George The Second
On the afternoon of the 14th of June, 1727, two horsemen might have beenperceived galloping along the road from Chelsea to Richmond. The foremost,cased in the jackboots of the period, was a broad-faced, jolly-looking,and very corpulent cavalier; but, by the manner in which he urged hishorse, you might see that he was a bold as well as a skilful rider.Indeed, no man loved sport better; and in the hunting-fields of Norfolk,no squire rode more boldly after the fox, or cheered Ringwood andSweettips more lustily, than he who now thundered over the Richmond road.
He speedily reached Richmond Lodge, and asked to see the owner of themansion. The mistress of the house and her ladies, to whom our friend wasadmitted, said he could not be introduced to the master, however pressingthe business might be. The master was asleep after his dinner; he alwaysslept after his dinner: and woe be to the person who interrupted him!Nevertheless, our stout friend of the jackboots put the affrighted ladiesaside, opened the forbidden door of the bedroom, wherein upon the bed laya little gentleman; and here the eager messenger knelt down in hisjackboots.
He on the bed started up, and with many oaths and a strong German accentasked who was there, and who dared to disturb him?
"I am Sir Robert Walpole," said the messenger. The awakened sleeper hatedSir Robert Walpole. "I have the honour to announce to your Majesty thatyour royal father, King George I, died at Osnaburg, on Saturday last, the10th inst."
"_Dat is one big lie!_" roared out his sacred Majesty King George II: butSir Robert Walpole stated the fact, and from that day untilthree-and-thirty years after, George, the second of the name, ruled overEngland.
How the king made away with his father's will under the astonished nose ofthe Archbishop of Canterbury; how he was a choleric little sovereign; howhe shook his fist in the face of his father's courtiers; how he kicked hiscoat and wig about in his rages, and called everybody thief, liar, rascal,with whom he differed: you will read in all the history books; and how hespeedily and shrewdly reconciled himself with the bold minister, whom hehad hated during his father's life, and by whom he was served duringfifteen years of his own with admirable prudence, fidelity, and success.But for Sir Robert Walpole, we should have had the Pretender back again.But for his obstinate love of peace, we should have had wars, which thenation was not strong enough nor united enough to endure. But for hisresolute counsels and good-humoured resistance we might have had Germandespots attempting a Hanoverian regimen over us: we should have hadrevolt, commotion, want, and tyrannous misrule, in place of a quarter of acentury of peace, freedom, and material prosperity, such as the countrynever enjoyed, until that corrupter of Parliaments, that dissolute tipsycynic, that courageous lover of peace and liberty, that great citizen,patriot, and statesman governed it. In religion he was little better thana heathen; cracked ribald jokes at bigwigs and bishops, and laughed atHigh Church and Low. In private life the old pagan revelled in the lowestpleasures: he passed his Sundays tippling at Richmond; and his holidaysbawling after dogs, or boozing at Houghton with boors over beef and punch.He cared for letters no more than his master did: he judged human natureso meanly that one is ashamed to have to own that he was right, and thatmen could be corrupted by means so base. But, with his hireling House ofCommons, he defended liberty for us; with his incredulity he keptChurch-craft down. There were parsons at Oxford as double-dealing anddangerous as any priests out of Rome, and he routed them both. He gaveEnglishmen no conquests, but he gave them peace, and ease, and freedom;the three per cents nearly at par; and wheat at five-and six-and-twentyshillings a quarter.
Ave Caesar
It was lucky for us that our first Georges were not more high-minded men;especially fortunate that they loved Hanover so much as to leave Englandto have her own way. Our chief troubles began when we got a king whogloried in the name of Briton, and, being born in the country, proposed torule it. He was no more fit to govern England than his grandfather andgreat-grandfather, who did not try. It was righting itself during theiroccupation. The dangerous, noble old spirit of cavalier loyalty was dyingout; the stately old English High Church was emptying itself: thequestions dropping, which, on one side and the other;--the side of loyalty,prerogative, church, and king;--the side of right, truth, civil andreligious freedom,--had set generations of brave men in arms. By the timewhen George III came to the throne, the combat between loyalty and libertywas come to an end; and Charles Edward, old, tipsy, and childless, wasdying in Italy.
Those who are curious about European Court history of the last age knowthe memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, and what a Court was that ofBerlin, where George II's cousins ruled sovereign. Frederick the Great'sfather knocked down his sons, daughters, officers of state; he kidnappedbig men all Europe over to make grenadiers of; his feasts, his parades,his wine parties, his tobacco parties, are all described. Jonathan Wildthe Great in language, pleasures, and behaviour, is scarcely more delicatethan this German sovereign. Louis XV, his life, and reign, and doings, aretold in a thousand French memoirs. Our George II, at least, was not aworse king than his neighbours. He claimed and took the royal exemptionfrom doing right which sovereigns assumed. A dull little man of low tasteshe appears to us in England; yet Hervey tells us that this choleric princewas a great sentimentalist, and that his letters--of which he wroteprodigious quantities--were quite dangerous in their powers of fascination.He kept his sentimentalities for his Germans and his queen. With usEnglish, he never chose to be familiar. He has been accused of avarice,yet he did not give much money, and did not leave much behind him. He didnot love the fine arts, but he did not pretend to love them. He was nomore a hypocrite about religion than his father. He judged men by a lowstandard; yet, with such men as were near him, was he wrong in judging ashe did? He readily detected lying and flattery, and liars and flattererswere perforce his companions. Had he been more of a dupe he might havebeen more amiable. A dismal experience made him cynical. No boon was it tohim to be clear-sighted, and see only selfishness and flattery round abouthim. What could Walpole tell him about his Lords and Commons, but thatthey were all venal? Did not his clergy, his courtiers, bring him the samestory? Dealing with men and women in his rude, sceptical way, he comes todoubt about honour, male and female, about patriotism, about religion. "Heis wild, but he fights like a man," George I, the taciturn, said of hisson and successor. Courage George II certainly had. The Electoral Prince,at the head of his father's contingent, had approved himself a good andbrave soldier under Eugene and Marlborough. At Oudenarde he speciallydistinguished himself. At Malplaquet the other claimant to the Englishthrone won but little honour. There was always a question about James'scourage. Neither then in Flanders, nor afterwards in his own ancientkingdom of Scotland, did the luckless Pretender show much resolution. Butdapper little George had a famous tough spirit of his own, and fought likea Trojan. He called out his brother of Prussia, with sword and pistol; andI wish, for the interest of romancers in general, that that famous duelcould have taken place. The two sovereigns hated each other with all theirmight; their seconds were appointed; the place of meeting was settled; andthe duel was only prevented by strong representations made to the two, ofthe European laughter which would have been caused by such a transaction.
Whenever we hear of dapper George at war, it is certain that he demeanedhimself like a little man of valour. At Dettingen his horse ran away withhim, and with difficulty was stopped from carrying him into the enemy'slines. The king, dismounting from the fiery quadruped, said bravely: "NowI know I shall not run away;" and placed himself at the head of the foot,drew his sword, brandishing it at the whole of the French army, andcalling out to his own men to come on, in bad English, but with the mostfamous pluck and spirit. In '45, when the Pretender was at Derby, and manypeople began to look pale, the king never lost his courage--not he. "Pooh!don't talk to me that stuff!" he said, like a gallant little prince as hewas, and never for one moment allowed his equanimity, o
r his business, orhis pleasures, or his travels, to be disturbed. On public festivals healways appeared in the hat and coat he wore on the famous day ofOudenarde; and the people laughed, but kindly, at the odd old garment, forbravery never goes out of fashion.
In private life the prince showed himself a worthy descendant of hisfather. In this respect, so much has been said about the first George'smanners, that we need not enter into a description of the son's Germanharem. In 1705 he married a princess remarkable for beauty, forcleverness, for learning, for good temper--one of the truest and fondestwives ever prince was blessed with, and who loved him and was faithful tohim, and he, in his coarse fashion, loved her to the last. It must be toldto the honour of Caroline of Anspach, that, at the time when Germanprinces thought no more of changing their religion than you of alteringyour cap, she refused to give up Protestantism for the other creed,although an Archduke, afterwards to be an Emperor, was offered to her fora bridegroom. Her Protestant relations in Berlin were angry at herrebellious spirit; it was they who tried to convert her (it is droll tothink that Frederick the Great, who had no religion at all, was known fora long time in England as the Protestant hero), and these good Protestantsset upon Caroline a certain Father Urban, a very skilful Jesuit, andfamous winner of souls. But she routed the Jesuit; and she refused CharlesVI; and she married the little Electoral Prince of Hanover, whom shetended with love, and with every manner of sacrifice, with artfulkindness, with tender flattery, with entire self-devotion, thenceforwarduntil her life's end.
When George I made his first visit to Hanover, his son was appointedregent during the royal absence. But this honour was never again conferredon the Prince of Wales; he and his father fell out presently. On theoccasion of the christening of his second son, a royal row took place, andthe prince, shaking his fist in the Duke of Newcastle's face, called him arogue, and provoked his august father. He and his wife were turned out ofSt. James's, and their princely children taken from them, by order of theroyal head of the family. Father and mother wept piteously at parting fromtheir little ones. The young ones sent some cherries, with their love, topapa and mamma; the parents watered the fruit with tears. They had notears thirty-five years afterwards, when Prince Frederick died--theireldest son, their heir, their enemy.
The king called his daughter-in-law "_cette diablesse madame laprincesse_". The frequenters of the latter's Court were forbidden toappear at the king's: their royal highnesses going to Bath, we read howthe courtiers followed them thither, and paid that homage in Somersetshirewhich was forbidden in London. That phrase of "_cette diablesse madame laprincesse_" explains one cause of the wrath of her royal papa. She was avery clever woman: she had a keen sense of humour: she had a dreadfultongue: she turned into ridicule the antiquated sultan and his hideousharem. She wrote savage letters about him home to members of her family.So, driven out from the royal presence, the prince and princess set up forthemselves in Leicester Fields, "where," says Walpole, "the most promisingof the young gentlemen of the next party, and the prettiest and liveliestof the young ladies, formed the new Court." Besides Leicester House, theyhad their lodge at Richmond, frequented by some of the pleasantest companyof those days. There were the Herveys, and Chesterfield, and little Mr.Pope from Twickenham, and with him, sometimes, the savage Dean of St.Patrick's, and quite a bevy of young ladies, whose pretty faces smile onus out of history. There was Lepell, famous in ballad song; and the saucy,charming Mary Bellenden, who would have none of the Prince of Wales's finecompliments, who folded her arms across her breast, and bade H.R.H. keepoff; and knocked his purse of guineas into his face, and told him she wastired of seeing him count them. He was not an august monarch, thisAugustus. Walpole tells how, one night at the royal card-table, theplayful princesses pulled a chair away from under Lady Deloraine, who, inrevenge, pulled the king's from under him, so that his Majesty fell on thecarpet. In whatever posture one sees this royal George, he is ludicroussomehow; even at Dettingen, where he fought so bravely, his figure isabsurd--calling out in his broken English, and lunging with his rapier,like a fencing-master. In contemporary caricatures, George's son, "theHero of Culloden," is also made an object of considerable fun, as witnessthe following picture of him defeated by the French (1757) at Hastenbeck:
I refrain to quote from Walpole regarding George--for those charmingvolumes are in the hands of all who love the gossip of the last century.Nothing can be more cheery than Horace's letters. Fiddles sing all throughthem: wax-lights, fine dresses, fine jokes, fine plate, fine equipages,glitter and sparkle there: never was such a brilliant, jigging, smirkingVanity Fair as that through which he leads us. Hervey, the next greatauthority, is a darker spirit. About him there is something frightful: afew years since his heirs opened the lid of the Ickworth box; it was as ifa Pompeii was opened to us--the last century dug up, with its temples andits games, its chariots, its public places--lupanaria. Wandering throughthat city of the dead, that dreadfully selfish time, through those godlessintrigues and feasts, through those crowds, pushing, and eager, andstruggling--rouged, and lying, and fawning--I have wanted some one to befriends with. I have said to friends conversant with that history, Show mesome good person about that Court; find me, among those selfish courtiers,those dissolute, gay people, some one being that I can love and regard.There is that strutting little sultan, George II; there is thathunchbacked, beetle-browed Lord Chesterfield; there is John Hervey, withhis deadly smile, and ghastly, painted face--I hate them. There is Hoadly,cringing from one bishopric to another: yonder comes little Mr. Pope, fromTwickenham, with his friend, the Irish dean, in his new cassock, bowingtoo, but with rage flashing from under his bushy eyebrows, and scorn andhate quivering in his smile. Can you be fond of these? Of Pope I might: atleast I might love his genius, his wit, his greatness, hissensibility--with a certain conviction that at some fancied slight, somesneer which he imagined, he would turn upon me and stab me. Can you trustthe queen? She is not of our order: their very position makes kings andqueens lonely. One inscrutable attachment that inscrutable woman has. Tothat she is faithful, through all trial, neglect, pain, and time. Save herhusband, she really cares for no created being. She is good enough to herchildren, and even fond enough of them: but she would chop them all upinto little pieces to please him. In her intercourse with all around her,she was perfectly kind, gracious, and natural; but friends may die,daughters may depart, she will be as perfectly kind and gracious to thenext set. If the king wants her, she will smile upon him, be she ever sosad; and walk with him, be she ever so weary; and laugh at his brutaljokes, be she in ever so much pain of body or heart. Caroline's devotionto her husband is a prodigy to read of. What charm had the little man?What was there in those wonderful letters of thirty pages long, which hewrote to her when he was absent, and to his mistresses at Hanover, when hewas in London with his wife? Why did Caroline, the most lovely andaccomplished princess of Germany, take a little red-faced staringprinceling for a husband, and refuse an emperor? Why, to her last hour,did she love him so? She killed herself because she loved him so. She hadthe gout, and would plunge her feet in cold water in order to walk withhim. With the film of death over her eyes, writhing in intolerable pain,she yet had a livid smile and a gentle word for her master. You have readthe wonderful history of that death-bed? How she bade him marry again, andthe reply the old king blubbered out, "_Non, non: j'aurai desmaitresses_." There never was such a ghastly farce. I watch theastonishing scene--I stand by that awful bedside, wondering at the ways inwhich God has ordained the lives, loves, rewards, successes, passions,actions, ends of his creatures--and can't but laugh, in the presence ofdeath, and with the saddest heart. In that often-quoted passage from LordHervey, in which the queen's death-bed is described, the grotesque horrorof the details surpasses all satire: the dreadful humour of the scene ismore terrible than Swift's blackest pages, or Fielding's fiercest irony.The man who wrote the story had something diabolical about him: theterrible verses which Pope wrote respec
ting Hervey, in one of his ownmoods of almost fiendish malignity, I fear are true. I am frightened as Ilook back into the past, and fancy I behold that ghastly, beautiful face;as I think of the queen writhing on her death-bed, and crying out,"Pray!--pray!"--of the royal old sinner by her side, who kisses her deadlips with frantic grief, and leaves her to sin more;--of the bevy ofcourtly clergymen, and the archbishop, whose prayers she rejects, and whoare obliged for propriety's sake to shuffle off the anxious inquiries ofthe public, and vow that her Majesty quitted this life "in a heavenlyframe of mind". What a life!--to what ends devoted! What a vanity ofvanities! It is a theme for another pulpit than the lecturer's. For apulpit?--I think the part which pulpits play in the deaths of kings is themost ghastly of all the ceremonial: the lying eulogies, the blinking ofdisagreeable truths, the sickening flatteries, the simulated grief, thefalsehood and sycophancies--all uttered in the name of Heaven in our Statechurches: these monstrous threnodies have been sung from time immemorialover kings and queens, good, bad, wicked, licentious. The State parsonmust bring out his commonplaces; his apparatus of rhetoricalblack-hangings. Dead king or live king, the clergyman must flatterhim--announce his piety whilst living, and when dead, perform the obsequiesof "our most religious and gracious king".
I read that Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious king'sfavourite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for 5,000_l._ (She betted him5,000_l._ that he would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and paid her.)Was he the only prelate of his time led up by such hands for consecration?As I peep into George II's St. James's, I see crowds of cassocks rustlingup the back-stairs of the ladies of the Court; stealthy clergy slippingpurses into their laps; that godless old king yawning under his canopy inhis Chapel Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing. Discoursingabout what?--about righteousness and judgement? Whilst the chaplain ispreaching, the king is chattering in German almost as loud as thepreacher; so loud that the clergyman--it may be one Dr. Young, he who wrote_Night Thoughts_, and discoursed on the splendours of the stars, theglories of heaven, and utter vanities of this world--actually burst outcrying in his pulpit because the Defender of the Faith and dispenser ofbishoprics would not listen to him! No wonder that the clergy were corruptand indifferent amidst this indifference and corruption. No wonder thatsceptics multiplied and morals degenerated, so far as they depended on theinfluence of such a king. No wonder that Whitfield cried out in thewilderness, that Wesley quitted the insulted temple to pray on thehillside. I look with reverence on those men at that time. Which is thesublimer spectacle--the good John Wesley, surrounded by his congregation ofminers at the pit's mouth, or the queen's chaplains mumbling through theirmorning office in their ante-room, under the picture of the great Venus,with the door opened into the adjoining chamber, where the queen isdressing, talking scandal to Lord Hervey, or uttering sneers at LadySuffolk, who is kneeling with the basin at her mistress's side? I say I amscared as I look round at this society--at this king, at these courtiers,at these politicians, at these bishops--at this flaunting vice and levity.Whereabouts in this Court is the honest man? Where is the pure person onemay like? The air stifles one with its sickly perfumes. There are someold-world follies and some absurd ceremonials about our Court of thepresent day, which I laugh at, but as an Englishman, contrasting it withthe past, shall I not acknowledge the change of to-day? As the mistress ofSt. James's passes me now, I salute the sovereign, wise, moderate,exemplary of life; the good mother; the good wife; the accomplished lady;the enlightened friend of art; the tender sympathizer in her people'sglories and sorrows.
Of all the Court of George and Caroline, I find no one but Lady Suffolkwith whom it seems pleasant and kindly to hold converse. Even themisogynist Croker, who edited her letters, loves her, and has that regardfor her with which her sweet graciousness seems to have inspired almostall men and some women who came near her. I have noted many little traitswhich go to prove the charms of her character (it is not merely becauseshe is charming, but because she is characteristic, that I allude to her).She writes delightfully sober letters. Addressing Mr. Gay at Tunbridge (hewas, you know, a poet, penniless and in disgrace), she says: "The placeyou are in, has strangely filled your head with physicians and cures; but,take my word for it, many a fine lady has gone there to drink the waterswithout being sick; and many a man has complained of the loss of hisheart, who had it in his own possession. I desire you will keep yours; forI shall not be very fond of a friend without one, and I have a great mindyou should be in the number of mine."
When Lord Peterborough was seventy years old, that indomitable youthaddressed some flaming love-, or rather gallantry-, letters to Mrs.Howard--curious relics they are of the romantic manner of wooing sometimesin use in those days. It is not passion; it is not love; it is gallantry:a mixture of earnest and acting; high-flown compliments, profound bows,vows, sighs, and ogles, in the manner of the Clelie romances, andMillamont and Doricourt in the comedy. There was a vast elaboration ofceremonies and etiquette, of raptures--a regulated form for kneeling andwooing which has quite passed out of our downright manners. HenriettaHoward accepted the noble old earl's philandering; answered the queerlove-letters with due acknowledgement; made a profound curtsey toPeterborough's profound bow; and got John Gay to help her in thecomposition of her letters in reply to her old knight. He wrote hercharming verses, in which there was truth as well as grace. "O wonderfulcreature!" he writes:--
O wonderful creature, a woman of reason! Never grave out of pride, never gay out of season! When so easy to guess who this angel should be, Who would think Mrs. Howard ne'er dreamt it was she?
The great Mr. Pope also celebrated her in lines not less pleasant, andpainted a portrait of what must certainly have been a delightful lady:--
I know a thing that's most uncommon-- Envy, be silent and attend!-- I know a reasonable woman, Handsome, yet witty, and a friend:
Not warp'd by passion, aw'd by rumour, Not grave through pride, or gay through folly: An equal mixture of good humour And exquisite soft melancholy.
Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir? Yes, she has one, I must aver-- When all the world conspires to praise her, The woman's deaf, and does not hear!
Even the women concurred in praising and loving her. The Duchess ofQueensberry bears testimony to her amiable qualities, and writes to her:"I tell you so and so, because you love children, and to have childrenlove you." The beautiful, jolly Mary Bellenden, represented bycontemporaries as "the most perfect creature ever known", writes verypleasantly to her "dear Howard", her "dear Swiss", from the country,whither Mary had retired after her marriage, and when she gave up being amaid of honour. "How do you do, Mrs. Howard?" Mary breaks out. "How do youdo, Mrs. Howard? that is all I have to say. This afternoon I am taken witha fit of writing; but as to matter, I have nothing better to entertainyou, than news of my farm. I therefore give you the following list of thestock of eatables that I am fatting for my private tooth. It is well knownto the whole county of Kent, that I have four fat calves, two fat hogs,fit for killing, twelve promising black pigs, two young chickens, threefine geese, with thirteen eggs under each (several being duck-eggs, elsethe others do not come to maturity); all this, with rabbits, and pigeons,and carp in plenty, beef and mutton at reasonable rates. Now, Howard, ifyou have a mind to stick a knife into anything I have named, say so!"
A jolly set must they have been, those maids of honour. Pope introduces usto a whole bevy of them, in a pleasant letter. "I went," he says, "bywater to Hampton Court, and met the Prince, with all his ladies, onhorseback, coming from hunting. Mrs. Bellenden and Mrs. Lepell took meinto protection, contrary to the laws against harbouring Papists, and gaveme a dinner, with something I liked better, an opportunity of conversationwith Mrs. Howard. We all agreed that the life of a maid of honour was ofall things the most miserable, and wished that all women who envied it hada specimen of it. To eat Westphalia ham of a morning, ride over hedges andditches on borrowed hacks, come ho
me in the heat of the day with a fever,and (what is worse a hundred times) with a red mark on the forehead froman uneasy hat--all this may qualify them to make excellent wives forhunters. As soon as they wipe off the heat of the day, they must simper anhour and catch cold in the princess's apartment; from thence to dinnerwith what appetite they may; and after that till midnight, work, walk, orthink which way they please. No lone house in Wales, with a mountain androokery, is more contemplative than this Court. Miss Lepell walked with methree or four hours by moonlight, and we met no creature of any qualitybut the king, who gave audience to the vice-chamberlain all alone underthe garden wall."
I fancy it was a merrier England, that of our ancestors, than the islandwhich we inhabit. People high and low amused themselves very much more. Ihave calculated the manner in which statesmen and persons of conditionpassed their time--and what with drinking, and dining, and supping, andcards, wonder how they got through their business at all. They played allsorts of games, which, with the exception of cricket and tennis, havequite gone out of our manners now. In the old prints of St. James's Park,you still see the marks along the walk, to note the balls when the Courtplayed at Mall. Fancy Birdcage Walk now so laid out, and Lord John andLord Palmerston knocking balls up and down the avenue! Most of those jollysports belong to the past, and the good old games of England are only tobe found in old novels, in old ballads, or the columns of dingy oldnewspapers, which say how a main of cocks is to be fought at Winchesterbetween the Winchester men and the Hampton men; or how the Cornwall menand the Devon men are going to hold a great wrestling match at Totnes, andso on.
A hundred and twenty years ago there were not only country towns inEngland, but people who inhabited them. We were very much more gregarious;we were amused by very simple pleasures. Every town had its fair, everyvillage its wake. The old poets have sung a hundred jolly ditties aboutgreat cudgel-playings, famous grinning through horse-collars, greatmaypole meetings, and morris-dances. The girls used to run races clad invery light attire; and the kind gentry and good parsons thought no shamein looking on. Dancing bears went about the country with pipe and tabor.Certain well-known tunes were sung all over the land for hundreds ofyears, and high and low rejoiced in that simple music. Gentlemen whowished to entertain their female friends constantly sent for a band. WhenBeau Fielding, a mighty fine gentleman, was courting the lady whom hemarried, he treated her and her companion at his lodgings to a supper fromthe tavern, and after supper they sent out for a fiddler--three of them.Fancy the three, in a great wainscoted room, in Covent Garden or Soho,lighted by two or three candles in silver sconces, some grapes and abottle of Florence wine on the table, and the honest fiddler playing oldtunes in quaint old minor keys, as the Beau takes out one lady after theother, and solemnly dances with her!
The very great folks, young noblemen, with their governors, and the like,went abroad and made the great tour; the home satirists jeered at theFrenchified and Italian ways which they brought back; but the greaternumber of people never left the country. The jolly squire often had neverbeen twenty miles from home. Those who did go went to the baths, toHarrogate, or Scarborough, or Bath, or Epsom. Old letters are full ofthese places of pleasure. Gay writes to us about the fiddlers atTunbridge; of the ladies having merry little private balls amongstthemselves; and the gentlemen entertaining them by turns with tea andmusic. One of the young beauties whom he met did not care for tea: "Wehave a young lady here," he says, "that is very particular in her desires.I have known some young ladies, who, if ever they prayed, would ask forsome equipage or title, a husband or matadores: but this lady, who is butseventeen, and has 30,000_l._ to her fortune, places all her wishes on apot of good ale. When her friends, for the sake of her shape andcomplexion, would dissuade her from it, she answers, with the truestsincerity, that by the loss of shape and complexion she could only lose ahusband, whereas ale is her passion."
Every country town had its assembly-room--mouldy old tenements, which wemay still see in deserted inn-yards, in decayed provincial cities, out ofwhich the great wen of London has sucked all the life. York, at assizetime, and throughout the winter, harboured a large society of northerngentry. Shrewsbury was celebrated for its festivities. At Newmarket, Iread of "a vast deal of good company, besides rogues and blacklegs"; atNorwich, of two assemblies, with a prodigious crowd in the hall, therooms, and the gallery. In Cheshire (it is a maid of honour of QueenCaroline who writes, and who is longing to be back at Hampton Court, andthe fun there) I peep into a country house, and see a very merry party:"We meet in the work-room before nine, eat and break a joke or two tilltwelve, then we repair to our own chambers and make ourselves ready, forit cannot be called dressing. At noon the great bell fetches us into aparlour, adorned with all sorts of fine arms, poisoned darts, several pairof old boots and shoes worn by men of might, with the stirrups of KingCharles I, taken from him at Edgehill,"--and there they have their dinner,after which comes dancing and supper.
As for Bath, all history went and bathed and drank there. George II andhis queen, Prince Frederick and his Court, scarce a character one canmention of the early last century, but was seen in that famous Pump-roomwhere Beau Nash presided, and his picture hung between the busts of Newtonand Pope:
This picture, placed these busts between, Gives satire all its strength: Wisdom and Wit are little seen, But Folly at full length.
I should like to have seen the Folly. It was a splendid, embroidered,be-ruffled, snuff-boxed, red-heeled, impertinent Folly, and knew how tomake itself respected. I should like to have seen that noble old madcapPeterborough in his boots (he actually had the audacity to walk about Bathin boots!), with his blue ribbon and stars, and a cabbage under each arm,and a chicken in his hand, which he had been cheapening for his dinner.Chesterfield came there many a time and gambled for hundreds, and grinnedthrough his gout. Mary Wortley was there, young and beautiful; and MaryWortley, old, hideous, and snuffy. Miss Chudleigh came there, slippingaway from one husband, and on the look-out for another. Walpole passedmany a day there; sickly, supercilious, absurdly dandified, and affected;with a brilliant wit, a delightful sensibility; and for his friends, amost tender, generous, and faithful heart. And if you and I had been alivethen, and strolling down Milsom Street--hush! we should have taken our hatsoff, as an awful, long, lean, gaunt figure, swathed in flannels, passed byin its chair, and a livid face looked out from the window--great fierceeyes staring from under a bushy, powdered wig, a terrible frown, aterrible Roman nose--and we whisper to one another, "There he is! There'sthe great commoner! There is Mr. Pitt!" As we walk away, the abbey bellsare set a-ringing; and we meet our testy friend Toby Smollett, on the armof James Quin the actor, who tells us that the bells ring for Mr. Bullock,an eminent cowkeeper from Tottenham, who has just arrived to drink thewaters; and Toby shakes his cane at the door of Colonel Ringworm--theCreole gentleman's lodgings next his own--where the colonel's two negroesare practising on the French horn.
When we try to recall social England, we must fancy it playing at cardsfor many hours every day. The custom is wellnigh gone out among us now,but fifty years ago was general, fifty years before that almost universal,in the country. "Gaming has become so much the fashion," writes Seymour,the author of the _Court Gamester_, "that he who in company should beignorant of the games in vogue, would be reckoned low-bred, and hardly fitfor conversation." There were cards everywhere. It was considered ill-bredto read in company. "Books were not fit articles for drawing-rooms," oldladies used to say. People were jealous, as it were, and angry with them.You will find in Hervey that George II was always furious at the sight ofbooks; and his queen, who loved reading, had to practise it in secret inher closet. But cards were the resource of all the world. Every night, forhours, kings and queens of England sat down and handled their majesties ofspades and diamonds. In European Courts, I believe the practice stillremains, not for gambling, but for pastime. Our ancestors generallyadopted it. "Books! prithee, don't talk to me about books," said old SarahMarlboroug
h. "The only books I know are men and cards." "Dear old SirRoger de Coverley sent all his tenants a string of hogs' puddings and apack of cards at Christmas," says the _Spectator_, wishing to depict akind landlord. One of the good old lady writers in whose letters I havebeen dipping cries out, "Sure, cards have kept us women from a great dealof scandal!" Wise old Johnson regretted that he had not learnt to play."It is very useful in life," he says; "it generates kindness, andconsolidates society." David Hume never went to bed without his whist. Wehave Walpole, in one of his letters, in a transport of gratitude for thecards. "I shall build an order to Pam," says he, in his pleasant dandifiedway, "for the escape of my charming Duchess of Grafton." The duchess hadbeen playing cards at Rome, when she ought to have been at a cardinal'sconcert, where the floor fell in, and all the monsignors were precipitatedinto the cellar. Even the Nonconformist clergy looked not unkindly on thepractice. "I do not think," says one of them, "that honest Martin Luthercommitted sin by playing at backgammon for an hour or two after dinner, inorder by unbending his mind to promote digestion." As for the High Churchparsons, they all played, bishops and all. On Twelfth Day the Court usedto play in state. "This being Twelfth Day, his Majesty, the Prince ofWales, and the Knights Companions of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath,appeared in the collars of their respective orders. Their Majesties, thePrince of Wales, and three eldest Princesses, went to the Chapel Royal,preceded by the heralds. The Duke of Manchester carried the sword ofstate. The king and prince made offering at the altar of gold,frankincense, and myrrh, according to the annual custom. At night theirMajesties played at hazard with the nobility, for the benefit of thegroom-porter; and 'twas said the king won 600 guineas; the queen, 360;Princess Amelia, twenty; Princess Caroline, ten; the Duke of Grafton andthe Earl of Portmore, several thousands."
Let us glance at the same chronicle, which is of the year 1731, and seehow others of our forefathers were engaged.
"Cork, 15th January.--This day, one Tim Croneen was, for the murder androbbery of Mr. St. Leger and his wife, sentenced to be hanged two minutes,then his head to be cut off, and his body divided in four quarters, to beplaced in four crossways. He was servant to Mr. St. Leger, and committedthe murder with the privity of the servant-maid, who was sentenced to beburned; also of the gardener, whom he knocked on the head, to deprive himof his share of the booty."
"January 3.--A postboy was shot by an Irish gentleman on the road nearStone, in Staffordshire, who died in two days, for which the gentleman wasimprisoned."
"A poor man was found hanging in a gentleman's stables at Bungay, inNorfolk, by a person who cut him down, and running for assistance, lefthis penknife behind him. The poor man recovering, cut his throat with theknife; and a river being nigh, jumped into it; but company coming, he wasdragged out alive, and was like to remain so."
"The Honourable Thomas Finch, brother to the Earl of Nottingham, isappointed ambassador at the Hague, in the room of the Earl ofChesterfield, who is on his return home."
"William Cowper, Esq., and the Rev. Mr. John Cowper, chaplain in ordinaryto her Majesty, and rector of Great Berkhampstead, in the county ofHertford, are appointed clerks of the commissioners of bankruptcy."
"Charles Creagh, Esq., and ---- Macnamara, Esq., between whom an old grudgeof three years had subsisted, which had occasioned their being bound overabout fifty times for breaking the peace, meeting in company with Mr.Eyres, of Galloway, they discharged their pistols, and all three werekilled on the spot--to the great joy of their peaceful neighbours, say theIrish papers."
"Wheat is 26_s._ to 28_s._, and barley 20_s._ to 22_s._ a quarter; threeper cents, 92; best loaf sugar, 9-1/4_d._; Bohea, 12_s._ to 14_s._; Pekoe,18_s._, and Hyson, 35_s._ per pound."
"At Exon was celebrated with great magnificence the birthday of the son ofSir W. Courtney, Bart., at which more than 1,000 persons were present. Abullock was roasted whole; a butt of wine and several tuns of beer andcider were given to the populace. At the same time Sir William deliveredto his son, then of age, Powdram Castle, and a great estate."
"Charlesworth and Cox, two solicitors, convicted of forgery, stood on thepillory at the Royal Exchange. The first was severely handled by thepopulace, but the other was very much favoured, and protected by six orseven fellows who got on the pillory to protect him from the insults ofthe mob."
"A boy killed by falling upon iron spikes, from a lamppost, which heclimbed to see Mother Needham stand in the pillory."
"Mary Lynn was burned to ashes at the stake for being concerned in themurder of her mistress."
"Alexander Russell, the foot soldier, who was capitally convicted for astreet robbery in January sessions, was reprieved for transportation; buthaving an estate fallen to him, obtained a free pardon."
"The Lord John Russell married to the Lady Diana Spencer, at MarlboroughHouse. He has a fortune of 30,000_l._ down, and is to have 100,000_l._ atthe death of the Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, his grandmother."
"March 1 being the anniversary of the queen's birthday, when her Majestyentered the forty-ninth year of her age, there was a splendid appearanceof nobility at St. James's. Her Majesty was magnificently dressed, andwore a flowered muslin head-edging, as did also her Royal Highness. TheLord Portmore was said to have had the richest dress, though an ItalianCount had twenty-four diamonds instead of buttons."
New clothes on the birthday were the fashion for all loyal people. Swiftmentions the custom several times. Walpole is constantly speaking of it;laughing at the practice, but having the very finest clothes from Paris,nevertheless. If the king and queen were unpopular, there were very fewnew clothes at the Drawing-room. In a paper in the _True Patriot_, No. 3,written to attack the Pretender, the Scotch, French, and Popery, Fieldingsupposes the Scotch and the Pretender in possession of London, and himselfabout to be hanged for loyalty,--when, just as the rope is round his neck,he says: "My little girl entered my bedchamber, and put an end to my dreamby pulling open my eyes, and telling me that the tailor had just broughthome my clothes for his Majesty's birthday." In his _Temple Beau_, thebeau is dunned for a birthday suit of velvet, 40_l._ Be sure that Mr.Harry Fielding was dunned too.
The public days, no doubt, were splendid, but the private Court life musthave been awfully wearisome. "I will not trouble you," writes Hervey toLady Sundon, "with any account of our occupations at Hampton Court. Nomill-horse ever went in a more constant track, or a more unchangingcircle; so that by the assistance of an almanac for the day of the week,and a watch for the hour of the day, you may inform yourself fully,without any other intelligence but your memory, of every transactionwithin the verge of the Court. Walking, chaises, levees, and audiencesfill the morning. At night the king plays at commerce and backgammon, andthe queen at quadrille, where poor Lady Charlotte runs her usual nightlygauntlet, the queen pulling her hood, and the Princess Royal rapping herknuckles. The Duke of Grafton takes his nightly opiate of lottery, andsleeps as usual between the Princesses Amelia and Caroline. Lord Granthamstrolls from one room to another (as Dryden says), like some discontentedghost that oft appears, and is forbid to speak; and stirs himself about aspeople stir a fire, not with any design, but in hopes to make it burnbrisker. At last the king gets up; the pool finishes; and everybody hastheir dismission. Their Majesties retire to Lady Charlotte and my LordLifford; my Lord Grantham, to Lady Frances and Mr. Clark: some to supper,some to bed; and thus the evening and the morning make the day."
The king's fondness for Hanover occasioned all sorts of rough jokes amonghis English subjects, to whom _Sauerkraut_ and sausages have ever beenridiculous objects. When our present Prince Consort came among us, thepeople bawled out songs in the streets indicative of the absurdity ofGermany in general. The sausage-shops produced enormous sausages which wemight suppose were the daily food and delight of German princes. Iremember the caricatures at the marriage of Prince Leopold with thePrincess Charlotte. The bridegroom was drawn in rags. George III's wifewas called by the people a beggarly German duchess; the British idea beingthat all princes we
re beggarly except British princes. King George paid usback. He thought there were no manners out of Germany. Sarah Marlboroughonce coming to visit the princess, whilst her Royal Highness was whippingone of the roaring royal children, "Ah!" says George, who was standing by,"you have no good manners in England, because you are not properly broughtup when you are young." He insisted that no English cooks could roast, noEnglish coachman could drive: he actually questioned the superiority ofour nobility, our horses, and our roast beef!
Whilst he was away from his beloved Hanover, everything remained thereexactly as in the prince's presence. There were 800 horses in the stables,there was all the apparatus of chamberlains, Court-marshals, andequerries; and Court assemblies were held every Saturday, where all thenobility of Hanover assembled at what I can't but think a fine andtouching ceremony. A large armchair was placed in the assembly-room, andon it the king's portrait. The nobility advanced, and made a bow to thearmchair, and to the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; andspoke under their voices before the august picture, just as they wouldhave done had the King Churfuerst been present himself.
He was always going back to Hanover. In the year 1729, he went for twowhole years, during which Caroline reigned for him in England, and he wasnot in the least missed by his British subjects. He went again in '35 and'36; and between the years 1740 and 1755 was no less than eight times onthe Continent, which amusement he was obliged to give up at the outbreakof the Seven Years' War. Here every day's amusement was the same. "Ourlife is as uniform as that of a monastery," writes a courtier whom Vehsequotes. "Every morning at eleven, and every evening at six, we drive inthe heat to Herrenhausen, through an enormous linden avenue; and twice aday cover our coats and coaches with dust. In the king's society therenever is the least change. At table, and at cards, he sees always the samefaces, and at the end of the game retires into his chamber. Twice a weekthere is a French theatre; the other days there is play in the gallery. Inthis way, were the king always to stop in Hanover, one could make a tenyears' calendar of his proceedings; and settle beforehand what his time ofbusiness, meals, and pleasure would be."
The old pagan kept his promise to his dying wife. Lady Yarmouth was now infull favour, and treated with profound respect by the Hanover society,though it appears rather neglected in England when she came among us. In1740, a couple of the king's daughters went to see him at Hanover; Anna,the Princess of Orange (about whom, and whose husband and marriage-day,Walpole and Hervey have left us the most ludicrous descriptions), andMaria of Hesse-Cassel, with their respective lords. This made the HanoverCourt very brilliant. In honour of his high guests, the king gave severalfetes; among others, a magnificent masked ball, in the green theatre atHerrenhausen--the garden theatre, with linden and box for screen, and grassfor a carpet, where the Platens had danced to George and his father thelate sultan. The stage and a great part of the garden were illuminatedwith coloured lamps. Almost the whole Court appeared in white dominos,"like," says the describer of the scene, "like spirits in the Elysianfields. At night, supper was served in the gallery with three greattables, and the king was very merry. After supper dancing was resumed, andI did not get home till five o'clock by full daylight to Hanover. Somedays afterwards we had in the opera-house at Hanover, a great assembly.The king appeared in a Turkish dress; his turban was ornamented with amagnificent agraffe of diamonds; the Lady Yarmouth was dressed as asultana; nobody was more beautiful than the Princess of Hesse." So, whilepoor Caroline was resting in her coffin, dapper little George, with hisred face and his white eyebrows and goggle-eyes, at sixty years of age, isdancing a pretty dance with Madame Walmoden, and capering about dressed uplike a Turk! For twenty years more, that little old Bajazet went on inthis Turkish fashion, until the fit came which choked the old man, when heordered the side of his coffin to be taken out, as well as that of poorCaroline's who had preceded him, so that his sinful old bones and ashesmight mingle with those of the faithful creature. O strutting Turkey-cockof Herrenhausen! O naughty little Mahomet! in what Turkish paradise areyou now, and where be your painted houris? So Countess Yarmouth appearedas a sultana, and his Majesty in a Turkish dress wore an agraffe ofdiamonds, and was very merry, was he? Friends! he was your fathers' kingas well as mine--let us drop a respectful tear over his grave.
He said of his wife that he never knew a woman who was worthy to buckleher shoe: he would sit alone weeping before her portrait, and when he haddried his eyes, he would go off to his Walmoden and talk of her. On the25th day of October, 1760, he being then in the seventy-seventh year ofhis age, and the thirty-fourth of his reign, his page went to take him hisroyal chocolate, and behold! the most religious and gracious king waslying dead on the floor. They went and fetched Walmoden; but Walmodencould not wake him. The sacred Majesty was but a lifeless corpse. The kingwas dead; God save the king! But, of course, poets and clergymendecorously bewailed the late one. Here are some artless verses, in whichan English divine deplored the famous departed hero, and over which youmay cry or you may laugh, exactly as your humour suits:--
While at his feet expiring Faction lay, No contest left but who should best obey; Saw in his offspring all himself renewed; The same fair path of glory still pursued; Saw to young George Augusta's care impart Whate'er could raise and humanize the heart; Blend all his grandsire's virtues with his own, And form their mingled radiance for the throne-- No farther blessing could on earth be given-- The next degree of happiness was--heaven!
If he had been good, if he had been just, if he had been pure in life, andwise in council, could the poet have said much more? It was a parson whocame and wept over this grave, with Walmoden sitting on it, and claimedheaven for the poor old man slumbering below. Here was one who had neitherdignity, learning, morals, nor wit--who tainted a great society by a badexample; who in youth, manhood, old age, was gross, low, and sensual; andMr. Porteus, afterwards my Lord Bishop Porteus, says the earth was notgood enough for him, and that his only place was heaven! Bravo, Mr.Porteus! The divine who wept these tears over George II's memory woreGeorge III's lawn. I don't know whether people still admire his poetry orhis sermons.