bed-chamber; and who, long afterwards, succeeded to the title of Duke of Argyle. The prince never forgave her for breaking her word; and whenever she went to the drawing-room, as from her husband's situation she was sometimes obliged to do, though trembling at what she knew she had to undergo there, the prince always stepped up to her and whispered some harsh reproach in her ear.

Mrs. Howard now became the prince's favourite: it is not probable that love for his person had any share in the sacrifice she made of her virtue; and George, although amorous, took unto himself a mistress rather to prove he was not governed by his wife, and from a silly idea, that gallantry was becoming, than from a fondness for variety. Mrs. Howard would probably have preferred the advantages of her situation to its eclat; but secresy would by no means have answerd the prince's purpose: the lady's husband, of course, became acquainted with the intrigue, to which he gave additional publicity, by vociferously demanding her before the guards and other persons, in the quadrangle of St. James's palace. He afterwards wrote a letter to her, which he procured the Archbishop of Canterbury to place in the hands of the princess, who was thus afforded the pleasure of delivering it personally to her husband's mistress. Some apprehensions, it seems, were entertained that Howard would attempt to take possession of his frail spouse by force; for, when the usual time arrived for the prince and his court to remove to Richmond, as Mrs. Howard, being only woman of the bedchamber, could not, according to etiquette, be permitted to ride in the same coach with the princess, where, it was presumed, she would have been safe, the Duke of Argyle and his brother took her to their house at Richmond, several hours before the departure of the prince and princess from their town residence. Shortly afterwards a negotiation was commenced with the obstreperous husband, which ended in his selling his wife for a pension of twelve hundred a year.

Walpole describes this lady as having been of a just height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair, and features regular and agree

able rather than beautiful. She was remarkably genteel, and always dressed with taste and simplicity. Her personal charms had suffered but little diminution up to the period of her death, at the advanced age of seventy-nine. Her mental qualifications were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. She preserved uncommon respect to the end of her life, and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour, was always treated as if her virtue had never been questioned; her friends even affecting to suppose that her connection with the king had been confined to pure friendship.

Through the king's disinclination to grant any favours to a mistress, and the queen's ascendancy over the minister as well as her consort, Mrs. Howard's influence was so limited, that she succeeded only in very subordinate recommendations, except in procuring a ba rony and a good place for her brother. The king had seen and lamented that his father had been governed by his mistresses, and was so extremely cautious to avoid a similar error, that the Countess of Yarmouth, the only one among his own concubines who possessed any real influence over him, once requested an influential person to procure a trifling place for one of her servants, but charged him not to mention to the king that it was at her request; "because," she added, "if it be known that I have applied, I have no chance of succeeding.'

Considering her situation, as the established mistress of a sovereign, Mrs. Howard's pecuniary acquisitions were but moderate; and it appears, although a rigid economist, she found herself straitened for money after her retirement from court, on account of the lapse of some annuities which she had obtained on the lives of persons whom she survived. Even during the zenith of her favour she was not only subject to mortifications from the queen, but to insult from the king, and a slavish attendance on both. Although the queen used to call her "My good Howard," she took a malicious pleasure in employing her in the most servile offices about her person. One day while Mrs. Howard was engaged in putting on the queen's handkerchief, the king came

in, and snatched it off, exclaiming," Because you have an ugly neck yourself you wish to hide her majesty's." It was his custom to visit her every evening at nine; but with such dull punctuality, that he frequently walked about his chamber for ten minutes with his watch in his hand, if the stated minute had not arrived.

Mrs. Howard had been early affected with deafness; but the king appears to have made little or no objection to her on this score, while she was young; but after she had passed the meridian of life, he said, in a letter to the queen, who dreaded his contracting an attachment for a more blooming beauty, and had even prevented Mrs. Howard from leaving the court as early as she wished to do, "I don't know why you will not let me part with a deaf old woman, of whom I am weary." She retired from her unenviable situation in the palace about the year 1735, and her first husband being dead, married a Mr. George Berkeley, whom she survived. The remainder of her life was spent in retirement, chiefly at a villa near Twickenham.

We turn with pleasure, from the private life of the king, to public affairs. The new parliament assembled on the 23rd of January, 1728, and ministers soon found that the election had procured an accession to the number of their supporters in the house. The members had hitherto been divided into Tories, Hanoverians, and Jacobites; but these appellations were now dropped, and only two political sects were spoken of, namely the court party and the country party.

Throughout the greater part of this reign, there seem to have been two points of controversy, on which the strength of ministers was put to the proof in every session; these were the national debt and the standing army. The former, on the accession of George the Second, amounted to thirty millions, which was then deemed an enormous amount; its constant increase formed a reasonable ground of complaint and alarm; while demands for new supplies were made, and invariably granted, session after session, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the country party, who protested, that govern

ment incurred large expenses without prescience or necessity; and, that the rapid increase of the national debt, would, by multiplying the taxes, soon become an intolerable burthen, especially on the lower classes of the community.

In the month of April, 1728, the king paid a visit to Cambridge, with a large retinue of persons of rank; and after dining in the hall of Trinity College, he so far overcame his natural parsimony, as to present the sum of £2,000 to the university, to defray the expenses of his entertainment.

Shortly afterwards, Sir Charles Hotham was sent to Berlin, as minister plenipotentiary, to propose a marriage between the Prince of Wales and the eldest daughter of his uncle the King of Prussia; and another between the heir-apparent to the throne of Prussia, and the King of England's second daughter. His Prussian majesty insisted, in reply, that his heir-apparent was quite as worthy of the Princess Royal of England, as George the Second's eldest son was of the Princess Royal of Prussia and that, although he had no objection to one of the proposed unions taking place, he would not consent to both. The negotiation terminated by no means amicably between the two monarchs, whose personal enmity, at length, arose to such a height, that they seriously thought of settling their disputes by a duel. George the Second being at Hanover, and his royal brother-in-law at Saltzdahl, near Brunswick, it was determined that the territory of Hilderheim should be the place of meeting. His Britannic majesty's intended second was Brigadier General Sutton; and Colonel Derscheim was selected to fill that important office on the part of the King of Prussia. Borck, Frederick's ambassador to the court of St. James's, from which he had been abruptly dismissed, immediately repaired to his master, at Saltzdahl; but finding him in a terrible rage with his royal brother-in-law, he deemed it prudent to feign approbation of the intended combat, and offered to be the bearer of a challenge. shortly afterwards, the king having become a little calmer, he ventured to address him in the following manner: "Sire, I allow that your majesty's

But

quarrel is not to be terminated any other way than by a duel; but your majesty being just recovered from a most serious illness, and your health not being yet by any means re-established, a relapse may occur on the day before, or, perhaps, at the very hour of the important meeting; and in that case, what would the world say? How the King of England would boast! What scandalous constructions might be put on the circumstance! What an odious suspicion of your majesty's courage might ensue! Therefore, I ask, if you do not think it would be better to take no steps in the affair for a fortnight?" The king is said to have reluctantly acquiesced in the proposed delay; the challenge was not sent; and the ministers on both sides gained sufficient time to effect a reconciliation between the royal disputants.

In November, 1730, we find it recorded, that the king and queen, returning from Kew Green to St. James's, were overturned in their coach, near Lord Peterborough's, at Parsons' Green, about six in the evening; the wind having blown out the flambeaux, so that the coachman could not see the way; but their majesties received no injury.

In 1732, Sir Robert Walpole brought a bill into parliament, for an extension of the excise, which excited so violent a clamour, that the proposed measure was abandoned. Public rejoicings took place on this occasion: Walpole was burned in effigy by the populace; and the opposition, elated with their success, soon after made an attempt to repeal the septennial bill, and bring back triennial parliaments, as settled at the revolution. The motion was rejected by the majority; but as on this occasion the country party seemed to have gained strength, ministers thought proper to dissolve the parliament, and to call another by the same proclamation.

In 1736, Frederick, Prince of Wales, was married to Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, and, soon afterwards, very serious differences occurred between the sovereign and his son, principally, although other grave causes of offence existed, on account of the prince having omitted to acquaint his royal parents with the pregnancy of the princess until the month in which her accouche

ment took place; and having hurried her, at a most critical period, from Hampton Court to St. James's palace, where she was delivered of the Princess Augusta two hours after her arrival. The king considered this conduct as an insult to himself and the queen, and ordered his son to quit the palace with his family as soon as the Princess of Wales could safely be removed. The heir-apparent accordingly, soon after, retired to Norfolk-house, and became so positively identified with the opposition, that the king, at length, issued an order forbidding all those who visited the court of the prince and princess to appear in his majesty's presence at any of the royal palaces.

About this period, an English nobleman, who had more than once quietly endured a gross affront from a peer of equal rank, was a very assiduous talebearer of the improprieties of the prince to his father, and once even had the audacity to call the heir-apparent a fool; upon which the king turned short upon him, and said, "My lor duke, by gar me no tank you for van fine speech of fool; and learn from me, dat do de huys of Brunswick may have produced as many fools as any van sovereign huys in Europe, it never yet vaas known to produce van coward or poltroon, my

lor duke!"

In 1737, Walpole brought in a bill to limit the number of playhouses, and to place dramatic writings under the censorship of the lord chamberlain; which, although it was powerfully opposed by Lord Chesterfield, as an infringement on the liberties of the press, was carried through both houses of parliament.

On the 20th of November in this year (1737), Queen Caroline died of an inflammation in her bowels, and was buried on the 17th of the following month, in Westminster Abbey. She had for some time been ruptured, but until her last illness nobody was aware of the fact, except the king, her German nurse, and one other person. Although labouring under such a dangerous complaint, which she was exceedingly anxious to conceal, she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a desire of the king, that when the royal family was at Richmond, she walked several miles with him every morning; and more than once, when she had the

gout in her foot, dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready to attend him. The pain, adds Walpole, her bulk, and the exercise, threw her into such fits of perspiration as vented the gout; but those exertions hastened the crisis of her distemper.

George the Second always preferred the queen to any other woman; nor did he ever describe his idea of a beauty, but he drew the picture of his wife. Sir Robert Walpole, who knew him well, asserted that the king loved Queen Caroline's tittle finger better than Lady Suffolk's whole body. She is described as having been very handsome at the time of her marriage, nor did the small pox, which she afterwards took, materially affect her beauty. Her countenance was indicative either of majesty or mildness, as she pleased: her eyes were very expressive, her voice captivating, and her hands beautifully small, plump, and graceful. In the beginning of his amour with Madame de Walmoden, the king, who invariably confided his attachments to the queen, often said, in his letters from Hanover to her majesty, "I know you will love the Walmoden, because she loves me;" and so notorious was her acquiescence in his intrigues, that, about this time, Blackbourn, the Archbishop of York, told her one day, that he had been talking to her minister, Walpole, about the new mistress, and was glad to find her majesty was such a sensible woman as to like her husband should divert himself. In her epistles to the king, who complained of their brevity when they were nineteen pages long, she approved of his incontinence, for which she furnished him with the excuse that she was old and unworthy of him. By thus consenting to, or rather encouraging, his ruling vice, she preserved her influence over him undiminished, and made herself the mistress of his mistresses.

For some years, however, previously to her last fatal illness, the queen's constitution seemed gradually to give way, and she lost much of her habitual cheerfulness, on account, perhaps, of her constantly strugging to conceal her vexation at the open and shameless licentiousness of the king; which, according to Walpole, rendered her miserable, notwithstanding her apparent

content. Her immoral and disgusting acquiescence in her husband's amours, by which, for the sake of securing her own influence over him, she allowed the palace to become a brothel, has induced a suspicion that she had no love for the king; and was, therefore, invulnerable to jealousy. The Duke of Grafton insisted that she loved nobody; and hearing a tale of a German prince, for whom she was said to have entertained an affection before her marriage, he exclaimed, "G-d! madam, I wish I could have seen the man you could love." "Why," said she, "don't you think I love the king?" "G-d! madam," replied the duke, "I wish I was King of France, and I would be sure whether you do or do not."

She appears to have taken great delight in ornamental gardening: Queen Caroline, says Daines Barrington, threw a string of ponds, in Hyde Park, into one, so as to form what is called the Serpentine River, from its being not exactly straight, as all the ponds were before. She is likewise well known to have planted and laid out the gardens, both of Richmond and Kensington, upon a larger scale, and in better taste than we have any instance of before that period. She seems, also, to have been the first introducer of expensive buildings in gardens, if one at Lord Barrington's is excepted. The king did not interfere with his wife in these pursuits; as, he said, he did not care how she flung her own money away. After her death, however, it was discovered, that she was in debt to the treasury, to the amount of £20,000 or upwards.

To her eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, notwithstanding the aversion he displayed towards her, she behaved, for some time, with great kindness; but, at length, felt so indignant at his conduct, that she refused to admit him into her presence, even when she knew herself to be at the point of death. This is an additional proof, to those already given, of the stern resolution which has been generally attributed to Queen Caroline by her cotemporaries. Her good sense and kindness of disposition are strikingly exemplified in the following anecdote:-One of the princesses having, without the least occasion, suffered a lady in wait

ing to stand by her chair for a considerable time, when the royal offender came, as usual, to read to her majesty in the evening, the queen would not permit her to sit down, but kept her standing, until she was nearly exhausted; and then, alluding to the manner in which the princess had treated the lady in waiting, observed, "You are now, my dear, capable of feeling how improper it is, unnecessarily to make those who are about you the victims of etiquette."

She was one of the earliest supporters of inoculation in this country; having, when Princess of Wales, permitted Dr. Mead, immediately after the success of the operation had been ascertained on some condemned criminals, to inoculate two of her daughters.

Gay's opera of "Polly gave her such extraordinary offence, that the Duchess of Queensbury, who, out of friendship for the author, thought proper to defend it, was ordered to quit the court. On this occasion, her grace stated, by letter, to their majesties, that she was surprised, and well pleased, at receiving so agreeable a command as forbidding her the court, where she never came for diversion, but to bestow a very great civility upon the king and

queen.

To the study of divinity, she is said to have been extremely partial. She told Sale, the celebrated oriental scholar, that, during breakfast, she amused herself by reading Butler's Analogy of Religion to Human Nature; a book which Hoadly, Bishop of Winchester, said, always gave him the head-ache if he only looked into it. She was, however, accused of affecting a fondness for learning which she did not possess, and her religious opinions were suspected of having been far from orthodox. It is even asserted, that she refused to take the sacrament, when Archbishop Potter went to her for the purpose of administering it. The courtiers in the ante-room crowded round the prelate, it is added, as he retired, anxiously inquiring, "My lord, has the queen received?" but he eluded the question, by replying most devoutly, "Her majesty was in a heavenly disposition!" Still it must not be concealed, that she is said to have died in a manner worthy of a christian. When very near her end,

she inquired of one of the physicians in attendance, "How long can this last?" "Your majesty will soon be eased of your pains," was the reply. "The sooner the better," said the queen and she then most fervently engaged in extempore prayer. Shortly afterwards, she twice desired that cold water might be thrown over her, to support her strength, while her family put up a final petition in her behalf. "Pray aloud," said she, "that I may hear you." She then faintly joined them in repeating the Lord's prayer; and, at its conclusion, calmly laid down, waved her hand, and expired.

The king, it appears, duly appreciated the loss he sustained by the death of his consort. During her illness, he had watched by her bed-side, with unabated attention, and could scarcely be prevailed on to take any rest or refreshment. As soon as the first emotions of grief had subsided, he delighted to talk of her, to recount her virtues, and conjecture how she would have acted on occasions of difficulty. He continued the salaries of all her officers and nominal servants who were not taken into his own household, and commanded a list of her numerous periodical benefactions to be laid before him; saying, it was his intention that nobody should be a sufferer by her death but himself. Shortly after her demise, Walpole had an interview with the king, who, with a flood of tears gushing from his eyes, gave a confidential detail of the inimitable virtues of his royal consort; he particularly dwelt on the great relief and assistance which he had found from her noble and calm disposition, in governing so humoursome and inconstant a people as the English; adding, that he must, for the future, lead a helpless, disconsolate, and uncomfortable life, and that he did not know what to do, nor which way to turn himself.

Some time afterwards, one morning before his hour of rising, the king said to Baron Brinkman, one of his German attendants, "I hear you have a picture of my wife, which she gave you, and which is a better likeness than any in my possession; bring it to me." .." When it was brought, the king seemed greatly affected; and, after a short pause, he said, "It is very like; put it upon the