QUEEN (to the Third Court Lady).

The town is very empty, I believe, madam?

THIRD COURT LADY.

Very empty, madam.

QUEEN (to the Fourth Court Lady).

I hope all your family is very well, madam?

FOURTH COURT LADY.

Very well, madam.

QUEEN (to the Fifth Court Lady).

We have had the finest summer for walking in the world.

Very fine madam.

FIFTH COURT LADY.

From this same Court Drama, which was written by Hervey for the amusement of his royal mistress, we learn that Caroline usually came down about nine, and would breakfast off a little sour cream and fruit.

Sometimes, however, the interviews at Kensington were more stormy. At the time of Walpole's Excise scheme, the opposition determined to remonstrate with the Queen on the measure- -no slight proof of the state power she was supposed to possess. Lord Stair was the person whom they selected, and the noble lord lectured Caroline until she could stand it no longer, and bade him learn better manners. "My conscience," remonstrated Lord Stair. "Don't talk to me about conscience, my Lord," returned the Queen

"or you will make me faint." Lord Stair professed. to be satisfied with the result of this interview, and informed a friend afterwards that "he had staggered her!"

It was at Kensington that Queen Caroline generally resided during the absence of the King in Hanover, where George spent much of his time, and whence he usually returned out of temper with himself and with everybody. On one of these occasions Caroline had ventured to make some trifling improvements at Kensington Palace, and had replaced some dauby oilpaintings by masterpieces of Vandyke, and other eminent artists. The King was enraged; and when Lord Hervey endeavoured to reconcile him to the change, blurted out," I suppose you assisted the Queen with your fine advice when she was pulling my house to pieces and spoiling all my furniture. Thank God, at least she has left the walls standing. As for the Vandykes, I do not care whether they are changed or not; but for the picture with the dirty frame over the door, and the three nasty little children, I will have them taken away and the old ones restored, I will

have it done to-morrow morning before I go to London, or else I know it will not be done at all."

The King was in an equally bad temper on the following morning, and entering the gallery where the Queen and her children were taking chocolate, "he snubbed the Queen for being always stuffing, the Princess Amelia for not hearing him, the Princess Caroline for being grown fat, the Duke of Cumberland for standing awkwardly; and then he carried the Queen out to walk, to be re-snubbed again.”

During another of the King's journeys to his beloved Hanover, the popular discontent became so high that it was necessary to double the guards at the surburban palace. It was on the occasion of this visit that his Majesty narrowly escaped being drowned on his voyage home. For some time it was very generally believed in London that the reign of the second George was over; and when at last news arrived of the King's safety, the people remarked that "it was God's mercy and a thousand pities."

It seems to have been about this time also that the fracas between the Queen and her eldest son's wife occurred. The Queen was regular in her attendance

at divine service at Kensington Chapel, and was always careful to be seated in her pew in good time. Her daughter-in-law made a point of coming late; and as she had a seat on the other side of her Majesty, was obliged, greatly to Caroline's annoyance, to pass in front of the Queen—“a large woman," says Dr. Doran, "in a small pew." The utmost that the Prince, who was doubtless the instigator of his wife's unladylike behavour, would do, was to order the Princess not to go to chapel at all whenever the Queen was there before her.

The Princess of Wales was, in fact, the tool of her husband, and is said to have been harmless enough, and stupid almost to idiocy. She would sit at the windows of Kensington Palace the whole day long, and amuse herself with a gigantic jointed doll, nurseing and fondling, dressing and undressing it, greatly to the amusement of the sentinels and any occasional passers by. The Princess Caroline remonstrated with her sister-in-law, and desired that at least the dollfondling might be carried on at a distance from the windows, adding that the people thought—and in this case with very good reason-every thing ridiculous

that was not customary, and such a proceeding would inevitably attract a mob.

Her princely husband looked out of the windows of Kensington Palace to little better purpose. Standing there one day, and seeing Bubb Doddington go by, he remarked, "That man is reckoned one of the most sensible men in England; and yet, with all his cleverness, I have just nicked him out of £5,000."

The name of Queen Caroline does not figure in the death-roll of Kensington Palace, and we are glad it does not; for her death-bed was such a scene of mingled solemnity and buffoonery as to render it a fearfully painful incident.

Shortly afterwards, Sophia de Walmoden, the king's mistress, was installed at the Palace, and very nearly proved the cause of its destruction. Finding that the apartments assigned to her were damp, she kept up such a fire that the woodwork caught, though fortunately no serious consequences ensued. There were other rooms which she could have had, but, writes Walpole, "the King hoards all he can, and has locked up half the palace since the Queen's death."

Not four years after the latter event, Frederick,