that same evening to the privy council; and on the following day at noon-the 15th of JuneGeorge II. was peaceably, if not joyously, proclaimed king of these realms. He was then in his 44th year. In person and in manners George was still less dignified than his predecessor; he was also more fiery and passionate, and was generally supposed to have less talent for business. George I. had been rather dishonoured by the avarice of his mistresses than by his own greed for money; but George II. was meanly avaricious-a most unfortunate and odious quality in a prince. This master-passion seemed typified in his person and features, the first being diminutive, the second pinched and hard. He was, however, a man of undisputed courage in the field, as his father had been before him; and he had these particular advantages over his sire he could speak English fluently though with a foreign accent; he knew the English people much better, from his having associated familiarly with them; he was sociable, communicative, and accessible on all occasions; and he had naturally a strong sense of justice and of honour. He was also much more temperate than his father, who would occasionally indulge in strong potations and disclose his state secrets over the punch-bowl. In his habits and occupations he was as regular as a piece of clock-work; and he was so much a slave to routine, that he seemed "to think his having done a thing to-day an unanswerable reason for his doing it to-morrow. He Letter of Lord Harvey to Horace Walpole. sometimes read history, and he had a retentive and scrupulous memory as to dates; but as for elegant literature he had no sense of its beauties, and he affected to despise what he did not understand. He hardly paid more respect to the seventh commandment than had been paid by his father, or than was paid by the other European potentates his contemporaries; but he chose his mistresses with far more taste, and instead of being a tyrannical, he was a most kind, and even a submissive, husband. It was, in fact, his good fortune, and the good fortune of the nation, that he allowed his wife, who was altogether a superior being, to rule him, and the state for him; and that his principal mistress was one of the quietest and most amiable of women. Carolina Wilhelmina was daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Anspach, and born in 1683, the same year as her husband George. Through the death of her father and the re-marrying of her mother, she was left under the guardianship of Frederick I., King of Prussia, and she was brought up chiefly at Berlin, under the superintendence of her aunt Sophia Charlotte, Frederick's second wife and a sister of George I. From the example and instructions of this aunt, who was an accomplished woman-a solitary model of refinement in the midst of a gross, clownish, and corrupt court-Caroline derived an ardent love of literature and philosophy, with a fondness for metaphysical pursuits, which obtained for her the eulogium of Clarke and Leibnitz. After rejecting the matrimonial overtures of the Archduke Charles, subsequently emperor, she espoused in 1705 George II., then only Electoral Prince of Hanover. She was esteemed handsome before she had the small-pox and became corpulent. Her hand and arm were greatly admired for their whiteness and elegance; and she had a penetrating eye, an expressive countenance, a fine voice, and much sweetness and grace, particularly when she spoke. A Whig poet, who must have felt that there was little else about the court of George I. to make it the darling of the land," said that the princess was "Form'd to gain hearts that Brunswick's cause denied, And charm a people to her father's side."* 66 who, to all outward appearance, was the absolute In some respects, however, Caroline would have been a promising subject for the satirist; for she affected to combine the characters of a philosopher and a princess royal and proudly royal, a beauty and a wit, a metaphysician and a divine—though, in divinity, her notions were scarcely considered strictly orthodox. "Her levees," says Archdeacon Coxe, "were a strange picture of the motley character and manners of a queen and a learned woman. She received company while she was at her toilet; prayers, and sometimes 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." "On the table,"preferred the charming and lively Miss Bellenden, says Lord Mahon, "perhaps, lay heaped together • Tickell's Kensington Garden. + Clarke's Dedication to his own and Leibnitz's Letters, if she had not gone off and married one of the and he sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his wife for a pension of 1200l. a-year.' But seldom has so amiable a woman submitted to royal dishonour, or occupied the invidious and most difficult part of mistress to a prince. She was pretty rather than handsome, was remarkably genteel, and dressed with taste and simplicity. "Her mental qualifications," says Walpole, "were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth and her accurate memory were always in unison. . . . . She was discreet without being reserved; and, having no bad qualities, and being constant to her connexions, she preserved uncommon respect till 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 connexion with the king had been confined to pure friendship."+ The literary men of the day did not offer up all their incense to the savante princess and queen; and though Caroline may have had the best of the philosophers and divines with her, the best of the poets were certainly rather with Mrs. Howard or Lady Suffolk. In part, perhaps, through the volatility of the race, and in part because they fancied that Caroline was not so liberal as she ought to be, and that the mistress must eventually have more power over the heart of the king than the wife, and a greater faculty for disposing of places and pensions, Gay put his whole trust in that lady;" Swift praised her as the person of her sex for whom he had the most esteem; and Pope, who always declared that he wanted nothing for himself, but only for his friends, and who quarrelled with the princess, frequented the society of the mistress, and complimented her with some elegant verse. Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, and Arbuthnot paid their court in the same quarter but we regret to add that all these poets and wits turned against the inoffensive lady, and abused her roundly, when they found she could be of no use to them or to their party-that she never meddled with state affairs or with that treasury urn in which lay the prizes of places and appointments. The mistress, in fact, constantly "These now little known anecdotes of Mr. Howard's behaviour," says Horace Walpole, "I received between twenty and thirty years afterwards from the mouth of Lady Suffolk herself. She had left the court about the year 1735, and passed her summers at her villa of Marble Hill at Twickenham, living very retired both there and in London. I purchased Strawberry Hill in 1747; and, being much acquainted with the houses of Dorset, Vere, and others of Lady Suffolk's intimates, was become known to her; though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostile factions at court. Becoming neighbours, and both, after her second husband's death, living single and alone, our acquaintance turned to intimacy. She was extremely deaf, and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in listening; her memory both of re mote and of the most recent facts was correct beyond belief. Each of us knew different parts of many court stories, and each was eager to learn what either could relate more: and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could make out discoveries of a third circumstance, before unknown to both."-Reminiscences. The Countess of Suffolk, having lost her first husband, married the Hon. George Berkeley, a brother of the Earl of Berkeley; but this was after she had left the court. "Her credit had always been extremely limited by the queen's superior influence, and by the devotion of the minister to her majesty. Except a barony, a red ribbon, and a good place for her brother, Lady Suffolk could succeed but in very subordinate recom watched and thwarted by the queen, and disregarded by the ministers, who knew who it was that really held the reins, had scarcely the shadow of pride; and to all politics she was constantly and wisely averse. Caroline, who from their earliest connexion had determined to govern, and deserved to do so, retained an undivided sway; and, as she was convinced from the first that no minister could stand with Walpole in opposition, there could never have been much doubt as to the continuance of the ministry which George I. had left. Sir Robert also at this crisis fixed her favour by offering to obtain from 'parliament a jointure for her majesty of 100,000l. a-year, while Sir Spencer Compton-who, we suspect, was all along playing into Walpole's hands-would only undertake to propose 60,000l. Her majesty represented to her husband, at a fitting moment, that Compton was not even able to draw up a declaration; that it would be highly prejudicial to his affairs to prefer to the minister in actual possession a man in whose own judgment his predecessor was the fittest person to execute his office; she dwelt upon the danger of a motley cabinet; and she hinted that Walpole had agreed to carry through the House of Commons an augmentation to the civil list of 130,000l. This settled the business ;-there was no more question of Sir Spencer Compton as prime minister; he got a peerage, the Order of the Garter, and the presidency of the council; and the king re-appointed the old ministry. The only change that took place in the cabinet was one which squared with the interests and views of Walpole and his brother-in-law, Townshend. Lord Berkeley, who had been in alliance with their dangerous rival, Lord Carteret, was dismissed from the Admiralty, and replaced by Lord Torrington, who was wholly devoted to Walpole. The change, however, in the king's determination was sudden and unexpected. The son of the fortunate prime minister says, "The instance I shall cite will be a true picture of courtiers. Their majesties had removed from Richmond to their temporary palace in Leicester Fields, on the very evening of their receiving notice of their accession to the crown; and the next day all the nobility and gentry in town crowded to kiss their hands: my mother amongst the rest, who, Sir Spencer Compton's designation, and not its evaporation, being known, could not make her way between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach nearer to the queen than the third or fourth row: but no sooner was she descried by her majesty, than the queen said aloud, 'There I am sure I see a friend!' The torrent divided and shrunk to either side; and, as I came away,' said my mother, I might have mendations. Her own acquisitions were so moderate, that, besides Marble Hill, which cost the king 10,000/. or 12,000.. her complaisance had not been too dearly purchased. She left the court with an income so little to be envied, that, though an economist and not expensive, she found herself straitened; and, besides Marble Hill, she did not at most leave 20,000l. to her family."-Walpole, Reminiscences.] walked over their heads, if I had pleased.'"* The opposition, of all colours and shades, appears to have been stunned or bewildered. In conformity to the Act of Settlement, the parliament assembled the day after the announcement of the death of George I., that is, on the 15th of June; but it was prorogued by commission till the 27th. On that day the king went to the House of Peers; and, after expressing his concern for his father's death, and his own determination to preserve the constitution, and secure to all his subjects the full enjoyment of their religious and civil rights, he gave his sanction to the late measures of government. The address of condolence and congratulation was moved by Sir Paul Methuen, was seconded by Walpole, and was carried without any attempt at opposition. On the 3rd of July Walpole proposed that the entire revenue of the civil list, which had been found to produce about 130,000l. more than the 700,000l. granted to the late king, should be settled on his majesty during life. The "thorough Shippen" observed that the sum of 700,000l. had been considered by all as an ample royal revenue; and that it was to be hoped that many personal expenses, particularly those incurred in the frequent journeys to Hanover, would cease or decrease in this reign; that in the reign of the late Queen Anne the revenue did not in general exceed the sum of 550,000/., and yet parliament was called upon only once in a reign of thirteen years to pay the debts contracted by her civil government, and these debts were occasioned by her majesty's piety and generosity, and especially by her devoting 100,000l. per annum to the public service during the war; that in the late reign of George I., which was nearly the same length as that of Anne, 500,000l. had been twice voted for the discharge of the civil list debts; and during the last session 125,000l. were granted for purposes not yet explained; notwithstanding which there was a civil list debt of 600,000/. unaccounted for, but which he supposed had been contracted in Horace accounts for all this, and for the success of his father, without thinking of giving him credit for any superior morality. "The pre-occupation of the queen in favour of Walpole must be explained. He had early discovered that, in whatever gallantries George Prince of Wales indulged or affected, even the person of his princess was dearer to him than any charms in his mistresses: and, though Mrs. Howard (afterwards Lady Suffolk) was openly declared his favourite, as avowedly as the Duchess of Kendal was his father's, Sir Robert's sagacity discerned that the power would be lodged with the wife, not with the mistress; and he not only devoted himself to the princess, but totally abstained from ever visiting Mrs. Howard; while the injudicious muititude concluded that the common consequences of an inconstant husband's passion for his concubine would follow; and accordingly warmer, if not public, vows were made to the supposed favourite than to the prince's consort. They especially, who in the late reign had been out of favour at court, had, to pave their future path to favour, and to secure the fall of Sir Robert Walpole, sedulously, and no doubt zealously, dedicated themselves to the mistress; Bolingbroke secretly, his friend Swift openly, and as ambitiously, cultivated Mrs. Howard: and the neighbourhood of Pope's villa to Richmond facilitated their intercourse; though his religion forbade his entertaining views beyond those of serving his friends. Lord Bathurst, another of that connexion, and Lord Chesterfield, too early for his interest, founded their hopes on Mrs. Howard's influence; but, astonished and disappointed at finding Walpole not shaken from his seat, they determined on an experiment that should be the touchstone of Mrs. Howard's credit. They persuaded her to demand of the new king an earl's coronet for Lord Bathurst; she did; the queen put in her veto; and Swift, in despoir, returned to Ireland, to lament Queen Anne and curse Queen Caroline, under the mask of patriotism, in a country he abhorred and despised."-Reminiscences. a manner not fit to be owned, or swallowed up in the bottomless gulf of secret service. Shippen added that this amazing extravagance had happened under ministers who pretended to surpass all their predecessors in the knowledge and care of the public revenue; that he thought no addition to the civil list was needed, and that he should move that the duties and resources appropriated should be strictly limited so as to make up the clear yearly sum of 700,000!., and no more. Yet, so thoroughly was Walpole the master of this parliament, that not a single member rose to second Shippen; the motion was dropped, and the 130,000l. were added to the 700,000l. And on the 9th it was agreed, with the same unanimity, that the sum of 100,000l. per annum should be settled as a jointure upon the queen, in case of her surviving her husband. On the 17th the king, from the throne, thanked the Commons for this mark of attachment and affection; and, after adverting to the flourishing state of the country, prorogued the parliament. The necessary dissolution was proclaimed shortly after, and writs. were issued for a new parliament to meet in the month of January. At The Jacobites, whom no series of failures could wholly discourage, had been sanguine in their hopes that the death of the first George would lead to a revolution, and eventually to a restoration; but at the critical moment they saw all these hopes vanish into thin air; and the Earl of Strafford was obliged to confess to the Pretender that the torrent was too strong for his friends to resist.* the news of George I.'s death the Pretender set out from Bologna, where he had been residing, and travelled rapidly across the Alps to Lorraine, whence he dispatched a messenger to Bishop Atterbury, who was now residing at Paris as a regular agent or minister of the Stuart, and who, indisputably, was holding a correspondence with a desperate faction in England. The bishop, however, had small consolation or encouragement to offer to his master. "You will observe, Sir," wrote Atterbury, "what a spirit of caution and fear possesses your friends at home, and how they dread any alarm being given to the government, or taken by it... It appears that nothing is to be expected from them, without a foreign, and a very considerable assistance. It is plain that the Tories at this turn hoped to get into place, if not into power; and though they resolved to keep their principles and inclinations (i. e. their devotion to the Pretender) if they had done so, I much question whether they really would, or, rather, I am satisfied that the bulk of them would not." Nor were the advices received from other Jacobite agents much more encouraging. Lord Orrery, in London, confessed that the number of discontented among the people was small; and he ..... * Letter from Strafford to the Pretender, dated June 21, 1727, published by Lord Mahon, from Stuart Papers, in Appendix to Hist. Eng. from Peace of Utrecht. Stuart Papers, Lord Mahon, Appendix. deplored the servility, ignorance, and poor spirit | Wharton," writes Keene, the British consul, on of the English nobility and gentry, who, he said, were striving who should sell themselves at the best price to the new court, but were resolved to sell themselves at any price. Lockhart, who had been obliged to fly from Scotland, where some of his plotting had been discovered, declared that the project of himself and his friends returning to their country without a foreign army to back them, was a hopeless one, that could only bring down ruin upon the cause and all that adhered to it. At the same moment the little beggared and vagabond court of the Pretender was distracted with all kinds of intrigues, jealousies, and animosities; and the Pretender himself had behaved so unfaithfully and so savagely to his wife Clementina, that that high-spirited woman had ran away from him and shut herself up in a convent at Rome. By this conduct James had given deep offence both to the court of Vienna and the court of Madrid. The court of Versailles, which had taken no part in these matrimonial quarrels, had other and far more weighty reasons for not wishing to have the Stuart on their side of the Alps; and, upon the representations of the English government, they directed the Duke of Lorraine to drive James out of his territories. By the advice of Atterbury, however, instead of crossing the Alps, the Pretender went into the pope's town of Avignon. But he was not left undisturbed there; and in the course of a few months he was obliged to return to Italy, where his wife forgave him and rejoined him. Atterbury had been, and continued to be, deeply involved in all the contemptible intrigues of the little Jacobite court, aiming at nothing less than at that supreme voice in their councils which had once belonged to his friend and ally Bolingbroke. This Protestant prelate caballed with priests, monks, and mistresses; took part with the husband against the injured wife; overthrew the influence of the Earl of Mar and General Dillon; and then, becoming jealous of Hay and Murray, the Pretender's new ministers, he took part with the wife against the husband, and reviled James as a selfish, dangerous, and incurable blockhead. He continued, however, to plot and cabal to the last; and died at Paris early in 1731, in the seventieth year of his age. Every man that joined the Pretender became convinced of his woful incapacity, and ran a rapid race to misery and ruin. The volatile, debauched, but witty Duke of Wharton went abroad in the year 1726, attached himself to the Pretender's party, and embraced, or pretended to embrace, the Roman Catholic religion; and Lord North did the same. The latter nobleman soon left the jangling court in disgust, and entered the Spanish service, in which he died seven or eight years after. Wharton was sent to Madrid, in the time of Ripperda's mad schemes, to assist the Duke of Ormond in pressing for an invasion of England, and to justify or excuse the conduct of the Pretender to his wife. At Madrid he behaved like a drunkard and madman. "The Duke of April the 5th, 1726, "has not been sober, or scarce had a pipe out of his mouth, since he came from his expedition to St. Ildefonso. On Tuesday last I had some company with me that the Duke of Liria and Wharton wanted to speak with. Wharton made his compliments, and placed himself by me. I did not think myself obliged to turn out his star and garter; because, as he is an everlasting talker and tippler, in all probability he would lavish out something that might be of use to know, at least might discover, by the warmth of his hopes and expectations, whether any scheme was to be put in immediate execution in favour of his dear master, as he calls the Pretender. He began with telling me he had just then left the Duke de Ripperda, after an audience of an hour and a half and four minutes. The Duke of Ormond was with him; but that circumstance he omitted. I told him, sure it must have been an affair of the greatest importance to his new cause, that could have made Ripperda spare so much of his time, considering the multiplicity of business he is charged with. At which says he, You will shortly see the event; it is in my power to make your stocks fall as I think fit; my master is now in a postchaise, but the place he designs for I shall not tell you. He complained that Mr. Stanhope had prevented his seeing their Catholic majesties; but I am very sure that he has delivered in some proposals in writing, which are not disencouraged; for on the 1st of May, his P's birth- day, both he and the Duke of Liria, amongst a thousand other things they let slip, were fond of drinking a perpetual union of the saints of the day-whom God has joined let no man separate. The evening he was with me he declared himself the Pretender's prime minister, and Duke of Wharton and Northumberland. Hitherto (says he) my master's interest has been managed by the Duchess of Perth and three or four other old women, who meet under the portal of St. Germains; he wanted a Whig, and a brisk one, to put them in the right train, and I am the man; you may now look upon me Sir Philip Wharton, knight of the garter, and Sir Robert Walpole, knight of the bath, running a course, and by God he shall be hard pressed; he bought my family pictures, but they will not be long in his possession; that account is still open; neither he nor King George shall be six months at ease, as long as I have the honour to serve in the employ I am in. He mentioned mighty things from Moscovy, and talked so much nonsense and contradictions, that it was neither worth my while to remember them, or yours to read them. I used him very cavalièrement; upon which he was affronted; sword and pistol next day; but before I slept a gentleman was sent to desire everything might be forgot: what a pleasure must it have been to have killed a prime minister ?" * Soon after Letter to Mr. Robinson, afterwards Sir Benjamin, in Hardwicke State Papers.-Keene continues: "I must not forget to observe one thing to you, that is, not only he, but several of his party, before he |