the next morning. But as he was travelling that forenoon, he was seized with an apoplectic fit in his coach, and on coming to Ippenburen, was observed to be quite lethargic; his hands were motionless, his eyes fixed, and his tongue hung out of his mouth. His attendants wished to stop at Ippenburen, and obtain assistance; but the King recovered his speech so far as to cry out several times, impatiently, "Osnabruck! Osnabruck!" Even in that extremity these well-trained courtiers durst not disobey him, and hastened on. But when they reached Osnabruck the King was already dead. He was taken to the house of his brother the Prince-Bishop, and immediately blooded; but all attempts to recover him were useless. His interment took place at Hanover, in the vault of his ancestors. And thus suddenly closed his checkered and eventful, but, on the whole, prosperous, constitutional, and indulgent reign.

An express was sent with the fatal news to Lord Townshend, and another to the Duchess of Kendal, who were both at different places in the rear. The Minister, after proceeding to Osnabruck, and finding that all was over, hastened back to England. The favourite tore her hair and beat her breast, with other signs of extreme grief, and then dismissing the English ladies who attended her, travelled onwards to Brunswick. She did not disdain, however, again to honour England with her presence, residing chiefly at Kendal House, near Twickenham, till her death, in 1743, when she left enormous wealth to be divided amongst her German relatives.

The reader, who in the reign of George the First has seen his mistresses so often mentioned and his consort not once, will be surprised to learn that the latter had died only seven months before her husband. SophiaDorothea of Zell was the name and lineage of this unfortunate princess. When married, in 1682, she was young, accomplished, beautiful. But with indiscretion, though probably no more than indiscretion, she received the attentions of Count Konigsmark, a Swedish nobleman who had come on a visit to Hanover. Her husband was absent at the army; her father-in-law, the old Elector, was prepossessed against her, partly by the cabals of his mistress, and partly by her own imprudence of be

haviour. The details of this transaction, and of the black deed that followed it, are shrouded in mystery; thus much only is certain, that one evening as Konigsmark had come out of the apartment of the Princess, and was crossing a passage in the palace, several persons, who had been ready posted, rushed upon and despatched him. The spot of this murder is still shown; and many years afterwards, in some repairs, the bones of the unhappy man were discovered beneath the floor. The Princess was placed under arrest; the Prince, on his return, was convinced of her guilt, and concurred in her imprisonment, obtaining also from the Consistory a divorce in December, 1694. Sophia was closely confined to the solitary castle of Ahlen, where she dragged on a miserable existence for thirty-two years, till, on the 13th of November, 1726, she was released by death, when she was mentioned in the Gazette as Electress-Dowager of Hanover. During her confinement she used to receive the Sacrament every week, and never failed on those occasions to make a solemn protestation of her innocence. Her son, afterwards George the Second, was fully convinced of it; once, it is said, he made a romantic attempt to see her, crossing the river opposite the castle on horseback, but was prevented by Baron Bulow, to whose care she was committed. He secretly kept her picture, and had determined, in the event of her surviving his accession, to have restored her to liberty, and acknowledged her as Queen-Dowager.

If we may trust some rumours whispered at the time in Germany, the death of this ill-fated Princess hastened that of George. It is said that in her last illness she had delivered to a faithful attendant a letter to her husband, upon promise that it should be given into his own hands. It contained a protestation of her innocence, a reproach for his hard usage, and a citation or summons to appear within a year and a day at the Divine tribunal, and there to answer for the long and many injuries she had received from him. As this letter could not with safety to the bearer be delivered in England, it was given to the King in his coach, on his entering Germany. He opened it immediately, and, it is added, was so struck with the ur

expected contents and fatal citation, as to fall at once into the convulsion of which he died.*

Another rumour, not incompatible with the former, states, that Sophia having made a will, bequeathing her personal property to her son, the document was taken to her husband in England, and by him destroyed. Such a story, however, rests only on Court gossip, and seems quite at variance with the honesty of purpose, and love of justice, which eminently distinguished George the First. If it be really true, the act was very speedily retaliated upon him who wrought it. For George the First, himself, had made a will, with large legacies, as was believed, to the Duchess of Kendal, and her niece (some said her daughter) Lady Walsingham. One copy of this will he had intrusted to Dr. Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, who produced it at the very first Council attended by the new King, expecting that His Majesty would immediately open and read it. But George the Second, without saying a single word, put it in his pocket, and strode out of the apartment; the Archbishop was too courtly or too timid to complain, and the whole transaction remained buried in silence. Another copy, it is said, had been deposited with the Duke of Brunswick, but His Highness was silenced by a well-timed subsidy; and Lord Chesterfield, who married Lady Walsingham in 1733, and who threatened a suit in Chancery for her supposed legacy, received, it is reported, in lieu of it, the sum of 20,000l.†

* See Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 352. The letter containing this account was shown him in the same year by Count Welling, Governor of Luxemburg. But some people believed the whole to be a fabrication.

† Walpole's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 459., and Reminiscences, Works, vol. iv. p. 295. In her later years, Lady Suffolk lived in a villa close to Horace Walpole's; and this old woman (I mean the former) communicated many curious anecdotes.

CHAPTER XV.

GEORGE the Second was born in 1683, and had married in 1705 Princess Caroline of Anspach, by whom he had four daughters and two sons; Frederick Prince of Wales, born in 1707, and William Duke of Cumberland in 1721. His parts, I think, were not so good as his father's, but, on the other hand, he had much less reserve and shyness, and he possessed another inestimable advantage over him he could speak English fluently, though not without a foreign accent. His diminutive person, pinched features, and frequent starts of passion, were not favourable to the Royal dignity, and his mind still less. He had scarcely one kingly quality, except personal courage and justice. The former he had highly signalised at the battle of Oudenarde as a volunteer, and was destined to display again as sovereign at Dettingen; and even in peace he was so fond of the army, and of military details, that his nickname among the Jacobites was "the Captain." A love of justice was apparent in all the natural movements of his mind. But avarice, that most unprincely of all passions, sat enshrined in the inmost recesses of his bosom. Its twitches were shown on all occasions. His purse was often in his hands, not to give from it, but to feel, and count over.* An extreme minuteness and precision in keeping his private accounts saved him a little money, and lost him a great deal of time. "He has often told me himself," says Lord Chesterfield, " that little things "affected him more than great ones; and this was so true, that I have often seen him put so much out of

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*"Soon after his first arrival in England, Mrs. "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!'” Horace Walpole's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 153.

"humour at his private levee, by a mistake or blunder "of a valet de chambre, that the gaping crowd admitted "to his public levee have from his looks and silence con"cluded that he had just received some dreadful news."

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On the same principle, "he troubled himself little "about religion, but jogged on quietly in that in which "he had been bred, without scruples, doubts, zeal, or "inquiry." Of acquired knowledge he had little, professing great contempt for literature; but he sometimes read history, and had an excellent memory for dates. His habits were very temperate, and so regular, that he scarce ever deviated from his beaten daily track in the words of one of his courtiers, "he seems to think his "having done a thing to-day an unanswerable reason for "his doing it to-morrow." Business he understood well, and transacted with pleasure. Like his father, he was far too Hanoverian in his politics, nor wholly free from the influence of mistresses. But his reign of thirtythree years deserves this praise,—that it never once invaded the rights of the nation, nor harshly enforced the prerogatives of the Crown; that its last period was illumined by the glories of Wolfe and of Chatham ;— and that it left the dynasty secure, the constitution unimpaired, and the people prosperous.

Queen Caroline had been handsome in her youth, and to the last retained great expression in her countenance, and sweetness in her smile. Her character was without a blemish, and her conduct always marked by judgment and good sense. During the violent quarrels between her husband and his father, she had behaved so prudently that she equally retained the affection of the first and the esteem of the latter. With the nation also she was more popular than any other member of her family, till George the Third. Her manner most happily combined the Royal dignity with female grace, and her conversation was agreeable in all its varieties, from mimicry and repartee up to metaphysics. In fact, her only faults were those of a Philaminte or a Belise.† She was fond of talking on all learned subjects, and understood some

* Lord Hervey to Horace Walpole, October 31. 1735. † See Molière - Les Femmes Savantes. VOL. II.

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