This camp seems crowned with perpetual victory, for every sun that rises in the thunder of cannon sets in the music of violins." Meanwhile there were grand doings at the Palace. Thither to the festivities came all of the great company of the time. There might be seen the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, with his short figure and round, rosy face. Some of the visitors were oddly enough attired. The Flying Post tells us that the Bishop of Durham "was finely mounted in a lay habit of purple, with jack-boots, his hat cocked, and his black wig tied behind him, like a military officer."

In general the King saw but little of his subjects, and as he had quarrelled with his eldest son and the Princess of Wales, there was no one in the royal family to brighten up the place. We look back with regret to the days of that great man, "Little Will," or even to the dull times of good Queen Anne, both of whom, at least, spoke English. We do not like to look up at the old Palace and think of it as filled with Germans instead of English, of Mustapha and Mahomet, the King's two Turkish valets, taking the place of our old friend Lewis Jenkins, and would rather hear

the Duchess of Marlborough's high-toned recriminations, given at least in forcible English, than Count

Bernsdorf chattering German with Melesna Von Schulenburg.

79

CHAPTER IV.

KENSINGTON PALACE,

George the II-His Wife and Family-Court Life at Kensington-Death of George II-Caroline of Brunswick-Her Dinner Parties-Her Misfortunes and Death.

If we have met with unpleasant company in the late portion of our last chapter, the prospect before us is scarcely more inviting. We all know that if George the First was very vile, "viler still was George the Second"; yet it is not pleasant to be obliged to use so much black while portraying our Hanoverian kings. One of the principal duties of the historian is to erect alternately monuments and gallows. He must be prepared to raise a statue to Alfred the Good, or to hang John the Detestable in chains; the one as an encouragement, the other as a warning, to posterity.

But the duties of an historical Rambler are more

humble, and less responsible. To him a third course is open-when bad characters cross his path he may pass them by with a hasty jest, and raise smiles on the countenances of his readers instead of frowns. There are plenty of materials for jesting in the history of George the Second and his family, and yet when mapping out this portion of our ramble we scarcely felt inclined for mirth. The incidents of the chronique scandaleuse of the Court of George the II. are ludicrous, but like the buffoonery of some poor lunatic, they pain rather than amuse. There is so much heartlessness and so much corruption hid under the guise of ridicule, that the anecdotes, ludicrous though they be, provoke tears rather than laughter. The Court of the second George was as corrupt as the Court of the second Charles, and it was as dull as the Court of Queen Anne. It had all the depravity of the first without any of its gaiety, and it had all the dullness of the second without any of its purity. There is a gloss over the doings of the Merry Monarch which has often blinded posterity to much of the iniquity of that age, but the Court at Kensington in this reign appears to have been just as corrupt as that of Whitehall in the pre

ceding century, and yet to have gained none of the pleasures which sin is supposed to bring in its train. It was apparently wicked merely for the sake of being wicked. Never, perhaps, has vice appeared in a more petty and detestable form than it did at this period. We look almost in vain for any touch of natural feeling amid Court intrigue and Court deceit, and forced at last to abandon the search, we turn aside with a species of sickening horror.

The new possessors of Kensington Palace-King George and his wife, Caroline-had a numerous family, and some sketch of them is needed, that Englishmen may see what sort of a household once dwelt in their midst.

His Majesty, King George the Second, was a little red-faced man, with white eyebrows and goggle eyes, a man of low tastes and no intellect, unkingly in his person and still more so in his mind, passionate and avaricious, selfish and obstinate. "He had," says Lord Mahon, "scarcely one kingly quality, except personal courage and justice;" and when, in addition to these virtues, we have stated that he was temperate in his habits, and had a natural taste for business, we