her mother's death, Sophie Charlotte assumed a mother's place to the little princess, who had now become an orphan and friendless indeed. Her stepbrother was ruling at Ansbach, and Caroline was not very welcome there; indeed she was looked upon rather as an encumbrance than otherwise, and the only thing to be done was to marry her off as quickly as possible. There seems to have been some idea of betrothing her, when she was a mere child, to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, but she could hardly have been in love with him, as Horace Walpole relates, for the Duke married some one else when Caroline was only thirteen years of age.

Sophie Charlotte caused her adopted daughter to be thoroughly educated, and carefully trained in the accomplishments necessary to her position. Caroline's quickness and natural ability early made themselves manifest. Sophie Charlotte had no daughter of her own, and her heart went out to the young Princess of Ansbach, who returned her love fourfold, and looked up to her with something akin to adoration. Her admiration led to a remarkable likeness between the two in speech and gesture; nor did the likeness end here. Caroline was early admitted to the reunions at Lützenburg, and permitted to listen to the frank and free discussions which took place there. Such a training, though it might shake her beliefs, could not fail to sharpen her wits and enlarge her knowledge, and there is abundant evidence to show that in later life she adopted

Sophie Charlotte's views, not only in ethics and philosophy, but in conduct and morals. But she was more practical and less transcendental than the Queen of Prussia, and, like the Electress Sophia, she loved power, and took a keen interest in political affairs.

In this manner Caroline's girlhood passed. We may picture her walking up and down the garden walks and terraces of Lützenburg hearing Leibniz expound his philosophy, or sitting with the Queen of Prussia on her favourite seat under the limes discussing with her "the why of the why". She was the Queen's constant companion and joy, and when, as it sometimes happened, she was obliged to leave Berlin for a while to pay a visit to her brother at Ansbach, Sophie Charlotte declared she found Lützenburg "a desert".

Leibniz, Sophie Charlotte's chosen guide, philosopher and friend, is worthy of more than passing notice, since his influence over the Princess Caroline was second only to that of the Queen of Prussia herself. In Caroline's youth, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a prominent figure at Berlin, whither he frequently journeyed from Hanover. He was one of the most learned men of his time, almost equally eminent as a philosopher, mathematician and man of affairs. He was born in 1646 at Leipzig, and after a distinguished university career at Jena and Altdorf, he entered the service of the Elector-Archbishop of Mainz, and, as he possessed the pen of a ready writer, he was em

ployed by him to advance his schemes. The Archbishop later sent him to Paris, nominally with a scheme he had evolved for the re-conquest of Egypt, really with the hope of distracting Louis the Fourteenth's attention from German affairs, so that Leibniz went in a dual capacity, as a diplomatist and as an author. In Paris the young philosopher became acquainted with Arnauld and Malebranche. From Paris he went to London, where he met Newton, Oldenburg and Boyle. His intimacy with these distinguished men stimulated his interest in mathematics. In 1676, when he was thirty years of age, Leibniz quitted the service of Mainz and entered that of Hanover. For the next forty years his headquarters were at Hanover, where he had charge of the archives, and worked also at politics, labouring unceasingly with his pen to promote the aggrandisement of the House of Hanover, especially to obtain for it the electoral dignity. Leibniz's work threw him much in contact with the Electress Sophia, with whom he became a trusted and confidential friend, and whose wide views were largely coloured by his liberal philosophy.

Leibniz had a positive passion for work, and in these, the most active years of his life, he not only laboured at political affairs, but worked hard at philosophy and mathematics, turning out book after book with amazing rapidity. At the suggestion of the Electress Sophia, he concerned himself with theology too, and strove at one time to promote the reunion of the Catholic and Protestant creeds,