, and she gave me
an account of them. When she had finished her
story, I answered that indeed I had never heard
before of any such relations, and immediately
gave her out of my purse ten guineas for their
present relief, saying I would do what I could for
them." If the statements of the duchess are to be relied
upon (and, though her pictures are, occasionally,
highly coloured, there is no reason for questioning
the truth of her assertions), she behaved in the
most exemplary manner toward her poor relations,
and extended to them the kindness of which they
stood so greatly in need. She appears to have
frequently relieved the necessities of Mrs. Hill ;
whUe the subject of the present memoir, then a
young and unmarried woman, appears to have
been particularly honoured by her notice and
regard. "The elder daughter, afterward Mrs.
Masham," says the duchess, "was a grown woman.
I took her to St. Albans, where she lived with
me and my chUdren ; and I treated her with as
great kindness as if she had been my sister.

90 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
After some time, a bedchamber-woman of the
Princess of Denmark's died, and as, in that reign,
after the princesses were grown up, rockers, though
not gentlewomen, had been advanced to be bed
chamber-women, I thought I might ask the prin
cess to give the vacant place to Mrs. HUl. At
first, indeed, I had some scruple about it ; but
this being removed by persons I thought wiser,
with whom I consulted, I made the request to the
princess, and it was granted."
Neither did her charity stop here. For an elder
brother of Mrs. Masham she procured a place in
the custom-house, and even induced a relation
of the Duke of Marlborough to become security
for him to the amount of two thousand pounds.
A younger brother, afterward well known among
his contemporaries as "Jack HUl," she placed at
a school at St. Albans, and though the duchess
admits, or rather affirms, that he was "good for
nothing," she persuaded the Duke of Marlborough
to take him as his aid-de-camp, and subsequently
to confer on him a regiment. There now re
mained but one of her uncle's chUdren to provide
for. This was a younger daughter, for whom
she procured an appointment as laundress in the
household of the young Duke of Gloucester, and,
on the death of that promising scion of royalty,
obtained for her a pension of two hundred a year.
These were no trifling benefits to confer on one
family. The account, indeed, is taken from the

MRS. MASHAM. 91
Statement of the duchess herself, but there exists
no reason to believe that she has exaggerated her
phUanthropy. Coxe, indeed, informs us that there
are preserved among the Marlborough papers
several letters from Mrs. Hill, the mother of Mrs.
Masham, which teem with the warmest expres
sions of gratitude for the kindness of the duchess,
and prove, beyond doubt, that she procured places
or establishments for the children of her widowed
aunt. Among the letters of expostulation which, after
her loss of power, the duchess frequently addressed
to her royal mistress, there is one in which she
particularly vaunts the favours conferred by her
on her rival. Speaking of her " cousin HUl," she
says : " I have several letters under her hand to
acknowledge that never any famUy had received
such benefits as hers had done from me ; which
I wUl keep to show the world what returns she
has made for obligations that she was sensible
of." As the queen was certain to display this
passage to her new favourite, it is needless to
add that, unless the duchess had really conferred
many important benefits on her ungrateful kins
woman, she would scarcely have boasted of them
in so confident a manner.
On the other hand, it must be observed, in
justice to Mrs. Masham, that the account which
the duchess gives of her own munificence, and the
picture which she draws of the ingratitude of her

92 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
relative, constitute, after all, but an ex-part e state
ment. Admitting even the correctness "of her
Grace's assertion ; allowing her the credit of
having freely administered to the wants of a
suffering famUy, and of having raised its members
from comparative indigence and obscurity ; it still
becomes a question how far the haughty duchess
may have been influenced by family pride, and
whether she may not have cancelled the obligation
by subsequent unkindness, or by the proud and
patronising manner in which her favours were
conferred. From the insight which we possess
into the character of the duchess, it is far from
improbable that she assumed the part of a " Lady
Bountiful ; " that she exacted on all occasions a
due equivalent for her charity, and, by treating
her cousin (at the time when she was a member
of her household) rather as a dependent than a
friend, purchased for herself the hatred, instead
of the gratitude, of her future rival.
Mrs. Masham, it appears, had for many months
been gradually undermining the Duchess of Marl
borough in the affections of their royal mistress,
long before the duchess conceived the remotest
suspicion that her influence was in danger. At
length a particular circumstance served to en
lighten her on the subject. Mrs. Masham, who,
up to this period (1707), was merely regarded as
plain Abigail Hill, one of the queen's dressers,
had formed an attachment for Mr. Masham, one

MRS. MASHAM. 93
of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to Prince
George of Denmark. Masham, it seems, from
motives of self-interest, rather than from any feel
ing of regard for the lady's person, was induced
to make her an offer of his hand ; moreover, by
the advice of the insidious Harley, the queen was
made the confidante of their amours, with the un
derstanding that the Duchess of Marlborough was
to be excluded from all knowledge of the affair.
Not, indeed, that there existed any reasonable
ground for making a matrimonial engagement be
tween a gentleman of the bedchamber and a royal
waiting-woman a matter of state importance ; more
especially as both parties seem to have been very
equally matched in rank and fortune ; but Harley,
at this juncture, was deep in female jealousies and
intrigues ; he was aware of the habitual awe, min
gled with increasing dislike, with which the queen
regarded the Duchess of Marlborough ; it was his
object to accustom his royal mistress to resistance,
in order to extricate her from the trammels in
which she was entangled ; and, with this object,
he sought to implicate her in a private transaction,
in which, for the first time since the commence
ment of her long intercourse with the duchess,
the queen should be induced to engage without the
knowledge of her domineering favourite. The re
sult fully answered the expectations of the design
ing statesman. Anne not only signified her
approval of the marriage, but consented to be

94 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
present at its celebration. The ceremony was
performed in the apartments of Doctor Arbuthnot,
in the most private manner, no other person except
the queen being present.
When, in the course of time, the report of this
secret marriage became matter of court gossip, the
duchess, who was as yet ignorant of the queen's
share in the transaction, immediately hastened
with pretended congratulations to her relative.
"I went to her," says the duchess, "and asked
her if it were true ; she owned it was, and begged
my pardon for having concealed it from me. As
much reason as I had to take ill this reserve in her
behaviour, I was willing to impute it to bashful
ness and want of breeding, rather than to anything
worse. I embraced her with my usual tenderness,
and very heartily wished her joy ; and then, turn
ing the discourse, entered into her concerns in as
friendly a manner as possible. I then inquired of
her, very kindly, whether the queen knew of her
marriage, and very innocently offered her my ser
vice, if she needed it, to raake that matter easy.
She had, by this time, learnt the art of dissimula
tion pretty well, and answered, with an air of
unconcernedness, that the bedchamber-women had
already acquainted the queen with it." The suspi
cions of the duchess appear, by this time, to have
been fully aroused. She immediately went to the
queen, and, warming probably into one of her not
unfrequent paroxysms of rage, "expostulated"

MRS. MASHAM. 95
with her Majesty on the sUence which she had
maintained. "But," says the duchess, "all the
answer I could obtain from her Majesty was this,
' I have a hundred times bid Mrs. Masham tell it
you and she would not.' "
"The conduct both of the queen and Mrs.
Masham," adds the duchess, "convinced me that
there was some mystery in the affair, and there
upon I set myself to inquire as particularly as I
could into it. And in less than a week's time
I discovered that my cousin was become an abso
lute favourite ; that the queen herself was present
at her marriage in Doctor Arbuthnot's lodgings,
at which time her Majesty had called for a round
sum out of the privy purse ; that Mrs. Masham
came often to the queen, when the prince was
asleep, and was generally two hours every day in
private with her. And I likewise then discovered,
beyond all dispute, Mr. Harley's correspondence
and interest at court by means of this woman. I
was struck with astonishment at such an instance
of ingratitude, and should not have believed it, if
there had been any room left for doubting." No
wonder that the duchess was struck with astonish
ment and alarm. From the hour that the queen
first listened with complacency to the insinuating
arguments of the humble dresser, the power of
the haughty and insolent duchess, of her illustrious
husband, and of the entire Whig party, was virtu
ally, if not actually, at an end.

96 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
There is something almost amounting to sim
plicity in the manner in which the Duke of
Marlborough replies to the representations of his
duchess, that Mrs. Masham was stealthily sup
planting her in the affections of the queen. Ap
parently unable to conceive the possibUity that
one whom he had as yet merely known as a poor
dependent could dream of jostling him in his
career of greatness, he writes to his indignant
duchess, on the 3d of June, 1707: "If you are
sure that Mrs. Masham speaks of business to the
queen, I should think you might, with some cau
tion, tell her of it, which would do good. For she
certainly must be grateful and wUl mind what you
say." As if a few words spoken in caution could
stop a headstrong woman in her career of ambi
tion and intrigue ! The duke lived to trace his
own fall and that of his party to the machinations
of this apparently innocuous female ; indeed, only
ten months after the date of the foregoing letter,
we find his language, in speaking of the favourite,
of a very different ' character. In April, the fol
lowing year, he writes to his duchess from The
Hague : " The credit of Mrs. Masham occasions
a good deal of disagreeable discourse in this coun
try," and, again, in another letter he styles her,
amusingly, a "viper."
But a communication which he subsequently
addressed to the queen (in which he haughtUy
deprecates the preference that she showed for

MRS. MASHAM. 97
her new favourite) evinces how deeply wounded
and how indignant were his feelings. Speaking
of one of the numerous insults and injuries which
he had experienced at the hands of Harley and
Mrs. Masham, "This," he observes, "is only one
of a great many mortifications that I have met
with, and as I may not have raany opportunities
of writing to you, let me beg of your Majesty to
reflect what your own people, and the rest of the
world, raust think, who have been witnesses of
the love, zeal, and duty with which I have served
you, when they shall see that, after all I have
done, it has not been able to protect me against
the raalice of a bedchamber- woman."
It may be questioned whether, had the queen
lived, Mrs. Masham would have continued to retain
her influence over her sovereign. Swift writes
from Windsor in September, 171 1 : " Mrs. Masham
is better, and will be here in three or four days ;
she had need, for the Duchess of Somerset is
thought to gain ground daily." Lord Dartmouth
says : " She grew to be very rude and jealous,
which I took no notice of ; but the queen had a
suspicion that she, or her sister, listened at the
door all the time I was with her, which, with
some disrepects shown to the Duchess of Somer
set, gave her Majesty sorae thoughts of making
of her a lady of the bedchamber, and laying of
her down softly." "I was desired," adds Lord
Dartmouth, " to propose her husband's being made

98 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
a peer, which I found was not very acceptable.
The queen told me she never had any design to
make a great lady of her, and should lose a useful
servant about her person ; for it would give offence
to have a peeress lie upon the floor,' and do several
other inferior offices ; but at last consented, upon
condition she remained a dresser, and did as she
used to do."
Of the private character of Mrs. Masham, —
whether her virtues or her vices preponderated,
— we have, unfortunately, no faithful record.
Lord Dartmouth (who, however, admits that he
lived on bad terms with the favourite) observes :
" She was exceeding mean and vulgar in her
manners ; of a very unequal temper ; childishly
exceptious, and passionate." Swift, on the other
hand, draws a very pleasing portrait of Mrs.
Masham. "She was a person," he says, "of a
plain sound understanding, of great truth and
sincerity, without the least mixture of falsehood
or disguise ; of an honest boldness and courage
to her sex ; firm and disinterested in her friend
ship ; and full of love, duty, and veneration for
the queen, her mistress ; talents as seldom found
as sought for in a court, as unlikely to thrive
while they are there." Mesnager, also, in his
"Minutes of the Negotiations at the Court of
' It is evident, from this passage, that the ancient custom of
a person sleeping across the doorway of the royal bedchamber
was continued even as late as the reign of Queen Anne.

MRS. MASHAM. 99
England," speaks of her in the highest terms,
and adds that he knows no woman raore worthy
to be the favourite of a queen. It seeras to be
questionable whether her person was ever agree
able. Swift, in recording his first introduction to
her, observes : " I dined to-day at lord treasurer's
with Mrs. Masham, and she is extreraely like one
Mrs. Malolly, that was my landlady in Trim ; she
was used with mighty kindness and respect, like
a favourite." Frora the numerous notices of her
by Swift, who was afterward frequently thrown
into her society, we glean little more than that
she was an affectionate raother to her children,
and that she had no objection to a game of piquet
with the dean.
On the death of Queen Anne, Lady Masham
and her husband retired to their seat at Otes,
where the immortal philosopher, John Locke,
spent ten years of his life as their guest. Locke,
it may be remarked, breathed his last at Otes,
and, at his own desire, was buried in the church
yard of that place.
Of the husband of Mrs. Masham, it raay be
necessary to say a few words. Samuel, younger
son of Sir Francis Masham, Bart., had originally
been a page of honour to Queen Anne, and sub
sequently held the appointments of equerry and
gentleman of the bedchamber to the Prince of
Denmark. He was rdated, not very distantly,
to the Cromwells. Prince George obtained for

100 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
him the command of a regiment, and the rank
of a brigadier-general, in addition to which he
was subsequently appointed cofferer of the house
hold, and obtained a reversionary grant of the
office of remembrancer of the exchequer, to
which place he succeeded on the 23d of October,
171 6, on the death of Simon, Lord Fanshawe.
The influence of Mrs. Masham with the queen
procured her husband's elevation to the peerage.
On the 31st of December, 1711, he was created
Baron Masham of Otes, in Essex, having, a short
time previously, succeeded his nephew as fourth
baronet. Lady Masham was the mother of four children :
George, who died in the lifetime of his father;
Samuel, who succeeded to the title, and at whose
death, in 1776, the barony became extinct; Fran
cis, who died young ; and Anne, married to Henry
Hoare, Esq., and mother of Susannah, Countess
of Aylesbury. Lady Masham died on the 6th
December, 1734, having survived her husband
about fourteen months. They were both buried
at Otes.

CHAPTER IV.
ROBERT FIELDING, BEAU FIELDING.
Beau Fielding, the " Orlando " of the Tatler — Descended from
an Old Warwickshire FamUy — Sent to London to Study the
Law — His Great Personal Beauty and Foppish Habits —
His Extraordinary Popularity with the Fair Sex — His Suc
cess as a. Gambler — Fantastic Liveries of His Servants —
Portraits of Him by the Three Great Artists of the Day — His
First Wife, Daughter and Heiress of Lord Carlingford — His
Second, the Celebrated Duchess of Cleveland, Mistress of
Charles the Second — Their Matrimonial Unhappiness —
Duchess's Discovery that He Had Committed Bigamy — He
Is Tried at the Old Bailey — Singular Evidence Adduced at
the Trial Respecting Fielding's Intrigues to Obtain the Hand
of a Rich Widow, Deleau — Curious Statement Made by th&
Counsel for the Prosecution — Evidence of Mrs. VUlars, and
of Fielding's Servant, Boucher — Fielding Found Guilty, but
Afterward Pardoned by Queen Anne — His Marriage with tha
Duchess of Cleveland Annulled.
The history of a fine gentleman of the reign of
Queen Anne, as it throws an amusing light on the
manners of the period, may not be unacceptable
to the reader.
Robert Fielding, the " Oriando " of the Tatler,
was a cadet of a good faraUy in Warwickshire,
and, at an early age, was sent to London for the
purpose of studying the law. Vanity, however.

102 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
and a taste for dissipation, gradually weaned him
frora his professional pursuits, and when, on an
occasion of his appearing at court, his sovereign
spoke of him, par excellence, as "the handsome
Fielding," the circumstance is said to have stamped
hira for ever as a fop. Granger speaks of him as
"uncommonly beautiful," and if we are to judge
from the notices of him by his contemporaries, the
encomium scarcely appears to be exaggerated.
Popular with the fair sex, almost beyond prece
dent, the sums which he received for conferring
his favours on the old he is said to have lavished
profusely on the young. The gaming-table also
afforded him occasional raeans of subsistence, and,
though a vice which rarely enriches its votaries, he
is said, as a gamester, to have proved unusually
successful. Whatever may have been the secret
raeans of his subsistence, he figured for a series of
years, in his proper sphere, the metropolis, in daz
zling, though borrowed plumes ; and, by the splen
dour of his dress and the fantastic liveries of his
servants, appears to have never faUed in attracting
public attention. His domestics are described as
habited in yellow liveries, with black sashes, and
black feathers in their hats. One circumstance is
curious, and, moreover, affords tolerable evidence
of Fielding's self-love, that he caused hiraself to
be painted by the three great artists of their time,
Lely, Wissing, and Kneller. All three of their
portraits have been engraved.

BEAU FIELDING. 103
The first wife of Fielding was the daughter and
sole heiress of Barnham Swift, Lord CarHngford.
On the death of this lady, trusting, as usual, to
retrieve his fortunes by his handsome person, he
paid his addresses to the celebrated Duchess of
Cleveland, formerly the dazzling and scornful mis
tress of Charles the Second, but who at this period
must have been verging on her sixty-sixth year.
They were married on the 25th of November, 1705,
and, as is usually the case where there exist such
glaring disparities of age and character, their union
proved unhappy in the extreme. The reflection,
indeed, cannot fail to be a melancholy one, that a
woman who (profligate and undeserving as she is
admitted to have been) had formerly enslaved
a powerful sovereign, and made him subservient
to her slightest caprice, should not only so far
have demeaned herself as to become the wife of
a needy adventurer, but should eventually have
been compelled to seek refuge from his violence
in a court of law.
Fortunately, the duchess, under soraewhat re
markable circurastances, was afforded an oppor
tunity of extricating herself frora her matrimonial
engagements. She had been united to her dissi
pated husband about a year, when ruraours, in the
first instance, reached her that Fielding had already
another wife alive, and some tirae afterward a female
actually made her appearance at Cleveland House,
who stoutly maintained the priority of her claim.

104 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
An inquiry was immediately instituted by the
friends of the duchess, of which the result was
a determination to prosecute Fielding for bigamy.
Accordingly, on the 4th of December, 1706, he
was placed at the bar of the Old BaUey, charged,
in a formal indictment, with having intermarried
Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, his former wife,
Mary Wadsworth, being stUl alive. From the
evidence elicited at the trial, there transpired the
singular fact that Fielding, within the short space
of sixteen days, had been united to two different
women. His raarriage with Mary Wadsworth took
place on the 9th of November, 1705; his union
with the Duchess of Cleveland on the 25 th of the
sarae raonth.
The circumstances connected with the case
render it not a little amusing, and, perhaps, wUl
excuse our introducing them somewhat in detail.
It appears, then, that a young widow, a Mrs. De
leau, had been left, or was reputed to have been
left, a large fortune, and that Fielding, tempted
by the rumours of her wealth, had conceived the
project of making her his wife. As yet he was
unacquainted with even her person ; but having
paid a visit to Doctors' Commons, and discover
ing that report had not exaggerated her fortune,
he speedily concerted his plans for obtaining an
interview. The next step of the fortune-hunter was to pay
a visit to Mrs. Deleau's seat at Waddon, where,

BEAU FIELDING. 105
under a pretence of being desirous to inspect the
house and gardens, he was politely admitted by
the owner. It seems that he was disappointed in
his object of obtaining an interview with the
widow ; however, at the moment he was quitting
the premises, observing a lady at the window, whom
he conceived to be Mrs. Deleau, he gave her full
opportunity of admiring his handsome person, and
retired firmly persuaded he had made the irapres
sion he wished. On another occasion, we find
him attending a horse-race on Banstead Downs,
with a view of being formally presented to the
widow, but, from some accident, Mrs. Deleau was
prevented frora being present. He even went so
far as to address a letter to her ; but her servants,
either aware of his character, or, probably, not hav
ing been softened by a bribe of sufficient magni
tude, allowed it to pass no farther than theraselves.
It appears by the evidence produced on Field
ing's trial that, in the first stage of the proceedings,
he applied to a Mrs. Streights for her assistance
as a go-between. Mrs. Streights, on her part,
referred him to a Mrs. Charlotte VUlars, whose
only acquaintance with Mrs. Deleau was having
been sent for by her, on one occasion, to cut her
hair. This latter fact, however, Mrs. VUlars (who
appears to have been a woraan of the worst char
acter) carefully concealed from Fielding, and pre
tending that, from her intimacy with the widow,
she was able materially to assist him in his views,

I06 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
obtained from him a promise of five hundred pounds
in the event of Mrs. Deleau becoming his wife.
Such was the commencement of a very ingenious
plot, which was subsequently conducted with the
most extraordinary success. Mrs. Villars having,
in the first instance, procured the connivance of a
young woman, named Mary Wadsworth (whose
morals appear to have been almost as indifferent
as her own, but who, fortunately, somewhat re
sembled Mrs. Deleau in person), she waited in
due tirae on Fielding, and informed him that she
had introduced the subject of his wishes to the
widow. Mrs. Deleau, she said, had, in the first
instance, refused to listen to her entreaties and
arguments, but had latterly given them more
favourable attention. To this she added her own
conviction, that if the affair were managed with
proper prudence, it would eventually terminate as
he wished.
Part of Mrs. Villars's plot (and it is extraordinary
that she should have succeeded in so corapletely
deluding and mystifying a man of the world) was
to obtain valuable presents from Fielding, which
she persuaded him were duly delivered to Mrs.
Deleau. She herself admits in her evidence at the
trial, " Diverse presents were sent from Mr. Field
ing by me to the lady. The first present was a
gold apron stuck with green. That was the first
present Mr. Fielding sent to Mrs. Wadsworth,
whora he thought was Mrs. Deleau all the whUe ;

BEAU FIELDING. IO7
but it was Mrs. Wadsworth. I did not think Mrs.
Deleau, who was a great fortune, would agree to
marry a man of Mr. Fielding's character. Mr.
Fielding kept sending of letters and presents from
that tirae, from the latter end of Bartholomew-tide
to ray Lord Mayor's day. He sent her a suit of
white satin knots, and gloves, and other things."
At length, having wearied the patience, and,
probably, very nearly exhausted the finances of
the adventurer, Mrs. VUlars informed him, to his
great satisfaction, that Mrs. Deleau had at last
consented to an interview, and that in a few days
she would conduct her to his lodgings in Pall Mall.
" He desired," she says, in her evidence, " that I
would bring her to his lodgings on Lord Mayor's
day, at night, which I did about nine o'clock, in a
mourning-coach. Mr. Fielding was not at home,
but came imraediately. When he came in, he fell
down upon his knees, and kissed her, and expressed
abundance of fond expressions. He asked her why
she staid so long, and whether she loved singing.
He said he would send for Margaruita' to come
' A well-known singer at the Opera. According to Mrs.
Manley, the Earl of Nottingham purchased her favours for four
thousand pounds, and afterward bought her sUence for a similar
sum. Swift mentions her in a. letter to Stella from Windsor,
1711: "We have a music-meeting in our town to-night. I
went to the rehearsal of it, and there was Margaruita and her
sister, and another drab, and a parcel of fiddlers ; I was weary,
and would not go to the meeting, which I am sorry for, because
I heard it was a great assembly."

I08 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
up. When she came up, Mr. Fielding bid her
sing the two songs he loved, which she did ; the
one was 'Charming Creature,' and the other,
'lanthe the Lovely.' After which Mr. Fielding
sent for two pints of wine and some plum-cakes."
Mr. Montague, who had been retained as coun
sel for the prosecution, in his opening speech at
the trial, thus describes the interview and subse
quent proceedings : " The prisoner was not within
at the time they came there, but, being sent for,
came in soon after, and was extremely complacent
for some time ; but at length, though he had been
cautioned not to let the lady know they were his
lodgings, yet he could not forbear showing her
his fine clothes, and what furniture he had ; and
a little time after sent for Mrs. Margaruita to sing
to her, and pretended he was so extremely taken
with her that nothing would satisfy him but being
married that night. But she, with a seeming
modesty, checked his forward behaviour, and made
a show of going away in displeasure ; but, before
they parted, he prevaUed upon her to promise not
to put off their marriage longer than Wednesday
se'nnight. Mr. Fielding rightly judged by this
conversation what an interest he had fixed in the
lady, and looking upon himself to be sure of her,
he actually went to a goldsmith and bespoke a
ring,' and directed himself what posie should be
' At Fielding's express desire, the motto " tibi soli " was en
graved on the wedding ring.

BEAU FIELDING. 109
engraved. When the day came, which had first
been agreed on, sham pretences were raade, not
to seera over hasty in so serious a raatter, and the
marriage was put off till the Friday foUowing ; at
which time, Mrs. VUlars and the lady came again
to Mr. Fielding's lodgings, where he received
them with an extraordinary transport of joy, and
the marriage must immediately be proceeded on.
But she for some time feigned several put-offs,
and at length made an offer to have gone away,
but Mr. Fielding would by no means perrait her
to go, without raaking her his own, which he was
resolved should be done presently ; and, to make
all things sure, he ran out and locked the chamber
door, to keep her and Mrs. Villars in whilst he
went for a priest." This important personage
was obtained by Fielding at the embassy of the
emperor, and he was married to the supposed
Mrs. Deleau the same night.
Mrs. VUlars, in her evidence, affords some curi
ous particulars respecting this extraordinary wed
ding. "The priest," she says, " called for water,
salt, and rosemary, to make holy water. Boucher
(Fielding's man servant) brought up water and
salt, but could get no rosemary. Mr. Fielding
and I received it at the dining-room door. Then
Mr. Fielding locked the door, and took the key
on the inside. Mr. Fielding asked Mrs. Wads
worth whether it should be done in the bed
chamber or dining-room ? Mrs. Wadsworth agreed

IIO THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
it should be in the bedchamber. There were none
present but Mr. Fielding, Mrs. Wadsworth, the
priest, and myself. The priest made holy water,
and blessed it. Then he set Mrs. Wadsworth
at the right of Mr. Fielding. The priest stood
before them, and read the ceremony in Latin, as
I understood ; and Mrs. Wadsworth said she was
not yet satisfied he was a priest. Says Mr. Fielding
to her, ' Do you think, my dear, that I would have
anybody to do this business but the holy father > '
Mrs. Wadsworth was well satisfied tUl he came
to that part, 'Wilt thou have this woman to thy
wedded wife ?' She desired it might be spoke in
English by him. He did so. He asked Mr.
Fielding whether he would have this gentlewoman
to his wedded wife. He said, 'Yes, with all my
heart.' He asked the lady then, whether she
would have this gentleman for her husband. She
said 'Yes,' faintly. 'But,' says Mr. Fielding, 'you
must speak it so earnestly as I do. You must
say with all my heart and soul.' Which she did.
Then the priest blessed the ring and gave it to Mr.
Fielding to put on the lady's finger. He said
something in Latin, but what it was I know not.
Then we went into the dining-room. Boucher
brought up wine, and when all had drank, the
priest was discharged."
Boucher, Fielding's servant, corroborates in
every respect Mrs. Villars's statement. "My
master," he says, " ordered me to be at home and

BEAU FIELDING. Ill
get clean sheets, wax-candles, and sconces ; and
fires in both the rooms. He told rae sorae ladies
would be there that night, and ordered, if he was
not at home when they came, to tell them that he
would be there presently. Accordingly they came,
and he was not at home, but in a little time he
came, and went up to them. Some time after
that he came down-stairs in great haste, and said,
'Boucher, go and bespeak a dish of pickles.' I
did so, and brought over a cloth and the rest of
the things and left them in the window. I stayed
by the stairs tUl he came back in a hackney-coach,
with a priest along with him, in a long gown, and
long beard, and a fur cap. I knew him to belong
to the emperor's envoy, and I heard Mr. Fielding
call him reverend father. Then I was ordered to
set the table, and glasses, and wine, and things of
that kind, upon the sideboard. I waited at table
all the whUe. When supper was over, Mr. Field
ing ordered me to go down, and fetch water, salt,
and rosemary. I went and got water and salt, but
could get no rosemary. Then I was ordered to
go down, and they were locked in, about three-
quarters of an hour. He then called. ' Boucher,'
says he, ' will you fill sorae wine ? ' I did so, and
perceived upon the thurab of this lady, upon her
left hand, a plain gold ring which before supper
she had not. When this was over, the priest went
away. Presently after, says Mr. Fielding, 'Take
the sheets from my bed, and lay them on the

112 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
other bed for Mrs. Villars, and see that none lie
there.' I told my master it was done. Mrs.
Villars, in the meantime, put the lady to bed.
When I came down to tell them of it I saw the
lady's clothes on a stool in the chamber, and Mrs.
Villars folding them up and laying them in another
room. I then lighted Mrs. Villars to bed, and
then went to bed myself. In the morning I was
called to make a fire. I then perceived Mr. Field
ing and this lady in bed together. The fire being
made, I was ordered to get a hackney-coach. Mrs.
ViUars dressed the lady hastily, and she was carried
away in the hackney-coach."
Under what circumstances Fielding was made
aware of the impudent manner in which he had
been duped, we have unfortunately not been made
acquainted. As his marriage, however, with the
Duchess of Cleveland took place within little more
than a fortnight, the denouement could not long
have been delayed. The ladies, on their part,
grew, as might have been expected, exorbitant in
their demands for money, to which Fielding not
only turned a deaf ear, but insisted on his presents
being returned. Their repeated visits to Cleve
land House must have caused him not a little
annoyance. At last, apparently wearied out with
their importunities, he sent for Mrs. ViUars, and,
on her refusing to deny his marriage with Mrs.
Wadsworth, not only gave her a severe beating,
but told her if she stUl persisted in declining to

BEAU FIELDING. II 3
comply with his demands, he would slit her nose,
and " get two blacks, one of whom should hold her
on his back, and the other break her bones." Mrs.
Wadsworth was treated with scarcely more consid
eration. On her presenting herself at Cleveland
House to claim him as her lawful husband, he beat
her with a stick and made her nose bleed.
Fielding was found guilty at his trial and sen
tenced to be burnt in the hand, though he was
afterward pardoned by Queen Anne. On the 23d
of May, 1707, his marriage with the Duchess of
Cleveland was annulled in the Arches Court, and
from henceforth we discover no mention of either
the fortune or the name of Robert Fielding.

CHAPTER V.
BEAU WILSON.
Beau WUson's Mysterious Rise from Poverty to AflSuence —
Serves a Campaign in Flanders — Is Broken for Cowardice,
and Retums to England ^v^th Forty ShUlings in His Pocket
— His Extraordinary Show of Wealth Immediately after His
Return — Various Conjectures on the Subject — Extract
from Madame Dunois's Memoirs — Her Behef That Wilson
Owed His Good Fortune to the Favour of the Duchess of
Cleveland — WUson Engaged in a Duel with Law, and KUled
— Extract from Evelyn's Diary — Law Tried and Condemned
— His Escape from Prison — His Death at Venice in 1729.
The preceding memoir of Beau Fielding throws
so curious a light on the manners and customs of
the last century that we are tempted to introduce
the portrait of another individual of the same
stamp, who, though he figured a few years previ
ously to his brother in dissipation, yet resembles
him not a little in the ephemeral splendour of his
existence, and the precarious sources from which
his magnificence was derived.
The person known as Beau Wilson, whose mys
terious rise from extreme poverty to the greatest
affluence afforded our ancestors so wide a field for
curiosity and conjecture, was a younger brother,
114

BEAU WILSON. II5
for whom his friends had purchased a commission
in the army. He served a campaign with the
army in Flanders, but having been early broken
for cowardice, as some have asserted, set out on
his return to England with the small sum of forty
shUlings, which some charitable friend had lent
him to pay the expenses of his passage.
This obscure and apparently degraded individ
ual had hardly made his appearance in the metrop
olis more than a few weeks when, according to a
contemporary, "he appeared the brightest star in
the hemisphere ; his coaches, saddle, hunting, race
horses, equipage, dress, and table being the admi
ration of the world." Curiosity was eagerly at
work to discover the secret source of this magnifi
cence. It was questioned whether such extraor
dinary wealth could be derived from any of the
fair sex, for there were few able to sustain him in
such lavish expenditure. The manner in which
he spent each day could always be accounted for,
and, even when intoxicated, he was invariably on
his guard against impertinent inquiries. Some
believed that he had discovered the phUosopher's
stone ; others affirmed that he had robbed a maU
frora Holland of a large quantity of rough dia
monds ; whUe another report was prevalent that
he was supported by the Jews, though the motive
of their liberality does not appear.
Madame Dunois says, in her memoirs : " He
never played, or but inconsiderably; entertained

Il6 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
with profuseness all who visited him ; himself
drank liberally ; but in all hours, as well sober as
otherwise, he kept a strict guard upon his words,
though several were either employed, by the curi
osity of others or their own, to take him at his
looser moments, and persuade him to reveal his
secret ; but he so inviolably preserved it that even
their guesses were but at random, and without
probabUity or foundation. He was not known to
be an admirer of ladies, though he raight doubtless
have had the good fortune to have pleased, his
person being no ways despicable. What adds to
our surprise is that he was at all tiraes to be
found, and ever with some of his people, seemingly
open in conversation, free from spleen or chagrin ;
in a word, he had that settled air, as if he was
assured his good fortune would for ever continue.
One of his friends advised hira to purchase an
estate whUst he had money. Mr. WUson thanked
him, and said that he did not forget the future in
the present ; he was obliged to him for his coun
sel, but whilst he lived it would be ever thus, for
he was always certain to be master of such a sum
of money."
Such is the well-known history of Beau WUson.
Madame Dunois, however, informs us that he
unquestionably owed his good fortune to the weak
ness of a certain great lady, by which insinuation
the Duchess of Cleveland is evidently raeant.
The duchess, it would seem, seeing him stretched

BEAU WILSON. II 7
on the grass in some public gardens, conceived a
predilection for his handsome person, and took
pains to ascertain his history and name. She
afterward received him in private, though their
interviews, in order that he might remain ignorant
to whom he owed his good fortune, invariably
took place in the dark.
We learn from the sarae authority, that Wilson,
instead of contenting himself with his unexpected
good fortune, persisted in teasing the duchess to
acquaint him to whom he was obliged. This fact
he is said to have eventually discovered, by hear
ing the voice of the duchess as he passed her in
Hyde Park, and subsequently perceiving a particu
lar diamond ring on her finger. The duchess was
naturally exasperated at the discovery, and sent
him word that, if he disclosed her secret to any
human being, she would adopt the promptest
measures to have him despatched ; while, on the
other hand, if he consulted his own interests and
security, he might depend upon receiving her
bounty as before.
Whether Wilson was imprudent enough to neg
lect the hint does not appear. Madame Dunois,
however, informs us that Law, the celebrated
financier, received a sum of money from the duch
ess for putting him out of the way, and that he
effectually fulfilled his engagement. That WUson
fell by the hands of Law there is no doubt. The
former challenged him on some pretence about

II 8 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
his sister, and in the encounter was kUled. The
duel took place at the close of 1694, and in the
Gazette of the 3d of January, 1695, a reward is
offered for Law's apprehension. The proclama
tion describes him as a "black, lean man, six feet
high, with large pock-marks in his face, big high
nose, and speech broad and loud."
Evelyn, in his diary, gives a somewhat fuller
account of the cause of the duel. WUson's singu
lar career, and the raysterious means by which he
supported his magnificence, were sufficient to
excite the curiosity of even the sober-minded
philosopher. "April 22, 1694: A young man
named WUson, the younger son of one who had
not above two hundred pounds a year estate, lived
in the garb and equipage of the richest nobleman,
for house, furniture, coaches, saddle-horses, and
kept a table and all things accordingly, redeemed
his father's estate, and gave portions to his sisters,
being challenged by one Law, a Scotchman, was
kUled in a duel, not fairly. The quarrel arose
from his taking away his own sister from lodging
in a house where this Law had a mistress ; which
the mistress of the house thinking a disparagement
to it, and losing by it, instigated Law to this duel.
He was taken and condemned for murder. The
mystery is, how this so young a gentleman, very
sober and of good fame, could live in such an
expensive manner ; it could not be discovered by
all possible industry, or entreaty of his friends to

BEAU WILSON. II9
make him reveal it. It did not appear that he
was kept by woraen, play, coining, padding, or
dealing in chemistry ; but he would sometimes say
that, if he should live ever so long, he had where
with to maintain himself in the same manner.
This was a subject of much discourse."
With Wilson died his extraordinary secret.
Law was apprehended, and subsequently tried
and condemned ; but having the good fortune
to break out of prison, he escaped to the Low
Countries, where his expensive manner of living
so far exceeded his ostensible means of subsist
ence as to afford grounds for curiosity and sur
mise. Law, it may be remarked, who mingled
a life of pleasure with an application to more
methodical pursuits, died at Venice in 1729, at
the age of fifty-eight.

CHAPTER VL
GEORGE THE FIRST.
His Birth — His Near Relationship to the Stuarts — Sketch of
His Mother — Serves a Campaign under His Father, When
in His Fifteenth Year — Fights in the Imperial Army
against the Turks — Accompanies King WUUam during a
Series of Campaigns — Created by Him a Knight of the
Garter — Is Subsequently Created by Queen Anne, Marquis
and Duke of Cambridge, etc.,, with Precedency of All the
Peers of Great Britain — Visits England with a View to Make
Overtures for the Hand of the Princess Anne, afterward
Queen — RecaUed by His Father, and Forced to Marry the
Daughter of the Duke of Zell — Story of Sophia Dorothea,
of Zell — Her Compulsory Marriage with George the First in
Her Sixteenth Year — Her Beauty and Intelligence — Neg
lected and Insulted by Her Husband — Count Conings
mark's Avowed Admiration of Her — Indignation of Her
Father - in - law — Imprisoned in the Castle of Alden — Di
vorced from Her Husband in 1694 — Her Criminality Doubt
ful — Her Son's Affection for Her — Her Dignified Conduct
during Her Imprisonment — Her Death in 1726 — George
the First's Accession to the EngUsh Throne — His Indif
ference on the Subject — His Arrival at Greenwich — Anec
dote — His Person and Habits — Extracts from Horace
Walpole and Archdeacon Coxe — The King's Male Favour
ites — Their Rapacity — The King's Aversion to the English
— His Profligate Expenditure.
George Lewis, Elector of Hanover, who, agree
ably with the provisions of the Act of Settlement

GEORGE THE FIRST. 121
succeeded to the throne of these realms, as the
head of the only Protestant branch of the house
of Stuart, was born at Osnaburg, on the 28th of
May, 1660. He was the eldest son of Ernest
Augustus, Elector of Hanover, by Sophia, the
youngest daughter of Elizabeth, the amiable and
unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, only daughter of
King James the First of England. King George
was thus nearly related to the several members of
the house of Stuart. He was great-grandson of
King James I., nephew to King Charles I., first
cousin to King Charles II., and James II., and
first cousin, once removed, to Queen Mary, Queen
Anne, and James Frederick Edward, commonly
called the Pretender.
Of Ernest Augustus, the father of King George,
we know little but that he was a brave and bus
tling raan, who expired in 1 698, before the intended
aggrandisement of his family, as ensured by the
Act of Settlement, could have been known to him.
His consort, however, the Electress Sophia, as
well from her close relationship to the royal family
of England as from her being one of the most
extraordinary women of her time, clairas to be- par
ticularly mentioned in a memoir of her son.
The Electress Sophia, the youngest of the
twelve chUdren of Frederick, the titular King of
Bohemia, and his interesting consort, was bom
the 13th of October, 1630, and at the age of
eighteen became the wife of Ernest Augustus,

122 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Elector of Hanover. Beautiful in her person,
refined in her manners, and distinguished by
the most captivating conversational powers, she
mingled with these graceful accomplishments an
almost masculine strength of mind, and an hon
ourable respect for literature and science." She
is said to have made the laws and constitution of
England her chief study, and by severe application
to have mastered the languages of Holland, Ger
many, Italy, France, and England, which she
spoke with so much ease and correctness that
she raight have passed for a native of any one
of these countries. Promoting, by every means
in her power, the happiness of those about her,
and always anxious, even in extreme old age, to
originate scenes of social mirth and harmless
diversion, she continued to unite with these en
dearing qualities a taste for graver studies and
pursuits, and, besides extending her patronage
to several eminent men of learning and science,
was for many years the friend and correspondent
of the celebrated philosopher Leibnitz. Distin
guished for her sense of justice, and a regard for
the sufferings of others which was not exhibited
' The electress would seem to have been stricter in the per
formance of her social than of her religious duties. " The Prin
cess Sophia," says Dean Lockier, " was a woman of good sense
and excellent conversation. I was very well acquainted with her.
She sat very loose in her reUgious principles, and used to take a
particular pleasure in setting a heretic, whenever she could meet
with such, and one of her chaplains a-disputing together."

GEORGE THE FIRST. 123
by either of her contemporaries. Queen Mary or
Queen Anne, she conceived a lively interest in
the fortunes of the exiled branch of the Stuarts,
and even endeavoured to persuade her relation.
King William, to pass over her own clairas, and
to restore the unfortunate Jaraes to his hereditary
rights.' The electress retained, even to a very
' Lord Dartmouth, who visited Hanover in the reign of WUl
iam the Third, has bequeathed us the following interesting notice
of the Electress Sophia : " She sent a coach to bring me to din
ner to Herenhausen every day as long as I stayed. She was
very free in her discourse, and said she held a constant corre
spondence with King James, and his daughter, our queen, with
many particulars of a very extraordinary nature, that were great
proofs of his being a very weak man, and her being a very good
woman. She seemed piqued at the Princess Anne, and spoke of
her with little kindness. She told me the king and queen had both
invited her to make them a visit into England, but she was grown
old, and could not leave the elector and her famUy, otherwise.
should be glad to see her own country (as she was pleased to calK.
it) before she died, and should willingly have her bones laid by
her mother's in the Abbey, at Westminster, whom she always-
mentioned with great veneration. She took it unkindly that the
Duke of Zell should have the Garter before her husband, who,
she thought, might have expected it upon her account, and told
me she was once like to have been married to King Charies the
Second, which would not have been worse for the nation, consid
ering how many chUdren she had brought, to which I most sin
cerely agreed."
The electress was, in fact, a staunch Jacobite, and long main
tained a secret correspondence with her cousin, King James,
during the period he was an exile at St. Germains. A number
of her letters, marked in King William's handwriting, " Letters
of the Electress Sophia to the Court of St. Germains," were found
in a chest belonging to that monarch after his death. Under
what circumstances they came into WilUam's possession, whether

124 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
late period of life, not only her early freshness of
feeling, but the beauty for which she had once
been so distinguished. Toland, who was intro
duced to her at Hanover, when she was in her
seventy-fourth year, describes her as reading with
out spectacles, and as still conspicuous for her
graceful manners and commanding figure, with
out the trace of a wrinkle or apparently the loss
of a tooth. Burnet also describes her, at the age
of seventy-five, as stUl possessing infinite vivacity,
and as " the most knowing and entertaining woman
of her age." The electress lived to her eighty-
fourth year, when she expired on the 8th of June,
1714. The circumstances attending her dissolu
tion are somewhat remarkable. She was walking
in the orangery, in the garden of Herenhausen,
when, the rain suddenly descending, she hastened
toward the electoral palace. An attendant remind
ing her that she had recently been indisposed, and
that the exercise which she was taking was too
violent, " I believe you are right," she said, and
almost at the same instant fell down and expired.
The electress died only fifty-three days before
by treachery, or whether they were transmitted to him by the
Electress Sophia herself, as a proof of her change of sentiments,
we have now no means of ascertaining. In the second volume
of Dalrymple's memoirs wiU be found two interesting letters
addressed by the electress to King WilUam, in which, whUe she
thanks him for his endeavours to bring her family into the suc
cession, she at the same time acknowledges a strong interest in
the misfortunes of King James.

GEORGE THE FIRST. 12$
death closed the eyes of Queen Anne. Had she
survived this period, this distinguished woman
would, agreeably with the provisions of the Act
of Settlement, have ascended the throne of these
realms. She used to say that she should die
happy could she only live to have "Here lies
Sophia, Queen of England," engraved upon her
coffin. George Lewis, her only son, appears to have
been afforded raore favourable opportunities of
acquiring an insight into human nature and a
knowledge of the world than usually falls to the
lot of sovereign princes. Inheriting the railitary
taste of his father, he served under him, when
only fifteen, during the successful campaign of
1675, and was present at the battle of Consar-
bruck and the capture of Treves. He served
also at different periods in Hungary, the Morea,
Gerraany, and Flanders, and after the Peace of
Niraeguen, in 1679, visited France, England, and
other countries. He subsequently fought in the
Iraperial array against the Turks ; was present at
the signal defeat of the Infidels on the 12th of
September, 1683 ; and distinguished himself by
personal valour at the capture of Buda, in 1686.
He accorapanied King William during a series of
campaigns, and was present at the battles of Steen-
kerke and Landen, and at the siege of Namur.
On the 23d of January, 1698, he succeeded his
father as Duke of Hanover. King WUliam created

126 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
him a Knight of the Garter on the i8th of June,
1 70 1 ; and on the 9th of November, 1 706, Queen
Anne created him Baron of Tewkesbury, Viscount
of Northallerton, Earl of Milford-Haven, and Mar
quis and Duke of Cambridge, with precedency of
all the peers of Great Britain.
Mention has already been made of a visit paid
by the electoral prince to England, after the Peace
of Niraeguen. It was his object, with the sanction
of his father, to make overtures for the hand of
the Princess Anne, afterward Queen of England ;
and he had already proceeded to some lengths in
the negotiation, when he was suddenly recaUed
by his father to Hanover. Circurastances had
changed the views of the old elector in regard
to his son, and he now sought to unite the duke-
doras of Hanover and Zell, by marrying his eldest
son to the daughter and sole heiress of George
William, Duke of Zell. Unfortunately for the
parties concerned, he succeeded in his project ;
by which means, a young and very interesting
woman was made the victim of political expedi
ency, and was compelled to give her hand to a
man she could neither love nor esteem, and who,
with the exception of his titles and wealth, could
scarcely boast of a recommendation in his favour.
The story of Sophia Dorothea, the first cousin
of George the First, and afterward his repudiated
wife, deserves a place in our pages. At the period
of her marriage, which took place on the nth of

GEORGE THE FIRST. 127
November, 1682, she had only attained her six
teenth year. She was at this period eminently
beautiful, and is said to have been no less distin
guished for the qualities of her mind. Besides
these advantages, she was the sole heiress of the
house of Zell, and, with half the princes of Ger
many at her feet, might at least have expected
as much happiness as usually falls to the lot of
the daughters of royalty. At the period of her
marriage, which can only be regarded as a com
pulsory one, the princess, in addition to the mis
fortune of becoming the wife of George the First,
had unhappily formed a prior attachment for a
young Prince of Wolfenbiittel, to whom she had
plighted her faith.
This interesting and accomplished woraan was
neglected by her worthless husband within a few
months after their raarriage. He attached hira
self to undeserving mistresses, and even insulted
his young wife by constantly introducing them
into her presence. It was in the first years of
her raarriage, when her indignation was fully
aroused by the insults to which she was daUy
exposed, that the young and handsome Count
Coningsmark, afterward so celebrated for his
share in the murder of Thoraas Thynne, made
his appearance at the electoral court. It seems
that he had formerly professed a passion for the
electoral princess when she was Princess of Zell ;
and now, according to Archdeacon Coxe, " at sight

128 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
of her, his passion, which had been diminished by
absence, broke out with increasing violence, and
he had the imprudence publicly to renew his at
tentions." Her husband happened, at this period,
to be absent from Hanover, but his father, the
old elector, to whom the former attentions of
Coningsmark were communicated by the enemies
of the princess, hastened to revenge the injury
presumed to have been inflicted on the honour of
his son. The manner in which the old elector
accomplished his purpose is thus related by
Horace Walpole :
" George the First," he says, " whUe electoral
prince, had married his cousin, the Princess
Sophia Dorothea, only chUd of the Duke of
Zell, a match of convenience to reunite the
dominions of the famUy. Though she was very
handsome, the prince, who was extremely amor
ous, had several mistresses ; which provocation,
and his absence in the army of the confederates,
probably disposed the princess to indulge in some
degree of coquetry. At that moment arrived at
Hanover the famous and beautiful Count Conings
mark, ihe charms of whose person ought not to
have obliterated the memory of his vUe assassi
nation of Mr. Thynne. His vanity, the beauty
of the electoral princess, and the neglect under
which he found her, encouraged his presump
tion to make his addresses to her, not covertly,
and she, though believed not to have transgressed

George the Firsts
Photo-etching after the painting by Kneller.

GEORGE THE FIRST. 1 29
her duty, did receive them too indiscreetly. The
old elector flamed at the insolence of so stigma
tised a pretender, and ordered him to quit his
dominions the next day. The princess, sur
rounded by women too closely connected with
her husband, and consequently enemies of the
lady they injured, was persuaded by them to
suffer the count to kiss her hand before his
abrupt departure, and he was actually introduced
by them into her bedchamber next morning before
she rose. From that moraent he disappeared, nor
was it known what became of him, till the death
of George the First. On his son the new king's
first journey to Hanover, some alterations in the
palace being ordered by him, the body of Conings
mark was discovered under the floor of the elec
toral princess's dressing-room, the count having,
probably, been strangled there the instant he left
her, and his body secreted. The discovery was
hushed up. George the Second entrusted the
secret to his wife. Queen Caroline, who told it to
my father ; but the king was too tender of the
honour of his mother to utter it to his mistress,
nor did Lady Suffolk ever hear of it till I in
forraed her of it several years afterward. The
disappearance of the count made his murder
suspected, and various reports of the discovery
of his body have of late years been spread, but
not with the authentic circumstances." The spot
on which Coningsmark was assassinated is said

130 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
to be StUl pointed out in the electoral palace at
Hanover. The arrest of Sophia followed immediately on
the raurder of her lover. She was sent a prisoner
to the castle of Alden, situated on the small river
Aller, in the Duchy of Zell, where, under the
name of the Duchess of Halle, she spent a miser
able captivity of thirty-two years, which was only
terrainated by her death. Horace Walpole con
siders that, notwithstanding their separation, she
was never actually divorced from George the
First. "The king," he says, " seems not to have
wholly dissolved their union ; for on the approach
of the French army toward Hanover, during
Queen Anne's reign, the Duchess of Halle was
sent home to her father and mother, who doted
on their only chUd, and retained her for a whole
year, and implored, though in vain, that she
might continue to reside with them. As her
son, too, George the Second, had thoughts of
bringing her over, and declaring her queen-dow
ager, one can hardly believe that a ceremonial
divorce had passed, the existence of which process
would have glared in the face of her royalty."
Notwithstanding, however, Walpole's skepticism
on the subject, the fact is now placed beyond a
doubt that the king obtained a divorce from the
ecclesiastical consistory in Hanover, by an edict
passed on the 28th of December, 1694, almost im
mediately after the assassination of Coningsmark.

GEORGE THE HRST. 131
Although George the First appears to have been
convinced in his ovm mind of his wife's guUt, the
fact of her criminality is not a little questionable.
That a young and high-spirited woman like Sophia
of ZeU — neglected as she ^"as by her husband,
insulted bj' the presence of his unworthy mis
tresses, and left an isolated being in a splendid
circle — may have been gratified at the e\"ident
devotion of a man Uke Coningsmark, and even, in
an unguarded moment, maj" have shown satisfac
tion at his addresses, is not at all improbable. But,
on the other hand, there is a want of reasonable
e\'idence to estabhsh her gvult, and, moreover, the
con^'icuon that she was innocent appears to have
been general among the best informed Hanoveri
ans of the time. It ^\-as remarked, and with much
reason, that had Coningsmark been really guUty,
it was just as easy to punish him in a court of
justice as to get rid of him by a foul assassination.
George the Second, moreover, who loved his mother
almost as much as he hated his father, was fully
conN-inced of her innocence, and seized even,- oppor-
tunitj- of showing respect to his unhappy parent.
Of his devotion to her, more than one anecdote
has been recorded. In contempt of his father's
orders, who seems to have forbidden all intercourse
between the mother and son, he, on one occasion,
crossed the river Aller on horseback, opposite his
mother's windows, and was only prevented from
throwing himself at her feet by the determined

132 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
opposition of the Baron de Bulow, to whose charge
she was confided. On the day that George the
Second ascended the throne. Lady Suffolk, for the
first tirae, perceived the picture of a lady in his
apartment, habited in the electoral robes. This
she afterward discovered to be a portrait of his
mother, which the prince had secretly kept in
his possession during the lifetime of his father,
and now seized the earliest opportunity of drawing
from its hiding-place.
"Those," says Archdeacon Coxe, "who excul
pate Sophia, assert either that a common visit
was construed into an act of criminality, or that
the Countess of Platen, at a late hour, summoned
Count Coningsmark in the name of the princess,
though without her connivance ; that on being
introduced, Sophia was surprised at his intrusion ;
that on quitting the apartment he was discovered
by Ernest Augustus, whom the countess had placed
in the gallery, and was instantly assassinated by
persons whom she had suborned for that purpose."
Whether there be any reasonable foundation for
this strange story, it is now impossible to decide.
The same anecdote, however, is related elsewhere,
the only difference being that the Duchess of Ken
dal, and not the Countess of Platen, is asserted to
have been the authoress of the plot.'
• It is needless to remark that both the Duchess of Kendal
and the Countess of Platen were the acknowledged mistresses of
George the First.

GEORGE THE FIRST. 133
Sophia displayed a becoming dignity during her
long and melancholy incarceration, and derived
invaluable consolation from the exercise of her
religious duties. It was her custora to receive the
sacrament once a week, on which occasions she
never failed to make the most solemn protestations
of her innocence. George the' First, in the last
years of his life, is said to have offered to restore
his injured consort to her connubial rights. To
this proposal she retorted with a noble indignation,
" If what I ara accused of is true, I ara unworthy
of his bed, and if the accusation is false, he is
unworthy of rae. I will not accept his offers."
According to Lady Suffolk, the circurastance which
most sensibly affected the princess in her misfor
tunes was the dread that her own unfortunate
position raight reflect disgrace upon her chUdren.
We learn from the same authority that, when her
husband renewed his overtures for a reconciliation,
she positively refused to listen to them, unless he
publicly solicited her pardon.
The foregoing anecdotes of the Electress Sophia
are not characteristic either of the conduct or lan
guage of a guilty person. If she were innocent,
which there exists but slender reason to doubt,
how cruel and unmerited was the treatment which
she experienced ! Condemned to a long captivity
of thirty-two years ; deprived of the society of her
chUdren ; and snatched from the pleasures of life
at the very period when she was best qualified to

134 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
enjoy them, the punishment, even had she been
guilty, would have been far too oppressive for the
offence. But, presuming that her innocence be
admitted, how much more deeply must we com
passionate the sufferings of this Ul-fated woman.
We must remember that her persecutor was her
own husband, the man who, by right, should have
been her protector ; that he was in every respect
her inferior in all qualities of raind and person ;
that he had first neglected and afterward tyran
nised over his high-spirited wife; that by his in
sulting indifference he had himself almost invited
her to err ; that he had incited his worthless con
cubines to become the spies over her actions ; and,
in a word, that, while daring to accuse and punish
his victim for infidelity, he was himself the most
notorious adulterer and the most unscrupulous
libertine in his dominions.
It was the misfortune of Sophia that she died
before her son, George the Second, ascended the
throne of Great Britain. Had she survived the
death of her husband only seven months, she
would probably have seen her rights asserted,
and her character cleared. Her death took place
on the 13th of November, 1726, in the sixty-first
year of her age. In the London Gazette, which
announces the event, she is simply styled the
Duchess-dowager of Hanover.
We must now turn from the almost romantic
history of a persecuted woman to the far less

GEORGE THE FIRST. 135
interesting character of her phlegmatic husband.
The circumstances which elevated George the
First to the throne of England have been noticed
elsewhere. It is sufficient to say that he was
indebted for his aggrandisement merely to the
accidental circumstance of his having been edu
cated in the Protestant faith, there being, at the
period of his accession, as raany as fifty-seven
individuals of the blood-royal who possessed su
perior hereditary claims.
Queen Anne expired on the ist of August,
1 7 14, and immediately afterward King George
was proclaimed with the usual ceremonies in the
cities of London and Westrainster, without a show
of that opposition which had been anticipated from
the adherents of the Stuarts. Craggs, the well-
known secretary of state, had previously been
despatched by the Tories to Hanover, with the
tidings that the queen was in an almost hopeless
state. He presented himself at the electoral
palace of Herenhausen, on the 27th of August ;
but the same night there arrived two other ex
presses from England, — one for the king, and
the other for the English envoy-extraordinary, the
Earl of Clarendon, — announcing the actual de
mise of the queen. Two hours after raidnight
Lord Clarendon, a staunch Tory, was admitted
to the king's apartment, and formally congratu
lated him on his accession to the throne of Eng-
iland. His reception of the Enghsh minister is

136 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
said to have been cold and mortifying in the
extreme, thus affording the earliest intimation
of his preference for the Whigs, — a preference
which he had hitherto prudently concealed in his
own breast. •
It has been affirmed that if any popular demon
stration had taken place in England in favour of
the exUed Stuarts, George the First would have
contented himself with retaining the sovereignty
of his beloved electorate, and would not unwill
ingly have relinquished his claims to the throne
of Great Britain. That this was the prevalent
opinion among the best-informed circles of the
period is undoubted ; indeed. Baron Polnitz, who
was in Hanover at the time, affirms, notwith-,
standing all was peaceable in England, and that
the elector had no raore reason to expect opposi
tion than if his clairas to the throne had been
strictly hereditary, stUl that the love of Hanover,
and of social ease, very nearly outweighed the
temptation of becoming the possessor of a splendid
crown. The circurastance which seems to have
chiefly induced him to accept the proffered hon
our was the satisfaction that he felt at having the
Whigs on his side.
When one of his friends, alluding to the death
of Charles the First on the scaffold, reraarked that
the anti-monarchical party in England was not yet
extinct, " I have nothing to fear," he said, " for the
king-killers are all my friends." About the same

GEORGE THE FIRST. 137
period, after fairly admitting that he knew little
of the constitution and customs of England, " I
mtend," he said, "to put myself entirely in the
hands of my ministers, for they wUl be completely
answerable for everything I do."
King George quitted the palace of Herenhausen
on the 31st of August, 17 14. He embarked at
The Hague on the i6th of Septeraber, and ar
rived two days afterward at Greenwich, where he
was received, on his landing, by a large concourse
of influential persons. During his progress from
that town to London, he mentioned a rather curi
ous anecdote to Lord Dorset, who was in the
sarae coach with hira. Thirty-three years before,
he said, he had arrived in England as a suitor for
the hand of Queen Anne, whom he now suc
ceeded. On his return, he added, he was riding
a comraon post-horse from London to Gravesend,
from which latter place he intended to take ship
ping for Holland, when, the roads and the horse
being equally indifferent, he met with a severe
fall, and arrived at Gravesend covered with mud.
WhUe relating this circumstance, the king sud
denly recognised the spot where the accident
happened, and pointed it out to Lord Dorset.
George the First made his public entry into the
metropolis on the 20th of the month, and on
the 20th of October was crowned at Westminster
with the usual solemnities.
It must have required all the adventitious aid

138 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
of sovereign dignity, and all the importance which
is commonly attached to the name and office of a
king, to have prevented the German elector, not
only from becoming extremely unpopular with his
new subjects, but from figuring in a very ridicu
lous light in their estimation. A foreigner as he
was, in all his tastes and habits ; ignorant, de
bauched, and Uliterate ; inelegant in his person and
ungraceful in his manners, he had never conde
scended to acquaint himself with the laws or
customs of the English, and was, indeed, utterly
unacquainted with their language. In addition to
these drawbacks, though he was now in his fifty-
fifth year, he had the folly and wickedness to
encumber hiraself with a seraglio of hideous Ger
man prostitutes, who rendered him equally ludi
crous by their absurdities, and unpopular by their
rapacity. Horace Walpole, after drawing a ridiculous pic
ture of the king's German mistresses, observes :
" No wonder that the mob of London were highly
diverted at the importation of so uncommon a
seraglio. They were food for all the venom of the
Jacobites ; and, indeed, nothing could be grosser
than the ribaldry that was vomited out in lam
poons, libels, and every channel of abuse, against
the sovereign and the new court. One of the
German ladies being abused by the mob, was said
to have put her head out of the coach, and cried
in bad English, ' Good people, why you abuse us ?

GEORGE THE FIRST. 139
we come for all your goods.' 'Yes, damn ye,'
answered a fellow in the crowd, 'and for all our
chattels too.' " The two principal ladies of this
repulsive seraglio, the Duchess of Kendal and the
Countess of Darlington, are said to have been
usually designated, in reference to a marked con
trast in their personal appearance, as the "May
pole," and the " Elephant and Castle." In a letter
in Mist's foumal. May 27, 1721, an anonymous
writer observes : " We are ruined by trulls ; nay,
what is more vexatious, by old ugly trulls, such as
could not find entertainment in the most hospit
able hundreds of Old Drury." It is remarkable
that this passage was made the subject of Parlia
mentary debate. The House of Commons was
very properly offended at the liberty taken with
the sovereign, and the debate terminated by Mist,
the printer of the fournal, being sentenced to
imprisonraent and fine.
The court of George the First was, in fact, a
foreign family, consisting of German mistresses
and German favourites. " Coming from a poor
electorate," says Archdeacon Coxe, "they con
sidered England as a kind of land of promise, and,
at the same time, so precarious a possession that
they endeavoured to enrich themselves with all
possible speed." In regard to the female part of
the establishment, the two principal ladies were
not only honoured with peerages, and loaded with
pensions, but, according to Etough, they notori-

140 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
ously disposed of state appointments through their
brokers. So grasping was their avarice that, on
the Duke of Somerset resigning the post of mas
ter of the horse, the king was prevailed upon,
instead of nominating a successor, to confer the
salary on the Duchess of Kendal, and to leave
the place vacant. It may be remarked that the
profits, also, arising from the post of master of
the buck-hounds, were conferred on another Ger
man. The king's principal male favourites were
Baron Bothmar, Count Bernsdorf, and Robethon,
of whom the two former are said to have aimed at
a seat in the House of Lords, whUe the latter
humbly contented himself with aspiring to a bar
onetcy. These individuals, not satisfied with en
riching themselves at the expense of the English
nation, chose to interfere in every political trans
action, and not only jostled and thwarted the
prime minister. Sir Robert Walpole, whenever an
opportunity offered, but, on more than one occa
sion, treated him with insufferable insolence.
Among the persons who constituted the foreign
court of George the First, there were two individ
uals who must not be passed over in sUence.
These two were Turks, known by the names of
Mustapha and Mahomet, who had been taken
prisoners at the period when the king was serving
in the Imperial army, and, for some reason, were
admitted by bim into his service. They had since

GEORGE THE FIRST. 141
served him with so much fidelity that they were
selected to accorapany him frora Hanover, on his
accession to the English throne, and had since
received the appointments of pages of the back
stairs. Apparently, the insignificance of these in
dividuals renders any notice of thera unnecessary ;
but even the king's Turkish menials were not
without their share of influence under the new rule.
Instead of confining themselves to the duties
of their situations, and contenting theraselves with
their legitimate perquisites, they closely iraitated
the exaraple *set them by the rapacious Germans,
and not only derived large sums by the sale of
minor offices, but, in a letter from Count Broglio
to the King of France, they are raentioned as ex
ercising considerable political influence over their
royal master. It is to one of these individuals
that Pope alludes in his " Essay on Women."
" From peer or bishop 'tis no easy thing,
To draw the man who loves his God or king;
Alas ! I copy, or my draught would fail.
From honest Mahomet or plain parson Hale."
Altogether, the rapacity of the German adven
turers, the ridiculous airs which they gave them
selves, and their unwarrantable interference in
state affairs, excited the just indignation of the
English. The king, on his part, so far from at
tempting to check the scandalous venality of his
countrymen, appears to have encouraged them, in

142 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
iniquitous robberies. On one occasion, a favourite
cook having requested his permission to return to
Hanover, and giving, as his reason for desiring
his discharge, the profligate expenditure of all
articles of food in the royal kitchen, so different
from the frugal economy which he. had been ac
customed to see practised in the Hanoverian pal
aces, "Never raind," said the king, "my present
revenues wUl bear the expense ; do you steal like
the rest," and he added, with a hearty laugh, " Be
sure you take enough."
The king, indeed, appears to have utterly dis
credited the existence of such a virtue as honesty.
Ridiculing the creditable scruples of the more
conscientious of his servants, he seems to have
been impressed with the conviction that venality
was equally the foible of his first minister, and of
the humblest denizen of his kitchen. When Sir
Robert Walpole remonstrated with him on the
rapaciousness of his German dependents, and their
practice of disposing of places and honours at a
high price, the king merely replied, with a smUe,
"I suppose j^^« also are paid for your recommen
dations." George the First appears to have been as averse
to England ^nd the English, as he was prejudiced
in favour of Hanover and his own countrymen.
Count Broglio writes to the King of France, on
the 6th of July, 1724 : "The king has no predUec-
tion for the English nation, and never receives in

GEORGE THE FIRST. 143
private any English of either sex ; none even of his
principal officers are admitted to his chamber of
a morning to dress him, nor in the evening to
undress him. These offices are performed by the
Turks, who are his valets-de-cJiambre, and who
give him everything he wants in private. He
rather considers England as a temporary posses
sion, to be made the most of whUe it lasts, than as
a perpetual inheritance to himself and family. He
will have no disputes with the Parliament, but
coraraits the entire transaction of that business to
Walpole, choosing rather that the responsibUity
should fall on his minister's head than on his
own." The interests of this great country were
alraost entirely lost sight of in his attachraent to
his native dominions. Whenever he signed a
treaty, or declared war, it was the aggrandisement
of Hanover, and not of England, which dictated
the policy of the moment ; and the English had
the raortification of seeing that the treasures
which were lavished, and the blood which was
spUt, were expended in gratifying the vanity of
an ungrateful foreigner, and adding to the conse
quence of his paltry electorate.
It has already been remarked that George the
First was entirely ignorant of the English lan
guage ; and as his prime minister. Sir Robert
Walpole, knew as little of the French, there re
mained no other means of coraraunicating with
each other except in Latin. " George the First,"

144 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
says Horace Walpole, "did not understand Eng
lish ; my father brushed up his old Latin, to use
a phrase of Queen Elizabeth, in order to converse
with the first Hanoverian sovereign, and ruled
hira in spite even of his raistresses." A biting
sarcasm, uttered by William Shippen, the cele
brated Tory leader in the reign of George the
First, gave great offence to the court, and, as he
refused to soften the expression, it led to his being
sent to the Tower. " It was the only infelicity,"
he said, "of his Majesty's reign that he was un
acquainted with the English language and the
English constitution."
As a proof of the justice of one of Count Bro-
glio's remarks, — that the king merely regarded
England as a temporary possession, "to be made
the most of whUe it lasts," — it may be observed
that, though George the First had carefully hus
banded the revenues of the electorate, in England
he launched forth into the most profligate ex
cesses. According to a contemporary writer,
Toland, he had been accustomed, when in Hano
ver, to defray his household expenses every
Saturday night. The case, however, was now
altered ; and the nation was equally amazed and
exasperated when, in 1725, the Parliament was
called upon to defray the debts of the civU list,
amounting to the enormous sum of ;^5 00,000.

CHAPTER VII.
GEORGE THE FIRST.
Attachment of the University of Oxford to the House of Stuart
— Whig Principles of the University of Cambridge — Doctor
Trapp's Epigram on the Occasion — Sir W. Browne's Retort
— James Shepherd's Attempt to Assassinate the King — His
Execution — Lord Chesterfield's Remark on the Subject —
The King's Good-humour, and Love of Music — His Aversion
to Pomp — Anecdote of His Humour — Anecdotes of the
Duchess of Bolton and of Dean Lockier — The King's Liber-
aUty of Feeling toward the House of Stuart — Extract from
Horace Walpole — The King's Generosity toward Prisoners
for Debt — Horace Walpole Presented to Him, When a Mere
Child — His Account of the Presentation — The King's
Liaison with Anne Brett, Daughter of the Repudiated Count
ess of Macclesfield, by Her Second Husband — Her Insolence
and Ambition — Anecdote of Her Related by Horace Walpole
— The King's Superstitious Feelings — He Orders His Wife's
Will to Be Burned — His Hatred of Her and His Son, George
the Second — His Departure from England in 1727 for His
Electorate — Archdeacon Coxe's Details of His Last Illness —
Extract from the Marchmont Papers — Romantic Anecdote
Related by Lockhart — The King's Death in 1727 — His
Character as a Man, and as a King — His Indifferent Educa
tion — Anecdote of Him — His Daughter Sophia Dorothea
Married in 1706 to Frederick William, King of Prussia — Her
Beauty and Intelligence — Her Husband's Brutal Treatment
of Her — Her Death in 1757.
The suppression of the unfortunate rebellion
of 171 5, though it imparted an accession of vigour
145

146 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
to the existmg government, added little to the
personal popularity of the king. Only two years
after that event, the sprig of oak was again boldly
displayed on the 29th of May, and the white
rose publicly worn on the birthday of the Pre
tender. The University of Oxford, in particular,
whose devotion to hereditary right has, at times,
almost assumed the character of romance, gave
such evident proofs of their reviving attachment
to the house of Stuart, that the government at
tempted to frighten them from their principles,
by quartering on them a mUitary force. On the
other hand, the University of Carabridge forgot
the individual faUings of the Whig monarch in
their attachment to Whig principles, and, as a
reward for their adhesion to the existing govern
ment, received a valuable present of books from
the king. It was in reference to the very oppo
site conduct of the two universities that Doctor
Trapp composed the foUowing epigram :
" Our royal master saw, with heedful eyes.
The wants of his two universities.
Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why
That learned body wanted loyalty ;
But books to Cambridge gave, as well discerning
How that right loyal body wanted learning."
These lines were retorted upon with singular
felicity by Sir WUliam Browne, whose composition
not only excels, both in point and versification, the

GEORGE THE FIRST. 147
verses which prompted his rejoinder, but has also
the merit of having been written impromptu :
" The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse.
For Tories know no argument but force.
With equal care, to Cambridge books he sent,
For Whigs allow no force but argument."
The circumstance, perhaps, is a curious one
that, notwithstanding the excited state of party
feeling in the reign of George the First, and
the fact that by nearly half the nation he was
regarded merely as a usurper, yet that his life
should only on one occasion have been in danger
from assassination, and then from the hands of a
mere boy, who had conceived an almost frenzied
devotion for the Stuart family. The youth in
question was named James Shepherd, a coach-
maker's apprentice, who, it seeins, communicated
his project to one Leake, a non-juring clergyman ;
at the same tirae expressing his desire to receive
the sacraraent daily, till he should have accom
plished his purpose. By means of Leake, the
government was raade acquainted with the project,
and the person of Shepherd secured. When
placed on his trial, he not only freely adraitted
his guilt, but, at the place of execution, declared
that he gloried in the design, and died a wUling
martyr to his principles. Lord Chesterfield writes,
about thirty years afterward, to his son : " I can
not help reading of Porsenna and Regulus with

148 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
surprise and reverence ; and yet I remember that
I saw, without either, the execution of Shepherd,
a boy of eighteen years old, who intended to shoot
the late king, and who would have been pardoned,
if he would have expressed the least sorrow for
his intended crime ; but, on the contrary, he de
clared that, if he was pardoned, he would attempt
it again ; that he thought it a duty which he owed
his country ; and that he died with pleasure for
having endeavoured to perform it. Reason equals
Shepherd with Regulus; but prejudice, and the
recency of the fact, makes Shepherd a common
malefactor, and Regulus a hero." Shepherd was
executed at Tyburn on the 17th of March, 1718.
Probably, though actuated by false principles, the
youth may have sacrificed his life for what he
believed the good of his country ; and so far he
merits the implied eulogium wasted upon him by
Lord Chesterfield. He appears, however, by all
accounts, to have been a mere fanatic, and more
suited for Bedlam, than deserving a death on the
scaffold, or a place in the temple of political
martyrs. Though occasionally obstinarte and self-willed,
George the First, when nothing of importance
occurred to ruffle the evenness of his temper,
appears to have been what may be termed an
agreeable and a good-humoured man. In his
own circle, and among his own friends, he could
converse freely and laugh heartUy, though, gener-

GEORGE THE FIRST. 149
ally speaking, he preferred the pleasure of listen
ing to the conversation of others to the labour of
talking himself. He delighted to divest himself
of the cares of sovereignty with its trappings, and
though neither his wit nor his conversation were
of a very high order, he was, on these occasions,
especially over his punch, a cheerful and some
times an arausing companion. Parade and obser
vation were his particular aversion. Among his
few redeeming qualities was a love of music, and
whenever this taste led him to frequent the opera,
instead of appearing in state in the royal box, he
usually sat (in a box allotted to the ladies of the
court) behind the Duchess of Kendal and Lady
Walsingham, where he could watch the perform
ances without being observed by the audience.
Of the king's peculiar kind of humour, and of
his practice of embellishing a slight incident, the
following may be taken as a specimen : " This is
a very odd country," he said, speaking of England.
" The first morning after my arrival at St. James's,
I looked out of the window, and saw a park with
walls, and a canal, which they told rae were mine.
The next day. Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my
park, sent rae a brace of fine carp out of my canal,
and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord
Chetwynd's raan, for bringing rae ray own carp,
out of my own canal in my own park."
A seasonable and well-turned pleasantry appears
to have usually had the effect of putting him in a

150 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
good-humour, a circumstance of which his cour
tiers did not faU to avaU themselves. Among
those who were in the habit of diverting him,
either by exposing their own follies or retailing
those of others, was the Duchess of Bolton, a
natural daughter of the unfortunate Duke of
Monmouth.' This lady is said to have fre
quently amused him by her ridiculous, and more
than Hibernian, blunders. On one occasion, hav
ing been at the theatre the night before, when Col-
ley Gibber's first dramatic performance, " Love's
Last Shift," was acted, the king inquired of her
the next day what piece she had seen performed.
The play, she said, with a grave face, was La
dcrnitre Chemise de l' Amour. At another time,
she made her appearance at court in a great
fright, and the king inquiring the cause of her
alarm, she told him she had just been listening
to a prophecy of Whiston, that the world would
be burnt in three years, — "And for my part,"
she added, " I ara deterrained to go to China."
Among others, in whose society he delighted,
was Doctor Lockier, the well-known friend of Pope
and the wits. The king, one day seeing Lockier
at court, desired the Duchess of Ancaster to
invite hira to her evening party. Lockier, how-
' Henrietta Crofts, natural daughter of James, Duke of Mon
mouth, by Eleanor, younger daughter of Sir Robert Needham,
Knt. She became the third wife of Charles Paulet, second
Duke of Bolton.

GEORGE THE FIRST. 151
ever, begged that the duchess would excuse him
to his Majesty ; he stood well at present, he said,
with the rainisters, but should it be known that
he was keeping such good company, he should
probably raiss the preferment which he was anx
iously expecting. A few days afterward Lockier
was appointed to the Deanery of Peterborough,
and while kneeling to kiss hands on his prefer
ment, the king whispered good-naturedly in his
ear, " Well, now, doctor, you wUl not be afraid
to come to our evening parties, I hope."
There were two other divines (Doctor Younger,
Dean of Salisbury, his deputy clerk of the closet,
and a Doctor Savage), in whose society the king
appears to have taken great pleasure. He once
inquired of the latter how it happened that, dur
ing his long stay in the papal dominions, he had
missed effecting the conversion of the Pope. " I
believe, your Majesty," replied the other, "that
it was because I had nothing higher than the see
of Rome to offer his Holiness." Doctor Younger,
whom he had formerly known in Hanover, he
was accustoraed to style his "little dean." This
person, with whora the king used faraUiarly to
converse in high Dutch whUe standing behind
his chair, eventually obtained so inconvenient a
degree of influence over his royal master that
the ministers, disliking his Tory principles, con
trived effectually to remove hira out of the way.
There is one trait in the character of George

152 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
the First, for which we readily hasten to do him
credit. We allude to the liberality of feeling which
he displayed toward the adherents of the exiled
faraily ; and whether that feeling was prompted
simply by constitutional good-nature, or whether
it originated in some conscientious scruples in
regard to the validity of his own claims, scruples
which it is well known that he entertained, the
circurastance, nevertheless, does him infinite credit.
When it was reported to him of an old acquaint-.
ance that, on hearing the news of his accession,
he had observed, "I have no objection to smoke
a pipe with him as Elector of Hanover, but I
cannot admit his claims to the throne of Great
Britain," the king is said, not only to have shown
no resentment, but to have frequently regretted
that a difference in political opinion should have
separated him from a man whom he loved. It
is said of him, on another occasion, that when at
a masquerade, a lady in a domino invited him to
fill a buraper, at the same time proposing "the
Pretender, " "I wUl drink," he said, "with all my
heart to the health of any unfortunate prince."
But the following anecdote, related by Horace
Walpole, not only places the generosity of the
king's sentiments in a very agreeable point of
view, but exhibits an instance of fine breeding,
for which it would not be easy to find a parallel.
" On one of his journeys to Hanover," says Wal
pole, "his coach broke down. At a distance, in

GEORGE THE FIRST. 1 53
view, was a chiteau of a considerable German
nobleman. The king sent to borrow assistance.
The possessor came, conveyed the king to his
house, and begged the honour of his Majesty's
accepting a dinner while his carriage was repair
ing ; and, in the interim, asked leave to amuse his
Majesty with a collection of pictures, which he
had formed in several tours to Italy. But what
did the king see in one of the rooms, but an un
known portrait of a person in the robes and with
the regalia of a sovereign of Great Britain ! George
asked whom it represented. The nobleman re
plied, with much diffident but decent respect,
that in various journeys to Rome he had been
acquainted with the Chevalier de St. George, who
had done him the honour of sending him that pic
ture. 'Upon my word,' said the king, instantly,
' it is very like to the famUy.' " It was impossible,
adds Walpole, to remove the embarrassraent of
tbe proprietor with raore good breeding.
George the First was what raay be terraed a
good-natured raan, and though the frightful pro
scriptions which followed the suppression of the
rebellion of 171 5 raust always be regarded as a
blot on his character, they nevertheless appear
to have been prompted by feelings of stern neces
sity, and by a conviction that it was incumbent
upon him to make terrible examples, in order to
prevent further outbreaks, rather than frora an
unrelenting vindictiveness, or that he derived any

154 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
satisfaction from the misery of his fellow creatures.
That he could occasionally sympathise with the
sufferings of others, there is no want of evidence
to prove. From some cause, which has been left
unexplained, he had conceived a particular inter
est in the condition of persons imprisoned for
debt, and, on several occasions, we find him
kindly procuring their release. Previously to
his quitting Hanover, to assume the sovereignty
of England, he ordered a general emancipation of
all the insolvent debtors throughout the elector
ate, and, only a few months afterward, presented
the sheriffs of London with a thousand pounds
to be applied to a sirailiar object. Again, in a
progress which he made in the English provinces,
in 1722, the king, at his own expense, released
from gaol all prisoners confined for debt in every
town through which he passed.
The account which Horace Walpole has left
us of his being presented, when a mere chUd, to
George the First, contains some of the most agree
able of his octogenarian reminiscences. " I must
suppose," he says, " that the feraale attendants in
the faraily must have put into my head to long
to see the king. This chUdish caprice was so
strong, that my mother solicited the Duchess
of Kendal to obtain for me the honour of kissing
his Majesty's hand before he set out for Hanover.
A favour so unusual to be asked for a boy of ten
years old was stiU too slight to be refused to the

GEORGE THE FIRST. 155
wife of the first rainister for her darling chUd ;
yet not being proper to be raade a precedent, it
was settled to be in private and at night. Accord
ingly, the night but one before the king began his
last journey, ray raother carried rae, at ten at
night, to the apartment of the Countess of Wal
singham, on the ground floor toward the garden
at St. Janles's, which opened into that of her aunt,
the Duchess of Kendal, — apartraents occupied by
George the Second after his queen's death, and
by his successive raistresses, the Countesses of
Suffolk and Yarmouth.
" Notice being given that the king was come
down to supper, Lady Walsingham took me alone
into the duchess's anteroora, where we found
alone the king and her. I knelt down and kissed
his hand. He said a few words to rae, and my
conductress led me back to my raother.
"The person of the king is as perfect m my
memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was
that of an elderly raan, rather pale, and exactly
like his pictures and coins ; not tall, of an aspect
rather good than august, with a dark tie-wig, a
plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-col
oured cloth, with stockings of the same colour,
and a blue riband over all. So entirely was he
my object, that I do not believe I once looked
at the duchess ; but as I could not avoid seeing
her on entering the room, I i;eraember that just
beyond his Majesty stood a very tall, lean, UI-

156 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
favoured old lady; but I did not retain the least
idea of her features, nor know what the colour of
her dress was." Walpole informs us elsewhere,
that the king took him up in his arms, kissed him,
and " chatted some time."
In the last years of his life, the king paid his
English subjects the compliment of taking an
Englishwoman for his mistress. This lady was
Anne Brett, a daughter of the repudiated Count
ess of Macclesfield by her second husband, and
a sister of Savage, the poet. Her hair and eyes
are said to have been extremely dark, so much so,
that she might have been mistaken for a Spanish
beauty. She seems to have been as arabitious as
she was handsome, and as she had been promised
a coronet as the reward of her complaisance, as
soon as her royal lover returned from the last visit
which he paid to Hanover, she would, probably,
have proved a dangerous rival to the Duchess of
Kendal, had the king's life been extended a few
years. Insolence, a quality which she, probably,
inherited from her unprincipled mother. Lady
Macclesfield, appears to have been the chief char
acteristic of this new sultana. Previously to the
king's last departure for Hanover, he had left his
new mistress in St. James's Palace, in apartments
contiguous to those of his granddaughters, the
Princesses Anne, Amelia, and Elizabeth. " When
the king set out," says Walpole, " Miss Brett
ordered a door to be broken out of her apartment

GEORGE THE FIRST. 157
into the royal garden. Anne, the eldest of the
princesses, offended at that freedora, and not
choosing such a companion in her walks, ordered
the door to be walled up again. Miss Brett as
imperiously reversed that command. The king
died suddenly, and the empire of the new mis
tress and her promised coronet vanished. She
afterward married Sir William Leraan, and was
forgotten before her reign had transpired beyond
the confines of Westminster."
George the First, at an earlier period of his
life, had been warned by a French prophetess to
take care of his wife, as it was fated that he would
not survive her more than a twelvemonth. Like
most Germans, he was superstitious, and such an
effect had the prediction on his mind that, shortly
after his wife's death, on taking leave of his son
and the Princess of Wales, when on the eve of
his departure for Hanover, he told them, with
tears in his eyes, that he should never see them
again. However, notwithstanding his firm con
viction that the hour of his dissolution was at
hand, the circumstance seems to have had no
effect in deterring him from the comraission of
a very gross act of injustice and crirae. With a
contempt of all laws, human and divine, he gave
directions that his wife's wUl should be burnt, and
this for the mere purpose, it seems, of depriv
ing his own son of sorae valuable legacies be
queathed to hira by his unfortunate mother. It

158 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
is a remarkable and a melancholy fact that his
wife and his only son appear to have been the
two persons whom George the First detested
most in the world.
On the 3d of June, 1727, the king departed
from Greenwich on his last visit to his beloved
electorate. He landed in Holland four days after
ward, and on reaching Delden, on the 9th of the
month, appeared to be in the enjoyment of his
usual health. It appears, however, that about
twenty raUes frora that place he had supped
with the Count de Twittel, at the country-seat
of that nobleraan, on which occasion he had eaten
an unusual quantity of melons, an act of impru
dence to which was subsequently ascribed the
disorder that caused his death. He proceeded
the same evening to Delden, and, having break
fasted the following raorning on a cup of chocolate,
set off on his way to Osnaburg.
The circurastances which attended the king's
last Ulness are minutely detaUed by Archdeacon
Coxe, from the account of persons who were
either eye-witnesses of, or who remerabered, the
event. " On his arrival at Benthara," says Coxe,
"the king felt himself indisposed, but continued
his journey in opposition to the repeated entreaties
of his suite. His indisposition increased, and,
when he arrived at Ippenburen, he was quite
lethargic ; his hand fell down as if lifeless, and
his tongue hung out of his mouth. He gave.

GEORGE THE FIRST. 1 59
however, signs of life, by continually crying out,
as well as he could articulate, ' Osnaburg, Osna
burg.' This impatience to reach Osnaburg in
duced the attendants not to stop at Ippenburen,
but to hasten on in hopes of arriving at that city
before he died, but it was too late. The exact
time and place of his death cannot be ascertained,
but it is most probable that he expired either as
the carriage was ascending the hill near Ippen
buren, or on the sumrait. On their arrival at
the palace of his brother, the Bishop of Osna
burg, he was immediately bled, but all attempts
to recover him proved ineffectual."
Etough, in a letter to Doctor Birch, preserved
in the British Museum, intimates that the extraor
dinary vigour of the king's constitution seemed to
promise him an existence of more than coramon
duration ; he adds, however, that his fondness for
sturgeon and other strong food, and his custom
of indulging in hearty suppers at late hours of
the night, counteracted the exertions made by
nature in his behalf. These presumptions of the
king's want of prudence, in regard to his daily
diet, render it the raore probable that the excess
to which he indulged at the table of the Count de
Twittel, was the immediate cause of his death.
Among the Marchmont papers there is a letter,
dated 15 th June, 1727, addressed by George BaUlie,
Esq., to Alexander, Earl of Marchmont, detaUing
some further particulars relating to the death of

l6o THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
George the First. The narrative, it may be re
marked, differs in no material degree from that
of Coxe. " It is with great grief and concern,"
says the writer, "that I am to tell you of our
most excellent king's death. The melancholy
news came by express yesterday. He had been
ill at sea, and continued so on the road, but
would not stop. On Friday night he was taken
ill with a severe purging and great sweating, which
weakened him very much. He would, however,
go on, and upon Saturday lost his speech and the
power of one side, but still made signs with his
hand to proceed, and in the evening arrived at
Osnaburg, where he died about one o'clock on
Sunday raorning, — a fatal day, were we not
happy in the prince, his successor."
Lockhart of Carnwath, in his memoirs, relates
a somewhat romantic anecdote connected with the
last Ulness of George the First, which was formerly
current in Germany. According to this writer, the
unfortunate Sophia Dorothea, shortly before her
death, addressed a letter to her royal consort, in
which, after emphatically asserting her innocence,
she reproached him with the long course of UI
usage that she had experienced at his hands, and
concluded by solemnly citing him to appear on a
certain day before the divine tribunal. This letter,
it is said, was entrusted by the dying princess to
a faithful attendant, by whom it was presented
to the king on his entering his German domin-

GEORGE THE FIRST. l6l
ions. He read it, appeared to be awestruck by
the contents, and immediately afterward was seized
by the disorder which carried hira off. Lockhart,
a trustworthy chronicler, informs us that the same
year in which the king died he was actually shown
the letter in question by Count Welling, Governor
of Luxemburg. It is more likely, however, that
Lockhart was imposed upon than that the story
had any foundation in fact. Indigestion, and not
superstition, seems to have shortened the life of
George the First.
King George expired on the i ith of June, 1 727,
in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and the thir
teenth of his reign over England. His reraains
were interred at Hanover on the 3d of Septeraber
following. In person he was soraewhat beneath
the raiddle stature. His general appearance was
undignified, his address awkward. Though not
handsorae, his features were good, and the slight
expression which they bore is said to have been
that of benignity. The king's character has al
ready been sufficiently iUustrated in the foregoing
pages, without requiring any general suraraary of
his virtues or his vices. It may be remarked,
however, that, with the single exceptions of social
pleasantry and constitutional good -humour, he
seems to have been possessed of no redeeming
quality which reflected dignity on him as a mon
arch, or rendered hira amiable as a man. Profli
gate in his youth and libidinous in old age, he

l62 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
figures through life as a bad husband, a bad father,
and, in as far as England is concerned, a bad king.
He wanted even those graceful qualifications of
the Stuarts, a love for polite literature and the
fine arts ; he possessed no taste for the one, and
extended no patronage to the other. The only
thing he seeras to have had a regard for was his
own ease ; the only being he hated heartily was,
probably, his own son. Many of these unami
able characteristics were unquestionably owing to
his indifferent education ; for, notwithstanding
his wrong-headiness, he is said to have meant
well. A single favourable anecdote is related of this
monarch : that when, on his accession to the
throne, a German nobleman congratulated him
on his elevation, " Rather," he said, " congratu
late me on having Newton for a subject in
one country, and Leibnitz in the other." ' The
authenticity of the story may reasonably be
doubted, but, if true, it deserves to be written
in letters of gold.
George the First (by his wife, Sophia Dorothea
of Zell) was the father of two children, — a son
and a daughter, — of whom the former succeeded
him on the throne of England as King George the
Second. His remaining child was Sophia Dorothea,
born in 1684. This lady, on the 28th of Novem-
¦ This anecdote is related by Seward, but without giving his
authority.

GEORGE THE FIRST. 163
ber, 1706, became the wife of Frederick WUliam,
of Brandenburg, afterward King of Prussia, a man
whose eccentric brutalities have been rendered so
celebrated by Voltaire. His unhappy wife is said
to have combined the strong sense of her grand
mother, the old electress, with the beauty and
fascinating manners of her unfortunate mother,
Sophia of Zell. Neither her virtues, however, nor
her accomplishments were sufficient to protect her
against the inhumanities of her husband. This
despicable and unmanly ruffian is known to have
practised the same cruelties toward his wife and
children which he exercised so notoriously toward
his oppressed subjects. On different occasions we
find him kicking his daughter, with brutal violence,
from his apartment ; ' proposing to behead his son,
afterward Frederick the Great, for having been
guilty of writing a copy of verses ; forcing that
son to be a witness of the execution of his friend ;
and subsequently to be present at the public casti-
gation of a beloved mistress. Harassed by her
' Lord Chesterfield writes to the plenipotentiaries on the 15th
of September, 1750, from The Hague: "My last letters from
Rome inform me that the King of Prussia had beaten the prin.
cess royal, his daughter, most unmercifully, dragged her about
the room by the hair, kicking her in the belly and breast, till her
cries alarmed the officer of the guards, who came in. She keeps
her bed of the bruises she received. Twenty pence a day is
allowed for the maintenance of the prince royal in the Castle of
Custan." The princess, on the occasion above referred to, re
ceived a severe injury on her left breast, the marks of which she,
some years afterward, exhibited to Voltaire.

l64 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
own misfortunes, and by witnessing the distresses
of her chUdren, the Queen of Prussia continued to
drag on an existence of misery and disease till
1757, when she expired in the seventy-fourth year
of her age.

CHAPTER VIII.
melesina, DUCHESS OF KENDAL.
Sister of the Count of Schulenberg — Appointed Maid of Hon
our to the Electress Sophia, Mother of George the First —
The Duchess's Birth in 1659 — Her Personal Appearance —
Reluctantly Accompanies George the First to England
— Created an Irish Peeress, Duchess of Munster, in 1716
— Afterward Created an English Peeress, Duchess of Kendal,
for Life, and Subsequently Princess of Eberstein in Germany
— Supposed to Have Contracted a Left-handed Marriage
with George the First — Her Assumption of Piety — Sir R.
Walpole's Mean Opinion of Her — Her Political Influence
^Letter Respecting Her from Count Broglio to Louis the
Fifteenth — The Latter's Reply — The Duchess Presides at
the King's Evening Parties — His Nightly Visits to Her
Apartments — Accompanies Him on His Last Visit to Hano
ver — Her Grief on Hearing of His Death — Singular Anec
dote — The Duchess's Death in 1743.
Erengard Melesina Schulenberg, the cele
brated mistress of George the First, was sister
of Frederic Achatius, Count of Schulenberg and
Hedlen. The influence of her famUy procured
her the appointment of raaid of honour to the
Electress Sophia, mother of George the First, at
the period when her royal lover was only electo
ral prince. Thus early did their intercourse com-
165

l66 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
mence, and it is remarkable that the influence
obtained by the one, and the affection felt by the
other, should have survived till both were progress
ing toward their seventieth year. As Mile. Schu
lenberg is said to have been a year older than her
royal lover, the date of her birth must be placed
in 1659.
It must have occasioned no slight degree of
astonishment to the English people, and no small
contempt for the taste of their new monarch,
when, at the head of the extraordinary seraglio
which accompanied him to England, they beheld
a woman whose face was not only plain, and whose
elongated figure was attenuated alraost to emacia
tion, but who at this period must have entered on
her fifty-fifth year.
This uninteresting sultana, satisfied with the
smaU pension which she enjoyed in Hanover, was
with great difficulty prevailed upon to accompany
her royal lover to England. According to Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu, " She even refused coming
hither at first, fearing that the people of England,
who, she thought, were accustomed to use their
kings barbarously, raight chop off his head in the
first fortnight ; and had not love or gratitude
enough to venture being involved in his ruin."
The king, however, who had been accustomed to
saunter away his idle hours in the apartments of
the women, and who dreaded the long evenings
which he was likely to pass in England without

DUCHESS OF KENDAL. 1 67
female society, found arguments sufficiently forci
ble to effect a change in her resolution.
For this compliance with her lover's wishes
Mile. Schulenberg was speedUy and profusely
rewarded. In 171 6 the king created her a peer
ess of Ireland, with the title's of Baroness of
Dundalk, Countess and Marchioness of Dungan-
non, and Duchess of Munster. She was after
ward raised, in 1719, to be a peeress of England
with the additional titles of Baroness Glastonbury,
Countess of Feversham, and Duchess of Kendal
for life, and was subsequently created Princess of
Eberstein in Germany. It has been affirmed that
George the First was raarried to the Duchess of
Kendal with his left hand ; and though an un
authorised ceremony of this nature must have
appeared sufficiently ridiculous to the people of
England, yet it was a kind of marriage which was
not unfrequently practised in Germany, for the pur
pose of lulling inconvenient scruples, and creating
for the lady an adventitious respect.' The duchess
herself, by assuming an extraordinary semblance
of piety and attending strictly to her devotional
duties, appears to have been eager to countenance
such a belief. It is said to have been her custom
to attend different Lutheran chapels as raany as
' There is reason to believe, from the contents of a letter
from Etough to Doctor Birch preserved in the British Museum,
that the ceremony was actually performed in this country by the
Archbishop of York.

1 68 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
seven times on every Sunday. To her great
mortification, however, the minister of the Lu
theran chapel in the Savoy, notwithstanding her
assumption of superior piety, positively refused
to administer the sacrament to her on the ground
that she was living in a state^ of adultery, though
she subsequently met with more complaisance
from a clergyman of the same persuasion in the
city. Horace Walpole speaks of the Duchess of Ken
dal as " by no means an inviting object ; " and, on
another occasion, alluding to the impression which
her appearance made on him in his youth, he de
scribes her as " a very tall, lean, Ul-favoured old
lady." She was one day waiting behind the chair
of the old Electress Sophia at a baU, when the
latter, pointing her out to Mrs. Howard, afterward
Countess of Suffolk, observed, " Look at that
mawkin, and think of her being ray son's mis
tress." Neither does her mind appear to have
been more gifted than her person. She ever
reraained in ignorance of the English language,
and Sir Robert Walpole, who was weU acquainted
with her, spoke of her capacity as contemptible in
the extreme. A love of money, he said, was the
ruling passion of her life ; and it was one of his
remarks that, were the king's honour put up to
auction, she would have sold it, for the considera
tion of a shilling, to the highest bidder.
The correspondence which passed between Louis

DUCHESS OF KENDAL. 169
the Fifteenth and his minister. Count Broglio, dis
covers how much importance was attached to the
good word of the Duchess of Kendal, and how
paramount was believed to be her influence over
the king. Count Broglio writes to his royal mas
ter, on the 6th of July, 1724, "As the Duchess
of Kendal seemed to express a desire to see me
often, I have been very attentive to her, being
convinced that it is highly essential to the advan
tage of your Majesty's service to be on good terms
with her, for she is closely united with the three
ministers who now govern." And again, the
Frenchman writes, on the loth of the sarae month :
" The raore I consider state affairs, the raore I am
convinced that the government is entirely in the
hands of Mr. Walpole, Lord Townshend, and the
Duke of Newcastle, who are on the best terms
with the Duchess of Kendal. The king visits her
every afternoon from five tUl eight, and it is there
that she endeavours to penetrate the sentiments
of his Britannic Majesty, for the purpose of
consulting the three ministers, and pursuing the
measures which may be thought necessary for
accomplishing their designs. She sent me word
that she was desirous of ray friendship, and that I
should place confidence in her. I assured her
that I would do everything in my power to merit
her esteem and friendship. I am convinced that
she may be advantageously employed in promot
ing your Majesty's service, and that it wUl be

170 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
necessary to employ her, though I will not trust
her further than is absolutely necessary."
It seems to be in reply to these curious passages,
that the French king writes to Count Broglio on
the 1 8th of July, following: "There is no room
to doubt that the Duchess of Kendal, having a
great ascendency over the King of Great Britain,
and maintaining a strict union with his ministers,
must raaterially influence their principal resolu
tions. You will neglect nothing to acquire a
share of her confidence, frora a conviction that
nothing can be raore conducive to my interests.
There is, however, a manner of giving additional
value to the marks of confidence you bestow on
her in private, by avoiding in public all appear
ances which might seem too pointed ; by which
means you wUl avoid falling into the inconven
ience of being suspected by those who are not
friendly to the duchess, at the sarae time that a
kind of raysteriousness in public on the subject
of your confidence will give rise to a firm belief
of your having formed a friendship mutually sin
cere." Though George the First was far from being
constant to his antiquated sultana, she, neverthe
less, raaintained her unaccountable influence over
hira to the last. It must have been the force of
habit, indeed, rather than the remains of any
softer feeling, which latterly attached him to the
mistress of his youth, for at the period when

DUCHESS OF KENDAL. I7I
death dissolved their union the connection be
tween them must have subsisted for nearly half a
century. Unquestionably, she was of great ser
vice to him after he had ascended the throne of
England ; for not only, from a long course of
experience, was she intimately acquainted with his
tastes, his prejudices, and habits, and thus able to
dissipate the tedium of his more solitary hours,
but she also did the honours of his evening par
ties, and, apparently, was complaisant enough
to allow him to extend his favours to younger
rivals, without wearying him with inconvenient
reproaches. Occasionally, it is said, she used to
complain of the great difficulty she experienced in
arausing the king, and finding employment for
his idle hours. A simUar coraplaint is known to
have been made by Madame de Maintenon during
her intercourse with Louis the Fourteenth. George
the First, when he paid his nightly visits to the
apartments of the Duchess of Kendal, is said to
have usually employed himself in cutting paper
into different shapes.
Probably the duchess really retained an attach
ment for her royal lover. Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu observes, speaking of their almost ludi
crous amours, "She was duUer than the king,
and, consequently, did not find out that he was
so." She accorapanied her royal lover in his last
visit to Hanover, but, for some reason, remained
behind at Delden, whUe the king was hastening

172 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
toward Osnaburg. She had, however, proceeded
on her journey, when a courier met her on the
road, and announced to her the melancholy tidings
of the king's illness. She immediately hurried
forward with all speed, but had accomplished only
a few miles when a second courier communicated
to her the tidings of his death. The grief which
she displayed on hearing the news, to all appear
ance, was excessive and sincere. She even beat
her breast and tore her hair, and, immediately
separating herself from the English ladies who
accompanied her, took the road to Brunswick,
where she remained in close seclusion about three
months. A somewhat fantastic anecdote is related by
Horace Walpole, which, though it places in a
ridiculous light the superstition both of George
the First and of his mistress, yet affords pleasing
evidence that they were sincerely attached to
each other. "In a tender mood," says Walpole,
" George the First promised the Duchess of Ken
dal that, if she survived him, and it were possible
for the departed to return to this world, he would
make her a visit. The duchess, on his death, so
much expected the accoraplishraent of that engage
ment, that a large raven, or some black fowl,
flying into one of the windows of her vUla at
Isleworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of
her departed monarch so accoutred, and received
and treated it with all the respect and tenderness

DUCHESS OF KENDAL. 173
of duty, tUl the royal bird or she took their last
flight." The Duchess of Kendal, after the death of her
royal lover, paid a compliment to England by
raaking it the country of her choice. She princi
pally resided at Kendal House, near Twickenhara,
which, after her death, was converted into a tea-
garden. She expired in the early part of 1743, in
the eighty-fifth year of her age. Her wealth, of
which Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann,
speaks as "iraraense," was divided between her
reputed niece and presuraed daughter, the Count
ess of Chesterfield, and some other German rela
tions.

CHAPTER IX.
SOPHIA CHARLOTTE, COUNTESS OF PLATEN AND
DARLINGTON.
Sister of Count Platen, One of the Most Influential Noblemen
In Hanover — The FamUy of Platen Supply the Electoral
House with Mistresses — The Young Countess taken by her
Ambitious Mother to the Electoral Court — She Thwarts
Her Mother's Schemes by Falling in Love with the Son of a
Hamburg Merchant — She Marries Him, in Order to Pre
serve Her Character — Her Mother's Disappointment and
Death — The Countess Separates from Her Husband, and
Squanders the Fortune Left Her by Her Mother — Becomes
George the First's Mistress — His Vexation at Her Indiscre
tions and Extravagance — She Accompanies Him to England
— Character of Her by Lady M. W. Montagu — Her Liaison
with Mr. Methuen — Created Countess of Darlington —
Horace Walpole's Portrait of Her in Her Old Age — Her
Daughter by George the First Married to Viscount Howe of
Ireland — Death of the Countess in 1730.
Sophia Charlotte, Countess of Platen, who
figures as the next in importance in the seraglio
of George the First, had attained the age of forty
at the period when she followed the king to this
country. She was of the house of Offlen, being
sister of Count Platen, one of the most consider
able men in Hanover. It seems to have been the
fate of this family to supply the electoral house
174

COUNTESS OF PLATEN AND DARLINGTON. 175
with mistresses. The mother of Count Platen
had long been the mistress of the Elector Ernest
Augustus, and, moreover, the count had the mis
fortune to see his wife and sister successively
filling the same situation to the Elector George
Lewis, afterward King of England.
The mother of the Countess of Platen is said
to have carried her daughter to the electoral
court, with the express purpose of establishing
her as the mistress of the future sovereign of
England. The young lady was possessed of an
agreeable person and considerable powers of
fascination, and such was the effect which they
produced on the amorous elector that his deser
tion of his consort, Sophia of Zell, and the subse
quent divorce and misery of that unhappy woman,
have been traced to this discreditable attachraent.
The young lady, however, discovered, at least at
this period, but little inclination to second the
ambitious views of her mother. Indeed, she com
pletely thwarted them by falling in love with a
M. KUraansegge, the son of a merchant of Ham
burg, and, by conferring on this person the favours
which she had refused her sovereign, shortly after
ward proved in a fair way to becorae a raother.
As the only raeans of saving her frora irreraediable
disgrace, it was thought expedient to marry her
to her seducer. Her mother died shortly after
this event (as was supposed, of grief and disap
pointment), and bequeathed her daughter the large

176 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
fortune of ;£40,ooo, which, in her youth, she had
obtained from the generosity of her early lover,
the Elector Ernest Augustus.
Impatient of matrimonial restraint, and addicted
to pleasures little compatible with domestic happi
ness, the young countess separated herself from
her Hamburg husband, and speedily squandered
the handsome fortune of which she had become
the possessor. At what period she became the
mistress of George the First is not exactly known.
The king, however, appears to have soon wearied
of her charms ; her indiscretions, moreover, and
reckless extravagance, apparently, causing him
great annoyance. On his accession to the English
throne, she made a final and, as it proved, suc
cessful attempt to regain the influence she had
lost. Ascertaining that her rival, the Duchess of
Kendal, had declined accorapanying their royal
master to his new dominions, she promptly offered
her own services, which were gratefully and un
hesitatingly accepted. Circumstances, however,
still threatened to prevent the accomplishment of
her ambitious designs. The king, though he
accepted her services, discovered no intention to
pay her debts ; and as these were of large amount
and her creditors both watchful and importunate,
she found it difficult to quit Hanover without
their knowledge and consent. At length, she in
geniously effected her purpose by stealth. Having
contrived to escape out of the town in disguise,

COUNTESS OF PLATEN AND DARLINGTON. 1 77
ishe made the best of her way in a post-chaise to
HoUand, where she arrived in time to embark for
England with the king.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was in
timately acquainted with the Countess of Platen,
describes her as being endowed with powers of
fascination of no mean order. " She had a greater
vivacity in conversation," says Lady Mary, " than
ever I knew in a German of either sex. She loved
reading, and had a taste for all polite learning.
Her humour was easy and sociable. Her consti
tution inclined her to gaUantry. She was well-bred
and amusing in company. She knew both how to
please and be pleased, and had experience enough
to know it was hard to do either without raoney.
Her unlimited expenses had left her with very
little remaining, and she made what haste she
could to make advantage of the opinion the Eng
lish had of her power with the king, by receiving
the presents that were made her from all quarters ;
and which she knew very well must cease, when
it was known that the king's idleness carried him
to her lodgings, without either regard for her
advice, or affection for her person, which time and
very bad paint had left without any of the charms
which had once attracted him." Notwithstanding
the loss of youth and beauty. Madam KUmansegge,
on finding herself established in this country, ap
pears to have devoted herself to a life of pleasure
with the same zeal which she had pursued it when

178 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
in Hanover. A Mr. Methuen — a lord of the
treasury, and one of the most distinguished lady-
kUlers of the time — is said to have been particu
larly honoured by her regard. This person, it is
affirmed, had been incited to pay his addresses to
her by Lord Halifax, who hoped, by this means,
to obtain the private ear of the king.
The arrival of the Duchess of Kendal in England
was an effectual check to the short-lived influence
of the Countess of Platen. The king, however,
was not ungrateful for the service which she had
rendered hira, and on the death of her husband, in
1 72 1, created her Countess of Leinster, in Ire
land, and on the loth of AprU, 1722, Baroness of
Brentford and Countess of Darlington in England.
As she increased in years. Lady Darlington
entirely lost the coraeliness of her youth ; so rauch
so, that Horace Walpole draws an almost dis
gusting portrait of the superannuated courtesan.
" Lady Darlington," he says, "whom I saw at my
mother's in my infancy, and whom I remember by
being terrified by her enormous figure, was as cor
pulent and ample as the Duchess of Kendal was
long and emaciated. Two fierce black eyes, large
and rolling beneath two lofty arched eyebrows;
two acres of cheeks spread with crimson ; an ocean
of neck that overflowed, and was not distinguished
from the lower part of her body, and no part
restrained by stays ; no wonder that a child
dreaded such an ogress." Owing to her enor-

COUNTESS OF PLATEN AND DARLINGTON. 1 79
mous bulk. Lady Darlington is said to have been
commonly designated the " Elephant and Castle."
From the period of her elevation to the peerage,
to her death in 1730, we discover no particulars
respecting Lady Darlington. By George the First,
she had one child, Charlotte, who became the wife
of Viscount Howe, of Ireland, and the mother of
the celebrated admiral. Earl Howe.

CHAPTER X.
PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, EARL OF CHESTER
FIELD.
His Birth — His Early Thirst for Distinction — Lord Galway's
Advice to Him — His Opinion of the University of Cam
bridge — His Habits of Life There — His Own Account of
His Pedantry — Makes the Tour of Europe — Elected Mem
ber for St. Germains, and Appointed Gentleman of the Bed
chamber to the Prince — Appointed Captain of the Yeomen
of the Guard in 1723 — Succeeds to the Earldom — Sent
Ambassador to Holland — His Splendid Style of Living —
Extracts from the Suffolk Correspondence — Created a
Knight of the Garter — Takes an Active Part in the Debates
of the House of Lords — Opposes the Excise Bill, and Is Dis
missed from AU His Offices — Marries the Duchess of Kendal's
Reputed Niece — Appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland —
His Successful Administration There — Appointed Principal
Secretary of State — Resigns His Secretaryship — Horace
Walpole's High Opinion of His Eloquence — His Wit and
Conversational Powers — Pope's Compliment to the Earl's
Wit — The Earl's Epigram on Sir Thomas Robinson — His
Literary Associates — His Patronage of Literary Men —
Specimen of His Versification — His Attachment to His
Natural Son — Addresses His Celebrated Letters to Him
— Character of the Letters — Sarcastic Epigram on Them —
Character of the Earl's Natural Son — His Death in 1768 —
Pubhcation of the Letters in 1774 — The Earl in His Old Age
— Characteristic Anecdote of His Last Moments — His Death
in 1773.
This nobleman, so celebrated for his conversa
tional wit, and for the profligate homilies which he
180

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. l8l
preached to his own son, was the first-born of
PhUip, third Earl of Chesterfield, by Lady Eliza
beth SaviUe, daughter and co-heiress of George,
Marquis of Halifax. He was born in London on
the 22d of September, 1694, and, having passed
through a course of instruction under private
tutors, was entered, at the age of eighteen, a stu
dent of Trinity Hall, Carabridge.
A thirst for distinction and an eager desire to
elevate hiraself above the mere man of rank
appear to have influenced the conduct of Lord
Chesterfield at a very early age. Many years
afterward he writes to his son, then in his twelfth
year : " When I was at your age, I should have
been ashamed if any boy of the same age had
learned his book better, or played at any play
better than I did ; and I should not have rested a
moment tUl I had got before him." The foUow
ing piece of advice, which Lord Galway gave him
in his youth, is said to have made a particular
impression on his mind : " If you intend to be a
man of business, you must be an early riser ; in
the distinguished posts your parts, rank, and for
tune wUl entitle you to fiU, you wUl be liable to
have visitors at every hour of the day, and unless
you wUl rise constantly at an early hour, you wUl
never have any leisure to yourself." This sensible
admonition produced the desired effect, and even
when, as soraetimes happened, he had exhausted
the greater part of the previous night in the pur-

1 82 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
suit of pleasure, he persisted, the next morning,
in rising at his usual early hour. Several years
afterward, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an
acquaintance inquiring of him how he could possi
bly contrive to get through so much business,
" Because," he said, " I never put off till to-morrow
what I can possibly do to-day."
Of the raanner in which Lord Chesterfield
passed his tirae at the university we have only
sorae statements contained in his correspondence,
and these are not a little contradictory. In a
letter, written a few months after his matricula
tion, he writes : " I find the college where I am
infinitely the best in the university ; for it is the
smallest, and it is filled with lawyers who have
lived in the world, and know how to behave. What
ever may be said to the contrary, there is certainly
very little debauchery in this university, especially
amongst people of fashion, for a man must have
the inclinations of a porter to endure it here."
Notwithstanding, however, this laudable abhor
rence of vulgar debauchery, it appears that the
subsequent arbiter of taste and fashion grew to be
himself tainted by its plebeian fascinations. Many
years afterward, he writes to his beloved son :
" As I raake no difficulty of confessing my past
errors, where I think the confession may be of use
to you, I will own that when I first went to the
university I drank and smoked, notwithstanding
the aversion I had to wine and tobacco, only

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 1 83
because I thought it genteel, and that it made me
look like a raan. When I went abroad, I first
went to The Hague, where gaming was much in
fashion, and where I observed that many people
of shining rank and character gamed, too. I was
then young enough and silly enough to believe
that gaming was one of their accomplishments,
and, as I aimed at perfection, I adopted gaming as
a necessary step to it. Thus I acquired by error
the habit of a vice which, far frora adorning my
character, has, I am conscious, been a great blem
ish to it."
Nevertheless, the thirst for knowledge and the
desire of distinction were not altogether without
their legitimate influence, and served at times to
wean hira from his pernicious pursuits. In a let
ter written in his youth, he says that, with the
exception of an occasional game at tennis, his
time is alraost entirely occupied with the study
of phUosophy and the civU law and with his
attendance on mathematical lectures. "As for
anatomy," he adds, " I shall not have an opportu
nity of learning it ; for though a poor raan has been
hanged, the surgeon, who used to perform those
operations, would not this year give any lectures,
because it was a man, and then he says the scholars
will not come." When he left Cambridge, at the
age of nineteen, he had become, to use his own
words, an "absolute pedant." "When I talked
my best," he says, " I talked Horace ; when I

1 84 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
aimed at being facetious, I quoted Martial ; and
when I had a mind to be a fine gentleman, I talked
Ovid. I was convinced that none but the ancients
had common sense ; that the classics contained
everything that was either necessary, or useful,
or ornamental to men ; and I was not without
thoughts of wearing the toga virilis of the Ro
mans, instead of the vulgar and illiberal dress of
the moderns."
On quitting the university. Lord Chesterfield
made the then fashionable tour of Europe, with
out the customary incumbrance of a travelling
tutor. A considerable portion of his time appears
to have been wasted in garaing at The Hague, and
a further period in playing the petit mattre at
Paris. " I shall not give you my opinion of the
French," he writes, " because I am very often
taken for one ; and many a Frenchman has paid
me the highest compliment they think they can
pay to any one, which is, ' Sir, you are just like
one of us.' I talk a great deal ; I am very loud
and peremptory ; I sing and dance as I go along ;
and, lastly, I spend a monstrous deal of money in
powder, feathers, white gloves, etc." He returned
to England before he had completed his twenty-
first year, and, whUe yet under age, was elected
member for St. Germains, in Cornwall. About
the same period he was appointed gentleman of
the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, afterward
George the Second. He sided with the prince

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 1 85
during his memorable quarrels with his father,
and frora this circumstance, as well as by the per
tinacious raanner in which he opposed the court
in Parliament, rendered himself personally offen
sive to the king.
In 1723, having recently raade his peace with
the court by voting in favour of an augraentation
of the army, he was rewarded with the post of
captain of the Yeomen of the Guards. It is said
to have been in his power to render his place ex
tremely profitable, by disposing of the subordinate
situations in his gift. When Lord Lumley, his
predecessor in the office (who, it seems, had laud
ably neglected to avaU himself of this advantage),
advised hira to be less scrupulous, " I had rather,
in this instance," he said, "follow your lordship's
example than your advice."
By the death of his father, on the 27th of Jan
uary, 1726, he succeeded as fourth Earl of Ches
terfield, and on the accession of George the
Second to the throne, in 1727, was rewarded for
his attachment to the new sovereign by being
appointed a lord of the bedchamber, and a member
of the Privy CouncU. In the spring of 1728 he
was sent ambassador to Holland, where he no less
distinguished himself by his talent for diplomacy
than by his magnificent mode of living. The
anniversary of the king's birthday afforded him
an excellent opportunity of displaying his splen
dour to the homely Dutch. Accordingly, when

1 86 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
the day arrived, we find him entertaining the
foreign ministers and the whole of the States
General at three different tables in a room pur
posely buUt by him for the occasion. To Mrs.
Howard he writes, on the 13th of August, 1728:
"I am at present over head and ears in mortar,
buUding a room of fifty feet long, and thirty-four
broad. Whether these are the right proportions
or no, I must submit to you and Lord Herbert,
who, I hope, wUl be so good as to give rae your
sentiraents upon it. It will, I am sure, have five
great faults, which are five great windows, each
of them big enough to admit intolerable light.
However, such as it is, it will be handselled upon
his Majesty's birthday next ; at which time, if
you wUl do me the honour to come there, and
bring your own company, you wUl be extremely
welcome." The day following the entertainment,
he gave a ball to four hundred persons, whUe, in
the vicinity of the embassy, two fountains were
constructed, — beautifully Uluminated, and flowing
with wine, — at which the populace were allowed
to drink to the sound of music, tUl three o'clock
in the morning.
Of Lord Chesterfield's mode of passing his time
at The Hague, we find some amusing notices in
his letters to Mrs. Howard. He writes to that
lady, 1 8th May, 1728: "My morning is entirely
taken up in doing the king's business very ill, and
my own still worse ; this lasts tUl I sit down to

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 187
dinner with fourteen or fifteen people, where the
conversation is cheerful enough, being animated
by the patronazza, and other loyal healths. The
evening, which begins at five o'clock, is wholly
sacred to pleasures ; as, for instance, the Forault '
till six; then either a ver\- bad French play, or
a reprise at quadrille ^\"ith three ladies, the young
est upward of fift}-, at which, with a very SI run,
one may lose, besides ones time, three florins.
This lasts till ten o'clock, at which time I come
home, reflecting with satisfaction on the innocent
amusements of a weU-spent day, that leave no
sting behind them, and go to bed at eleven, vdth
the testimony of a good conscience." Again,
Lord Chesterfield writes to Mrs. Howard from
The Hague, on the 13th of July foUowing : "This
place, though empty in comparison of what it is
in the winter, is yet not without its recreations.
I played at blind man's buff till past three this
morning; we have music in 'The Wood;' parties
out of town ; besides the constant amusements of
quadrille and scandal, which flourish and abound.
We have even attempted two or three balls, but
with very moderate success, tbe ladies here being
a Uttle apt to quarrel with one another ; insomuch
' The Vooihont, a public walk at The Hague, planted by
Charles the Fifth. Lady il. W. Montagu thus describes it in
a letter to Miss Skirren. dared The Hague, 5th of August. 17 16:
" The Voorhout is, at the same time, the Hyde Park and 2JaU
of the people of quality; for they take the air in it both on foot
and m coaches ; there are shops for wafers, cool liquors, etc"

1 88 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
that before you can dance down three couple, it is
highly probable that two of them are sat down
in a huff. Upon these occasions I show the cir
cumspection of a minister, and observe a strict
neutrality, by which means I have hitherto escaped
being engaged in a war."
" Lord Chesterfield's first public character,"
says Horace Walpole, "was that of ambassador
to Holland, where he courted the good opinion
of that economical people, by losing immense
sums at play." But it was not in Holland alone
that he indulged in this pernicious vice ; from
his youth it had been a blot on his character, and
on his return to London, he persisted in renew
ing his almost nightly visits to White's and other
places. On one occasion, in the rooms at Bath,
a young nobleman happening to stand near him,
whose fortune had hitherto escaped the harpies
of the gaming-table , " Beware of these scoun
drels," whispered Lord Chesterfield ; " it is by
flight alone that you can preserve your purse."
The young nobleman took his advice and quitted
the room, but, returning a short time afterward,
beheld his monitor engaged at play with those
same " scoundrels," whom he had himself warned
him so strenuously to shun.
Lord Chesterfleld's unfortunate propensity for
the gaming-table is not only bitterly lamented
by him in several of his letters, but, on more
than one occasion, seems to have materially inter-

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 189
fered with his briUiant prospects in life. It is
said to have been on account of this unhappy
faUing that, when he became a suitor for the
hand of MUe. Schulenberg, the presumed daugh
ter of George the First, that monarch positively
refused his consent to the match, and, indeed,
withheld his permission to the day of his death.
Again, the indulgence of the sarae propensity
is said, in the reign of George the Second, to
have indirectly occasioned his loss of influence
at court. "The queen," says Walpole, "had an
obscure window at St. James's that looked into
a dark passage, lighted only by a single lamp at
night, which looked upon Mrs. Howard's apart
ment. Lord Chesterfield, one twelfth-night at
court, had won so large a sum of raoney, that
he thought it iraprudent to carry it home in the
dark, and deposited it with the mistress. Thence
the queen inferred great intimacy and thencefor
ward Lord Chesterfield could obtain no favour frora
court, and, finding himself desperate, went into
opposition." The sum won by Lord Chesterfield
on this particular night is said to have been
fifteen thousand pounds.
In October, 1729, Lord Chesterfield returned
to England from The Hague. He immediately
waited on the prime minister. Sir Robert Wal
pole, who seems to have been somewhat jealous
of his influence with the king, and who could
not refrain from displaying it at their interview.

igO THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
"Well, my lord," he observed, "I find you are
come to be secretary of state." Lord Chester
field told him he had no such pretensions, but
he added : " I claim the Garter, not on account
of ray late services, but agreeably with the
king's promise to me when he was Prince of
Wales; besides, I ara a man of pleasure, and
the blue riband would add two inches to my
size." The kmg kept his word, and on the i8th
of June following Lord Chesterfield was installed
a Knight of the Garter, at Windsor, at the same
time as the young Duke of Cumberland, George
the Second being present at the ceremony, and
defraying the expense of the installation. About
the same period, the appointment was conferred
on him of high steward of the household.
In August following he repaired to his duties at
The Hague, but returned in 1732, on the ground
of impaired health, and commenced taking an active
part in the debates of the House of Lords. From
this period, in consequence of the freedora of speech
in which he indulged in Parliaraent, his favour at
court was of short duration. By degrees, he se
ceded from Sir Robert Walpole and his party,
and subsequently, in consequence of opposing the
progress of the Excise BiU in the upper house,
was dismissed in 1732 from all his offices by the
king. On the 5th of September, 1733, about six
years after the death of George the First, Lord

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 191
Chesterfield received the hand of Melesina de
Schulenberg, a lady who was acknowledged in
society as the niece of the Duchess of Kendal,
but who, there is every reason to believe, was
the daughter of that lady by her royal lover.
Lady Chesterfield, on the loth of April, 1722,
had been created by George the First Baroness
of Aldborough and Countess of Walsingham. On
her marriage, however, she assumed the title of
her husband.
For several years after his dismissal from office.
Lord Chesterfield continued in constant opposi
tion to the court. However, in 1744, he was re
appointed to his forraer post of arabassador at
The Hague, and, subsequently, on the 3d of
January, 1745, was constituted Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland. It was his fortune to fill this high
office during the celebrated rebellion which took
place in that year. By his vigUant conduct, his
sensible precautions, and the personal popularity
which he had obtained by showing himself a
friend of toleration and the enemy of persecu
tion, he maintained the whole of Ireland in
perfect tranquillity, and obtained the applause
of all parties but those whose intrigues he cir
cumvented. Even Walpole admits that he was
the most popular governor Ireland ever had.
An anecdote is related of Lord Chesterfield by
his friend and correspondent. Doctor Chevenix,
Bishop of Waterford, which admirably Ulustrates

192

THE COURT OF ENGLAND.

his wit and presence of mind during the heat of
the rebeUion. "The vice-treasurer, Mr. Gardner,
a man of a good character and a considerable for
tune, waited upon him one morning, and in a great
fright told him that he was assured upon good
authority that the people in the province of Con-
naught were actually rising. Upon which Lord
Chesterfield took out his watch, and with great
composure answered him, ' It is nine o'clock, and
certainly time for them to rise ; I therefore believe
your news to be true.' " The same story is related,
though with some trifling difference, by Horace
Walpole. Another anecdote is recorded of Lord Chester
field at this period, that when a fussy Protestant
gentleman came to complain to him that he had
suddenly discovered his coachman to be a Roman
Catholic, and that he secretly attended mass,
" Does he, indeed .' " said Lord Chesterfield, with
a suppressed smUe ; " well, I will take care that
he shall never carry me there." It has been
affirmed, as a proof of Lord Chesterfield's extraor
dinary infiuence in Ireland, and the excellence of
his administration, that during the whole period he
was in that country no single instance occurred
of a person being seen drunk in the street. This
story, however, seems rather too wonderful to ad
mit of implicit credit.
In April, 1746, Lord Chesterfield resigned the
Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, and in November foi-

Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.
Photo-etching from an original model by Mr. Gosset.

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 193
lowing was appointed principal secretary of state.
During the time that he had fiUed the former
situation, no faro-table, or high garaing of any kind,
had been perraitted at the vice-regal palace. Now,
also, that he was appointed to the high post of
secretary of state, his sense of propriety so far
prevaUed over the ruling passion of his life that
he neither garabled himself nor allowed play in his
house. Even his panegyrist. Doctor Maty, how
ever, admits that on the very evening on which
he quitted office he paid a visit to White's, and re
newed those pernicious practices which had been
interrupted for about four years. "From this
period," says Walpole, "he lived at White's, gam
ing and pronouncing witticisms among the boys
of quality."
Lord Orford, who misses no opportunity of
placing the character and conduct of Lord Ches
terfield in a ridiculous or contemptible light, re
lates the following anecdote at his expense : " On
his being raade secretary of state, he found a fair
young lad in the antecharaber at St. Jaraes's, who
seeming much at home, the earl, concluding it was
the mistress's (Lady Yarmouth's) son, was profuse
of attentions to the boy, and raore prodigal stUl of his
prodigious regard for his raamma. The shrewd boy
received all his lordship's vows with indulgence, and
without betraying himself. At last he said, ' I sup
pose your lordship takes rae for Master Louis, but
I am only Sir WUliam RusseU, one of the pages.' "

194 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
In 1748, partly from some differences which he
had with his colleagues, and partly on account of
UI health, Lord Chesterfield resigned his appoint
ment of secretary of state, nor did he henceforward
accept any office under the state. Occasionally,
indeed, he spoke in his seat in the House of
Lords, and more particularly distinguished himself
in 1 75 1, when the proposal to alter our style,
according to the Gregorian account, was discussed
in Parliaraent. He was seconded by an able raathe
matician and astronomer. Lord Macclesfield ; and
it is remarkable that, whUe the latter nobleman
(though fully conversant with all the raerits of this
coraplicated question) faUed, from some natural de
fects, in either entertaining or enlightening his
hearers. Lord Chesterfield, who possessed only a
very superficial knowledge of the question, pro
duced, by his graceful eloquence and the perspi
cuity of his style, one of the most amusing and
effective speeches on record. He himself observes,
aUuding to the success of his oratory on this occa
sion, "God knows I had not even attempted it.
I could just as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavon-
ian to thera as astronomy, and they would have
understood rae fuU as well." Lord Chesterfield's
eloquence was unquestionably of a high order.
Horace Walpole, who had listened to the oratory
of his own father, of Wyndhara, Carteret, Pulteney,
and Pitt, observes that the "finest speech" he
had ever heard was one of Lord Chesterfield's.

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 195
Doctor Johnson reraarked of Lord Chesterfield,
that he was " a wit among lords, and a lord araong
wits." Horace Walpole also observes of his con
versational powers, " Chesterfield's entrance into
the world was announced by his bons mots, and his
closing lips dropped repartees that sparkled with
his juvenUe fire." Nothing can be more strongly
expressed than this latter encomium, and, conse
quently, in a work written at a later period of
Walpole's life, we are not a little startled by
discovering the following contradictory reraarks :
" Lord Chesterfield had early in his life announced
his claira to wit, and the women believed in it.
He had, besides, given himself out for a raan of
great intrigue with as slender pretensions, yet
the woraen believed in that, too. One should have
thought they had been more competent judges of
merit in that particular. It was not his fault if
he had not wit ; nothing exceeded his efforts in
that point ; and though they were far frora pro
ducing the wit, they at least araply yielded the
applause he aimed at. He was so accustomed to
see people laugh at the most trifling things he
said, tbat he would be disappointed at finding
nobody smUe before they knew what he was
going to say. His speeches were fine, but as rauch
laboured as his extempore sayings. His writings
were everybody's, that is, whatever carae out good
was given to him, and he was too humble ever
to refuse the gift."

196 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
That there exists some truth in the foregoing
picture is not at aU improbable ; but, on the other
hand, it would be unfair to rob Lord Chesterfield
of bis reputation for wit, raerely because so preju
diced a writer as Horace Walpole chooses to deny
him in one passage what he had freely and almost
enthusiastically awarded him in another. Of little
worth, indeed, was the praise or blame of Horace
Walpole ! With the cynical voluptuary of Straw
berry HUl, a presumed personal slight, or the
mere circumstance of a difference in politics, was
sufficient to convert admiration into contempt, and
friendship into hatred, and to send down to poster
ity in the likeness of a demon the man who raight
otherwise have been invested with the attributes
of an angel. The secret of his enmity to Lord
Chesterfield is evident. The latter had deserted
the colours of Sir Robert Walpole to join the
ranks of the Tories, and, what was stUl more un
pardonable, had conceived an intimate friendship
for the arch-enemy of the Walpoles, Lord Boling
broke. From henceforth, to the rancorous mind
of Lord Orford, Lord Chesterfield ceased to be
either the brUliant orator or the sparkling wit.
We have already had occasion to introduce one
or two specimens of Lord Chesterfield's peculiar
humour, to which we shall presently make some
trifling additions. Notwithstanding the Ul-natured
sarcasms of Walpole, his conversational powers
appear to have been of a high order. " My great

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. I97
I object," he writes to his son, "was to make every
: man I met like me, and every woraan love me."
A contemporary writer observes : " The most
barren subjects grow fruitful under his culture,
; and the most trivial circumstances are enlivened
and heightened by his address. When he appears
in the public walks, the company encroach upon
good manners to listen to him, or (if the expres
sion may be allowed) to steal some of that fine
wit which animates even his common discourses.
" ' With poignant wit his converse still abounds,
And charms, like beauty, those it deepest wounds. ' "
"Lord Chesterfield was esteeraed the wittiest
man of his tirae," says Speaker Onslow, "and of
a sort that has scarcely been known since the time
of King Charles the Second, and revived the raera
ory of the great wits of that age, to the liveliest
of whom he was thought not to be unequal." Of
the quickness of his fancy, a few specimens wUl
bear repetition. Once, in the House of Lords, the
debate turning on the subject of the late rebellion.
Lord Chesterfield observed to the peer next him,
"I could effectually annihilate the power of the
Pretender ; the best way would be to make him
Elector of Hanover, for we shall never again send
to that country for a king."
To a mUitary friend who had built a house
equally remarkable for the magnificence of its
exterior as for the indifference of its interior

198 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
arrangements, " If I were you, general," he said,
" I would hire the opposite house to live in, for
the purpose of enjoying the prospect."
On another occasion, happening to enter the
Ha)niiarket Theatre, a friend inquired of him if
he had come from the rival and less popular house
in Lincoln's Inn Fields. "Yes," he replied;
"but there was no one there but the king and
queen, and as I thought they might be talking
about business, I came away."
During the time he was secretary of state, the
ministry being desirous to appoint to a vacant
post in the governraent a person who had rendered
himself particularly offensive to the king. Lord
Chesterfield was the only raember of the cabinet
who had courage enough to introduce the subject
to his Majesty. Accordingly, he laid a warrant,
drawn out in the usual form, and containing the
name of the obnoxious individual, before George
the Second. The raoment the offensive name
met the king's eyes, he exclairaed, angrily, " I
would rather have the devU ! " "Your Majesty,"
said Lord Chesterfield, " will make choice of which
you please ; but I beg to observe that the warrant
is addressed to our right trusty and right well-
beloved cousin." This sally had the desired effect,
and the king, with a smUe, affixed his signature to
the document.
The exquisite compliment which Pope paid to
the wit of Lord Chesterfield is almost too well

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 199
known to need repetition. They were one day
amusing themselves at an inn, when the poet,
borrowing a diamond-pointed pencil which Lord
Chesterfield was in the habit of carrying about
him, wrote extemporaneously on a window-pane
in the apartment :
" Accept a miracle instead of wit.
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ."
And the great poet says of him on another occa
sion : " How can I, Pulteney, Chesterfield forget,
While Roman spirit charms, and Attic wit .¦' "
It may be remarked, as another singular com
pliment paid to Lord Chesterfield, that at the
period when Cardinal de Polignac's celebrated
poem of " Anti-Lucretius " was published, England
being then at war with France, the work was
transmitted by sound of trumpet from Marshal
Saxe to the English general, the Duke of Cum
berland, with a request that it might be forwarded
to Lord Chesterfield.
According to Lord Chesterfield's panegyrists,
his wit was on all occasions tempered by good
nature and high breeding. This, however, does
not appear to have been invariably the case. He
once exclaimed to Anstis, Garter King at Arms,
"You foolish man, you do not even know your
own foolish business." Again, when his acquaint-

200 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
ance, Sir Thomas Robinson, — a man celebrated
among his contemporaries for his great height and
insufferable dullness, — requested Lord Chester
field to distinguish him by some poetical notice,
his wit got the better of his good-nature, and he
gave birth to the following offensive couplet :
" Unlike my subject, will I frame my song ;
It shall be witty, and it sha'n't be long."
Lord Chesterfield lived on intimate terms with
most of the celebrated men of letters of the period,
and apparently had no objection to be regarded as
the Maecenas of the lesser stars. Among his for
eign correspondents were Montesquieu, Algarotti,
Voltaire, and the younger Crebillon ; and in Eng
land he could enumerate Swift, Pope, Gay, Addison,
Thomson, Garth, Arbuthnot, and Sir John Van
brugh as his friends. Of the latter he remarks,
that he knew no man who united conversational
pleasantry and perfect good-humour in so eminent
a degree. Of the kindness and patronage which Lord
Chesterfield extended to his literary friends, —
considering it was an age when genius required
the fostering hand of wealth and influence far
more than at the present day, — we have un
fortunately but a slight record. We know little
more than that he threw sunshine over the short
life of Hammond, the author of the "Love Ele-

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 201
igies," ' and that he exerted himself to procure sub
scribers for the charming " Fables " of Gay. When
these celebrated men died, he edited the poems
of the one, and was a pall-bearer at the funeral of
the other. These, indeed, are but slight tributes
to departed genius, yet the merit of them should
not be denied to him.
Respecting the claims of Lord Chesterfield to
be considered a patron of literature, we have little
more to add. His conduct to Doctor Johnson,
indeed, reflects little credit on him. However, he
alleviated the wants of Aaron Hill ; ^ and, more
over, when the surly and cynical Dennis was
labouring in his old age under the raiserable
inflictions of penury and disease, he is known, at
the generous instigation of Pope, to have extended
relief to the snarling critic, though a man whom

' James Hammond, the author of the " Love Elegies," died
under melancholy circumstances, at Lord Cobham's seat at
Stowe, on the 7th of June, 1742, in his thirty-third year. Lord
Chesterfield, in editing his friend's poems, bestows the warmest
ecomiums on his judgment, his genius, and his taste.
^ Aaron Hill, an indifferent poet but amiable man, was born
in 1685. He was at different times manager of Drury Lane
Theatre and master of the Opera House. Lady Hervey, in one
of her letters, mentions her meeting him at Goodwood in 1732,
and dwells on the pleasure which she derived from hearing him
read aloud. He is now principaUy known from his misunder
standing with Pope, who, however, appears to have sincerely
regarded the man whom he ridiculed. There is an interesting
account of their literary hostilities in D'Israeli's "Quarrels of
Authors."

202 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Lord Chesterfield had no reason to love, and Pope
had every inducement to hate.
Lord Chesterfield has himself some claims to
be considered a poet. Of the ephemeral poetry
of the period, more than one trifle was attributed
to hira ; but, as is usually the case with the care
less scribblers of anonymous verse, it is now ex
tremely difficult to distinguish what was really
written by him from that to which he has no claim.
Of the various trifles imputed to him, the foUowing
seems to possess the most merit, and affords a
favourable specimen of his poetical abilities :
"ON LORD ISLAY'S GARDEN AT WHITTON ON HOUNSLOW
HEATH.
" Old Islay, to show his fine delicate taste.
In improving his garden purloined from the waste;
Bade his gard'ner one day lay open his views.
By cutting a couple of grand avenues.
No particular prospect his lordship intended.
But left it to chance how his walks should be ended.
With transport and joy he beheld his first view end.
In a favourite prospect — a church, that was ruin'd;
But alas ! what a sight did the next cut exhibit.
At the end of the walk hung a rogue on a gibbet !
He beheld it and wept, for it caused him to muse on
Full many a Campbell, that died with his shoes on.
All amazed and aghast at the ominous scene.
He ordered it quick to be closed up again.
With a clump of Scotch firs by way of a skreen."
By his wife, Melesina de Schulenberg, Lord
Chesterfield had no children. We have seen them

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 203
occupying separate houses, and, indeed, he seems
to have been a suitor for her hand rather with a
view of ingratiating himself with the old Duchess
of Kendal, and of becoming the inheritor of her
vast wealth, than from any ardent attachment
which he had conceived for the person of his in
tended wife. His projects, however, were destined
to be signally disappointed, for, with the exception
of a trifling legacy, the duchess bequeathed her
wealth to her German relations. With another
hoarding dowager. Lord Chesterfield was more
successful. The celebrated Duchess of Marl
borough — as a reward for the biting sarcasms
which he had inflicted on Sir Robert Walpole's
ministry, and for his steadfast opposition to the
court — bequeathed him "her best and largest
diamond ring " and the sum of twenty thousand
pounds. "The duchess," says Horace Walpole,
" was scarce cold, before he returned to the king's
service." The Duchess of Marlborough died in
1744, and in January, 1745, Lord Chesterfield was
appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
Probably in uniting himself to Madame de
Schulenberg, Lord Chesterfield anticipated her
inheriting a portion of the private wealth of
her presumed father, George the First. On
the death of that monarch, however, George the
Second, as is well known, destroyed the wiU
of his father and predecessor ; and it is no less
certain that Lord Chesterfield commenced an ac-

204 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
tion against the new sovereign for the recovery
of ;£20,ooo which George the First was believed
to have bequeathed to Lady Chesterfield. Ac
cording to Horace Walpole, the king became
alarmed at the idea of an exposure, and the
money was privately paid.
Having no chUdren by his countess. Lord
Chesterfield concentrated his whole affection and
anxiety on a natural son, — the offspring of a
handsome Dutch woman, with whom he had
formed a connection at The Hague. It was to
this son that he addressed his celebrated letters,
of which Doctor Johnson said that they "incul
cated the morals of a strumpet and the manners
of a dancing-master." And yet, in spite of this
cutting satire. Lord Chesterfield's letters to his
son constitute collectively one of the most agree
able works in our language, and apparently are
unique of their kind in the literature of Europe.
Regarding them indeed in one light, namely, as
a code of morality, and bearing in mind the start
ling fact that the plausible impurities which they
contain were addressed to his own son, we cannot
sufficiently deprecate their worldly-minded author.
On the other hand, however, these celebrated
letters possess a merit and a charm peculiar to
themselves. To the Christian they are curious,
as showing how imperfect, compared with his own
pure standard of morality, is the wretched phUos
ophy of a votary of the world. To the ordinary

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 205
reader they are 'fascinating frora the heterogeneous
mass of knowledge which they display ; the insight
which they afford into human nature ; the graceful
and witty style in which they are written ; and
from their presenting a code of manners which,
though occasionally faulty, and sometimes ridicu
lous, contain some valuable maxims for repairing
the rudeness of huraan nature, for improving and
refining the intercourse between^ man and man,
and rendering others happier with little expense
to ourselves. Lastly, Lord Chesterfield's letters
must ever be especially interesting to the anatomist
of the huraan heart, as laying bare the Machia-
velian principles of a statesraan, a courtier, and a
man of the world, and as displaying the singular
spectacle of a man systematically debauching the
mind of his own son, while he conscientiously
believed he was exalting him in the dignity of a
human being.
In regard to Lord Chesterfield's letters to his
son, the author remembers to have met in a MS.
collection with the following severe lines, which
do not appear to have been before published :
"Vile Stanhope, demons blush to tell.
In twice three hundred places
Taught his own son the way to hell,
Escorted by the Graces.
" But little this degenerate lad
Concerned himself about 'em ;
For mean, ungraceful, dull, and bad.
He sneaked to hell without 'em."

206 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
These lines, though deservedly severe as far as
Lord Chesterfield's false phUosophy is concerned,
reflect rather too severely on the character of his
son. This person, to whom Lord Chesterfield
gave his faraily name of Stanhope, though by his
retired habits and reserved manner he signally dis
appointed the hopes of his worldly-minded father,
appears to have been, if not a shining meraber of
society, at least a quiet, inoffensive, and even an
accoraplished man. Diffident, indeed, he may
have been, and unassuming, but the well-known
stories of his dullness and awkwardness are doubt
less exaggerated. Lady Vere, in a letter to Lady
Suffolk, speaks of hira as a very agreeable com
panion, and Sir Charles Hanbury Williams paid
him the compliment of inscribing to him one of
his lively odes. That Lord Chesterfield was de
votedly attached to his unaspiring offspring, — far
more, indeed, than, from our knowledge of his
apparently cold and calculating disposition, we
should have been inclined to think possible, —
there can be no question. The tutors he pro
vided for him were men of the raost distinguished
merit ; he neglected no opportunity of instUling
into him a taste for learning and the elegancies of
life ; he established him, at different times, at the
most polished courts on the Continent ; and, dur
ing his residence abroad, procured his introduction
to Algarotti, Maupertuis, Dargens, and many of
the most celebrated literati in Europe. All these

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 207
advantages, however, all the laboured homilies
and endearing exhortations of a doting father,
were wasted, in the opinion of Lord Chesterfield,
on the amiable but unpretending individual whora
they were intended to serve. Moreover, when, in
1768, Lord Chesterfield lost his beloved son, he
had the misfortune to find that, so far from hav
ing acted up to the worldly precepts which he had
endeavoured to inculcate, the object of all his love
and solicitude had secretly united himself to a
woman without fortune, and had left two children
unprovided for.
To the widow and children of his son, Lord
Chesterfield extended the hand of kindness. From
the forraer, probably, as a reward for his munifi
cence, and perhaps with a view to their suppression,
he regained possession of the celebrated letters
which he had addressed to his son. The widow,
indeed, is said to have acted most unfairly to her
benefactor, by retaining copies of the letters,
which she afterward published. As the world
is in possession of the work, it matters little
under what circurastances it saw the light. It
may be reraarked, however, that they were
first published in 1 774, about a year after Lord
Chesterfield's decease ; and though it is unques
tionable that the world was indebted for their
appearance in print to Mr. Stanhope's widow, —
thus adding weight to the charge that she had un
fairly retained copies of thera, — yet, as she states

208 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
in her advertisement to the work that the originals,
in the late earl's own handwriting and sealed
with his seal, are in her possession, there is
reason to question the fairness of the charge.
The letters she formally dedicates to the .prime
minister. Lord North, and as she takes care to
remind him that they were once on terms of
friendship, probably her family connections may
have been raore respectable than her fortune.
During the closing years of his long life. Lord
Chesterfield not only suffered severely, and almost
constantly, frora disease, but latterly deafness was
added to his other infirmities. As many as twenty
years before his death, we find him speaking of
himself as already " half-way down hUl," and in
one of his latest letters to his son he complains
that his want of hearing has deprived him of the
pleasures of society, at an age when he was pre
cluded frora every other source of rational enjoy
ment. And yet this heavy accumulation of human
ills was endured by the infidel phUosopher with
a dignity and resignation that would have done
credit to a better faith. To his intimate friend, Mr.
DayroUes, he writes, on the loth of July, 1755 :
" All my amusements are reduced to the idle busi
ness of my little garden, and to the reading of
idle books, where the mind is seldom called upon.
Notwithstanding this unfortunate situation, my
old phUosophy coraes to my assistance, and ena
bles me to repulse the attacks of melancholy, for

EARL OF CHESTERFIELD. 209
I never have one melancholic moment. I have
seen and appraised everything in its true light
and at its intrinsic value. WhUe others are out
bidding one another at the auction, exulting at
their acquisitions, or grieving at their disappoint
ments, I am easy, both from reflection and experi
ence of the futility of all that is to be got or lost."
Again, he writes to the Bishop of Waterford : " I
consider myself as an old decayed vessel, of long
wear and tear, brought into the wet-dock to be
careened and patched up, not for any long voyage,
but only to serve as a coaster for sorae little time
longer. How long that raay be, I little know,
and as little care ; I ara unrelative to this world,
and this world to me. My only attention now is
to live, while I do live in it, without pain, and
when I do leave it, to leave it without fear." On
one occasion he sent a message to the celebrated
Pulteney, Lord Bath, that he had grown very
lean and very deaf. " Tell him," replied Pulteney,
" that I can lend hira some fat, and shall be very
glad to lend hira at any tirae an ear."
The death of his beloved son was a severe blow
to Lord Chesterfield. He was now in his seventy-
third year, and frora the declining state of his
health, was, to aU appearance, but little capable
of sustaining so severe a shock. He survived the
raelancholy event, however, raore than four years,
during which period his bodily infirraities con
tinued to increase. Once, speaking of old Lord

2IO THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Tyrawley, he said : " We have both been long
dead, but we do not choose to have it mentioned."
Lord Chesterfield, during the last months of his
life, was afflicted with a diarrhoea, which entirely
baffled the art of his physicians, and subsequently
proved the immediate cause of his death. " He
was afflicted," says Doctor Maty, " with no other
Ulness, and remained to the last free from all man
ner of pain, enjoying his surprising raeraory and
presence of mind to his latest breath ; perfectly
composed and resigned to part with life, and only
regretting that death was so tardy to meet him."
About half an hour before he expired, his valet
opened the curtains of his bed, and announced a
visit from Mr. Dayrolles. Though he had hardly
strength to give utterance to his words, he mut
tered, faintly, " Give Dayrolles a chair." Thus
his last words were those of politeness. It was
observed by his physician. Doctor Warren, who
was in the apartment at the time, " Lord Chester
field's good breeding only quitted him with his
life." The death of Lord Chesterfield took place on
the 24th of March, 1773, in his seventy-ninth
year. His remains were interred in Audley Street
Chapel, agreeably with directions contained in his
last will.

CHAPTER XI.
JOHN, LORD HERVEY.
Eldest Son of the First Earl of Bristol — His Birth in 1696 —
Educated at Cambridge — Appointed Gentleman of the Bed
chamber to the Prince of Wales — Returned to Parliament
for Edmondsbury — Called to the House of Peers as Lord
Hervey, of Ickworth, during His Father's Lifetime — Nomi
nated Keeper of the Privy Seal in 1740 — His Oratorical
Powers — Supports Sir Robert Walpole — Resigns the Privy
Seal on the Overthrow of That Minister — His Political Writ
ings — His Duel with Pulteney — Circumstances That Gave
Rise to It — Sir Charles Hanbury WUliams's Verses on the
Duel — Lord Hervey's Quarrel with Pope — The Latter Sati
rises Him under the Character of Sporus — Lord HaUes's
Account of Lord Hervey — Extract from Archdeacon Coxe
— Personal Warfare Commenced by Lord Hervey on Pope —
His Satirical Address to That Poet — Pope's Prose Letter to
Lord Hervey — Suppressed during Their Lifetime — Brief
Memoir of Hammond, the Poet — His Unfortunate Attach
ment to Catherine Dashwood, Ward of Lord Hervey — The
Latter's Opposition to Their Union — Hammond's Despond
ency in Consequence, and Death in His Thirty-third Year,
1742 — Doctor Middleton's Fulsome Dedication of His Life
of Cicero to Lord Hervey — The Latter's Unamiable Char
acter — Queen Caroline's Partiality for Him — His Effemi
nacy and Affectation — His Success with the Fair Sex —
Princess Caroline's Romantic Attachment to Him — His
Desertion of Sir Robert Walpole — Extracts from Horace
Walpole's Letters — Lord Hervey's Death in 1743.
John, Lord Hervey, the eldest surviving son
of John, first Earl of Bristol, was born on the 15th

212 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
of October, 1696. He completed his education at
Clare Hall, Carabridge, where he took the degree
of Master of Arts, and, shortly after quitting the
university, was appointed gentleman of the bed
chamber to the Prince of Wales, afterward George
the Second, who had recently accorapanied his
father to England.
About the period that he carae of age. Lord
Hervey was returned to Parliament as member for
Edmondsbury, and in May, 1730, was appointed
vice-chamberlain of the household, and sworn of
the Privy CouncU. On the 12th of June, 1733, in
the lifetime of his father, he was called up to the
House of Peers as Lord Hervey, of Ickworth ; and
on the ist of May, 1740, was nominated keeper of
the privy seal, the highest appointraent to which
he attained in the state. About the same time he
was naraed one of tbe lords justices for conduct
ing the affairs of the kingdom during the absence
of the king in Hanover.
Lord Hervey, when in the House of Commons,
and subsequently in the House of Lords, distin
guished himself by his oratorical powers ; and,
though his style of eloquence is said to have been
somewhat florid and pompous, he was both an
able and witty, as well as a frequent speaker. In
politics he 'professed the principles of the Whigs,
and remained a zealous supporter of the measures
of Sir Robert Walpole as long as the adminis
tration of that minister appeared likely to stand.

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 21 3
When Walpole was driven frora Parliament in 1 742,
Lord Hervey was compelled to resign his post of
privy seal, in order to make way for Lord Gower.
His expulsion from office appears to have been
borne with a bad grace. According to Horace
Walpole, "he turned patriot on being turned out
of place."
During the administration of Sir Robert Wal
pole, and more especially during the last years
which preceded the downfall of that rainister, the
press, as is well known, teeraed with political
papers and pamphlets, in which Bolingbroke and
Pulteney, on the one hand, and Sir Robert Wal.
pole and Lord Hervey on the other, not only
reprobated each other's opinions and principles,
but frequently indulged in indecent scurrUities and
personal abuse. As regards Lord Hervey indi
vidually, it may be remarked that his political
writings display a degree of spirit and vigour
which we should have little anticipated frora the
flirasy style of his versification, and the apparently
frivolous and ferainine character of the man. His
political writings, indeed, are unquestionably among
the best of the day, and are particularly distin
guished by a spirit of searching bitterness and
invective, which made him many enemies, and on
one occasion nearly cost hira his life. " We allude
to his duel with William Pulteney," of which, as the
circumstances are somewhat remarkable, a brief
account may be acceptable to the reader.

214 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
In 1730 there appeared in print a pamphlet
entitled " Sedition and Defamation Displayed,"
which tbe world in general attributed to Lord
Hervey. This work contained a violent personal
attack on Bolingbroke and Pulteney, and, conse
quently, when, some time afterward, the latter
replied to it in due form, he vomited forth an
acrimonious and most indecent attack on its pre
sumed author. Lord Hervey. AUuding to the
effeminate appearance and habits of the latter,
Pulteney speaks of his opponent as a thing half
man and half woraan, and dwells malignantly on
those personal infirmities produced by suffering
and disease which Pope afterward introduced, with
no less acrimony and indecency, in his celebrated
poetical character of Lord Hervey, under the name
of Sporus.
Whatever truth there may have been in the
charge of want of manliness, which has been so
often and so sedulously brought against Lord
Hervey, it was certainly not displayed in his
encounter with Pulteney. Immediately on the
production of the offensive paraphlet, he sent a
message to his maligner, inquiring whether report
had correctly assigned to him the authorship of
the work. To this Pulteney refused to give a
direct answer; but, at the same time, he plainly
intimated to the person who delivered the message
that, "whether or no he was the author of 'the
reply,' he was ready to justify and stand by the

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 21 5
truth of any part of it, at what time and wher
ever Lord Hervey pleased." "This last message,"
writes Thomas Pelham to Lord Waldegrave, " your
lordship will easily imagine was the occasion of
the duel ; and, accordingly, on Monday last, be
tween three and four o'clock in the afternoon,
they met in the upper St. James's Park, behind
Arlington Street, with their two seconds, who were
Mr. Fox and Sir J. Rushout. The two combat
ants were each of them slightly wounded, but Mr.
Pulteney had once so much the advantage of Lord
Hervey that he would have infallibly run my lord
through the body if his foot had not slipped, and
then the seconds took an occasion to part them.
Upon which Mr. Pulteney embraced Lord Hervey,
and expressed a great deal of concern at the
accident of their quarrel, promising, at the same
time, that he would never personally attack him
again, either with his raouth or his pen. Lord
Hervey raade hira a bow without giving hira any
sort of answer, and, to use the coramon expression,
thus they parted." The duel is celebrated by Sir
Charles Hanbury WUliaras, in his " Newer Ode
than the Last." Addressing Pulteney, he says :
" Lord Fanny once
Did play the dunce,
And challenged you to fight ;
And he so stood.
To lose his blood.
But had a dreadful fright.

2l6 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
It subsequently appeared that the pamphlet
which had originaUy excited Pulteney's spleen
was not written by Lord Hervey. The author
was Sir WUliam Young, who, at a later period,
admitted the fact to Lord Hardwicke.
But far more celebrated than his feud with
Pulteney was Lord Hervey's quarrel with Pope.
The poet, as is well known, under the fictitious
naraes of Lord Fanny and Sporus, diverted him
self with the faUings of the man whom he had
once affected to love. But it was more especially
in his memorable character of Sporus that Pope
gave vent to all the bitterness of his nature, and,
in sketching the likeness of Lord Hervey, drew
the most powerful and, at the time, the most
odious poetical portrait that has ever emanated
from the pen of genius :
" Let Sporus tremble ! what ! that thing of silk I
Sporus, that mere white curd of asses' milk !
Satire or sense, alas ! can Sporus feel ?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel .''
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings.
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys.
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'er enjoys :
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray.
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks.
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks ;

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 217
Or, at the ear of Eve, familiar toad.
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad :
In puns or politics, or tales or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies ;
His wit all see-saw between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now raiss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing ! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart ;
Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board.
Now trips a lady and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have expressed,
A cherub's face and reptile all the rest ;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust."
In order fully to coraprehend the severity of
the foregoing picture, it is necessary to illustrate
it by some cursory remarks. According to Lord
Hailes : " Lord Hervey, having felt some attacks
of epilepsy, entered upon and persisted in a very
strict regimen, and thus stopped the progress and
prevented the effects of that dreadful disease.
His daUy food was a sraall quantity of asses' railk
and a fiour biscuit. Once a week he indulged
hiraself with eating an apple ; he used emetics
daUy. Mr. Pope and he were once friends ; but
they quarrelled, and persecuted each other with
virulent satire. Pope, knowing the abstemious
regimen which Lord Hervey observed, was so un
generous as to call him a mere cheese-curd of
asses' raUk. Lord Hervey used paint to soften

2l8 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
his ghastly appearance. Mr. Pope must have
known this also, and therefore it was unpardon
able in him to introduce it into his celebrated
portrait." The Duchess of Marlborough observes
of Lord Hervey, in her " Opinions : " " He has
certainly parts and wit, but is the most wretched,
profligate raan that ever was born, besides ridicu
lous ; a painted face, and not a tooth in his head."
She afterward adds that all the world, except Sir
Robert Walpole, abhorred him, and it may be re
marked that even Sir Robert Walpole had subse
quently sufficient reason to abhor him, too.
Absurd and contemptible, however, as Lord
Hervey may have been, the conduct of Pope, in
dragging the personal infirmities of a fellow crea
ture before the public, and converting into a
matter of reproach the miserable sufferings of
humanity and the ravages of disease, has been
severely coraraented upon, not only by his enemies
but by his friends. Archdeacon Coxe, alluding to
the character of Sporus, observes : " However I
may adraire the powers of the satirist, I never
could read this passage without disgust and hor
ror, — disgust at the indelicacy of the allusions,
horror at the malignity of the poet, in laying the
foundation of his abuse on the lowest species of
satire, personal invective, and, what is stUl worse,
on sickness and debility."
The fact, however, is a remarkable one, and,
moreover, seems to have escaped the eager cen-

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 219
surers of the conduct of Pope, that the war of
scurrility — the brutal act of exposing and anato
mising the personal infirmities of an opponent —
originated, in fact, not with the poet, but with
Lord Hervey himself. Pope, it is true, was the
first who commenced the attack in verse, but then
it was only by an occasional introduction of the
narae of " Lord Fanny," in which — even admit
ting that Lord Hervey was the person intended
— the allusions are certainly not more severe, nor
the license greater, than has been permitted to the
satirist from the days of Juvenal to those of
Churchill ; and, moreover, they were disgraced by
none of those offensive personalities which the poet
afterward introduced so profusely in the character
of Sporus. For instance, there is no couplet, in
which the name of " Lord Fanny " is introduced,
that has greater severity than the foUowing. Pope,
alluding to the charge of want of vigour, which
he presumes had been brought against his satires,
observes :
" The lines are weak, another's pleased to say, —
Lord Fanny spins a thousand such a day.''
And again :
" Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme,
A painted mistress, or a purling stream.''
Lord Hervey was himself a poet, and, conse
quently, this contemptuous allusion to his poetical

220 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
powers was doubtless a source of great annoyance
to the literary lord. On the other hand, however.
Lord Hervey, as an author, was fair game for the
satirist, and, moreover, a mere glance over his
almost forgotten verses evinces that Pope's sar
casm was at least as well-merited as it was severe.
The poet, in fact, in his capacity of a satirist, had
as much right to amuse himself with the namby-
pamby verses and maudlin sensibility of Lord
Hervey as a reviewer in our own times is entitled
to ridicule the frothy nonsense of a fashionable
novel. Pope, indeed, had the advantage of a
modern critic, for his attacks were always open,
while a modern reviewer stabs, without compunc
tion, in the dark.
Such was the state of the case when Lord
Hervey, smarting under the satire of his oppo
nent, unadvisedly commenced a warfare of wit
and poetry with Pope, by retaliating on him in
a meagre, poetical epistle, addressed : " To the
Imitator of the Satires of the Second Book of
Horace." In this contemptible production, what
was wanting in wit was made up by personal
abuse, and the poet's distressing and well-known
deformity of person was rendered the subject of
indecent ribaldry and unfeeling sarcasm. The
most remarkable of Lord Hervey's verses are as
follow. Addressing Pope, he says :
" In two large columns on thy motley page.
Where Roman wit is striped with English rage ;

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 221
Where ribaldry to satire makes pretence,
And modern scandal rolls with ancient sense ;
Whilst on one side we see how Horace thought,
And on the other how he never wrote ;
Who can believe, who view the bad, the good.
That the dull copyist better understood
That spirit, he pretends to imitate,
Than heretofore that Greek he did translate.'
Thine is just such an image of his pen,
As thou thyself art to the sons of men ;
Where our own species in burlesque we trace,
A sign-post likeness of the human race ;
That is at once resemblance and disgrace.
Thus, whilst with coward hand you stab a name,
And try at least t'assassinate our fame ;
Like the first bold assassin's be thy lot ;
Ne'er be thy guilt forgiven or forgot ;
But as thou hat'st, be hated by mankind.
And with the emblem of thy crooked mind
Marked on thy back, like Cain, by God's own hand,
Wander, like him accursed, through the land."
By these unfeeling allusions to his constitu
tional infirmities. Pope, the raost irritable of poets
and the most sensitive of men, was naturally cut
to the quick. Following the unworthy example
set him by his opponent, he raked up all that
approached to hideousness or deformity in the
mind and person of Lord Hervey, and, clothing
them in verse, which has seldom been surpassed
' This, of course, has reference to Pope's translation of the
Iliad, of which Bentley is weU known to have observed that it
was " a pretty poem, but not Homer."

222 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
in vigour of language or poetical iraagery, gave
vent to the deep bitterness of his feelings in the
celebrated character of Sporus. One more cir
cumstance may be adduced in favour of Pope,
namely, that the " Lord Fanny " of his satires
can only be presumed by inference to be Lord
Hervey; while, on the other hand, his opponent
openly pours forth his invectives on the Imi
tator of the Satires of Horace, of which Pope
was the acknowledged author.
One more word respecting this remarkable
quarrel. Pope, in the first impulse of his rage,
addressed his celebrated prose letter to Lord
Hervey, which Warton styles "a masterpiece of
invective," and on which Warburton and others
have bestowed high praise. In this letter he
says, " Give me the liberty, my lord, to tell
you why I never replied to those verses on the
imitation of Horace : ' they regarded nothing but
' At the period when this was written, the character of Sporus
had not yet been given to the pubUc. It is inserted, as is well-
known, in one of Pope's finest productions, the " Epistle to Arbuth
not," or, as this poem is sometimes absurdly styled, the " Prologue
to the Satires." Pope, in his advertisement to the " Epistle,"
observes : " This paper is a sort of bUl of complaint, begun many
years since, and drawn up by snatches, as the several occasions
offered. I had no thought of publishing it, tiU it pleased some
persons of rank and fortune [the authors of ' Verses to the Imi
tator of Horace,' and of an ' Epistle to a Doctor of Divinity,' from
a nobleman at Hampton Court] to attack, in a very extraor
dinary manner, not only my writings (of which, being public, the
public is judge), but my person, morals, and famUy j whereof to

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 22$
my figure, which I set no value upon ; and my
morals, which I knew needed no defence. Any
honest man has the pleasure to be conscious that
it is out of the power of the wittiest, nay, of the
greatest person in the kingdom, to lessen hira in
that way, but at the expense of his own truth,
honour, and justice." Of this letter Pope appears
to have thought well as a composition. To one
of his friends he writes : " There is a woman's
war declared against rae by a certain lord ; his
weapons are the same which woraen and children
use, — a pin to scratch, and a squirt to bespatter.
I writ a sort of answer, but was ashamed to enter
the lists with hira, and, after showing it some
people, suppressed it ; otherwise, it was such as
was worthy of him and worthy of me." Pope,
indeed, suppressed the letter at the time, and it
was not published till after his death and that of
his rival ; according to his own account, it was
because he was ashamed to " enter the lists "
with an unworthy rival ; but, if we are to believe
Tyers, it was at the express desire of Queen
those who know me not, a truer information may be requisite.
Being divided between the necessity to say something of myself,
and my own laziness to undertake so awkward a task, I thought
it the shortest way to put the last hand to this epistle." The
best advice that was ever given to Pope, in regard to his literary
quarrels, was that of Swift. " Give me a shUling," he said, " and
I will ensure you that posterity shall never know you had one
single enemy excepting those whose memory you have pre
served."

224 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Caroline, who feared lest, by the publication of
this eloquent appeal to public taste and public
feelmg, her favourite. Lord Hervey, should be
rendered contemptible in the eyes of the world.
According to Horace Walpole, Lord Hervey
"pretended not to thank" Pope for the suppres
sion. There is another poet, though of less note,
whose name is intimately connected with that
of Lord Hervey, and, as the history of the person
in question forms an almost romantic episode in
the history of real life, it may not be uninterest
ing to introduce a few words respecting him,
We allude to James Hammond, the author of
the " Love Elegies," whose subsequent aberra
tion of mind and untimely death may be indl
rectly traced to his connection with Lord Hervey,
The Delia of Hammond is known to have been
Miss Catherine Dashwood, a young lady of con
siderable mental and personal accomplishments,
She was a woman of the bedchamber to the
queen of George the Second, and a ward of
Lord Hervey. The young poet became deeply
enamoured of her, and, in the course of a long
courtship, which was distinguished by the cus
tomary characteristics of hope and despondency,
addressed to her his graceful love-elegies, which
are the more interesting from their being intended
for the eye alone of the person to whom they
were addressed, and, consequently, describing real

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 225
and not imaginary Uls. " Sincere in his love as in
his friendship," says Lord Chesterfield, "he wrote
to his mistresses as he spoke to his friends, noth
ing but the true genuine sentiments of his heart.
He sat down to write what he thought, not to
think what he should write ; it was nature and
sentiment only that dictated to a real mistress,
not youthful and poetic fancy to an imaginary
one." Miss Dashwood returned the love of the poet,
and the only obstacle to their union arose from
the cold obduracy and determined opposition of
Lord Hervey. The reason which the latter gave
for withholding his consent was the inadequate
raeans of the lovers to support themselves credit
ably in life. Hararaond, however, is known to
have possessed a private income of four hundred
pounds a year, besides the salary which he drew
as equerry to the Prince of Wales ; moreover, he
was regarded in the House of Commons as a
young man of great promise, and lived on intimate
terms with several of the most influential persons
of the day. The real fact appears to have been
that a wide difference of political opinion, and the
terms of intimacy subsisting between Hammond
and the leaders of the party opposed to Lord
Hervey, were the secret of the latter refusing
his consent to the match.
The sequel of the story may be soon told.
Hararaond, on Lord Hervey finally rejecting his

226 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
overtures, feU seriously UI. His inteUect became
disordered, and on the 7th of June, 1742, he
closed his life, in his thirty-third year, at the clas
sical seat of his friend. Lord Cobhara, at Stowe.
Miss Dashwood remained true to his memory. She
rejected several advantageous opportunities of en
tering the marriage state, and though she survived
her lover as many as thirty-five years, she retained
to the last a tender recollection of his romantic
devotedness, and was ever sensibly affected by
any allusion to their youthful loves. But we
must return to the subject of the present memoir.
To give any correct idea of the character of
Lord Hervey appears to be an impracticable task.
Doctor Middleton, indeed, in dedicating to him his
" Life of Cicero," not only dweUs in the most
glowing terms on his temperance, his high breed
ing, and sound sense, but, in speaking of him as a
writer, an orator, and a patriot, seems almost to
prefer him to the illustrious Roman of whom he
writes. When Doctor Middleton, however, in the
innocence of his heart, drops for a moment the
higher tone of encomium, to speak of his "con
stant admission " to Lord Hervey on his morning
visits, and more especially to thank him for the
number of subscribers which he had procured for
his work, we guess to what such extraordinary
praises owe their birth. The whole, indeed, is a
pedantic hyperbole, in which we distrust the truth
of the panegyric from its very fulsomeness. It

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 227
very properly obtained for Middleton a place in
the Dunciad :
» Narcissus, praised with all a parson's power.
Looked a white lily sunk beneath ». shower."
Lord Hervey, at best, appears to have been an
unaraiable character ; his conteraporaries generaUy
speak of him with dislike, and still more fre
quently with contempt. " His defects," says
Archdeacon Coxe, " were extrerae affectation, bit
terness of invective, prodigality of flattery, and
great servility to those above hira." It was by
the exercise of the last of these qualities that he
seems to have insinuated hiraself into the. affec
tions of George the Second, when, as the Duchess
of Marlborough expresses it, "It was not above
six raonths ago that the king hated him so that he
would not suffer him to be one in his diversions
at play." It could not, however, have been by
servility and adulation alone that Lord Hervey
overcame the prejudices of his sovereign. He
unquestionably possessed the art of pleasing in a
very high degree ; his repartees were once faraous ;
and though frequently sarcastic and Ul-natured in
his remarks, he could be agreeable and even fasci
nating when he chose. Queen Caroline, a woman
of strong sense and observation, regarded him
with singular partiality. With her, at least, it was
his object to please ; and, consequently, whether
it was from the value which she set on his advice

228 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
in the cabinet, or admiration of his conversational
powers, we find her extending her confidence and
friendship to him to the last.
It is not alone to the unmasculine delicacy of
Lord Hervey's appearance, nor to the womanish
tone of his voice, that we are to trace the character
for effeminacy which he obtained among his con
temporaries, for he himself seems to have courted
it by an affected and alraost finical nicety in his
habits and tastes. On one occasion, when asked
at dinner whether he would have some beef,
he answered, with apparent seriousness : " Beef I
don't you know that I never eat beef, nor horse,
nor any of those things." Neither his effeminacy,
however, his affectation, nor his constitutional
infirmities, appear to have undermined his credit
with the fair sex. He bore off the beautiful Mary
Lepel from a host of rivals ; and the Princess
Caroline, daughter of George the Second, is known
to have conceived so romantic a passion for hira
that, at his death, she became the prey of a settled
melancholy, which only terminated with her blame
less career.
During the latter part of the administration of
Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Hervey appears to have
been regarded as the ministerial leader in the
House of Lords. However, when the star of Sir
Robert began to decline in the political horizon,
when the falling minister could no longer com
mand overwhelming majorities in the House of

JOHN, LORD HERVEY. 229
Commons, nor the shouts of the populace in
the streets. Lord Hervey seems to have been
among the first to forsake the fortunes of his
benefactor and friend. On the 7th of January,
1742, exactly five weeks before Sir Robert re
signed, we find Horace Walpole writing to Sir
Horace Mann : " I forgot to tell you that, upon
losing the first question. Lord Hervey kept away
for a week ; on our carrying the next great one,
he wrote to Sir Robert, how much he desired to
see him ; ' not upon any business, but Lord Hervey
longs to see Sir Robert Walpole.' " And in the
same letter, he writes ; " Lord Hervey is too ill
to go to operas ; yet, with a coffin-face, is as full of
his dirty politics as ever. He will not be well
enough to go to the House tUl the majority is cer
tain somewhere, but lives shut up with my Lord
Chesterfield and Mr. Pulteney, a triumvirate who
hate one another more than any body they could
proscribe, had they the power. I dropped in at
my Lord Hervey's the other night, knowing my
lady had company ; it was soon after our defeats.
My lord, who has always professed particularly to
me, turned his back on me, and retired for an hour
into a whisper with young Hammond,' at the end
of the room. Not being at all amazed at one
whose heart I knew so well, I stayed on to see more
of this behaviour ; indeed, to use myself to it. At
' James Hammond, the poet. He died in less than six months
from the date of Walpole's letter.

230 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
last he came up to me, and begged this music,
which I gave him, and would often again, to see
how raany times I shall be ill and well with him
within this month."
Lord Hervey survived the date of this letter
only eighteen months. His constitution had never
been strong, and, probably, the excitement pro
duced by passing events and the loss of his ap
pointment of privy seal, served to hasten his end.
He lingered in a wretched state of health till
the 8th of August, 1743, when he expired in the
forty-seventh year of his age.

CHAPTER XII.
MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY.
Daughter of General Lepel — Bom in 1700 — Appointed at an
Early Age Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales, After
ward Queen CaroUne, and Mistress of the Robes on the
Princess's Accession — Miss Lepel's Extraordinary Beauty
and Accomplishments — Extracts from the "Suffolk Corre
spondence " — Pope's Admiration of the Young Beauty — His
Moonlight Walk with Her in the Gardens at Hampton Court,
and Letter on the Subject — His Poetical Address to Miss
Howe — Compliments by Gay and Voltaire to Miss Lepel —
Lord Chesterfield's Praises of Her Manners and Accomplish
ments — Lively Verses Addressed to Her by Lords Chester
field and Bath — Her Marriage in 1720 to Lord Hervey —
Extract from Lady Montagu's Letters — Quarrel with Lady
Hervey — Singular Particulars Respecting Its Origin — Lady
Hervey's French Tastes and Partialities — Her Education
of Her Children — Her Irreligious Feelings, and Repeated
Attacks of Illness — ChurchUl's Eulogium on Her Young
est Daughter, Lady Caroline — Lady Hervey's Death in
1768 — Posthumous Publication of Her Letters — Their
Character. Mary Lepel, so celebrated at the court of the
first George for her beauty and wit, was a daugh
ter of Brigadier-General Nicholas Lepel. She was
born on the 26th of Septeraber, 1700, and at an
231

232 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
early age was named one of the maids of honour
to Queen Caroline, then Princess of Wales, to
whora, on her accession to the throne, she was
appointed mistress of the robes.
Were we to place credit in half the encomiums
which have been heaped on Lady Hervey by her
conteraporaries, a raore gifted or more charming
person can scarcely be conceived. Those who
knew her best describe her as possessing in an
eminent degree that peculiar fascination of raanner
which a union of perfect high breeding and good
humour can alone confer ; they speak of her, more
over, as on all occasions tempering her extraor
dinary vivacity with discretion and strong sense,
and as uniting all the graceful accomplishments of
a woman of fashion with the qualifications requi
site to confer happiness on social life. In point
of beauty and good-humour, her charming friend,
Miss Bellenden, was the only one of her contem
poraries who could compete with her, whUe, as
regards her wit and general powers of pleasing,
even Horace Walpole, difficult as he is to please,
awards her unqualified praise, and Gay, Pope, and
Voltaire grow equally warm in describing the idol
of the day.
Even her friends, when they have occasion to
find some slight fault with her, involuntarily
mingle praise with their complaints. Mrs. Brad
shaw writes to Mrs. Howard, on the 21st of
August, 1720: "I met Madam Lepel coming into

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 233
town last night ; she is a pretty thing, though she
never comes to see rae, for which, tell her, I wUl
use her like a dog in the winter." And again Mrs.
Howard writes to Lady Hervey herself a few
years afterward : " You see I cannot forgive you
all the wit in your last letter. Is it because I
suspect your sincerity .'' or do I envy what I cannot
possess ? No matter which ; you raay stUl always
triumph : the world, though you allow it to be but
soraetimes in the right, wUl do you a justice that
I deny you. You wUl always be admired; and
even I, that condemn you, find I raust love you
with all my heart."
Long before she had attained to a fixed rank
in society by becoming the wife of Lord Hervey,
the lively conversation and extreme beauty of the
young maid of honour appear to have excited uni
versal attention. Pope was araong the foreraost
of her admirers, and in one of the most pleasing
of his letters describes his satisfaction at being
permitted a walk of three hours with her by moon
light in the gardens at Hampton Court. " I went
by water," he says " to Harapton Court, unattended
by all but my own virtues, which were not of so
modest a nature as to keep themselves or me con
cealed, for I met the prince,' with all his ladies on
horseback, coming from hunting. Miss Bellenden
and Miss Lepel took me into their protection
(contrary to the laws against harbouring papists)
' The Prince of Wales, afterward George II.

234 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
and gave me a dinner, with something I lUced
better, an opportunity of conversation with Mrs.
Howard. We all agreed that the life of a maid of
honour was of all things the most miserable, and
wished that every woman who envied it had a
specimen of it. To eat Westphalia ham in a morn
ing ; ride over hedges and ditches on borrowed
hacks ; come home in the heat of the day with a
fever, and (what is worse a hundred times) with
a red mark on the forehead from an uneasy hat ;
all this may qualify them to make exceUent wives
for fox-hunters, and bear abundance of ruddy-
coraplexioned children. As soon as they can wipe
off the sweat of the day, they raust siraper an hour,
and catch cold in the princess's apartment; from
thence (as Shakespeare has it) to dinner, with
what appetite they raay, and after that, tUl mid
night, work, walk, or think, which they please. I
can easily believe no lone house in Wales, with a
mountain and a rookery, is more contemplative
than this court ; and as a proof of it, I need only
tell you Miss Lepel walked with rae three or four
hours by moonlight, and we met no creature of
any quality but the king, who gave audience to
the vice-chamberlain, aU alone, under the garden
waU." Pope, in the foUowing poetical trifle, addressed
to another of the maids of honour. Miss Howe,
again familiarly introduces the name of Miss
Lepel :

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 235
" ANSWER TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION OF MISS HOWE.'
« What is prudery ? — 'Tis a beldam,
Seen with wit and beauty seldom,
' Sophia Howe, maid of honour to Queen CaroUne, when
Princess of Wales. This unfortunate young lady, whose fraUty
caused considerable sensation at the court of George the First,
was a daughter of Gen. Emanuel Scroop Howe, by Ruperta,
an illegitimate daughter of Prince Rupert. Her love of admi
ration, her wUd frivolity, and indifference to consequences, are
sufficiently displayed in the only two of her letters that have
been handed down to us, which are to be found in the " Suffolk
Correspondence." In one of these letters, addressed to Mrs.
Howard, she says : " Of one thing I am more sensible than ever
I was, of my happiness in being maid of honour ; I won't say
' God preserve me so,' neither, that would not be so well." Gay,
in his " Welcome to Pope from Greece,'' seems to refer to the
unsettled character of the giddy girl, when he says :
" Perhaps Miss Howe came there by chance,
Nor knows with whom, nor why she comes along."
Miss Howe, in one of her letters above referred to, mentions
incidentally her being so affected by some ludicrous coincidence,
whUe attending divine service in Farnham Church, as to burst
into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. It was on this occasion
that, the Duchess of St. Albans chiding her for her irreverence,
and telling her " she could not do a worse thing," " I beg your
Grace's pardon,' she replied, " but I can do a great many worse
things." The betrayer of Miss Howe was Anthony Lowther,
brother of Henry, Viscount Lonsdale. In Sir Charles Hanbury
WiUiams's poem describing the " Mourning " of IsabeUa, Duchess
of Manchester, General ChurchiU thus introduces the story to a
I circle of listening gossips :
" The general found a lucky minute'now
To speak. ' Ah, ma'am, you did not know Miss Howe !
I'll tell you all her history I ' he cried.
At this, Charles Stanhope gaped extremely wide.

236 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
'Tis a fear that starts at shadows;
'Tis (no, 'tisn't) like Miss Meadows : '
'Tis a virgin hard of feature.
Old, and void of all good-nature ;
Lean and fretful ; would seem wise,
Yet plays the fool before she dies.
'Tis an ugly, envious shrew,
That rails at dear Lepel and you."
Gay, in his fine copy of verses, entitled " Wel
come from Greece to Mr. Pope upon Finishing
Poor Dicky sat on thorns ; her Grace tumed pale,
And Lovel trembled at the impending tale.
' Poor girl ! faith, she was once extremely fair,
Till wom by love, and tortured by despair.
Her pining looks betrayed her inward smart ;
Her breaking face foretold her breaking heart.
At Leicester House her passion first began.
And Nanty Lowther was a pretty man :
But when the princess did to Kew remove,
She could not bear the absence of her love ;
Away she flew . . . ' "
Miss Howe is known to have been the heroine of Lord Her
vey's poetical epistle from Monimia to PhUocles, where she
pours forth a long complaint against her lover's cruelty, in Unes
which have Uttle pathos and less poetry. She died, apparently
of a broken heart, in 1726, having survived the loss of her repu
tation only a very few years.
' Another maid of honour, whose prudery caused much
amusement to the court. She held the office for a considerable
period ; and, as Lord Chesterfield speaks of the probabUity cf
her having the gout, and as Lady Hervey, in one of her letters,
styles her " old Meadows," she probably never entered the mar
ried state. Dodington, in one of his trifles, couples her name
vrith that of Lady Hervey :
" As chaste as Hervey or Miss Meadows."
She was sister to Sir Sydney Meadows.

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 237
His Translation of the Iliad," describes the poet
as welcomed by his beautiful friend :
" Now Hervey, fair of face, I mark full well.
With thee, youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepel."
But perhaps the most remarkable tribute paid
to her charms was by Voltaire, who did her the
singular honour of celebrating her beauty in Eng
lish verse ; his lines, which will be found in Dods-
ley's collection, are as follow :
"TO LADY HERVEY.
" Hervey, would you know the passion,
You have kindled in my breast ?
Trifling is the inclination
That by words can be expressed.
" In my silence see the lover ;
True love is by silence known ;
In my eyes you'll best discover.
All the power of your own."
In noticing the various compliments paid to
Lady Hervey by her conteraporaries, the eulo
giums heaped on her taste and accoraplishraents
by so celebrated an arbiter of taste and fashion as
Lord Chesterfield must not be passed over in
sUence. He writes to his son, 22d of October,
1750: "Lady Hervey, to my great joy, because
to your great advantage, passes all this winter at
Paris. She has been bred all her life at courts,
of which she has acquired all the easy good breed
ing and politeness, without the frivolousness. She

238 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
has all the reading that a woman should have, and
more than any woman need have ; for she under
stands Latin perfectly well, though she wisely con
ceals it. No woraan ever had, more than she
has, le ton de la patfaitement bonne compagnie, les
¦maniires engageantcs, et le fe nc sqais quoi qui
plait. Desire her to reprove and correct, any and
every, the least error and inaccuracy in your man
ner, air, address, etc., no woman in Europe can do
it so well ; none will do it more willingly, or in a
more proper and obliging manner." Again Lord
Chesterfield writes to his son on the 28th of Feb
ruary following : "The word 'pleasing,' always puts
one in raind of Lady Hervey ; pray tell her that
I declare her responsible to me for your pleasing ;
that I consider her as a pleasing Falstaff, who not
only pleases herself, but is the cause of pleasing in
others." We wUl conclude our notices of the encomiums
heaped on Miss Lepel, with the following lively
verses believed to be the joint coraposition of
Lords Chesterfield and Bath. The reader wUl
perceive that they are singularly characteristic of
the manners of the last age, inasmuch as a lady
of the present day would probably be more ready
to denounce them for their impropriety than to
value them as a panegyric.
" The Muses quite jaded with rhyming.
To Molly Mogg bid a farewell ;

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 239
But renew their sweet melody chiming,
To the name of dear Molly Lepel.
" Bright Venus yet never saw bedded
So perfect a beau and a belle.
As when Hervey the handsome was wedded
To the beautiful Molly Lepel.
" So powerful her charms, and so moving,
They would warm an old monk in his cell,
Should the Pope himself ever go roaming.
He would follow dear Molly Lepel.
" If to the seraglio you brought her.
Where for slaves their maidens they sell,
I'm sure tho' the Grand Seignior bought her,
He'd soon turn a slave to Lepel.
" Had I Hanover, Bremen, and Verden,
And likewise the Duchy of Zell !
I'd part with them all for a farthing.
To have my dear Molly Lepel.
« Or were I the King of Great Britain,
To choose a minister well.
And support the throne that 1 sit on,
I'd have under me Molly Lepel.
" Of all the bright beauties so killing.
In London's fair city that dwell.
None can give me such joy were she willing,
As the beautiful Molly Lepel.
" What man would not give the great Ticket,
To his share if the benefit fell.
To be but one hour in a thicket.
With the beautiful Molly Lepel.

240 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
" Should Venus now rise from the ocean,
And naked appear in her shell.
She would not cause half the emotion.
That we feel from dear Molly Lepel.
" Old Orpheus, that husband so civil.
He followed his wife down to hell.
And who would not go to the devil.
For the sake of dear Molly Lepel.
" Her lips and her breath are much sweeter,
Than the thing which the Latins call meli
Who would not thus pump for a metre.
To chime to dear Molly Lepel.
" In a bed you have seen pinks and roses ;
Would you know a more delicate smell,
Ask the fortunate man who reposes
On the bosom of Molly Lepel.
" 'Tis a maxim most fit for a lover.
If he kisses he never should tell ;
But no tongue can ever discover
His pleasure with Molly Lepel.
" Heaven keep our good king from a rising,
But that rising who's fitter to quell.
Than some lady with beauty surprising,
And who should that be but Lepel ?
" If Curll would print me this sonnet.
To a volume my verses should swell ;
A fig for what Dennis says on it.
He can never find fault with Lepel.
" Then Handel to music shall set it ;
Thro' England my ballad shall sell ;

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 241
And all the world readily get it.
To sing to the praise of Lepel."
On the 25th of October, 1720, when in her
twentieth year. Miss Lepel accepted the hand of
the celebrated John, Lord Hervey. About the
period of their marriage. Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu writes to her sister. Lady Mar : " The
most considerable incident that has happened a
good whUe was the ardent affection that Mrs.
Hervey, and her dear spouse,' took to me. They
visited rae twice or thrice a day, and were perpet
ually cooing in ray rooms. I was complaisant a
great whUe ; but (as you know) my talent has
never lain much that way ; I grew at last so
weary of those birds of paradise, I fled to Twick
enham, as much to avoid their persecutions as for
my own health, which is stUl in a declining way."
Notwithstanding the " perpetual cooing " here re
ferred to, the raarried life of Lord and Lady Hervey
is said to have been distinguished, at a later period,
rather by a well-bred civility, than any apparent
reraains of an ardent or romantic attachment.^
' Lord Hervey at this period had not attained to the title.
His elder brother, Carr, Lord Hervey, survived tUl the 15th
November, 1723.
" On the contrary, the editor of Lady Hervey's Letters
observes : " Neither her own vivacity nor the indulgence of a
court appears to have betrayed Lady Hervey into the neglect of any
of her duties. She was fondly attached to Lord Hervey's person,
she respected and admired his talents, and revered his memory."
Lady Hervey herself writes to the Rev. Edmund Morris, on

242 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
The misunderstanding which took place between
Pope and her husband effectually put an end
to the long and friendly intercourse which had
existed between Lady Hervey and the great poet.
Pope, however, though he grew to detest the hus
band, was stUl ready to do justice to the wife,
and in his memorable letter to Lord Hervey
pays a last tribute to the "merit, beauty, and
vivacity " of his charming friend.
The friendship, too, which had existed between
Lady Hervey and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
appears to have been of short duration. A cold
ness sprang up between them, to which we shall
presently have to allude, and it seems to be in
consequence of Lady Mary considering herself
the party aggrieved that we are to attribute those
slighting and almost Ul-natured remarks in her
celebrated letters, whenever she has occasion to
introduce the name of Lady Hervey. The cir
cumstances of their misunderstanding were as
follow :
One of Lady Hervey's most valued friends was
a Mrs. Murray, a granddaughter of the first Earl
the 31st of October, 1743, about two months after her husband's
death : " The misfortunes Mrs. Phipps can have met with are
few and slight compared to those I have experienced ; I see and
feel the greatness of this last in every light, but I will struggle to
the utmost, and though I know, at least I think, I can never be
happy again, yet I will be as little miserable as possible, and will
make use of the reason I have to soften, not to aggravate, my
affliction."

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 243
of Marchmont, and a woman of considerable ac
complishments of person as well as mind.' About
the month of October, 1721; Mrs. Murray ob
tained a raost unenviable notoriety, in consequence
of a criminal attempt made upon her by one of her
own footmen, a man of the name of Arthur Grey.
This individual, it appears, entered her chamber in
the middle of the night, and, presenting a pistol
at her breast, swore that, unless she would con
sent to gratify his passion, he would take her life.
Either terror or virtue, however, gave strength to
her arm, and she had already succeeded in wrest
ing the pistol from her assaUant when her screams
' Griselda BailUe, daughter of Mr. BaUUe of Jerviswood, and
a near relation of Bishop Burnet, became the wife, in 1710, of
Mr., afterward Sir, A. Murray, of Stanhope. She died in 1759.
Lady Hervey says of her, in recording her loss': " Never in my
long life did I ever meet with a creature in all respects like her;
many have excelled her, perhaps, in particular qualities, but
none that ever I met with have equalled her in all. Sound
good sense, strong judgment, great sagacity, strict honour, truth,
and sincerity ; a most affectionate disposition of mind ; constant
and steady ; not obstinate ; great indulgence to others ; a most
sweet, cheerful temper ; and a sort of liveliness and good hu
mour, that promoted innocent mirth wherever she came." Horace
Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann on the 22d of June, 1759:
"A much older friend of yours is just dead, my Lady Murray.
She caught her death by too strict attendance on her sister.
Lady Binning, who has been UI. They were a famUy of love, and
break their hearts for her. She had a thousand good quaUties ;
but no mortal was ever so surprised as I when I was first told
that she was the nymph Arthur Grey would have ravished.
She had taken care to guard against any more such dangers by
more wrinkles than ever twisted around a huraan face."

244 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
brought her the assistance which she required.
The man was immediately seized, and Mrs. Mur
ray giving her evidence against him at the Old
BaUey, he was sentenced to be transported for life.
The publicity given to this unfortunate affair
must have been sufficiently painful to most
women ; whUe, to a person who, like Mrs. Mur
ray, moved in a certain sphere of society, the
notoriety she had acquired could not fail to be
a source of the deepest affliction. The position
of Mrs. Murray, raoreover, was rendered still
more distressing by the publication of more than
one offensive pasquinade on the subject of her re
cent misfortune, which, as is usually the case with
simUar raalicious productions, were purchased and
read with the greatest avidity. Of these effusions,
there were two which excited particular attention ;
the one, a gross ballad, and the other a long and
indelicate copy of verses, entitled " Epistle from
Arthur Grey, the Footraan." ' Both of these in
famous productions were attributed to Lady Mary
' Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann on the 24th
of November, 1747 ; "Mr. Shute agrees with me. He says, for
the epistle from Arthur Grey, scarce any woman could have
written it, and no man, for a man who had had experience
enough to paint such sentiments so well would not have had
warmth enough left." Mr. Dallaway, Lady M. W. Montagu's
biographer, remarks that " the epistle of Arthur Grey has true
' Ovidian tenderness.' " This, of course, is exaggerated praise ;
nevertheless, the " Epistle " has some merit as a composition,
though possessing certainly more of the indecency of Ovid
than either his tenderness or his grace.

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 245
Wortley Montagu ; but though the former was
unquestionably the production of her pen, we find
her repeatedly denying the authorship of the
latter. The fact, however, of her having been
the parent, if of only one of these galling attacks,
is sufficient to bring home to her the charge of
unwarrantably aggravating the distress of an un
offending member of her own sex, by trumpeting
forth a misfortune which had already obtained
sufficient publicity. That Mrs. Murray believed
her to be the author of both lampoons is evident.
Lady Mary herself informs us that on every occa
sion of her meeting the subject of her unfeeling
satire in public, the latter never faUed to display
her indignation and disgust ; on one occasion, in
particular, " she was pleased to attack me," says
Lady Mary, "in very BiUingsgate language at a
masquerade, where she was as visible as ever she
was in her own clothes." Lady Hervey warmly
and generously sided with her injured friend ; and
it was probably her having dropped some expres
sions of disgust at Lady Mary's conduct that pro
duced frora the latter those slighting remarks on
an alraost faultless character, to which we have
already had occasion to allude.
Among various interesting reminiscences of
Lady Bute (daughter of Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu), she reraembered Lady Hervey to have
been distinguished by the exquisite grace of her
manners, which she described as somewhat marked

246 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
by a "foreign tinge." Lady Hervey, indeed, was
half a Frenchwoman. During her widowhood,
she paid long and frequent visits to France ; we
find her intimate friends frequently bantering her
on her French tastes and French habits ; whUe,
frora her maiden name of Lepel, we may conclude
that her famUy were originally natives of that coun
try. Lady Chesterfield writes to a lady at Paris
on the 30th of December, 1751 : "We look upon
Lady Hervey as having forsaken her own country,
and being naturalised a Frenchwoman. I regret,
but do not blame her, for I know others that would
do the same if they could." Again, she writes to
the sarae correspondent on the 3d of May, 1753:
" You will soon see Lady Hervey again ; she is
heartily sick of London, and longs to be at Paris,
I shall lament her absence, but cannot blame her
taste ; it comes into ray system of philosophy."
Lady Hervey, in her letters, alludes to her foreign
partialities as if they were notorious among her
friends ; and Horace Walpole, in his correspond
ence, speaks incidentally of her as "doting" on
everything French.
We have now brought our notices of Lady Her
vey very nearly to a close. After the death of
her husband, she resided principally with his father,
the Earl of Bristol, dedicating herself to the per
formance of her social duties, and more especially
to the education of her chUdren. By Lord Her
vey she was the mother of four sons and four

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 247
(daughters. Of the former, George,' Augustus, and
Frederick were successively Earls of Bristol, and
WUliam, the youngest, was a member of Parlia
ment and a general in the army. Of the daugh
ters, Lepel married Constantine, Lord Mulgrave ;
Lady Mary married George Fitzgerald, Esq. ; and
Lady EmUy and Lady Caroline died unmarried.
Horace Walpole says of the elder daughter, in one
' George, second Earl of Bristol, inherited the effeminate ap
pearance and, it was thought, the effeminate character of his
father ; like his father, however, he knew how to resent an insult
when thoroughly provoked. Horace Walpole writes to Sir Hor
ace Mann, 25th of February, 1750: "About ten days ago, at the
new Lady Cobham's assembly. Lord Hervey was leaning over
a chair, talking to some women, and holding his hat in his hand.
Lord Cobham came up and spit in it ! and then, with a loud
laugh, tumed to Nugent, and said, ' Pay me my wager I ' In
short, he had laid a guinea that he committed this absurd brutal
ity, and that it was not resented. Lord Hervey, with great tem
per and sensibUity, asked if he had any further occasion for his
hat ? ' Oh ! I see you are angry I ' ' Not very well pleased.'
Lord Cobham took the fatal hat, and wiped it, made a thousand
foohsh apologies, and wanted to pass it off as a. joke. Next
morning he rose with the sun, and went to visit Lord Hervey ;
so did Nugent ; he would not see them, but wrote to the
Spitter (or, as he is now called, Lord Gob'em), to say, that
he had affronted him very grossly before company ; but having
involved Nugent in it, he desired to know to which he was to
address himself for satisfaction. Lord Cobham wrote to him
a most submissive answer, and begged pardon both in his own
and Nugent's name. Here it rested for a few days; tiU getting
wind, Lord Hervey wrote again to insist on an explicit apology
under Lord Cobham's own hand, with a rehearsal of the excuses
that had been made to him. This, too, was compUed with, and
the fair conqueror shows all the letters."

248 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
of his letters : " She is a fine, black girl, as mascu
line as her father should be." But it seems to
have been the youngest, Lady Caroline, who in
herited, in the raost eminent degree, the attrac
tions of her mother. ChurchUl celebrates —
" That face, that form, that dignity, that ease.
Those powers of pleasing, with that will to please,
By which Lepel, when in her youthful days,
Even from the currish Pope extorted praise.
We see, transmitted, in her daughter shine.
And view a new Lepel in Caroline ! "
Lady Hervey expired on the 2d of September,
1768, having nearly completed the sixty-eighth
year of her age. For many years she had suffered
severely from the gout,' the frequent attacks of
which she endured with extraordinary resignation
and unrepining gentleness.
Horace Walpole writes to the Earl of Hertford
on the 1 6th of December, 1763: "Poor Lady
Hervey desires you will tell Mr. Hume how in
capable she is of answering his letter. She has
been terribly afflicted for these six weeks with a
' This disease, which was hereditary in Lady Hervey's family,
she entailed on her daughter, Mrs. Phipps, afterward Lady Mul
grave, and probably on others of her chUdren. Lady Hervey
writes to the Rev. E. Morris, 24th of October, 1747 : " Poor Mrs.
Phipps, that young, abstemious, careful woman, has had a tedious
rheumatism, which at last terminated in a severe fit of the gout.
She is now weU of both ; but what must that poor dear creature
expect, who at four and twenty is wrapped up in flannel with the
goutl"

MARY LEPEL, LADY HERVEY. 249
complication of gout, rheumatism, and a nervous
complaint. She cannot lie down in her bed, nor
rest two minutes in her chair ; I never saw such
continued suffering." Two days before she ex
pired, she wrote to her son, tbe Earl of Bristol :
" I feel my dissolution coming on, but I have no
pain ; what can an old woman desire more ? "
Walpole, in recording this anecdote, observes :
"This was consonant to her usual propriety, —
yes, propriety is grace, and thus everybody may
be graceful, when other graces are fled."
It is to be feared, however, that the exemplary
patience which Lady Hervey displayed during her
repeated Ulnesses, originated in no degree from
any consolation which she derived from her relig
ious faith. The example of infidelity set her by
ber husband, and, apparently, the pernicious soph
istry of their mutual friend. Doctor Middleton,'
' Dr. Conyers Middleton — a skeptical divine, and the well
known author of the " Life of Cicero " — was the son of a clergy
man, and was bom at York in 1683. His " Discourse on the
Miraculous Powers," supposed to have been vested in the early
Christian Church, led the world to believe that he was a free
thinker, and his letters to Lord Hervey have since substantiated
the fact. As a divine, a moralist, and a philosopher, he should
have taken especial care to maintain his private character in good
repute ; and yet the same man — who professed that " Providence
had placed him beyond the temptation of sacrificing philosophic
freedom to the servUities of dependence" — is known, in the
most shameless manner, to have subscribed the thirty-nine articles
for the mere purpose of enjoying the living of Hascombe.
" Though there are many things in the Church," he says, " which
I wholly dislike, yet, while I am content to acquiesce in the ill.

250 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
produced an unfortunate effect on her otherwise
strong mind ; and, though she reframed from ob
truding her peculiar tenets on others, her own
confidence in the truth of revealed religion was
unquestionably weakened, if not entirely destroyed.
Posterity of late years has acquired an interest
ing memento of Lady Hervey, in the forra of a
volume of her epistolary correspondence. To the
general reader, indeed, the letters in question will
convey a feeling of disappointment, for we search
in vain for that playful wit and fascinating vivac
ity for which her contemporaries have so univer
sally given her credit. The whole of these letters,
however, were written after she had completed her
forty-second year, at a period when the heyday
of life had passed away ; and, moreover, when
misfortune had quenched the buoyancy of her
spirits, and thrown its shadows over her brow.
But, on the other hand, they portray the charac
ter of Lady Hervey in its best light ; they afford
valuable evidence of her strong sense, her refined
taste, and real goodness of heart ; and are equally
interesting as a memorial of a courtly beauty of
the last age, and as affording a faithful and pleas
ing picture of an amiable and highly cultivated
mind. I should be glad to taste a Uttle of the good." The apology was
worthy of his principles. Doctor Middleton died on the 28th of
July, 1750, in the sixty-seventh year of his age.

CHAPTER XIIL
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU.
Her Birth in i6go — Her Early Love of Reading — Teaches
Herself Latin, and Translates Epictetus — Anecdote of Her
Father Related by Herself — Her Acquaintance with Mr.
Wortley Montagu — His Literary Tastes — He Proposes for
Her Hand to Her Father, and Is Rej ected — He Elopes with
and Is Privately Married to Her — Lady Mary's First Appear
ance at St. James's — Attends the Evening Parties of George
the First — Accompanies Her Husband on His Embassy to
Constantinople — Her Familiarity with the Turkish Ladies —
Anecdote — Introduces into England the Oriental Practice of
Inoculation for the Smallpox — Returns Home, and Takes a
House at Twickenham — Her Intimacy with Pope — Addison
Warns Her against Him — Her Subsequent Quarrel with
Pope — Her Account of Its Origin — Her Splenetic Feelings
toward Him — Retires to the Continent — Her Separation
from Her Husband — Extracts from Horace Walpole's Let
ters — Pope's Remarks on Lady Mary's Want of Cleanliness
— Anecdote of Lady Mary — Indecency of Some of Her
Letters — Brief Memoir of Her Son, Edward Wortley Mon
tagu — 'His Eccentricities Abroad — Extract from Horace
Walpole's Letters — Mr. Montagu Disinherited on His
Father's Death — His Extraordinary Advertisement in the
Public Advertiser — His Sudden Death at Lyons — His Liter
ary Production — Lady Mary's Return to England after the
Death of Her Husband — Horace Walpole's Description of
Her — Her Death.
Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterward so cele
brated as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was the
251

252 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
eldest daughter of Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, by
Lady Mary Fielding, daughter of WiUiam, Earl of
Denbigh. She was born at Thoresby, in Not-
tingbarashire, about the year 1690.
When she was about four years old. Lady Mary
had the raisfortune to lose her mother.' The loss
was an irreparable one ; for it was probably owing
to the want of proper female guardianship in her
youth, and to the absence of a mother's anxious
watchfulness, that we are to attribute many of
those faults and fooleries which subsequently dis
tinguished her irregular career. Her father, too,
was a man little qualified to perform so important
a trust as the guardianship of a volatUe and high-
spirited girl. Figuring merely as one of the well-
bred libertines of the period, and preferring the
'In reference to the fact stated in the text, namely, that Lady
M. W. Montagu was only four years old when she lost her
mother, it is curious to find, in the eleventh edition of " The
Curiosities of Literature," the following rather remarkable anach
ronism : " We have lost much literature by the illiberal or malig
nant descendants of learned and ingenious persons. Many of
Lady Wortley Montagu's letters have been destroyed, I have
been informed, by her mother, who imagined that the famUy
honours were lowered by the addition of those of literature ; some
of her best letters, recently published, were found buried in an
old trunk. It would have mortified her Ladyship's mother to
have heard that her daughter was the S^vign^ of Britain."
In recording this error, it is far from the author's intention
to attempt to derogate from the general merit and accuracy of
one of the most charming works in our language. The writer of
an article in the Qua-rterly Revie-w has fallen, it may be remarked,
into exactly the same error as Mr. D'Israeli.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 253
pursuit of pleasure to the discharge of his domestic
duties, he seems to have troubled himself little
with the education or moral iraproveraent of his
chUd.' A thirst after knowledge, however, formed
an early and reraarkable feature in Lady Mary's
character. " When I was young," she observed to
Spence, " I was a vast admirer of Ovid's ' Meta
morphoses,' and that was one of the chief reasons
that set me upon the thought of stealing the Latin
language. Mr. Wortley was the only person to
whom I communicated my design, and he encour
aged me in it. I used to study five or six hours
a day for two years, in my father's library, and so
got that language whUst everybody thought I was
reading nothing but novels and romances." Ac
cording to her biographer, Dallaway, her father
for the raost part entrusted her education to the
tutors of his son, from whora she acquired a knowl
edge of the Greek, Latin, and French languages.
We have, however, the authority of Lady Mary
herself that she taught herself Latin ; and, in
regard to her knowledge of Greek, though pro-
' The father of Lady M. W. Montagu was Evelyn Pierre
pont, fifth Earl of Kingston, created 23d of December, 1706,
Marquis of Dorchester, and on the 29th of July, 17 15, Duke of
Kingston. Macky says of him : " He has a very good estate,
is a very fine gentleman, of good sense, well bred, and a lover of
the ladies ; entirely in the interest of his country, makes a good
figure, is of a black complexion, and well made." The duke died
in 1726, and was succeeded in his titles by his grandson, Evelyn
Pierrepont, the second and last Duke of Kingston.

254 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
fessedly the author of a translation of ' Epictetus,'
we learn from Lady Bute that her mother had, in
fact, but little acquaintance with that language.
Not impossibly she had the advantage of a Latin
version, to which circumstance we may add the
probability of her having received material assist
ance from Bishop Burnet, who is known to have
superintended her labours.
That her father, however, though he neglected,
was, nevertheless, proud of the attainments and
beauty of his child, is evident from the following
lively anecdote which Lady Mary, in after life,
took great pleasure in recalling. " As a leader of
the fashionable world, and a strenuous Whig in
party, he, of course, belonged to the Kit-cat Club.'
One day, at a meeting to choose toasts for the
year, a whim seized him to nominate her, then
not eight years old, a candidate, alleging that she
' The meetings of the celebrated Kit-cat Club were originaUy
held at the Fountain Tavem in the Strand, the landlord of which
was one Christopher Cat, from whom the club borrowed their
name. He was famous for his mutton pies, which was always a
standing-dish at their meetings. In a Tory pasquinade of the
period we find, —
" Hence did the assembly's title first arise.
And Kit-cat wits sprung first from Kit-cat pies,"
The Kit-cat Club, at a later period, held its meetings at the
residence of its secretary, the celebrated Jacob Tonson, at
Bam Elms. This house, which is rendered stUl more interesting
by having formerly been inhabited by Cowley, the poet, is stUl
standing.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 255
was far prettier than any lady on their list. The
(Other members demurred, because the rules of
the club forebade them to elect a beauty whom
they had never seen. ' Then you shall see her,'
cried he ; and, in the gaiety of the moment, sent
orders horae to have her finely dressed, and brought
to him at the tavern, where she was received with
acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her
health drunk by every one present, and her name
engraved in due form upon a drinking-glass. The
corapany consisting of sorae of the raost erainent
raen in England, she went frora the lap of one
poet or patriot or statesraan to the arms of an
other, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed
with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased
her better than either, heard her wit and beauty
loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said,
was too poor a word to express her sensations ;
they amounted to ecstasy. Never again, through
out her whole future life, did she pass so happy a
day." Another disadvantage (arising from her father
being a widower) which Lady Mary had to encoun
ter as she increased in years, was the prevalence of
raale society at his table. A woraan, thrown into
constant intercourse with the other sex, wUl un
questionably find her wit sharpened, and wUl
acquire increased confidence in her own powers ;
moreover, where the society is of a superior order,
she may add to her stock of knowledge, and

256 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
improve her taste ; but, on the other hand, the
finer feelings of the woman are imperceptibly de
stroyed, and she acquires that masculine tone of
thought and speech which was peculiarly the
characteristic of Lady Mary.
Araong the duties which, as the mistress of the
domestic portion of her father's establishment.
Lady Mary was called upon to perform, was the
then formidable task of doing the honours of his
table. People stUl cling to the barbarism of carv
ing huge joints, and inhaling their obnoxious
smeUs, at dinner; but in the comraenceraent of
the last century the case was stiU worse. Not only
was it iraperative on the lady of the house to tease
her guests till they ate to repletion, but it was
necessary that every guest should be individually
helped, and every joint operated upon, by her
hand. Lady Mary used to mention, as curious
Ulustrations of the fashionable manners of her
youth, that carving masters used to attend young
ladies for the purpose of perfecting them in the
art, and that she herself had been compeUed to
take lessons from one of these professors three
tiraes a week. She added that, such was the
laborious task of presiding at table on one of her
father's public days, she was always obliged to
eat her own dinner beforehand.
Lady Mary was in the zenith of her beauty
when she formed the acquaintance of Mr. Edward
Wortley Montagu, a man, apparently, of some tal-

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 257
ent, of sound sense, of a classical taste, and of an
original cast of mind. On the other hand, he was
miserly in his habits, and we glean from Lady
Mary's letters to hira that no flattery was too
'gross for -his palate. StUl it is evident, from the
literary correspondence of the period, that he was
the intimate friend of Addison, and that Steele,
Congreve, and Garth were among his acquaintance.
Thus, a congenial taste for literature and wit
existed between Lady Mary and himself. He
naturally became enamoured of a woman who,
to the possession of great beauty, superadded
those intellectual qualities which he most valued
and admired ; and Lady Mary, though she con
fessed to him her inability to return his passion
with a warmth equal to his own, yet freely ad
mitted that she entertained a regard and partiality
for him which she had never experienced toward
any other suitor. On this, Montagu made his pro
posals to her father ; but, either frora an inabUity
to make a settlement, or rather, as it would ap
pear, from a prejudice against settling property
on unborn chUdren, of whose good or bad qualities
he could know nothing, his offers were peremp
torily rejected by the Duke of Kingston.
The lovers, indeed, still kept up a correspond
ence, but it appears by Lady Mary's letters, writ
ten at the period, that it was constantly on the
point of being broken off ; not, indeed, by the vigi
lance and interference of her father, but by per-

258 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
petual jealousies and mistrusts on the part of Mr.
Montagu, whose good sense pointed out to him
how little suited they were to each other, and
that, however charming Lady Mary might be as a
mistress, she was little calculated to confer hap
piness on hira as a wife. StUl, he was unable to
extricate hiraself frora the toUs of wit and beauty,
and when Lady Mary announced to him her
father's fixed determination to unite her to another
person, the passion of the lover drowned the reflec
tions of the man of sense, and having persuaded
his raistress to elope with him, they were pri
vately married by a special license, bearing date
1 2th August, 1 71 2.
On the accession of George the First to the
throne, the friends of Mr. Wortley came into
power, and he received the reward of his Parlia
mentary exertions by being appointed a lord of
the treasury. The duties of his office obliged him,
of course, to reside principally in London, and,
consequently. Lady Mary was recalled from the
solitude of Wharncliffe, where she had hitherto
resided since her marriage. According to her biog
rapher, Dallaway, " her first appearance at St.
James's was hailed with that universal admiration
which beauty, enlivened by wit, incontestably
claims." She speedily grew into favour with
George the First, and in his son, afterward
George the Second, seems to have exci/'ed a
warmer sentiment. One evening, the prmcfe hap-

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 259
; pening suddenly to cast his eyes on her, desired
the princess, who was playing at cards in another
part of the apartment, to raark how very becora-
ingly Lady Mary was dressed. To be interrupted
in the exciteraent of play, and for the purpose, too,
of noting the loveliness of a rival, raust have been
sufficiently disagreeable to the princess, and con
sequently we cannot be surprised that she re
torted, with a raarked sneer, " Lady Mary always
dresses well ! " This anecdote was recorded by
Lady Mary in her private journal, apparently a
curious repository of wit and scandal, which her
daughter. Lady Bute, no doubt frora very proper
motives, thought proper to destroy, the loss of
which, however, we cannot but regret.
The circurastance of Lady Mary being con
stantly invited to the private parties of George the
First, had the effect of depriving her of the favour
and adrairation of his son. It has, indeed, ever
been the peculiar characteristic of the heirs of the
house of Hanover so far to reverse the order of
nature as to deprecate the slightest respect shown
to the author of their being ; and, consequently,
it was in the true spirit of this feeling that, when
Lady Mary was known to be a favoured visitor at
St. James's, she grew to be an object of distrust
and dislike at Leicester House.
As regards, however, her admission to the select
evening parties of George the First, the following
anecdote, the substance of which was inserted in

260 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
her lost journal, is deserving of repetition : " She
had on one evening a particular engagement that
made her wish to be dismissed unusually early ;
she explained her reasons to the Duchess of Ken
dal, and the duchess informed the king, who, after
a few complimentary remonstrances, appeared to
acquiesce. But when he saw her about to take
her leave, he began battling the point afresh, de
claring it was unfair and perfidious to cheat him
in such a manner, and saying many other fine
things, in spite of which she at last contrived to
escape. At the foot of the great stairs she
ran against Secretary Craggs ' just coming in,
' James Craggs, the younger, who succeeded Addison as
secretary of state, was equally distinguished for his abUities as
a statesman, for his handsome person, his ingratiating manners,
and social pleasantry. His father, James Craggs the elder, had
been footman to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and by the
influence of that celebrated woman, as well as by his own strong
sense and excellent conduct, rose to be postmaster-general,
and was enabled to amass an almost princely fortune. The
younger Craggs died on the i6th of February, 1720, at the
age of thirty-five, and about a month afterward his father
followed him to the grave. The former was buried in West
minster Abbey, where there is a monument to him, inscribed
with the well-known epitaph of his friend Pope :
" Statesman, yet friend to truth ; of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear :
Who broke no promise, served no private end.
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend ;
Ennobled by himself, — by all approved,
Praised, wept, and honoured by the muse he loved I "
Alluding to the lowness of his origin, and to the circumstance
of his dying before his father, Peter Leneve, the herald, pro-

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 26 1
who stopped her to inquire what was the matter.
Were the company put off? She told him why
she went away, and how urgently the king had
pressed her to stay longer, possibly dwelling on
that head with some sraall coraplacency. Mr.
Craggs made no remark, but when he had heard
all, snatching her up in his arms as a nurse carries
a chUd, he ran full speed with her up-stairs, de
positing her within the antechamber, kissed both
her hands respectfully (still not saying a word),
and vanished. The pages seeing her returned,
they knew not how, hastUy threw open the inner
doors, and before she had recovered her breath
she found herself again in the king's presence.
"Ah, larevoild!" cried he and the duchess, ex
treraely pleased, and began thanking her for her
obliging change of raind. She was bewildered,
fluttered, and entirely off her guard ; so beginning
giddily with, " Oh, Lord, Sir ! I have been so
frightened ! " she told his Majesty the whole
story exactly as she would have told it to any
one else. He had not done exclairaing, nor his
Germans wondering, when again the door flew
open, and the attendants announced Mr. Secre
tary Craggs, who, but that moraent arrived, it
should seem, entered with the usual obeisance,
posed that his inscription should be : " Here Ues the last, who
died before the first of his family." Both the Craggs are be
heved to have been deeply impUcated in the memorable and
infamous South Sea bubble.

262 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
and as composed an air as if nothing had hap
pened. " Mais comment done, M. Craggs" said
the king, going up to him, "est-ce que c'cst
Fusage de ce pays de porter des belles dames
comme un sac de fromcnt?" ("Is it the custom
of this country to carry about fair ladies like a
sack of wheat .¦' ") The minister, struck dumb by
this unexpected attack, stood a minute or two,
not knowing which way to look ; then, recovering
his self-possession, answered, with a low bow :
"There is nothing I would not do for your
Majesty's satisfaction." This was coming off
tolerably well, but he did not forgive the tell
tale culprit, in whose ear, watching his oppor
tunity when the king turned from them, he
muttered a bitter reproach, with a round oath
to enforce it, — " which I durst not resent,"
continued she, " for I had drawn it upon myself,
and, indeed, I was heartUy vexed at my own
imprudence." On the sth of June, 171 6, Mr. Wortley was
appointed ambassador at Constantinople, whither
Lady Mary, either from affection or curiosity,
consented to accompany him. To the Princess
of Wales, she writes from Adrianople on the ist
of AprU, 1 7 1 7 : "I have now, madam, finished
a journey that has not been undertaken by any
Christian since the time of the Greek emperors;
and I shall not regret all the fatigues I have
suffered in it, if it gives me an opportunity of

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 263
amusing your Royal Highness by an account
of places utterly unknown amongst us, the em
peror's ambassadors, and those few English that
have come hither, always going on the Danube
to Nicopolis." She was not, indeed, as was for
merly supposed, the first Englishwoman of rank
who had visited the Levant, for it seems that
Lady Paget and Lady Winchelsea had each pre
viously accorapanied their husbands on their several
embassies. Her inquiring disposition, however,
and her ingratiating manners appear to have
brought her into greater familiarity with the
Turkish ladies, than had been achieved by
any other of her countrywomen, either before
or since. " The ladies of Constantinople," she
said to Spence, " used to be extremely surprised
to see rae go always with ray bosom uncovered.
It was in vain that I told them that everybody
did so among us, and alleged everything that
I could in defence of it. They could never
be reconciled to so immodest a custom, as they
thought it ; and one of them, after I had been
defending it to my utraost, said : ' Oh, my sul
tana, you can never defend the manners of your
country, even with all your wit ; but I see you
are in pain for thera, and shall therefore press
it no further."
Nor was this the only occasion where the habits
and manners of Lady Mary appear to have excited
astonishment in the minds of the ladies of the

264 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
East. " One of the greatest entertainments in
Turkey," said Lady Mary to Spence, "is having
you to their baths, and when I was introduced
to one, the lady of the house came to undress me,
which is another high compliment that they pay
to strangers. After she had slipped off my gown,
and saw my stays, she was very much struck at
the sight of them, and cried out to the other ladies
in the bath : ' Come hither and see how cruelly
the poor English ladies are used by their hus
bands ; you need boast, indeed, of the superior
liberties allowed you, when they lock you up thus
in a box.' " Lady Mary, it need scarcely be re
marked, relates the same anecdote in one of her
charming letters, with some other less delicate
circumstances. During her absence in the East, several strange
stories were circulated respecting Lady Mary in
England, the truth or falsehood of which it is
now difficult to ascertain. Among other eccentric
adventures, it was believed by many that she
conferred her favours on the Sultan, Achmed the
Third. This story, whether truly or not, Lady
Mary attributed to the invention of Pope. "The
word malignity," she writes, some years afterward,
to Lady Pomfret, " and a passage in your letter,
call to my mind the wicked wasp of Twickenham.
His lies affect me now no more ; they wUl be aU
as much despised as the story of the seraglio and
the handkerchief, of which I am persuaded he

Lady Mary Wortley [Montagu.
Photo-etching from an enamel miniature by Zink.

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 265
was the only inventor. The man has a malignant
and ungenerous heart, and he is base enough to
assume the mask of a moralist, in order to decry
human nature, and to give his vent to his hatred
of raan and woraankind." It seems, indeed (not
withstanding an opinion to the contrary has long
been prevalent), that Lady Mary never even ob
tained access to the interior of the seraglio.
There is certainly nothing in her letters to
show that this extraordinary indulgence was ever
awarded to her, and, in later times, when the wife
of one of our ambassadors applied for a simUar
favour, — pleading the visit of Lady Mary as a
well-known precedent, — the Turks pronounced
the story to be as false as it was ridiculous.
One important result, consequent on the visit
of Lady Mary to the East, was her being the
means of introducing into this country the Ori
ental practice of inoculating for the smallpox.
Posterity, at this distance of time, can scarcely
coraprehend the vast service which she thus per
forraed in the cause of humanity. According to
the Plain Dealer (No. xxx., July 3, 1724), "It is
a godlike delight that her reflection must be con
scious of, when she considers to whora we owe that
many thousand British lives will be saved every
year, to the use and comfort of their country,
after a general establishment of this practice, —
a good so lasting and so vast that none of those
wide endowments and deep foundations of public

266 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
charity which have made most noise in the world
deserve at all to be compared with it." The more
recent and more valuable discovery of vaccination,
though it has superseded the boon which Lady
Mary conferred on mankind, yet detracts in no
degree from her personal merit, or her claims
on the gratitude of her contemporaries. Indeed,
when we remember the violent opposition which
she had to encounter in her attempt to benefit
mankind ; the obloquy and ridicule which her new
theory entailed upon her ; the undaunted resolu
tion with which she pursued her thankless task,
as well as the extraordinary blessings which she
ultimately conferred on humanity, words are in
sufficient to express our admiration of her noble
and disinterested conduct.
In October, 171 8, Lady Mary retumed with
her husband to England, and shortly afterward
we find her renewing her intercourse with the
court and the wits. Distinguished by high rank,
and gifted with beauty and wit which have become
historical, we cannot wonder that she grew to
be the idol of that celebrated circle which num
bered Gay, Swift, Pope, Parnell, Arbuthnot, and
Garth among its brightest ornaments. At the
suggestion of Pope, with whom she was as yet
on good terms, she took a house at Twicken
ham, and it was either under her own roof, or
at the residence of the poet, that in this, the
most classical of English vUlages, the above men-

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 267
tioned brUliant assemblage of talent was frequently
associated. The friendship, however, which existed between
Lady Mary and Pope was destined to be of shorter
duration and of less celebrity than their subse
quent quarrel, of which we have little to add
beyond that which the reader is already ac
quainted with. Pope, as is well known, after
having lived on terms of intimacy with Lady
Mary for some years, and having on all occa
sions written and spoken of her rather as a god
dess than a woraan, suddenly changed his tone of
panegyric into that of invective, and, under the
names of Lady Mary and Sappho, stigmatised in
the most unjustifiable manner her private habits
and moral conduct. It is remarkable that, many
years before Pope distinguished himself as a sat
irist, Addison should have put Lady Mary on
her guard against the spiteful nature and latent
satirical vein of the poet. " Leave him as soon
as you can," was the advice of Addison ; " he wUl
certainly play you sorae devUish trick else ; he has
an appetite for satire." Addison unquestionably
alluded to the celebrated satire on himself, the
unfinished sketch of which Pope is known to have
sent him in MS.'
'Addison and his friends, it would seem, had been in the
habit of discussing Pope's character and genius in rather too
free a manner, in the London coffee-houses and elsewhere ; on
which, says Pope, " I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, to let him

268 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
In regard to the imraediate cause of quarrel
between Pope and Lady Mary, the explanation
which she herself gave to her relations not only
affords the best apology for Pope, but presents
the easiest and most probable solution of a diffi
cult question. Pope, she said, addressed to her a
passionate declaration of love, the effect of which
was so ludicrous that she burst into an immoderate
fit of laughter, and from that moment the poet
became her implacable enemy.
Such appears to have been the secret history of
the quarrel between Lady Mary and Pope. The
poet himself says, in the " Epistle to Arbuthnot,"
thus giving a pointed meaning to an otherwise
unintelligible couplet :
" Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit."
There is extant, moreover, a copy of verses
addressed by Pope to Gay, occasioned, it seems,
by the latter congratulating him on the comple
tion of his villa at Twickenham, which goes far
know that I was not unacquainted with this behaviour of his ;
that if I was to speak severely of him in return for it, it should
not be in such a dirty way, and that I should rather teU himself
freely of his faults, and aUow his good qualities; and that it
should be something in the foUowing manner. I then adjoined
the first sketch of what has since been called my sathe on Addi
son. Mr. Addison used me very civilly ever after, and never did
me any injustice that I know of from that time to his death,
which was about three years after."

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 269
to prove that the poet had conceived a hopeless
and unhappy attachraent for Lady Mary.
" Ah ! friend, 'tis love — this truth you lovers know —
In vain my structures rise, my gardens grow ;
In vain fair Thames reflects the double scenes
Of hanging mountains, and of sloping greens :
Joy lives not here ; to happier seats it flies.
And only dwells where Wortley casts her eyes.
" What are the gay parterre, the chequered shade.
The morning bower, the evening colonnade ;
But soft recesses of uneasy minds.
To sigh unheard in, to the passing winds?
So the struck deer in some sequestered part
Lies down to die, the arrow at his heart ;
There, stretched unseen, in coverts hid from day,
Bleeds drop by drop, and pants his life away."
Lady Mary, in transmitting these verses to her
sister. Lady Mar, observes that she has thought
proper to "stifle" them, and requests that they
may go no farther than her sister's closet. It is
remarkable that Pope afterward published the last
eight lines only as a fragment. Having quarrelled
with the goddess of his idolatry, he was of course
unwilling to publish a fulsome panegyric ; which,
whUe it might have afforded a triumph to her,
must only have given a disagreeable publicity to
his own weakness and unhappy love.
Under no circumstances is rejection by a woman
a very palatable consummation of a pleasing delu
sion; but, in the present instance, the pain was

270 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
enhanced by the constitutional and almost morbid
sensibUity of Pope, and by the cruel consciousness
of his personal deformity. With such a man, and
under such circumstances, the withering effect of
Lady Mary's unfeeling and contemptuous laugh
may be more easily imagined than described.
Lady Mary appears to have missed no single
opportunity of vexing the irritable poet. In a
letter to Arbuthnot, which she was well aware
would raeet the eye of Pope, she writes : " I wish
you would advise poor Pope to turn to some more
honest livelihood than libelling. I know he will
allege in his excuse that he must write to eat, and
he is now grown sensible that nobody wUl buy his
verses, except their curiosity is piqued to it, to see
what is said of their acquaintance." Remarks of a
simUar malicious tendency, of which Lady Mary
was the author, were constantly conveyed to Pope
by his friends. Indeed, in her determination to be
avenged on her maligner, she seems occasionally
to have outstepped the bounds of truth, and to
have invented one or two ingenious stories to
Pope's discredit, which had the effect of cutting
the poet to the quick. Among others, an account,
which was pubUshed at the period, of Pope having
been cudgeUed by two gentlemen in Ham Walk,
near Twickenham, has been attributed to Lady
Mary ; and so annoyed was Pope at the publicity
obtained by the unfounded anecdote, that he drew
up the following solemn refutation, which was

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 27 1
: inserted in the Daily Post of the 14th of June,
1718: "Whereas there has been a scandalous paper
cried aloud about the streets, under the title of
' A Pop upon Pope,' insinuating that I was whipped
in Ham Walk, on Thursday last : — This is to give
notice, that I did not stir out of my house at
Twickenhara on that day ; and the sarae is a mali
cious and Ul-grounded report. — A. P."
According to Pope's sister, Mrs. Racket, the
poet was but little susceptible of fear. Even
after the publication of the "Dunciad," when he
was several tiraes threatened with castigation by
the persons whom he had satirised, he stUl con
tinued his solitary ramblings in Ham Walk. He
adopted, however, the precaution of taking with
him a large Danish dog, named Bounce," who
' When Bounce died, Pope had a notion of burying him in
his garden, at Twickenham, and placing over him a piece of
marble, with the inscription, —
"ORare Bounce!"
He thought it possible, however, that it might be construed into
disrespect toward Ben Jonson's memory, and the project was
consequently dropped. Bounce, it may be remarked, is the hero
of Gay's " Epistle from Bounce to Fop, from a dog at Twicken
ham to a dog at Court." Bounce is there made to exclaim :
" My eldest bom resides not far.
Where shines great Strafford's glittering star ;
My second (child of Fortune) waits
At Burlington's palladian gates ;
A third majestically stalks
(Happiest of dogs) in Cobham's walks ;

272 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
was much attached to him, and of arming himself
with pistols. "With pistols," he said, "the least
man in England was above a match for the largest
without." In the summer of 1 739, Lady Mary proceeded
to the Continent, with the express intention of
remaining an exile for the remainder of her life.
As she was unaccompanied by her husband, and,
moreover, as during the twenty-one following
years which preceded the death of Mr. Wortley
they never again appear to have met, we may
presume that they separated, either on account of
domestic differences, or from increasing feelings
of mutual distaste.
Having, in the first instance, visited the classi
cal scenes of Rome and Naples, Lady Mary hired
a palace at Brescia, where, with the exception of
occasional visits to Genoa, Padua, and Florence,
she continued chiefly to reside till her death.
About a twelvemonth after she quitted England,
Horace Walpole, who was occasionally thrown
into her society at Florence, draws a curious
picture of her appearance and habits, as she
presented herself in her fifty-first year. In a
letter addressed to the Hon. H. S. Conway, dated
2 sth September, 1740, he writes: "Did I teU
One ushers friends to Bathurst's door.
One fawns at Oxford's on the poor.
Nobles, whom arms or arts adorn.
Wait for my infants yet unborn ;
None but a peer of wit and grace
Can hope a puppy of my race."

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 273
you Lady Mary is here } She laughs at my Lady
Walpole, scolds ray Lady Porafret, and is laughed
at by the whole town. Her dress, her avarice,
and her irapudence must amaze any one that
never heard her name. She wears a foul mob,
that does not cover her greasy black locks that
hang loose, never combed or curled ; an old maz
arine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers
a canvas petticoat. Her face swelled violently
on one side with the remains of a  ,' partly
covered with a plaister, and partly with white
paint, which for cheapness she has bought so
coarse that you would not use it to wash a
chimney." To those whose imaginations have pictured
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in no other light
than as the charming possessor of wit and beauty,
the effect of the foregoing passage will have been
somewhat startling. Walpole, however, in a letter
to Richard West, dated a few days afterward,
again canvasses Lady Mary's failings, and with
increased acrimony. After speaking of " a grave
young man from Oxford," who, it appears, had
rendered himself extreraely popular with the Eng
lishwomen residing at Florence, he proceeds ;
' It is needless, perhaps, to recall to the reader's memory the
weU-known couplet of Pope, in which there is the same indecent
and scandalous aUusion to the supposed effects of Lady Mary's
I frailty : " From furious Sappho scarce a milder fate,
-.^^— 'd by her love, or libell'd by her hate."

274 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
" Lady Mary is so far gone that, to get him
from the raouth of her antagonist [Lady Wal-'
pole], she literally took him out to dance country- •
dances last night at a formal baU, where there was
no measure kept in laughing at her old, foul,
tawdry, plastered personage. She played at faro
two or three times, at Princess Crayon's, where
she cheats horse and foot. She is really enter
taining. I have been reading her works, which
she lends out in manuscript, but they are too
womanish." It is needless to remark that Lady Mary's
want of personal cleanliness is, on more than
one occasion, severely satirised by Pope. In the
" Imitation of the First Epistle of the First Book
of Horace " we find :
" You laugh, half beau, half sloven if I stand,
My wig all powder, and all snuff my band ;
You laugh, if coat and breeches strangely vary,
White gloves, and linen, worthy Lady Mary. "
And again, in the " Essay on Women : "
" Rufa, whose eye, quick glancing o'er the park,
Attracts each light, gay meteor of a spark,
Agrees as ill with Rufa studying Locke,
As Sappho's diamonds with her dirty smock ;
Or Sappho, at her toilet's greasy task,
With Sappho fragrant at an evening mask.
So morning insects, that in muck begun,
Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun."

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 275
Pinkerton, in his amusing little work, the " Wal-
poliana," reports Horace Walpole to have said :
"Lady Wortley Montagu was a playfellow of
mine when both were children. She was always
a dirty little thing. This habit continued with
her. When at Florence, the grand duke gave
her apartments in his palace. One room sufficed
for everything. When she went away, the stench
was so strong that they were obliged to fumigate
the chamber with vinegar for a week." What
ever credit is to be placed in the latter part of
this passage, the assertion that Lady Mary and
Horace Walpole were playfellows is a ludicrous
and unaccountable mistake. Walpole was born
on the 5 th of October, 1717, at least three years
after Lady Mary had become a raother.
Of the conversational wit of Lady Mary Wort
ley Montagu but few specimens have been handed
down to us ; the following, however, will serve
as an Ulustration. Lady Sundon,' mistress of the
' Wife of WUUam Clayton, Lord Sundon. The influence of
the Duchess of Marlborough procured her introduction to
Queen Caroline, who subsequently conferred upon her the
appointments of woman of the bedchamber and mistress of the
robes. The secret of her influence over the queen — an in
fluence of which even Sir Robert Walpole himself was jealous
— is known to have been a. discovery which she made of the
queen being ruptured, an infirmity which her Majesty was mor
bidly anxious to conceal. Lady Sundon is accused on more
than one occasion of having tumed her court influence to pecu
niary advantage. She once, in the enthusiasm of vanity and
success, proposed to Sir Robert Walpole to unite their several

276 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
robes to Queen Caroline, and a great favourite
with that princess, had been presented by Lord
Pomfret with a magnificent pair of diamond ear
rings, valued at fourteen hundred pounds, as a
bribe for having procured for him the appoint
ment of master of the horse to the queen. One
day Lady Sundon happened to wear these sus
picious jewels when on a visit to the old Duchess
of Marlborough. When she had gone, " What an
impudent creature that is," said the duchess, "to
go about with her bribe in her ear!" "Madam,"
rephed Lady Mary, who was present, " how would
you have people know where wine is sold, unless
a sign is hung out to show thera .' "
Apparently, we have been deprived of some of
the wittiest of Lady Mary's letters in consequence
of their discussing subjects, and recording anec
dotes, totally unfit for publication. Doctor Young,
the author of the " Night Thoughts," is said, a
short time before his death, to have destroyed a
interests, and govern the kingdom together. Sir Robert bowed
and begged her patronage, but remarked that he thought no one
fit to govern the kingdom but the king and queen. Another
anecdote is related of Lady Sundon by Horace Walpole. " One
day Sir Robert was at dinner with Lady Sundon, who hated the
Bishop of London as much as she loved the Church. ' Well,
said she to Sir Robert, ' how does your Pope do ? ' ' Madam,
replied he, 'he is my Pope, and shall be my Pope; everybody
has some Pope or other ; don't you know that you are one ?
They call you Pope Joan.' She flew into a passion, and desired
he would not fix any names on her; that they were not so
easUy got rid of."

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 277
large number of her letters, alleging as his motive
that they were too indecent to raeet the public
eye. During the last years of Lady Mary's life she
suffered constant annoyance and anxiety from the
vices and follies of her only son, whose eccentrici
ties were carried to the verge of insanity. Of
this singular personage, a brief notice may perhaps
be acceptable to the reader.
Edward Wortley Montagu was born at Wharn
cliffe Lodge, in Yorkshire, about the year 1714.
Distinguished in his youth by an utter disregard
of truth, and a dislike to wholesome control, his
first exploit was to run away from Westmin
ster School, and enter the service of a chimney
sweeper. From his long and unaccountable ab
sence, his famUy had given him up as lost, when a
gentleman happened to recognise his face in the
streets, and succeeded in restoring him to his
friends. Wedded, however, to a vagabond life,
he contrived to elope a second time, and, on this
bccasion, engaged himself as an apprentice to
the master of a fishing-smack. He subsequently
shipped himself on board a vessel bound for
Spain, and in that country served for sorae time
as a muleteer ; however, he was again discovered
and brought back to his friends, by whom he was
placed under the charge of a private tutor, and
subsequently sent to travel on the Continent.
But neither his restoration to civUised society.

278 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
nor the watchful care of his tutor, had the slight
est effect in giving stability to his character or
improving his mind. At one time we find him
affecting to be a religious enthusiast, and at
another engaged in phUosophical speculations.
He made himself further conspicuous by con
tracting a very improvident marriage with a woman
of low birth, whom he deserted in a few weeks;
he was always in debt and in scrapes, and in
whatever town abroad he took up his residence
he speedUy made himself notorious by his eccen
tricities. In the month of June, 1742, Lady Mary had
an interview with her son at Valence, of which, in
one of her letters to her husband, she gives the
following interesting account : " I am just returned
from passing two days with our son, of whom
I will give you the most exact account I am
capable of. He is so much altered in person I
should scarcely have known him. He has entirely
lost his beauty, and looks at least seven years
older than he did ; and the wUdness that he always
had in his eyes is so much increased it is down
right shocking, and I am afraid wUl end fatally.
He is grown fat, but he is still genteel, and has
an air of politeness that is agreeable. He speaks
French like a Frenchman, and has got all the fash
ionable expressions of that language, and a volubil
ity of words which he always had and which I do
not wonder should pass for wit with inconsiderate

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 279
people. His behaviour is perfectly civU, and I
found hira very submissive; but in the main no
way really iraproved in his understanding, which is
exceedingly weak ; and I ara convinced he wUl
always be led by the person he converses with,
either right or wrong, not being capable of forra
ing any fixed judgment of his own. As to his en
thusiasm, if hie had it, I suppose he has already
lost it, since I could perceive no turn of it in all
his conversation. But, with his head, I believe it
is possible to make him a monk one day, and
a Turk three days after. He has a flattering,
insinuating manner, which naturally prejudices
strangers in his favour. He began to talk to rae
in the usual sUly cant I have so often heard from
him, which I shortened by telling him I desired
not to be troubled with it ; that professions were
of no use where actions were expected ; and that
the only thing that could give me hopes of a good
conduct was regularity and truth." Lady Mary
concludes her letter : " The rest of his conversa
tion was extremely gay. The various things he
has seen have given hira a superficial universal
knowledge. He really knows raost of the modern
languages ; and if I could believe him, can read
Arabic and has read the Bible in Hebrew. He
said it was impossible for him to avoid going back
to Paris ; but he promised me to lie but one night
there, and to go to a town six posts from thence,
on the Flanders road, where he would wait your

280 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
orders." It seems by a subsequent letter of Lady
Mary that Mr. Montagu, who was travelling under
the assumed name of M. du Durand, had given
her the " most solemn assurances " that no human
being should know of their meeting at Valence.
" Yet," she adds, "he rode straight to Montelimart,
where he told at the assembly that he came into
this country purely on my orders, and that I had
stayed with hira two days at Orange ; talking
much of my kindness to him, and insinuating that
he had another name, much more considerable than
that he appeared with."
About the end of 1747, Mr. Montagu obtained
a seat in Parliament, as member for Huntingdon ;
and four years afterward we find him achieving
increased notoriety by suffering imprisonment with
Mr. Taaffe, another member of Parliament, in the
Grand Chatelet at Paris, on the charge of cheating
and robbing a Jew. Horace Walpole writes to Sir
Horace Mann, on the 22d of November, 175 1:
" All the letters from Paris have been very cau
tious of relating the circumstances. The outlines
are, that these two gentlemen, who were faro-
bankers to Madame de Mirepoix, had travelled to
France to exercise the same profession, where it
is supposed they cheated a Jew, who would after
ward have cheated them of the money he owed,
and that, to secure payment, they broke open his
lodgings and bureau, and seized jewels and other
effects ; that he accused them ; that they were

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 28 1
taken out of their beds at two o'clock in the raorn
ing ; kept in different prisons, without fire or
candle, for six and thirty hours ; have since been
released on excessive bail ; are still to be tried ;
may be sent to the galleys or dismissed home,
where they will be reduced to keep the best com
pany ; for I suppose nobody else will converse
with them. Their separate anecdotes are curious.
Wortley, you know, has been a .perfect GU Bias."
Horace Walpole writes the sarae year to Sir
Horace Mann : " Our greatest rairacle is Lady
Mary Wortley's son, whose adventures have made
so much noise. His parts are not proportionate,
but his expense is incredible. His father scarce
allows him anything, yet he plays, dresses, dia
monds himself, and has raore snuff-boxes than
would suffice a Chinese idol with a hundred noses.
But the most curious part of his dress, which he
has brought from Paris, is an iron wig ; you liter
ally would not know it from hair. I believe it is
on this account that the Royal Society have just
chosen him of their body." At a later period Mr.
Montagu fixed his abode in Egypt, where he resided
several years. While in that country he adopted
the dress and habits, and, apparently, the religion
of the Turks, taking especial care to avaU him
self of the advantage of the plurality of wives,
which is permitted by the Mahomedan code.
On the death of his father in 1761, Mr. Mon
tagu could scarcely be astonished at finding him-

282 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
self disinherited. The famUy estate, which should
properly have descended to him, was bequeathed
to the children of his sister. Lady Bute, with the
especial proviso, however, that should he leave an
heir born in marriage, the estate should return to
that cbUd. For fifteen years Mr. Montagu appears
to have quietly succumbed to the will of the de
parted. A short time, however, before his own
decease, being then resident at Venice, he caused
(through the medium, it is said, of his friend Rom-
ney, the painter) the following extraordinary adver
tisement to be inserted in the Public Advertiser of
the 1 6th of AprU, 1776 :
" A gentleman who has fiUed two successive
seats in Parliament ; is nearly sixty years of age ;
lives in great splendour and hospitality ; and from
whom a considerable estate must pass if he dies
without issue, hath no objection to marry a widow
or single lady, provided the party be of genteel
birth, polite manners, and is five or six months
gone in her pregnancy. Letters directed to 
Brecknock, Esq., at WUl's Coffee-house, wiU be
honoured with due attention, secrecy, and every
mark of respect."
In London, as hi all great cities, money will
purchase anything, and a rich man has only to
make known his wishes to .have them gratified.
Lord Wharncliffe, Mr. Montagu's great-nephew,
informs us : " It has always been believed in the
family that this advertisement was successful, and

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU. 283
that a woraan, having the qualifications required
by it, was actually sent to Paris to meet Mr. E.
Wortley, who got so far as Lyons on his way
thither; there, however, whUe eating a beccafico
for supper, a bone stuck in his throat and occa
sioned his death." Before closing our notices of
Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu, it may be reraarked
that he united the character of an author to his
other eccentricities. In addition to some " Obser
vations on the Rise and Fall of the Roman Era
pire," in which his tutor was thought to have had
the principal share, he was unquestionably the
writer of some " Observations on Earthquakes,"
as well as an account of the "Written Moun
tains in Arabia," which were published in the
"Philosophical Transactions."
Of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu but little
remains to be said. After an absence from her
native country of twenty-two years, she returned
to England on the death of her husband,' and had
' Horace Walpole writes to George Montagu on the 7th of
February, 1761 : " Have you heard what immense riches old
Wortley has left ? One mUlion three hundred and fifty thousand
pounds I It is all to centre in my Lady Bute ; her husband is one
of Fortune's prodigies." Gray also writes, about the same period :
" You see old Wortley Montagu is dead at last, at eighty-three.
It was not mere avarice, and its companion abstinence, that kept
him aUve so long. He every day drank, I think it was, half a
pint of tokay, which he imported himself from Hungary in greater
quantity than he could use, and sold the overplus for any price
he chose to set upon it. He has left better than half a mUUon
of money."

284 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
the satisfaction to find that her literary reputation
had not faded, and that she was stUl an object of
curiosity to the world. Horace Walpole writes to
George Montagu, on the 2d of February, 1762 :
" Lady Mary Wortley is arrived ; I have seen her ;
I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity are
all increased. Her dress, like her languages, is a
galimatias of several countries ; the groundwork
rags, and the embroidery, nastiness. She needs
no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no
shoes. An old black-laced hood represents the
first ; the fur of a horseman's coat, which replaces
the third, serves for the second ; a dimity petticoat
is deputy, and officiates for the fourth; and slip
pers act the part of the last." Her family inform
us that she had acquired foreign tastes and foreign
habits, and consequently the exchange from the
gloomy magnificence of an Italian palace to a
sraall, three-storied house in the neighbourhood
of Hanover Square appears to have been almost
as striking as it was inconvenient. "I am most
handsomely lodged," she said, "for I have two
very decent closets, and a cupboard on each
floor." Lady Mary survived her return to England
only ten months. She had for some time been
afflicted with a cancer in the breast, the ravages
of which terminated her life on the 21st of Au
gust, 1762, in the seventy-third year of her age.

CHAPTER XIV.
MARY BELLENDEN.
Daughter of the Second Lord Bellenden — At an Early Age
Appointed Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales — Her
Great Vivacity and Wit — Horace Walpole's Description of
Her — Extract from Gay's "Welcome to Pope" — George
the Second's Admiration of Her — Anecdotes — Her Private
Marriage in 1720 to Colonel Campbell, Afterward Duke of
Argyle — Specimen of Her Epistolary Style from the " Suffolk
Correspondence" — Period of Her Death — Enumeration of
Her FamUy.
This lively and beautiful woman was a daugh
ter of John, second Lord Bellenden, by Mary,
daughter of Henry Moore, first Earl of Drogheda,
and widow of William Ramsay, third Earl of Dal
housie. At an early age she was appointed a
maid of honour to Queen Caroline, then Princess
of Wales, at whose court, with the single exception
of her beautiful friend, Mary Lepel, there was no
one who rivalled her in wit, and few who approached
her in loveliness. The names of the two friends
are frequently associated together. Gay says, in
his ballad of " Damon and Cupid : "
" So well I'm known at court.
None ask where Cupid dwells ;
28s

286 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
But readily resort.
To Bellenden's or Lepel's."
Horace Walpole speaks of Miss Bellenden, as
having been " exquisitely beautiful ; " and, in notic
ing various persons connectcil with the court of
George the First, he observes : " Above all, for
universal admiration, was Miss Bellenden. Her
face and person were charming ; lively she was
almost to etourdcric, and so agreeable was she,
that I never heard her mentioned afterward by
one of her contemporaries, who did not prefer her
as the most perfect creature they ever knew."
Gay, in his " Welcome to Pope from Greece," com
memorates her with her sister Margaret :
" Madge Bellenden, the tallest of the land,
And smiling Mary, soft and fair .is down."
And as regards her character for liveliness, we
find in a ballad of the period :
" But Bellenden we needs must praise,
Who, as down-stairs she jumps.
Sings ' over the hills and f.ir away,'
Despising doleful dumps."
George the Second, when Prince of Wales, is
said to have entertained a stronger passion for
Miss Bellenden than he had been known to feel
for any other woman except his own wife. " Miss
Bellenden," says Walpole, "by no means felt a,
reciprocal passion. The prince's gallantry was by

MARY BELLENDEN. 287
:no means delicate, and his avarice disgusted her.
One evening, sitting by her, he took out his purse,
land counted his money. He repeated the numer-
;ation. The giddy Bellenden lost her patience, and
cried out, ' Sir, I cannot bear it ; if you count your
money any more I wUl go out of the room ; ' the
chink of the gold did not tempt her more than
the person of his Royal Highness."
On another occasion, when the prince was
counting his money in her presence, her feelings
of disgust are said so entirely to have mastered
her respect for royalty that, by a sudden motion,
either of her foot or hand, she scattered his
guineas about the floor, and contrived to escape
from the apartment whUe he was eagerly employed
in picking them up. Nor are these the only evi
dences of the slighting manner in which she treated
her royal lover. In one of her letters to Mrs.
Howard, speaking of the recent introduction of a
new maid of honour at court, she says : " I hope
you wiU put her a little in the way of behaving
before the princess, such as not turning her back ;
and one thing runs mightUy in my head, which is,
crossing her arms, as I did to the prince, and told
him I was not cold, but I liked to stand so."
At the period when Miss Bellenden was sub
jected to the addresses of the prince, her heart
was engaged to another. This circumstance was
subsequently discovered by the prince, who, how
ever, with much generosity of feeling, assured her

288 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
that ff she would promise not to marry without
his knowledge he would not only consent to the
match, but would extend his regard to her hus
band. Miss Bellenden gave the required promise,
but without discovering the narae of her lover.
It seems, however, that she subsequently repented
of the pledge, and fearing lest the prince should
throw some insurmountable obstacle in the way of
her marriage, privately gave her hand to Colonel
John Campbell, afterward fourth Duke of Argyle,
to whora she was married in 1720.
The prince was naturally provoked and annoyed
at this implied suspicion of his good faith ; so
much so, that whenever Mrs. Campbell entered
the drawing-room at Leicester House, it was his
custora to step up to her and whisper some un
pleasant reproach in her ear. His anger, however,
was certainly not extended toward her husband.
He not only retained him in his post of groom of
the bedchamber, but continued him in the appoint
raent on his own accession to the throne.
A few of Mrs. Campbell's letters have recently
been published among the " Suffolk Correspond
ence ; " but, in regard to the wit which might have
been expected from the character of the writer,
they are even more disappointing than those of
her beautiful friend, Mary Lepel. Of these letters,
the following one, though somewhat tainted by
the indelicacy of the age, affords the liveliest, and,
unquestionably, the most characteristic specimen :

MARY BELLENDEN. 289
To Mrs. Ho-ward. "Bath, 1720.
"O, Gad, I am so sick of bUls, for my part
I believe I shaU never be able to hear them men
tioned without casting up my accounts ; biUs are
accounts, you know. I do not know how your
biUs go in London, but I am sure raine are not
dropped, for I have paid one this raorning as long
as my arm, and as broad as my  . I intend
to send you a letter of attorney, to enable you to
dispose of my goods before I can leave this place,
such is my condition. I was in hopes to have
found the good effects of your present ; but I
have found nothing to brag of but your goodness,
which is always raore than my desert. I ara just
a-going to the king's garden, — I wish to God it
belonged to my lord mayor, as the saying is. Pray
give my duty to my grandmother, and tell her I
love her, and wish her the desert of the good, and
prosperity of the wicked. My dear Howard, God
bless you, and send health and liberty. Don't
show this, I charge you, at your peril."
Of Mrs. Campbell, from the period of her mar
riage, we know little but that she maintained her
character for good sense and unspotted virtue. Of
the date of her decease also we have no record,
but it would seem that her existence was scarcely
prolonged beyond middle age. By Colonel Camp
bell, she was the mother of five chUdren : John,

290 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
fifth Duke of Argyle ; Henry, kUled at the bat
tle of La Feldt ; William, who represented the
county of Argyle, and who was a captain in
the navy ; Frederick, member for Rutherglen,
and a councUlor at law ; and Caroline, who mar
ried, first, Charles Bruce, Earl of Aylesbury, and
afterward the Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, the
relation and correspondent of Horace Walpole.

CHAPTER XV.
GEORGE THE SECOND.
His Bhth in 1683 — Early Neglected by His Father, George the
First — His Marriage — ¦ Made a Knight of the Garter in 1 706,
and Created Duke of Cambridge, with Precedence over All
Other Peers- — Serves under Marlborough, and Is Present at
the Battle of Oudenarde in 1 708 — His Daring Valour on That
Occasion — Anecdote of Him — Created Prince of Wales on
the Accession of His Father to the Throne — Extract from
Lady M. W. Montagu's Works — Origin of the Misunder
standing between the Prince and His Father — Extract from
Horace Walpole — Put under Arrest, and Deprived of the
Appurtenances of Royalty — Singular Paper, Relative to
the Prince, Found in George the First's Cabinet after His
Death — Extract from the Marchmont Papers — The King's
Attempt to Deprive the Prince and Princess of All Power
over Their Own ChUdren — The Twelve Judges Consulted
on the Occasion — Sir Robert Walpole Effects a Partial Rec-
ondliation between the King and the Prince — Death of
George the First, and Proclamation of the Prince as George
the Second — Burns His Father's WUl.
George Augustus, the only son of King George
the First, by the imfortunate Sophia Dorothea of
ZeU, was bom at Hanover the 30th of October,
1683. As it was not till many years after he had
passed the period of childhood that there appeared
any probabUity of his succeeding to the throne of
291

292 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
England, the people of this country naturally took;:
but a slight interest in the heir of a distant and
petty electorate, and, consequently, we are left
almost entirely in the dark respecting the early
history of the future sovereign. To his father he
was indebted for little but his birth. The elector,
who grew to detest his son in after life, appears to
have neglected him even in childhood, and by con
fiding the charge of his heir to his own mother,
the celebrated Electress Sophia, would seem to
have gladly relieved himself of a disagreeable
duty. With the exception of a visit which the young
prince paid to William the Third at Loo, in 1699,
we discover no event in his history of any in
terest, till the occasion of his marriage, on the
2d of September, 1705, with WUhelmina Dorothea
Carolina, eldest daughter of John Frederick, Mar
grave of Brandenburg-Anspach. This remarkable
woman wUl form the subject of the next memoir.
I The celebrated act of the legislature, which en-
^aUed the sovereignty of these realms on the Prot-
iestant descendants of James the First, having
iplaced the electoral prince in the immediate line
of succession, the English ministry considered it
I necessary to confer on him a share of those hon-
' jours of which he was afterward destmed to be
ithe distributor. Accordingly, on the 4th of April,
J1706, Queen Anne bestowed upon him the Order
lof the Garter, and on the 20th of November foi-

GEORGE THE SECOND. 293
lowing he was created, by that princess. Baron ofi
Tewkesbury, Viscount Northallerton, Earl of Mil-,
; ford Haven, and Marquis and Duke of Cambridge;)
with precedence over every other peer of Grea|'
Britain.   ^_ >
Personal courage and the taste for a railitary
profession have for centuries, with scarcely a
single exception, formed the chief characteristics
of the princes of the house of Hanover. Inherit
ing in an eminent degree the ruling passion of his
famUy, and probably influenced by a natural de
sire to display himself in a favourable light to
the English nation, and to show himself not un
worthy of the honours which had recently been
conferred upon him, the._ elec.tpjaL prince was
induced to enter the ranks of the British.- army,
and ICcorditlfly "enlisted himself under the stand-,
ard -of -the* Duke of Marlborough. ^^ He, served
uffderfhanUustrious general during the campaign
joi -i-fO^ln which ;year be -had- the "[good for-
tune~to'~be present at the battle of Oudenarde.
Though apparently little qualified to figure as a
great general, he, nevertheless, during that cele
brated-engagement, performed a creditable and
evenxonspicuous part. Placing hjmself at the
head of the Hanoverian dragoons, he charged the
enemy, with an intrepidity:whicJi^alra.ost j^maunted
to rashness. His daring nearlyj;,QsL. him Jiis_life.
His horse was shot under him, and , the ^officer
commandinfThe sqiiadrCMLSaLkilled-by his side.

294 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
It is remarkable that the exiled. soQ_,of James the
Second— fris-cousiiT^hd afterward his compet
itor for dominion — dis.pla.y.ei-£(iualj?alQurin„the.
opposite s&oks.
„,^n the death of Queen Anne, and the con-
' sequent accession of his father to the throne of
England, the prince was unable to conceal his
^ej^tiaordinary elation at the event. In the full
ness of his heart he exclairaed to an English
gentleman, " I have not one drop of blood in my
veins which is not English, and at the service of
my father's subjects." He landed with his father
at Greenwich on the 17th of September, iJT^
~an3"^rrthe 27th of the same month was created
Prince of Wales. The same year the. titles" of
Earl of Chester and of Flint were conferredjjpon
him». It has been mentioned, as a singular fact,
that, since the time of Edward the Black Prince,
he was the only Prince of Wales who had chUdren
alive in the lifetime of his fafher.
Of George the Second, previously to his succes
sion to the throne, but few particulars have been
handed down to us, and those few, with the excep
tion of his conduct at Oudenarde, are but little
to his credit. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ob
serves, in her " Account of the Court of George
the First : " "I have not yet given the character
of the prince,x^he fire of his temper appeared
'Tn every look and gesture, which, being unhappily
under the direction of a small understanding, was

GEORGE THE SECOND.
every day throwing him upon some indiscretion.
He was naturally sincere, and his pride told him
that he was placed above constraint, not reflecting
that a high rank carries along with it a necessity
of a more decent and regular behaviour than is
expected from those who are not set in so con
spicuous a light. He was so far from being of
that opinion, that he looked upon all the raen
and women he saw as creatures he might kick
or kiss for his diversion, and, whenever he met
with any opposition in those designs, he thought
his opposers insolent rebels to the wUl of God,
who created them for his use, and judged of the
merit of all people by the ready submission to his
orders, or the relation they had to his powqr/^,— -
The disgraceful misunderstanding which es
tranged the prince frora his father, inasmuch as
it throws light on the manners of a past age and
on the characters of the parties immediately con
cerned, deserves a passing notice in our pages.
The breach between the father and son is
attributed by Horace Walpole and other writers
to some unpleasant circurastances connected with
the christening of one of the prince's children.
The prince, it seems, had proposed that the king,
and his own uncle, the Bishop of Osnaburgh,
should be sponsors to his young chUd. The
selection was clearly an unexceptionable one, and
consequently the prince was not a little irritated
when the king, after consenting to accept the

296 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
office for himself, nominated the Duke of New
castle,' a man personally disagreeable to the
prince, as his colleague on the occasion.
" Nothing," says Walpole, " could equal the
indignation of his Royal Highness when the king
named the Duke of Newcastle for second sponsor,
and would hear of no other ; the christening took
place as usual in the princess's bedchamber.
Lady Suffolk, then in waiting as woman of the
bedchamber, and of most accurate raeraory, painted
the scene to rae exactly. On one side of the bed
stood the godfathers and godmother, on the other
the prince and princess's ladies. No sooner had
the bishop closed the ceremony than the prince,
crossing the feet of the bed in a rage, stepped up
to the Duke of Newcastle, and, holding up his
hand and forefinger in a menacing attitude, said,
' You are a rascal, but I shall find you ; ' meaning,
in broken English, I shall find a time to be re
venged. ' What was my astonishment,' continued
Lady Suffolk, ' when, going to the princess's apart
ment the next morning, the yeomen in the guard-
chamber pointed their halberts at my breast, and
told me I must not pass. I urged that it was my
duty to attend the princess ; they said, " No mat
ter," I must not pass that way.' In one word, the
king had been so provoked at the prince's outrage
' Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, the celebrated minis
ter, and at this period lord chamberlain of the household. He
died in July, 1776, in his eighty-third year.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 297
in his presence that it had been determined to put
a stUl greater insult on his Royal Highness. His
threat to the duke was pretended to be understood
as a challenge, and to prevent a duel he had actu
aUy been put under arrest. As if a Prince of Wales
could stoop to fight with a subject ! The arrest
was soon taken off, but at night the prince and
princess were ordered to leave the palace."
Such, according to Horace Walpole, was the
origin of this memorable raisunderstanding ; but
Walpole, though charming as a writer of gossip,
is, as a historian, not always to be implicitly relied
upon. True it is, indeed, that the affair of the
christening rendered wider the breach between
the father and son, and, moreover, owing to the
prince having been openly expelled from his fath
er's court, the public were now, for the first time,
raade acquainted with their unfortunate differences.
Still, there is unquestionable evidence that the king
and his heir-apparent had long lived in the most
violent opposition to each other. Henry Pelham,'
in a letter dated the day after the birth of the
young prince,^ and consequently written antece-
' Henry Pelham, only brother of Thomas, Duke of New
castle, was born in 1696. He held, at different periods, the
appointments of lord of the treasury, secretary at war, and pay
master of the forces, and on the fall of Sir Robert Walpole was
named first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer.
He died in 1754, leaving behind him the character of a sound
statesman and a good man.
' This chUd, George WiUiam, was bom at St. James's, on the

298 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
dently to the disgraceful scene at the christening,
observes : " Politics are much as you left them, the
difference running as high between the two courts
as ever. The king forbade the lord of the bed
chamber inviting Lord Townshend and Walpole
to dine with him at Newmarket ; all others were
very welcome." We have evidence, indeed, that
these unhappy discords were in existence as far
back as during the residence of the royal famUy in
Hanover. They seem to have been originally
fomented by the conterapt which the Electress
Sophia displayed for the capacity of her son, George
the First, and her raarked partiality for her grand
son ; but, unquestionably, the prince's greatest
crime, in the eyes of his father, was the respect
and affection which he invariably showed for his
unfortunate mother, Sophia of Zell.
Circumstances of later occurrence had served
to aggravate the misunderstanding between the
king and his heir. The proposal of the Tories
to settle a revenue of ;^i 00,000 a year on the
prince, independently of his father; the undis
guised eagerness with which the former had sought
to obtain the title and office of regent during the
absence of the king in his German dominions in
2d of November, 1717, and died the 6th of February, 171S. Sm-
gularly enough, it feU to the lot of the Duke of Newcastle, as
lord chamberlain, to superintend the funeral obsequies of the
royal infant. It was on this occasion observed that the duke
had twice the honour to introduce the prince into the church,
once into the bosom and once into the bowels of it.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 299
the preceding summer; the general satisfaction
which he gave during his brief administration,
and, moreover, the exceeding popularity of the
princess (a person whom George the First de
tested even more than he did his own son), had
thoroughly provoked the jealousy and indignation
of the king. The prince, on his part, however
culpable he may have been in forgetting his duties
as a son, had also various causes of complaint.
The suffering and wrongs of his unhappy mother
had early excited his indignation against his re
maining parent, at whose hands she had experienced
them. The unequivocal aversion, moreover, which
the king invariably displayed toward the prince's
consort ; the endeavours which had been made to
keep him in a state of pecuniary dependency ; some
invidious attempts to curtail his powers as regent,
and recently the dismissal from his household of
the Duke of Argyle, a nobleman who was sup
posed to have influenced and abetted him in his
opposition to his father, had effectually eradicated
all trace of filial affection from the mind of the
prince. Under these circumstances, it may be easily
credited that the affair of the christening led to
an open and violent rupture. The king, who up
to the present moment had restrained his irrita-
bUity within decent bounds, was now thoroughly
exasperated and provoked ; indeed, so far did his
indignation get the better of every feeling of self-

300 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
interest, that, fori;:etting his sense of propriety in
his dotest-ition of his son, he adopted measures
which at once proclaimed their unnatural vlissen-
sions to the world. His subjects were on a sud
den astounded with the tidings that the heir to
the throne had been put under arrest, and th.it
a Prince of Wales had been driven to seek i cluge
in a pri\'ate lodging. In addition to this act of
oppression, the prince was depri\i\l ot his gu.utis
and other appurtenances of royalty, and a notice
was actually insertetl in the Louden G,i:cttc, that
no person who \nsitevl the IVinoe or Princess of
Wales woxild hereafter be receivesl at St. J.uues's.
It seeras to have been the opinion of those best
acquainted with the private Itvlings of GeiMge the
First, that such was his hatred of his son th.it he
would wUliiigly have listemxl to .iu> scheme, how
ever detestable, which would enable him to rid
himself of his heir. Certain it is that, .liter his
death, a paper was found in his cabinet, contain
ing an infamous proposal of the \'.m\ of iKMke-
ley ' to carry off the princt; to .XmeiitM. and to
place him under such close durance as should
effectually prevent his ever being he.ird of .ij^.iin.
George the First, according to Horace \\'alix>le,
was too humane to listen to such a scheme. How
ever, as he exhibited no marked resentment at
» James, thW Earl of Berkeley, a Knight of the Garter, and
first lord of the admiralty froni iriS to 17^7. He died at tho
Castle of Avibisny, in Fiance, in ir,5^

GEORGE THE SECOND. 3OI
the atrocious overture, and even retained Berkeley
in his post of first lord of the admiralty during
the remainder of his reign, we may, perhaps, infer
that the scheme was rejected more from its
impracticability than from its exceeding baseness.
When the paper in question fell into the hands
of George the Second, on his father's death, his
feelings of indignation may be readfly conceived.
The document happened to be in the handwriting
of Charles Stanhope, elder brother of William,
first Earl of Harrington, and, although that per
son was but the transcriber, the king would never
consent to his being employed in any post under
the government, notwithstanding Sir Robert Wal
pole warmly interceded in his behalf.
The foUowing letter, which was addressed
(shortly after the prince's dismissal from court)
by Sir Gustavus Hume, groom of the bedcham
ber to George the First, to Alexander, Earl of
Marchmont, throws an interesting li^'ht on the
state of parties at this juncture.
" 24th December, 171 7.
" I beg your pardon, my dear lord, for having
been so long without paying my respect5 to vou
in a letter, but I have been out of town, sui was
so when aU the bustle happened at St. James's,
the news of which, I dare say, you received ^^h.
the utmost surprise. The prince and princess,
after having been both very iU, are now pafectly

302 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
recovered ; they are stUl at my Lord Grantham's
in Albemarle Street, where they saw company last
Sunday for the first time. I am told his High
ness's levee was very slender, not above three or
four noblemen, and they such as have not appeared
at St. James's for a long time. All such as are
admitted to the king's court are under strict orders
not to go at any time to the prince or princess's,
more particularly all of us that have the honour
to be iraraediately in his Majesty's service. This
unhappy difference gives a sensible disturbance to
all honest men, and as much pleasure to all those
that are enemies to the family ; and though noth
ing is so much to be wished as a reunion, yet I
see but very little appearance of it, no material
step that I know of being yet raade toward it ;
nor do I see how this difference can end, unless
a certain person can be prevaUed on to reflect on
his being both a son and a subject. The transla
tions of three of the prince's letters to the king
have appeared in print, by what raeans I know
not. I send your lordship copies of them. The
king, I thank God, is in perfect good health, and
has the same cheerful, unruffled countenance he
ever had. His Majesty diverts himself three times
a week in the drawing-room, where he never faUs
to play at ombre, and where the ladies appear in
greater nurabers than they did before the separa
tion. Your lordship, no doubt, has the votes sent
regularly to you. The closest division that has

GEORGE THE SECOND. , 303
been this session was upon the quantum for pay
ing the army, which the court carried in a very
fuU house but by fourteen voices. In this and all
other divisions the prince's servants have generally
voted against the court. Both houses adjourned
yesterday for three weeks, and all the material busi
ness of the session is looked upon as over. The
lords have scarce had anything to do. I wish
your lordship health and happiness, and a merry
Christmas, and am ever yours, etc."
The king's indignation at his son's conduct sub
sequently carried him to such lengths that he
endeavoured to deprive the prince and princess
of all power over their own chUdren, and claimed,
as a part of the royal prerogative, that they should
be delivered to his sole charge as sovereign of the
realm. In accordance with the king's commands.
Lord Chancellor Cowper took the opinion of the
twelve judges, " Whether the education and care
of his Majesty's grandchUdren, and the ordering
the place of their abode, and appointing their
governors and governesses, and other instructors,
attendants, and servants, and the care and appro
bation of them, when grown up, belongs of right
to his Majesty as king of this realm or not ? "
Ten of the judges were complaisant enough to
declare their opinions to be in consonance with
the king's wishes. Baron Price, however, and
Mr. Justice Eyre made a noble stand against the

304 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
royal authority. " The education and care of his
Majesty's grandchUdren," they said, "belonged
wholly to the prince their father; but the care
and approbation of their marriage when grown up,
belonged to his Majesty as king of this realm,
though not exclusive of the prince their father."
Moreover, the dissentient judges ventured to as
sure the king that there was no single expression
in the English code to warrant the opinion deliv
ered by their colleagues.
It was left to Sir Robert Walpole to effect
a decent kind of reconcUiation between the father
and son, an event, however, which did not take
place tUl raore than two years after the date of
the foregoing letter. Walpole, with the aid of the
Duke of Devonshire, prevailed on the prince to
address a subraissive letter to his father, which
was followed by the latter waiting on the king,
on St. George's Day, 1720. The interview was
strictly private, and was only known to be satis
factory by the prince, on his return to Leicester
House, being attended as formerly by the royal
guards. The king was, to all appearance, pacified ;
and henceforth an apparent reconcUiation, though
amounting in fact but to a cold and distant inter
course, was effected between the father and son.
The degree of notoriety acquired by the dissen
sions at St. James's, as weU as the joy with which
the retamers of either court received the tidings
of a renewal of kindly intercourse between the

GEORGE THE SECOND. 305
prince and his father, may be gleaned from the
foUowing extract of a letter, addressed by a Mrs.
Molesworth ' to the prince's celebrated mistress.
Lady Suffolk. " I suppose," says the writer,
"you have had no small share in the joy this
happy reconciliation has occasioned. I heartily
congratulate you upon it. Mr. Molesworth testi
fied his zeal at the expense of his sobriety, for he
was not satisfied to make his men drunk, but got
drunk himself ; and it was no fault of his that
I was not so, too ; in short, he celebrated the news
in a manner that alarmed the country people ; for,
after he had raade them ring the bells all day, in
the evening he made his troop draw up before his
lodging, and he at the head of thera, and began
the king and prince's health together and then the
princess's ; and after, the rest of the royal family ;
at every health he made his troop fire around a
voUey of shot ; he invited several gentlemen to
pledge these healths, and when they had done
they threw the glasses over their heads. When
this was done, he carried them all with him to
drink a bowl of punch. As to his raen, after they
had despatched a barrel of ale, they thought them
selves not glad enough, and he, to raake them so,
went amongst them and gave them money to fin-
' Elizabeth Welwood, daughter of Doctor James Welwood,
the author of some well-known historical memoirs, and wife of
Captain Walter Molesworth, a younger son of the first Lord
Molesworth.

306 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
ish in wine. He is at present a little disordered
with that night's work, and desires his best ser
vice to you." According to one of the public
journals of the period, the officers of the two
courts " kissed, embraced, and congratulated one
another " upon this auspicious reconciliation.
George the First died suddenly at Osnaburgh
on the nth of June, 1727, and on the 14th a
despatch from Lord Townshend announcing the
event was received by the English rainisters in
London. "Sir Robert Walpole," says Lord
Marchmont, "was the first who received the
news of the king's death ; and went from the
Treasury to Chelsea, where he took his coach
and six, and went to Richmond. When he carae,
the prince and princess were asleep. He had
them awakened ; as soon as the princess saw Sir
Robert she swooned away, thinking he was come
to tell her that the Princess EmUy was dead."
According to another account, when Walpole ar
rived at Richraond, the prince, as was his custom,
was enjoying a short sleep after dinner. The
minister iraraediately caused him to be acquainted
with the tidings of his father's death ; but for a
considerable time he could not be prevaUed upon
to place any credit in the report. At length,
being informed that Walpole was waiting in the
adjoming apartment, he started up, and though
only half dressed at the time, and indeed "with
his breeches in his hand," directed that the minis-

GEORGE THE SECOND. 307
ter should be admitted to his presence. Walpole
knelt down and kissed his hand, but it was not tUl
the despatch from Lord Townshend was actually
produced that he could be prevaUed upon to be
lieve himself in reality a king. The following o^
the new sovereign was proclairaed as George the
Second, and on the i ith of October, the same
year, was crowned with his queen in Westminster
Abbey. One of the first acts of George the Second, on
ascending the throne, was the comraission of a
crime which, had he been born in any other
sphere of life, would have subjected him to the
severest penalty of the law. " At the first coun
cil held by the new sovereign," says Horace Wal
pole, "Doctor Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury,
produced the wUl of the late king, and delivered it
to the successor, expecting it would be opened
and read in council. On the contrary, his Maj
esty put it into his pocket, and stalked out of the
room without uttering a word on the subject.
The poor prelate was thunderstruck, and had not
the presence of mind, nor the courage, to demand
the testament's being opened ; or at least, to have
it registered. No man present chose to be more
hardy than the person to whom the deposit had
been trusted, — perhaps none of them iraraediately
conceived the possible violation of so soleran an
act so notoriously existent. Still, as the king never
mentioned the wUl more, whispers, only by de-

308 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
grees, informed the public that the wUl was burnt ;
at least, that its injunctions were never fulfiUed."
Among those whom the king defrauded by de
stroying his father's wUl is reported to have been
his own sister, the Queen of Prussia. Her son,
Frederick the Great, is said to have implicitly
believed the fact ; and, as he bore but little affec
tion for his uncle, we may easUy credit a state
ment of Horace Walpole's, that he made one or
two rough demands for justice at the hands of his
royal relative. Among other persons who ought
to have benefited by the missing testament, was
not improbably the late king's mistress, the Duch
ess of Kendal ; report, indeed, affirmed that she'
had been bequeathed a legacy of ;£40,ooo. The
duchess herself succumbed quietly to the wrong
but at her death the celebrated Lord Chester
field, who had married her niece, is said to have
threatened to bring the affair before a court of
justice, and by this means to have been bribed
into sUence with ;£20,ooo. George the First, esti
mating his son's probity by his own, had the pre
caution to leave two wiUs, which in all probability
were duplicates. The one he placed in the hands
of Doctor Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, the
other he committed to the care of the Duke of
Woffenbuttel. The fate of the former testament
we have already seen. The other was procured
for a pecuniary consideration from the Duke of
Wolfenbuttel, and, as appears by a letter from the

GEORGE THE SECOND. 309
Duke of Newcastle to the first Earl of Walde
grave, on its receipt from Germany was committed
by George the Second to the flames, without his
having the curiosity, in the first instance, to raake
himself acquainted with its contents. Probably
he considered the crime would lie lighter on his
conscience, if he remained ignorant of the names
of the individuals whom he had injured.

CHAPTER XVL
GEORGE THE SECOND.
Personal Habits and Tastes of George the Second — His Love
of Punctuality — Cause of His Dislike to the Duke of New
castle — His Fondness for Hunting — His Personal Appear
ance—His Social Chaiacter — His Cold and Phlegmatic
Manners — Anecdote of His Generosity — Account of His
Last Interview with Sir R. Walpole as Minister — His Sensi
bUity on That Occasion — Singular Story Related by Hume
— George the Second's Toleration in Religion and PoUtics —
His Belief in Vampires — His MUitary Tastes — Challenges
His Brother-in-law, the King of Prussia, to Single Combat
— Successful Interference of the Prussian Ambassador —
George the Second's Bravery at the Battle of Dettingen
— Enthusiasm of the EngUsh on the Occasion — Amusing
Anecdote — His Overwhelming Attachment to His German
Possessions — His General Severity toward His ChUdren
— His Grief for Their Loss — His Occasional IrritabUhy —
Strikes His Grandson, George the Third — His Mistresses —
His Affectation of Gallantry in His Old Age — Vast Sums
Expended by Him in Defence of Hanover — His Kindness
to Voltaure — His Contempt for Literature and the Fine Arts
— Anecdotes — George the Second's Love of a Joke — Char
acteristic Anecdotes — The King's Popularity in His De-
cUning Years — His Sudden Death in 1760 — Summary of
George the Second's Character.
The court of George the Second was neither
more brUliant nor more lively than that of his
predecessor. Like his father, the new sovereign
possessed no redeeming partiality for literature
310

GEORGE THE SECOND. 3 II
or the fine arts, neither was his admiration of
women more limited or more refined. At the
period when he ascended the throne he was in
his forty-fifth year ; he had never displayed any
taste for magnificence ; he was distinguished by
no graces either of mind or person ; he had
usually confined his society to his mistresses, and
a chosen few ; and in his feelings and habits was
almost as much a stranger as his father, in the
country over which he was called to rule.
The king's peculiar characteristic was punctual
ity, which consequently became the order of his
court. " His servants," says Lord Waldegrave,
"are never disturbed with any unnecessary wait
ing, for he is regular in all his motions to the
greatest exactness, except on particular occasions,
when he outruns his own orders, and expects
those who are to attend hira before the time of
his appoiatment. This raay easUy be accounted
for; he has a restless mind which requires con
stant exercise. His affairs are not sufficient to
fill up the day ; his amuseraents are without vari
ety, and have lost their relish. He becoraes fret
ful and uneasy, raerely for want of eraployraent,
and presses forward to meet the succeeding hour
before it arrives."
So regular were the king's habits that Lord
Hervey once remarked of him, "He seeras to
think his having done a thing to-day an unanswer
able reason for his doing it to-morrow." His dis-

312 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
like to the Duke of Newcastle is said to have
originated in the well-known want of method
which was the characteristic of that minister. He
once said of the duke, " You see I am compelled
to take the Duke of Newcastle as my minister,
who is not fit to be chamberlain in the smallest
court of Germany."
As a striking proof of the king's exactness,
even in the minutest affairs of life, it may be men
tioned that, on his accession to the throne, hap
pening to perceive a knife, fork, and spoon of
gold, which he remembered to have seen in the
palace of Herenhausen in former days, he ordered
them to be immediately sent back to Hanover, to
which country they properly belonged. He him
self used to observe, as a singular fact (and the
circumstance shows the niceness of his observa
tion), that, after his accession, he could call to
mind no single article of any value, either in the
cabinets or about the apartments of the English
palaces, which he remembered to have seen there
during a visit he had paid to England in the days
of Queen Anne. Such had been the rapacity of
his father's mistresses, that of all the valuables,
once the property of that princess, a pearl necklace
alone feU to the share of the new queen.
To such an extent did George the Second
carry his love of exactness that he never allowed
even his pleasures to interfere with it. For some
years after he had ascended the throne, his cus-

GEORGE THE SECOND. 313
tom was to visit his mistress. Lady Suffolk, every
evening at nine o'clock. Sometimes he was
dressed and in readiness before the prescribed
time, and on these occasions, we are told, he used
to pace his apartment for ten minutes together
with his watch in his hand, waiting tiU the mo
ment of departure had anix-ed.
"After dinner," s.iys \Vraxall, "he always
took off liis clothes, and reposed himself for an
hour in bed, of an afternoon.' In order to accom
modate himself to this habit, or infirmity, Mr. Pitt,
when as secretaiy of state he was sometimes neces
sitated to transact business vsdtli the king during
the time he lay down, alwa}'s knelt on a cusliion
by the bedside ; a mark of respect wliich contrib
uted to render him not a little acceptable to his
Majesty. At his rising, George the Second
dressed himself a second time, and commonly
passed the evening at cards, with Lady Yarmouth,
in a select party."
Some additional light is thrown by Horace Wal
pole on the king's private habits and personal
peculiarities, "At nine at night," he says, "the
king had cards at the apartment of his daughters,
the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, with Lady Yar
mouth, two or three of the late queen's ladies, and
as many of the most favoured officers of his own
Wraxall seeins to have been in ignorance that tie queen
invaiiaHy retired to bed with her husband, on these occaacms
of after-dinner repose.

L

314 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
household. Every Saturday, in summer, he car
ried that uniform party, but without his daughters,
to dine at Richraond. They went in coaches and
six, in the middle of the day, with the heavy
horse-guards kicking up the dust before them ;
dined, walked an hour in the garden, returned in
the same dusty parade, and his Majesty fancied
himself the most gallant and lively prince in
Europe." When he hunted — and he was fond of
the amusement — he was usually attended by the
queen, one or more of the princesses, the maids of
honour, ahd a number of the courtiers of both
sexes. It appears, by the periodical publications
of the day, that the sport was not unfrequently
attended with accidents, and on one occasion tbe
Princess AmeUa had a narrow escape with her
life. " We hunt," writes Mrs. Howard to Gay, the
poet, "with great noise and violence, and have
every day a very tolerable chance to have a neck
broke." The king usually hunted in Richmond
Park, where, after the fatigues of the day. Sir
Robert Walpole was in the habit of entertaining
him. Though George the Second had never been
handsome, his appearance in middle age is de
scribed as being neither unpleasing nor alto
gether undignified. His face, of which the distin-
guishmg characteristics were prominent eyes and
an aquUine nose, wore a pleasing and good-hu
moured expression ; and his figure, though so short

GEORGE THE SECOND. 315
as almost to come under the denomination of
diminutive, is said to have been extremely well
proportioned. In reference to the smallness of his
person, the "BaUad on the Seven Wise Men," in
introducing Richard, afterward Lord Edgecombe,'
contains the foUowing lines :
" When Edgecombe spoke, the prince in sport
Laughed at the merry eK;
Rejoiced to see within his court
One shorter than himself :
I'm glad, cried out the quibbling squire.
My lowness makes your highness higher."
George the Second, as did his father, confined
his society to a chosen few, and in this particular
circle was regarded as an easy raaster and a kind
friend. One of his most favoured attendants, the
amiable and high-minded Lord Waldegrave,^ draws
' Richard, first Lord Edgecombe, and chanceUor of the Duchy
of Lancaster on the downfall of Sir Robert Walpole's adminis
tration. Sir Charles Hanbury WiUiams, in aUuding to the eleva
tion of WilUam Pulteney to the peerage, observes :
" Then say how he marked the new year.
By increasing our taxes and stocks :
Then say how he changed to a peer.
Fit companion for Edgecombe and Fox."
Lord Edgecombe died in 1758.
'James, second Earl of Waldegrave, was bom 14th March,
1715. He was selected by George the Second to be his private
friend, an honour that he weU merited from his prudence, his
strong sense, and unimpeachable probity. In addition to his
being a member of the Privy Conndl, George the Second ap-
pomted hun a lord of the bedchamber, master of the stannaries,
and subsequently, m 1752, made him govemor to the Prince of

3l6 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
the following sketch of the king's character in
social life : " In the drawing-room he is gracious
and polite to the ladies, and remarkably cheerful
and famUiar with those who are handsome, or with
the few of his old acquaintance who were beauties
in his younger days. His conversation is very
proper for a tite-d-tite. He then talks freely on
most subjects, and very much to the purpose ; but
he cannot discourse with the same ease, nor has
he the faculty of laying aside the king in a larger
corapany ; not even in those parties of pleasure
which are composed of his most intimate acquaint
ance." There is reason to believe that George the
Second had every wish to make himself a popu
lar sovereign, but unfortunately he was as deficient
in the art of pleasing as in that of governing a
state. Phlegmatic in his disposition ; stern in his
notions of justice ; easily irritated by trifles ; rig
idly exact in matters of etiquette ; a foreigner in
all his prejudices and tastes ; and possessing but
Wales, afterward King George the Third. He was also a Knight
of the Garter. He married, when rather advanced in life, a young,
beautiful, and admired woman, Maria, natural daughter of Sir
Edward Walpole, and granddaughter of Sir Robert Walpole ; a
lady who, notwithstanding the disparity in their ages, had the
good sense to appreciate his virtues and talents, and who en
tirely devoted herself to confer on him the happiness which he
deserved. Lord Waldegrave died of the smallpox on the 28th
of April, 1763, at the age of forty-eight. His widow subse-
quently became the wife of WUliam Henry, Duke of Gloucester,
brother of King George the Third.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 3^7
an indifferent coramand of the English language,
which he is said to have spoken with a "bluff
Westphalia accent," he was little likely to render
himself popular beyond the imraediate circle of
his mistresses and friends. However charming he
may have been in his social hours, his manners to
the world in general were ever distant, repulsive,
and reserved.
Nevertheless, George the Second was what may
be styled a good-natured man. Though stern,
he was just ; though cold in his manners, he
frequently gave evidences of feeling which al
most amounted to sensibility ; and though fond
of money even to penuriousness, he could be
generous when his better feelings were awakened.
When a young officer of marines, who had lost
both his legs at the siege of Fort St. PhUip,
represented to him that he had in vain memo
rialised the government for compensation for his
wounds, the king not only presented him with
;^500, but peremptorily insisted on his being
granted a pension of ;£200 a year. The tender
ness, also, with which he mourned for his deceased
queen, as well as his kind and considerate conduct
to Sir Robert Walpole, when that minister was
driven from power, are proofs that neither a
want of gratitude nor of susceptibility are to be
numbered among his faults. The last mterview
between the king and Walpole was, perhaps, the
most affecting which ever took place between a

3X8 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
sovereign and his fallen minister. Of late, time
and disappointments had in some degree soured
the tempers of both, and some unpleasant asperi
ties had recently roughened their personal inter
course ; but now at this, their last parting, every
feeling of unpleasantness was forgotten, and the
king embraced his old servant and tried friend,
with a tenderness to which it would be difficult
to do justice. "On Walpole kneeling down to
kiss his hand," says Coxe, " the king burst into
tears, and the ex-rainister was so moved with that
instance of regard that he continued for some
time in that posture ; and the king was so touched
that he was unable to raise him from the ground.
When he at length rose, the king testified his
regret for the loss of so faithful a counsellor,
expressed his gratitude for his long services, and
his hopes of receiving his advice on iraportant
occasions." It was to the credit of George the
Second that, though surrounded by the enemies
of Walpole, he continued to respect and consult
the fallen rainister to the last day of his life.
The king's character for good-humour may be
Ulustrated by the following anecdote : At the
battle of Quebec, an old soldier, a Scotchman of
the name of Donald Macpherson, found himself
separated from his companions, and in the midst
of several of the enemy. In this situation, un
aided, except by his own arm, he laid about him
with such extraordinary vigour and skill that by

GEORGE THE SECOND. 319
the time his corarades carae to his assistance a
number of his opponents lay dead at his feet. As
soon as he found himself master of the field, he
was seen to sit down quietly by a heap of the
slaughtered foe, and, after wiping the perspiration
from his face, to take his " mull " from his pocket,
and indulge in a hearty and protracted pinch of
snuff. The story was rauch talked of at the
period; the old soldier and his "mull" became
objects of general curiosity, and on the return of
the regiment to which he belonged, from Canada,
the king expressed a desire to behold the hero
of the day. Accordingly, the gallant feUow was
formally introduced at court by his captain, and
on his kneeling down, the king as usual, extended
his hand to him to kiss. Partly, however, from
being abashed at the novelty of his situation, and
partly, perhaps, frora being accustomed to have
frequent demands made on his mull by those who
knew of its connection with his act of prowess,
the man, instead of complying with the forms
required by etiquette, drew the mull frora his
pocket, and presented it open to his sovereign.
The king laughed as he took a pinch from the
horn, and, when the offender against courtly eti
quette quitted his presence, gave directions that
he should be promoted to the rank of lieutenant,
with permission to retire on half pay for life.
The foUowmg amusing instance of the king's
good-humour is related to have occurred during

320 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
one of his journeys through HoUand, on his return
frora his German dominions. His carriage hap
pening to break down at some distance from a
town, he was corapelled, with Lord Delamere and
his other attendants, to take refuge in a neigh
bouring public-house. The place afforded but
wretched accommodation for a court, the only
articles of refreshment which could be obtained
being coffee and schiedam ; and yet, when the
bill was produced, the man had the impudence to
deraand a hundred pounds. The king naturally
expressed sorae anger at the iraposition, and, during
an expostulation which followed. Lord Delamere
inquired indignantly whether coffee and gin were
such scarce articles in those parts ? " No," said
the man, " but kings are ! " George the Second
laughed heartUy at the rejoinder, and, in spite of
the value which he usually attached to money,
ordered the bUl to be paid.
That the king was desirous of rendering himself
popular with his English subjects there can be no
question. One day, on visiting Richmond Gardens,
he found the gate locked, and some well-dressed
persons waiting outside for admission. He sent
directly for the head gardener, and m a tone of
anger desired hira immediately to open the gate.
"My subjects, sir," he said, "walk where they
please." The same gardener, complaining to him
on one occasion that the visitors to the gardens
were in the habit of stealing the flower roots and

GEORGE THE SECOND. 321
tearing up the sraall shrubs, " Plant more, then,
you blockhead ! " he said, at the sarae time shak
ing his cane in the face of the complainant.
Hume, the historian, in a letter to Sir John
Pringle, dated loth February, 1773, relates an
anecdote of George the Second which is rauch to
his credit. After giving his reasons for believing
that the Pretender paid a secret visit to England
in 1753:' "About five years ago," he proceeds,
"I told this story to Lord Holderness, who was
secretary of state in the year 1753, and I added
that I supposed this piece of intelligence had at
that time escaped his lordship. ' By no means,' said
he, ' and who do you think first told it me ? — it
was the king himself, who subjoined : "And what
do you think, my lord, I should do with him .¦' " '
Lord Holderness owned that he was puzzled how
to reply, for if he declared his real sentiments,
they might savour of indifference to the royal
family. The king perceived his embarrassment,
and extracted him from it by adding : ' My lord, I
shaU just do nothing at all ; and when he is tired
of England he shall go abroad again.' " " I think,"
adds Hume, " that, for the honour of the late king,
this story ought to be more generally known."
This anecdote speaks no less in favour of the
' The Pretender had previously paid a visit to England in
1750, on which occasion he actually slept five nights in London.
On one evenrng durmg his stay he drank tea with Doctor King,
at his lodgings.

322 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
king^s liberality of feeling than of his good-nature.
He was inclined, indeed, to use power with modera
tion, and to be equally tolerant in religion as in
poUtics. One of the first sentiments which he
gave utterance to, after ascending the throne, is
said to have been in favour of toleration in spiritual
matters. As long, he said, as he wore the British
crown, no subject of his should be molested on
account of his rehgion.
Liberal as was George the Second on these sub
jects, and though a latitudinarian, it is believed, in
regard to his religious principles, he was, neverthe
less, singularly addicted to superstition. Adopting
the idle prejudices of his native country, he placed
implicit faith in the German notion of vampires ;
indeed, so bigoted was his credulity in these mat
ters, that he is known to have more than once
quarreUed with Sir Robert Walpole for speaking
irreverently of those "imaginary blood-suckers."
Like most of the members of his faraily, George
the Second appears to have been a stranger to
fear. His passion was the mUitary profession, and
the only taste which he possessed was for raUitary
parade. During the rebellion of 1745 he enter-
tamed serious thoughts of placing himself at the
head of his troops, and leading them against the
invaders. About the same period, happening to
enter the councU-chamber, when the members
present were discussing the best means of pro
tecting his person in the event of danger, " Gen-

GEORGE THE SECOND. 323
tlemen," he said, "take care of yourselves, for my
part, I am resolved to die King of England."
A remarkable proof of the king's readiness, and
even anxiety, to incur danger was afforded by the
extraordinary fact of his challenging his brother-
in-law, Frederick William, King of Prussia, to
single combat. The quarrel, it seems, originated
in George the Second having proposed his second
daughter, instead of the princess royal, as the wife
of the heir-apparent to the throne of Prussia, —
a distinction which the King of Prussia chose to
regard as a personal affront to himself. Accord
ingly, a correspondence took place between the
two courts, which, after a succession of mutual
recriminations, terminated by a suggestion on the
part of one monarch, which was readily listened
to by the other, that their disputes could be settled
by no other means than the sword. They were
to have met in the territory of HUdesheim, be
tween Hanover and Saltzdahl, the affair proceed
ing to such lengths, that Brigadier-General Sutton
was named by the King of England, and Colonel
Derscheim by the King of Prussia, as their re
spective seconds. That the quarrel did not termi
nate in a personal encounter was not the fault of
George the Second. It was, indeed, only pre
vented by the prompt interference of Borche, the
ambassador of Frederick William at the court of
St. James's, who hastened to Berlin as soon as the
danger became imrainent. On his introduction to

324 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
his royal master, he found him in an ungovernable
passion ; when, instead of vainly attempting to
dissuade him from the contest, by making use of
the obvious arguments suggested by state expe
diency, he affected to agree with him that he had
received an irreparable insult, admitting that the
affair could only be terminated by a duel. At
the same time, however, he reminded his master
that he had but recently risen from a bed of sick
ness ; that he was still in a weak state ; that he
might possibly raeet with a relapse on the very
eve of the encounter ; and in that case, he added,
the world would naturally put the worst construc
tion on his conduct, should he unfortunately be
prevented from keeping his engagement. These
arguments produced the desired effect. Borche
obtained his master's consent to take no steps in
the affau: for a fortnight, and the two monarchs
being thus afforded leisure for their passions to
subside, the misunderstanding terminated in a
peaceable, if not an amicable arrangement.
The last opportunity afforded to George the
Second of displaying his personal gaUantry was
at the successful but unimportant engagement
near Dettmgen, in 1743. The kmg joined the
headquarters of the English general, the Earl of
Stair, on the 19th of June in that year, and
on the 27th the battle was fought. Previously to
the engagement, he rode between the first and
second lines with his sword drawn, exhorting the

GEORGE THE SECOND. 325
troops to fight for the honour of England, and
no sooner did the action comraence than he was
seen to expose himself unflinchingly, and almost
rashly, to a heavy discharge of musketry and
cannon. His intrepidity nearly cost him his life.
In the heat of the engageraent his horse became
unmanageable, and galloped with him directly
toward the enemy's lines. Frederick the Great
observes, in his " History of His Own Times : "
"The King of England was on horseback, and
rode forward to reconnoitre the enemy. His
horse, frightened at -the cannonading, ran away
with his Majesty, and nearly carried him into the
midst of the French lines. Fortunately, one of
his attendants succeeded in stopping him. The
king then abandoned his horse, and fought on
foot, at the head of his Hanoverian battalions.
With his sword drawn, and his body placed in
the attitude of a fencing-master who is about to
make a lunge in ca-rte, he continued to expose
himself, without flinching, to the enemy's flre."
The person whose good fortune it was to arrest
the king's progress toward the enemy's lines was
General Cyrus Trapand, at this period only an
ensign, but whom the king afterward advanced
rapidly in his profession. As soon as the king
alighted from his runaway charger, he observed,
with some humour, " Now I ara on ray legs again,
I can be certain of not running away."
There is extant a curious letter, written by an

326 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
officer of the name of Kendal, who fought in
Lord Ashburnham's troop, which contains a spir
ited account of the king's gallantry and personal
demeanour on the field of battle. " The French,"
says the writer, "fired at his Majesty from a
battery of twelve cannon, but levelled too high.
I saw the balls go within half a yard of his head.
The Duke d'Aremburg desired him to go out
of danger. He answered, ' Don't tell me of dan
ger; I'U be even with them.' He is certainly
the boldest man I ever saw. His horse being
frightened, ran away with him, but he soon
stopped him. The French got into the corner
of a wood to flank our right. The king then
drew his sword, and ordered the Hanoverian foot
and horse, and some English, through the wood,
and rode about like a lion. He drew them up in
line of battle himself, ordered six cannon to the
right, and bade them fire on the flank of the
French. He stood by tiU they fired; they did
great execution, kiUing thirty or forty at a shot.
Then he went to the foot, and ordered them not
to fire tUl the French came close, who were about
a hundred yards distant. Then the French fired
upon us directly, and the shot flew again as thick
as haU. Then the king flourished his sword, and
said, ' Now, boys, now for the honour of England ;
fire, and behave bravely, and the French wiU soon
run.' Then the French foot gave a huzza, and
fired very fast, but our men fired too fast for

GEORGE THE SECOND. 327
them, and soon made them retreat, and then
gave another huzza, and fired. We had neither
victuals, drink, nor tents to lie in after the work
was done. The king stood in the field tUl ten
that night."
The regiment that principally distinguished it
self at the battle of Dettingen was the Scotch
Grays, who repulsed the French gens-darmes with
much loss, and, in consequence, grew to be in great
favour with their sovereign. Some years after
ward the king happened to be reviewing some
English regiments before the French ambassador,
when the latter, after admitting that they were fine
troops, remarked disparagingly, " But your Maj
esty has never seen the gens-d'armes of France 1 "
"No," replied the king, "but I can tell you, and
so can they, that my Scotch Grays have." The
gallantry displayed by George the Second at the
battle of Dettingen was fully appreciated by his
English subjects ; nor would it be easy to exag
gerate the enthusiasm which the tidings of the
victory, and the reports of the king's personal
prowess, excited in England. The Duke of New
castle writes to Lord Carteret, a few days after the
victory : " It is impossible to describe the general
satisfaction and joy that appear everywhere; and
what particularly affects all honest men, is the
share the king has personally had in this great
action, which I verUy believe will be of lasting
service to him, and make impressions in his favour

328 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
which falsehood and malice wUl not be able here
after to efface." "We are all mad," writes Hor
ace Walpole to Mr. Chute; "drums, trumpets,
bumpers, bonfires ! The mob are wUd, and cry,
'Long live King George and the Duke of Cum
berland,' and Lord Stair, and Lord Carteret, and
General Clayton that's dead ;' my Lord Lovel says :
'"Thanks to the gods that John' has done his duty.' "
Among other honours paid to the king's valour,
and to the success of his arms, was an ode, which
was set to music, and which the king to the close
of his long life took delight in having performed
in his presence. On these occasions it was his
invariable custom to appear in the identical dress
and accoutrements which, thirty-five years before,
he had worn at the battle of Oudenarde, when
serving under the great Marlborough. In this,
the dress of a past generation, excited by the
recollection of his valour, and the inspiriting
sounds of the music, the old monarch was
accustomed to strut proudly about the drawing-
room at St. James's, to the great amusement
of the younger courtiers.
As far as we have hitherto proceeded in our
' The celebrated Duke of Cumberland, second son of George
the Second, who exhibited great proofs of courage during the
battle of Dettingen, in which action he was .shot through the calf
of the leg. This was his first campaign.
»John Bull.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 329
task of delineating the character of George the
Second, the portrait has not been an uninviting
one. There is a reverse, however, to every pic
ture ; it is necessary to balance the evil with the
good, and, in the performance of this duty, it wUl
be shown that the king was not without many
faUings, both as a monarch and a man. As a
sovereign, his principal offence was the unfair
preference which he gave to the interests of his
native electorate over those of the country which
had called his faraily frora obscurity, and had
elevated them to become the rulers of her great
destinies. As a private individual, his chief fail
ings were avarice, an undue attachment to women,
and his unworthy conduct both as a son and a
father. A summary of the lives which have been sacri
ficed, and of the misfortunes which have accrued
to England, in consequence of' the overweening
attachment, both of the first and second George,
to their German possessions, would form a strik
ing and melancholy episode in our annals. In
reference to the enorraous abuses to which this
unfortunate partiality gave birth. Lord Chester
field, in a debate in the House of Lords, on
the best means of defeating the intrigues of
the Pretender, observed, with his usual caustic
severity : " If we have a mind effectually to
prevent the Pretender from ever obtaining this
crown, we should make him Elector of Hanover,

330 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
for the people of England wUl never fetch another
king frora thence." About the same period that
Lord Chesterfield uttered this bitter sarcasm, a
considerable sensation was created by the appear
ance of a pamphlet (the authorship of which
was commonly attributed to Hugh, third Earl
of Marchmont) in which it was maintained that,
in every peace made since the accession of the
house of Brunswick, the interests of England
had uniforraly been sacrificed to those of Han
over. One particular fact is worthy of being
recorded, that, during the discussions on the cele
brated Act of Settlement, which entaUed the crown
of England on the descendants of the Electress
Sophia, Lord Halifax, and others of the English
ministry (foreseeing those evils and inconveniences
which were subsequently produced by the union of
the two countries), endeavoured to obtain a provi
sion, that no member of the house of Hanover,
who should hereafter be caUed to the throne of
this country, should, at the same time, retain his
German dominions. According to Speaker Ons
low, a proposition to this effect was actually made
to the elector, afterward George the First, but
was immediately rejected by that monarch. On
such terras, he said, he could not think of quit
ting his own country, where he had at least the
advantage of certain possession.
Another remarkable circumstance, which affects
the present subject, is the fact that both George

GEORGE THE SECOND. 33I
the First and George the Second, though unwUl-
ing to forego their claim to the possession of
Hanover in their own Iffetime, yet discovered
the strongest anxiety to deprive their respective
heirs of the succession. In each case they seem
to have been influenced partly by personal pique,
and partly by a desire to purchase popularity
from the English portion of their subjects, to
whom the narae of Hanover had long been an
offence. In the case of George the First, his
dislike to his eldest son carried him to such
lengths that he long conteraplated the feasi-
bUity of obtaining an Act of Parliament, which
should compel his heir to resign his German
dominions as soon as he should be called to
the throne. The king's wishes were actually
considered at a solemn conference of the min
isters and others, and it was only by the decided
dissent of the Lord Chancellor Parker, afterward
Earl of Macclesfield (who declared the measure
to be "inexpedient and impracticable, and liable
to be followed by very dangerous consequences "),
that the proposition was prevented from taking
effect. George the Second, whose dislike of his eldest
son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was only ex
ceeded by the aversion with which he himself had
been regarded by his own father, subsequently
endeavoured to gratify that dislike, and to reap
popular applause, by the same means which had

332 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
forraerly been attempted to be practised on him
self. In reviving this singular method of annoy
ing the heir to the crown, the king had the good
fortune to obtain the concurrence of Sir Robert
Walpole. It was at the period when that minis
ter was hurrying toward his raeraorable downfall ;
and as he was thus afforded an opportunity of
gratifying alike the king's aversion to the Prince
of Wales, and the people's antipathy to Hanover,
we cannot wonder that he should gladly have
hailed so apparently favourable an occasion of
retrieving his own lost influence.
The elation which Walpole experienced in con-
teraplating these cheering prospects is evident
from a curious conversation which he held, about
this period, with Speaker Onslow. The latter
hiraself informs us : "A little whUe before Sir
Robert Walpole's fall (and as a popular act to save
hiraself, for he went very unwUlingly out of his
offices and power), he took me one day aside, and
said : ' What will you say. Speaker, if this hand of
mine shall bring a message from the king to the
House of Coraraons, declaring his consent to hav
ing any of his family, after his own death, inca
pable of inheriting and enjoying the croAvn, and
possessing the electoral dominions at the same
tirae .'' ' My answer was, ' Sir, it will be as a mes
sage frora heaven.' He replied, 'It wiU be done.'
But it was not done, and I have reason to believe
it would have been opposed and rejected at that

GEORGE THE SECOND. 333
time, because it carae from hira and by the
means of those who had always been most clamor
ous for it ; and thus, perhaps, the opportunity was
lost ; when wUl it occur again .-' " It has been
thought, indeed, that Frederick, Prince of Wales,
would have gladly joined his father in effecting
this important measure, had he been certain that
the credit of it would attach to hiraself.
WhUe referring to the jealousy which existed
between George the Second and his heir, we raay
mention that the king's unequivocal detestation of
his eldest son led him to the commission of a
crime which, if it did not actually amount to mur
der, was only because it was not cognisable by the
laws. The circumstances of the case were as
foUows : A young man of the name of Paul Wells
was tried at Oxford in the autumn of 1749 for
having committed a coraparatively trifling offence.
Being sued by a Mrs. Crooke for a sum of money,
amounting to somewhat more than nine pounds,
he altered the date of the bond to the ensuing
year, for the purpose of evading the suit for twelve
months. The offence was clearly brought home
to him, but as it was of a' very trifling nature, and
scarcely amounted to forgery, he was assured of
his pardon, and subsequently recommended to
mercy by the judge. The king, however, contrary
to aU precedent, refused to commute the sentence,
and this, not because he had formed a different
opinion in regard to the magnitude of the offence,

334 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
but because the judge, WUles, from whom the rec-
oraraendation eraanated, was a friend and favourite
of the Prince of Wales. Wells was accordingly
executed at Oxford, on the ist of September, 1749.
The conduct of George the Second toward his
chUdren, more especially when young, was not
such as to induce thera to enter very heartily into
his wishes and views. It was not in his nature to
care rauch for chUdren, and, in addition to a want
of sympathy with their pleasures and pursuits, he
seeras, in his own faraily, to have been a rigid and
unfeeling disciplinarian. Previously to his acces
sion to the throne, the celebrated Duchess of
Marlborough happened to pay a visit to the nur
sery of his princess, when one of the royal children,
who had recently received a severe castigation,
was crying bitterly frora the effects of the punish
raent. The duchess good-naturedly endeavoured
to console the chUd, when the prince, with an air
of triuraph, interrupted her. "The reason," he
said, "that you English are never well bred, is
because you are never whipped when you are
young." Only when his children were swept
away frora him by death, did his feelings as a
father seem to have been sensibly aroused. When
his daughter, the Queen of Denmark, died, " This,"
he said, " has been a fatal year to my famUy ! I
lost my eldest son, — but I am glad of it ; then
the Prince of Orange died, and left everything
in confusion. Poor little Edward has been cut

GEORGE THE SECOND. 335
open,' and now the Queen of Denmark is gone ! I
know I did not love my children when they were
young ; I hated to have thera running into ray room ;
but now I love them as well as most fathers."
When he was deprived of his eldest son, Frederick,
Prince of Wales, opposed to each other as they had
long been, he showed himself, in the first instance,
deeply affected by the event. He was seated at
a card-table when the tidings were announced to
him by Lord North. He immediately arose, and
descended to the apartments of Lady Yarmouth,
before whora he presented hiraself, looking ex
tremely pale and agitated. The only words which
escaped him were, " // est mort ! "
Although constitutionally a good-natured man,
George the Second, when anything particular
occurred to ruffle the usually equable disposition
of his mind, was in the habit of displaying an
irritabUity of temper which probably went far
in alienating from him the affections of his chU
dren. It is a fact, well known to the surviving
sons of George the Third, that when that mon
arch was Prince of Wales his grandfather actually
struck him in a moment of ungovernable passion.
The incident occurred in one of the apartments at
Hampton Court, and it is a tradition in the royal
family that, such was the disgust which it pro
duced on the mind of George the Third, on his
accession to the throne he could never be pre-
' He was operated upon for an imposthume in his side.

336 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
vailed upon to think of Hampton Court as his resi
dence. It would be interesting, could we trace the
secret history of this occurrence, but unfortunately
it is a case where research is of little avaU. Lord
Waldegrave, indeed, in his memoirs, mentions an
interview between George the Second and his
grandson, when the king's manner was "not
quite gracious," and the prince was "flustered
and sulky ; " but there was nothing in his narra
tive to show that their disagreements proceeded
to the lengths we have recorded.
It was the custora of George the Second, in
particular raoments of impatience and fretfulness,
to give vent to his passion by kicking his hat
about the room. " When incensed, either with
his ministers or his attendants," says Wraxall,
" he was sometimes not master of his actions, nor
attentive to preserve his dignity. On these occa
sions his hat and, it is asserted, his wig became
frequently the objects on which he expended his
anger." On an occasion of his suffering severely from a
pain in his thumb, finding that the reraedies pre
scribed by his regular physicians afforded him no
relief, he sent for a Doctor Ward, a celebrated
quack practitioner of the period. This person, in
the course of examining the nature of the hurt,
on a sudden caused the king such acute though
momentary torture that the latter not only cursed
him as a rascal, but accompanied the abuse with

GEORGE THE SECOND. 337
a kick on the shins. Subsequently, Ward had the
good fortune to effect a coraplete cure, and so
grateful was the king at obtaining relief from
the pain, that he presented the doctor with a
very handsome carriage and horses, and gave
his nephew an ensigncy in the guards. The lat
ter afterward rose to be a general in the royal
service. That George the Second could sometimes Hsten
to reason, even in moraents when he was unusually
irritated or enraged, is proved by the following
agreeable anecdote related by the Duchess of
Marlborough. A person, who supposed he had
reason to complain of an act of oppression which
he had experienced at the hands of the minister,
contrived to obtain an audience of his sovereign,
and formally demanded the justice which he be
lieved to be his due. The king listened to him
with the greatest impatience, and was about to
reply, evidently in very angry terms, when the
other boldly, though respectfully, anticipated him.
Apologising for his interruption, he implored that,
before his Majesty answered him, he would re
member he was speaking to a gentleman ! " This,"
says the Duchess of Marlborough, "changed his
Majesty's countenance, and he complied with
what was desired."
One of the ruling weaknesses of George the
Second was an mordinate love of women, and,
like his father, he maintained more than one pro-

338 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
fessed mistress about his court. In respect to
the libertinism of George the First, some excuse
raight be advanced for his infringement of the laws
of religion and society. He had the misfortune
to be separated frora his wife; he w-as ignorant
of the manners, and even of the language, of the
people araong whom he dwelt ; the society of a
foreign land was paiticularl)- disagreeable to him ;
and, moreover, his professed mistresses, both from
their signal want of beauty, and their being
considerably advanced in years, rathei" tended to
excite ridicule than to set an example of profli
gacy. On the other hand, George tho Seamd was
married to a woman whom he affected to lo\e
and respect. Ho could advance tho excuses of
neither solitude, youth, nor strong passions ; and,
indeed, it would seem that he was more influenced
by the unworthy ambition of acquiring a char.u-
ter for gallantry and intrigue, than from any other
motive. Unlike his father, however, George the Second
neither allowed his mistresses to squander his
money, nor to interfere unduly in matters con
nected with the state. He was too fond of money
to allow it readily to quit his possession, and is
said too deeply to have lamented the avamplc his
father had set him, of being governed by his mis
tresses, to be likely to fall into a similar error.
Of the two celebrated mistresses of George the
Second, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth,

GEORGE THE SECOND. 339
it may be questioned whether the former ever had
it in her power to assist a single friend ; and it is
known that when the latter was once desirous of
obtaining an unimportant situation for one of her
servants, she was compelled to apply to a third
person to solicit the favour from the king. " Do
not mention," she said, " that it is my request, for
if it is known that I have applied, I have no chance
of succeeding." Even in his old age the king con
tinued to affect a character for gallantry, and to
pay a chivalrous homage to beauty. When his
grandson, afterward King George the Third, re
jected the hand of the Princess Sophia of Bruns
wick Wolfenbiittel, a charming and sensible young
lady, the old king observed, with great eagerness,
to Lord Waldegrave, " If I were only twenty years
younger, the princess, instead of being refused by
a Prince of Wales, should at once have been Queen
of England."
The king's love of money was another unfavour
able feature in his character, and one which was
sufficiently notorious to his subjects. It was re
lated of him, as a characteristic anecdote, that the
House of Commons having gratified him on some
point in which the interests of his darling Han
over were concerned, he sent a summons for his
German _ cook to attend him. " Get me a very
good supper," he said, "get me aU the varieties ;"
and, in the fuUness of his heart, he added, " I don't
mind expense."

340 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Horace Walpole, in a letter to Sir Horace Mann,
dated the 31st of January, 1750, has a passage on
the subject of the king's parsimoniousness, which
is not unamusing. " You wUl hear little news,"
he says, " from England, but of robberies ; the
numbers of disbanded soldiers and saUors have
all taken to the road, or, rather, to the street ;
people are almost afraid of stirring after it is dark.
My Lady Albemarle was robbed the other night
in Great Russel Street by nine men ; the king
gave her a gold watch and chain the next day.
She says, ' The manner was all ; ' and indeed so
it was, for I never saw a raore frippery present,
considering how great a favourite she is, and my
Lady Yarmouth's friend." "The monarch," adds
Walpole, " is never less generous than when he has
a mind to be so ; the only present he ever made
my father was a large diamond, cracked quite
through ; once or twice, in his younger and gal
lant days, he has brought out a handful of maimed
topazes and amethysts, and given them to be raffled
for by the maids of honour."
George the Second, however, could occasionally
be liberal ; and indeed his thriftiness seems to
have shown itself rather in the value which he
attached to a single guinea, and in his habit
of begrudging the disbursement of very small
sums, than on occasions when his better feel
ings were aroused, or when he was called upon
to display a becoming magnificence. " Too great

GEORGE THE SECOND. 34I
lan attention to money," says Lord Waldegrave,
" seeras to be his capital failing ; however, he is
; always just and sometiraes charitable, though sel-
( dom generous." He is known to have once spent
; a considerable time in turning over logs of wood
to discover a guinea which he had accidentally
dropped ; and yet at another period we find him
presenting ;^2,ooo to Trinity College, Cambridge,
as the price of an evening's entertainment in their
hall. In support of our assertion that the king was
inclined to be niggardly in small suras, rather than
sparing of large ones, it may be mentioned that at
his death his savings proved to be no very consid
erable sum. With his frugal habits, and taking into
account the large incorae which he derived from
Hanover and the civil list, it was expected that he
would die the possessor of great wealth. He was,
however, found to be possessed of no more than
;^3 50,000, although at the period of his accession
to the throne he is known to have been worth
within ;^5o,ooo of that sura.
Mr. J. Wright, under secretary of state, writes
to Sir Andrew Mitchell on the 7th of Noveraber,
1760, about a fortnight after the king's death :
" The king's wiU is so variously reported that I do
not presume to vouch any one of them. That
of the most authority I have is, that he left only
;£3 5,000, to be equally divided between the duke,'
' The Duke of Cumberland.

342 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Princess Amelia," and the Landgravine of Hesse.'
A small parcel of bank-notes, about ;^6,ooo, was
found in his drawer, with a desire of their being
sent to the countess,^ which, with two thousand
guineas the king "• found loose, were sent immedi
ately, and I hear was all he left ; that the great
distresses in Germany since this war began had
rim away with all that he might otherwise have
left." Hanover, it seems, was frequently a severe tax
on his purse. He loved money rauch, but he
loved the electorate more. According to a mera-
orandum found in his own handwriting, the last
war, in defence of his German dominions, cost
him as much as ;i^2, 500,000, nearly the amount
of the savings of thirty years. In addition to
this sura he had borrowed ;£200,ooo in Eng
land, which were spent in support of the war ;
and, moreover, 200,000 rix-doUars, of which he
had obtained a loan frora the Hanoverian chan
cery, were expended in furthering this favourite
object. England had conferred so vast a benefit on
George the Second and his famUy, by making
them the rulers of her destinies and the dis-

' The king's second daughter.
= The Princess Mary, the king's fourth daughter.
' AmeUa de Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth, the king's
mistress. * George the Thurd.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 343
pensers of her vast wealth, that she could not
but feel indignant at the invidious disposition of
those means, which, instead of being expended
in promoting industry, or fostering science at
home, went to advance the interests of a foreign
and unimportant principality. Between England
and her early German sovereigns there existed no
natural or endearing tie. George the Second cared
little either for the prosperity or aggrandisement
of this country ; his affections were with the petty
electorate which gave him birth ; he was ignorant
of the character of the people among whom he
dwelt ; he had no feeling for science, in the very
country where science had its birthplace ; and he
had no taste for the fine arts among a people who
affected particularly to cherish them.
The only man of genius whom he is known to
have fostered was a foreigner. That foreigner was
Voltaire. On the arrival of the latter in England,
he found that the house of business on which he
had brought letters of credit had faUed, and conse
quently that he was reduced to difficulties, if not
to absolute want. George the Second immedi
ately sent hira a sum of money, and by lending
his name to a subscription for the " Henriade,"
assisted in rendering his residence in England
alike profitable and agreeable.
Horace Walpole says of George the Second : " I
believe he would have preferred a guinea to a
composition as perfect as 'Alexander's Feast.'"

344 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Pope, perhaps, intended to ridicule his want of
taste when he exclaimed :
" Poems I heeded (now be-rhymed so long)
No more than thou. Great George ! a birthday song."
For poetry he seems to have entertained the
utmost contempt ; music had but slight charms
for him ; and painting came not within the scope
of his taste. Some few pictures were purchased
by him, which are now heirlooms of the Crown ;
these, however, from the stamp of voluptuousness
which characterises them, were evidently pur
chased rather with the view of gratifying a de
praved taste than from any genuine feeling for
the arts. These pictures, some of which are not
without merit, are shut up frora view in sorae of
the untenanted apartments of Hampton Court.
When the great Hogarth had completed his
picture of the march of the guards to Finchley
Coramon, it was carried to George the Second for
his inspection and approval. When the king had
regarded it for sorae time, he turned to the lord
in waiting, and inquired, " Who is this Hogarth ? "
Being told that he was professionally a painter, " I
hate painting and poetry both," he said ; " neither
one nor the other ever did any good." Some
attempt was made to explain to him that the
representation was intended to be merely an amus
ing and harmless burlesque. "What, a painter
buri esque a soldier ! " was the angry reply ; " he

GEORGE THE SECOND. 345
deserves to be picketed for his insolence; away
with his trumpery." Hogarth had originally de
signed to dedicate the engraving frora his cele
brated picture to the king, but this scene having
been described to him, he wisely refrained from
putting his intentions in practice.
For the stage George the Second had some
feeling, though it was accompanied by but an
indifferent taste. At the time when Garrick was
first attracting the admiration of the town, the
king attended one of his representations of Rich
ard the Third. The genius, however, of the great
actor had no charms for hira ; while, on the other
hand, an indifferent perforraer, who represented
the pait of the lord raayor, obtained frora him
the loudest and most unequivocal applause. The
whole interest which he conceived in the play was
derived from the appearance of this personage on
the stage, and, when deprived of the gratifica
tion which his appearance afforded him, he could
not conceal his impatience from his attendants.
"When,'' he said, "will that lord mayor come
again.? I like that lord mayor; when wUl that
lord mayor come again .' "
The king, in the last year of his life, is said to
have derived considerable amusement from hearing
Macklin's farce of " Love k la Mode " read to him,
the blunders and eventual success of the Irishman
affording him high enjo3-ment. The infirmities of
age rendering his appearance at the theatre irk-

346 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
some, he paid Macklin the compliment of sending
to hira for the loan of his manuscript.' The per
son who read it aloud to him was one of his Ger
man attendants, whose knowledge of the English
language was so limited that the farce is said to
have occupied eleven weeks in reading.
George the Second once attended the Haymarket
Theatre for the purpose of seeing Foote perform
the humorous character of Major Sturgeon, in his
agreeable comedy of "The Mayor of Garret."
Foote, whose admirable representation of his own
fantastic conception is well known, received the
king on his arrival at the theatre in the grotesque
dress of the city militia officer. Major Sturgeon.
His habits of burlesquing real life rendered his
obeisances somewhat ludicrous, and as his personal
appearance was either unknown to or forgotten by
the king, his repeated bows and ludicrous costume
could not but attract the attention of the sover
eign. At length, as Foote kept backing and bow
ing before hira, the king, with utter araazeraent
depicted on his countenance, turned to the lord in
waiting. "Who on earth," he said, "is that man
in regimentals, and in what corps can he possibly
serve .' "
The king's frequent habit of attending the
theatre raay be traced rather to a native love of
the ridiculous, than to any higher raotives of either
' " Love a la Mode " was brought out at Drury Lane Theatre
in 1760, and was first printed, in 4to, in 1793.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 347
regard or admiration for the histrionic art. The
most ludicrous burlesque of the manners of ordi
nary life seems to have been preferred by him
to a tragedy of the highest order; no one more
heartily enjoyed a joke ; and those who had favours
to demand of him appear, on more than one occa
sion, to have succeeded in their objects rather by
exciting the king's risibUity at some whimsical
and original mode of preferring their solicitations,
than by calling to their aid the advocacy of others,
or trusting to their own individual merits. An
officer of the narae of Otway, whose professional
services had long been neglected, and who had
seen several officers, junior in rank to hiraself,
preferred to the comraand of regiments which from
time to time becarae vacant, at length determined
to memoriaUse his sovereign on the subject of his
wrongs. Being a person whose education had
been somewhat neglected, he was corapelled to
employ the chaplain of his regiment to draw up
the requisite petition, which the latter concluded
according to a long established form : " And your
petitioner will ever pray." The word "pray"
grated on the ear of the soldier, who, accord
ingly, insisted that, however appropriate might be
the phrase when made use of by one of the clerical
profession, the word "fight" ought unquestionably
to be substituted when the petitioner happened to
be a soldier. The chaplain warmly argued with
him on the absurdity of his reasoning, but, in spite

348 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
of all he could say, Otway eventually presented a
memorial to the king concluding, " And your peti
tioner wUl ever fight." George the Second is said
not only to have laughed heartily at this original
form of appeal, but to have presented Otway with
the coraraand of a vacant regiraent, notwithstand
ing a very decided opposition on the part of his
ministry, who were desirous of conferring the ap
pointment on one of their own political supporters.
The king was once seated at a card-table at
Kensington, when the Countess of Deloraine,'
who usually formed one of his intimate society,
and who, indeed, was thought to be the rival of
Lady Yarmouth for his affections, happened to be
one of the party at the garae. In the midst of the
play one of the princesses quietly glided behind
Lady Deloraine, and, suddenly drawing the chair
from under her, caused her to faU in a very ludi
crous posture on the ground. The king, by his
repeated laughter, showed himself highly diverted
at the disaster of his favourite, a circumstance
' Elizabeth Fenwick, widow of Henry Scott, third Earl of
Deloraine, and governess to the young princesses, daughters of
George the Second. There is a passage in an indifferent lampoon
by Lord Hervey, which would lead us to suppose that her conduct
was far from being exemplary. Lord Carteret, addressing the
king, is supposed to say :
"There's another court booby, at once hot and dull,
Your pious pimp Schutz, a mean Hanover tool ;
For your card-play at night he too shall remain.
With virtuous, and sober, and wise Deloraine."
Lady Deloraine died at an advanced age in 1794.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 349
which so enraged the insulted lady that, some time
afterward, seizing the king's chair, she occasioned
him the same mishap which she had recently
experienced herself. " The monarch," says Horace
Walpole, "like Louis the Fourteenth, was raortal
in the part which touched the ground." Diverted
as he had been when the misfortune occurred to
another, he regarded the insult as unpardonable
when offered to himself, and henceforward Lady
Deloraine was banished the court.
A practical joke, which was played by the Duke
of Montagu on Heidegger, the " Swiss Count " of
the Tatler, and once a celebrated conductor of
operas and masquerades, is said to have been
heartily enjoyed by George the Second. A few
days previous to one of Heidegger's faraous mas
querades, at which the king had promised to be
present, the Duke of Montagu invited the German
to sup with him at the DevU's Tavern,' in Fleet
' The DevU's Tavern, which for nearly three centuries was
celebrated as a place of recreation, stood on the south side of
Fleet Street, a few doors from Temple Bar. " Near Temple
Bar," says Pennant, " is the DevU's Tavern, so called from its
sign of St. Dunstan seizing the evil spirit by the nose with a pair
of hot tongs. Ben Jonson has immortaUsed it by his ' Leges
Conviviales,' which he wrote for the regulation of a club of wits,
held here in a room he dedicated to Apollo, over the chimney-
piece of which they are preserved. The tavem was, in his days,
kept by Simon Wadloe; whom, in a copy of verses over the
door of the Apollo, he dignified with the title of King of
Skinkers." The Devil's Tavern was puUed down about fifty
years smce, and ChUd's Buildings erected on its site.

350 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
Street, and plied him with wine tUl he became
helplessly intoxicated. WhUe in a state of iiisen-
sibUity Mrs. Salmon,' a well-known modeller in
wax, was introduced to take a cast of his face,
which was afterward painted to the very image of
life. At the same tirae, the duke procured a suit
of clothes exactly resembling Heidegger's ordinary
costume, and having discovered a person whose
voice and figure closely assimilated with those of
the German, he contrived, with the aid of these
adjuncts, to create an adrairable counterfeit of his
unfortunate butt.
When the evening of the masquerade arrived,
and the king and his suite made their appearance,
Heidegger, with his usual courtly promptitude,
gave the signal to the band to strike up the
national anthem. At the sarae moment the coun
terfeit Heidegger, who had placed hiraself in an
equally conspicuous position, commanded them to
play the then offensive Jacobite tune of " Over the
water to Charley." Both the king and the
musicians seem to have been in the secret of
the joke, for the former laughed imraoderately,
and the latter zealously followed the orders of the
fictitious manager. The scene which followed
' Mrs. Salmon's Wax-works are celebrated in the Spectator,
and for nearly half a century constituted one of the " sights '' of
London. A print of the exterior of her residence in Fleet Street,
pubUshed by Smith, in 1793, is weU known to the curious in
London antiquities.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 351
may be more easily imagined than described.
Heidegger, in the exuberance of his rage, is said to
have exhibited all the gestures of a raadman, and
whUe in this state of fury the Duke of Montagu,
with every appearance of serious formality, inti
mated to him that the king was highly and very
properly exasperated at his countenancing the inso
lence of the musicians, and recommended him by
all means to repair immediately to the royal box,
and make the best apology in his power. He had
just commenced a warm vindication of his conduct,
when he was interrupted by the false Heidegger,
who, with the same asseverations of innocence, and
with an assumption of the same indignant wrath
at being imposed upon, affirmed that he was
not the person who had so grossly insulted his
sovereign. The king allowed the joke to last for
some time, till at length it became evident that the
unfortunate Heidegger was suffering real pain
from the calm assurances and overwhelming ira
pertinence of his rival, when the king terminated
the affair by ordering the counterfeit Heidegger to
pull off his mask. It may be raentioned that, on
the 19th of May, 1729, a grand jury had presented
Heidegger and his masquerades as nuisances.
Either his entertainments, however, had become
more reputable, or the king continued to patronise
them in spite of their being denounced by the law.
It was the fortunate and peculiar lot of George
the Second to behold his prospects brighten as he

352 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
declined in years. Only a few years had elapsed
since he was notoriously the most unpopular
sovereign in Europe. Then it was that he was
surrounded and enthralled by a corrupt ministry,
men equally without genius, without patriotism,
and without political courage. A war followed,
which was only less inglorious in comparison with
the ignominious peace by which it was succeeded.
The national treasury was drained, and the coun
try groaned under extraordinary burthens. Men
regarded almost with horror their alien prince and
his foreign prejudices. And yet this same mon
arch, devoid as he was of all native genius, and
without any feeling for the country over which he
ruled, had latterly the good fortune to find hira
self the idol of a flourishing people, to see all his
mUitary operations crowned by the most glorious
triumphs, to behold colony after colony attached
to the English dominion, to find commerce keep
ing pace with military renown, and finally to be
able to leave the undisputed succession of his
kingdom to his heirs, a circumstance which his
forraer unpopularity, and the increasing power of
the Jacobites, had rendered somewhat problemati
cal. Such was the vast debt which George the
Second owed to the raighty genius of the great
Lord Chatham ! In addition to the blessings thus
conferred upon him, he was permitted, at the close
of his long life, to yield up his existence without
a pang. He died, moreover, almost at the very

GEORGE THE SECOND. 353
moment when defective hearing, and a threatened
extinction of sight,' seemed to indicate that, had
his days been lengthened, they would have proved
a burthen to him rather than a blessing.
George the Second, moreover, to the close of
his long life enjoyed almost uninterrupted health.
"The king," says Lord Waldegrave, "is in his
seventy-fifth year ; but temperance and an excel
lent constitution have hitherto preserved him
from many of the infirmities of old age." Only
a few months before he died, he is described,
during a very cold season, as having left off fires
and wearing a silk coat. Considering, therefore,
the natural strength of his constitution, and the
regularity of his habits, we cannot wonder that
his sudden dissolution should have occasioned as
much surprise to his subjects as to those who
' WraxaU observes, in his memoirs : " His sight had greatly
faUed him for some time preceding his decease. I have heard
Mr. Fraser say, — who was during many years under secretary
of state, — that in 1 760, a few months before the king died,
having occasion to present a paper to him for his signature, at
Kensington, George the Second took the pen in his hand, and
having, as he conceived, affixed his name to it, retumed it to
Fraser, but so defective was his vision, that he had neither
dipped his pen in the ink, nor did he perceive that of course he
had only drawn it over the paper without making any impres
sion. Fraser, aware of the king's bUndness, yet unwUling to let
his Majesty perceive that he discovered it, said : ' Sir, I have
given you so bad a pen that it wUl not write, aUow me to present
you a better for the purpose.' Then dipping it himself in the
ink, he returned it to the king, who, without making any remark,
instantly signed the paper."

354 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
immediately surrounded his person. Of his de
cease there is an interesting account in one of
Horace Walpole's letters to Sir Horace Mann.
"On Friday night," he writes, "the king went to
bed in perfect health, and rose so the next morn
ing at his usual hour of six ; he called for and
drank his chocolate. At seven, for everything
with him was exact and periodic, he went into
the closet to dismiss his chocolate. Coming from
thence, his valet de chambre heard a noise, waited
a moment, and heard something like a groan. He
ran in, and in a sraall room between the closet and
bedchamber he found the king on the floor, who
had cut the right side of his face against the
edge of a bureau, and who, after a gasp, expired.
Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess
Amelia ; but they only told the latter that the
king was ill and wanted her. She had been con
fined some days with the rheumatism, but hurried
down, ran into the room without further notice,
and saw her father extended on the bed. She is
very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They
had not closed his eyes ; she bent down close to
his face, and concluded he spoke to her, though
she could not hear him ; — guess what a shock
when she found the truth ! What an enviable
death ! " adds Walpole. " In the greatest period
of the glory of this country, and of his reign ; in
perfect tranquUlity at home, at seventy-seven, grow
ing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before

GEORGE THE SECOND. 355
i any reverse of fortune, or any distasteful peace,
: nay, but two days before a ship-load of bad news,
could he have chosen such another raoraent ! "
The sarae writer, in a letter to George Montagu,
dated the day following the king's death, gives a
simUar and no less interesting account of that
event, though the tone of elation which char
acterises his narrative says but little for the
goodness of heart. "Was ever," he writes, "so
agreeable a man as King George the Second, to
die the very day it was necessary to save me
from ridicule ! I was to have kissed hands to
morrow, but you will not care a farthing about
that now, so I must tell you all I know of departed
majesty. He went to bed well last night, rose at
six this morning as usual, looked, I suppose, if all
his money was in his purse, and called for his
chocolate. A little after seven he went into the
etc., etc.; the German valet de chambre heard a
noise, listened, heard something like a groan ; ran
in and found the hero of Oudenarde and Dettingen
on the floor, with a gash on his right temple, by
falling against the comer of a bureau. He tried
to speak, could not, and expired. Princess Emily
was caUed, found him dead, and wrote to the
prince.' I know not a syllable, but am come to
hear and see as much as I can. I fear you will
cry and roar all night ; but one could not keep it
from you." It appears by other accounts, that on
' King George the Thu-d.

356 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
the morning of his decease the king rose at his
usual early hour, drank his cup of chocolate, made,
as was custoraary with him, an inquiry about the
¦wind, and appeared anxious respecting the arrival
of the foreign mails. He then opened one of the
vrindows of his apartment, and, observing that
the weather was favourable, expressed his inten
tion of strolling in the gardens of the palace.
A few minutes afterward he retired for some
private purpose, and almost immediately one of
his German attendants was startled by the sound
of a heavy fall. He hastened to the spot, and
found the king stretched on the floor, with the
blood trickling from his right forehead. He was
speechless, and after a vain endeavour to express
himself expired. An attempt was made to restore
animation by bleeding him ; but the remedy could
not faU to be unavaUing, as, on a post-mortem
exaraination, it was found that he had burst the
right ventricle of the heart, and a flow of blood
having rushed into the surrounding pericardiura,
the effusion necessarily produced almost instant
dissolution. The case, in a medical point of view,
is stated to have been a peculiar one. The king
was not only a person of a vigorous constitution
and of very temperate habits, but he had attained
to that advanced period of life when the blood,
having becorae stagnated by age, but rarely forces
itself through its natural channels. The death of
George the Second took place on the 2 sth Octo-

GEORGE THE SECOND. 357
ber, 1760, in the seventy-eighth year of his age,
and the thirty-fourth of his reign over England.
Horace Walpole, who walked in procession at
the funeral of George the Second, has bequeathed
us an interesting account of the ceremony. It is
impossible, indeed, to peruse the letter to George
Montagu, in which he paints the melancholy scene,
without being forcibly struck with his powers of
graphic delineation, and without acknowledging that
he has completely triumphed in his epistolary art.
His description of the scene itself; the contrast
presented in his narrative between the manly grief
and commanding figure of the Duke of Cumber
land, and the affected and maudlin sensibUity of
the Duke of Newcastle ; the intrusion, also, of Wal
pole's own petty feelings of pride, — his " dread "
of being selected by the heralds to walk in the pro
cession with a "boy," — render his narrative as
curious as it is ^ interesting.
" Do you know," he writes, " I had the curiosity
to go to the burying t'other night. I had never
seen a royal funeral ; nay, I walked as a rag of
quality, which I found would be, and so it was, the
easiest way of seeing it. 'Tis absolutely a noble
sight. The prince's charaber hung with purple,
and a quantity of silver lamps ; the coffin under a
canopy of purple velvet, and six vast chandeliers
of sUver, on high stands, had a very good effect.
The ambassador from Tripoli, and his son, were
carried to see that chamber; the procession

358 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
through a line of foot-guards, every seventh man
bearing a torch ; the horse-guards lining the out
side ; their officers with drawn sabres, and crape
sashes, on horseback ; the drums mufflfed ; the fifes ;
bells tolling, and minute guns ; all this was very
solemn ; but the charm was the entrance to the
abbey, where we were received by the dean and
chapter in rich robes ; the choir and almsraen
bearing torches ; the whole abbey so Ulumined
that one saw it to greater advantage than by
day ; the torabs, long aisles, and fretted roof, all
appearing distinctly ; and with the happiest chiaro-
oscuro, there wanted nothing but m cense, and little
chapels here and there, with priests saying raass
for the repose of the defunct, — yet one could not
coraplain of its not being Catholic enough. I had
been in dread of being coupled with sorae boy of
ten years old, but the heralds were not very accu
rate, and I walked with George Grenville, taller
and older, to keep me in countenance. When
we came to the chapel of Henry the Seventh all
solemnity and decorum ceased ; no order was
observed ; people sat or stood where they would
or could ; the yeomen of the guard were crying
out for help, oppressed by the immense weight
of the coffin ; the bishop read sadly, and blun
dered in the prayers ; the fine chapter, ' Man that
is born of a woman,' was chanted, not read, and
the anthem, besides being immeasurably tedious,
would have served as well for a nuptial.

GEORGE THE SECOND. 359
"The real serious part was the figure of the
Duke of Curaberland heightened by a thousand
melancholy circurastances ; he had a dark brown
adonis, and a cloak of black cloth with a train of
five yards. Attending the funeral of a father
could not be pleasant ; his leg extremely bad, yet
forced to stand upon it near two hours ; his face
bloated and distorted with his late paralytic stroke,
which has affected, too, one of his eyes ; and placed
over the mouth of the vault into which, in all
probabUity, he raust himself so soon descend :
think how unpleasant a situation ! He bore it all
with a firm and unaffected countenance. This
grave scene was fully contrasted by the burlesque
Duke of Newcastle. He fell into a fit of crying
the moment he came into the chapel, and flung
himself back into a stall, the archbishop hovering
over him with a smelling-bottle ; but in two min
utes his curiosity got the better of his hypocrisy,
and he ran about the chapel with his glass, to spy
who was or who was not there, spying with one
hand and mopping his eyes with the other. Then
returned the fear of catching cold, and the Duke
of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt
himself weighed down, and turning around, found
it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his
train to avoid the chUl of the marble. It was very
theatric to look down into the vault where the
coffin lay, attended by mourners with lights.
Clavering, the groom of the bedchamber, refused

360 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
to sit up with the body, and was dismissed by
the king's order."
We have already so fully Ulustrated the char
acter of George the Second by a variety of pass
ing anecdotes as scarcely to render it necessary to
say anything further on the subject. If evU be
found to preponderate in his character, we shall
at least discover sorae redeeming traits sufficient
to claim forbearance, ff not esteem. If he was
a bad father, and a worse son, he was at least a
considerate and an affectionate husband ; though
easUy excited to anger, he was rarely revengeful ;
ff avaricious by nature, he could be generous from
principle ; if careless to the interests of England,
he was less so than his father had been before
him ; if his manners were occasionaUy harsh and
forbidding, yet his nature was essentially kind ;
and if deficient in matters of taste, he was at least
eminently brave, and strictly veracious. His love
of woraen seeras to have originated in some absurd
feelings of personal vanity, and in appearance only
does it seem to have been carried to excess. His
mistresses, indeed, appear to have been his mis
tresses in little more than in name ; he allowed
them neither to influence his actions nor to become
a burden on the state ; the uninitiated, indeed,
paid their court to them for the advancement of
their views, but the more knowing were aware that
the king's affections were with the queen only, and
that the rays of royal favour emanated from her

GEORGE THE SECOND. 36 1
alone. The principal and more heinous offences
which have been laid to the charge of George the
Second are comprised in the barbarous execution
of poor Wells, and in the destruction of his father's
wUl. For the former offence there can be neither
excuse nor extenuation, while as regards the latter
act of iniquitous fraud, little raore can be said
than that it seems a solitary instance in which
want of integrity can be laid to his charge. Even
his father, though he detested him, allowed hira
to be strictly honest. " II est fougueux," he said,
"mats il a de I'honneur."

CHAPTER XVn.
CAROLINE, QUEEN OF GEORGE II.
Bom in 1683 — Educated at the Court of Beriin — Her Personal
Attractions — Refuses the Hand of the Archduke Charies —
Her Marriage to George the Second — Seized Soon After
ward with the Smallpox — George the First's Dislike of the
Princess — Dignity and Decomm of the Princess as Queen —
Her Patronage of Men of Wit and Learning — Her Levees —
The Queen Patronises Butler, Savage, and Stephen Duck
— PhUosophical Disputation between Clarke and Leibnitz
Referred to the Queen as Arbitress — Her Fondness for
Divinity — Promotes the Arian Doctrines — Her Patronage
of Doctor Clarke — Offers Him the See of Canterbury, which
He DecUnes — Curious Interview on the Subject between
Clarke and Walpole — The Queen's Dislike of Fashionable
Masquerades — Her Uniform Support of Sir R. Walpole —
The Queen Dines Frequently with Sir R. Walpole, at Chelsea
— Strict Etiquette on These Occasions — Causes of Walpole's
Great Influence over the Queen's Mind — The Queen's
Adroit Management of the King, and Commanding Influence
over Him — Anecdote of the King and Queen — The King's
Affection for His Wife — Her Toleration of His Mistresses.
Caroline Wilhelmina, daughter of John Fred
eric, Margrave of Anspach, by the Princess of
Saxe-Eysenach, was born in 1683, the same year
as her future husband. Her father dying when
she was very young, and her mother contracting
362

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 363
a second marriage with John George, Elector of
Saxony, she was sent to be educated at the court
of Berlin, under the care of her aunt, the accom
plished and fascinating Sophia Charlotte, sister of
King George the First. From the example and
precepts of this amiable woraan, she not only
derived that dignity of demeanour and propriety
of conduct which afterward distinguished her as a
queen, but also imbibed a taste for philosophi
cal investigation and metaphysical inquiry, which
formed as striking, though less pleasing, features
in her character.
Caroline, at this period of her life, is said to
have been extremely handsome.' In person she
was above the common stature ; her hand and
arm are described as models of perfect symmetry ;
her carriage was dignified ; her countenance wore
an expression of majesty or mUdness, as the occa
sion suited ; her eyes were penetrating and ex
pressive, and her voice soft and musical. The
fame of these accomplishments procured her a
splendid offer of marriage from the Archduke
Charles, son of the Emperor Leopold the First, and
afterward himself emperor. The offer was rejected
by her on account of her religious scruples, which
forbade her to accept the hand of a Roman Catho-
' Lady Mary Wortley Montagu merely says : " She was
esteemed a German beauty ; " but Speaker Onslow, in noticing
her early career, observes : " She was then very handsome, as
I have heard from many who saw her at that time."

364 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
lie pFJsce._\ So uncommon an instance of forbear
ance, in one so young, subsequently obtained for
her an abundance of panegyrics from her English
subjects. Bubb Doddington exclaims, in an elegy
on her death : " Her charms superior shone
To every gay temptation of a throne."
And Dr. Joseph Smith, Provost of Queen's Col
lege, Oxford, observes :
" Above all empire in her early youth,
True piety she prized, and sacred truth."
Addison, also, in one of the numbers of the Free
holder, pays her a proper, but rather ponderous
compliment, on her " exalted virtue " and " Chris
tian magnanimity ; " and Gay exclaims, in his
"Epistle to a Lady:"
" The pomp of titles easy faith might shake ;
She scorned an empire for religion's sake :
For this on earth the British crown is given.
And an immortal crown decreed in heaven."
In 1705, in her twenty-third year, Caroline be
came the wife of George the Second, then Elec
toral Prince of Hanover. Shortly after this event
she had the misfortune to be attacked by the
smallpox, which impaired, if it did not altogether
destroy, her beauty. The poets, however, with
their usual coraplaisance, continued, notwithstand
ing the ravages of time and the smallpox, to cele-

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND, 365
brate her with as much warmth as ff she were
stiU in the heyday of youth and the zenith of her
beauty. Tickell says, in his poem of " Kensing
ton Gardens : "
« Here England's daughter, darling of the land.
Sometimes surrounded with her virgin band.
Gleams through the shades. She, towering o'er the rest.
Stands fairest of the fairer kind confest ;
Form'd to gain hearts that Brunswick's cause denied,
And charm a people to her father's side."
Gay also celebrated her as " the lovely parent
of a lovely race," and in one of his epistles ex
claims :
" The soul, transpiercing through the shining frame.
Forms all the graces of the princely dame.
Benevolence her conversation guides.
Smiles on her cheek, and in her eye resides.
Such harmony upon her tongue is found.
As softens English to Italian sound.
Yet in those sounds such sentiments appear,
As charm the judgment while they soothe the ear.
Religion's cheerful flame her bosom warms.
Calms all her hours, and brightens all her charms.''
On the accession of George the First to the
throne, the princess accompanied the royal famUy
to England. For many years, however, after this
event she seems to have been regarded but as an
inconsiderable personage, whose good opinion or
good offices it was equally unimportant to obtain.
This was partly owing to the misunderstanding

366 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
that existed between the king and her husband,
which excluded her, except on state occasions,
from the society of St. Jaraes's, and confined her
to the limited circle of her own little court at
Leicester House, and partly to the celebrity of
her husband's amours, which naturally induced
the world to conclude that where a husband pub
licly maintains a mistress the wife could retain but
slight influence over either his actions or his heart.
George the First, however, who had better means
of information, was well aware of the influence
which the princess secretly possessed over his
son's mind, and partly, perhaps, from this circum
stance, grew to dislike her almost as heartily as he
did her husband. These facts, which are now
sufficiently notorious, were little more than whis
pered at the period. Count Broglio writes to the
King of France, on the 20th of July, 1 724 : " For
some years past the king has not spoken a word
to the prince, nor the prince to him. The Prin
cess of Wales, sometimes in public, attacks the
king in conversation ; he answers her ; but some,
who are well apprised that his Majesty lUces her
no better than the prince, have assured me that
he only speaks to her on these occasions for the
sake of decorum." Those who were stUl better
versed in the secret history of the times have
assured us that whenever the king named the
Princess of Wales to his confidants it was his cus
tom to style her, emphatically, " Cette diablesse.

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 367
.Madame la Princesse." In public, however, he ever
¦ treated her with respect, and with apparent esteem.
At the time of her husband's accession to the
throne, the princess had entered on her forty-
first year. It was a period of life when she could
scarcely be expected to encourage the gay friv
olities of a court, or to conceive any particular
interest in magnificence and parade. Both nature
and education, however, had well qualified her to
fulfil the various duties which she was called
upon to discharge. Though united to a man
whose fate it was frequently to render himself
contemptible, and often absurd, she contrived to
throw an air of decent dignity over her court
by the propriety of her own conduct, and by
her dignified and alraost faultless demeanour.
It would not be easy to conceive a more arduous
or a more unenviable part than that which Caro
Une found herself called upon to perform. Placed
in the humUiating position of being compelled to
admit her husband's concubines to her domestic
circle, it seemed impossible for her to escape
either contempt on the one hand or pity on the
other ; and to a proud and sensitive mind either
result would have been sufficiently unpalatable.
She extricated herself, however, both from the
one and the other. With the single exception
of her forced communion vrith her husband's
female favourites, her court was distinguished
by a strictness and a decorum of which she was

368 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
the sole promoter. She loved to surround herself
with men of wit and eminent literary attainments,
and more especially with the learned divines of
the period. With the former she exchanged wit
and repartee, and with the latter she indulged
in her predUection for philosophical controversy.
" Her levees," says Coxe, "were a strange picture
of the motley character and manners of a queen
and a learned woman. She received company
whUe she was at her toilet ; prayers, and some
times a sermon, were read ; learned men and
divines were intermixed with courtiers and ladies
of the household ; the conversation turned on
metaphysical subjects, blended with repartees,
sallies of mirth, and the tittle-tattle of a drawing-
room." It was her custom, whUe she dressed
herself, to have prayers read in an outer room,
in which hung a picture of a naked Venus. Doc
tor Maddox, afterward Bishop of Worcester,
was one day the chaplain on duty, when the
bedchamber-woman in waiting conveyed to him
the queen's commands to begin the service.
He looked up archly at the picture. "And a
very pretty altar-piece is here, madam ! " he
said. Queen Anne had the same custom of
dressing herself whUe her chaplain prayed. On
one occasion, decency compeUing the attendants
to shut the door whUe the queen put on some
of her undergarments, the chaplain suddenly
stopped. The queen sent to inquire why he

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 369
did not proceed. " Because," he said, " I will
not whistle the word of God through a keyhole."
Queen Caroline has been accused of affecting
a regard for learned men which she did not feel,
and a taste for studies which she could not
appreciate. Possibly there may have been truth
in the charge. She once told Sale,' the Orien
tal scholar, that she read Butler's "Analogy of
Religion" every morning at breakfast. And yet
this is a work of which Hoadley, Bishop of Win
chester, remarked, that he could never read it
without raaking his head ache ; and, moreover,
from the peculiar harshness of the author's style,
and the almost unintelligible drfft of his arguments,
any attempt to appreciate its valuable doctrines
presents to an ordinary reader, and more especially
to a foreigner, a task of hopeless and almost
insurmountable difficulty.
On the other hand, raany instances occur to us
of the queen having extended her patronage to
'The queen, whUe she patronised Sale, seems to have
neglected to reUeve the wants of that eminent scholar. " The
learned Sale," says D'IsraeU, " who first gave the world a genu
ine version of the Koran, and who had so zealously laboured in
forming that ' Universal History,' which was the pride of our
country, pursued his studies through a life of want; and this
great Orientalist (I grieve to degrade the memoirs of a man
of learning by such mortifications), when he quitted his studies,
too often wanted a change of Unen, and often wandered in the
streets in search of some compassionate friend, who would
supply him with the meal of the day ! " George Sale, the
learned translator of the Koran, died in obscurity in 1736.

370 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
learned and literary men. Many of the first
divines of the period owed their advancement in
their profession to her favour. She treated Smal-
dridge, Bishop of Bristol, with marked kindness ;
and after his death settled ;£'300 a year on his
widow. Entirely unsolicited, she drew Butler the
" Analogist " from obscurity ; appointed him clerk
of her closet, and caused him to be nominated for
a future bishopric' She not only saved the life
of Richard Savage, when condemned to death for
a doubtful raurder, but conferred on him a pen
sion, which assisted to render that life bearable.
Her respect for the genius of MUton induced her
to relieve the necessities of his granddaughter.
She delighted in the society of Swift and Gay,
and she obtained the recall of Lord Lansdowne,
the poet ; as also of Carte, the historian, each of
whora had been compelled to abscond on account
of his political principles.
Another literary person, on whom she con
ferred her kindness, was Stephen Duck, a now
forgotten poet. On this person — whom she had
drawn from his obscurity as a poor husbandman
— she settled twelve shUlings a week, and ap
pointed him keeper of her select library at Rich-
' The queen died before it was in her power to put her inten
tions in practice. Sir Robert Walpole, however, either out of
regard for his old mistress, or from a feeling of deference to her
recommendation, subsequently elevated Butler to the bench of
bishops.

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 371
mond. Swift arausingly ridicules the good fortune
and wretched verses of the favoured poet :
" The thresher Duck could o'er the queen prevail :
The proverb says, — ' No fence against a flail ! '
From threshing corn, he turns to thresh his brains.
For which her Majesty allows him grains ;
Though 'tis confest, that those who ever saw
His poems, think them all not worth a straw.
Thrice happy Duck! employed in threshing stubble.
Thy toil is lessened, and thy profits double."
Duck subsequently entered into holy orders,
and obtained the living of Byfleet in Surrey.
Perhaps it was no act of real kindness which had
drawn him in the first instance from the hurable
sphere of life in which he was born. His exist
ence was, apparently, far frora a happy one ; and,
at length, in a fit of hypochondriacism, in 1750,
he drowned himself in the Thames near Reading.
Although the learning of Queen Caroline was
almost necessarily superficial, she had unquestion
ably read much. She had stored her mind with
a mass of motley, perhaps dangerous, information ;
she was deeply versed in the principles of natural
religion and phUosophy, and frequently perplexed
the divines of the period by her paradoxes on the
'subjects of fatality and free wUl. With Leibnitz
she maintained a correspondence on the most
abstruse sciences. The phUosopher, in one of his
letters to her, happening to express an opinion
that the new doctrines of Sir Isaac Newton were

372 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
likely to strike at the root of revealed religion,
she applied to the well-known controversialist,
Samuel Clarke, to answer his objections. Such
was the origin of the celebrated phUosophical con
troversy between Clarke and Leibnitz, in which
the queen entered with all the warmth of a pro
fessed disputant. In the end, both parties agreed
to submit their arguments to her arbitration, a
result which, considering the high rank of the
arbitress, we should rather be inclined to ascribe
to the subserviency of the phUosophers than to
their conviction of her individual raerit, had we
not the authority of Clarke, derived from his pri
vate conversations with Whiston, that the knowl
edge and judgraent displayed by the queen, during
the dispute, proved her capacity to be of the very
highest order.
Besides a taste for polemical controversy, the
queen, in seeking the society of churchmen, seems
to have been infiuenced by an anxiety to settle
her religious faith. The divines whose conversa
tion afforded her the greatest satisfaction were
Hoadley, Sherlock, Clarke, Seeker, Butler, and
Hare ; and the correspondence which she main
tained on religious subjects with these and other
devout men was carried on through the medium
of Mrs. Clayton, afterward Lady Sundon. " The
queen's chief study," says Horace Walpole, "was
divinity ; and she had rather weakened her faith
than enlightened it. She was at least not ortho-

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 373
dox ; and her confidante. Lady Sundon, an absurd
and pompous simpleton, swayed her countenance
toward the less believing clergy." Queen Caro
line, indeed, was the groat promoter of Arianism
in England, and especially delighted to converse
with those persons whose religious sentiments
coincided with her own. It was owing to the
peculiar notions respecting the Trinity, which she
sharcil in common with Samuel Clarke, Sir Isaac
Newton, and other learned men, that they were
indebted for the extraordinary favour with which
she legardeil them. P"or Clarke especially she
entertained the most unbounded admiration, and
Speaker Onslow mentions a report that, when
the death of Archbishop Wake was expected, the
queen, notwithstanding Clarke's heterodox prin
ciples, pre\'ailed on the king to consent to his
elevation to the see of Canterbury. Whether it
was ever seriously contemplated to raise him at
once to tlie primacy of England cannot now be
ascertained. Certain it is, ho\ve\-er, that it was
solely owing to Clarke's own scruples aiid pertina
cious refusals, that he did not obtain a seat on
the bcncli of bishops. The queen repeatedly at
tempted to persuade him to accept the honour ;
but, finding all her arguments employed to no
purpose, she at length induced Sir Robert Wal
pole to make a similar attempt. A remarkable
conference took place between the minister and
the cliurchman in one of the apartments of Ken-

374 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
sington Palace. On this occasion, such was
pole's eagerness to gratify the queen's wi
and so determined was Clarke, on the other 1
to reject the proffered dignity, that in the cc
of their protracted conference they allowed
candles to burn down to their sockets ; and
the length of their interview, the pages wer
duced to enter the apartment to ascertain if
did not require fresh ones. And yet, at this
period the only clerical preferraents held by Cl
were the rectorship of St. James's and the ma
ship of Wigston Hospital.
That the queen's secession from the docti
of the Church of England was at least sin^
and originated in no vulgar affectation of sing
ity, or assumption of superior knowledge, is pr
by the fact of her refusing to receive the s;
ment when on her death-bed. Archbishop P{
was the person whose duty it was to admin
it to ber ; and, on quitting the apartment,
courtiers, who were of course aware of the p
iarity of the queen's religious principles, ha
crowded around him to ascertain if his offices
been accepted. The archbishop, however, art
eluded the question, merely remarking, with a
of great devoutness, that "her Majesty was
heavenly disposition." By this means the t
was, for some time, concealed from the public
Peculiar as may have been the queen's opir
on religious subjects, there is no reason to be

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 375
that she ever questioned the truth, or fundamental
prmciples, of revealed religion. Her chaplain.
Dr. Joseph Smith, observes, in his raonody on her
death :
" Oft have I seen her, with submissive ear.
The oracles of God unfolded hear.
Oft have I seen her, with seraphic love.
Her prayers preferring to the throne above :
Where now the praises to the King of kings.
Triumphant, with angelic notes, she sings."
She was strict in the perforraance of her devo
tional duties, and endeavoured to inculcate moral
ity, alike in her own famUy and in her court.
Speaker Onslow, who was well acquainted with
her, especially records the high sense which she
entertauied of religion ; and, araong other illustra
tions of her regard for its observances, informs
us that she not only refused permission to her
daughters to attend the fashionable masquerades
of the period, but endeavoured, by her personal
influence and example, to put a stop to this kind
of amusement altogether. We cannot refrain from
recording another pleasing anecdote of Queen
Caroline in social life. She was one day much
annoyed by observing one of the young princesses
keeping a lady standing for a considerable time
whUe engaged in conversation with her on some
trifling topic. In the evening the princess came,
as usual, to read to her, and was about to take a
seat by her side. " No, my dear," said the queen.

376 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
" you must not sit down at present ; I intend to
keep you standing for as long a time as you kept
Lady  in the same position this morning."
No clearer evidence could be adduced in favour
of the queen's strong sense and clear judgment
than the support which she extended to Sir Robert
Walpole, and the fact of her persuading the king
to place him at the head of his counsels, notwith
standing that he was believed — an act seldom
forgiven by a woman — to have made use of
language personally insulting to herself. That
Sir Robert uttered the language in question is
confidently denied by his son Horace, though it
is no less certain that the queen for many years
continued fully satisfied of the fact. " Somebody,"
says Horace Walpole, "had told the princess,
afterward Queen Caroline, that Sir Robert Wal
pole had called her a fat b — h. It was not true.
But upon settling her jointure by Parliament, when
she was Princess of Wales, and ;iC50,ooo being pro
posed. Sir Robert raoved and obtained ;£ 100,000.
The princess, in great good-humour, sent him word
that the fat b — h had forgiven him." One of
the arguments which she made use of to her hus
band, in order to induce him to admit Sir Robert
to his counsels, was probably prompted by this
pecuniary obligation. " Walpole," she said, " can
convert stones into gold." On her death-bed she
recoraraended, not Sir Robert to the king, but the
king to Sir Robert. Some years afterward George

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 377
the Second, in a moment of feeling, reminded his
minister of the fact. " You know," he said, " she
confided rae to you."
The kindness with which the queen ever re
garded Walpole seems, in a great degree, to have
been owmg to the good offices of the Duke of
Devonshire, who, when she was Princess of Wales,
had impressed her with a high notion of his friend's
abUities, adding that it was he alone who had
counteracted the intrigues of the Jacobites, by
discovering Atterbury's plot, and that it was solely
owing to his genius and loyalty that the reigning
famUy retained possession of the throne.
The queen, as a proof of her regard, was not
unfrequently in the habit of dining with Sir Robert
and his faraily. Even on these social occasions,
however, etiquette was strictly adhered to ; and,
at a period so closely bordering on our own tiraes,
it is curious to find the prirae rainister of England
thought unworthy to sit at table with the consort
of his sovereign. On the occasions of the queen's
visits to Sir Robert at Chelsea, she sat down to
dinner with Lady Walpole, the lady in waiting,
and such members of the royal faraily as accom
panied her. Sir Robert always stood behind her
chair, and handed her the first plate, after which
he retired to another apartment, and sat down to
dinner with the royal household.
There were two circurastances which tended, in
a great degree, to preserve Walpole's extraordinary

378 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
influence over the queen's mind ; and in both cases
he was indebted to his own native shrewdness
and peculiar powers of discrimination. We allude,
in the first instance, to a discovery, which Walpole
was the first to make, that however inconstant the
king might be to his marriage vows, and fascinated
as he appeared to be with the charms of the reign
ing mistress, still it was his wife alone who main
tained any power over his actions, or any influence
over his heart. Walpole's sagacity is rendered
the more remarkable from the fact that every
other candidate for royal favour (among whom
were men distinguished for the clearness of their
understanding and their intimate knowledge of
the world) paid his court sedulously and blindly
to the reigning mistress. Among the persons to
whom we more imraediately allude, were Boling
broke, Chesterfield, and Swift. Bolingbroke's
secret intrigues with the mistress proved of no
avail ; Chesterfield lost the post of secretary of
state, and afterward the king's favour, by openly
boasting of the favour of Lady Suffolk, and pre
ferring it to that of the queen ; and Swift, who
rested his hopes of obtaining a bishopric on Lady
Suffolk's influence, was doomed to find himself
signally disappointed. The fate of poor Gay,
whom Swfft even speaks of as one of the queen's
" led-captains," affords another case in point. Gay
had possessed the peculiar advantage of having
been acquainted with the queen during the time

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 379
she was only electoral princess ; ' he had subse
quently attached himself to her on her becoming
Princess of Wales, and had more than once pane
gyrised her in no indifferent verse. At her desire
he had written his celebrated " Fables " for the
young Duke of Cumberland ; and the queen, in
reference to the charming Fable of the " Hare and
Many Friends," had been heard to say that she
would not forget the " Hare." The expectations of
the poet were naturally raised to a high pitch, and
yet the only favour he could obtain from the court
was the offer of the post of gentleman usher to
the young Princess Louisa, a child of two years
old, with a salary of .£200 ; a boon which, by the
advice of Swift and other friends, he disdainfully
rejected. Swift exclaims :
" Thus Gay, the Hare with many friends.
Twice seven long years at court attends ;
Who, under tales conveying truth,
To virtue formed a princely youth ;
Who paid his courtship with the crowd.
As far as modish pride allowed ;
Rejects a servile usher's place,
And leaves St. James's in disgrace."
And Pope evidently deprecates the queen's neg
lect of his friend, when he utters that touching
and beautiful exclamation :

' Gay had been secretary to the Earl of Clarendon during a
mission of that nobleman to Hanover.

38o THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
" Blest be the Great, for those they take away.
And those they left me, for they left me Gay ;
Left me to see neglected genius bloom.
Neglected die, and tell it on his tomb : '
Of all thy blameless life the sole return.
My verse and Queensberry weeping o'er thy urn ! "
The true secret of Gay's disappointment is now
sufficiently clear. Imagining that the influence of
Mrs. Howard, afterward Lady Suffolk, was at
least as powerful as that of the queen, he endeav
oured to avail himself of her favour for the
' Pope aUudes to his epitaph on Gay in Westminster Abbey.
In that epitaph, however. Pope informs us that Gay lived among
the Great, but he makes no mention of his having been neglected
by them. " Above temptation, in a low estate,
And uncomipted even among the Great."
The Duchess of Queensberry, it is needless to add, was the
considerate friend and affectionate patroness of poor Gay. To
Pope the latter writes, about two years before his death : " My
melancholy increases, and every hour threatens me with some
return of my disteraper. Not the divine looks, the kind favours
and expressions of the divine duchess, who hereafter shall be in
place of a queen to me, nay, she shall be my queen, nor the inex
pressible goodness of the duke, can in the least cheer me. The
drawing-room no more receives light from these two stars ; there
is now, what Milton says is in heU, ' darkness visible.' Oh, that
I had never known what a court was 1 Dear Pope, what a bar
ren soU, to me so, have I been striving to produce something out
of ? Why did I not take your advice before my writing fables
for a duke, not to write them ; or rather to write them for some
young nobleman ? It is my very hard fate, I must get nothing,
write for them or against them." Gay died at the house of tho
Duke of Queensberry, in BurUngton Gardens, on the 4th of
December, 1732.

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 381
advancement of his views. To Swift he writes,
in a tone of exultation : " Mrs. Howard has
declared herself very strongly, both to the king
and queen, as my protector." The protection of
Mrs. Howard was his ruin, and Gay was left to
lament his disappointment, and to degrade his
genius by heaping invectives on a court which he
had lately extolled to the skies.
These evidences of a want of discrimination in
others afford the best proof of Sir Robert Wal
pole's extraordinary clear-sightedness. The queen,
on her part, jealous of the power of her rivals, and
comparatively neglected by other candidates for
royal favour, could not faU to be highly gratified
at Walpole's personal devotion to herself. In re
gard to the other instance of the minister's sagac
ity, as the circumstances connected with it are of
a more delicate character, we wUl allow his son
Horace to relate the story in his own words.
"The queen's great secret," he says, "was her
own rupture ; which, tUl her last Ulness, nobody
knew but the king, her German nurse Mrs. Mail-
borne, and one other person. To prevent all sus
picion, her Majesty would frequently stand sorae
minutes in her shift talking to her ladies ; and
though labouring with so dangerous a complaint,
she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a
desire of the king, that every morning at Rich
mond she walked several mUes with him ; and
more than once, when she had the gout in her foot,

382 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
she dipped her whole leg in cold water, to be ready
to attend him. The pain, her bulk, and the exer
cise threw her into such fits of perspiration as
vented the gout ; but those exertions hastened the
crisis of her distemper. It was great shrewdness
in Sir Robert Walpole, who, before her distemper
broke out, discovered her secret. On my mother's
death, who was of the queen's age, her Majesty
asked Sir Robert many physical questions ; but he
remarked that she oftenest reverted to a rupture,
which had not been the Ulness of his wife. When
he came home, he said to rae, ' Now, Horace, I
know by the possession of what secret Lady Sun
don has preserved such an ascendant over the
queen.' "
It may be remarked that the same mistaken
feeling of delicacy which had induced the queen
to keep her painful malady a secret from her phy
sicians was also the cause of her rejecting the aid
of any but her own sex at the different periods
when she becarae a mother. This weakness, per
haps a solitary one in her character, on one occa
sion cost her the life of an infant child, and very
nearly proved fatal to herself. Doctor White
Kennet writes to Mr. Blackwell, in 1716: "I am
now in waiting in court, and left it shut up on all
sides this afternoon. The good princess had
symptoms of labour on Sunday evening, and 'tis
thought might have been safely delivered of a
living son that night, or any time before Tues-

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 383
day morning, ff Sir David HamUton or Doctor
Chamberlayne, who attended without, might have
been admitted to her. But the Hanover midwife
kept up the aversion of the princess to have any
man about her ; and so, notwithstanding the im
portunity of the English ladies and the declared
advice of the lords of the councU, she continued
in pains till Friday morning between one and two,
when the midwife alone delivered her of a dead
male child, wounded in the head. She has since
been extremely weak and subject to continual
faintings, and 'tis said all things are not after the
manner of woraen in that condition. This after
noon, about four, the Lord Belhaven, in waiting
on the prince, came out of the women's charaber,
and told me the princess had been asleep for about
an hour, and was more easy after it, and had no
return of her fainting fits ; but we are every min
ute in sorrowful apprehensions, and God knows
what may be the news before I seal up this."
It may be mentioned as a singular fact that our
historians, in discussing the reign of George the
Second, rarely, if ever, mention the name of
Queen Caroline. She seems to have been re
garded by them in the same light in which she
was viewed by her contemporaries, as a mere
harmless and uninteresting cipher. And yet this
remarkable woman not only elevated Sir Robert
Walpole to power, but maintained him there to the
hour of her death ; and, by her means alone, he

384 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
preserved his extraordinary infiuence over the
king's mind. During the greater part of the reign
of George the Second she was almost the sole
dispenser of church patronage; and, moreover,
Sir Robert Walpole is said to have brought for
ward no measure of importance but he previously
consulted her on the subject.
Great, however, as was the queen's influence
over the mind of her husband, she contrived, with
as much policy as art, to keep her power a secret
both from himself and from the world. She was
aware how dangerous it would be to excite the
king's jealousy by aUowing him for a moment to
suppose that he was under her guidance ; and con
sequently, in his presence, she carefully assuraed
the character of the raere humble and submissive
wife, who was equally unfit and unwilling to meddle
in matters of state. She always affected to with
draw when Sir Robert Walpole entered the royal
closet, and, on occasions when the king commanded
her to stay, she pretended to take no interest in
their conversation, and carefully avoided giving
her opinion except when directly appealed to by
her husband. Her usual answer was that she
knew nothing about business ; and yet such was
her consummate art, and so ingeniously did she
and Sir Robert play into each other's hands, that
the very questions which now, for the first time,
came before the king had, in most cases, been
already discussed and decided upon between the

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 385
minister and the queen. "It is a fact," says
Wraxall, "that Sir Robert Walpole and her
Majesty managed matters with so much art as to
keep up a secret understanding by watchwords,
even in the drawing-room, when and where George
the Second was present. According to the king's
temper, frarae of mind, or practicabUity on the
points which Sir Robert wished to carry, the queen
signified to him whether to proceed or to desist on
that particular day. This communication was so
well preconcerted, and so delicately executed, as
to be imperceptible by the bystanders."
Sometimes the king would pertinaciously refuse
to accede to Walpole's propositions, and yet would
afterward yield on retalking over the subject with
the queen. On these occasions he never acquainted
Sir Robert of the true cause of his changing his
opinion, but used to boast that he himself had
better considered the subject.
The king's prevailing weakness, indeed, was a
dread lest the world should consider he was gov
erned by his wife, and it seems to have required
no slight ingenuity to lull his suspicions to sleep.
Doubts appear occasionally to have entered his
mind that he was not altogether a free agent, and
sometimes a hint would reach his ear that the
world entertained a simUar opinion. Such, how
ever, was the queen's influence over him that, at
their next interview, she always foimd means of
lulling his suspicions to rest. We have already

386 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
seen that it was her custom to make a show of
retiring from the royal closet whenever Sir Robert
came to discuss affairs of state with the king.
At these times she used to drop a curtsey, and
retreat with all apparent humUity toward the door.
It was on an occasion of her making one of these
retiring obeisances that the king turned compla
cently to Walpole, and observed : "There, you see
how much I am governed by my wife, as they say
I am ! It is a fine thing, indeed, to be governed
by one's wife ! " The queen merely replied, with
her accustomed tone of humility : " Oh, sir, I
must be vain indeed to pretend to govern your
Majesty ! " Nothing the king liked more than to
see his wife acting the part of the mere ignorant,
unpretending woman, whenever a third person
happened to be present.
It might reasonably be presumed, from the
queen's understanding being so greatly superior
to that of her husband, and frora her being long
accustomed to govern hira at will, that she secretly
entertained as little regard for his person as re
spect for his intellectual endowments. The con
trary, however, appears to have been the case ;
and, notwithstanding the humUiating light in which
it might be expected that he would have been
viewed by her, she seems to have entertained as
much affection for him as was consonant with the
natural coldness of her disposition. Her submis
sion to his will was most exemplary; it was the

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 387
study of her life to anticipate and gratify his
slightest wishes ; she frequently took upon herself
the imputation of his faults ; and raore especially
in cases where promises had been made which it
was afterward found either inexpedient or imprac
ticable to fulfil, she eagerly took the odium on
herself, rather than any discredit should reflect
on her husband. The king, on his part, appears
to have fully appreciated her long endurance and
unvarying affection, and, notwithstanding his many
infidelities, certainly loved her more tenderly than
any other woman. We are assured that he never
sketched his idea of female beauty but he drew
the picture of his own wife ; and Sir Robert Wal
pole, who was intimately acquainted with his char
acter and feelings, used to observe that he loved
Queen Caroline's little finger better than Lady
Suffolk's whole body. During his occasional ab
sences in his German dominions, the letters which
she addressed to hira usually araounted each to
nearly twenty pages, and yet the king is said
to have almost invariably complained of their
brevity. Queen CaroUne has been severely reproached,
and, indeed, with some justice, with having en
couraged her husband's amours, with the indirect
purpose of preserving her influence over him un
impaired. " Her first thought on her marriage,"
says Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, "was to secure
to herself the sole and whole direction of her

388 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
spouse ; and to that purpose she counterfeited
the most extravagant fondness for his person, yet
at the same time was so devoted to his pleasures
that, whenever he thought proper to find them
with other woraen, she even loved whoever was
instrumental to his entertainment, and never re
sented anything but what appeared to her a want
of respect for him." The mere fact of fostering a
rival, with the express object, too, of enchaining
the affections of a husband, naturally strikes us,
at first glance, both as a singular anomaly and a
very disgusting fact. As a clew, however, to the
enigma, it must be first borne in mind that, of
the two established mistresses of George the
Second, neither Lady Suffolk nor Lady Yar
mouth were possessed of any very considerable
share of personal beauty. The queen, moreover,
was well aware from experience how little she
had to fear from either their influence or their
intrigues ; and, consequently, it became her inter
est to retain them about her husband's person,
to the exclusion of younger and more dangerous
rivals. The truth of the charge brought against Queen
Caroline, of having pandered to her husband's
profligacy, is denied with considerable warmth by
Archdeacon Coxe, in his " Life of Sir Robert Wal
pole." "This severe representation," he says, "is
totally devoid of truth, and proves little knowledge
of her real disposition. It was a principle with her

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 389
not to disgust the king with remonstrances, nor
to appear dissatisfied vrith his attentions to other
women. But certainl}- never wife felt or lamented
her husband's infidehties more than herself, al
though she had too much good sense and pru
dence and too much respect for her character
to treat her riA'als with marks of iU-humour, or
to show by her outward behaAiour s}Tnptoms of
jealousy and displeasure." WiUing as we should
be to subscribe to the justice of these remarks,
we fear they are not a little fallacious. Lord
Chesterfield, in one of his letters to his son, dis
tinctlv affirms that the queen ¦ even favoured and
promoted the gallantries " of her husband ; and
what can we think when we find the king (who
must have been the best judge of the nature of
his wife's sentiments) remarking coolly to her, in
one of his letters written at the commencement
of his intrigne with IVIadame de Walmoden, after
ward Countess of Yarmouth : " I am sure you will
love the Walmoden, because she loves me ! " Nor
is this all The queen, in one of her letters, openly
encourages his infidelit};. gi\ing as the reason of
her complaisance that she is grown old and is
unworthy of him. So notorious, indeed, was her
acquiescence with the king's will, that on one occa
sion Blackboum, Archbishop of York, informed
her with the utmost coolness that, haAing recently
had some pri\-ate conversation with Sir Robert
Walpole respecting the new mistress, he was glad

390 THE COURT OF ENGLAND.
to find her Majesty act so sensibly as to be vrilling
to "divert" her husband.'
Considering the several objects which Queen
Caroline had in view, namely, her desire of main
taining her legitimate influence over her husband,
of rendering his life easy, and of preventing dis
sensions in her family, it cannot be denied that
there existed some excuse for her otherwise im
moral acquiescence in her husband's indiscretions.
That, in following the line of conduct which she
had laid down for herself, she conscientiously
believed she was treading the path of duty, there
is every reason to suppose. To her friends she
frequently complained of the king's infidelities ;
and if, therefore, as seems highly probable, she
lamented in private what she was compelled to
endure in public, the world wUl perhaps be in
clined to regard her rather as an object of pity
than of blame. That she was a person, moreover,
of no very strong affections, is also highly prob
able. The Duke of Grafton,^ who seeras to have
' The truth of this anecdote is corroborated by Horace
Walpole. Speaking of the archbishop, he says : " One story I
recollect, which showed how much he was a man of this world,
and which the queen herself repeated to my father. On the
king's last journey to Hanover, before Lady Yarmouth came
over, the archbishop, being with her Majesty, said to her:
' Madam, I have been with your minister, Walpole, and he tells
me that you are a vrise woman, and do not mind your husband's
having a mistress.' "
' Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton, and grandson of
Charles the Second, was a Knight of the Garter, and held the

QUEEN OF GEORGE THE SECOND. 391
taken more liberties with her than any other per
son, used to insist to her face that she loved
nobody. He once said to her, in allusion to some
German prince with whom she was supposed to
have been in love before her raarriage, " G — d !
madam, I wish I could see that man you could
love ! " " Why," she replied, " don't you think
I love the king .? " " I don't know," said the duke,
"but if I were King of France I would be sure
whether you did or not."
post of lord chamberlain during nearly the whole of the reign of
George the Second. Lord Waldegrave says of him : " He had
a particular manner of talking to his master on aU subjects, and
of touching upon the most tender points, which no other person
ever ventured to imitate ; he was a great teaser, and had an
established right of saying what he pleased." The duke died on
the 6th of May, 17S7, in the seventy-ninth year of his age.

END OF VOL. IX.

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