who does not know that his ambition, treachery, irresolution, timidity, and want of judgment, were baffled *, and made advantage of, by a man who had all those vices and deficiencies in a stronger proportion-for who does not know the Duke of Newcastle?-Pp. 102-103. The character of George the Second is minutely, but powerfully, drawn. His attachment to the Queen seems, as it has always been represented, to have been of the most extraordinary and contradictory nature. He kept mistresses avowedly, even to her, while he seems to have preferred her to them all. And this not from the influence of mind only.-for George II. by no means understood Platonics, but from actual admiration of her person; for, as Walpole says, "he never described what he thought a handsome woman, but he drew her picture." The King had fewer sensations of revenge, or at least knew how to hoard them better than any man who ever sat upon a throne. The insults he experienced from his own, and those obliged servants, never provoked him enough to make him venture the repose of his people, or of his own. If any object of his hate fell in his way, he did not pique himself upon heroic forgiveness, but would indulge it at the expense of his integrity, though not of his safety. He was reckoned strictly honest; but the burning his father's will † must be an indelible blot upon his memory; as a much later instance of his refusing to pardon a young man, who had been condemned at Oxford * After the revolution of three days, Lord Bath was going to print a Diary which he had kept, in order to show all the falsehoods, treacheries, and breaches of promise of the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham, he having minuted down their conversations with him on the fall of Sir Robert Walpole. + [For an account of this curious transaction, see the author's Reminiscences in the fourth volume of his printed works.] E. It is said that there was a large legacy to his sister, the Queen of Prussia, which was the original cause of the inveteracy between the King and his nephew, the present King of Prussia. Paul Wells, executed at Oxford, Sept. 1, 1749, for the following, scarce to be called, forgery: being sued by a Mrs. Crooke for a debt of for a most trifling forgery, contrary to all example, when recommended to mercy by the judge, merely because Willes, who was attached to the Prince of Wales, had tried him, and assured him his pardon, will stamp his name with cruelty, though in general his disposition was merciful, if the offence was not murder. His avarice was much less equivocal than his courage: he had distinguished the latter early*; it grew more doubtful afterwards the former he distinguished very near as soon †, and never deviated from it. His understanding was not near so deficient, as it was imagined; but though his character changed extremely in the world, it was without foundation; for [whether] he deserved to be so much ridiculed as he had been in the former part of his reign, or so respected as in the latter, he was consistent in himself, and uniformly meritorious or absurd. His other passions were, Germany, the army, and women. Both the latter had a mixture of parade in them: he [treated] my Lady Suffolk, and afterwards Lady Yarmouth, as his mistresses, while he admired only the Queen; and never described what he thought a handsome woman, but he drew her picture. Lady Suffolk was sensible, artful, and agreeable, but had neither sense nor art enough to make him think her so agreeable as his wife. When she had left him, tired of acting the mistress, while she had in reality all the slights of a wife, and no interest with him, the opposition affected to cry up her virtue, and the obligations the King had to her for consenting to seem his mistress, while in reality she had confined him to mere friendship—a ridiculous pretence, as he was the last man in the world to have taste for talking sentiments, and that with a woman who was deaf. Lady Yarmouth was inoffensive, and attentive only to pleasing him, and selling peerages whenever she had an opportunity. The Queen had been admired and happy for governing him by address: it was not then known how easily he was to be governed by fear. Indeed, there were few arts by which he was not governed at some only nine pounds odd money, he altered the date of the year in the bond to Vide an authentic + Soon after his first arrival in England, Mrs. ****, one of the bed-chamber women, with whom he was in love, seeing him count his money over very often, said to him, "Sir, I can bear it no longer; if you count your money once more, I will leave the room." time or other of his life; for, not to mention the late Duke of Argyle, who grew a favourite by imposing himself upon him for brave; nor Lord Wilmington, who imposed himself upon him for the Lord knows what; the Queen governed him by dissimulation, by affected tenderness and deference; Sir Robert Walpole by abilities and influence in the House of Commons; Lord Granville by flattering him in his German politics; the Duke of Newcastle by teasing and betraying him; Mr. Pelham by bullying him,—the only man by whom Mr. Pelham was not bullied himself. Who indeed had not sometimes weight with the King, except his children and his mistresses? With them he maintained all the reserve and majesty of his rank. He had the haughtiness of Henry the Eighth, without his spirit; the avarice of Henry the Seventh, without his exactions; the indignities of Charles the First, without his bigotry for his prerogative; the vexations of King William, with as little skill in the management of parties; and the gross gallantry of his father, without his good nature or his honesty :-he might, perhaps, have been honest, if he had never hated his father, or had ever loved his son.-Pp. 152-157. The proceedings with regard to the trial of Admiral Byng are given at great length, and in a tone of much more energy and feeling than is at all usual with our author. He seems to have taken a very decided part in them, and to have shewn, throughout, a much stronger degree of feeling than his character generally manifests. The story, in his representation, is rendered highly interesting and tragical, and is told with a vigour and rapidity of style, which place it, in our estimation, among the very best parts of the book. It is, however, far too much at length to be extracted whole,—and a detached passage would not convey any adequate idea of it to the reader. The following is a most curious sketch. The representation of suffering, severe and long-continued, yet without the slightest repining, or souring of the heart or temper, is, in our view, of great and touching interest. On the 28th of December died the King's third daughter, Princess Caroline. She had been the favourite of the Queen, who preferred her understanding to those of all her other daughters, and whose partiality she returned with duty, gratitude, affection, and concern. Being in ill health at the time of her mother's death, the Queen told her she would follow her in less than a year. The Princess received the notice as a prophecy; and though she lived many years after it had proved a vain one, she quitted the world, and persevered in the closest retreat, and in constant and religious preparation for the grave; a moment she so eagerly desired, that when something was once proposed to her, to which she was averse, she said, “I would not do it to die!" To this impression of melancholy had contributed the loss of Lord * Hervey, for whom she had conceived an unalterable passion, constantly marked afterwards by all kind and generous offices to his children. For many years she was totally an invalid, and shut herself up in two chambers in the inner part of St. James's, from whence she could not see a single object. In this monastic retirement, with no company but of the King, the Duke, Princess Emily, and a few of the most intimate of the court, she led, not an unblameable life only, but a meritorious one: her whole income was dispensed between generosity and charity; and, till her death, by shutting up the current discovered the scurce, the jails of London did not suspect that the best support of their wretched inhabitants was issued from the palace. From the last Sunday to the Wednesday on which she died, she declined seeing her family; and when the mortification began, and the pain ceased, she said, "I feared I should not have died of this !"—Vol. II. pp. 268-9. Walpole has attempted the difficult task of drawing his own portrait; and we do not remember ever to have seen a more signal failure. He must, indeed, have possessed even less than the usual moderate portion of the y car to have sketched the following picture. If every item of it were reversed, it would be much nearer the reality than as it now stands. * Eldest son of John, Earl of Bristol, and Lord Privy Seal, a great favourite of Queen Caroline, and a principal object of Pope's satire. Walpole had a warm conception, vehement attachments, strong aversions; with an apparent contradiction in his temper -for he had numerous caprices, and invincible perseverance. His principles tended to republicanism, but without any of its austerity; his love of faction was unmixed with any aspiring. He had great sense of honour, but not great enough, for he had too much weakness to resist doing wrong, though too much sensibility not to feel it in others. He had a great measure of pride, equally apt to resent neglect, and scorning to stoop to any meanness or flattery. A boundless friend; a bitter, but a placable enemy. His humour was satiric, though accompanied with a most compassionate heart. Indiscreet and abandoned to his passions, it seemed as if he despised or could bear no constraint; yet this want of government of himself was the more blameable, as nobody had greater command of resolution whenever he made a point of it. This appeared in his person: naturally very delicate, and educated with too fond a tenderness, by unrelaxed temperance and braving all inclemency of weathers, he formed and enjoyed the firmest and unabated health. One virtue he possessed in a singular degree-disinterestedness and contempt of money-if one may call that a virtue, which really was a passion. In short, such was his promptness to dislike superiors, such his humanity to inferiors, that, considering how few men are of so firm a texture as not to be influenced by their situation, he thinks, if he may be allowed to judge of himself, that had either extreme of fortune been his lot, he should have made a good prince, but not a very honest slave.-Pp. 336-7. There is a long account of Lord George Sackville's case-but, though Walpole evidently inclines to the, unfavourable side, he gives little additional means of deciding on the long-mooted nature and degree of Lord George's culpability. Lord Ferrers' murder of his steward is thus spiritedly related: Lawrence, Earl Ferrers, had been parted from his wife", and an allowance settled on her by parliament out of his estate, for * Sister of Sir William Meredith, a most amiable woman; afterwards married to Lord Frederic Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyle.-A She was burnt to death in 1807.-E. |